Wicked Jealous: A Love Story

by Palmer, Robin

  Startled, I slammed the book shut. Mostly because the photo I had just flipped to happened to be of a woman who, when my eyes adjusted, I realized was totally naked. I whipped my head around, butting my forehead right up against Jason Frank’s.

  Great. Of all the people to smack foreheads with, I had to choose one of the most popular guys in the grade and the leader of what Nicola liked to call the Testosterone Twits. Jason had been on the varsity squad of like seventeen different sports teams since kindergarten. The TTs were so popular that even though they were only juniors like me, they got to sit up on the Ramp in the cafeteria, which literally put the popular kids above the rest of us mere mortals. Jason grimaced as he rubbed his forehead. “And maybe I’ll go with you.” As he smiled, I saw that one of his top front teeth was a little bit chipped. It was nice to know that someone so perfect wasn’t so perfect. Although the way his curly dark hair framed his blue eyes? That was a little on the perfect side. “You ever think about trying out for the football team?” I glanced down. The minute the question hit the air, I could see he felt bad. “Not, you know, because . . .” He made some weird gesture with his hands, which I assumed was shorthand for “that gut’s not from 100 calorie snack paks, is it?” “I meant because your head is so hard you wouldn’t even need a helmet.” He cringed as he realized that didn’t sound so good, either. “You know, I think—”

  “You’re going to stop talking while you’re ahead?” I suggested.

  He nodded. “Exactly.” He stood up. “Well, see you in history,” he said as he started to walk away. He stopped and turned. “By the way, nausea is another symptom,” he went on. “And sleepiness.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He nodded back. “You should.”

  As I watched him walk away, I had to admit I did feel a little nauseous. It wasn’t every day a popular person talked to me.

  Let alone a Testosterone Twit.

  two

  “Obviously Jason Frank is completely smitten with you,” Nicola said for what had to be the tenth time as we drove to my house in Brentwood after school. Although her mom had wanted Nicola to get an after-school job so she could learn the value of money and buy her own car, like she had been forced to do back in England when she was growing up, Nicola’s dad’s guilt over leaving them for his acupuncturist, selling his software company for millions of dollars, and moving to Sedona, Arizona, where he now made sand paintings, had resulted in a nice wad of cash for a car.

  Unlike most kids at Castle Heights who drove BMWs or Priuses or—in this hippy-dippy girl India’s case—an old VW bus, Nicola put her money toward a candy-apple-red 1976 Cadillac, which, according to my dad, was the exact car that my grandfather and every other old Jewish guy in Florida had driven about twenty years earlier. Although it smelled like one of those Christmas tree air fresheners, even though there wasn’t one in it, it was such a brave choice and so totally Nicola that I couldn’t help but love it. Especially since my car—a used blue Saab—was in the shop even more than hers. “This is all so Pretty in Pink I can’t stand it!” she squealed.

  I turned to her. “Okay, (a) you’re insane, and (b) why is it Pinkish?”

  “Because Jason is sort of like Blaine. You know, preppy; maybe not whip smart, but cute. . . . He even looks a little like Andrew McCarthy if you were to put a hand over one eye. . . . And you’re funky-with-a-love-of-cool-vintage- clothes Andi!”

  I rolled my eyes. “I think you’ve been huffing Magic Markers. There is nothing Pretty in Pink about this. Especially because last time I watched the movie, Molly Ringwald was a size zero.”

  “It so is!” she cried. “The way he crossed the room—not to mention all social boundaries—to approach you . . .”

  I shook my head. “He was sitting in the row behind me and he saw Josh Rosen whack me in the head. Because he’s not a complete sociopath, he wanted to make sure I didn’t die right in front of him.”

  She cocked her head. “What do you think of dyeing your hair red like Molly’s? I totally think you could pull it off.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. There will be no hair dyeing and no more insane talk about some popular guy liking me,” I said firmly. “We have much more important things to discuss.” As we pulled into the driveway, my stomach sank at the sight of a powder-blue BMW convertible. “Like the fact that Hillary is at my house in the middle of the afternoon.”

  There were a lot of things you could say about my father’s girlfriend Hillary—like, say, she wouldn’t eat or shop anywhere that wasn’t Elle- or In Style–approved—but because she was incredibly ambitious, she did work her butt off. Like just as hard as my dad, which meant that her leaving the office before eight o’clock on a weekday was almost unheard of—unless it was for a screening or work-related drinks or dinner. Her official title was Senior VP, Production, at LOL Films. (“That stands for Laugh Out Loud,” she had explained to me, “but as a Millennial, you’re probably aware of that.”) But really, Hillary was what was known in the film and TV business as a D-girl. D-girl was short for “development girl,” which meant that she spent her time having meals with agents and managers trying to find the next script or idea that would become a hit movie that was so successful that McDonald’s ended up making Happy Meal toys based on it.

  She and Dad had met when his agent had forced him to unchain himself from his computer and go to her office to pitch her some ideas that might be right for movies. While she didn’t like any of the ideas (a cat in a girl’s body who goes through sorority rush, an elephant in a cop’s body who is forced to spend twenty-four hours with a turtle in a prisoner’s body, and other animal-in-human-body combinations) she did like Dad.

  In the six months they’d been dating, I’d only seen her about five times, and every time she talked about her job and managed to work in the “30 Under 30” thing over and over. Other than grilling me about what kind of movies I liked (“You know, Simone, as a Millennial, your demographic is so important!”), she didn’t ask me anything about myself other than asking my dad—right in front of me—if he had ever looked into any of the fat camps that were advertised in the back section of the New York Times Magazine. Nicola was convinced that underneath her big job, flat stomach, and killer wardrobe, Hillary was probably deeply unhappy, but I wasn’t sure about that.

  As we got out of the car, a U-Haul arrived. “And a moving truck just pulled up,” I said nervously.

  As the front door opened, Hillary came click-clacking out in her Gucci snakeskin stilettos, holding her sterling silver snake compact. Despite that fact that it was one of the few humid days in Los Angeles, her shoulder-length blonde hair was stick straight and curled under, and there wasn’t one wrinkle or stain on her black pencil skirt or starched white blouse. Plus, even though I wasn’t close to her, I already could tell she smelled good. Not in a gross perfumey way, but in a just-got-out-of-the-shower way, because that’s the way she always smelled, even right after spinning class. I, on the other hand, had just spent the entire car ride multitasking as I dabbed at the Coke Zero stain on my left boob while picking churro crumbs out of my bra.

  “Hello, hello!” she trilled as she finished applying dark red lipstick. Hillary was a big triller. She was also a big tweeter, both in the literal sense of the word and the Twitter one. (“I feel it’s very important to be an example for young women as to what’s possible if they work hard and pledge the right sorority.”)

  I put on the biggest fake smile I could muster, which, since I was not a big fan of anything fake, probably wasn’t all that convincing. Hillary, on the other hand, while picky about certain things, was okay with certain things being fake. Like, say, her boobs. “Hey, Hillary,” I said. “Look at this—you’re here. At my house. In the middle of the afternoon.”

  After rubbing her lips together, she examined them closely in the mirror before nodding appro
vingly. “You know, I think I may have finally found the perfect shade!” she announced. I had no idea why so many women were obsessed with red lipstick. It was as if they thought that if they got the color just right, it would somehow solve all their problems. As she looked over at me, a flash of annoyance crackled across her face before she resumed her usual smug expression. “Although your color is better. What is it?”

  “It’s called Au Naturel,” I replied.

  “Au Naturel. I like that. It sounds very Chanel-ish.”

  “I was trying to make a joke,” I replied. “These are my real lips. I don’t have anything on them.” My lips always looked as though they were perpetually stained by a cherry Popsicle.

  The smile evaporated. “You’re joking.”

  I shook my head.

  “Talk about unfair,” she said. “I’d kill for lips like that,” she sighed.

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Nicola muttered next to me.

  As two big guys began to get out of the U-Haul, I turned to Hillary. “So, uh, what’s going on?”

  Without answering me, Hillary began to click-clack over to the truck, stopping to yank out one lone weed that Joaquim, our gardener, had missed. “Someone’s been slacking,” she muttered to herself. “Don’t think that’s not going to change.”

  Just then my dad walked out of the house. He was home, too? What was going on? As always, he was typing on his iPhone as he walked, which meant that, as usual, he tripped on the last step and almost went flying. “Um, Dad? What’s going on?”

  “Just a sec, honey. Let me just finish this e-mail to the president of the network about why doing a Very Special Episode about cutting would be a real downer for a half-hour sitcom,” he said.

  “Dad, watch the—”

  He tripped on the indentation where the lamppost used to be before he knocked into it because he was texting while driving.

  As he tried to brace himself by grabbing onto a rosebush, I cringed. “—rosebush,” I finished.

  After he righted himself and began to pick the thorns out of his hand, Nicola shook her head. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Simone, but I feel like all the stuff that happens to your dad is a lot funnier than that talking dog.”

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed. As the doors to the U-Haul opened, I saw that it was filled with suitcases, garment bags, and an elliptical exercise machine. “Okay, I’m going to ask again. Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

  Hillary looked over at me and flashed me a smile. “Didn’t your dad tell you? I’m moving in!”

  I didn’t have to look in a mirror to know that my face had become even paler than usual. Talk about a nightmare scenario. This was worse than that time the curtain outside the changing room in the girls’ locker room had come crashing down when I was in the middle of pulling up my underwear. Dad finally looked up from his iPhone. “Hillary, we talked about this—you’re not moving in,” he said nervously. “You’re staying here for a few weeks while they redo the floors in your condo.”

  She shrugged. “A few weeks, moving in—same thing.”

  “A few weeks, Hillary,” Dad corrected.

  She ruffled his hair. “Right. That’s what I said, babe.”

  “Actually, Dad, no, you didn’t tell me,” I said.

  Dad looked confused. “I didn’t?”

  I shook my head.

  His brow got all wrinkled, which, because his hairline was starting to recede, made him look like a shar-pei. “Oh wait—I wrote a scene for next week’s episode about it. That’s what happened. Sorry about that.”

  I wondered if other kids of TV and movie writers had to deal with parents who were constantly mixing up real life and their make-believe worlds. It was too bad there wasn’t some sort of support group for us, like that Alateen thing that Nicola went to sometimes because of the fact that her mother—although she wasn’t drinking anymore—sometimes still acted totally nuts.

  “Anyways, I am so looking forward to this, Simone!” Hillary cried. “It’ll really allow us to get to know each other so that when your dad and I do get married, it won’t be like we barely know each other!”

  As the movers began to heft the elliptical into the house, I could see Dad’s left eye was starting to twitch. Maybe he was beginning to question what he had gotten us into.

  “It’ll be like we’re sisters!” she went on. “You know, because we’re so close in age.”

  That part was true. I was sixteen and she was twenty-eight. We were closer in age than she and Dad were—he was fifty-one.

  As Hillary walked over to the movers and began to chastise them about how they were holding the machine, Dad joined me. “It’s not forever, Simone,” he whispered. “It’s just a few weeks. Hillary’s in a bit of a jam.”

  Getting new floors was a jam? It wasn’t like her house had burned down.

  Hillary click-clacked over to us and put her arm around me. “To quote one of my favorite movies and a true Hollywood classic, Sunset Boulevard, ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”

  It was a quick one, but I saw Dad cringe. He may have been writing bad sitcoms about talking dogs now, but Dad had been a film studies major at Harvard with a minor in experimental German expressionism. “Actually, honey, that’s from Casablanca.”

  “Oh right. With Lauren Bacall and Spencer Tracy. Another one of my favorites.” She turned to me. “I minored in film at Pinewood Community College.”

  He cringed again. “Actually, it was Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.”

  Even I knew that. Not because I had seen the movie, but from Jeopardy!

  Hillary shrugged. “Well, they’re both black and white. The important thing is that Simone and I are going to have such a great time getting to know each other!”

  I’m glad someone was such a positive thinker.

  “For someone who’s only going to be here for a few weeks, she sure has a lot of stuff,” Nicola whispered later as she finished painting her nails yellow while we watched my dad struggle with Hillary’s last big suitcase.

  “Tell me about it,” I said with my mouth full of some of the pretzel-topped fudge that my grandmother had mistakenly sent me the month before with a gift tag that said Dear Olive, Happy 14th! (Olive was my cousin in New Jersey. I didn’t send it back.) Some people, when they’re stressed, lose their appetite and stop eating. I eat more.

  “Babe, try not to let it touch the floor,” Hillary ordered. “You know how I feel about scuff marks.” As she walked by us, she stopped and smiled. “Nigella! So nice to see you again!”

  “It’s Nicola,” she corrected.

  “Right,” Hillary replied as she whipped out her snake compact and began to apply some more red lipstick. After she was done she looked at me. “Are my lips as red as yours now?”

  “Mm, I’m not sure,” I replied as I wiped my face. I turned to Nicola. “What do you think?”

  I could see the impatience flicker on Hillary’s face as Nicola took her time looking first at her mouth before turning her gaze to mine and then back again. Finally, Nicola nodded. “Actually, I think they’re pretty close.”

  Hillary smiled.

  “Oh, wait—nope. Sorry about that, Hillary. I think it was just the way the light was hitting them. Simone’s are still a lot darker.”

  The smile turned to a scowl before she recovered it again. “Anyway, I think it’s just great how you use so much color to express yourself, Nicolette,” she said, pointing at her nails. “All the research about you Millennials says after tattoos and piercings, color is your third biggest mode of self-expression.” Hillary may have had no clue about how to relate to kids my age, but that sure didn’t stop her from spouting research about us whenever she could. She pointed to Nicola’s feet. “But could you be a dear and take your feet off my c
offee table?”

  Nicola and I looked at each other. Her coffee table? I thought she was only going to be here for a few weeks.

  She reached down and put my Coke can on a coaster. “Coasters, coasters, coasters!” she trilled. “Don’t want any rings now, do we?”

  “Except for ones with diamonds,” Nicola said.

  Hillary laughed. “That’s good. I like that!”

  Hillary may not have known her movie trivia, but she got an A for going after what she wanted. The coffee table comment was a warning for what was to come. From the minute she crossed the threshold, the house went from being ours to hers. I could have used some company on the family front, although I would have never admitted it in public because it was kind of uncool. But hers was not the company I wanted. Within days, I went from my house being the only place I felt comfortable and safe to feeling like a total stranger. Within weeks, our comfy Spanish hacienda–style house, with its overstuffed couches and chairs and colorful antique rugs from Morocco that my parents had gotten on their honeymoon, had been moved out to make room for all this stiff, uncomfortable modern furniture that Hillary said was on every What-You-Need-to-Buy-in-Order-to-Look-Cool-So-It’ll-Take- People-That-Much-Longer-to-Realize-You’re-an-Idiot list in every magazine.

  To make matters even worse, my dad was even more MIA than usual since Andrew was refusing to shoot the episode where he fell in love with a cat in the body of a tall blonde yoga instructor because—not like he was judging other dogs who went that way—he personally didn’t feel that his character would do that.

  The kicker was the day Nicola dropped me off after our latest One Person’s Garbage outing, where I had scored a mint-condition 1982 The Who farewell concert T-shirt and I went upstairs to find that my red-walled bedroom, with its iron sleigh bed and flea-market knickknacks that I hoped made it look like it was on the Left Bank of Paris rather than north of Montana Avenue in Brentwood, had been dismantled and turned into this blechy boring beigy thing.