Will the Real Raisin Rodriguez Please Stand Up? Page 5

  2. Relatives

  3. Roger Morris (you might remember Roger Morris as the fellow who printed out my old secret blog, TwoScoopsofRaisin.com, and distributed it to the entire Franklin Academy middle school). I thank you in advance for your loyalty and hope you enjoy my blog.

  I remain,

  Raisin R. Rodriguez, Esq.

  *Yes, you, Fippy. Even though I don’t know you that well yet, I consider you one of my closest friends at Franklin Academy, and I’m honored to have you as my guest.

  7:54 AM, EST

  Dear Honorary Kitty Lynn and Honorary Kitty Fippy,

  I just boarded the plane and guess what? It has Wi-Fi. I can narrate the whole ride, INCLUDING THE IN-FLIGHT MOVIE. Just as long as my battery doesn’t run ou

  Comments:

  Logged in at 12:30 PM, EST

  Lynn: This is SO totally excellent, woman! It’ll be like you never left. And I’m glad we’re keeping it between the sisterhood. There are certain things guys aren’t biologically wired to understand. And that’s cool. We’re all just people.

  Logged in at 12:31 PM, EST

  Fippy: Thanks for including me, Raise. This is so much fun! I’m also glad it’s just us girls. There are certain things guys aren’t wired to understand. Like how to be a good boyfriend and resist asking girls who look like Dylan the fake underwear model to back them up on the triangle for “Black Christmas Totally Rocks.” He doesn’t even really need someone to play the triangle. In fact, the triangle is so totally not rock ‘n’ roll.

  Hey, Raise . . . I don’t mean to bogart your space. I’m just so totally over Roman. I’m glad you’ve decided to write. Word.

  1:07 PM, PST

  Sorry about my battery dying before. I hope you guys aren’t too disappointed about missing my full play-by-play of the movie. If it makes you feel any better, you didn’t miss much. A documentary about penguins standing still for six months straight is less exciting than you might have guessed.

  Anyway—I’m here! Hello from the kumbaya capital of the world. Where underarm hair is worn with the pride normally reserved for the season’s most glamorous platform sandals and getting dressed to the nines means putting on a bra.

  I forgot how much I like my dad’s apartment. My bedroom walls are painted purple and pink, and there’s a bunk bed for when Lola and I are here at the same time. I sleep on top; she sleeps on the bottom. When we first started coming here after the divorce, it took a while for Lola to get used to sleeping in a “big girl’s bed.” Sometimes she used to fall on the floor in the middle of the night. It never woke her up, though.

  I miss that chubby little munchkin. I wish she was here to fall out of our bunk bed this week.

  As soon as I shower, my father, the wonderful Peter Rodriguez—yoga instructor, sailboat renter, and close personal friend of Madonna—is going to drive me over to Pia’s house to see her and Claudia.

  It’s nutty—when he first picked me up from the airport, I didn’t even recognize him. His beard was shaven off and he was driving a brand-new car. It looked just like the car in Herbie the Love Bug, only his is silver, with a convertible top. It was weird seeing him in a nice car, but I forgot to ask him about it because I got sidetracked by something he said.

  “Raise, I know how excited you are to be here,” he began. We were driving down Highway 13. “But just don’t be too discouraged if you feel strange at first or if things with Pia and Claudia don’t go right back to normal immediately. All that means is that you’re taking time to adjust. Okay, Swami?”

  “Okay,” I said. But I was lying. There was nothing okay with what he said. All he did was start me worrying and realizing that things were already not back to normal. For instance, what was with the expensive car? The closest thing his old car ever had to a convertible roof was a passenger’s door that fell off unless it was held down with electrical tape. And the color? Sure, the old car was silver, but it was also gold, black, white, and every other color of the rainbow from all the cars that had sideswiped it in the tiny parking lot of his yoga studio, Chakra Center.

  Seeing my dad without a beard and driving a fancy car was really weird. It was like seeing Jeremy without his freckles speaking in an inside voice. Or CJ without his eyelashes, speaking.

  I just hope that my dad’s wrong and that there’s nothing strange about seeing Pia and Claudia.

  But what if he’s right? What if they’ve changed? What if they don’t like me anymore? Or worse, what if they misunderstand my shoes? (The silver ones, with T straps.)

  And Lynn—before you respond with, “What do you care if they understand your shoes?” let us remember whom you are talking to.

  You are talking to ME.

  Me, Raisin Rodriguez, who’s not deep like you. I’m not comfortable enough with myself to expect people to love me for who I am. I need them to love me for who I’m trying to be.

  Like a good dresser.

  I guess I could play it safe and wear my old Birken-stocks. But I don’t want to risk falling back into bad habits.

  At least I still have that surprise to look forward to. I wonder what it’s going to be. I hope they didn’t go to too much trouble finding it. And I definitely hope they didn’t spend too much money on it. And more than anything, I hope . . .

  Oh . . . who am I kidding? What I really hope is that it’s the smartest, sassiest, splashiest surprise ever.

  (But not the sexiest because as soon as my mother lays her eyes on it, she’ll take it away from me and keep it until I’m forty and too old to be sexy.)

  My dad’s calling me. He says Claudia’s on the phone. Better go take it.

  Please hold . . .

  1:10 PM, PST

  Claudia wants to meet at House of Pies. I was kind of disappointed that we weren’t going to Pia’s like we had planned. Her mother owns a vintage clothing distribution company and she keeps all the clothes in her basement. I was looking forward to hanging out there and trying on all the clothes.

  Oh, well. I guess we can go to Pia’s another time. And I do like pie. Especially their Fluffernutter pie with whipped cream and caramel topping. That’s my usual. It’s got the perfect ratio of sugar to sugar.

  There goes my dad honking his car horn. Gotta go. I guess I’ll stick with the shoes I have on. P&C will just have to love me for who I am.

  That or hate me for my footwear.

  Well, wish me luck. Or as we say in the spiritual town of Berkeley, send me positive vibrations.

  PS—I miss you already!

  4:43 PM, PST

  And to think that only a very short time ago, my biggest worry was that my friends wouldn’t understand my shoes. Ah, how naive I was. Not that they understood my shoes, for alas, that they did not:

  A Melodrama About Fashion and Friendship Told in Two Acts

  (Note: Please refrain from the use of photographic devices. There will be one three-second intermission.)

  ACT I

  Pia: Why are you wearing tap shoes?

  (Intermission)

  ACT II

  Claudia: I thought you gave up dance class because every time you had to do a split, you were afraid you’d let out a poot.

  (Curtain)

  Yes, that little tragedy was actually the least of my problems. What, then, was the most of it? you ask. The most of it, I answer, was the surprise. They failed to mention that said surprise would be a bad surprise. Making it less of a surprise and more of a shock.

  A one-hundred-and-ten-pound shock named Vivvy.

  It was pure awfulness, I tell you. As soon as we pulled up in front of House of Pies and I saw not two but three girls waiting for me on the front stoop, a bad feeling came over me.

  “Hey,” I said as I stepped out of the car, hoping that the third girl was just a random brunette (though admittedly a very shiny-haired random brunette) waiting to meet a friend.

  “Hey, Rae-Rae,” she said. Unless Random Girl had chosen the name Rae-Rae randomly, there was nothing random about her. “I’m Vivvy,
your new best friend even though you don’t know it yet!” she said, laughing in a way that suggested there was humor rather than tragedy in her comment.

  “Surprise!” shouted Pia and Claudia as they wrapped their arms around me and this Vivvy person for a group hug.

  “Isn’t she great?!” said Pia.

  “Um, yeah . . .” I answered, pausing in the hopes that someone would explain to me who she was. But no one did. I felt like I do when Lola asks me to play house with her. She always changes her mind about whether I’m the daddy or the baby, so I never know what lines to say. And then she gets angry if I say the wrong ones. (The only thing that’s a definite is that I’m not the mommy because Lola always gets to be her no matter what.)

  “But could you maybe tell me who she is?” I finally asked.

  “Oh. My. God, Rae Rae, you’re even funnier in person!” Vivvy said, laughing so hard I could see her uvula.

  I was beyond confused. For one thing, I didn’t know what was funny about what I said. For another, what did she mean by “even funnier in person” (as opposed to how else? Funnier than from Television City in Hollywood? Funnier than I would be live, via satellite?). And for a third, I still had no idea who she was.

  “But I’m not kidding,” I said.

  Now it was Vivvy who looked confused. She turned toward Pia and Claudia. “Didn’t you guys tell her?”

  “Actually, we were saving it as a surprise. Remember, Raise? Well, here she is. Ta-da! Presenting: Vivvy. She just started Berkeley Middle School this year, and she’s really great. The two of you are so alike. You even look alike. I’m telling you, you’re going to love each other,” Pia said.

  “My surprise? Oh, great!” I said, trying to be polite.

  Suddenly I felt dizzy. Like I could black out. Pia and Claudia and I are a threesome! We don’t need anyone else. Unless . . . I’m not enough for them. (Plus if Vivvy was my surprise, did that mean I wasn’t getting something smart, splashy, sassy, or sexy?)

  I wanted Vivvy to go away. Not only because I wanted Pia and Claudia all to myself, but also because I needed privacy so I could ask them what the heck they were thinking inviting this complete stranger to hang out with us.

  My first thought was to call Vivvy and pretend to be her mother telling her to come right home. And I could have totally pulled it off. If only I knew her cell phone number, how to throw my voice, and how to dial a phone without using my hands.

  Having a cell phone of my own would have been a big help too.

  But since I didn’t have the above-mentioned tools, I had no choice but to try and be nice. So I did. Try. But before I could think of how to go about it, Vivvy started in with another question.

  “So, Raise, how’s CJ?” she asked.

  “Wait, what’d you say?” I asked her, sounding a little less nice than I had planned. But it bothered me that she seemed to know so much about me when I hardly knew anything about her.

  “She asked you how CJ is,” said Claudia.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” asked Pia, trying to cut through the tension. “Rae, they have Fluffernutter pie today!” That Pia, such a sensitive and insightful person she is. Always knows exactly the right thing to say to make me feel better.

  I hardly recognized the House of Pies when we got inside. Instead of a lot of little tables with mismatched tablecloths, there were now just two very long dining tables that seated about twelve people each.

  And the menu was different too. They used to serve things like macaroni and cheese and hamburgers, and now they just served pie. Not that I ever ate the other things. But I always enjoyed knowing they were there.

  We sat down and the waitress, who had dreadlocks and wore an orange tunic, handed us our menus. Right away we noticed this guy and girl seated at the other table. They looked old enough to be high school seniors or maybe even college age. The girl was very pretty. And the guy was even prettier. But all they did was whisper-yell at each other.

  “I can’t tell if those two are a couple or if they just hate each other,” Vivvy said. After which Pia and Claudia started laughing hysterically.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “Really?” Pia asked, in a tone usually reserved for the extremely crazy. “Cuz it’s kind of like a joke you would make. Like, about how couples argue so much, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between people who are boyfriend and girlfriend and people who just kind of . . . y’know . . . hate each other.”

  I guess I was just missing something.

  “Do you and CJ ever argue?” asked Vivvy as a way to break the silence. “Probably not, right? I mean he’s not much of a talker, so how could you really argue?”

  Now, how did she know that about him? And was I imagining it, or did she say “not much of a talker” like it was a bad thing?? Even if Pia and Claudia told her about CJ, shouldn’t she have felt me out first before diving into my personal life?

  I wanted to say something back, but I was so upset, I couldn’t think of anything. So I just said, “Not really,” and went back to being quiet again.

  It’s a good thing my friends and I are so comfortable with the silences. Otherwise I might start to feel like flying all the way to Berkeley to see them was a waste.

  About thirty seconds into the silence, the waitress came back to take our orders. “What can I get for you today?” she asked, pulling a dreadlock out of her eyes.

  “I’ll have the Oreo cookie pie,” said Claudia.

  “I’ll have the key lime pie,” said Pia.

  The waitress took down their order and turned toward Vivvy. That’s when I noticed that the same dreadlock the waitress had moved out of her eyes was now standing straight up on top of her head. But she continued to take our orders as if there were nothing unusual about suddenly sprouting an antenna. Comedic moments like that don’t come around too often. In the old days the three of us would have taken advantage of this rare opportunity by sharing a round of stifled hysterical laughter once she left. But now, thanks to Vivvy, nothing, not even this gem, seemed funny anymore.

  “I’ll have a glass of milk and the Fluffernutter pie,” said Vivvy as she smiled at me and winked. I guess she thought it was cute that we even like the same pie.

  Then the waitress, whose dreadlock antenna was now drooping over to the left, turned to me. “I’ll have a slice of Fluffernutter pie too,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” said the waitress. “I think that was our last slice.” Few harsher words have ever been spoken.

  “That’s okay, you can have it, Raise. I’m not that hungry anyway,” said Vivvy. But there was no way I’d let her be the hero of the day.

  I turned to the waitress. “Just a cup of hot water with lemon, thank you.”

  You’d think I had just made some kind of life-or-death announcement. Like that I had decided to swear off television forever. Or cut my bangs again.

  “Are you sure, Raisin?” (Claudia)

  “Is that really what you want?” (Pia)

  “Are you sure?” (What a thief! She stole my best friends and my pie and now Claudia’s line too?)

  “I’m sure,” I said, handing the menu back to the waitress. Just because they wanted me to order pie and act like everything was okay didn’t mean I had to. I refused to play that game. If nothing else, I still had my pride.

  At least I did until the orders arrived in all their sweet flufferlimoreo deliciousness. I almost choked on my own drool until Vivvy offered me a bite of her pie and I caved.

  Looking back, I wish I hadn’t. Because Vivvy took it as a signal that I had forgiven her, and as soon as I finished licking the last bit of marshmallowy splendiferousity off my lips, she asked me another one of her questions.

  “Have leggings hit Philadelphia yet? Everyone here’s been wearing them, but I think they look like the stores found them in their stockrooms left over from the eighties and were like, 'Hey, these are really ugly and make most legs look like they belong on overstuffed rag dolls—let’s see if we
can bring them back!’”

  I felt my face turn hot.

  “Uh . . . I’m wearing leggings,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “These aren’t leggings,” she said, pulling at my leggings. “These are footless tights . . . completely different.”

  Pia and Claudia both looked really nervous.

  “Vivvy knows a lot about fashion,” said Pia.

  “It’s true,” said Pia. “She used to live in New York.”

  I was really trying to keep my cool, but it wasn’t easy.

  “All I know is that the package said leggings. If I could fly back to Philadelphia to go get it, I would.” And then I mumbled under my breath, “Maybe you guys would like that.”

  There was a round of “Aww, Rae’s.” And “That’s not what she meant’s.” And “Don’t be upset’s.” And Vivvy insisted that she would never have said such a thing if she thought I was in fact wearing leggings. “I mean, it’d be different if I said something bad about something I knew you had. Like ballet flats.” But by that point I had to focus so hard on not bursting into tears, I had no energy left to care. Though I did wonder how she knew I had ballet flats.

  “I’m going to take the bus home,” I said as we left the House of Pies.

  “Don’t you wanna go shopping or something?” Pia asked. “You can’t just leave us.”

  “I’m kind of tired,” I said, yawning and looking at my wrist. Never mind that I wasn’t wearing a watch. “I think I need to sleep for a little while.”

  “Well, of course you’re tired,” Claudia said, mocking me. “It’s already what, seven o’clock at night back in Philadelphia?”

  “But I’ve been up since four in the morning,” I protested.

  “Call us later,” Pia said as she leaned over to kiss me goodbye. Then Claudia kissed me goodbye too. And before I knew what hit me, Vivvy was leaning in to give me one as well.

  “Take it easy, Rae,” she said.

  Take it easy? How could she tell me to take it easy? Take it easy is what you say to someone after they’ve run down the street naked. Attempted to take flight. Decided to stay in and read a book. Take it easy is what you say to someone who’s acting a little crazy. And I was not acting a little crazy