The Secret Diary of Ashley Juergens (15 page)

10:32 A.M.

I know most people like celebrating and throwing parties with gaudy decorations, but I find it to be overkill. You walk into a party store (not that I really do that often) and there’s something for every event, well, every event except: Congrats! You got pregnant at fifteen the first time you had sex by a guy who isn’t your current boyfriend! I wonder what kind of piñata they’d suggest for that. . . .

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s read my journal this far (Principal Miller) that my mom, in this case, is like most people. So she’s pretty concerned about this baby shower Adrian’s throwing for Amy and that it’s done properly and that she’s there to see all these special moments before the baby comes. I don’t know why. It’s just a big ploy to get in good with Ricky. I’ve got a tip for Adrian. Go to band camp. Apparently that’s where all the action is!

A lot of people are skeptical of Adrian’s motives, even Ricky. But some people defend her, like Grace, even though she’s also been a victim of Adrian’s where Ricky is concerned. I heard some people say Adrian was dating her stepbrother, so they don’t think she’s interested in Ricky anymore. Please. Even though she’s related to her stepbrother only by marriage and barely knows the guy, she’s using anyone she can who’s around. She’s obviously trying to make Ricky jealous.

Still, no one’s called to invite my mom and she wants to go. I know this because she keeps asking me about it. It’s always a bad sign when someone is asking me for party information.

I had no idea who was invited. I figured it was just Amy and her friends, since they were throwing the shower. Mom should just show up. No one else besides me and Henry were invited to Amy and Ben’s wedding, but that didn’t stop people from filling up the seats.

Mom ended up calling dad’s ex-wife, Kathleen, to find out if she was invited and it turns out she was. So am I. Not only am I invited, I’m also being put to work. I have to write down every present Amy gets and who gave them to her. And I will do it with a smile because I’m Aunt Ashley and I played no small part in convincing Amy to keep the baby. I have to accept responsibility for everything that comes along with the territory. This includes parties and eventually . . . poop. Believe it or not, I can handle the poop better than these stupid parties. Thanks to Veronica.

I asked Amy what she wants for a shower gift. She said she doesn’t have anything for the baby, only a pair of overalls. Shoot . . . that was the one thing I had written down. There are so many things to get a baby and a lot of them seem so ridiculous. (A baby-wipe warmer? Life is hard, baby wipes are cold. My nephew should learn this while he’s young.) I hoped Amy would give me more direction. But then again, she doesn’t have much direction herself at this point.

I decided to think on it a little more. I had other things on my mind besides the shower. Dad’s moving out. Mom’s excited about it and, believe it or not, so am I. I know what you’re thinking. After successfully moving him back in (even though it was the garage) and trying to keep him here, how can I be excited he’s moving? Easy. I’m moving with him. When he asked, I said yes immediately. Well, I said yes after he promised he’d get me my own bed so I don’t have to share with Amy when she visits. I’m so relieved to be moving with him. It seems with the baby coming and Mom getting a job and a new boyfriend that this is the right thing to do.

Mom doesn’t know yet, and as soon as she finds out I know her excitement’s gonna give way to hurt. That’s not what I want, but I also don’t want to stay here without Dad. I don’t know where we’re moving but Dad said it’s really close by, so we’ll see Mom and Amy and the baby all the time. I know Mom’s going to see this as me leaving, but I’m not. I’m just taking an extended vacation from my current living situation.

Dad wants me to tell Mom. What a chicken. I know I’m a chicken, too, but he’s an adult. I’m allowed to be a chicken until I’m eighteen, so he can be the one to tell Mom. He says she’ll be upset at first and then it’ll be okay, just like with the divorce. Again, since it’ll be okay, he should tell her. Besides, I’ve got packing to do and all of his things are already boxed up in the garage.

3:00 P.M.

I almost told Mom I was moving a couple of times in the car on the way to Amy’s baby shower. But then I thought if I tell her, she’ll be sad, and then she won’t enjoy the shower. And the shower’s already going to be bad enough.

Mom almost didn’t find the place. Identical condominiums were on both sides of the street and the numbers were all hidden by shrubs. Even though I had been there before to visit Dad, I was in no hurry to get there. I wouldn’t say I had the fondest memories of the place. I changed my mind when driving around got old and finally pointed out the lonely blue balloon tied to a sprinkler head on the sidewalk. Balloons are always the indicator of a nearby party. I was tempted to not say anything, but I was already dressed up and holding a gift-wrapped box containing a days-of-the-week bib set. So let’s do this and get it over with.

It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who was less than thrilled to be there. Tammy, Grace’s brother’s girlfriend, didn’t want to come either, but when you’re a girl it’s just something you have to put up with sometimes. Grace’s mom’s car was hit in the parking lot, so Tammy was telling me about that. Great, I missed the one exciting thing that’s going to happen today.

We got to Adrian’s condo and Amy wasn’t there yet. Ben was going to drop her off so she and Ben must still be looking for the blue balloon. Besides this and picking me up at the bus stop, he’s usually very punctual.

It seemed like Grace was hosting the shower more than Adrian. I never even saw Adrian. But I know she lives there. We shared a bedroom for a couple of hours.

The longer we sat there the more I kept thinking, the later Amy arrives, the later this thing starts, and the longer we have to stay. It’s always awkward when the guest of honor hasn’t shown up yet.

One year my mom threw my dad a surprise birthday party at the furniture store and he showed up three hours late. It was kind of bad planning on Mom’s part, because Dad makes it a point to never work on the weekends, and going to the store on a Saturday counts as work. Even when you call to say it’s on fire. My mom’s intentions were good. She thought it would be the perfect location—a free venue with lots of tables and chairs already set up for people to sit and eat on. Donovan finally got my dad to come over by telling him he forgot to re-up the store’s insurance policy and the fire was spreading quickly. My dad arrived in under a minute. By that time, people had already started eating and my dad spent the rest of the party passing out coasters and trying to sell some of his inventory to his friends. “Feel that chair you’re sitting on” and “See the detail on that table” doesn’t put people in a very celebratory mood. You can see where my suspicions about parties come from.

There was another reason I wasn’t looking forward to this baby shower. Veronica had warned me about what goes on at these things. Games. Lots of them. Like baby bingo, where you write down what gifts you think the mommy-to-be will get and as she opens them you cross them off on your game board. Veronica also told me about a game where the hostess puts baby items on a tray and you have to guess how much everything cost. Another game involves marking on a long piece of ribbon how big you think the mommy-to-be’s stomach is, and then the ribbon is wrapped around her belly to find the winner. Yet another game is where you’re given a roll of toilet paper and you have to diaper yourself. The last game Veronica told me about is where you are blindfolded and have to guess what kind of baby food you are eating. I wouldn’t have brought this up except I glanced at Grace’s baby shower agenda and saw each of those games on the schedule. That meant as soon as Amy showed up we were going to play them. And since I helped talk Amy into keeping her baby, I had to play these stupid games with a smile.

We put our gifts on top of the pile of presents and sat around in a circle staring at each other. This is a game I don’t mind playing. Lauren and Madison were there, Alice of course and Shawna, some girl Jack’s going out with. She kept giving the other girls the evil eye. Not sure what her problem was. Grace kept trying to call Adrian out from the bedroom. That girl must spend about ninety percent of her time in bed. If I did that my dad would immediately get suspicious and spend the whole day trying to find the guy hidden in there. Of course, he would never find him and I’d be banned from my bedroom except for set sleeping hours. Adrian needs a dad around who’ll do that for her.

I was winning the staring in a circle game when one of Adrian’s neighbors came in asking for Mom. We ran out to the stairway and found Amy sitting there eating chips and salsa. My first thought was, If she’s going to skip out on her own shower she could have at least invited me. But it wasn’t her fault; she wasn’t able to walk because she was having labor pains. Lucky. Mom thought it was too early, but the look on Amy’s face told me this was it. My own nephew got me out of a party I didn’t want to be at even though it was his! I am loving this kid already.

I called Dad so he could meet us at the hospital. He thought I was kidding and wanted to know if I told Mom I was moving in with him. I told him I didn’t have a chance, since it wasn’t the right time, and now with Amy going into labor it
REALLY
wasn’t the right time (at this point I say let’s just move all my stuff to the new place and when Mom notices my room is empty she’ll eventually figure it out). He finally got the message I wasn’t kidding around and told me he was on his way. It might have gone quicker if I had told him I was on fire (with a crummy insurance policy).

6:12 P.M.

At the hospital, we all played the same sit around and stare at each other game we played at the shower. It’s a lot more fun with hors d
’
oeuvres. Amy was getting restless and so was the baby. Mom told us to take a walk and get rid of some of the nervous energy, which is kind of tough to do in a hospital.

I was hoping Dad would tell Mom I was moving in with him while Amy and I walked around. Maybe the impending arrival of her first grandson will take the sting out of her younger daughter moving to another nest.

Amy told me Henry says hello. I can’t believe that guy is still on the rebound. He really needs to get back with Alice. We’re both strong women, but I think she probably likes the way he stares more than I do. That’s when I’ll know I’ve found the one for me—when I let him get away with the little things that normally bug me.

I hope he exists. He must. I mean, if Amy and Ben found each other . . .

It was at this moment I wished Amy knew more about Thomas. We aren’t hanging out anymore and I wanted to talk about it. I think I might have offended him by suggesting he get another dog too soon. That or telling him his mom should skip the cupcake convention in Las Vegas and spend some time at home with him. But since Amy was about to give birth, I felt we should talk only about subjects relating to her. Not like we haven’t been doing that for the last eight and a half months, but what can I say? Skipping the baby shower put me in a good mood.

While Amy and I walked around, I couldn’t help thinking about how much has happened this year. Amy got pregnant, then got a boyfriend, my parents separated, my dad moved out and then moved back (garage adjacent), my mom got a new job and a boyfriend, and soon my dad and I are moving out. And now we’re all here together to welcome this new baby into our lives. I just hope Mom sees that even though I won’t be living with her anymore, we’ll always be together. We’ll never miss the important stuff.

I asked Amy if she was scared. I’m scared and I’m not even having the baby, so I knew her answer would be yes, but figured I’d ask anyway because sometimes when you’re scared it helps to talk about it. She said she was but couldn’t wait to meet her son. She wondered if I was going to help out with him. Of course I am—how could she ask me that? She asked if I was moving out so the baby would have a nursery. Wow, Amy has big plans for my room already. I had a feeling. The past couple of times she came into my room to “talk” her eyes seemed to wander around, distracted. Perhaps wondering where to put the crib and what color to paint the walls?

Then Amy asked me to be in the hospital room when she gave birth. If I had written this journal in pencil I would have gone back and erased the line: “I’ll do anything Amy asks.” I did mean it when I said I wanted to be there for Amy and the baby . . . and technically I was there . . . in the building. Emotionally I am so there. Hello, who fought for Amy to keep this kid? Me, his aunt, and this journal is documented proof of that. But I don’t think his actual entrance is as important as, say, his entire life. But I could tell by the way Amy looked at me it was important to her. So I said yes. I would be in the room when she gave birth. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to keep my eyes open.

Ben showed up and I let them have a moment alone. Who knows how many of those they’ll get once the baby comes? Watching them together reminded me of the first time he called Amy and she had no idea who he was. Things have really changed.

I walked back to the waiting room and saw Mom and Dad talking. They weren’t arguing, so I don’t think Dad told Mom about my big move yet. They actually seemed to be enjoying each other’s company. Dad was even giving Mom this intense, loving look, and something told me even though we were moving away from home, we would be back soon.