20. Vivi A Regular Girl
vivi: a regular girl
I HAD LITERALLY ALREADY LIVED through one parent’s midlife crisis.
Having to do it again was, like, a lot. My mom and Chase Aarons were seriously all anyone at school could talk about, which was saying a lot because none of us cared one little bit what adults were up to normally.
But this was pretty big news. I was annoyed with my mom, but, on the bright side, on the one-up-on-my-dad side, she was at least single.
I mean, she wasn’t having an affair with a movie star and ripping our family apart.
But, like, seriously, how were either of them landing these people? Were my parents hot? So cringey.
In an act of defiance, I hadn’t contacted my mother once since she was splashed all over the internet with Chase Aarons. “Although…” I was saying to my best friend Carson now, in the bathroom of the New York Palace hotel, “it’s kind of notable that she hasn’t contacted me either.”
Once a month we had this really fun and funny meetup with our friends where we watched a rerun of Gossip Girl at someone’s house, got dinner at the Palace, and then went to whoever’s house parents happened not to be at—in our school uniforms, which looked just like Serena’s and Blair’s.
Usually, the whole thing was a huge, sneaky pain because, unlike Serena’s and Blair’s mothers, who seemed to have forgotten they had children and let them run around New York City completely unsupervised, I had to find a way to circumvent my mom’s sleuthing, which was FBI level.
But now I guessed she didn’t even care about me, because she only cared about Chase Aarons.
“Well, I mean, that’s not one hundred percent true. She has texted me a few times. But I have not texted back. So she probably knows I’m mad.”
Carson puckered and looked at me. “Let’s take a selfie with the pay phones outside the bathroom.”
“Carson! I am having a real thing here. You aren’t paying attention.”
She leaned up against the counter in the vestibule outside the toilet stall area of the bathroom where we were currently hanging out.
“This isn’t a real thing, Vivi. Your mom is dating the hottest movie star on the planet right now.
You are jealous, and you can just admit that.
” She paused. “And it’s not like some Anne Hathaway movie because your mom is not, like, ‘just a regular girl.’ She’s super successful and gorgeous and your aunt is also a movie star, so these things are bound to happen. I don’t see the problem.”
I watched my jaw drop in the mirror. “You are supposed to be on my side!”
“I am,” she said seriously. “But being on your side right now doesn’t help me get to hang out with Chase Aarons. Being on your mom’s side does.”
I rolled my eyes. “I hate that you’re making some good points.”
She nodded. “Look, I didn’t want to bring this up but your mom isn’t a nun. She isn’t going to stay single forever. And, yes, it sucks when your parents date other people, but if it’s going to happen—and it’s going to happen—wouldn’t you rather her date a hot movie star than, like, Benjamin’s dad?”
I crinkled my nose. Benjamin’s dad was like sixty-five, overweight, red-faced, and sort of wheezed when he talked.
But he was very rich, so he continuously had a thirtysomething-year-old wife that he was in some stage of marriage to or divorce from.
I didn’t think my mom would ever go for someone like that.
But I guessed you never really could tell.
Weirder things had happened. Like my mom dating Chase Aarons.
“Lake is coming tonight,” Carson said, walking ahead of me and holding the bathroom door open. We stopped at the pay phones for a selfie.
“I know,” I said, grinning like I was really excited when, inside, I was just thinking about how Lake wasn’t Tyler.
Lake would never be Tyler. And all I wanted was Tyler.
Lake and I had sort of been talking when I met Tyler.
And I really liked him. I did. And never once while Tyler and I were dating did I make out with Lake—even at a party, even as a dare. Please let the record show that.
But now that Tyler had made out with Katelyn—I shivered at the thought—maybe Lake and I could be a thing.
Carson stopped at the top of the stairs that led down to the Gold Room. “Hey,” she said. “Turn that frown upside down. I know you liked the hot farm boy, but that ship has sailed. Time for a new ship. And do you know what ships sail on?”
I smirked. “Not Lakes, Carson. Ships do not sail on lakes.”
She waved her hand like that was an insignificant detail. “How about you can lead a horse to water?”
I shook my head. “You’re getting further away from the metaphor working.”
“But I made you smile!” she trilled. She had. She did.
I pulled up my knee socks and rolled my skirt band.
“How is it that our uniforms are so much hotter when we aren’t wearing them at school?” Carson asked.
“It’s, like, a cultural phenomenon. I’m not totally sure. But it’s real.”
We stood up straighter, fluffed our hair, and walked into the Gold Room to meet our friends. It felt very sophisticated to be in a bar, even though we couldn’t drink.
I sat down next to Lake and grinned. “Hey, Viv,” he said.
“Hi,” I said with my most flirtatious grin.
The server brought a round of nonalcoholic Gossip Girls, per usual, and Lake slid a flask out of his cowboy boot to un-virgin them, per usual.
“Just a splash,” I said. But then I realized that it was Dad’s week, I was spending the night at Carson’s, and her parents were much more like Blair’s and Serena’s.
Let’s just say, they wouldn’t be waiting up for us.
So I sipped my drink as Lake said, “I hear you’re having a little trouble in the man department. ”
I channeled my inner Emerson Murphy and replied seamlessly: “Not tonight.”