Will the Real Raisin Rodriguez Please Stand Up? by Judy Goldschmidt

Claudia.
    But what if he’s right? What if they’ve changed? What if they don’t like me anymore? Or worse, what if they misunderstand my shoes? (The silver ones, with T straps.)
    And Lynn—before you respond with, “What do you care if they understand your shoes?” let us remember whom you are talking to.
    You are talking to ME.
    Me, Raisin Rodriguez, who’s not deep like you. I’m not comfortable enough with myself to expect people to love me for who I am. I need them to love me for who I’m trying to be.
    Like a good dresser.
    I guess I could play it safe and wear my old Birken-stocks. But I don’t want to risk falling back into bad habits.
    At least I still have that surprise to look forward to. I wonder what it’s going to be. I hope they didn’t go to too much trouble finding it. And I definitely hope they didn’t spend too much money on it. And more than anything, I hope . . .
    Oh . . . who am I kidding? What I really hope is that it’s the smartest, sassiest, splashiest surprise ever.
    (But not the sexiest because as soon as my mother lays her eyes on it, she’ll take it away from me and keep it until I’m forty and too old to be sexy.)
    My dad’s calling me. He says Claudia’s on the phone. Better go take it.
    Please hold . . .
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1:10 PM, PST
    Claudia wants to meet at House of Pies. I was kind of disappointed that we weren’t going to Pia’s like we had planned. Her mother owns a vintage clothing distribution company and she keeps all the clothes in her basement. I was looking forward to hanging out there and trying on all the clothes.
    Oh, well. I guess we can go to Pia’s another time. And I do like pie. Especially their Fluffernutter pie with whipped cream and caramel topping. That’s my usual. It’s got the perfect ratio of sugar to sugar.
    There goes my dad honking his car horn. Gotta go. I guess I’ll stick with the shoes I have on. P&C will just have to love me for who I am.
    That or hate me for my footwear.
    Well, wish me luck. Or as we say in the spiritual town of Berkeley, send me positive vibrations.
    Â 
PS—I miss you already!
    4:43 PM, PST
    And to think that only a very short time ago, my biggest worry was that my friends wouldn’t understand my shoes. Ah, how naive I was. Not that they understood my shoes, for alas, that they did not:
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A Melodrama About Fashion and Friendship Told in Two Acts
    (Note: Please refrain from the use of photographic devices. There will be one three-second intermission.)
    ACT I
    Pia: Why are you wearing tap shoes?
    (Intermission)
    ACT II
    Claudia: I thought you gave up dance class because every time you had to do a split, you were afraid you’d let out a poot.
    (Curtain)
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Yes, that little tragedy was actually the least of my problems. What, then, was the most of it? you ask. The most of it, I answer, was the surprise. They failed to mention that said surprise would be a bad surprise. Making it less of a surprise and more of a shock.
    A one-hundred-and-ten-pound shock named Vivvy.
    It was pure awfulness, I tell you. As soon as we pulled up in front of House of Pies and I saw not two but three girls waiting for me on the front stoop, a bad feeling came over me.
    â€œHey,” I said as I stepped out of the car, hoping that the third girl was just a random brunette (though admittedly a very shiny-haired random brunette) waiting to meet a friend.
    â€œHey, Rae-Rae,” she said. Unless Random Girl had chosen the name Rae-Rae randomly, there was nothing random about her. “I’m Vivvy, your new best friend even though you don’t know it yet!” she said, laughing in a way that suggested there was humor rather than tragedy in her comment.
    â€œSurprise!” shouted Pia and Claudia as they wrapped their arms around me and this Vivvy person for a group hug.
    â€œIsn’t she great?!” said Pia.
    â€œUm, yeah . . .” I