Here I Go Again: A Novel (8 page)

Speaking of music, where’s my iPod? Maybe I’m still a
little
hungover, because I seem to have misplaced everything. I toss the room and still can’t find it. I do run across Duke’s old class ring that I lost a million years ago, though, and it gives me great pleasure to throw it in the garbage. The ring lands with a satisfying thunk.

Fortunately, my room is a living time capsule, so I quickly locate a metal mix tape and snap it in my Hello Kitty cassette player. Jani Lane comes blasting out of the old speakers sounding as fine as he did twenty years ago. (RIP, you magnificent bastard.) I feel a world better today than I did at this time yesterday, so I dance around while I make the bed.

I’m your sweet cherry piii-iii-iie, yeah!

As I boogie I have to keep yanking up my pants, and I still can’t find a damn thing in here. I bet my mother had her housekeeper clean my room while I was asleep—she’s famous for orchestrating that kind of thing, like that time she sent her gardener to rip out all the daisies I planted on my condo balcony because she thought they were “the kinda flowahs poor people grow.”

I figure I’m probably not going to wake up fully until I wash the stink of yak pelt off me, so I quit searching. I peel off my clothes and step into the shower, letting the warm water rinse all of Saturday’s shortcomings right off of me.

Oh, how funny is this? Mamma must have found a bottle of Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific on the Internet to cheer me up. (I recently introduced her to eBay, and Daddy?
Not happy
.)

God, I’ve missed this shampoo. I squeeze a big glob into my hand and work it into a rich lather. One whiff and I feel like I’m back in the day, rollin’ down the hall with the Belles at my side and crowds parting like the Red Sea, exactly like they depict in so many cheesy teen movies. It’s curious how one little smell can trigger such a rush of memories, isn’t it? I inhale deeply and can’t help but smile. The Lissy Ryder whose hair was scented like gardenias and saffron and cinnamon would never have a drink tossed on her. No one would set her business card on fire. Nobody dared ignore
that
Lissy Ryder . . . no matter how much she might deserve it.

I’m hesitant to rinse and come back to the present, but eventually the water gets cold and I have no choice. Yet as I hose off, I notice how much better my skin looks today. Note to self: Call Deva. Whatever that potion was, I want more.

I wrap myself in a gigantic pink towel and run a comb through my damp hair. The shampoo must contain some stripping chemical that modern products lack, because I swear I look more blond right now. My hair seems longer and curlier too, but that’s probably because I’m desperately overdue for a trim.

I wipe the steam from the mirror and I have to blink a few times. Is it just me or is my complexion extra creamy and rosy right now? The pores are smaller and the lines are practically nonexistent. I must have desperately needed fourteen hours of uninterrupted sleep, because I feel thoroughly refreshed.

Back in my room, I slip into a simple cardi and T-shirt. I rummage through the laundry basket and find a pair of jeans. I know I haven’t worn anything denim in a few months, so I suspect my mom bought me some in a bigger size and slipped them in here so I wouldn’t feel like an abject failure. But I’m working in the garage today and I don’t want to get chilly, so I’ll give them a try. As I slide them on, I’m dying over the criminally high waistband, which hits me about an inch below the bra line. I’ve seen Jessica Simpson embracing this trend in magazines lately and I just can’t get behind them. They’re total mom jeans, which, ew! Hello, AC Slater called; he wants his Cavariccis back!

And yet . . .

I regard myself with a critical eye.

Is it just me or do these mom jeans look
frigging fantastic
? I check myself out from the front and back. I could wear the highest thong in the world in these pants and no one would ever see a whale tail, no matter how far over I bent. (Not that I currently fit into any of my thongs, but still. Nice to have the option.)

There must be something about the hilariously dated cut, though, because I’m not kidding when I say these shave off thirty pounds. Hell, if I’d known, I’d have worn these to the reunion. I always thought mom jeans gave you butt belly and camel toe but these are outrageously flattering. To think I’d been turning my nose up at Chico’s all these years. Suddenly the
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
movies make perfect sense—denim
can
possess magical qualities!

I preen for a few more minutes before I finish dressing. I can’t find my fringed Burberry scarf (suspect it’s being worn to Neiman Marcus today), so I opt for a silly knit one in my old school colors and loop it around and around, hipster style. I toss on a pair of socks and loafers to complete the look.

My makeup bag’s in my missing purse, so I duck into my mom’s dressing room to help myself to her cache. A few swipes of eyeliner, mascara, blush, and gloss and I’m ready to face the day. I can’t believe all the times I’ve dragged her to Sephora, yet she’s all about the old-school stuff like Merle Norman. I guess you can lead a horse to Latisse but you can’t make it stop using Great Lash.

As I dust a layer of powder on my nose, I marvel over how tiny my pores seem. Deva just earned herself two free press releases and one Twitter social media campaign.

When I arrive downstairs, I’m pleased to find there’s coffee left. As it’s a gorgeous fall day, I decide to drink it on the front porch before I start working. I’m pretty sure the industrial platers can wait an extra hour for me to send out the press release on a stunning new breakthrough in torque and tension performance.

I’m two sips in when I see Tommy Barker tooling down the street on his ten-speed. Is he . . . is he delivering newspapers? Oh, dude, I’m so sorry. I feel a real flash of empathy that he’s somehow ended up in his old high school job. I’d heard that he’d been killing it on Wall Street after college, but clearly the recession’s gotten the better of him if he’s back here doing this. No wonder he avoided the reunion.

He tosses the paper on my porch, but I pretend to be very interested in my coffee so we don’t have to make eye contact. We’re both less embarrassed that way.

I jog down the steps to retrieve the paper and return to the big Adirondack chair. I’m having a little trouble concentrating on the news, because I can’t stop peeking at Brian Murphy’s parents’ house across the street. When he lived at home, he used to sit out front and read the paper every day when weather permitted. I still can’t believe I was ever into someone who read the newspaper in high school! Voluntarily, and not just to find movie listings! Seriously, if he and I had ever gone public, I’d have been ousted as head of the Belles faster than you can say “shunned.”

I wonder what kept Brian from the reunion? I guess that’s a good thing, though. He didn’t witness my entire social implosion. Of course, there’s a possibility he’s got bad blood with me, too, as our brief dalliance ended so badly. I’ll probably need to rethink my strategy in discussing business with him. Maybe I’ll ask Deva how she’d approach him.

I scan the headlines of the
Chicago Tribune
, looking for mentions of NoCoup.com. I don’t see anything about the IPO, but I do notice that Clinton’s announced a run for the Democratic nomination for president. Good for her. Yet I hope she does something with her hair if she’s elected. I mean, really, should the leader of the free world be running around in
velvet headbands
?

I idly page past the news of another Clarence Thomas hearing—what did that old perv do now?—and editorials on the war, which frankly give me boredom cancer. I skip those entirely.

I’m about to pull open the sports section when ancient Mrs. Camarelli’s cat, Snowball, walks across the paper. Why is it that cats can’t stand the sight of you until you’re reading? I attempt to shoo him off my lap but he keeps nuzzling me and getting fur all over my sweater. He’s a sweet cat, but come on!

“Snowball! Snowball, please!” I’m in the process of placing him on the ground when it occurs to me that Snowball went to the Big Litter Box in the Sky about ten years ago.

This is weird.

“You’re not Snowball, right? You’re some other annoying cat keeping me from getting my news on.” I read the tag on his collar.
Snowball Camarelli, 708-555-9989
.

Well, I’ll be damned. I guess Mrs. Camarelli somehow found a replacement Snowball, right down to the two different-colored eyes and half a tail.

What are the odds?

But didn’t I hear that Mrs. Camarelli herself went to the Big Litter Box in the Sky last year?

Um . . . am I suddenly living an episode of the
X-Files
?

I slowly flip back to the front page of the paper and I read that it’s, in fact,
Bill
Clinton who’s seeking the presidential nomination. And the paper’s dated October 15, 1991 . . . the day before my seventeenth birthday.

What. The. Fuck?

I dash back inside the house, looking for clues or possibly Scully and Mulder. The kitchen calendar is open to October 1991. According to today’s entry, my mother’s having her hair “frosted” this morning before hitting a noon “Jazzercise class.”

Okay, someone is messing with me.

Clearly.

And yet Jodie Foster’s on the cover of the
Time
magazine in the half bath, with an article on her directorial debut in the film
Little Man Tate
, which I saw with Kimmy’s boyfriend Chet on a night I was mad at Duke during my senior year. (Told you he was a cheater.)

Well, Mamma did discover “the eBay,” so it’s possible she could procure these items.
Why
, I couldn’t say, but it’s possible. Maybe she wants to remind me of better times? That’s lovely, but kind of esoteric. I don’t really understand the no-longer-dead cat business, but snaps for creativity, yes? Was she in the bushes while I read the news, all, “Cue the cat! Cue the cat!”

The
TV Guide
in the den features Sharon Gless and Arsenio Hall on the cover, both having topped Mr. Blackwell’s “Worst Dressed” lists. Michael Westen’s mother is done up in clown pants and a tapestry vest, and Arsenio’s wearing a tie the color of baby poop. (I know this because Nicole made me try to change a diaper once.) (
Once
.) These two deserve to be on the naughty list, for sure, but I don’t have time to parse out the specific nature of their fashion crimes right now.

I’m thoroughly confused and possibly a tiny bit creeped out. This isn’t outside of the realm of what Mamma would do to cheer me up, and she’s known for being an elaborate plotter. Like the time she threw that massive surprise party for Daddy’s fiftieth birthday and she hired Frankie Valli to sing but then she forgot to have anyone actually bring Daddy to it. I’ll say he was surprised . . . at breakfast the next morning.

Okay, I can see maybe how she’d enlist the services of a not-dead cat, an i-banker, and maybe an auction site to buy a few old magazines.

I guess?

I look around the room, trying to piece this all together, and my eyes come to rest on Daddy’s big square Magnavox. (Clever attention to detail, replacing the plasma screen my father bought before the 2010 Super Bowl.) (Geaux, Saints!)

Still, it’s not outside the realm of the possible that Mamma set this all up. I don’t quite understand why, and that’s a puzzler, because usually her motives are clear, like when she’d buy me designer jeans a size down from what I normally wore when she was at the height of her passive-aggressivity while I was in high school. (I certainly don’t miss her doing
that.
)

But is all of this really her doing?

As I stare at the television, I realize it holds the key. My mother can’t control what’s broadcast, right? So if this is all one big (confusing) ruse, I’ll turn it on and see Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. Easy enough.

I search for the remote and the television slowly fires up.
Today
is indeed on NBC, featuring a prepubescent Katie Couric and a fat Al Roker.

There’s no way Katie and Al are in on this, too.

OMG!

WTF!

IDK!

I bolt into the garage, expecting to find my desk, a bunch of balloons, and perhaps a very confused Frankie Valli, but instead I run directly into a hot pink BMW convertible, topped with an enormous red bow.

This car is my birthday present.

In 1991.

Deva, what was in that bottle?

Shell-shocked, I make my way back into the driveway. I’m standing there all dumbfounded when Nicole pulls up, not in a hideous family truckster, but instead in her mom’s battered old Ford Taurus.

Did I mention she’s
clearly
seventeen again?

I stand there trying not to gawp when Nicole cranks down her window. “Hi, Lissy! We’ve got to fly or we’ll be late for homeroom!”

I slide into the seat next to her and I say nothing, as words currently escape me.

Nicole self-consciously smoothes her miniskirt and poufs her perm. “You look really pretty today, Liss. But, um . . . I thought you said we weren’t allowed to wear jeans on Mondays.”

That’s when it finally sinks in.

This is it.

This is my chance!

Somehow, some way, I’ve been granted an enormous do-over. I don’t know why this happened, but it
did
happen and I’m here now. I have no choice but to roll with it. If I’m back in time, that means all the bad stuff in my future never actually happened. I’m not old, I’m not fat, I’m not dumped, and no one’s mad at me.

And maybe all those diary entries that make me seem like the Meanest Mean Girl Who Ever Meaned don’t actually exist?

Grappling with this new reality, I search Nicole’s face for some kind of clue as to what’s next. Yet as I seek her confused brown eyes, I can’t help but remember her abandoning me in my hour of need at the reunion. I have no clue if this means that the reunion actually happened or not, but you know how sometimes you wake up from a bad dream and you’re all pissed off at the person who wronged you in it? And despite its being a dream and even though, say, your mom’s sister Aunt Sissy never
actually
wrote a scathing review of the trendy new Italian bistro you opened, claiming your mozzarella sticks are “on par with the Olive Garden” and that your wine list is “uninspired,” you still spend the whole day stewing at her for something that never, ever happened?