Chapter 2 - My hand seems to be attracted to your face...
- Rule 2 -
Be interesting*.
*here means; reckless, rebellious, idiotic, stupid & a bitch.
As I limped home, feet sore from being squeezed into countless pairs of stilettos, her whole body stinging dully from having been waxed to within an inch of it's life, arms begging from reprieve from the dead weights hanging from her stiff fingers, otherwise known as shopping bags, I wondered absentmindedly how exactly I was going to become 'popular'.
As much as I hated to admit it, Janice had been right. The clothes, hair and makeup tips had been a necessity, not a plan. There was no way that they alone could boost someone up to it-crowd status.
And as far as I knew, there were pretty much only two ways to be popular; be gorgeous enough for people to naturally crowd around you or be a complete and utter bitch. Since the first option was obviously off the menu, there was only one route I could go down.
Plan Super-Bitch is a go.
When I arrived home, I dumped my multitude of bags into my bedroom and started to wander around, looking for my mum. My dad would still be zoned out behind a computer at his office, but my mum was a full-time, completely cliche housewife; I'm talking hot pink manicured talons, ten inch heels, bleach-blonde, professionally highlighted hair, complete with expensive extensions and proud owner of every single Britney Spears and Beyonce perfume out there. Not forgetting, of course, that she spends every single moment during which she isn't fufilling other house-wifely duties working out or making healthy smoothies for her poor tortured children to drink.
Therefore, her not pouncing on me the moment I entered the house was slightly hard to me to comprehend.
In fact, the whole situation was making me really edgy. The whole family seemed to be out. The siblings being out wasn't that hard to believe - in spite of them all dedicating half their lives to their respective passions (tennis, oboe, chess) they all managed to have better social lives than me. In fact, I barely ever saw them.
Father dearest was probably passed out behind his desk in front of some 'important' legal document.
Just as I was starting to imagine scenarios from the Saw films playing out, with yours truly as the victim, a disheveled mother pushed her way out from the bathroom. She took one look at me, shuffled a couple of steps towards her bedroom, then did a movie-worthy double take and plastered the biggest, most plastic smile ever on her face I had ever seen.
As she turned to face me, I could see just how bad she looked. And it was really bad. Her eye makeup had smudged dramatically, giving her the look of a panda on crack, her usually unfalliable fashion sense seemed to have had a malfunction seeing as she was sporting a pair of dark grey sweatpants with a hole at the knee paired with a puke green oversized tee shirt I assumed she had borrowed from dad, and her immaculately styled hair resembled a large, blonde bush that was so big that from a distance it could have been mistaken for a bleached afro.
I had never seen my mum look this... broken. I was about to ask her what was going on when she suddenly sprung forward and clamped a cold, sweaty hand over my mouth and shook her head back and forth whilst grinning manically.
"Don't talk darling! Old age is getting to me is all - the old immune system's failing. I've got one of those 24-hour stomach bugs I assume. There's one going round, the were saying at the mothers' weekly coffee morning. I'm just going to go and lie down for a bit in my bedroom, okay darling? Lovely."
And with that she practically sprinted through the door that lead to her room, before unceremoniously slamming it in my face. Just as I was shrugging to myself and turning away, she stuck her head out of the door once more and fixed me with a plaintive look in her wild eyes.
