The Secret Diary of Ashley Juergens (9 page)

8:38 A.M.

Every time I think life has calmed down for a second, a tornado moves in. And that tornado is usually Amy. Honestly, she used to be the most boring person. My parents would always ask, “Where’s Amy?” and I would always have a boring answer. “Reading a book” or “practicing the French horn” or even “staring out the window.” Now it’s “she’s pregnant” and “she’s got a boyfriend but he’s not the father of her baby” and today it’s “she’s marrying Ben.” Okay, I didn’t tell my parents that last part. How could I? I can still hardly believe it.

This morning I told her Dad was moving out and we needed to try to stop him. She acted like that was old news and didn’t seem concerned. I know it was understood Dad was going to be staying here only a little while, but I didn’t expect it would really be the end of it. I thought he’d end up living back here for good. Amy said he’s moving close by, but that’s not the same as actually living here.

And how does Amy know where Dad’s moving to? Why didn’t he say anything to me? Dad and I are very close—we just bonded over Amy’s cheesy poetry. Not that I could tell her, but we did.

I figured it must be because he knew how I would react and he’d rather Amy tell me. My reaction to things can be . . . explosive. But it’s not my fault. I always give the appropriate reaction depending on whatever it is I’m being told.

I decided to use Amy and Dad’s newfound closeness to my advantage. I told Amy she had to keep Dad from leaving. Maybe tell him she’s having twins or something. She had to tell him not to leave, or better yet tell Mom that Dad can’t leave. I worked hard to get him back here; now I needed Amy to help get him to stay.

But Amy wouldn’t budge. She must have gotten up extra early today because she and Mom already got into a fight. Amy thought she could pass the baby off on Mom whenever she wanted, while she had a life. I rarely side with Mom, but this is definitely one of those times I do. How can Amy just dump all that responsibility on Mom? Especially now, when it looks like Mom has to find a job. And no offense to Mom, but maybe the baby should be adopted. It’s not like Amy and I are doing so hot right now.

Amy
DID NOT
like the adoption idea at all. She said it’s her baby and she doesn’t want to give it away. Except to Mom.

It reminded me of when we used to babysit together. Five minutes after the parents left she’d hand me the baby and go watch
TV
. Then when the parents came back and asked about our evening Amy would say, “It went great!” and the baby was “such a good boy/girl.” A baby’s always great when you’re not the one taking care of it. Maybe if Amy had performed her babysitting duties more thoroughly she would have been more careful about getting pregnant.

And Amy’s dolls when she was little? She’d leave them out in the backyard all the time. They looked like they had been on a season of
Survivor
. I was about to mention this when she said she wasn’t going to fight with me on her wedding day.

WEDDING DAY
???!!!

And she wants me to be her witness. Well, yeah, I’m not going to miss this, that’s for sure. Since the wedding’s today, that must mean we’re skipping the whole bridal shower, bachelorette party, and wedding-planning stuff. Fine by me! That stuff always seemed like stupid fluff that only leads up to the big fluff explosion . . . the wedding.

I don’t know what good getting married does for Amy’s whole baby situation. Let alone getting married without Mom and Dad’s permission. Amy thinks marrying someone who will take care of her and the baby is a good thing. It is, but I think she should be more concerned about taking care of the baby herself. All this seems like a big distraction to overshadow the little distraction that’s going to be coming very soon.

Amy said she was marrying Ben with or without me. Of course I want to be there. She said she wants to make her own decisions, and let’s face it—the wrong decisions are more fun to witness.

2:13 P.M.

I got to see Amy’s school today. Even empty it seemed better than my school—no offense, Principal Miller. It’s bigger and I could tell no one gets bothered about what they wear. Amy told Mom she wanted to show me around, so she dropped us off while she got the car washed. We were really there to get fake
ID
s from some guy named Joe Hampton for the wedding, but I still looked around anyway.

I smiled nice and big for my
ID
picture because Amy said if I was her witness she’d tell me where Dad’s moving.

I didn’t want to tell Amy this, but that wasn’t my first fake
ID
. This one is definitely an upgrade, though. I got a fake
ID
last year from another kid’s older brother who sold them in the parking lot after school. It cost me twenty bucks and I got what I paid for. It was a used driver’s license that had belonged to a woman with dark hair. It didn’t even look like me, but after seeing his selection I didn’t have the luxury of being picky. And it was the only California license he had, so I actually got the best one. I never even planned on using it. Like with the condoms. It was just kind of . . . there. I eventually sold it for twice the price I paid because no one would ever believe it was mine anyway. My dad would have been so proud. Of the profit I made on it, not because I resold a fake
ID
. But this Joe guy making the
ID
s at Amy’s school had a nice operation going. It was definitely my picture. Only I lived in Nevada.

2:55 P.M.

Mom met us out in the hallway, which was a really close call. She and Amy talked about the whole job situation. Amy acted like she’s been looking for jobs, but I know she hasn’t. She’s too busy planning a wedding and avoiding responsibility in general. Mom seems to be really looking, though. She told me she was surprised I didn’t have anything to say on the subject. I know I tend to hurt her feelings a lot. I really don’t mean to. It seems that way, but I don’t. I’ve just been especially vocal lately because of Amy and Dad and everything. I’m afraid if I stop commenting on it I’ll have time to look around and really see what’s going on. It’s a lot to take in. But I have to realize it’s a lot for Mom, too, and my comments don’t make it any easier. I’m really going to work on it and hope this journal helps. That’s not to say I will stop making honest observations. Sometimes it feels like my family is stuck in some kind of Greek tragedy and I’m their one-woman chorus. A Greek tragedy always needs a chorus.

Then we got on the topic of Dad, which doesn’t help when I’m trying not to make comments, because I don’t want to think about him moving out. This is mouthy territory for me. So it was good when Ben and Henry walked up. Except when Ben introduced Henry to my mom as his
BEST MAN
. I felt like saying, “And you know Amy . . . the bride?” This wedding is going to be such a disaster. Everyone laughed it off, but I could tell Mom didn’t get the joke. Thank God.

Then Henry decided to stop staring at me and ask me out on a double date with Amy and Ben in front of my mom. Mom thought that’s what everyone was acting nervous about. Unbelievable. It’s not a date, it’s a way to get me to Amy and Ben’s wedding without her getting suspicious. And Henry will probably use me to make his ex-girlfriend jealous. Now I’m a witness to their deceptive wedding and Henry’s amorous entanglements. How romantic. Good thing Amy and I are sisters and friends or I would never have agreed to this.

After that was settled, my mom told me I could talk to her about anything—like double dates. She always gets like this with me and boys and dates. Even when I was little and went to Cotillion. At a certain point in the night it would be girl’s choice and whoever I chose to dance with always turned into someone I wanted to date. She would ask me a million questions: Why did I pick him? Did I think he was cute? Was I hoping to go out with him after Cotillion ended? I didn’t even want to go to Cotillion, why would I want to date someone from Cotillion? They made me choose someone. I would have preferred to stay in my seat during girl’s choice. But Mom told me not to get kicked out because she couldn’t get her deposit back. So I picked the guy who was closest to me and breathing. That was the extent of my thought process.

I wish I could tell her I had something much more interesting than a double date to tell her about. But I made another promise to Amy. Besides, I wanted to know where Dad was moving.

3:41 P.M.

I almost let the wedding secret slip out a few times before we got home. It was a little out of my hands. Signs from above—literally. On the way home we passed a church, a bakery, and a wedding dress shop. If “Going to the Chapel” had come on the radio, I would have confessed for sure. But I just sulked in my seat, wondering where Dad was moving since Amy still hadn’t told me, even though she promised. I’m starting to think maybe Amy isn’t a good friend. Or her brain is too preoccupied with wedding stuff to think of anything else.

We pulled into the driveway and I was kind of annoyed at how excited Mom was about starting her new life without Dad. At least I was until she opened the garage door and there he was, lounging on a recent couch sale item and watching
TV
.

HE MOVED INTO THE GARAGE
!

This is great! He can give Mom her space but still be around for us. I mentioned before how I wanted to move into the garage. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. My dad’s a genius. Birds of a feather flock to the garage, I guess. I wish I could say Mom was as happy as I was. She didn’t like Dad taking over the garage as his proverbial doghouse. Amy had to reach over and physically remove the keys from the ignition so Mom wouldn’t park the car on top of Dad and his new digs.

Dad used to set up our camping tent in the backyard when he and Mom needed a break. He would call it a “marriage vacation.” Unfortunately, the tent was blown away one windy morning while Dad was inside brushing his teeth. I’m sure if the tent was still around Mom would have returned home and been unpleasantly surprised the next time she walked out in the backyard to do her gardening.

My dad took a break from watching
TV
so he and Mom could fight in the kitchen. I was actually glad they were fighting because it was a lot easier for us to get ready and leave for the wedding unnoticed. I’m not one hundred percent positive what the fight was about, but I did hear the words “money,” “garage,” and “urinal.”

6:02 P.M.

When we arrived at the church, I was a little surprised. Particularly because I didn’t see any church. I thought we pulled over because we ran out of gas or something. I never even knew this chapel was here. You know what? I don’t think I wanted to know. I kept looking at Amy to see if she was getting cold feet, but she didn’t look nervous at all. She was actually really calm, the calmest I’ve ever seen her. So was Ben. On the car ride over they kept looking at each other and smiling. Ben’s driver kept smiling at me in the rearview mirror, as if to say, “I told you so.” Henry kept smiling at me, too. I smiled at no one.

Albertson’s Wedding Chapel is something to behold. I was pretty disappointed. Ben is the son of the Sausage King so I thought he would at least try to step it up a little bit. I know that making a commitment to someone else is supposed to be the only thing that matters, but this place looked like a cheap knockoff of the lowest-priced drive-through chapel in Vegas, except there was no Elvis to officiate. Elvis would have been an upgrade. It looked like one of Amy’s original diary poems exploded in here. Henry told me the place wasn’t as beautiful as I was and well, I should hope so. Even on my worst day I would hope so.

The “minister,” or Albert as he’s known here at Albertson’s, thought I was Amy at first. Since I must have looked pregnant to him, passing for eighteen wasn’t a problem. I still couldn’t believe how far we were getting using these fake
ID
s.

Amy and I looked at each other and smiled before she walked down the aisle with Ben. I remembered when Amy used to fantasize about her dream wedding: her and Brad Pitt getting married on the beach in Hawaii. Ben’s no Brad Pitt in the looks department, but he seems like a good guy. He’s treated Amy well so far. And I have to say even though we were in a chapel that looked like it was decorated by the love child of Tacky and Kitsch, Amy seemed very happy and the moment was genuinely touching. So touching and lovely I didn’t want to tell her there was no way this wedding was legal, since all of us are under eighteen, fake
ID
s or not.

Amy was surprised as she walked down the aisle to see a bunch of her friends had shown up uninvited. Lauren and Madison came in bridesmaid dresses, even though Amy didn’t ask them to be bridesmaids. Typical. Adrian was there wearing something that shouldn’t ever be worn in a church, so it’s a good thing Albertson’s is only a fake chapel. Henry’s ex-girlfriend Alice came with Grace’s ex Jack, Grace came with Ricky, and Grace’s brother Tom came with his date, Tammy. Word must have gotten out around school about the wedding. This means Mom and Dad will be finding out about this very soon. That’ll be exciting.