American Girls(10)

“What is this?” my mom asked, pointing to the picture on top of the second page.

“A dog eating its poop?” I said. Underneath was written “TASTES LIKE PAIGE, YUMMMMM,” and even though it was stupid and I was supposed to act like I felt terrible about it, the gleeful look on the dog’s face cracked me up every time.

“You think this is funny? I don’t even know you, Anna.”

Maybe it would have been mean if Paige Parker were some kind of social leper, but she wasn’t. Paige Parker could have had any guy she looked cross-eyed at, and she certainly got more than her share of invitations to slumber parties and dances. Yet somehow from my mom’s point of view, Paige had become this tragic victim of her daughter the bully. I tried to tell her that my bullying Paige Parker would be kind of like a minnow eating a whale, but she wasn’t having any of it. I guess that Paige’s mom had some relative in law enforcement trace the texts back to my phone, and she called my mom in tears. Actual tears. I made the mistake of rolling my eyes when my mom told me that part.

“You don’t seem to understand that she could get the police involved. I had to beg on your behalf. Do you know how that made me feel?”

I didn’t answer. Who knew how anything made her feel? The whole thing was so much less of an issue than she was making it.

I had heard my mom talking to Lynette later about whether or not I was “you know, a sociopath,” which I definitely wasn’t. The one thing I couldn’t tell them was that the whole stupid thing had been Doon’s idea, not mine. Besides, Paige Parker was beautiful and popular and I was positive she didn’t care what I thought about her, if she even knew who I was. Maybe her mom had been crying about the texts, but my guess was that Paige hadn’t even read them. I tried to explain that much to my mom and asked her why she always rooted against me, but she went in her bedroom and closed the door while I was still talking. Like rude didn’t count when it came from her.

“I texted you about a thousand pictures,” Doon was saying. I’d missed whatever she said before that. “My hair is white now. I hope it doesn’t fall out.”

“I didn’t get them.”

“Are the guys a million times better-looking out there?” she asked. “I can’t believe you left without telling me. And what gives with your phone?”

For a minute Doon was quiet and I could hear her typing. She liked to check e-mail while she was on the phone.

“Did they ask?” She hesitated. “About the texts?”

“They didn’t ask about you,” I said, because I knew that was what she meant, and for a minute it made me angry. “I wouldn’t tell them if they did.”

“Thanks,” she said, but I couldn’t tell from her phone voice how much she meant it. “I almost forgot, your moms were at the Kroger with Birch yesterday. They pretended like they didn’t see me but I think they did. They were in the baby aisle, and they actually seemed kind of happy.” I didn’t say anything, and after a few seconds she said, “I mean, not really happy. I think they were probably trying to fake me out.”

I couldn’t tell whether Doon was trying to hurt my feelings or not, but when she said that my mom looked happy, I almost started to cry.

“My sister needs her phone,” I said.

I felt a little queasy after the call, not better, not the way I’d thought I would feel. Delia had mercy and took her phone back without asking me any questions.

*

The rest of the week we were on the set of the zombie movie that was, according to my sister, paying her rent. The movie set for that film was real, not like Roger’s sketchball, faux-indie home movie. Filming was like I had imagined it would be, from watching TV and reading magazines, only there was a lot more sitting around and waiting, and all the food on the fancy tables was bulk-food sad and stale. And the actors were short. There was one guy who I guess was kind of famous on a cable TV show, and his face was handsome, but it was like they made him in miniature, so I just couldn’t see how people would get excited about him if they knew the truth—that he stood on a box for his love scenes with my sister. Sometimes, when it seemed like everyone was so busy-busy that I had literally become invisible, I would look at the whole mess of them and pretend they were telemarketers or dental assistants, and then it would crack me up—everyone walking around spewing fake blood and staring at their phones like they weren’t just going to work with the rest of the world.

When we went home at night my sister would learn her lines for the next day, and the calls with my mother would start. I can’t even talk to you. You have no idea how much you scared me. How are we going to get you home? I can’t just leave Birch, and I don’t want you traveling alone again. How can I trust you to get on the right plane? Where would you end up next? Like I was baggage just begging to be lost. Do you know my milk almost dried up when I thought you were gone?

Oooohmigod, I had to hand it to my mother, she could even make running away totally disgusting. I expect you’re spending your time away figuring out how you’re going to pay Lynette back. You have to learn to think about someone other than yourself. That was a little too “pot-kettle,” as my grandmother used to say, but mostly she just yelled at me until she got tired and asked if I had anything to say, which I really didn’t, except that I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay the money back, which she said didn’t count as an apology and just got mad again. Yesterday, I had asked her how Birch was doing and she calmed down a little bit and put him on the phone, but then he disconnected.