'Well?' I asked her. 'What are you going to do about it?'
'Do?' Grandmere looked genuinely surprised. 'Why, nothing. What is there to do?'
I guess I shouldn't have been so shocked. Grandmere can be pretty self-absorbed, when she wants to be.
'Grandmere, a man lost his job because of you,' I cried. 'You've got to do something! He could starve.'
Grandmere looked at the ceiling. 'Good heavens, Amelia. I already got you an orphan. Are you saying you want to adopt a busboy, as well?'
'No. But, Grandmere, it wasn't Jangbu's fault that he spilt soup on you. It was an accident. But it was caused by your dog.'
Grandmere shielded Rommel's ears.
'Not so loud,' she said. 'He's very sensitive. The vet said—'
'I don't care what the vet said,' I yelled. 'Grandmere, you've got to do something! My friends are down at the restaurant picketing it right now!'
Just to be dramatic, I switched on the television and turned it to New York One. I didn't really expect there to be anything
on it about Lilly's protest. Just maybe something about how there was a traffic snarl in the area, due to rubberneckers peering
at the spectacle Lilly was making of herself.
So you can imagine I was pretty surprised when a second later, a reporter started describing the 'extraordinary scene outside Les Hautes Manger, the trendy four-star eatery on 57th Street,' and they showed Lilly marching around with a big sign that
said LES HAUTES MANGER MGMT UNFAIR. The biggest surprise wasn't the large number of Albert Einstein High School students Lilly had managed to talk into joining her. I mean, I expected to see Boris there, and it wasn't exactly astonishing to see that the AEHS Socialist Club was there as well, since they will show up to any protest they can find.
No, the big shocker was that there was a large number of men I'd never seen before marching right alongside Lilly and the other AEHS students.
The reporter soon explained why.
'Busboys from all over the city have gathered here in front of Les Hautes Manger to show their solidarity with Jangbu Pinasa, the employee who was dismissed from Les Hautes Manger last night after an incident involving the Dowager Princess of Genovia.'
In spite of all of this, however, Grandmere remained completely unmoved. She just looked at the screen and clacked her tongue.
'Blue,' she said, 'isn't Lilly's best colour, is it?'
I seriously don't know what I am going to do with the woman. She is completely IMPOSSIBLE.
Friday, May 2, the Loft
You would think in my own house I would find a little peace and quiet. But no, I come home to find my mom and Mr.G in a raging fight. Usually their fights are about the fact that Mom wants a home birth with a midwife and Mr G wants a hospital
birth with the staff of the Mayo Clinic in attendance.
But this time it was because my mom wants to name the baby Simone if it's a girl, after Simone de Beauvoir, and Sartre if it's
a boy, after - well, some guy named Sartre, I guess.
But Mr. G wants to name the baby Rose if it's a girl, after his grandma, and Rocky if it's a boy, after . . . well, apparently after Sylvester Stallone. Which, you know, having seen the movie Rocky, isn't necessarily a bad thing, since Rocky was very nice and all...
But my mom says over her dead body will her son - if she has a son - be named after a practically illiterate prizefighter.
Still, if you ask me, Rocky is better than the last name they came up with if it's a boy: Granger. Thank God I went and looked up Granger in the baby-name book I bought them. Because once I let them know that Granger means 'farmer' in Middle French, they totally cooled on it. Who names their baby Farmer?
Amelia doesn't mean anything in French. It is said to be derivative of Emily, or Emmeline, which means 'industrious' in Old German. The name Michael, which is old Hebrew, means 'He who is like the Lord'. So you see that, together, we make a
very nice pair, being industrious and lord-like.
But the fight didn't end with die whole Sartre versus Rocky thing. Oh no. My mom wants to go to B.J.'s Wholesale Outlet in Jersey City tomorrow to buy the supplies for my party, but Mr. G is scared terrorists might set off a bomb in the Holland Tunnel, trapping them in there like Sylvester Stallone in the movie Daylight, and then Mom might go into labour prematurely and have the baby with the water from the Hudson River gushing all around.
Mr. G just wants to go to Paper House on Broadway to buy Queen Amidala birthday plates and cups.
Hello, I hope they know I am fifteen years, not months, old, and that I can perfectly understand everything that they are saying.
Whatever. I put on my headphones and turned on my computer in the hopes of finding some solace away from all the raised voices, but no such luck. Lilly could only have just got home from her protest thingy, but she's already managed to send
around a mass email to everyone in schooclass="underline"
Fr: WomynRule
ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS OF ALBERT EINSTEIN HIGH: Your help and support is vitally needed
by the Students Against The Wrongful Dismissal Of Jangbu Pinasa Association (SATWDOJPA)! Join us tomorrow (Saturday, May 3) at noon for a rally in Central Park, and then a
protest march down Fifth Avenue to the doors of Les Hautes Manger on 57th Street. Show your disapproval over the way New York City restaurateurs treat their employees! Do not listen to the people who argue that Generation Y is the Materialistic Generation! Make your voice heard!
Lilly Moscovitz, President
SATWDOJPA
Hello. I didn't know my generation was the Materialistic Generation. How can "that even be? I hardly own anything. Except
a mobile phone. And I've only had that for like a day.
There was another message from Lilly. It went:
Fr: WomynRule
Mia, missed you today at the rally. You should have been there, it was totally AMAZING! Busboys from as far away as Chinatown joined our peaceful protest. There was such a feeling of camaraderie and warmth! Best of all, you'll never guess who showed up ... Jangbu Pinasa himself! He came to Les Hautes Manger to pick up his last pay cheque. Was
he ever surprised to see us all there, picketing on his behalf! He was really shy at
first and didn't want to talk to me. But I informed him that, though I might have been brought up in an upper-class household, and my parents are members of the intelligentsia, at heart I am as working class as he is, and have only the best interests of the common man at heart. Jangbu is coming to the march tomorrow! You should come, too, it's going to be awesome!!!!!!!!
Lilly
PS You didn't tell me Jangbu was only eighteen years old. Did you know that he is a Sherpa? Seriously. Prom Tibet. Back in his home country, he already graduated from high school. He came here searching for a better life because agricultural trade in his homeland has been brought to a standstill by the politics of the Chinese occupying power, and the only non-agricultural job young Sherpas can get is serving as porters and guides in the Himalayas. But Jangbu doesn't like heights.
PPS You also didn't tell me he was so HOT!!!! He looks like a cross between Jackie Chan and Enrique Inglesias. Only without the cheek mole.