Food, Cats, and Being Lazy

Chapter Four

He was in my house. Collin Denver. He was the most beautiful human being on the whole planet. I have known this to be a fact since middle school. He had brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He had the face of an angel and never even had acne. He played soccer for the school team and always wore polo shirts. I especially liked the stripy ones. He smelled like Irish Spring soap and always wore these little woven yarn bracelets that the kids from the YMCA made for him.

He was perfection in the most humanly way possible. And he was sitting across from me. I hated my mother for inviting his family to our Easter dinner. My parents never used to mingle with his parents at all. Then his dad joined my dad’s golf club, and they found out the Denver’s were Irish and since my dad’s family had emigrated from Ireland they liked to talk Irish things. Plus they made decent money, and my mom liked people who made lots of money. She didn’t really care much for Swedish dentists like Vincent’s family, though.

Not that my family was strictly Irish though. I mean, it just gave them something to talk about. And my mom wasn’t even Irish. I mean like— maybe her family moved here a hundred years ago or something. But that’s about as close as she got.

Either way, Collin was almost handpicked to belong to my family. We could be together, and our parents would be cool with it. There was just the teeny tiny little bit of a problem that was going to get in the way of all of that wonderful happiness. Well—there were kind of a lot of tiny problems. 1: Collin had a girlfriend named Hannah who was really tall and pretty and played volleyball. She was friends with my sister, and they went to get their nails done together every other week. I never got invited. Sometimes I went with my mom but she only brought me along because the woman who did her nails liked me and sometimes gave her discounts because she thought I was cute. I was pretty sure it was because she thought I was an overgrown child.

Either way, back to my point. Collin had a pretty girlfriend and he also kind of didn’t know I existed. You’d think since his girlfriend was friends with my sister that he would at least have heard the name Piper Finnegan once or twice. But he hadn’t. One time when he was the Teacher’s Aid for my freshman English class, the teacher told him to give me a worksheet I’d done. He stared at it for a long time before he said, “Who’s Piper?” She pointed to me, and I waved and he still gave it to the girl sitting next to me. It’s safe to say I didn’t exist. To most people, to be completely honest.

The really sad thing about that was that when his family arrived, and my mom led them into the dining room to sit down, he sat down directly across from me. By then my mom had already discovered the torn apart couch and the fort I made. I blamed it on the children but then they all started jumping around me and shouting, “All hail the Piper Lord!” like I told them to do, and then she pinned it on me.

So I got scolded and sent back to the adult table and warned against hanging utensils off of my body parts.

Then I sat there for a while daydreaming about this really delicious looking crème Fraiche with raspberries I saw on the Food Network that morning. Then the Denver family came in, and my mom went to greet them with that cheek kissing thing she liked to do. So she led them to the table, and they all sat down. Collin’s eyes immediately passed over me, and he went right to talking to Vincent about some local band he saw in Boston the weekend before.

This is where I sighed heavily and basked in his beauty. One good thing about being invisible is that you can stare at people, and they hardly ever notice. Then again when they do notice they have a way of making you feel like a complete moron by catching you and making a big deal out of it. Like one time, I was daydreaming in the girl’s locker room at school before PE and I didn’t realize I’d been staring at this girl while she was changing. She called me a lesbian and since then all of the other girls refused to change in front of me. I’d been stuck changing in the stalls ever since.

The sad thing is that when I’d been caught staring at her I was actually just thinking about this special I saw on TV about endangered pygmy rabbits. I didn’t even notice her standing there. And if I were a lesbian I definitely wouldn’t have been staring at her anyway. She thought too highly of herself.

Back to Collin Denver. He was wearing a nice polo shirt again. It was robin’s egg blue and his brown hair was combed slightly back out of his face. He was cleanly shaved, and he had his hands on the table. His arms were kind of toned and tanned and I could see his veins on his skin. You know—in a sexy way. The bracelets all those kids made for him were there. They had beads on them and said things like “Thank you!” and “You’re the best!” and “Collin and So-and-So are BFFs!” He apparently volunteered to help them with their homework after school, and they all loved him. It was easy to love Collin. Just looking at him screamed—well, love.

My crush started in middle school. He was already in high school at the time. But we had this soccer thing on the field for PE one day and he showed up with a bunch of other high school kids to teach us how to do dribbles and stuff. I got paired up with this snotty girl with a tiny mouth who growled more than spoke. But ever since I saw Collin on that field bouncing a soccer ball on his knees and showing off, I’d been in love.

It was love. I was pretty sure at this point. And he’d probably love me too if only he realized that we breathed the same air.

“Piper,” I heard someone say in a sharp whisper. My attention broke off, and I turned to where my sister was sitting down the length of the table from me. She was smiling, and then she mouthed something. I shook my head, not understanding what she was trying to say.

“What?” I asked. She mouthed it again, but I didn’t have a clue what she was saying. I couldn’t read lips. “I can’t hear you,” I whispered.

“I said stop staring,” she said louder. But Vincent turned to see who she was talking to and locked eyes with mine. I froze and then sat up straight. Then I glanced across the table where Collin had suddenly noticed my existence.

“I um—I think I um—smell the—eggs burning,” I said. Then I jumped out of my chair and rushed out of the dining room. “Stupid. Stupid! STUPID!” I said as I ran up the stairs to my bedroom.

Without thinking, I flung the door wide open and didn’t even notice Reggie bolt out into the hallway. I kicked the stool at my wicker vanity and then plopped down on my bed. I hated my life. I hated my sister. I hated my family. I hated Easter.

I sat there for a minute trying to tell myself that Collin probably didn’t think I was staring at him. He probably wasn’t even looking at me. He was probably just admiring that ugly painting that my mom got from a friend who couldn’t paint. He probably didn’t even realize someone was sitting in front of it.

Then suddenly I heard crashing noises come from downstairs, followed by the yelp and hiss of a cat. I closed my eyes. It was going to happen any second now.

“PIPPPERRRR!” came up the stairs after a moment. I sighed and sat up, fighting with the ruffles on my dress.

“Stupid cat,” I muttered.

Then I stood up and slumped back down the stairs. Reggie was technically the family cat, but he only liked me. Probably because I was the only one who played with him and gave him treats. So when he did bad things I was the one who got blamed for it. I also had to clean out his litter box.

I stomped into the kitchen where my mom was standing with half the ham on the floor and several cracked eggs.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. She tapped her foot against the tile.

“How did he get out?” she asked.

“I accidentally let him out. I forgot he was up there.”

“Why were YOU up there?”

“Because Paige embarrassed me, and I was escaping.”

“Clean it up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”