Rachel batted her long lashes at me and stared at her daughter, whose hair was now teased eight inches from her tiny head. “What do you mean? Zoe doesn't hate pageants. She just hasn't reached her full potential in them yet.”
“Zoe?” I asked. “It's okay to tell the truth. She's your mother. She'll love you no matter what.”
Poor Zoe shook her sparkly shoes and took a deep breath. “I hate pageants, Mommy. I hate them more than cleaning my room or picking up Princess's dog poop in the backyard.”
“Oh, you don't mean that,” Rachel said, shaking a comb at her daughter before turning to address me. “She doesn't mean that. She's just nervous is all.”
Zoe stood on her chair so she was face-to-face with her mother. She raised her little arms and screamed so hard, her little face brightened like a stoplight. “ I hate pageants! ” The moms in the rooms stopped coiffing their daughters and stared at Zoe as if she had cursed, but the girls began to giggle.
“Stop that right now,” Rachel said, grabbing her daughter. “Don't embarrass Mommy. Do you see what you've done, Ramona?”
“In your motivational speeches, do you not promote girls and women not trying to fit into the mold of what society or others think of them?”
“Absolutely! The women eat it up.”
“Well, if you mean that, then you wouldn't make Zoe do pageants.”
Zoe jumped into my arms and rubbed her face in my neck, smearing makeup all over my white shirt. “Look, if Zoe can't stand up for herself, someone's got to do it for her.”
Rachel forced a smile at the other moms and began gathering up her things. “Well, if you meant to humiliate me, congratulations. Pulling Zoe out at this late stage will make me look bad. Is that what you want? Zoe, you don't want to make Mommy look bad, do you? Look at Mommy's sad face.”
“Don't manipulate her like that. You're going to give her a worse complex than Mom has given us.”
“She hasn't given me a complex.”
“Only because you do exactly what she wants you to do.”
“Church? Big deal.”
“Dating Cortland.”
“Completely my decision. He's a doctor. And handsome.”
“Remember when you were in third grade and you wanted to play soccer, and Mom said it was only for boys, even though there were two other girls on the team? She made you take baton lessons instead.”
Rachel stuffed the curling iron in the bag, burning herself in the process. “Shit. Fine. I remember. Mom wouldn't let me play soccer, I hated baton lessons, I was the fattest girl on the squad and she wouldn't let me eat cookies after practice like the other moms did.”
Exasperated, she pulled a Hershey bar out of the bag and ripped into it, splitting it into two. Even my skinny sis needed her chocolate fix. She rolled her eyes back into her head. “Here, Zoe. Mommy's not mad. Let's eat chocolate, and all will be right in the world again.”
“Oh, that helps,” I said, taking Zoe with me to the restroom while Rachel went to talk to the judges.
Zoe thanked me with a kiss on the cheek. “Think she'll finally let me play soccer?”
“Maybe. We may have cracked her shell.”
“Mommy has a shell?”
“We all do, honey. We all do.”
“Will you wash my face off so I look normal again?” Underneath all that rouge and lipstick was a regular five-year-old girl. No wonder I identified so much with my niece: we both just wanted to be Normals.
In the car, Rachel's anger at me subsided after a phone call from her manager, telling her she was invited to a party in Los Angeles that weekend where A-list stars were expected to attend-a gala to promote fitness and nutrition for kids, though Zoe was currently eating a Hershey bar her mother had hoarded. “God, why did I eat that Hershey bar? Think you can watch Zoe for me? I'll just be gone from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.”
“Sure,” I said, looking back over the seat at Zoe sleeping in her booster chair. “After all, you're the one with the life, right?”
“Oh, crap,” Rachel said as she checked her Blackberry at a red light. “Cortland wanted to go out Saturday night.”
My stomach tightened. “Really?”
“Sounded serious, too. Think he'll ask me to move in with him?”
I had to blink back tears. “I don't know. Is that what you think? I didn't think you were that serious.”
“He probably likes me more than I like him, you know? But his house is gorgeous, isn't it? And it would be nice for Zoe to have a sister to play with.”
“Wait a minute. You'd just move in with him for his house? Are you insane?”
“Chill, sis. God, you make it sound like I'm committing a crime. I wouldn't be the first woman to shack up for prime real estate. Besides, I could grow to love him. Unless I meet Brad Pitt at the party this weekend. Think he and Angelina will stay together long?”
I dug my nails into the leather seat. “Did it ever occur to you that you should let him go so he can find someone that might like him as much as he likes her? That you could be standing in the way?”
“Don't be ridiculous. Who could he possibly like more than me? He has been acting awfully strange the last couple of weeks, though. He didn't even invite me back to his house after dinner at Monica's. Who in their right mind would pick going to bed early to get rested for a surgery over being with me?”
I laughed. Rachel believed it was because she was right, but I was laughing because Cortland was obviously very much in his right mind. What if he was going to break up with her on Saturday night?
“Rachel, there's something you need to know about Cortland.”
But she pulled into my driveway and put her index finger up- her sign to make me hold my thought. She began making a phone call. “Guess who's going to party with Leonardo DiCaprio this weekend?” she squealed into the other end.
I rolled my eyes and got out, my sister waving goodbye as she pulled down the drive, obviously not caring what I was about to confess. “I kissed your boyfriend,” I shouted in a big wave.
She rolled down her window, obviously not having heard me. “Love you, too, sis. I'll drop Zoe off Saturday. And let me know what I can bring for Thanksgiving dinner next week.”
Thanksgiving dinner at my house? I tugged at my coat and opened the garage door where I stared at Joel's tools, bike, and sports equipment cluttering half of the garage, with the other half full of holiday décor. A perfect way to spend my Saturday afternoon while my starlet sister was off to Hollywood.
“I'm home,” I sang as I entered the house.
“ Benvenuto, honey,” da Vinci said from Joel's den, which I decided I should refer to from now on as my den.
I found da Vinci bent over a stack of books, clearly tired. “I talked to Panchal,” he said. “Promised no more missing English class.”
“Good for you,” I told him, noticing how much his English had improved since he had joined the frat house. He had picked up slang terms, but he was much more conversational. I felt a pang of jealousy that I hadn't taught him, but then, every bird has to fly on its own eventually. I hadn't instructed him to talk to Panchal. He had taken his own initiative. Maybe he was more responsible than I had given him credit for.
I left him to hang my coat in my closet and slip into more comfortable shoes, when I noticed Joel's side was no longer empty, but cluttered with a pile of clothes and a few hung shirts and jeans. Da Vinci had moved himself in. Without my permission.
I held onto the dresser drawer for support, my forehead perspiring. I couldn't blame him. After all, it was the next logical step. Just as Rachel assumed Cortland would ask her to move in with him, da Vinci had assumed he could move a few of his things into my closet. After all, he slept here nearly every night. What kind of a girlfriend would I be to make him traipse back and forth between the studio and the bedroom when he could just as easily keep his things close at hand in the closet?