b(a - 1) = a
More Friday, Algebra
Lilly could tell right away something was up.
Oh, she swallowed the whole story I fed her about Lars: “Oh, my dad’s in town, and he’s got this driver, and you know . . . ”
But I couldn’t tell her about the princess thing. I mean, all I kept thinking about was how disgusted Lilly sounded during that part in her oral report when she mentioned how Christian monarchs used to consider themselves appointed agents of divine will and thus were responsible not to the people they governed but to God alone, even though my dad hardly ever even goes to church, except when Grandmère makes him.
Lilly believed me about Lars, but she was still all over me with the crying thing. She was like, “Why are your eyes so red and squinty? You’ve been crying. Why were you crying? Did something happen? What happened? Did you get another F in something?”
I just shrugged and tried to look out the passenger window at the uninspiring view of the East Village crackhouses, which we had to drive by to get to the FDR. “It’s nothing,” I said. “PMS.”
“It is not PMS. You had your period last week. I remember because you borrowed a pad from me after PE, and then you ate two whole packs of Yodels at lunch.” Sometimes I wish Lilly’s memory weren’t so good. “So spill. Did Louie eat another sock?”
First of all, it was like totally embarrassing to discuss my menstrual cycle in front of my dad’s bodyguard. I mean, Lars is kind of a Baldwin. He was concentrating really hard on driving, though, and I don’t know if he could hear us from the front seat, but it was embarrassing, just the same.
“It’s nothing,” I whispered. “Just my dad. You know.”
“Oh,” Lilly said in her normal voice. Have I mentioned that Lilly’s normal voice is really loud? “You mean the infertility thing? Is he still bummed out about that? Gawd, does he ever need to self-actualize.”
Lilly then went on to describe something she called the Jungian tree of self-actualization. She says my dad is way on the bottom branches, and he won’t be able to reach the top of the thing until he accepts himself as he is and stops obsessing over his inability to sire more offspring.
I guess that’s part of my problem. I’m way at the bottom of the self-actualization tree. Like, underneath the roots of it, practically.
But now that I’m sitting here in Algebra, things don’t seem so bad, really. I mean, I thought about it all through Homeroom, and I finally realized something:
They can’t make me be princess.
They really can’t. I mean, this is America, for crying out loud. Here, you can be anything you want to be. At least that’s what Mrs. Holland was always telling us last year, when we studied U.S. History. So, if I can be whatever I want to be, I can not be a princess. Nobody can make me be a princess, not even my dad, if I don’t want to be one.
Right?
So when I get home tonight, I’ll just tell my dad thanks, but no thanks. I’ll just be plain old Mia for now.
Geez. Mr. Gianini just called on me, and I totally had no idea what he was talking about, because of course I was writing in this book instead of paying attention. My face feels like it’s on fire. Lana is laughing her head off, of course. She is such a wanker.
What does he keep picking on me for, anyway? He should know by now that I don’t know the quadratic formula from a hole in the ground. He’s only picking on me because of my mom. He wants to make it look as if he’s treating me the same as everybody else in the class.
Well, I’m not the same as everybody else in the class.
What do I need to know Algebra for, anyway? They don’t use Algebra in Greenpeace.
And you can bet you don’t need it if you’re a princess. So however things turn out, I’m covered.
Cool.
solve x = a + aby for y
x - a = aby
Really Late on Friday,
Lilly Moscovitz’s Bedroom
Okay, so I blew off Mr. Gianini’s help session after school. I know I shouldn’t have. Believe me, Lilly let me know I shouldn’t have. I know he has these help sessions just for people like me, who are flunking. I know he does it in his own spare time and doesn’t even get paid overtime for it or anything. But if I won’t ever need Algebra in any foreseeable future career, why do I need to go?
I asked Lilly if it would be okay if I spent the night at her house tonight and she said only if I promised to stop acting like such a head case.