The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Guide #1)(18)
“Dad, we need to talk,” Mo said. “I don’t mean to ambush you, but we need to discuss my education. I know it’s always been your dream to see me attend Stanford, but after a lot of thought and reflection I’ve decided it’s not for me. I never told you this, but after I applied to Stanford, I also applied to the creative writing program at Columbia University. I was accepted there, too, and that’s the school I’m planning to attend in the fall.”
She opened the Wiz Kids folder and spread her Columbia acceptance letter and the information about the university’s creative writing program across her bed, pretending to show her father.
“I understand why you think writing isn’t a secure profession, so to make you more comfortable, I’m planning to minor in economics. I apologize for not bringing this up earlier, but I knew you would be upset. I sent enrollment deposits to both Stanford and Columbia to buy some time so I could work up the courage to tell you, but I need to start choosing classes before they all fill up. Here’s a list of all the courses I’d like to take during my first semester.”
Mo set the list on top of the business school information.
“I don’t want to live with regrets, and going to Stanford for business will make me miserable. I’m a writer, Dad—it’s in my blood and it’s what I want to spend my life doing. As you’ve taught me, being an adult is about making tough decisions, so I hope you see this as an example of maturity and not disrespect. Now please look over the materials I’ve provided and let’s have a conversation about it in the morning. Thank you. How was that, Peaches?”
Mo anxiously glanced at her gray cat, Peachfuzzle “Peaches” Carter, who was lying on a pile of stuffed animals in the opposite corner of the room. The cat was twenty-one pounds of pure judgment and wore a jeweled collar that perfectly matched his demeanor. He looked at Mo the way he always looked at people—as if the voice inside his head was saying, Go fuck yourself.
Mo was used to her cat’s unsympathetic expression. Peaches’s green eyes had been filled with resentment since the day he was brought home from the animal shelter—like he knew his existence was a tribute to a fictitious television couple.
Naturally, Mo knew it was unlikely an animal that pooped in a box of sand, lived off canned salmon, and slept twenty hours a day was holding a passionate grudge against her. However, Mo had to remind herself the truth about most things from time to time. Her imagination had a mind of its own.
“I wonder how mad Dad will be when he finds out,” Mo pondered as she paced the room. “I mean, technically he can’t force me to go to Stanford. Then again, my college fund is technically his money. What if he keeps it from me? What if I have to pay for a Columbia education with student loans? What if I never get paid to write after I graduate? How will I get out of debt? I’m going to have to sell my organs on the black market!”
Mo had suffered from OID (overactive imagination disorder) since childhood. The condition wasn’t officially recognized by the United States Department of Health (because Mo had made it up) but the disorder was just as taxing and consuming as any.
“Snap out of it, Mo!” she said, and slapped herself. “Your father is not going to let you sell your organs to pay for college. You’re his only child—he’ll need you to take care of him when he’s old. God, if I just had an older sibling I wouldn’t be dealing with this crap.”
Then again, if Mo had a brother or sister, she probably wouldn’t be an aspiring writer. Growing up an only child was what sparked her creativity and cursed her with a lifetime of OID. With no one to play with, Mo had to invent alternative ways of entertaining herself.
For example, when Mo was two years old she took the caps off absolutely everything in the house and kept them in a Tupperware container under her bed. Her only reason for doing this was to frustrate her father and giggle as she watched him search for them.
At three years old Mo developed an obsession with the mirror. The lonely toddler spent hours every day looking, talking, and making funny faces at herself. The mirror was much more than a sheet of glass that housed her reflection—it was a window into a world where her doppelg?nger lived. To this day, if Mo passed a mirror without making eye contact or saying “hey girl,” she felt she was neglecting an old friend.
When Mo was four years old she named every object in the house so she’d always have someone to talk to. Not only did she bestow identities upon the furniture and appliances, but she also gave the objects pastimes, preferences, and political views. She didn’t know what the terms Republican and Democrat meant, but she told her parents in great detail how the washer wasn’t speaking to the dryer because he voted for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.
Mo’s mother thought her daughter was funny and inventive, so she encouraged the personification. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ishikawa’s supportive parenting backfired on her and her husband. Having names also meant every object in the house had a soul, so whenever the time came to replace or recycle something, Mo acted as if her parents were committing murder.
When the Ishikawas threw out Bruce, the wobbly bar stool, Mo cried for a week. She was never the same after she saw Anthony, the broken television, get kidnapped by two garbage men. Mo ran after the truck for six blocks, memorized the license plate number, and called 911 when she got home. The call resulted in a very awkward conversation between her father and the two police officers who showed up at their door.