Any Red-Blooded Girl by Maggie Bloom Page A

it looks,
sweetheart. I promise.” She slathered a huge gob of the gooey
ointment over my injury, then stuck a gauze pad on top of the whole
mess with some medical tape. “There we go. All better,” she
declared.
    I’m not sure what came over me then, but I
temporarily lost my mind. “Thanks a lot, Mom,” I spat. “And just so
you know, that boy who was just here—he’s my boyfriend. His name is
Mick, and he’s very nice. And I’m pretty sure I hurt his feelings
by pretending not to like him. But I do like him. I like him a lot . And you have no right to judge him, because he’s
never done anything to you. And he’s only sixteen, by the way. And
he’s not a gypsy, like you said he was. His family just travels
around and makes things. They’re like…entrepreneurs. And just
because people are different, that doesn’t make them bad. Mick
knows lots of things about butterflies and milkweed and Mexico and
cars. He’s a mechanic, you know. He fixes things. So, I swear to
God, the one and only thing I want for my birthday is for you and
Dad to butt out of my life and leave me alone. That ’ s what would really make me happy.”
    I must say, on the lifetime scale of Flora
meltdowns, this one was quite ugly. And normally I’m pretty cool;
not much fazes me. But this time an emotional ripcord had been
pulled in my brain—only the parachute never opened, and I ended up
spiraling headlong into a dramatic crash.
    While I tried to stop hyperventilating, I
noticed that my family had frozen shoulder-to-shoulder in complete
silence, and a bunch of annoying kids and a couple of nosy old
ladies had gathered in the road to watch me freak out. How
fantastic.
    “All right, everyone,” I announced, as soon
as I could speak clearly again. “I’m okay. You can all relax.
There’s nothing else to see here.”
    The old biddies left first, then the kids
trickled off. But my family remained stuck in their wax-statue
poses. If I gave Will a push, would they all topple over like
dominos? I wondered.
    “Come on. I’m fine,” I repeated. “You can all
breathe now. I’m not gonna go postal. Really. I was just
upset.”
    My mother was first to break the line. And as
she approached, I tried to imagine what she might say, how she
might react to my meltdown. Anger? Of course. I expected that . Punishment? Probably that too. Disappointment? Well, that was a given. But the one thing I never expected, the
thing I was least prepared for, was cruelty. Then, with a few
simple sentences, my loving mother—the woman who’d given birth to
me—squashed me like a bug.
    “I just have a few questions about this new boyfriend of yours, Flora,” she started in a biting tone.
“You’ve known him how long? One day? And you know so much about him
already, do you?” A peep of sarcastic laughter escaped her lips.
“Clearly, you know a lot less about him than you think.”
    “No,” I interrupted. “That’s not true. He’s
very honest,” I said, assuming she was still stuck on the whole
gypsy thing.
    “I’m not suggesting he’s a liar. I’m just
saying you’re too naive to make a clear judgment in the matter.
This boy has bewitched you. You’re not thinking straight. A girl
like you needs to rely on her family to point her in the right
direction.”
    “I do not!” I yelled.
    “Well, Flora, we don’t have to look very far
for evidence of some really bad choices you’ve made, do we?” she
continued, as if I was going to join her in assassinating my
character. “For example, you lost out on Europe because you snuck
beer into the house. Certainly that wasn’t the smartest
thing you’ve ever done, was it?”
    “That was Jimmy Bickford!” I cried. “I didn’t
even know about it!”
    The Mental Hygienist shook her head and
smirked. “Blaming others is a sign of immaturity, Flora. You need
to take responsibility for things. That’s how you earn trust,” she
spewed, like she’d memorized it from an episode of Dr. Phil.