Confessions of a Not It Girl (21 page)

"You
have a girlfriend?"

"I'm really sorry, Jan. I mean, I liked you a lot, but then Josh told me about your parents and--"

"You have a
girlfriend.''''
I wanted to stop saying it, but somehow I couldn't.

"I have a girlfriend." He took one of my hands in his and squeezed my fingers. I was too shocked by what I had

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just learned to care about the fact that I was letting Henry hold my hand. "But I hope we can be friends," he said finally, giving my fingers one more squeeze before taking his hand away.

I couldn't help myself. I started to laugh, and once I started I couldn't stop.

Henry the Horrible had a girlfriend.

Henry the Horrible was rejecting me.

I was officially the hugest loser on the entire planet.

"What's so funny?" It was Leslie. She and Josh stood next to the table holding hands, a sight that sobered me right up.

"Nothing," I said, staring at their fingers.

"Listen," said Leslie. "I just had this
great
idea. Why don't you come over after you eat dinner? We could all watch
Sex and the City
and then...hang out together." She gave Henry and me a knowing look. "You two must have a
lot
of catching up to do."

"Actually, we're pretty caught up," I said. Thinking about the "catching up" Leslie had in mind for me and Henry made me sick to my stomach.

"Hannah and Mark and Sarah are seeing
The Nutcracker,
so we'll have the house to ourselves," she continued, ignoring me. Her voice was cheery and fake, like she was in a really bad school play.

One that I, unfortunately, appeared to be starring in.

Just then the smiling man came over with two enormous shopping bags.

"Forty-four fifty," he said. My stomach sank. I took my coat off the back of the chair and reached into my

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pocket for my wallet, handing him three twenties. He put down the bags and took the bills.

I turned to Henry. "Well, good luck with applications and...everything." He smiled at me.

"You too," he said.

"It was nice meeting you," I said to Leslie.

The smiling man came back with my change. I picked up my shopping bags. They were a lot heavier than the cute new shirt I wouldn't be buying.

"Bye, Josh," I said.

"Are you
sure
you can't come over?" Leslie whined.

Josh finally managed to look at me.

"I'm sure," I said, meeting his look.

It was hard to pull the door open with a shopping bag in each hand, but I didn't want to deal with even the thirty-second delay putting the bags down would necessitate. I gave a gigantic yank and it opened, almost tossing me onto the floor. My jacket was open, and the air was cold through my T-shirt. I could feel my eyes starting to water from the wind.

I hadn't gotten more than a few feet from the restaurant when I heard my name being called.

"Hey!" It was Josh. "You forgot this." I didn't turn around while I transferred both bags to one hand.

"Thanks," I said. I reached out, blindly, and Josh put the Video Express bag in my hand.

"You know, if you want to come over--"

"I told you, I can't," I said. I took a step, and Josh grabbed my hand.

"Look," he said. "I--"

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"You know what? Don't worry about it," I said. Now my eyes were really starting to water, and it wasn't from the cold. "Just don't worry about it." I pulled my hand away from his.

"Jan," he called, but I was walking away, and he didn't follow me.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I spent the three days following the debacle at Szechuan Palace locked in my room writing college essays. At dinner each night my parents made a big deal about how hard I was working, and I didn't bother to tell them what was really going on--that I wasn't working so much as I was trying to burn a number of very unpleasant facts out of my brain, including

1. Everyone in the entire world was in a relationship besides me.

2.
Chic
magazine thought my best friend was one of the hottest girls in Manhattan.

3. I had been rejected by the grossest boy on the planet.

4. There were six cartons of Chinese food in the refrigerator with my name on them.

I was so grateful to the college admissions committees for coming up with their stupid, unanswerable essay questions, I wanted to write them each a thank-you note for allowing me to spend my time thinking about something other than how thoroughly pathetic my life was.
What is the extracurricular activity that has meant the most to you? What twentieth-century invention do you

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think has had the greatest impact on modern life? What is your favorite book and why? Describe a teacher who has influenced you.
Each boring, absurd question meant an additional few hours during which I could almost forget what had happened at Szechuan Palace. Almost.

"Hey," said my mom, coming into my room. It was December 30, and I hadn't showered in three days. Soon you would need a pith helmet and a machete to cut through my hair. "Why don't you come to lunch with me and Grandma?"

The only thing I wanted to do less than be a pathetic seventeen-year-old single woman was to go out for lunch with the only other single woman I knew: my eighty-year-old, irritable-bowel-syndrome-suffering grandmother.

"I'm trying to get these applications done," I said. Normally I might have started a can't-you-knock fight with her, but I wasn't really up for it.

"I think it would be nice if you'd join us," said my mom. "She doesn't come up here every day." I couldn't tell if she was trying to guilt me or was just repeating what my grandmother said every five minutes.

"Well, I guess we can be grateful for that," I said.

"Come on," said my mom with a slight smile. "Come to lunch."

Lunch was as boring as I had expected. My grandmother told us a long story I didn't really bother to follow, and then my mom tried to tell my grandmother about her movie. But my grandmother kept going, "What? What?

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WHAT?" so finally we just sat there in silence. That might have actually been a relief if my brain, suddenly bereft both of applications
and
mind-numbing conversation, wasn't free to replay, for the thousandth time, my last, humiliating minutes with Josh.

Needless to say, I was simply thrilled I'd been invited to lunch.

On the way home, walking down Seventh Avenue, we passed a vintage store I never go into. I usually like vintage clothing stores, but this one has ugly, old-lady dresses in the window, and when the weather's nice the woman who owns the shop sits outside smoking and scowling at you. I guess she isn't too up on modern theories of marketing, like the revolutionary idea that you're not supposed to frighten people away from your store.

Even without the woman standing guard it's a pretty unwelcoming place, but my grandmother's always trying to find this certain kind of cotton handkerchief she says nobody makes anymore, so we went inside to see if they had any. They didn't, and as far as I was concerned, we couldn't leave fast enough. The owner was sitting behind the counter petting an angry-looking cat, the kind that seems like it would be happy to jump off whatever it's sitting on and claw out your eyes.

And then, just as I turned to leave, I spotted the dress.

It was hanging on the wall and I might not have noticed it if the creepy owner-woman hadn't lit a cigarette right when I turned around. The flame of the lighter caught the beading on the dress and made it glow for a

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second. I walked over to the dress and touched it. It was black silk with black beads along the neckline and down at the hem. It had a scoop neck and cap sleeves. The woman saw me looking at it.

"That's from the 1920s," she said. Her voice was gravelly, like she'd eaten a plate of glass for lunch. "It's an authentic flapper dress." She took a drag on her cigarette. "They're hard to find."

My mom looked over at me. "Honey, we didn't come in here to get a dress."

The woman didn't say anything, she just sat stroking the cat. I had a flash forward to my life in a couple more decades.

"I bet it's expensive," my mom said.

We both looked at the woman, but she just shrugged. "Depends on your definition of expensive," was all she said.

"WHAT?" asked my grandmother, who was already at the door. "What's she doing?"

"She's TRYING ON A DRESS, MA," said my mother.

"She needs a dress?" My grandmother turned around. "What does she need a dress for?"

"For New Year's," I said, taking the dress off the wall. "For the party."

On New Year's Eve, my parents throw a huge black-tie party and invite everyone they know--people from college, the Cape, films my mom worked on a million years ago. Usually Rebecca comes, but this year she obviously had better things to do than hang out with a bunch of my parents' friends.

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I, obviously, did not.

The dressing room was really just a little area in the corner of the store that had some curtains hanging around it. Normally I might have been worried someone would come in while I was changing, but with my mom, my grandmother, and the store owner all knowing I was in there, that seemed unlikely.

The dress was heavier than I'd expected, maybe because of the beads. The silk was soft, and as I slipped it over my head, it made a little rattling sound, like tiny castanets. There was no way to tell how it fit just by looking down, so I had to come out into the store, where there was a huge old mirror hanging on one wall. I walked over and stood in front of it, still looking down. Then I took a deep breath and looked at my reflection.

The dress was incredible. The neckline was low but not too low, and the low-cut back went down almost all the way to my butt, which looked shockingly small. For one second, looking at myself in the dress, I could think of what had happened with Josh and not want to die.

I knew there was no way my mom was going to let me get it.

"That dress is too old for her," said my grandmother to my mother. "It's not appropriate."

"She's just trying it on," said my mother. Even without looking at her I could tell she was clenching her teeth.

"You parents today," said my grandmother. "You let children grow up too fast. Then they take drugs."

"Mom, what are you talking about?" My mother was practically shouting in frustration.

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"I know what I know," said my grandmother, crossing her arms.

My mom was fuming. Suddenly she turned to me. "Jan, do you like the dress?"

"Um, yeah." I tore myself away from my image in the mirror and looked over at her.

"Do you want to buy it?"

Was this some kind of trick?

"You mean, with my own money?" I had the feeling this dress would cost many viewings of
The Little Mermaid.

"No, no, do you want
me
to buy it
for
you." My mom was talking to me, but she was looking at my grandmother.

"Um, yeah," I said again. Had my mother been replaced by an alien?

"Elizabeth, you are not getting that dress for her," said my grandmother.

"Mother, I am a grown woman, and I would appreciate your not telling me what to do."

This was without a doubt the weirdest conversation I had ever heard. It was like there was some bizarre glitch in the matrix that caused my words to come out of my mother's mouth.

"Well, it's your funeral," said my grandmother.

My mom and I looked at each other, and then we both started to laugh. We laughed so hard my stomach hurt, and when I finally stopped I saw my mom wiping tears out of her eyes. She came over to where I was standing and looked at me in the mirror.

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"Sweetie, you look beautiful," she said. Then she put her arm around me. "Wow," she whispered. "Mothers. Are they a drag or what?"

"I don't know," I said, putting my arm around her. "Sometimes they're not so bad."

She took out her credit card, and I went into the dressing room to get changed. Back in my jeans I looked at the dress hanging on the hanger. It shimmered like it was moving, even though it wasn't.

And suddenly I was sad.

For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to be all dressed up with no place to go.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Just when it looked like there was nothing that could save me from the most depressing New Year's in the history of civilization, who should come to my rescue but, of all people, Brian.

Who dumped Rebecca at six-thirty on New Year's Eve.

"He saw the article."