Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel (48 page)

I learn so much from NPR.

Hmm. In my
guesstimation
, that’s probably why the Vikings had such regal noses. They lived in cold Scandinavian countries like Norway. Or was it Sweden?

Oh how I’d DIE for a Swedish nose. A nose like
Elin
Nordegren’s
.

Humph. This beats going under the knife. Hell, this is even better than non-surgical
rhinoplasty
. I pressed the ice pack to my nose, gently applying pressure.

If I wanted
Elin
Nordegren’s
nose, all I had to do was keep this up.

Thirty minutes into my experiment, my nose went numb.

Brrrrrrr
. It was colder than a witch’s tit. Hauling myself out of bed, I padded down to the kitchen and grabbed a new ice pack. Then I tiptoed up the stairs, climbed into bed, plumped up my pillow and settled back with a fresh ice pack on my nose.

No pain. No gain.

Hmm . . . what rhymes with gain?

This feels like acid rain.

My heavy eyelids flittered, fluttered and soon drifted shut.

Chapter Two

The Messiahs on Bicycles

Beep! Beep!
beeped my alarm clock and I slammed my fist on it like a sledgehammer. Blearily, I glanced at the clock and the display showed: 6:45 a.m. With Herculean effort, I dragged myself out of bed.

Whoa! I must have climbed the summit of Mt. Everest in my sleep. It felt like I was suffering from a severe case of frostbite and hypothermia.

Shuffling to the bathroom, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and jumped back in fright.

Holy Swedish Meatballs! I did not have
Elin
Nordegren’s
le petit nose. I had Cyrano de Bergerac’s
schnozzer
.

Hastily, I applied some burn ointment and slapped on a Hello Kitty Band-Aid.

I felt much better after that.

Kitty Power! Kitty PO-
WAH
!

Squeak Squeak.
My Target
Merona
Zakia
rain boots squeaked as I traipsed into the kitchen. I gazed down at my rubber boots, admiring the funky
houndstooth
vector pattern.

Mom gasped, “
Lili
! What happened to your nose?”

“Don’t ask.” I shot her a morose look.

My brothers, Norm and Woody, just stared at me as if I were wearing a satellite dish on my head to get better signal reception from the aliens. In other words, they looked at me as if I were Victoria ‘Posh Spice’ Beckham.

In case you have missed the connection, Mom watched endless
Cheers
reruns while she was
preggos
. I thank my lucky stars every day that I only got saddled with Lilith. Mom never ceases to remind me that she almost named me Whoopi.

“Why in the name of Merlin’s saggy left testicle would you want to name your firstborn child Whoopi?” I’d asked her.

Her reply? “Once upon a time, some dude named Ted was married to some chick named Whoopi.”

Pssh
! I do not understand grownups. They are seriously
bonkerosity
. Any person named Whoopi must be off their rocker and a whooping idiot if you ask me.
 

In an attempt to make me feel better about my engorged nose, Mom changed the subject. “Nice skinny jeans, honey. Are they new?”

“Yep, bought them at Abercrombie last weekend.”

Dad jogged in, dribbling a basketball. “Skinny jeans. As opposed to what? FAT jeans?”

Swallowing my annoyance, I forced a laugh. “
Whatevs
’ dad. And by the way, you have armpit hair sticking out of your sports jersey.”

“I can dress like this!” he retorted, “I’m a coach.” His scrutinizing gaze travelled down to my footwear. “Did I miss the weather report? Is there a flood somewhere?”

Mom
tutted
. “Oh Zachary, that’s just how teenagers dress these days.”

“What?” Dad snorted. “Like they’re digging for clams? Actually,
Lili
here looks like a crew member of the
Deadliest Catch.
”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you married to Mom or the Discovery Channel?”

Dad ignored my jab and tousled my hair. “Big day tomorrow,
Liliput
.” Then he heaved a big sigh. “My baby girl is growing up. How old will you be again? I forget.”

I made myself a bowl of cereal—Honey Bunches of Oats. “Old enough to party.”

Dad did not seem pleased with my answer. So I said with a grave and serious face, “I will be eighteen months and five minutes. For you see, I am what they based The Curious Case of Lilith Button. And each day I grow nearer and nearer to birth . . . Oh! Now it’s sixteen months, twenty days, eighteen hours, five minutes, and two seconds. Soon I will crawl back into Mom’s vagina.”

Mom just treated me as if I were an inanimate object.

Woody banged his spoon on the table and howled, “Vagina, vagina, vagina!”

I gave Woody a crisp nod, for you see, I am primping him for
The Vagina Monologues
.

Dad took a sip of coffee, unaffected by Woody’s vagina chant. He reached for
The Salt Lake Tribune
, flicked the paper, and said pointedly, “N
ow I understand why some species eat their young.”

I surveyed the school hallway for my posse and spotted Monica in the crowd. We gave each other the standard fist bumps and Monica tilted her chin. “
Quien
es
tu
pappi
?”

Translation: Who’s your daddy?

I replied,
“
Yo
soy
tu
pappi
.”

Translation: I’m your daddy.

Monica is my Spanish tutor. In order to prep myself for the competitive job market and to gain a better perspective of the world, I’ve decided that I need to be bi-lingual. But so far, all I’ve learned is,
“
Quien
es
tu
pappi
. . .
yo
soy
tu
pappi
.”
Which would only be useful in the barrio. Or in a bordello.
 

The Lick-a-Like twins, Kylie and
Keira
, slithered past and stuck out their tongues, like lizards.

We cringed. This school is teeming with wannabe
lezzers
. Honestly, I have nothing against the
real
lesbians, the
Shilohs
of the world, or the girls who wear lots of plaid and flannel. But Kylie and
Keira
are just posers, mean girls, and they have this sense of entitlement that really irks me. Their power is the status quo and they’re the reason high school is deemed the prime suffering years. In short, they are prized bitches. Hateful bitches.

Anyway, where was I before I so rudely interrupted myself?

Oh yeah, and did I mention they were posers?

After the whole Britney and Madonna kissing brouhaha at the MTV music video awards, followed by Sandra B. and Scar Jo locking lips at the Oscars, Kylie and
Keira
announced that they were ‘lesbians.’ Which didn’t really jive with me since they publicly kept jock boyfriends on the side. But it worked! The twins’ popularity skyrocketed, reaching a zenith.
  

One of the evil twins stared at my nose and screeched, “HELLO KITTY MUST DIE!”

Then they carried on with their business, spewing hate dust everywhere.

I was surprised when Monica agreed with our archenemies. “What’s up with your Hello Kitty Band-Aid? How old are you? Five? And how come Hello Kitty doesn’t have a mouth?”

“Hello?” I did a
zig
-
zag
-finger-snap. “Hello Kitty does not have a mouth because Hello Kitty speaks from her heart. She is Sanrio’s reigning ambassador to the world and she isn’t bound to one language.”

Monica made a cuckoo sign at me.

My first class was English with Mr. Turner.

“Everybody listen up,” Mister T. called our attention, “today, we’re going have some fun with Shakespeare. For this exercise, I’d like you all to hurl Shakespearean insults at one another.”

Turning to face Monica, I addressed her in a frou-frou voice, “O’ how
darest
thou leave me
hangeth
! Gird thy loins, drink thee from a poison challis, clean
thine
waxy ears and grow unsightly warts, thou errant boil-brained barnacle.”

Monica fired back, “Forsooth say I, be those panties or pantaloons? Trip on thy sword, rip thy pansy pantaloons, swim with leeches and sit
thee
on a spit of blood, thou artless beetle-headed
clotpole
!”

“
Phui
! I say. What wanton debauchery!” Sun Li exclaimed, puffing out her chest. “At the King’s behest, I shall see thee
hang’d
! Thou treasonous, bawdy,
besluberring
flax wench.”

Zahara
raised an imaginary sword. “Thou dost intrude. Get thee gone! Thou goatish,
gorbellied
, wayward flap-mouthed, fat-
kidneyed
maggot pie.”

Phwoar
! Kiss my codpiece! Who knew Shakespeare could be so entertaining?

The cafeteria was utter chaos and mayhem. It was so loud—the cacophony of noise, the piercing chatter, the abrasive clatter of silverware and utensils. Truly deafening! I carried my tray to my usual table and sat down across from Monica. Sinking my teeth into a piece of chicken fried steak, I pulled a face. “
YECH
! This tastes like cat food.”

“How do you know?” Monica chomped down on her burger. “Have you ever tasted cat food?”

Sun Li
singsonged
, “I have.”

We stared at her, unblinking.

“It tastes like tuna,” Sun Li patiently explained.

Zahara
gagged. “No wonder you smell like sushi all the time.”

At the mere mention of the word ‘sushi,’ the Lick-a-Like twins visibly perked up like a pair of blind lesbians lost in a Bengali fish market and leered at us from the next table. One of the twins, I was unable to ascertain if it was Kylie or
Keira
, but it was the twin with the larger Adam’s apple, sneered, “Oh, if it isn’t the Jolie-Pitt gang. The orphaned, adopted kids from third world countries.”

I cast a pitiful glance at their table and addressed her Adam’s apple calmly. “It could just be my trite observation, but your Adam’s apple seems to pop out even further when you’re being mean.”

“Watch what you say to my sister,” the other twin snapped. “If you’re not careful, I’ll punch you in the face, Maddox!”

“No need to get physical,
Keira
,” Monica said, regarding her glacially. “We’re all civilized adults here. I must say, though, it’s unfortunate that you’re here today; I believe you’re depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.”

Sun Li flipped her hair. “What village?”

Keira
pointed an accusing finger at Sun Li. “Well there’s your idiot savant!”

“Leave Sun Li out of this!”
Zahara’s
voice rose. “Oh by the way, what do you call an Irish wannabe
lezzie
?”
Zahara
directed her piercing gaze at the Lick-a-Like twins and blurted, “A poser
lezzie
who can’t speak
Gaylick
!”

Rendered speechless, the Lick-a-Like twins glared at us with blistering scorn, much too stunned to retaliate.

Hah! Take that! And that!
Bwarhahaha
.
Zahara
had dealt a withering blow and impaled her unsuspecting foes!

I was down in my basement bunker,
chillaxin
with the A Team and a decade’s supply of food. Like most Mormons in this town, my dad insists on stockpiling food, and we have huge bags of grains and cans of beans stacked from floor to ceiling.

Using a bag of loose oats as a beanbag,
Zahara
commented, “Today, someone called me and Sun Li the
Blasians
. I guess ‘cause we’re black and Asian.”

Monica piped in, “Well, whenever Sun Li and I hang out, people call us
Hispasians
. And Hispanic is not even a race! Anyway, I’m from Puerto Rico and we come in every shade of the rainbow.”