Part 3 (1/2)
”Look at this,” I shrieked while throwing open the front door and tossing my book bag in the corner. ”Look! LOOK! I have been wronged!”
”S'matter with you, Peeg?” Todd asked from the couch in the family room off the kitchen. My brother had stationed himself there before I left for school hours earlier, apparently still recuperating from his freshman year of college. He'd indulged in a steady diet of ginger ale and Gomer Pyle reruns for the past three days. The nine months without him in the house had been heavenly, as his sole purpose in life was to make mine miserable. Normally I'd attack him for the ”peeg” comment (really, how can you be a pig when you can squeeze into size five Jordache jeans?) but I had other priorities.
”I'm not talking to you, TOAD. Mom, look at this.... It's awful! I'm ruined! I have been personally attacked!” I wailed while wildly waving a copy of my high school newspaper.
”Oh, Jen, I'm sure you're overreacting again. Let me see.” Mom put down her load of clean laundry and perused the offered page, eyes scanning back and forth. She wrinkled her brow. ”You're ruined because the drama club chose Little Mary Suns.h.i.+ne for the fall play?”
”No, it's this right here!” I stabbed the offending section with a pointed finger.
”The m.u.f.fy the Preppy comic strip?”
”Yes! Read it!”
”m.u.f.fy the Preppy says...hmm, hmm, hmm...real pearls from Hudsons...hmm, hmm...shut up, you animals...hmm, hmm...and I'm done. It's cute. Did you draw this?”
”MOTHER! How could you think it's cute? That b.i.t.c.h Sh.e.l.ly Decker drew this about ME! See? She's got the pearls and the Shet-land sweater tied around the shoulders and everything. And it's the last day of school, and this insult is all anyone will think about the whole summer.”
”I know you feel you're an adult, but you may not swear in this house.” Over my mother's shoulder, I could see Todd making faces and flipping me off. I'd deal with him later. ”I think you're being melodramatic. What's the big deal?”
”Do you not understand that I have a reputation to uphold in that school? I cannot just have my character a.s.sa.s.sinated by the media.”
”Sorry, Zsa Zsa, I forgot that you were so averse to negative publicity.” My mother resumed folding the load of whites she'd been holding.
”Mother! You're not taking this seriously! Don't mock me! I had to work really hard to fit in here after we moved from New Jersey. It took YEARS for me to work my way up to the semicool crowd, and I had to lose the atrocious Jersey accent to do it. The last thing I need is some a.s.shole pointing out how I'm different from the rest of them. Don't you realize that the animals separated from the herd die? DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE??”
”WATCH THE MOUTH, missy. I understand you're upset. What I don't understand is why Sh.e.l.ly would draw a cartoon about you. She's your best friend.”
”Well, yes, she was, but not anymore.”
”Since when?”
”A while, OK?”
Todd interjected, ”Hey, Mom, better get Dad's attorney on the phone to talk about suing the school paper for libel.”
”MOM!”
”Now you're both being ridiculous. Todd, pipe down. What happened with Sh.e.l.ly?”
”It was all her fault.”
”Jennifer, what did you do?” Why did she always a.s.sume it was my fault?22 ”She was jealous.”
”Of what?”
”Nothing.”
”I think there's more to the story,” Todd volunteered helpfully from the other room.
”Shut UP, Toad. OK, remember when you had to go back to Boston to help Grampa after his surgery? Well, I kind of wore your pearls while you were out of town.”
”I do not recall giving you permission to wear them.”
”I was allowed to because Dad saw them on me and didn't say I couldn't.”
”Not an excuse. Your father is oblivious. He didn't notice for three weeks when we painted the den. But why would my necklace upset Sh.e.l.ly?”
”I might have mentioned they were real pearls. From Hudsons.”
”So?”
”About fifteen times.”
My mother sighed deeply. ”Where did we go wrong with you? You didn't learn this behavior from me. When I was your age, I never had new clothes. All I had were the items my sisters handed down to me. The only reason I dressed as nicely as I did was because I taught myself to sew and-”
”Is this where you tell us how you only had one pair of wool socks when you were a girl and you had to hand wash them every night?” I whined.23 ”I can't believe she has any friends the way she acts,” my brother added. Why couldn't I have been born an only child?
”Shove it, frat boy. Mom, do you see the problem I have? Sh.e.l.ly just threw down the gauntlet, OK? She issued a challenge. If she's going to label me in a public forum, then I have to be the preppiest preppy to ever walk the halls of my high school. Now that I've been singled out, I'm obligated to deliver. People are going to expect it. I didn't start this feud, but I'll be d.a.m.ned if I don't finish it. So, I'm going to need a LOT of new stuff for back to school. Why don't you get Dad's credit card and we can start shopping now. You know, beat the rush and all.”
”Ha! Good one, Jen.”
”You're not going to help me? Why? Because of your boring sock story?”
”You get $100 for back-to-school clothes, and you know it, and that amount will decrease if you don't watch it with the cusses. If you want more than I plan to pay for, then I suggest you get a job.”
”How am I supposed to do that? I can't drive yet, and there's no place to work in this stupid subdivision.”
”When I was your age, I made money for fabric by watching my sister's children. This neighborhood is full of kids-why don't you give babysitting a try?”
”But I hate kids.”
”Yet you love money.”
”You make an excellent point.”
Why had I never considered babysitting before? Our neighborhood was crawling with little kids.... It was a veritable gold mine! I quickly ran figures in my head-if I could earn fifty dollars a week for the next ten weeks of summer, then-holy cats!-I'd be the best-dressed girl in the whole TOWN. Visions of pink oxford cloth and tartan plaid danced in my head. With five hundred dollars, I'd get ta.s.sel AND penny loafers, puffy velvet headbands, whale-print mini-skirts, and a Bermuda bag to match every outfit!
”Do you think if I typed up a flyer Dad's secretary could make copies? That way I could pa.s.s them out to neighbors.”
”I'm sure she would if you asked nicely.”
”I'm going to work on it now!” I grabbed my book bag and headed for the stairs. Remembering something I'd left undone, I returned to the kitchen. ”I forgot to tell you guys...hey, Toad?” I pulled an envelope from my bag and handed it to my mother. ”Your grades came today!” I dashed to my room as the blood drained from my brother's face.
That's how in the summer of 1983 I became known as Babysitter ber Alles. I was in demand, but not because of my tremendous prowess with children. I've never been great with kids-they are self-centered, attention-grabbing, illogical, sticky little beasts with terrible taste in TV shows.24 I was nice to my charges for the most part, but any maternal stirrings I might have had were squelched by their shrill voices and garbled English, which I found annoying, not endearing. Don't get me started on their rambling stories and barrages of precocious questions. ”Jen, why do the birds sing? Jen, why does the gra.s.s grow? Jen, how do sharks sleep? Jen, why is the sky blue?” The sky is blue because G.o.d hates you, OK? Worst of all, kids always seemed to think it was all about them.
And everyone knows it's really all about me.
The sole reason I was popular was because I tackled housework without being asked. My clients knew that upon their return, they'd find gleaming appliances, empty sinks, and pristine carpets. I quickly learned that elbow grease equaled more penny loafers and oxford cloth s.h.i.+rts, and the more I had, the more Sh.e.l.ly would turn pink and green with envy. Heh.
Much as children annoyed me, dealing with them was a necessary evil. Once one young insurgent, Daniel Bedlamski, wouldn't get out of the pool, forcing me to enact Jen's Babysitting Axiom #95: First Ask Nicely and Precisely. I crafted these rules of engagement to better deal with Danny, as arguing with him instead of scrubbing had cost me more than one tip.