The Thwarter does.
But I am stronger than he knows. I could not be so easily stomped into submission. It was my deep familiarity with the overprotective-slightly-unbalanced-fire-extinguisher-foam part of his personality that led me, as soon as I got back to my room, to log on to the Web so I could make sure that no one had gone in and interfered with TiVo recording Forensic Files while I was gone (Ha! Foiled again, Mr. Thwarty-Thwart). Even a Model Daughter could do that. While I was online I checked my email and found five messages from Polly.
* * *
To: Jasmine Callihan
From: Polly Prentis
Subject: Y
HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN TO ME YET? YOU’VE BEEN GONE 23 HOURS. AM LANGUISHING HERE. LANGUISHING AND, um, watching TV. But there is nothing good on. So write to me. Also downloading country music. Yes. COUNTRY MUSIC. Do you feel guilty now? The Step-Dude has declared that we can only eat raw food and all anyone around the house can talk about is that Madison can say, “My shoes and purse don’t match.” Write to me before things get desperate.
>airkissairkiss
Polly
* * *
Madison is Polly’s two-year-old half sister, which makes it pretty impressive that she can coordinate accessories. And suggests that even she has a superpower—being a Baby Gap consultant before she even had real teeth.
More proof that everyone has a superpower but me.
* * *
To: Jasmine Callihan
From: Polly Prentis
Subject: U so sad
Have now downloaded 4 country songs. One of them rhymes “bouffant” with “want.” This is your fault. In case you forgot: I am the main lyricist for the band.
>
Polly
To: Jasmine Callihan
From: Polly Prentis
Subject: a picture is worth…
Me, with a bouffant, waiting for you to call:
Still waiting:
Languishing…
…and dreaming of…
…you with a bouffant!
Ha! Take that. CALL ME! And, friendly reminder: I am also the main costume designer for the band. (At least I gave you your cowboy boots. But I can take those away at any moment. Tick tock.)
Yours truly, P
To: Jasmine Callihan
From: Polly Prentis
Subject: Fine. I can take a hint. You don’t like me anymore
Bye. Forever. Find yourself a new best friend.
To: Jasmine Callihan
From: Polly Prentis
Subject: I mean it this time
!
p.s. Should I get bangs?
* * *
The answer to that was “no.” Polly and I have a signed pact to not allow each other to get bangs. We’ve been down that path before and it’s never pretty. But the fact that she was even considering it showed how desperate things had become for her.
That and the country music.
I had just started to write back to Polly when she IMed me.
* * *
PrincessP: RU OK? I called your dad’s cell and Sherri! told me what happened. She said you tried to save a cat and went to jail and that FIONA BRISTOL bailed you out! What does she look like?
DrumGrrrl: Nice.
PrincessP: NICE? That’s it?
DrumGrrrl: Yes. I don’t think you should get bangs, P. And I think the band should stick with our current format. No country.
PrincessP: Okay, but what about Fiona Bristol??
DrumGrrrl: I told you. She was nice. I don’t want to talk about her.
PrincessP: Come on, Jas. You know who Fiona Bristol is, right? She’s the one whose husband
DrumGrrrl: NOT INTERESTED
PrincessP: killed her lover and
DrumGrrrl: NOT INTERESTED NOT INTERESTED
PrincessP: was arrested but before he could go to trial he escaped and
DrumGrrrl: DON’T CARE NOT INTERESTED DON’T CARE
PrincessP: What did they do to you there?
DrumGrrrl: Nothing. Why does it have to mean something is wrong with a person just because she doesn’t want to hear gossip about people she doesn’t know?
PrincessP: Or because she has begun speaking of herself in the third person?
DrumGrrrl: Don’t we have anything more interesting to talk about than other people’s problems?
PrincessP: Hello, Evil Jas. Can you please bring back Good And Nice Jas? Thank you.
SheRox: JAS! Are you okay, sweetie? Tom and I just heard from Sherri!.
DrumGrrrl: Yes, Roxy, I’m fine. No big deal.
MrT: We hear you tussled with the Man. And won. Nice work.
DrumGrrrl: Thanks, Tom.
SheRox: Excuse me, no big deal? Can’t you see they must be covering up something huge to just let you go like that? Something having to do with Fiona Bristol? Did you see anyone who looked like they were in the Russian Mafia? It would not surprise me if they were involved in this.
PrincessP: Don’t waste your time, Roxy. Jasmine has no interest in life’s little mysteries any longer. Our little girl is growing up.
SheRox: What is Polly talking about?
DrumGrrrl: She’s just mad because I don’t want to hear gossip about Fiona Bristol.
SheRox: You do know there is a murder involved, right? And bounty hunters. There is even a million-dollar—
DrumGrrrl: DON’T CARE NOT INTERESTED
SheRox: Oh my God. Now, Jas, sweetie, I want you to think back. What exactly did you eat and drink while you were in custody? If we can figure out what they used, we can get an antidote and
DrumGrrrl: NO ONE DRUGGED ME!
PrincessP: Personally, my money is on them paying her for her silence. Or using electric shock therapy. Jas, do you have any unusual marks on your body?
DrumGrrrl: I am so not responding to that.
MrT: You tell them, cowgirl.
SheRox: They might have used an experimental hypnosis technique. It would leave no outward signs. The government is pioneering them. I read about that in Know the Truth Weekly.
MrT: Isn’t that the same fine publication that ran a cover story about how Cabbage Patch dolls are actually secret recording devices made by aliens to see into American homes and learn our ways?
SheRox: Who but aliens would come up with a doll that is half vegetable, half human? It’s completely plausible. As is the use of hypnosis on Jas. Or gum. Did they give you any—1
DrumGrrrl: I’m fine. It’s just none of my business. And I have decided I am going to mind my own business.
Hello?
Are you still there?
Breaker breaker good buddy?
SheRox: Sorry about that. Of course you’re fine, sweetie.
PrincessP: Right. Well, I’ve got to biplane. Tango class with Roberto. Can’t keep him waiting or he gets hot behind the ears.
MrT: I believe it’s under the collar.
PrincessP: He won’t be wearing a collar. He dances without his shirt on. Ciao for now, cupcakes.
MrT: WHY WON’T SHE GO TANGOING WITH ME?
DrumGrrrl: Because you don’t wax your chest and then apply baby oil to it until it attains a glassy sheen?
SheRox: No way. Roberto doesn’t do that.
DrumGrrrl: Cross my heart, not my fingers.
SheRox: Wow. Isn’t that kind of messy? MrT: You guys, I’m serious! I love her. What should I do??
DrumGrrrl: You know you have nothing to worry about with Roberto. He’s just a dance partner to her and besides, Polly is the girl whose idea of intimacy is an air kiss.
MrT: Isn’t that cute?
DrumGrrrl: If by “cute” you mean “strangely psycho.”
SheRox: Maybe if you ever asked her out this would go better.
MrT: True. But how do you ask your dream woman to go out with you?
DrumGrrrl: “Hi, Polly? It’s Tom. Would you like to go out with me?” might work. Just, like, for openers. Although you might want to say “Tom Hernandez, Roxy’s brother” to make sure she knows who you are. Since she’s only known you since we started going to school with Roxy in 6th grade and sees you, like, every weekend.
MrT: Thanks for the hot tip, Jas. So what are you going to do now? Any retirement parties you can take down? Or are the MIND-ALTERING DRUGS still coursing through your veins?
DrumGrrrl: Why, Tom, I’d love to stay for more of this witty banter, but alas, I’ve got to go. I have callers.
SheRox: The Russian Mafia already! Do you want me to call Sherri! and alert her?
DrumGrrrl: Actually, it’s just room service.
SheRox: Okay, but be careful. The Russian Mafia are all over that town. And the man was murdered with a—
* * *
I logged off without reading the rest. It was seriously unfair of my friends to taunt me like that. Being a Model Daughter was going to be hard if I did not have a supportive peer group. But I was going to persevere in minding my own business. What I needed was sustenance, in the form of the grilled cheese sandwich with fries, ice cream sundae, and apple pie à la mode that was waiting for me on the other side of the door.
Or supposed to be waiting for me.
Because when I opened it, it wasn’t the room service man standing there. Not by a long shot.
It was trouble.
Five
I should have expected it.
“Hi, Jas,” Alyson said, using up all of her community service hours by giving me a big smile. “Can Veronique and I come in?”
“This is a really nice room,” Veronique said.
“Don’t they all look like this?” I asked.
“Um, well, our TV is on the other wall,” Veronique said lamely.
Okay, I admit that by now it should have been clear to me what was going on, but I plead nerves ragged by the contest between my father, my friends, and my better self. It’s not easy to be a Hallmark Card Model Daughter when you haven’t trained for it.
And on an empty stomach.
I said, “Did you see the room service man outside when you came in?”
“No, are you hungry?” Alyson asked. “Because that’s what we came about. To see if you wanted to have dinner with us.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Duh, Calam—Jas, just to, you know, hang out.”
“Your hair looks really nice like that,” Veronique said.
That was when it clicked. “You want to go somewhere and you want to use my limo.”
Alyson got all matter-of-facty. “It’s not really your limo. Technically, you wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for us. And if you weren’t here, you wouldn’t have the limo. And also, you know, the psychic scars from your actions? Well, we have them too.”
“Really?” I asked. “Can I see them?” Because who wouldn’t be interested in that?
Apparently she thought I was kidding. That is always the way. She said, “Whatever. There’s this totally cool club on the top of the Rio, and Veronique’s dad can get us on the list there so we won’t need ID. Everyone will be there. We thought the three of us could go over and, like, have dinner and then maybe meet some guys. Do you want to come or do you want to be a loner-slash-loser and sit alone in your room all your life?”
Hmmm, two appealing options. While sitting in my room loner/loser style getting a little restorative Vitamin TV was at least guaranteed fun, the prospect of going out with Alyson and Veronique and watching them have to be nice to me because they wanted my wheels had its appeal as well.
And since in the backwards world I inhabited, to my father, me going out in a strange city and picking up men older than my stepmother would be better than me sitting at my computer and doing a Google search for Fiona Bristol, it was clear that the Hallmark Card Model Daughter thing to do was to cancel my room service order and go out with Alyson and Veronique.
Plus, none of the pay-per-view movies looked good at all.
Which is how I found myself, an hour later, wearing my gold Betsey Johnson dress, my “hot stuff” underpants, and my favorite brown cowboy boots with horseshoes embroidered on them, sitting in a limo with Alyson and Veronique on our way to the Voodoo Café and Lounge on the top of the Rio Hotel.
For the record, I do not think I am “hot stuff.” Polly gave me the underpants as a joke and I only wear them to gym, but the Evil Hench Twins were rushing me and that was the pair on top.
Little Life Lesson 6: If you’re going somewhere with Evil Hench People, take the extra time to find a non-embarrassing pair of panties. Really. Trust me on this.
In the limo Veronique adjusted her bra beneath her pink-and-purple lace camisole and said to Alyson, “If Miles could see you right now, he’d—”
Alyson shot her a look, and she immediately shut up. Even I would have shut up. Alyson had gone very Evil Hench Mistress, wearing a black leather miniskirt, black mesh top, black leather knee boots, and a black leather cap, and she looked scary.
But the chance that Miles was the reason Alyson had bitten her nails off was too good to let pass. “Who’s Miles?” I asked innocently.
“No one,” Alyson hissed, giving me the Queen of the Damned look. “Okay, Girl Scouts, it’s time for the ground rules.” She held up a finger with a black-painted nail on it, and I was glad to see that while I’d been worrying about my life behind bars, she’d had time to change her nail polish to match her outfit.
“First,” she said, “no more than two dances-slash-drinks in a row with any one guy UNLESS you push your hair behind your ear with your right hand, which means, ‘make an exception.’” She put up another finger. “Second, if you push you hair behind your ear with your left hand, it means, ‘911, cut in now.’”
“Cut in?” I asked.
“Yeah, you know, come over and pretend you have a crisis. Duh, Jas.”
Okay. Right hand good. Left hand crisis. I said, “Should we be wearing Kevlar bulletproof vests or something? Or carrying black jacks?”
She ignored me.
On the way up in the elevator she added, like an afterthought, “Oh, and never leave your glass on the bar. Someone might put something in it.”
Neat! I’d never been to a social gathering before where I was supposed to distrust everyone and be prepared to wrestle myself or others away from them. This was really going to be a learning experience.
And it didn’t stop there. At dinner I gathered another Little Life Lesson.
Little Life Lesson 7: My definition of food (food) and other people’s definition of food (lettuce, air) are not necessarily the same.