monday, feb 1
I’m trapped in an unsupervised house with Mona Lieber and her unfortunately-named dog. Something’s definitely wrong with this picture.
“Come on, Bogie, good boy.” Mona leads the droopy-faced canine away from the living room, where I’m resting on the sofa-thing-with-a-fancy-name-I-can’t-remember, and shuts him in a dark room close to the TV. When Mona walks back, she dodges an awkward situation by not sitting next to me.
“So, uh,” I mumble, “what kind of dog is that anyway? I’ve never really known.”
“A basset hound,” she replies.
I nod my head slowly. “Oh.”
It looks like Awkward follows me whatever the circumstance.
Mona sits there, sucking the inside of her cheek, while I just twiddle my thumbs — which makes me wonder, why can’t we twiddle anything else? Why just thumbs? I feel like they’re getting unfair treatment, toes and ears should be able to —
“So is there a point to this?” Mona interrupts my thoughts.
I snap back to reality. Mona’s living room. Basset hound named Bogie. Awkward situations. Right. “Yeah. There is.” I pause. “You see, I can be a little weak-kneed at times.”
She has an amused expression on her face, as if she can’t believe what I just said.
“Wow, Adrien Finkwell has a weakness,” Mona muses to herself, standing up.
“You don’t think I can have a weakness?” I ask. “Why’s that?”
She laughs half-heartedly and walks over to the fireplace. “Come on, Adrien. You’re you. Varsity soccer captain. Student Council executive president. Boyfriend of Alyssa Brookes.” With each epithet, she gives a small nod; her choppy brown hair, cut abruptly at the shoulders, bobs along.
I laugh as half-heartedly as she did before. “See, that last part is why I’m here.”
Okay, I’m not technically “trapped” in Mona’s house. I voluntarily walked over in hopes of persuading her to keep hush-hush about a certain topic.
“Save it, pretty boy.” Mona holds up a hand. “You’re worried about what I saw yesterday after school.”
“Glad you can understand,” I say, moving closer and taking her arm. “That thing that happened yesterday...do you think that maybe, perhaps, by any chance—”
“Yes?” she ushers me on, removing herself from my grip.
“Could you not tell anyone about it?” I plead.
Mona laughs, genuinely this time. “What’s wrong, pretty boy? Kissing Penny White isn’t such a sin.”
“Do you plan on calling me pretty boy forever?”
“If you keep denying the Penny White thing.”
I slap my hand on the back of my bare neck. “Ally would kill me if she knew. Like, literally kill me. Did you know she has a taser in her purse? No joke. A taser.”
“While I do very much enjoy learning about your enchanting love life, I don’t see what this has to do with me—”
“You were there when I, uh, you know, um, kissedPennyWhite. But it’s not my fault, the girl was wearing a skirt that barely covered her underwear!”
Mona shakes her head and leans in towards me, eyeing me sternly. “You’re disgusting.” For the first time, I notice just how intimidating and blue her eyes are. They’re not a pretty blue, like sky blue or baby blue or the color of Ally’s backyard pool when it’s hot and summertime and we feel like fooling around underwater. Her eyes are blue in the sense that if you stare for too long, you’ll get sucked into that terrifying whirlpool of hate and anger and never come home for Christmas.
So I tear myself away from those pre-storm-sky eyes and lift my hands up in surrender.
“Whoa, calm down,” I say. “I just want your word of assurance that you won’t say anything. To anyone.”
She thinks about it. She really does, standing there with her head cocked and hip jutting out. Then after what seems like an eternity doubled, Mona looks at me and says, “On one condition.”
My first rule in life is never to trust any person who says that, because that one condition is what screws up everything and nothing is ever the same. My second rule is to disregard the previous if the person in question is a snarky little witch with a capital B who will most certainly spill your deepest secrets if she doesn’t get her way.
So without hesitation, I agree.
“If you can correctly answer one question, just one, then I’ll do what you’ve asked,” she explains.
Just as quickly, I agree again.
Mona walks over to the master bedroom and lets out Bogie the basset hound. “So, Adrien Finkwell,” she says, “who is my dog named after?”
I raise my eyebrows. What are we, married? How should I know? “Um, your great-aunt?”
She smirks. “I’ll give you three guesses and two hints; you’ve already used one guess. First hint: full name is Bogart.”
“Bogart…the purple dinosaur,” I joke.
“Nope,” she says seriously.
“God, I hope you know the definition of facetious.” I shove my hands into my pockets.
“Last guess,” she reminds me. “Second hint: Casablanca.”
“What is that, an Italian dinner?”
“You really don’t know movie culture, do you? Gimme your guess, Finkwell.”
“I’m not a genius like you, Miss Valedictorian.”
She scoffs. “At the rate that my AP Lit grade is dropping? Hardly. Now give me a guess.”
I let out a puff of air. “Uh, Henry Bogart, I don’t know. James Bogart? Frank?”
“That was three guesses, and none were right. Would you like the real answer, Mr. Executive President?”
“Enlighten me.”
“Humphrey Bogart.”
“Sounds like a stuffy old guy.”
Mona ignores me and starts walking toward the door. “Goodbye, Adrien.”
“Come on, Mona,” I gush, sitting on the same fancily-named-couch again. “Let’s make a bargain! Your little game was too hard for my obviously incompetent brain.”
“You’re right about one thing, your brain is immensely incompetent, surprisingly so for an eighteen-year-old senior,” she says. “But I’m not making a bargain with you. Now get out, before my brother gets home. Trust me, Bradley will make me look like a small annoyance.”
“Fine,” I say. “Fine, I’ll leave. But just know that you did nothing to help me today, except maybe increase my knowledge of Italian food a little better. Casabaloney.”
Right as I’m halfway through the door, Mona grabs my arm. “Wait.”
“Are you reconsidering your harshness?” I ask, running a hand through my black hair. “Because if you want to apologize, it’ll be better if you just give me a call or something. A text would be great. I can’t be seen at your house, you know.”
“Just hold on a minute, blockhead,” she says before disappearing into the house. I’m not sure whether to stand there and look like an idiot or walk out and drive off.
Before I can finish my thought, she comes back with a box chockfull of old-looking DVDs in hand. I catch a glimpse of some of them — Dirty Harry, East of Eden, Psycho — but I don’t recognize any of the titles.
“What’s going on? What are those?” I ask.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of this,” she says, holding up a disc with some creepy deranged face, reading The Shining.
“No way, but that guy needs to get back on his meds,” I comment thoughtfully.
Mona shakes her head incredulously. “Wow. I mean, I know you’re not dumb — everyone at Ackman-Cross has to be at least a little intelligent. But I never expected your movie knowledge to be so horrible.”
I know what she means about our school and its intelligence factor. We’re the “prep school” in our area, Rich Kid Central. But instead of using our money for drugs and booze (though we still like a little alcohol at our parties from time to time), we spend it on academics. Pretty geeky, I know, but it’s what gets us our gold medal in the Top Schools in the State list every year.
“What can I say, I’ve never been a big fan of film unless there’s lots of pow-pow and boom-boom,” I say, imitating guns with my fingers. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” I point my finger guns toward the door.
“I’ll do it,” Mona blurts. “I won’t tell anybody about what happened. Not about the kissing, the boob-groping, or that disgusting lip thing you did.”
“Great!” I exclaim. “I knew you’d grow a heart.”
“On one condition,” she says, the second time in ten minutes.
I groan. “It can’t be something well out of my intelligence range, or something disgusting, or pretending to be your boyfriend, stuff like that. I’ve seen enough romance chick flicks to know how deep that goes.”
“It’s not hard,” she promises. “You just have to watch these movies”—Mona drops the DVD box on the ground—“with me throughout the course of the month. Today’s February 1st, so you lucked out. Only 28 days this month.”
I narrow my eyes. “This is starting to sound an awful lot like an Amanda Bynes movie...”
“I promise you, Adrien, I have no ulterior motive. I just want you to gain some IQ points and, well, enjoy the classics.” Mona gives me a genuine smile.
“What, are you trying to woo me with these movies or something?”
“No, blockhead. I told you. I just feel like people these days don’t appreciate the classics enough, and... Well, you’re a prime example. I kind of want things to change.”
“Yeah, you’re definitely insane,” I tell her, stepping backwards towards my car.
“Is that a no?” she asks, picking up the box.
“That’s an absofreakinglutely no.”
She smirks. “You’ll regret it.”
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