Second Helpings Page 5
Happy entries in my journal do not exist. Or if they do, they end abruptly with scenes and sentences left unfinished because they are too gushy in a way that is disturbing and sick and foreign. Like Fabio. Because of my inability to document any nondepressing developments in my life, the girls with whom I’ve spent the bulk of my time here at SPECIAL have gone nameless. Brooke Mars, for example. I’ve never mentioned her before, even though she is a very cool person. And I doubt I’ll mention her again. I think the reason I didn’t bother writing about Brooke is that I know, deep down in my gut, she and all the friends-4-eva that I meet this summer will drop off the edge of the universe once school starts up.
Oh, sure. I’ll still be on their lists for forwarded e-mail jokes and whatever, and there will be a few phone calls. But responding to their e-mails with a “LOL” is about as much effort as I’m willing to put into these friendships, which I know are just temporary time-and-place things, anyway. I know that to them, I’m just another smart-ass girl, no better or worse than the friends they see every day in the halls of their own high schools. Why make the effort to stay friends with me, someone they would have only known for forty-two days? Especially when we’re all going to make a new four-year set of friends once we head to college.
I have a hard enough time keeping in touch with you—and you were my soul sista numero uno for three and a half years. You know as well as I do how exhausting it can be to have to explain everything after the fact. You should just be here, watching my life happen in real time, because that’s the only chance you’ll have at really understanding it—and even then there’s no guarantee. Even with the best intentions, growing apart might just be an inevitable part of growing up. It’s no one’s fault, so there’s nothing to feel guilty about. It’s just the way things are.
I know this letter is particularly pessimistic, but I just don’t see the point in putting any effort into any more long-distance friendships. Life— such as it is—always seems to get in the way.
Pragmatically yours,
J.
august
the fourth
I’ve never been a big fan of New York City. A lot of this has to do with my parents’ programming me to hate its dirt and crime and crowds and general seediness. When I told them that I needed their permission to attend last night’s big literary night at Blood and Ink, they almost didn’t sign the consent form. Their arguments ranged from hysterical (“Gangs target innocent kids like you for drive-bys!”) to simply childish (“Giuliani, Schmuliani!”). Finally, after much whining on my part, they caved in (“Bring Mace!”).
Now that I’ve returned from the trip, I understand why New York City has become a haven for people who don’t feel like they fit anywhere else. Only in New York could I hear the sound that would change my destiny.
“I’d like a coffee, black.”
That voice . . .
“And a biscotti.”
That voice. Could it be . . . ?
“Thank you.”
And there, brighter than the wattage of Times Square or the Rockettes’ bleached smiles, and more spectacular than anything Broadway has ever seen, was none other than the Boy Whose Name I Can Shout Out Loud . . .
PAUL PARLIPIANO!
I caused such a commotion at the milk and sugar station that I immediately attracted his attention in the most seen-it-all city on earth. But even on the off chance he recognized me, I never expected him to come over to talk to me, which is exactly what happened. So this is how, in a city of a bizillion people, and even more coffee franchises, I found myself standing face-to-face with my crush-to-end-all-crushes.
“I know you,” Paul Parlipiano said.
I gulped down a chunky mouthful of air.
“Jessica Darling, right?”
I nodded.
“You’re still at Pineville. You’re going to be a senior.”
I nodded again and forced a single word out of my throat.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing here?”
“SPECIAL.”
“I see.”
As soon as he said that, I realized how dorky I must have sounded. He didn’t know SPECIAL was an acronym. Duh.
“Summer Pre-College Enrichment Curriculum in Artistic Learning. SPECIAL. I got accepted to the writing program.”
“Great,” he said.
“It really isn’t all that great because I don’t really like the people in my class because they’re all very pretentious and suicidal and we all took a trip here today to do a reading at Blood and Ink that they’re all very psyched about but I’m not really and our professor who is the writer Samuel MacDougall have you heard of him? No? Well, he let us roam around for a while to take in the sights, sounds, and smells so we could write about them later so I decided to come here to take a break even though it would totally freak my parents out if they knew I was wandering around alone because they hate New York but nothing screams dork louder than traveling in packs. . . .”
Correction: Nothing screams dork louder than a dork who can’t stop babbling.
Thank God Paul Parlipiano pointed to a free table, because the shock of that gesture shut me up. He did it without thinking, as though it was totally natural and normal for me, Jessica Darling, to sit down and have coffee with him, Paul Parlipiano, my former obsessive object of horniness, in the middle of the afternoon, on a totally average day, in this teensy little nothing of a pastry shop in the heart of New York City, New York, USA. If this was happening, didn’t it make anything possible? Why couldn’t we fall madly in love and get married and have many babies? I don’t even like babies. I have a very low tolerance for people who sit in their own defecation. But something about Paul Parlipiano made me want to procreate. He gave me the urge to merge.
I sat down.
Paul Parlipiano paused, looked down at the table, and pursed his pink lips. Then he pulled a single white napkin out of the dispenser, held it by the corner, and brushed away stray sugar crystals and muffin crumbs left behind by the previous customer. Only when the tabletop was cleared of the snacky detritus did he sit down. It was the delicacy of that tidy-up gesture that reminded me of a small but crucial detail that would put the kibosh on our honeymoon: PAUL PARLIPIANO IS A HOMO-SEXUAL.
This was easy for me to forget because he looked the same as he always did. He hadn’t gayed himself up since coming out: No platinum highlights in his dirty blond curls. No pink triangle pins. No I’M HERE. I’M QUEER. GET USED TO IT! tattoo.
“So how do you like school?” I bravely ventured.
“I love it! Columbia was the best decision I ever made in my life,” he said, running a slender finger around the rim of his mug. “I thought that’s why you might be here.”
I didn’t understand what he meant.
“I thought you might be checking out colleges.”
“Oh, uh. No.”
“Oh,” he said, his mouth forming an oval just wide enough to wrap my lips around.
“Jessica?”
“Uh, what?” I said, snapping back to G-rated reality. “Did you say something?”
“Where are you headed next year?”
Sigh.
When you’re a senior in high school, it’s a given that everyone you come in contact with is going to ask you a variation of the Question within thirty seconds of saying “Hey.” So you’d better have a fast answer. Until today, mine was: “Amherst, Piedmont, Swarthmore, or Williams.”
Paul Parlipiano’s face puckered, as though he had just taken a swig out of a milk carton with an expiration date from the first Bush administration.
“What’s wrong with those schools? It just so happens that all four of them are among the top twenty most difficult to get into in the world. In fact, it’s harder to get into these schools than some of the Ivies.”
Defensive much, Jess?
His face relaxed slightly, just enough to reply, “They’re fine schools.”
“Then what’s with the face?”
“W
ell, it’s just that they’re all kind of out in the boondocks,” he replied. “How did you decide that you wanted to be on a campus in the middle of nowhere?”
“Do you really want me to get into it?”
Paul Parlipiano leaned back in his chair and made the steeple gesture with his hands. You know, from the childhood rhyme: Here’s the church, here’s the steeple, open the door . . .
I took a deep breath.
“According to the Princeton Review, there are approximately sixteen hundred accredited institutions of higher learning I can apply to. This is way too many, as having too many options always freaks me out . . .”
And thus, for the next half hour, I explained . . .
Jessica Darling’s Process of Collegiate Elimination
Step 1: Eliminate any school that is not in the Most Difficult to Get Into category.
Not everyone can get away with such academic snobbery. With my college boards and jacked transcript, I can be as snooty as all get-out.
Number of Schools Left: 35
Step 2: Eliminate any school “in the red”—in other words, any school located in a state that voted for Bush in the 2000 election.
While I am sure that there are smart people in these red(neck?) states (after all, Hope is surviving in one), I can’t help but be a Northeastern elitist when 75 percent of schools in the Most Difficult to Get Into category are located in states that did not vote for Bush. (Note: This got a chuckle and a nod of approval from Paul Parlipiano.)
Number of Schools Left: 29
Step 3: Eliminate any school located in a remotely urban setting.
My parents have ruled out Columbia, NYU, U. Chicago, Northwestern, U. Penn, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins because they are all located in “ghettos.” (Note: Pay close attention to this eliminator, as it will come into play later.)
Number of Schools Left: 22
Step 4: Eliminate any school in California.
The California sunshine has fried my sister’s and brother-in-law’s brains. Bethany and G-Money were always scary, but never as much since they moved to the dot commune. As if the state weren’t overrun by blondes already (most of whom are of the fake-titty variety), Bridget flies out there all the time to visit her dad and further her career. Furthermore, I find Californians’ compulsive friendliness unsettling. I think these are enough reasons for staying away from that freaky state.
Number of Schools Left: 20
Step 5: And Canada, for that matter.
Celine Dion. Enough said. (Note: Another chuckle from Paul Parlipiano. I was on, baby. On.)
Number of Schools Left: 19
Step 6: Eliminate any school that any of my classmates have the slightest interest in/chance of getting into.
My only competition for valedictorian, Len Levy, has made it very clear that if he doesn’t get into Cornell, he will drive up to Ithaca and hurl himself into one of its infamous suicide gorges. I am afraid that he isn’t entirely kidding. Do I even need to mention that there is only one other person at PHS who is smart enough to get into any of these schools? And He has kept his preferences to himself. Or maybe He hasn’t. But He hasn’t shared them with me.
Number of Schools Left: 18
Step 7: Eliminate any women-only schools.
I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Is that so wrong? I’m not ready to give up and take a four-year lesbian vacation. (Note: I didn’t get into the specifics with Paul Parlipiano on this one, lest he think I’m homophobic, which I’m not.)
Number of Schools Left: 14
Step 8: Eliminate any school conveniently located for unannounced parental visits.
Duh.
Number of Schools Left: 11
Step 9: Eliminate any school where I’d be the dumbest first-year student. This is probably the most surprising eliminator, so I’ll explain.
For my first three years of high school, I was obsessed with getting into Harvard or Yale. Then I toured both campuses last spring and discovered I was the only prospective freshman who hadn’t won an Academic Decathalon or developed opto-electronic semiconductor heterostructures in my downtime, you know, for kicks. I’m not kidding. PHS hasn’t prepared me for cutthroat academics. I am a big, brainy fish in a tiny, toxic waste–filled pond. I don’t want to be reminded every day for four years that my SATs can only do so much in the effort to transcend my white-trash roots.
Plus, there’s something kind of sick about the over-the-top sense of pride my parents would get from slapping a Harvard or Yale sticker in their back windshields. My mom didn’t go to college, but she wants everyone to know that her very own flesh and blood is smart enough to attend one of these super brand-name Ivies. She wants to take credit for my intelligence like a classic parensite, aka any adult who tries to leech a life out of his/her kid. Yikes.
Number of Schools Left: 9
Step 10: Eliminate any school that could not serve up sweet undergraduate eye candy while I was on the campus tour.
Very shallow, I know. But let me reiterate: I WANT TO HAVE SEX. Remember, it’s not like my idea of cute is brainless and beefcakey cute. So the built-in intelligence factor counteracts the shallowness of this requirement. Almost. (Of course, I kept these details to myself.)
Number of Schools Left: 4
“Amherst, Piedmont, Swarthmore, and Williams,” I repeated, coming to the conclusion of my dissertation. “And that’s where I stopped.”
Four seemed like a manageable number to me. But I could have kept right on cutting. I’m sure if I thought hard enough, I could have come up with a deal breaker for every school in the book. I swear, I would thrive in a communist regime. See, when I have too many choices, it’s my own fault if I make the wrong one. I am much better when decisions have been made for me. It not only gives me the right to complain, but a sense that I’ve had to overcome overwhelming odds in the struggle to become the success that I am.
Go ahead and bash my methods all you want, but it’s not any more or less of a crapshoot than if I had followed the advice of my guidance counselor, my parents, or the Princeton Review. The odds are 1600 to 1 that I’ll pick the perfect school. So I might as well go with my own dubious logic.
When I finally finished my spiel, Paul Parlipiano looked at me and said, “You’re making a big mistake.”
The fact that Paul Parlipiano had formed such a definitive opinion about me and my life was too much for me to handle, and I coughed half a cup of coffee out of my nostrils. Our history made this humiliating hurl all the more so. Need I remind you that this is the same person whose shoes I puked all over at a farewell-to-summer beach party one year ago? After I pledged my undying love? Before I passed out? I shudder at the memory. The fact that he graciously neglected to mention that last regurgitative gift as he mopped up today’s mess is proof that Paul Parlipiano is a perfect human being—gay or not. Oh, how I wish he were not.
After I had run out of apologies and lied about a lingering case of bronchitis that had the annoying habit of sneaking up on me when I least expected it, our conversation resumed its course.
“How am I making a mistake?”
“Well, I’m biased, of course, but you should reconsider your ‘No Urban Setting’ rule. Columbia changed my life.”
“Really?”
“Yes. New York is the best place in the world for an education.”
I was skeptical. This was only the second time I’d even been to the city, which is unbelievable since we live less than two hours away. And the first time barely counts because it was with my grandmother to see The Lion King.
“No offense or anything, but what makes you so sure I’d love living in New York? I mean, I can’t watch thirty seconds of Sex and the City without wanting to puke.”
“Well, because of the editorials you write for The Seagull’s Voice, mostly,” he said. “Like the one you wrote about the uprising in response to the social zoning in the lunchroom . . .”
“ ‘Vegetable Medley Mayhem: A Food Fight Against Cafeteria Tyranny.’ ”
“ ‘Miss Hyacinth Anastasia Wallace: Just Another Poseur.’ ”
“Yeah! That’s the one!”
You could’ve struck me dead right then and there and it would have been okey-dokey with me.
“But you had already graduated when I wrote those. . . .”
“My sister sent me your columns in The Seagull’s Voice last year,” he said. “She’s a big fan of yours. She loves your editorials.”
“Your sister?” There wasn’t another Parlipiano at school.
“Stepsister,” he corrected himself. “You know her.”
“I do?” How could this be possible?
“Sure you do,” he said. “Taryn Baker.”
Taryn Baker is Paul Parlipiano’s stepsister?!
Holy shit.
Very few people remember Taryn’s brief but big-time impact on Pineville society. Most have already forgotten about how she got suspended from school a year ago for peeing into a yogurt cup to provide He Who Shall Remain Nameless with a clean urine sample for his surprise drug test. I am definitely the only person (besides He Who Shall Remain Nameless, of course) who knows that she was lying about having done that, and only did it in a pathetic attempt to propel herself into popularity. We—He Who Shall Remain Nameless and I—are the only two people on earth who know who really squatted over the yogurt cup. We know who, though I doubt either one of us knows why.
I certainly don’t know why I did it.
Of course, Taryn’s plan backfired miserably. After a few weeks, Pineville had erased the Dannon Incident from its collective unconscious, and Taryn in particular. Thus, she went back to being a fade-into-the-paint wallflower.