Wait a minute. There is a lot of noise coming from the hallway. Like breaking dishes and a dog barking and someone
screaming . . .
Oh, my God. That's Grandmere screaming.
Friday, May 2, midnight, the Loft
I should have known it was too good to be true. My birthday, I mean. It was all just going too well. I mean, no prom invitation or cancellation of my trip to Genovia, but, you know, everyone I love (well, almost everyone) sitting at one table, not fighting. Getting everything I wanted (well, almost everything). Michael writing that song about me. And the snowflake necklace. And the mobile phone.
Oh, but wait. This is ME we're talking about. I think that, at fifteen, it's time I admitted what I've known for quite some time now: I am simply not destined to have a normal life. Not a normal life, not a normal family and certainly not a normal birthday.
Granted, this one might have been the exception, if it hadn't been for Grandmere. Grandmere and Rommel.
I ask you, who brings a DOG to a RESTAURANT? I don't care if it's normal in France. NOT SHAVING UNDER YOUR ARMS IF YOU ARE A GIRL IS NORMAL IN FRANCE. Does that maybe TELL you something about France? I mean, for God's sake, they eat SNAILS there. SNAILS. Who in their right mind thinks that if something is normal in France, it is at
all socially acceptable here in the US?
I'll tell you who. My grandmother, that's who.
Seriously. She doesn't understand what the fuss is about. She's all, 'But of course I brought Rommel.'
To Les Hautes Manger. To my birthday dinner. My grandmother brought her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY
DINNER.
She says it's only because when she leaves Rommel alone, he licks himself until his hair falls out. It is an Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder diagnosed by the Royal Genovian vet, and Rommel has prescription medication he is supposed
to take to help keep it at bay.
That's right: My grandmother's dog is on Prozac.
But if you ask me, I don't think OCD is Rommel's problem. Rommel's problem is that he lives with Grandmere. If I had
to live with Grandmere, I would totally lick off all my hair. If my tongue were long enough, anyway.
Still, just because her dog suffers from OCD is NO excuse for Grandmere to bring him to MY BIRTHDAY dinner. In a Hermes handbag. With a broken clasp, no less.
Because what happened while I was in the ladies' room? Oh, Rommel escaped from Grandmere's handbag. And started streaking around the restaurant, desperate to evade capture - as who under Grandmere's tyrannical rule wouldn't?
I can only imagine what the patrons of Les Hautes Manger must have thought, seeing this eight-pound hairless miniature
poodle zipping in and out from beneath the tablecloths. Actually, I know what they thought. I know what they thought,
because Michael told me later. They thought Rommel was a giant rat.
And it's true, without hair he does have a very rodent-like appearance.
But still, I don't think climbing up on to their chairs and shrieking their heads off was necessarily the most helpful thing to do about it. Although Michael did say a number of the tourists whipped out digital cameras and started shooting away. I am sure there is going to be a headline in some Japanese newspaper tomorrow about the giant rat problem of the Manhattan four-star restaurant scene.
Anyway, I didn't see what happened next, but Michael told me it was just like in a Baz Luhrmann movie, only Nicole Kidman was nowhere to be seen: this busboy who apparently hadn't noticed the ruckus came hustling by, holding this enormous tray of half-empty soup bowls. Suddenly Rommel, who'd almost been cornered by my dad over by the seafood bar, darted into the busboy's path, and the next thing everyone knew, lobster bisque was flying everywhere. Thankfully, most of it landed on Grandmere. The lobster bisque, I mean. She fully deserved to have her Chanel suit ruined on account of being stupid enough
to bring her DOG to MY BIRTHDAY dinner. I so wish I had seen this. No one would admit it later - not even Mom - but I bet it was really, really, really funny to see Grandmere covered in soup. I swear, if that's all I had got for my birthday, I'd have been totally happy.
But by the time I got out of the bathroom, Grandmere had been thoroughly dabbed by the maitre d'. All you could see of the soup were these wet parts all over her chest. I completely missed out on all the fun (as usual). Instead, I got there just in time to see the maitre d' imperiously ordering the poor busboy to turn in his dish toweclass="underline" he was fired. FIRED!!! And for something that was fully not his fault! Jangbu - that was the busboy's name - totally looked as if he were going to cry. He kept saying over and over again how sorry he was. But it didn't matter. Because if you spill soup on a dowager princess in New York City, you can kiss your career in the restaurant biz goodbye. It would be like if a gourmet cook got caught going to McDonald's in Paris. Or if P. Diddy got caught buying underwear at Wal-Mart. Or if Nicky and Paris Hilton got caught lying around in their Juicy Couture sweats on a Saturday night, watching National Geographic Explorer, instead of going out to party. It is simply Not Done.
I tried to reason with the maitre d' on Jangbu's behalf, after Michael told me what had happened. I said in no way could Grandmere hold the restaurant responsible for what HER dog had done. A dog she wasn't even supposed to have HAD
in the restaurant in the first place.
But it didn't do any good. The last I saw of Jangbu, he was heading sadly back towards the kitchen.
I tried to get Grandmere, who was, after all, the injured party - or the allegedly injured party, since of course she wasn't in the least bit hurt - to talk the maitre d' into giving Jangbu his job back. But she remained stubbornly unmoved by my pleas on Jangbu's behalf. Even my reminding her that many busboys are immigrants, new to this country, with families to support back
in their native lands, left her cold.
'Grandmere,' I cried in desperation. 'What makes Jangbu so different from Johanna, the African orphan you are sponsoring
on my behalf? Both are merely trying to make their way on this planet we call Earth.'
'The difference between Johanna and Jangbu,' Grandmere informed me, as she held Rommel close, trying to calm him down
(it took the combined efforts of Michael, my dad, Mr G and Lars to finally catch Rommel, right before he made a run for it through the revolving door and out on to Fifth Avenue and freedom on the miniature-poodle underground railroad), 'is that Johanna did not SPILL SOUP ALL OVER ME!'
God. She is such a CRAB sometimes.
So now here I am, knowing that somewhere in the city — Queens, most likely - is a young man whose family will probably starve, and all because of MY BIRTHDAY. That's right. Jangbu lost his job because I WAS BORN.
I'm sure wherever Jangbu is right now, he is wishing I wasn't. Born, that is.
And I can't say that I blame him one little bit.
Friday, May 2,1 a.m., the Loft