Things Are Gonna Get Ugly Read online

  Sending Out an SOS

  Winslow gets a wide grin on his wide face and shrugs. “Whoops. Guess I kinda told a few people and they told some friends and their friends told some friends and voilà—oh well! C’est la vie!” That means “that’s life” in French, only he purposely slaughters the pronunciation so it sounds like set la veeee.

  Tyler, looking stunningly Nordic god–like in his white polo, with his white-green hair, flashing his white teeth, elbows his buddy, Justin, the bad kisser and fire-alarm–puller. Petra and Caylin stare at me as if I’ve broken all of the rules we’ve ever believed in.

  This is all much worse than I feared.

  I want to scream. But that would be uncouth.

  Petra throws up her arms in complete disgust. “Were his parents siblings? I can’t believe he thinks you’d actually say yes to going to the dance with him.”

  “Can you say hallucination or what?” says Caylin, twirling her finger in the air.

  “So, Taf, what will you be wearing?” Winslow asks, his voice cracking with newly discovered hormones.

  I can’t say anything. The truth is I don’t know what I’m going to wear because Mom won’t buy me the $550 Max Heeder top I picked out. She says the price is obscene.

  I can tell you exactly what and who is obscene….

  Winslow Fromes!

  To put a stop to catastrophe, I march up to Winslow, who’s standing next to the Quik Food cart. Petra and Caylin shuffle after me. I stare at Winslow’s freaky black notebook. He’s actually flipping through the pages right now. What could possibly be in that thing? A lady elf in a bikini?

  “I see you looking,” says Petra, like she can read my mind. “He intrigues you, doesn’t he? Admit it.”

  “No,” I hiss, even though I know she’s joking. He doesn’t interest me at all. He wears a chain on his belt that clanks down the hall. Yesterday, he posted…

  A Lame Poem on MySpace

  Taffeta,

  U r so sophisticated. U make me want 2 learn French. Here is how much French I’ve learned bcuz o my admiration 4 u:

  Éclair

  Soufflé

  Omelet

  Garbage

  French fries

  French kissing

  Just kidding. Hee hee.

  Winslow

  Why did I ever tell Winslow Fromes that my grandfather is French? Now he thinks this French thing is the key to unlocking me.

  Winslow reties his ponytail. It’s like he’s getting ready at all times to attend a Phish concert.

  Petra, her lips in full pout, wheels toward Winslow. “Look, eighties reject, Taffeta has a few other guys in mind for Winterfest.” She narrows her eyes and nods over to The Guy table that Tyler lords over. “Does the name Tyler Hutchins ring a bell?”

  Of course Tyler Hutchins rings a bell. How many Nordic gods are there at one school with pearly teeth, good manners, and junior-Olympic green hair, in car commercials, who have triumphed over kidnappers?

  Winslow moves his brows up and down like he’s Groucho Marx and puts his drinking straws in his hair like antennae. “Guess Tyler will be jalouse since I’m so sophisticated. Non?” Would he stop trying to speak French? Would he please stop talking to me in front of everyone? Winslow reaches out a hand. It’s approaching my shoulder. If I don’t move out of the way soon it’ll be a direct hit. I sway to the left but it’s too slow. His large paw grazes my shoulder.

  Protocol breach!!

  No!!

  “Just get it out of your head, Winslow! This fantasy of me and you. Forget what I might have said. It’s NEVER EVER happening!”

  Winslow’s face goes pale, and his lips fold into this pathetic upside-down u shape. Then he growls, leans over to me, and utters, “I’m so over you.” Pressing his fingers against his nose, he lopes away.

  Winslow actually looked really upset. He should have adhered to protocol.

  Normal

  Leadership class is a blur. Miss Bines lets us talk most of the period while she flips through bridal magazines for her upcoming wedding extravaganza and fiddles with her triple-pierced ears. Since we already did our leadership stuff during math anyway it’s no biggie. I’m relieved Winslow takes computer for his elective because I would DIE if he were suddenly in Leadership, which I feel confident he’d never get into anyway because it’s for people who feel strongly about school spirit and I’ve NEVER seen Winslow dress in orange and blue for La Cambia school spirit day, not even once.

  I feel SO relieved to talk about normal stuff like my upcoming b-day complete with Hummer limo. Taking out the San Francisco Chronicle magazine ad, I stare at my Hummer.

  Hummer Stretch

  *22 passengers

  *Black or white

  *Full equipped with 1500-watt stereo system CD/DVD player and iPod dock

  *Four flatscreen TVs

  *Moonroof

  *Fiber-optic mood lights and strobe lights

  *Complimentary beverages

  *Three hour minimum

  *20% gratuity

  After much excruciating thought and pondering, I’ve finally settled on black as the color. White just seemed too weddinglike.

  Little Things

  In science, I am doing something with a group of girls that involves a microscope and paramecia. At least Maggie is willing to score props and write up the lab for us. I think paramecia are scary and I fear what would happen to the world if they got human size.

  Winslow keeps on throwing me these really nasty looks, which, I’m sorry to say, is completely uncalled for. Do you see me doing the same to him? No, I’m being completely mature about this and not alerting Mr.—oh, Mr. Something. I’m still not sure of my science teacher’s name. There are a lot of teachers in this school!

  For Real?

  “Ready, girls?” I ask, as we stroll up the decomposed granite driveway, which is lined by these massive palm trees, to my house, a large French Colonial. Whizzing down the hill on skateboards, some seventh-grade guys are trying to hit hummingbirds with rocks. The idiots are helmetless, of course.

  “If they’re trying to impress us, it’s REALLY working,” I say sarcastically, as the taller of the skateboarders is almost hit by a large white Mercedes.

  “I LOVE DEAD BIRDS!” yells Petra.

  “IT’S SO HOT!” adds Caylin.

  We all crack up as the boys skate away, heads down, rocks dropping from their fingers. I’m glad the boys are gone. Most of all, I’m thrilled to be rid of Winslow for the day. It’s like I could write my own Declaration of Independence.

  I look up at my house which won’t be mine much longer. In fact, tomorrow, the packers come and relocate all of our belongings into the Sierra Garden Apartments. I swallow hard and my stomach burns. It’s so hard to think about leaving this place. I love the steel blue wooden shudders, and the gray tiled roof that slopes over the top-floor windows like eyelids. Somehow I can’t imagine having Caylin and Petra over to the Sierra Garden apartments.

  This is the last time, I think. The very last time I can have my best friends over at my real house. My true home where both of my parents once lived with me, predivorce.

  I close my left eye, trying to block out the dumb Coldwell Banker Realtor’s sign—the one with Petra’s mother, Aldea Santora, Realtor CRS, GRI, CLHMS Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, smiling, and the SOLD sign hanging down by the little chain—but it’s still there.

  It’s a great house, close to Sharon Heights Park, high enough in the hills that in the backyard you can see the Bay and the Oakland hills beyond. Fog clouds the mountains, and the city of Menlo Park below is blanketed in so many trees you’d think it was a forest of pine and eucalyptus. You can even see the Stanford Tower and imagine all of the cute guys swarming the campus.

  I grab my keys, open the front door, which looks like a bar of Hershey’s milk chocolate, and let Caylin and Petra into the house. We pass through the near-empty living room and kitchen and meander into the great room, sitting down onto the only couch. D
ad took the sectional and coffee table with him to Santa Monica because after we move we’re not going to have room in the apartment. With packing boxes lining the rooms, and the pictures off the walls, the house feels embarrassingly undressed to me.

  Soon, Caylin is sitting at the computer table, working on some algebra problems and glancing at her list of potential volunteers for Winterfest. She’s probably the best person I know at multitasking because her mother always has her signed up for at least ten activities. Petra’s taking an inventory of the decorations we still need and I’m flipping through some magazines, trying to get some ideas.

  Real Names

  It’s hard to believe Caylin and Petra were almost not my friends. Two and a half years ago things were very different. We had been living in Narbeth, which is right outside of Philadelphia, when Dad got an offer with Apple Computers, so we moved across country to California. I was so different then, read all of the time, and had one best friend, Claire. We mostly went around looking for sparkly rocks to add to our collection and trying to spy on people like in Harriet the Spy. My first day at La Cambia, Maggie the Mushroom showed me a map she had made of lunch.

  Purples: Cool kids by the Quik Cart

  Reds: Pretty cool

  Black: Outcasts along the perimeter reading, or writing on their hands

  I knew right then I wanted to be Purple—having everyone look at me, talk to me. I wanted to be adored the way Maggie the Mushroom adored the Purples. The next day, I came to school and changed my name from Ernestine to Taffeta. Taffeta is a kind of silk, and yes, it’s expensive. But that’s moi. I have expensive taste. I don’t even need to know the price of something when I’m in a store because, every time, I’ll pick out the priciest thing there. It’s a disease. I’m going to have to get rich or marry rich when I get older. I know that. It didn’t take long for me to bury Ernestine until I couldn’t remember her anymore. I became Taffeta.

  The Man Plan

  Caylin flops down next to me on the couch and pushes against me. “Greenland fourteen,” she squeals and we all start howling. It’s this reference from sixth grade when fortune-telling boxes were the latest. You picked four boys you could marry, four places you could live, four numbers of kids you could have, and four types of houses, and from that your life was predicted. No doubt you’d always list the best, cutest boys like Tyler Hutchins and Justin Grodin and then, before you could stop them, someone would write down Winslow Fromes, just to mess with you. Back then, Winslow didn’t have a ponytail but he was tubby, with Pokemon T-shirts that were too tight and revealed the contours of his man-boobs. He’d race up to anyone, telling dumb space knock-knock jokes, and then, cracking up, his cheeks flushed like strawberries, his eyes practically shut into slits, would collapse onto the floor.

  Anyway, once I got stuck in the game with “marrying Winslow, having fourteen kids, living in a tree house in Greenland.” And every time Winslow would pass by me, Petra would call out “Greenland fourteen,” and we’d all go crazy laughing. It became a thing I got tired of. I wanted to scream STOP IT! a thousand times, but I didn’t. I just don’t do things like that. Everyone expects me to be immune from normal, everyday annoyances like Winslow Fromes.

  “She’s a geek magnet,” proclaims Petra, smiling conspiratorially with me.

  “I know,” says Caylin, “What’s up with that? Why do the nerds like you so much?” For a moment, I fear they’re reading my mind or something. It’s like they know I used to spend my days splitting open rocks looking for crystals and rereading Harriet the Spy.

  Caylin gets a big gummy smile on her face. “So who are you going with to the dance? Seriously.”

  I can’t handle this anymore so I toss out a complaint as a distraction. “Giving out tests during December is SO annoying,” I say, thinking of Mr. Dribble’s dumb social studies test. As I clear my throat to tell them just how freaky Dribble truly is, I feel a tap on my shoulder. Something about the hand feels heavy, and adult.

  I whirl around to face…

  My Big-Mouth Mom

  My mother. Yes, my mother, Phyllis Finelli Smith, toting a tripod and giant black cameras slung around her neck. When she said she was taking photography classes in the afternoons and evenings, I had no idea she would pop up at the house during daylight hours. She’s not even wearing real pants. She’s wearing flowery flannel PAJAMA bottoms that she bought at the thrift store in East Palo Alto. If my mom looked like Petra’s mom, the Realtor Aldea Santora, who has a blond bob and was on ads for Coldwell Banker that said MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE, she might be able to pass in those pants.

  Her mantra is: “It’s just a pair of pants. Does it matter what label they slap on it?”

  Yes.

  “If they fit well, does it matter if they’re meant for daywear or sleepwear?”

  Yes.

  “Does it matter that someone else wore it?”

  Yes, when it is someone else you don’t know, a stranger who could have some rare and contagious disease.

  I remember when we first moved to California, before the divorce, when my parents were in luuuuuuv, Mom used to buy her mauve lip liner from the Laura Mercier counter at Nordstrom at the Stanford Shopping Center, and go to spinning class in tight leggings and a matching low-cut V-neck top. Now she’s graduated to stretch pants with elastic waistbands and oversize tees.

  It’s as if she’s given up. She could be that way again.

  Mom blinks hard like there’s something in her contact lens. Her breath smells like sesame sticks which no doubt she has been hoarding again. “When I was standing in the entranceway, I heard you mention something about a test.” At the very mention of the word, my heart goes all flip-floppy. “You had a test today, Taffeta?”

  “Uh, yea-ah. I studied for it, Mom.” I am staring at the Whole Foods bag of sesame sticks she has hidden by the floor. It is all eaten. Of course, she didn’t ask me or my friends if we would like some sesame sticks. Not that we would, but most likely, this is the last of the snack food since she hasn’t been grocery shopping in a week. She claims with the move it doesn’t make sense to shop so we have been eating all of these bizarre things in the pantry like canned pears and boxed curry rice with raisins.

  “You studied? Really?” asks Mom, her eyebrows raised. “Okay, I’m going to trust you on this one.” Her voice rises. I hate when she gets all weird and parent-y on me.

  “Mom, we’re kinda in the middle of a Leadership meeting. But I’m surprised you’re home at all.”

  She sets her photography equipment down on a cardboard box marked knickknacks, and glances at me so that her eyebrows knit together into a unibrow. “You know, I’m not happy with your attitude lately, Taffeta. We’re in the middle of a move here, and you’re not exactly helping. Maybe there would have been a better place to meet.” Her eyes flick over to Petra and Caylin. “Like one of your friends’ houses where they aren’t in the middle of packing.” Her green eyes go squinty and she clenches her jaw.

  “As far as I knew, this was still our house,” I snap.

  She glares at me, and for a moment I wait for a real punishment, but I know she won’t do anything. She feels too guilty about leaving me alone all the time. She licks her dry lips that haven’t seen lipstick in ages. She pinches her nose like she’s got a headache. “Yes, of course, it’s still your house. It’s just that…I’m sorry but I’m just a little stressed. With the move and everything.” She nods at the wall of boxes labeled FM for family room and CL for closet. “Can you believe it, girls? We’re really out of here.”

  No, I cannot believe it. Please stop talking about it. I am starting to regret bringing my friends over to my house for the very last time. I have told them over and over that this move to the Sierra Garden Apartments is only temporary. Until Mom finds us the perfect condo, and when Dad’s movie deal comes through we’ll move into a new house.

  Mom suddenly smiles brightly, which makes me nervous. “I forgot to mention this, Taf. But the yearbook advisor asked m
e to help shoot Winterfest, which means I’ll be able to take close-ups of you at the dance on your birthday. I thought since you guys are planning the dance you could give me some insight on what kind of lighting I’ll need. You have such good ideas.”

  What’s she talking about? My mother is actually going to be taking photos at the dance? I give a knowing look to Caylin before asking, “Are you serious about taking pictures at Winterfest? Please say you’re not.”

  “Could I be detecting a little embarrassment on your part?” She stomps over to her photography bag and throws it over her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she says, holding up her hand. “I won’t think of talking to you. I’ll just talk to Tosh.”

  “You’re taking Tosh to my dance?”

  “Oh, forget it.” Mom snaps a piece of sugarless gum in her mouth. “You’ll thank me when you’re forty and you have those pictures.” She stuffs her dark, weedy hair into a ponytail holder. I remember when it used to look great. Whatever happened to her cutting her hair in layers? Caylin has assured me a thousand times that it is just a stage in the whole I’m a divorced woman saga. “When they’re bummed out, they keep eating. Try to be supportive,” is her mantra.

  I’ve tried. Really. Once I went out and bought her this really great French shampoo. From the looks of it, she hasn’t been using it.

  “Remember when I made that mermaid birthday video?” asks Mom. “Aren’t you glad we have that? I think you were turning nine. It was called Little Mermaid Ernestine.”

  My insides shrink and Mom freezes. When she glances at me, her face turns as white as the tips on Petra’s French manicure.

  I Am Not Ernestine

  She used my real name. I can’t believe it. The name that shall not be spoken. The one I was born with. How many times have I told her NEVER EVER use that name in public? She knows why. Usually my real name is like Bigfoot. It does not exist. But now Bigfoot is back from my Big-Mouth Mom.

  Mom furrows her unplucked eyebrows. She puts her hand on my shoulder. “What’s the matter with you today? What can I do?”

  “Be invisible,” I hiss under my breath, thinking I will never just show up and blabber to my kid’s friends at key bad moments with bushy hair and elastic waistband pajama bottoms. But that is not what you do, is it, Mom? You are always opening your Big Mouth and I am constantly shutting it.