So I said, “Well? Are you going to?”
And he said, “Mia . . . “ Only now he sounded all exasperated. I figured I’d done enough good deeds for one day, and hung up.
After that, I sat around while Mr. Gianini helped me with my homework. I was too distracted by Josh Richter’s talking to me today to pay attention while Michael was trying to help me in G & T.
I guess I can sort of see how my mom likes Mr. G. He’s okay to just hang out with, you know, like in front of the TV. He doesn’t hog the remote, like some of my mom’s past boyfriends. And he doesn’t seem to care about sports at all.
About a half hour before I went to bed, my dad called back and asked to speak to my mother. She went into the room to talk to him, and when she came out again she looked all smug, in an I-told-you-so sort of way.
I wish I could tell Lilly about Josh Richter talking to me.
Friday, October 17, English
OH MY GOD!!!
JOSH AND LANA BROKE UP!!!!
I am not even kidding. It’s all over school. Josh broke up with her last night after crew practice. They were having dinner together at the Hard Rock Cafe, and he asked for his class ring back!!! Lana was completely humiliated under the pointy cone bra Gaultier made for Madonna!
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
Lana wasn’t hanging around Josh’s locker this morning, like usual. And then when I saw her in Algebra, her eyes were all red and squinty, and her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed, let alone washed, and her thigh-highs had come unglued and were all baggy around her knees. I never thought I’d see Lana Weinberger looking like a mess!!! Before class started, she was on her cell phone with Bergdorf’s, trying to convince them to take her Cultural Diversity Dance dress back even though she’d already removed the tags. Then, during class, she sat there with a big black marker crossing out “Mrs. Josh Richter” from where she’d written it all over her book covers.
It was so depressing. I could hardly factor my integers, I was so distracted.
I WISH I WERE
1. A size 36 double D
2. Good at math
3. A member of a world-famous rock band
4. Still friends with Lilly Moscovitz
5. Josh Richter’s new girlfriend
More Friday
You will not even believe what just happened. I was putting my Algebra book away in my locker, and Josh Richter was there getting his Trig notes, and he goes, in this totally casual way, “Hey, Mia, who you going to the dance with tomorrow?”
Needless to say, the fact that he actually spoke to me at all practically caused me to pass out. And then the fact that he was actually saying something that sounded like it might be a prelude to asking me out—well, I nearly threw up. I mean it. I felt really sick, but in a good way.
I think.
Somehow, I managed to stammer out, “Uh, no one,” and he goes, and I kid you not:
“Well, why don’t we go together?”
OH MY GOD!!!!! JOSH RICHTER ASKED ME OUT!!!!!
I was so shocked I couldn’t say anything at all for like a minute. I thought I was going to hyperventilate, like I did the time I saw that documentary about how cows become hamburgers. I could only stand there and look up at him. (He’s so tall!)
Then a funny thing happened. This tiny part of my brain—the only part that wasn’t completely stunned by his asking me out—went: He’s only asking you out because you’re the princess of Genovia.
Seriously. That’s what I thought, for just a second.
Then this other part of my brain, a much bigger part, went: SO WHAT???
I mean, maybe he asked me to the dance because he respects me as a human being and wants to get to know me better and maybe, just maybe, likes me, sort of.
It could happen.
So the part of my brain that was rationalizing all this made me go, all nonchalantly, “Yeah, okay. That might be fun.”
Then Josh said a bunch of stuff about how he’d pick me up and we’d have dinner beforehand or something. But I barely heard him. Because inside my head, this voice was going:
Josh Richter just asked you out. Josh Richter just asked YOU out. JOSH RICHTER JUST ASKED YOU OUT!!!!
I think I must have died and gone to heaven. Because it had happened. It had finally happened: Josh Richter had finally looked into my soul. He had looked into my soul, and had seen the real me, the one beneath the flat chest. AND THEN HE’D ASKED ME OUT.
Then the bell rang, and Josh went away, and I just kept standing there until Lars poked me in the arm.
I don’t know what Lars’s problem is. I know he’s not my personal secretary.
But thank God he was there, or I’d never have known Josh was picking me up tomorrow night at seven. I’m going to have to learn not to be so shocked the next time he asks me out, or I’ll never get the hang of this dating thing.
THINGS TO DO (I THINK, NEVER HAVING BEEN ON A DATE BEFORE, I AM NOT EXACTLY SURE WHAT TO DO)
1. Get a dress
2. Get hair done
3. Get nails redone (stop biting fake ones off)
Friday, G & T
Okay, so I don’t know who Lilly Moscovitz thinks she is. First she stops talking to me. Then, when she finally does deign to speak to me, it’s only to criticize me some more. What right has she got, I ask you, to dump all over my Cultural Diversity Dance date? I mean, she’s going with Boris Pelkowski. Boris Pelkowski. Yeah, he might be a musical genius and all, but he’s still Boris Pelkowski.
Lilly goes: “Well, at least I know Boris isn’t on the rebound.”