dad is madder at.
“And you go up,” he says to me. “ Now! ” he yells. I walk up the stairs to the living room. He points to a chair. “Sit. Sit there.” A vein is throbbing at the side of his eye. “Where were you?
“Out with friends.”
“Friends. What friends?”
“You don’t know them. From school, okay?”
“No, not okay.” He stares through me and then looks away. I’ve never been caught before, at least not until the car thing with Ro. “You don’t listen anymore! You get into trouble!” he yells. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to do now. He looks around the room, as if he’s hoping to find answers.
“Your mother will handle this tomorrow,” he says. “But now…you’re staying home…you’re staying in the house at night. You’re not going out. Not for math. Not for pizza. Not for nothing. If you have so much time to run around, you work. You get a job at the bakery.”
“What? The bakery?”
“To pay Mario, to pay for the bills—the bills from cutting school and drinking and—”
“Daddy, I— ”
“Go to bed now. No more.”
If it wasn’t bad enough that Michael dissed me, now I have to sell cookies and probably earn less than Mario spent on ink for his pen.
Welcome to my charmed life.
My so-called job isn’t starting for a week, so instead of boning up on baking and packing cookies, I decide to concentrate on being serious , and making myself school president although lately it’s hard to focus.
“Prioritize,” Clive says, morphing into my life coach. We’re sitting at lunch together the next day and I’m telling him what happened. There’s no way I’m going to go to his apartment after school, so I tell him everything, talking as fast as I can before the bell rings.
“Prioritize,” I say, parroting his words. I try that and rather than dwelling on being grounded for life and forced into menial labor, I focus on my campaign because the election is only a month away. We have the posters, but we haven’t put them up yet. What we want to do is get into the school at night, put them everywhere, and surprise everyone the next day when it’s wall-to-wall Gia.
Only that plan doesn’t cut it with Mr. Wright, the principal.
“I’m sorry, folks. We can’t have students putting up posters in the school at night by themselves,” he says.
So we’re on to plan B.
“There are no classes on election day,” Clive says. “Let see if they’ll let us put them up then. At least there will be people in school.”
“We’re not talking about the election for president of the United States,” I tell the office. It’s just a local city election. “The turnout will be light and all we have to do is quickly tack up the posters. We won’t be in anyone’s way.”
We get the okay and Ro, Clive, Candy, and I get together early in the morning and, like Santa’s elves, we parade from room to room and along the hallways. If other candidates plan to put up their own posters, I don’t know where they’ll go because when we’re done the only space left will be on the ceiling or the floor where their faces will be stepped on, which is fine with me.
By noon half the posters are up and we stand back and view our work. Most of them are white with the writing in one major color group to keep it clean looking. We did a lot of them in grass-green lettering because how fresh is that? And we did some in dark purple and a few in script to look artsy. The idea was to keep the look crisp like the message, no matter how people would tease us.
We take a break before we head to the gym where the voting is going on. I carry a stack of posters and a folding ladder over my arm as I walk around surveying the space. The gym has high ceilings and I’m not sure whether our ladder is tall enough. It probably wasn’t the smartest move to arrive at school in a pencil skirt and heels, but at six that morning, I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Clive climbs up the ladder for me and
“And you go up,” he says to me. “ Now! ” he yells. I walk up the stairs to the living room. He points to a chair. “Sit. Sit there.” A vein is throbbing at the side of his eye. “Where were you?
“Out with friends.”
“Friends. What friends?”
“You don’t know them. From school, okay?”
“No, not okay.” He stares through me and then looks away. I’ve never been caught before, at least not until the car thing with Ro. “You don’t listen anymore! You get into trouble!” he yells. He shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to do now. He looks around the room, as if he’s hoping to find answers.
“Your mother will handle this tomorrow,” he says. “But now…you’re staying home…you’re staying in the house at night. You’re not going out. Not for math. Not for pizza. Not for nothing. If you have so much time to run around, you work. You get a job at the bakery.”
“What? The bakery?”
“To pay Mario, to pay for the bills—the bills from cutting school and drinking and—”
“Daddy, I— ”
“Go to bed now. No more.”
If it wasn’t bad enough that Michael dissed me, now I have to sell cookies and probably earn less than Mario spent on ink for his pen.
Welcome to my charmed life.
My so-called job isn’t starting for a week, so instead of boning up on baking and packing cookies, I decide to concentrate on being serious , and making myself school president although lately it’s hard to focus.
“Prioritize,” Clive says, morphing into my life coach. We’re sitting at lunch together the next day and I’m telling him what happened. There’s no way I’m going to go to his apartment after school, so I tell him everything, talking as fast as I can before the bell rings.
“Prioritize,” I say, parroting his words. I try that and rather than dwelling on being grounded for life and forced into menial labor, I focus on my campaign because the election is only a month away. We have the posters, but we haven’t put them up yet. What we want to do is get into the school at night, put them everywhere, and surprise everyone the next day when it’s wall-to-wall Gia.
Only that plan doesn’t cut it with Mr. Wright, the principal.
“I’m sorry, folks. We can’t have students putting up posters in the school at night by themselves,” he says.
So we’re on to plan B.
“There are no classes on election day,” Clive says. “Let see if they’ll let us put them up then. At least there will be people in school.”
“We’re not talking about the election for president of the United States,” I tell the office. It’s just a local city election. “The turnout will be light and all we have to do is quickly tack up the posters. We won’t be in anyone’s way.”
We get the okay and Ro, Clive, Candy, and I get together early in the morning and, like Santa’s elves, we parade from room to room and along the hallways. If other candidates plan to put up their own posters, I don’t know where they’ll go because when we’re done the only space left will be on the ceiling or the floor where their faces will be stepped on, which is fine with me.
By noon half the posters are up and we stand back and view our work. Most of them are white with the writing in one major color group to keep it clean looking. We did a lot of them in grass-green lettering because how fresh is that? And we did some in dark purple and a few in script to look artsy. The idea was to keep the look crisp like the message, no matter how people would tease us.
We take a break before we head to the gym where the voting is going on. I carry a stack of posters and a folding ladder over my arm as I walk around surveying the space. The gym has high ceilings and I’m not sure whether our ladder is tall enough. It probably wasn’t the smartest move to arrive at school in a pencil skirt and heels, but at six that morning, I wasn’t thinking clearly.
Clive climbs up the ladder for me and
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