LITMIR.BIZ

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out of them before I can even get a shot at one. Then she freezes them, these little skins of bagels, so that any time someone wants a damn bagel that’s all that’s available to you, frozen bagel skins.

      So everybody’s sitting around, hovering around the word “training,” instinctively knowing that there’s another shoe going to drop around whatever the word “training” is actually going to mean.

      “Yeah,” says Amelia. “Like for now I think he’s just talking about maybe doing another lesson a week, but more practicing, you know, and then maybe in six months or something I’d be ready to audition for someplace really good.”

      The train wreck is picking up speed.

      “Is that what you want to do, sweetheart?” says Mom. Her voice is so phony now you could put her on television.

      “Yeah, I do. I really, I do.” Amelia is getting good and firm.I think this plan of hers is a total crock but I also admire its strange daring. “I don’t have to practice at home all the time, ’cause I know that probably could get really annoying—”

      “Not at all,” says Mom, tilting her head, poised.

      “… Ben says I can use one of the rehearsal pianos at school, he’ll help me with that—”

      “I think maybe I should have a talk with Ben before we let this plan get finalized, sweetie,” Mom coos.

      “It’s just that if I’m really going to take this seriously, because he seriously thinks—”

      “I’ll call Ben and find out what he thinks, honey,” says Mom. Polly and Daria are just watching now.

      “Yeah, but—”

      “I’m so excited for you, sweetheart! The recital must’ve really gone well. I’m so sorry I missed it.”

      “You got to talk to Ben.”

      “I will. Oh, and I’ve left a message with Mrs Virtudes about picking you up at two today. The appointment with Collette isn’t until four, but I don’t know what traffic is going to be like, the bridges are always such a mess, and I think she’s enough of a pain, we don’t want to start off on the wrong foot.”

      Amelia looks at the table. Polly licks her fingers, as if there’s a shred of spare tofutti somewhere to be found. Daria sips her water. My stupid Zone bar tastes like straw.

      “I can’t go,” says Amelia. “Ben and I have to talk about my rehearsal schedule.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. You just had a recital last night. You can take one day off from practicing, darling. You’ve been practicing so much lately the rest of us can hardly think without hearing da, da, daaaah …” Mom does her little musical bells laugh as a finish to this clever speech.

      “I can’t go, Mom. I can’t go,” Amelia says.

      “She has to go,” Daria tells Mom. She is not happy with any of this.

      “Why do I have to go?”

      “Collette wants to meet all three of you.”

      “I don’t want to be a model. I’m a little kid,” Amelia points out.

      “I think you should leave that to her to decide,” Mom smiles.

      “Ben wants to meet with me. How am I going to—”

      “Jesus.” Daria is really disgusted now, and making no attempt to hide it. Which pisses Amelia off.

      “What do you care?” she asks. “I’m not saying you can’t go off and be some kind of idiot model. I’m just saying, I don’t want to do it, and I especially don’t want to do it today. I have something else to do today.”

      “What, be a pianist?” Polly is laughing at this, and she always has that attitude thing going, which doesn’t help, when she laughs. It makes her look like she’s sneering, which isn’t necessarily what she means. Sometimes it is what she means, it’s just hard to tell, all the time. And now she’s got the spiky hair thing going too, from the shoot, so she’s really got attitude now. Which means Amelia is starting to bristle.

      “Fuck you,” she says. “I’m not doing it.”

      Mom jumps up, shocked, shocked to hear such language come out of the mouth of her youngest daughter.

      “That is quite enough, young lady,” she says. “I won’t have that kind of language in this house.”

      Amelia rolls her eyes, which doesn’t help, as Mom sees it and puts her lips together, determined that her own child is not going to look down on her. “You’re coming, and that’s that.”

      “You can’t yank me out of school for some stupid meeting with some stupid agent,” Amelia retorts. “What kind of a mother are you?”

      “What did you say?” says Mom. She looks like she might actually strike somebody.

      This is stupid, I’m thinking. I’m also thinking, Amelia hasn’t even played her trump card yet; she has yet to even mention the word “Dad” and this whole thing is already a mind-numbing mini-disasteroid.

      At which point, Daria lets loose. She’s not sneering, like Polly, nor is all superior and hurt and outraged like Mom. She’s just straight out pissed off. “Believe me,” she announces, “it was never my plan to drag my sisters along on my life, but now that I’m stuck with you, I’m not going to let either one of you screw it up. You’re coming. Amelia, and you’re going to keep your mouth shut and do whatever anybody tells you to do.”

      “For-fucking-get it,” says Amelia.

      “I’ve already warned you about that word, Amelia,” Mom announces, like a queen.

      “I’m going to LaGuardia next year; Dad said he could get me in,” Amelia tells her. “So I have to practice and I’m not going into midtown to meet some stupid FUCKING agent.”

      Okay. This announcement has the hoped-for effect of silencing the entire room. Daria looks like she’d like to stab Amelia with something, but all she has in her hands is a glass of filtered water.

      “She talked to Dad?” says Daria. She turns to Mom, filled with outrage. “She talked to Dad?”

      Mom is no longer posing for the camera. “Is that what you did, Amelia?”

      “I just said I did! Are you deaf? He thinks it’s a good idea!”

      “This conversation is over,” says Mom. “I will let your father know he has nothing to say about—”

      “About what? About me taking piano lessons? That’ll look good.”

      “I don’t care how it looks.”

      “He’ll get custody of me,” she announces.

      Everybody stares at her. I start to sense once again that being a boy is a distinct disadvantage in this world. I mean, this plan Amelia’s cooked up just so she can get out of being a model has levels I never even dreamed of.

      “Your father is not getting custody of anybody. The courts made that clear a long time ago,” Mom announces.

      “Let her go. See how she likes it,” Daria says. Mom turns on her, going white. This is apparently the worst thing anyone has said all morning.

      “That’s enough, Daria. That’s enough out of all of you.”

      “I’m calling Dad,” says Amelia. Like so many smart people, she simply doesn’t know when she’s lost. Which I could have told her, bringing Dad up would end any shot she had of getting out of this, which was never a good one anyway.

      “I am NOT TALKING about your father ANYMORE,” Mom hisses at her. It’s impressive when she loses her temper, it really is. She’s like Medea or something; you take it seriously. Even so, it looks like Amelia’s about

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