Lilly says I need to stop obsessing. She says I’m taking my anxiety over the fact that this is only our first month in high school and I already have an F in something, and transferring it to anxiety about Mr. Gianini and my mom. She says this is called displacement.
It sort of sucks when your best friend’s parents are psychoanalysts.
Today after school the Drs. Moscovitz were totally trying to analyze me. I mean, Lilly and I were just sitting there playing Boggle. And every five minutes it was like, “Girls, do you want some Snapple? Girls, there’s a very interesting squid documentary on the Discovery channel. And by the way, Mia, how do you feel about your mother starting to date your Algebra teacher?”
I said, “I feel fine about it.”
Why can’t I be more assertive?
But what if Lilly’s parents run into my mom at Jefferson Market or something? If I told them the truth, they’d definitely tell her. I don’t want my mom to know how weird I feel about this, not when she’s so happy about it.
The worst part was that Lilly’s older brother Michael overheard the whole thing. He immediately started laughing his head off, even though I don’t see anything funny about it.
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He went, “Your mom is dating Frank Gianini? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
So great. Now Lilly’s brother Michael knows.
So then I had to start begging him not to tell anybody. He’s in fifth period Gifted and Talented class with me and Lilly, which is the biggest joke of a class, because Mrs. Hill, who’s in charge of the G & T program at Albert Einstein, doesn’t care what we do as long as we don’t make too much noise. She hates it when she has to come out of the teachers’ lounge, which is right across the hall from the G & T room, to yell at us.
Anyway, Michael is supposed to use fifth period to work on his on-line webzine, Crackhead. I’m supposed to use it for catching up on my Algebra homework.
But anyway, Mrs. Hill never checks to see what we’re doing in G & T, which is probably good, since mostly what we’re all doing is figuring out ways to lock the new Russian kid, who’s supposedly this musical genius, in the supply closet so we don’t have to listen to any more Stravinsky on his stupid violin.
But don’t think that just because Michael and I are united against Boris Pelkowski and his violin he’d keep quiet about my mom and Mr. G.
What Michael kept saying was, “What’ll you do for me, huh, Thermopolis? What’ll you do for me?”
But there’s nothing I can do for Michael Moscovitz. I can’t offer to do his homework, or anything. Michael is a senior (just like Josh Richter). Michael has gotten all straight A’s his entire life (just like Josh Richter). Michael will probably go to Yale or Harvard next year (just like Josh Richter).
What could I do for someone like that?
Not that Michael’s perfect, or anything. Unlike Josh Richter, Michael is not on the crew team. Michael isn’t even on the debate team. Michael does not believe in organized sports, or organized religion, or organized anything, for that matter. Instead, Michael spends almost all of his time in his room. I once asked Lilly what he does in there, and she said she and her parents employ a don’t ask, don’t tell policy with Michael.
I bet he’s in there making a bomb. Maybe he’ll blow up Albert Einstein High School as a senior prank.
Occasionally, Michael comes out of his room and makes sarcastic comments. Sometimes when he does this he is not wearing a shirt. Even though he does not believe in organized sports, I have noticed that Michael has a really nice chest. His stomach muscles are extremely well defined.
I have never mentioned this to Lilly.
Anyway, I guess Michael got tired of my offering to do stuff like walk his sheltie, Pavlov, and take his mom’s empty Tab cans back to Gristedes for the deposit money, which is his weekly chore. Because in the end Michael just said, in this disgusted voice, “Forget it, okay, Thermopolis?” and went back into his room.
I asked Lilly why he was so mad, and she said because he’d been sexually harassing me but I didn’t notice.
How embarrassing! Supposing Josh Richter starts sexually harassing me someday (I wish) and I don’t notice? God, I’m so stupid sometimes.
Anyway, Lilly said not to worry about Michael telling his friends at school about my mom and Mr. G, since Michael has no friends. Then Lilly wanted to know why I cared about Mr. Gianini’s nostrils sticking out so much, since I’m not the one who has to look at them, my mom is.
And I said, “Excuse me, I have to look at them from 9:55 to 10:55 and from 2:30 to 3:30 EVERY SINGLE DAY, except Saturdays and Sundays and national holidays and the summer. If I don’t flunk, that is, and have to go to summer school.”
And if they get married, then I’ll have to look at them EVERY SINGLE DAY, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, MAJOR HOLIDAYS INCLUDED.
Define set: collection of objects; element or member belongs to a set
A = {Gilligan, Skipper, Mary Ann}
rule specifies each element