Lilly got up off my bed and stomped out into the loft’s living room. My dad was the only one around, because when he’d come over to check on me, my mom had suddenly remembered an errand she had to get done and dashed off.
Only of course there was no errand. My mom still hasn’t told my dad about Mr. G and her pregnancy, and how they’re getting married, and all. I think she’s afraid that he might start yelling at her for being so irresponsible (which I could totally see him doing).
So instead she flees from Dad in guilt every time she sees him. It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t such a pathetic way for a thirty-six-year-old woman to behave. When I am thirty-six, I fully intend to be self-actualized, so you will not catch me doing any of the things my mother is always doing.
“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard Lilly say, as she went out into the living room. She calls my dad Mr. Renaldo even though she knows perfectly well he is the prince of Genovia. She doesn’t care though, because she says this is America and she isn’t calling anybody “Your Highness.” She is fundamentally opposed to monarchies—and principalities, like Genovia, fall under that heading. Lilly believes that sovereignty rests with the people. In colonial times, she’d probably have been branded a Whig.
“Mr. Renaldo,” I heard her ask my dad. “Is Mia secretly betrothed to some prince somewhere?”
My dad lowered his newspaper. I could hear it crinkling all the way from my bedroom. “Good God, no,” he said.
“Moron,” she said to me, when she came stomping back into my room. “And while I can see why you might want to guard diligently against falling in love with David Hasselhoff, who is, by the way, old enough to be your father, and hardly a hottie, what does my brother have to do with any of this?”
Too late, I realized what I’d said. Lilly has no idea how I feel about her brother Michael. Actually, I don’t really have any idea about how I feel about him either. Except that he looks extremely Casper Van Dien with his shirt off.
I so want him to be the one who’d written that letter. I really, really do.
But I’m not about to mention this to his sister.
Instead, I told her I think it unfair of her to demand explanations for stuff I said under the influence of codeine cough syrup.
Lilly just got that expression she gets sometimes when teachers ask a question and she knows the answer, only she wants to give someone else in the class a chance to answer for a change.
It really can be exhausting sometimes, having a best friend with an IQ of 170.
HOMEWORK
Algebra: problems 1–20, pg. 115
English: Chapter 4 of Strunk and White
World Civ: two-hundred–word essay on the conflict between India and Pakistan
G&T: Yeah, right
French: Chaptre huit
Biology: pituitary gland (ask Kenny!)
LILLY MOSCOVITZ AND MIA THERMOPOLIS’S LIST OF CELEBRITIES AND THEIR BREASTS
CELEBRITY Britney Spears
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Jennifer Love Hewitt
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Winona Ryder
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Courtney Love
LILLY Fake
MIA Fake
CELEBRITY Jennie Garth
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Tori Spelling
LILLY Fake
MIA Fake
CELEBRITY Brandy
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Neve Campbell
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Sarah Michelle Gellar
LILLY Real
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Christina Aguilera
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Lucy Lawless
LILLY Real
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Melissa
Joan Hart
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
CELEBRITY Mariah Carey
LILLY Fake
MIA Fake
CELEBRITY Rachael Leigh Cook
LILLY Fake
MIA Real
Even later on Thursday
After dinner I felt well enough to get out of bed, and so I did.
I checked my e-mail. I was hoping there might be something from my mysterious “friend.” If he knew my “snail mail” address, I figured he’d know my e-mail address, too. Both are listed in the school directory.
Tina Hakim Baba was one of the people who e-mailed me. She sent get-well wishes. So did Shameeka. Shameeka mentioned that she was trying to talk her father into letting her have a Halloween party, and that if she succeeded, would I come? I wrote back to say of course, if I wasn’t too weak from coughing.
There was also a message from Michael. It was a get-well message, too, but it was animated, like a little film. It showed a cat that looked a lot like Fat Louie doing a little get-well dance. It was very cute. Michael signed it “Love, Michael.”
Not Sincerely.
Not Yours Truly.
Love.
I played it four times, but I still couldn’t tell whether he was the one who’d sent me that letter. The letter, I noticed, never once mentioned the word love. It said the sender liked me. And he signed it “sincerely.”
But there was no love. Not a hint of love.
Then I saw a message from someone whose e-mail address I didn’t recognize. Oh, my God! Could it be my anonymous liker? My fingers were trembling on my mouse. . . .
And then I opened it and saw the following message from JoCrox: