Food, Cats, and Being Lazy

Chapter Seven

When I got to school on Monday I had gone from being invisible to being absolutely hideous. No one liked the haircut. Not even Lara. She said I looked like Peter Pan. I didn’t really care because showering had taken me a total of five minutes. Also, because I was sure that Collin wouldn’t recognize me as the creepy girl with the crazy curls who stared at him at Paige’s house.

But when I was walking down the hall on my way back to my math class after a bathroom break. There were stairs at the end of the hall and I heard someone coming up them as I turned the corner. I almost had a small panic attack when I realized it was Collin, but I couldn’t turn and run otherwise he would notice me. He was digging through his backpack and not looking up. So I just tried to walk a little lighter on my feet and prayed that he didn’t look up.

Then he did. Oh God, he looked up. He looked right at me. His blue eyes were sparkling in the florescent lights. His dark eyebrows c****d in recognition. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

“What’s up?” he said with a nod. I nodded back but didn’t respond. Then he passed me and continued on down the hall.

In that one moment my life had been made almost complete. Collin acknowledged my existence. Not only had he acknowledged me, he said, “What’s up?” He recognized me. He was nice enough to say something to me.

Okay, so my life wasn’t really complete yet. I hadn’t met Ringo Starr, I didn’t have my own cooking show, and Collin and I didn’t get married and have babies. But at least we were on the right track. Now that he knew I existed and thought I was worthy of a “What’s up?” Who knew? Maybe in a week or two he’d suddenly realize how much better I was for him than Hannah and break up with her. Then we could get married, have our own couple’s cooking show on the Food Network, and then invite Ringo Starr to our baby shower.

See? I had it all figured out. And my mom said I lacked ambition. Psh.

Either way, I was in a really good mood for the rest of the day. Sure, people called me Peter Pan behind my back (and some right in front of me) but Collin had looked me in the eyes and said, “What’s up?” like we were old chums or like he was possibly considering dumping his girlfriend for me. Like that movie with Hilary Duff. Except that sporty girls were generally more likable than—well nerdy loner girls with Peter Pan hair. Plus, she was already pretty even before he noticed her.

My parents didn’t believe in buying cars for their children. One common misconception about wealthy people is that they shower their children with expensive gifts. And maybe that’s true for the really wealthy, but for the rest of us our parents were just cheapasses. They bought nice things for themselves, but we only got nice things on Christmas and if we “worked for it.” Oh, and when we could convince them we needed money. I was never any good at convincing them I needed money. Paige was a pro because she had friends and always needed money for fun girlfriend days. My money always went to cat toys and collectable Garfield memorabilia. And food. The school cafeteria had really great curly fries.

Since we didn’t have our own cars my mom picked us up after school every day. Or, I should rephrase that, picked ME up since Paige was always off doing something with her friends or boyfriend. So my mom pulled into the driveway and had me jump out to get the mail. She pulled the car into the garage while I wandered up the path to the front door.

We always had a lot of mail. Shiny packaged magazines, bills, checks, my mom’s candles, more bills, junk, and then at the very bottom of the pile sat a small little squared jewel CD case. It wasn’t in an envelope. And it hadn’t gone through the post. But it had my name on it. Right there. “To: Piper Finnegan.” There was a shiny CD inside with no discernible label.

I was a cautious person. I didn’t believe people when they said they liked me. Usually because they were just messing with me. I didn’t take gifts well. I was always under the impression that someone was playing a prank on me or about to do something really mean. One day on Christmas I got a call from a boy who said he was my secret admirer. I didn’t believe him, but I stayed on the phone with him for at least an hour as we talked. He said he really liked me, but he never said who he was. He even had me talk to his “sister,” but it was really just him or someone else making a high pitched voice.

He never called me again. I was never approached at school by anyone. And I never figured out if the call had been real or not. I was pretty sure it was fake, but still—a girl can hope.

Either way I didn’t trust the CD. I figured it was a burned copy, and I would put it into my computer just to find some hurtful message or a stupid video meant to humiliate me. Maybe it was just porn or something. Just a cruel prank. Something for them to laugh about. Maybe it was even a horrible computer virus. But the person had to know where I lived. And my name on the cover was stenciled in so that I couldn’t make out any handwriting.

I nervously carried the CD upstairs to my bedroom and sat down at my desk. I had my own computer but only because I asked for one for Christmas and it was my parents’ old one. It was bulky and white and took forever to connect to the internet. Paige had a really nice Apple laptop that was purple. But only because my parents thought a laptop would be cheaper than a desktop and she had been more specific about what she wanted.

I waited for it to load the main screen and then I shoved the disk into the modem. It took forever for it to come up, but it wasn’t a movie or pictures or anything. It just said, “Play all?” So I pressed play and waited for the music to start.

The CD had five songs. Just five. But they weren’t anything special. No love songs or anything like that. Just five songs by five different bands. Then I wondered who the hell sent the disk and why the hell they had sent it. But the songs were good so I kept it and tried not to get my hopes up.