I stared at him. It wasn’t just the clothes. There was something . . .different about him. His voice seemed deeper, somehow. And he smelled . . .well, good.

     “So,” Lilly said to him, as she scooped a glob of creamy filling out of her Ring Ding. “How’d it go?”

     “Well,” Hank said, in that same deep voice. “You’re looking at Calvin Klein’s newest underwear model.”

     Lilly sucked the filling off her finger. “Hmmm,” she said, with her mouth full. “Good for you.”

     “I owe it all to you, Lilly,” Hank said. “If it weren’t for you, they never would have signed me.”

     Then it hit me. The reason Hank seemed so different was that his Hoosier drawl was gone!

     “Now, Hank,” Lilly said. “We discussed this. It’s your natural ability that got you where you are. I just gave you a few pointers.”

     When Hank turned his gaze toward me, I saw that his sky-blue eyes were damp. “Your friend Lilly,” he said, “has done something no one’s ever done for me in my life.”

     I threw an accusing gaze at Lilly.

     I knew it. Iknew they’d had sex.

     But then Hank said, “She believed in me, Mia. Believed in me enough to help me pursue my dream . . .a dream I’ve had since I was a very young boy. A lot of people—including my own Mamaw and Pa—I mean, my grandparents—told me it was a pipe dream. They told me to give it up, that it would never happen. But when I told my dream to Lilly, she held out her hand”—Hank held out his hand to illustrate this, and all of us—me, Lars, Tina, Tina’s bodyguard Wahim, Shameeka, and Ling Su—looked at that hand, the nails of which had been perfectly manicured—“and said, ‘Come with me, Hank. I will help you achieve your dream.’”

     Hank put his hand down. “And do you know what?”

     All of us—except Lilly, who went right on eating—were so astonished, we could only stare.

     Hank did not wait for us to reply. He said, “It happened. Today, it happened. My dream came true. I was signed by Ford. I am their newest male model.”

     We all blinked at him.

     “And I owe it all,” Hank said, “to this woman here.”

     Then something really shocking happened. Hank got up out of his chair, walked over to where Lilly was sitting, innocently finishing her Ring Ding, not suspecting a thing, and pulled her to a standing position.

     Then as everyone in the entire cafeteria looked on—including, I noticed, Lana Weinberger and all her cronies over at the cheerleaders’ table—my cousin Hank laid such a kiss on Lilly Moscovitz, I thought he just might suck that Ring Ding right back up again.

     When he was done kissing her, Hank let go. And Lilly, looking as if someone had just poked her with an electric prod, sank slowly back down to her seat. Hank adjusted the lapels of his leather coat and turned to me.

     “Mia,” he said. “Tell Mamaw and Papaw they’re going to have to find somebody to cover my shift at the hardware store. I ain’t—I mean, I’mnot —going back to Versailles. Ever.”

     And with that, he strode from our cafeteria like a cowboy walking away from a gunfight he’d just won.

     Or I suppose I should say hestarted to stride from the cafeteria. Unfortunately for Hank, he didn’t make it out quite fast enough.

     Because one of the people who had observed that searing kiss he’d laid on Lilly was none other than Boris Pelkowski.

     And it was Boris Pelkowski—Boris Pelkowski, with his retainer and his sweater tucked into his pants—who stood up and said, “Not so fast, hot shot.”

     I’m not sure if Boris had just seen the movieTop Gun or what, but thathot shot came out sounding pretty menacing, considering Boris’s accent and all.

     Hank kept going. I don’t know if he hadn’t heard Boris, or if he wasn’t about to let some little violin-playing genius mess up his great exit.

     Then Boris did something completely reckless. He reached out and grabbed Hank by the arm as he went by and said, “That’smy girl you had your lips all over, pretty boy.”

     I am not even joking. Those were his exact words. Oh, how my heart thrilled to hear them! If only some guy (okay, Michael) would say something like that about me. Not the Josiest girl he’d ever met, buthis girl. Boris had actually referred to Lilly ashis girl! No boy has ever referred to me ashis girl. Oh, I know all about feminism and how women aren’t property and it’s sexist to go around claiming them as such. But, oh! If only somebody (okay, Michael) would say I washis girl!

     Anyway, Hank just went, “Huh?”

     And then, from out of nowhere, Boris’s fist went sailing into Hank’s face.Pow!

     Only it didn’t really sound like pow. It sounded more like a thud. There was a sickening crunch of bones splintering. All of us girls gasped, thinking that Boris had marred Hank’s perfect cover-guy face.

     But we needn’t have worried: It was Boris’s hand that made the crunching sound, not Hank’s face. Hank escaped completely unscathed. Boris is the one who has to have his knuckles splinted.

     And you know what that means:

     No more Mahler.

     Whoopee!!!

     It’s unprincess-like of me, however, to gloat over another’s misfortune.

 

Friday, October 31, French

 

     I borrowed Lars’s cell phone and called the SoHo Grand between lunch and fifth period. I mean, I figured someone should let Mamaw and Papaw know that Hank was all right. Well, a Ford model, but all right.

     Mamaw must have been sitting by the phone, since she picked up on the first ring.

     “Clarisse?” she said. “I still haven’t heard from them.”

     Which is weird. Because Clarisse is Grandmère’s name.

     “Mamaw?” I said. “It’s me, Mia.”

     “Oh,Mia.” Mamaw laughed a little. “I’m sorry, honey. I thought you were the princess. I mean, the dowager princess. Your other grandma.”

     I went, “Uh, yeah. Well, it’s not. It’s me. And I’m just calling to tell you that I heard from Hank.”

     Mamaw shrieked so loud, I had to hold the cell phone away from my ear.

     “WHERE IS HE?” she yelled. “YOU TELL HIM FROM ME THAT WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HIM, HE’S—“

     “Mamaw,” I cried. It was kind of embarrassing, because all sorts of people in the hallway heard her yelling and were looking at me. I tried to make myself inconspicuous by hunching behind Lars.

     “Mamaw,” I said, “he got a contract with Ford Models, Inc. He’s the newest Calvin Klein underwear model. He’s going to be a big celebrity, like—“

     “UNDERWEAR?” Mamaw yelled. “Mia, you tell that boy to call me RIGHT NOW.”

     “Well, I can’t really do that, Mamaw,” I said. “On account of the fact that—“

     “RIGHT NOW,” Mamaw repeated, “or he’s in BIG TROUBLE.”

     “Um,” I said. The bell was ringing anyway. “Okay, Mamaw. Is, um, the, uh, wedding still on?”

     “The WHAT?”

     “The wedding,” I said, wishing I could, just for once, be a normal girl who did not have to go around asking people if the royal marriage of her pregnant mother and her Algebra teacher was still on.

     “Well, of course it’s still on,” Mamaw said. “What do you think?”

     “Oh,” I said. “You, um, talked to my mom?”

     “Of course I did,” Mamaw said. “Everything is all set.”

     “Really?” I was immensely surprised. I could not picture my mother going along with this thing. Not in a million years. “And she said she’d be there?”

     “Well, of course she’ll be there,” Mamaw said. “It’s her wedding, isn’t it?”

     Well . . .sort of, I guess. I didn’t say that to Mamaw, though. I said, “Sure.” And then I hung up, feeling crushed.

     For entirely selfish reasons, too, I confess. I was a little bit sad for my mom, I guess, since she really had tried to put up a resistance against Grandmère. I mean, she really had tried. It wasn’t her fault, of course, that she’d been going up against such a inexorable force.

     But mostly I felt sad for myself. I would NEVER escape in time forRocky Horror. Never, never,never. I mean, I know the movie doesn’t even start until midnight, but wedding receptions last way longer than that.

     And who knows if Michael will ever ask me out again? I mean, not once today has he acknowledged that he is, in fact, Jo-C-rox, nor has he mentionedRocky Horror. Not once. Not even so much as a reference to Rachel Leigh Cook.

     And we talked at length during G and T. AT LENGTH. That is on account of how some of us who saw last year’s groundbreaking episode ofLilly Tells It Like It Is were understandably confused by Lilly’s helping Hank to realize his dream of supermodel stardom. The segment was titled “Yes, You as an IndividualCan Bring Down the Sexist, Racist, Ageist, and Sizeist Modeling Industry” (by “criticizing ads that demean women and limit our ideas of beauty” and “finding ways to make your protest known to the companies advertised” and “letting the media know you want to see more varied and realistic images of women.” Also, Lilly urged us to “challenge men who judge, choose, and discard women on the basis of appearance”).

     The following exchange took place during Gifted and Talented (Mrs. Hill has returned to the teachers’ lounge—permanently, one can only hope) and included Michael Moscovitz, who, as you will see, did NOT ONCE mention Jo-C-rox orRocky Horror :

 

     Me: Lilly, I thought you found the modeling industry as a whole sexist and racist and belittling to the human race.

     Lilly: So? What’s your point?

     Me: Well, according to Hank, you helped him realize his dream of becoming a you know what. A model.

     Lilly: Mia, when I recognize a human soul crying out for self-actualization, I am powerless to stop myself. I must do what I can to see that that person’s dream is realized.