So when she came into my room after my father’s life-shattering announcement, I was relieved. Yes, my father had lost his few remaining marbles, but here was Sherri! to help me look through the couch cushions and find them. Perhaps if we acted quickly, Dadzilla could be quelled and returned to his less terrifying supervillain persona, the Thwarter, where he merely tried to thwart my girlish dreams, not snack on them.
Then Sherri! said, “Isn’t it thrilling, Jas? I’ve always wanted to visit Venice and now we’re going to live there! And Cedric is going to write the definitive book on the history of soap.”
She calls my father “Cedric,” I suppose because that is his name, but really that should have been enough to make her run away screaming from the beginning. I had bigger things to think about, though.
“Soap?” I repeated as hope died within me. “Did you say soap?”
“Soap,” my father confirmed. “Don’t pretend I never told you.”
Which was an easy command to follow because there was no pretending required. I was one hundred percent sure + shipping & handling that he had never mentioned this burning passion for soap to me. Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t in its grip. In addition to being a professor of anthropology, my father is a certified genius, and geniuses are not like normal people. He’d done this whole uproot-our-lives-in-the-pursuit-of-knowledge thing before, four years earlier, so it was possible that soap really was the reason my life and my heart were ripped from me and we were moving to Venice.
But not, I suspected, the whole reason. Because later that night I’d overheard (by accident! I just happened to be leaning out the window at the time!) him saying “I have to be sure Jas is safe, and I can’t do that with her running around Los Angeles.” Leading me to conclude that perhaps some part of our fleeing LA like mobsters on the lam had to do with the teensy adventure I’d had in Las Vegas. The one featuring that whole almost-getting-killed thing.
Which, I would like to note in passing, had not been my fault AT ALL. And the police departments of two states had THANKED me. And also, I had not ended up getting killed. But the idea that Vegas might have partially motivated our Venetian holiday did give me an idea: If we had moved because I had gotten into a microdot of trouble, then, by the inverse property, if I showed I could stay out of trouble, we could move back.
Simple, elegant. Practically a mathematical proof is what that solution was.
Okay, yes, I am aware that from time to time in the past I’d been the kind of girl that Trouble hung around seedy cafés waiting for. And that my cousin, the Evil Hench Mistress Alyson, referred to me not without reason as Calamity Callihan. But that was Ye Olde Dayes Jas, a Jas so distant from my new form it was practically the stuff of legends, like unicorns and wereponies. From that moment on, I vowed, I would be Innocent Bystander Jas. The Model Daughter that they modeled Model Daughter porcelain figurines on.
And I knew just how to make myself invisible to Trouble because I knew what had gotten me tangled with Trouble in Vegas. It was all because of my supposed superpower.
Not for me the couture superpower Polly has of being able to outdress anyone and identify every garment, accessory, and nail polish color by designer and season; or Roxy’s useful superpower to be able to build things, like the working satellite she once made out of a lemon and a piece of string (as well as her ability to pick anyone’s pocket without them knowing it); or Tom’s superpower to be the nicest guy in the world and also imitate anyone’s voice perfectly; or my boyfriend Jack’s superpower to disable people with his Super Smile. Or even Evil Hench Alyson’s to turn people into a piece of gum–slash–toilet paper she scraped off her shoe with just one look (or at least make me feel like she has). No, none of those groovy powers were mine. My superpower?
Attractive to cats.
Yes. And although this might sound nice (Cats! Furry and cute! Fun!), it’s actually a curse. But what it meant was that if there was one single thing I needed to do to avoid Trouble’s tractor beam in Venice, it was avoid cats. How hard could that be?
Not hard! So easy! It’s not like you run into cats all the time just randomly!
Except in Venice. Or, as I believe it should more accurately be called: The Lost Continent of Kittyopolis. Not only are there more cats in the streets of Venice than anywhere else I’d ever been, but the symbol of the city for, oh, the past nine hundred and three years, has been a winged cat. (Okay, a winged lion. But still.) So if you had been working to erect a Jas-Not-in-Trouble Slalom Course, Venice would be it.
(And that doesn’t take into account the fact that the city pretty much oozes Mystery and Wonder which are like mind-altering Slurpees for a girl like me.)
Despite the fact that Venice was like a pitfall party just for me, and I was a broken girl who spent her time walking around with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, I had surmounted these challenges and managed to steer clear of Trouble and his best friend, Lurking Menace, for six weeks. Having a million hours of Italian classes and all that nice away-from-home-schooling to do helped. I also worked to explore the non-cat beauties of the city. There are things in Venice that would cause people with weak constitutions to pass out and die on the street from beauty overload. Such as the slab of chocolate-hazelnut ice cream, which comes topped with whipped cream, a paper flag, a mylar pom-pom, and a cookie.
Yes. Mylar pom-pom AND cookie.
I know.
And, of course, any remaining free time could be filled by conjuring up images of all the supercute and nice and be-boobed and normal-haired and intensely fascinating girls my UNBELIEVABLY HOT boyfriend was meeting while I was away.
Despite all this Fun-n-Beauty, some part of me could not shake that conventional desire to graduate from high school and attend an institution of higher learning. Even Model Daughters are allowed to dream, and it was this dream that had carried me to my father’s room that morning. Specifically, the dream of being allowed to join my pals in San Francisco for their tour of West Coast colleges, which was happening the next week, and which my father had said he’d “take under consideration.”
Here is how dedicated I was to my dream: Instead of screaming in agony and calling the emergency service to come perform an eye-ectomy on me when I saw my father in his bike shorts, I whispered, “Brave Purpose,” to myself and said, “Why hello, Lance Armstrong. Have you seen my father anywhere? I have a question for him.”
Yes, the high road was what I was taking.
BikeShort Dadzilla said, “What are you talking about? Who is Lance Armstrong?” Which is the kind of thing only a certified genius can get away with saying without being locked up as a certified lunatic. For good measure he added, “If that was a reference to my outfit, I am wearing this because I don’t want to go bald.”
“Ah,” I said, because one should not provoke the insane. “Of course.”
Sherri! joined us then, wearing, I am pained to say, a matching black-and-yellow bike outfit. (Although, unlike Somepeoplezilla, she looked fantastic in it.) I guess the whole bald thing left me looking a bit puzzled because she said, “Cedric and I ran into a colleague of his—”
“Norris is a chemist, not a colleague,” my father interrupted her to say, further showing off his genius grasp of conversational mores.
“A chemist,” Sherri! resumed, “who had a heart attack last year and lost all his hair, which for some reason launched your father on a health kick. Norris said he lost thirty pounds like that”—she snapped—“taking spin classes here in Venice, so we’re going to start too.”
I am sure I was about to say something extremely witty and clever, but Dadzilla chose that moment to turn around.
If her father in bike shorts is something a girl should never ever have to see, him in them from the back is that times a hundred million. Especially if they happen to have the words SIR LIGHTNING emblazoned across the rear in bright yellow. And double especially if he then does a deep knee bend and says, “I quite like these shorts, Sher. I may start
wearing them all the time.”
Which is the answer to the question: Which one of the Four Sentences of the Apocalypse is guaranteed to bring on the End Times?
In case anyone ever asks you.
Unaware that he was leading the charge toward Armageddon, Dadzilla was full of sprightliness. From the middle of some kind of stretching exercise, he growled, “What is wrong with you, Jasmine? Are you sick? You’re making a face.”
By averting my gaze I was able to regain the use of language. “Why, Father, nothing is wrong,” I said. “I am not making a face. I am just pleasantly surprised to see you looking so—”
I broke off there, and not only because I had no idea what word could possibly come next. I did it because in the process of Gaze Averting, I’d spotted something reflected in the mirror on the top of Dadzilla’s dresser. Something incredible.
I’d only got a quick glance because I didn’t want to be obvious, but a glance was enough. Because what I’d seen was a printout with the logo of a travel agency on the top, the name CALLIHAN below it, and below that, a list of flights between Venice and London and somewhere in California. What else could that mean than that he was going to let me go and meet my pals in San Francisco? As a surprise! The best surprise in the entire world!
To say that my heart soared inside me like a super-bionic butterfly would be saying too little. I’d been reading Charles Dickens novels where the heroines are kind to their dear sweet papas, and I felt like one of those girls now, all clingy and brimming with wide-eyed tenderness. In my mind I pictured myself with bouncing curls and tiny bows in my hair and tattered but well-mended pantaloons.
“What did you come to ask me?” Dadzilla demanded then, and not exactly in a tone that a Dickens father would use.
But at that point nothing could dampen my mood.
I laughed sweetly, in the Dickens manner, and said, “Oh, it was nothing, Papa. I just wanted to ask you if there were any little favors I could do for you while I was out today.”
The “Papa” might have been a bit much because he narrowed his eyes and said, “What is wrong with you, Jasmine?”
“Can’t a daughter be kind to her precious parent?”
“Not if that daughter is you.”
“How molto amusing you are! I would love to stay and expose myself to more of your wit, wisdom, and sporty style, but I must go be enriched by the Italian language in the classes you kindly arranged for me. You have a nice spin class, and be careful. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
He peered at me with his Everywhere Eye for a moment, but my conscience was as clear as 7UP and he found nothing. Finally he said, “Stay out of trouble and we’ll see you tonight for dinner. And don’t think you’ll get out of it by having room service in your room, because you won’t. I want to talk to you.”
If I’d needed confirmation, I’d just gotten it. Dinner + talk = SURPRISE. More math! “Of course,” I cooed, shaking my curls. “It will be a delight to share a simple meal with you.”
I hightailed it back to my room, and, once the door was closed, did a very special dance for joy. Not only would I get to go to San Francisco with my pals, but Jack had said that if I made it back for the college trip he’d fly in from Los Angeles for a day or two to see me. San Francisco was like around the corner from him! He could come just for lunch! Where lunch means kissing! And dessert! Where dessert means ice cream! And also kissing!
It was like a bonbon–and–Tater Tot dream, and all I had to do to make it come true was stay out of trouble until dinnertime. Which was nothing compared to all the staying out of trouble I’d done for the past six weeks. Just to be on the safe side I put my lucky Cookie Monster Underoos on over my Wonderbra, and quickly scrolled through the outfits Polly had organized and cataloged on my computer for me to find the one that looked the most suitable for Mayor of Mind-My-Own-Business Island.
As I reached the door to leave, I saw my horoscope sitting on the desk. The Gobi Desert! Grave consequences! Ha ha! How could I have believed for a second something sandwiched between an article about two robbers who dressed as nuns, an open letter from chief of police C. Manzoni about the rubbish problem, and an advertisement for a wig store? What a silly girl I was. With a carefree flourish, I crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash.
Which was unfortunate because as I did that, I threw away the crucial clue I’d need to save at least three lives. One of them my own.
Chapter Two
Of course, I didn’t know that. Instead I went prancing off to Italian class, basically to my doom, like a six-foot-tall prancing thing.
It was, as the natives would say, a bellissimo morning with the sun sparkling on the water of the canals, and the gondoliers shouting cheerily to one another, and the birds doing little bird dances in the sky, and there was a general feeling of la dolce vita. In fact, I was in such a carefree letting-my-hair-down mood I was inspired to compose casual poetry.
I am glad Trouble
is not ice cream because then
I could not have any.
Everyone I passed on my way to the Francesco Petrarca Instituto per le Lingue (or, as I liked to call it, Frank’s L’il Language School) seemed like they were in a dolce vita frame of mind too. As I went over the first bridge, I exchanged ciao ciaos with the woman from the gelateria I stopped at on Wednesdays, and the tall man with the Great Dane from the pizza restaurant.
When we first got to Venice I thought people just recognized me and said hello out of pity, given that it was pretty clear I was not Venetian. For example, the average Venetian girl is short, cream-colored, and boobed, with hair whose T-shirt slogan would be something like “Ask Me About Being Cute!” (if hair wore T-shirts), while the average Jas is tall, cappuccino-colored, and non-boobed, with hair that would be more appropriately dressed in an “Ask Me About Your Missing Puppy” tee.
But I realized the inhabitants of Venice were just very civilized. Los Angeles people never say hello on the street unless they are planning to make you the star of a crime scene photo. In Venice, even if you only know someone a little, like if you sat next to them once at the gym when Sherri! made you go to “Lo Rubber Fun Workout Relax,” and your rubber band suddenly got a mind of its own and flew out of your hand and hit them in the eye and they had to wear an eye patch for two weeks, they say hello to you. Just to make up a random example.
Anyway, “without a care in the world” is likely how any of the people I strolled by (except the woman with the eye patch because she sort of veered away from me quickly and probably didn’t get a complete look) would have described my general air of joy-to-all-creatures-great-and-small-ness, and they would have been right. Although my father had brutally ripped me from the bosom of my bosom pals and the lips of my liptastic boyfriend; and brought me to live in a taco-free country where most of the medication was administered using the Up-the-Butt method; and where there was a prime-time program called Naked News where the news anchors were indeed naked, which is not something to show to an impressionable teen girl whose boyfriend is both incredibly hot and incredibly far away; despite all of these travails, I was not bitter. If I had been any more full of the milk of human kindness, I would have been a cow.
That feeling kept up as I arrived at Frank’s, and even increased when I saw the name card ARABELLA RANDOLPH in front of the seat next to mine. Arabella was my Italian-Class Friend, one of those people you chat with casually in a certain setting but never see otherwise. She was also my only friend in Venice, and she’d been absent all week and I’d totally missed her. We’d initially bonded over our fascination with our teacher, Professore Rossi. Not a crushlike fascination, although Professore Rossi was in his early twenties and not bad-looking. It was more of an “Um, did he really say what I think he said?” kind of thing that was half the result of him speaking in Italian and half the result of him saying things that were slightly unexpected.
Like, Professore Rossi objected to the fact that if you just went by our textbook, you
’d think that everyone in Italy was either a butcher, a train conductor, or an aunt. This, he felt, was not representative of the diversità e ricchezza (diversity and richness) of the Italian people. He wanted to show us a more accurate picture, so he generously spent his OWN personal free time (emphasis his) making up dialogues for us to practice on, such as this one:
RESEARCHER 1:
The smaller monkey would be better for this experiment.
RESEARCHER 2:
How can you be sure it is properly sedated?
RESEARCHER 1:
We will use an injection.
Yes! Because the only thing that might both exemplify diversity and richness AND come in more handy during a trip to Italy than being able to discourse about when Paolo and Francesca did/will/might arrive on the train from Bologna, is being able to direct experiments on lab animals.
You can see why I had to supplement my Italian course work by dedicatedly watching Il Commissario Rex, a television show about a German shepherd who works as a police detective, and episodes of CHiPs translated into Italian.
(Neither of which, apparently, should be recorded as an Independent Study Project on my college applications, despite the fact that they clearly reveal the “healthy go-getter attitude” that Dr. Lansdowne says should be represented in that space.)
(Little Life Lesson 1: Life is filled with Deep Mysteries.)
Obviously even the most up-to-date model of Model Daughters would be intrigued by the personal life of someone who thought that monkey sedation was an exemplary discussion topic, so Arabella and I spent most of class passing notes that speculated about how Professore Rossi spent his free time.