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Monday, December 20, 2010

"Heartthrobs and Hormonal Imbalances"

Meeka is sitting cross-legged on Jack’s bed, looking at the Kirk Cameron and Ethan Hawke posters on my side of the bedroom. Her mouth is just shy of drooling. “You are so lucky, Cowgirl,” she sighs and throws her torso down on Jack’s bed. If Jack were here, he’d be drooling too.


“Stop saying that!” I am thinking of how Meeka’s closet is about the same size as my bedroom, one designer outfit steam-pressed up against another, and a choice of shoes that could fill a small department store.


“But it’s true.” She rolls over and props her arms up on Jack’s Star War’s pillow. “Mother would never let me put posters up on my walls. She’d be too afraid to ruin the paintjob…and Mr. McGee makes the best food I’ve ever tasted!” She is staring up at the ceiling, lost in reverie with her taste buds.


“Your mother doesn’t sound like a very nice person.” The words are out before my brain wakes up in time to filter.


Meeka shoves her head into Jack’s pillow and begins to shake. At first, I think she is laughing, finding humor in my raw honesty. So I add, “Your Granny’s right—your mother must be a Sucuyant!” But when I wait for her giggles from earlier today there is only more shaking and silence.


When Meeka looks up, there are giant tears streaming down her cheeks. For a moment, I am a deer in the headlights—frozen and too scared to move.


“I’m sorry,” I say and awkwardly make my way to Jack’s bed. I think of PMS commercials and wonder if Meeka is suffering from one of those hormonal imbalances.


“No, no, you didn’t do anything. I just…there’s a lot of stuff going on in my house…Granny…she’s really sick, you know?” She looks at me with a glob of snot precipitously hanging down from one nostril.


“You’ve got…” I gesture to her nose and she takes her cashmere sweater and blows in it.


“We’ve got tissues for that, you know?” I say and hand her a box.


“Thanks,” she giggles through her tear-stained face. She looks down at her snot-blotched sweater. “Mother’s going to kill me and I don’t care,” she says and sits up straighter.


“Good for you!” I say and wrap a hesitant arm around her shoulders. When she leans into me I feel somehow comforted myself. “What’s wrong with your Granny?”


There is a series of heavy bangs on my bedroom door and I know that they belong to the clod-footed woman next door. “Your driver Benjy just called. He’ll be here in another five minutes so get your stuff,” Bea says, taking in the teary-eyed sight of Meeka. “Thank the Lord I never had girls!” She shakes her head, and mumbles something unintelligible before shutting the door behind her.


“I can’t stand that old woman!” I say and stare at the closed door. Bea Krantz is the reason it is no longer safe to talk about Meeka’s Granny. Already, Meeka is dry-eyed and wiping off the snot from her sweater.


“Don’t be so harsh,” she says and walks over to my closet. “I think she’s had a hard life.”


“Oh yeah, and how can you tell? Are you an aura reader, too?” I hold up the waste-paper basket for her nest of tissues.


“I wish.” She opens my closet door and peers inside. “No, it’s just, she seems so bitter. I don’t think you get like that unless life hasn’t gone your way. Mother’s like that,” she says and fingers my cargo pants and Betty’s Basement sweatshirts like they are fine silk. “Can I wear an outfit of yours for tomorrow? I love the way you dress!”


I stare at Meeka in her cashmere sweater and corduroy pants and wait for the punch line. But there isn’t any. “What do you mean? You want to wear baggy pants on a date?! Do you even like Seth?”


“He’s okay,” she shrugs. “I mean, I don’t want to cover my notebook in hearts, if that’s what you mean,” she punches my arm lightly, and adds “but I’d still like to wear something fun like this. Would you mind?” Her face is scrunched up—a little girl begging for a doll on the highest shelf.


“But, they’ll be huge on you!” I am still waiting for Meeka to inform me that my leg has been officially pulled.


“I don’t mind. Mother would never let me get such fun clothes.” She is already pulling a knock-off Champion sweatshirt from its hanger. “Please?”


“Go crazy,” I say.


I don’t know what shocks me more: Meeka wanting my Big Bird, bargain-basement clothes or the realization that there is a mother out there who makes mine look normal, almost.


Now if I could only lose three breast sizes and stop eating for the next year, I might be able to fit into Meeka’s model-like wardrobe. Maybe then I’d find the nerve to call Anthony Cipriano.



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