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  Neve and GHz appeared just then in animated form, right on the set of Entertainment Daily, and kissed the hostess.

  “I understand you were chosen from more than two hundred entrants.”

  “Yes,” they said in Italian-accented English.

  “Well, let me be the first to congratulate you.”

  “Thank you. We don't speak much English, so ciao.”

  “Ciao. See you in Turin.”

  The animations disappeared.

  Dad was still staring at the TV set when he said, “I'm glad I had someone to share that with.”

  We both burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, and were still cracking up even when the show had moved on to a preview of an “evil chemist” movie called Bad Science.

  “If the mascots are so embarrassing to people, why do they keep creating them?” I said after a brief exit to the bathroom.

  “Licensing moola to be made. Big, big money. Kids love mascots.”

  “I guess.”

  “Let me show you my Syracuse magazine.” Syracuse University is in upstate New York; it's the university my dad attended in the seventies as a double major in marketing and advertising. (Cough, Dad was quite the punk rocker, eh?) He reached over and grabbed the glossy publication and shoved the cover photo of a stuffed orange with googly eyes in front of my face.

  “That's my mascot. He's at every Orangeman football and basketball game.”

  “Your school mascot is an orange ?”

  “After the school color.”

  “Is he a navel orange?”

  Dad laughed. “I'm not sure, but I know originally the mascot was an Indian warrior, and sometime during the sixties that representation was deemed too derogatory to American Indians.”

  “Right on.” I was big on Native American rights after studying the Trail of Tears the previous year in American history. It was truly shameful that in the mid-1800s the Cherokees were forced to migrate from their land even after a major treaty with the U.S. government was in place.

  “I also read in the magazine that no one thought the new mascot would catch on.”

  He then turned to the middle of Syracuse, where they were promoting orange slippers with the mascot face popping up on each foot, and plush twelve-inch orange toys that replicated the mascot. “But just look how many things you can get.”

  “Hey, I never got a stuffed orange from you.”

  “Do you want me to order you the sheets with the Orangeman printed on them?” Dad asked, a rhetorical question. He knew how much I loved my floral Laura Ashley sheets I ordered online after I was given the green light by my sister to redecorate Sari-and-Jordie's room as Just-Jordie's room, now that Sari had moved on to dorm life. I was loving my solo bedroom with a Secret Garden theme.

  “Next time Boston College plays Syracuse, come upstate with me. You want to see hilarity?”

  “Do I!”

  “Their eagle mascot runs onto the court after their guys slam dunk, and the crowd boos him, and he shakes his tail feathers at them.”

  Dad demonstrated by shaking his butt at me.

  We heard the door unlocking. Dad rushed to the couch, quickly clicked off the television, and picked up a respectable nonfiction book about the importance of fire in human history—Mom had given it to him for his forty-ninth birthday and had made pointed dinnertime comments about the fact that he never read it.

  “Listen,” he whispered quickly, “like I told you, I'll handle your mother.”

  I gave him another grateful hug.

  “What a day,” Mom said as she plopped into her favorite armchair.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Dad discreetly hid the fatty, nonbaked potato chips my mother still scolds him for eating. “Oh, hi, Elaine.”

  One of the interesting things my ex-English teacher Mrs. Kleinman often reminded my class was that in real life people hardly ever address each other by their first name. Conversations like that smack of corny old sitcoms.

  So when my father said, “Hi, Elaine,” his words sounded off.

  Mom looked at him funny, like she was going to comment on his odd hello, but then instead she grunted and rose. “Don't think me rude, guys, but I'm starved. I'm starting dinner.”

  Dad popped up. “You make the salad, Elaine, I'll make the steaks. I checked before, they're all defrosted.”

  Dad is, by my mother's assessment, a “very progressive” husband, but he still really likes to have dinner served to him. For some reason, Mom tolerates this slightly sexist quirk, especially when he says “pretty please.”

  “Fine by me,” Mom said even more suspiciously.

  I have set chores, most of which revolve around the kitchen. I stood up and set the table for three. It was still weird not having Sari at the table.

  “So, did you follow up with Dr. Finneran?” Mom said casually as she sliced button mushrooms into the salad bowl.

  As I wrestled with what I should say, she looked at me intently and asked, “Is something wrong with your hearing?”

  Dad nervously glanced at me from the prep table, where he was rubbing a bit of olive oil onto steaks. He swallowed, slapped the steaks onto the griller, and the PR campaign officially began. “Elaine, I told Jordie that you and I will have a talk about that after dinner, okay?”

  Mom looked up and glanced quickly at both of us. She squeezed the garlic press and the inner clove squirted out of its skin. “Oh, is that so?”

  She left the internship issue alone for the time being, but I was so anxious that I got a nasty nick on my knuckle when I stupidly grabbed the wrong end of one of the steak knives. A little blob of blood oozed out. But I didn't whine about it. I wanted nothing to distract from the father-daughter battle plan.

  Dad has always had this bizarre habit of humming when we eat. You can always tell what's on his mind by the tune he selects. When my sister started dating a Columbia biology grad student who was six years older than her during her last month of high school, Dad got in the habit of humming “I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues.”

  He claims he's never aware that he's humming, and Mom usually stops him so she can bring up a dinner conversation she feels is appropriate for family banter, like a new update on our neighbor's ongoing battle with aortic valve trouble or the world's oldest continuously burning lightbulb, which, according to some article she'd read, has inexplicably been shining in a California firehouse for over a hundred years. (Any comment on our favorite reality show gets a frown.)

  Mom seemed tired, and after she tonged us all ice cubes for soda glasses, she sat down in silence. I anxiously kept my eyes on my plate and ate and drank quickly even though Dad forgot to put any salt on the steaks. He was soon going to bat for me, so at least I could better the meat without a snide comment. I squeezed the last of the ketchup from a plastic bottle onto my meat. The pressure made an unfortunate noise, but nobody laughed.

  Dad's wordless jukebox made it all the way through “It All Depends on You,” at which time he leaped up to slice and scoop the seeds out of the melon set aside for dessert. On any other night I would have immediately commented on the runaway cantaloupe seed comically stuck to his chin.

  When dinner was over, I rinsed off the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher in record time. I certainly wasn't going to sit on the couch like some ringside rooter at the big match.

  I tried to focus on my precalculus and French assignments, but at one point Mom was yelling so loudly that I was afraid she'd hemorrhage or something. I put on my radio to drown them out. Just after I'd finished my precalculus—I'd been pumping away at my homework so long that the ink in my black ballpoint had come to an end—Dad stuck his head in the door and said, hoarsely from all the fighting, “Mission accomplished. But you better do the dishes for the next year without complaint. And I'm talking scrubbing pad for the pots. No sticking them in the dishwasher and hoping for the best.”

  I beamed at him. I figured that if advertising was good enough for Dad, Mom could allow me to
try it too.

  Yes, Mom caved.

  My first official day at Out of the Box I promptly walked in around nine a.m. I'd dropped the formal interview wear. My all-black getup of a short denim skirt, crushed velvety top, and flats was nice enough for an office but cool enough to wear to class. This time the receptionist was in place. I had expected a woman. Instead, a man greeted me.

  “Hi, I heard about you. I'm Brad.” He motioned for my silver North Face parka. “Let me show you the closet. It's hanger heaven in there.”

  Brad wasn't lying.

  There was a rainbow of colored hangers inside the closet. Brad chose one from the pale blue section to hang my coat on.

  I thanked him and then he called the premiums extension to let them know their new intern had arrived.

  Paulette came to get me a few minutes later. “You look nice,” she said. “Way too overdressed for our grubby lot. You can wear ripped jeans tomorrow if you like.”

  “There she is.” Marcus greeted me inside their room.

  “Lesson one,” Joel said after a big smile. “In advertising you have to think ahead. Anticipate trends.”

  “Whoa. Maybe she wants some coffee first?” Marcus said.

  “Don't get her started on the habit,” Paulette replied.

  “I'm fine,” I chimed in. Five minutes in, I was already a bit overwhelmed by this trio's energy level.

  Joel continued, “So, what we're dreaming up here today won't be out for another eighteen months. You have to play chess with your competition, play three moves ahead. What are they thinking? What big tie-in will they sew up? If they have a much cooler movie tie-in, the kids will all clamor for their special meals, and you'll be responsible for pushing a dead product.”

  “So how do you know what will be in theaters?” I asked.

  “Good question,” said Marcus. “You check the trades and get as much info from a client as possible.”

  He put a pile of industry magazines on the table, with Variety on top. “Your first task will be to circle anything that has 'kids' or 'family picture' in its description for two Christ -mases from now.”

  Over the next half hour as I dutifully did this, my team did nothing but drink coffee and grumble about their boss, the one they called the Pope of Mope.

  “He made a fortune from us last year, and I don't see any of that going to us.”

  “I'll say. A five percent raise? What kind of BS is that?”

  “He's so full of it. I heard the Pope presenting one of our ideas to a Brandweek reporter the other day. Like he dreamed it up himself.”

  “Okay, what have you got for us?” Marcus said finally.

  I read them the list, which wasn't too long.

  “The Eggcups,” I said.

  “The what?” Paulette said.

  “Come again?” Joel said.

  I shrugged. “They're eggcups that run around rescuing malnutritioned kids.”

  “How did that get financed? Even to a creative, that is bizarre.”

  “And what else?” Joel asked.

  “There might be another Secret Agent Kids movie.”

  “Always good. Both genders like the Secret Agent Kids franchise. Next?”

  “Frogman. That's a comic book adaptation.”

  “No,” Paulette said. “Girls won't like it. Then we have to do a girl companion toy to give to the franchises as a second choice. Twice the work. Twice the expense. They went for it once, but I'm not sure they'd pony up the double manufacturing fees twice in one year.”

  “Yes,” Joel agreed.

  “I'll let you in on a little secret,” Marcus said. “This presentation to our client must be killer. We've never had much competition. But one of our old staff members has moved to Los Angeles and has started a rival agency. He's right there with the movie studios, and he's got his ear to the ground.”

  “Another tried-and-true tactic,” Paulette added, “is to tie in to a TV program or an established kids' character. But it's hard to know what is going to stay hot.”

  Back in French class, I thought about what I had learned that morning.

  What I was supposed to be thinking about was French past perfect tense.

  I actually had mastered past perfect tense last semester, yet my French teacher, Monsieur Moskowitz, was so wrapped up in his own head that he was teaching it again.

  Not that I didn't like or respect Moskowitz very much, I just wished I'd had the foresight to take German with Dr. Zuckendorf, who was supposed to be a fabulous teacher. There weren't many kids who took German, and those who did were a close-knit unit; over two years they'd raised enough money to go to Hamelin, the place where the real Pied Piper piped. And Jeremy's Latin class sounded pretty great—he was always going on about Dr. Horton's hilarious year-end toga parties with eggnog and grape clusters.

  It wasn't just me with the wandering mind. Everyone in the class was openly yapping. If a representative of the board of education had dropped by that second, there would definitely have been hell to pay, and I don't think any number of teaching years behind Moskowitz would have saved him.

  I eavesdropped a little. “I was reading in Teen People that a key sign of depression is overshopping,” I overheard Jade Stein say. I liked Jade even though I was hardly a good friend of hers. Jeremy was always talking about what a phony she was, and this was true, in some ways. But she was funny.

  One time she confessed to me her plan to make it big in the publishing world: “There's going to be a huge cottage memoir industry when me and my fellow adopted Chinese girls come of age. All the Jade Steins and China Goldsteins and Jasmine Schwartzes are going to flood the market. I'm writing mine now to beat the flood.” Funny with a touch of poignancy always scores big points with me.

  “How many bags do you have?” said Jade's best friend, a beanpole named Fred who always landed the “zany sidekick” role in our school plays.

  “Six.”

  Fred moaned. “You're a goner. Go directly to therapy.”

  On the other side of me Clara was telling Blanca and Willie a funny story (she'd already told me outside the classroom) about her internship at the Times.

  Even though, as I suspected I would be, I was quite bummed that Clara had in fact landed the science journalism internship at the New York Times, as her best friend I was proud of her too.

  Clara could always make me laugh, and the story she was telling the others about the first day of her internship was hilarious.

  “Then this paid assistant whispered that my boss has a fear of color in her food.”

  “A fear of color?” Willie checked.

  “I didn't get it either. But I checked out what my supervisor was eating for breakfast: egg white omelet and plain yogurt.”

  “That's not so extreme,” Blanca said.

  “But what about her lunch, which she also ate at her desk?”

  “What did she eat?” Willie said.

  Clara leaned forward to whisper loudly, “Steamed white asparagus. Mozzarella. Cauliflower. And white chocolate.”

  Both Willie and Blanca nearly lost it.

  I found myself even more jealous of Clara that day because as usual she was so effortlessly funny. Even now I have to write things down to get any kind of timing. Funny stories just don't come to me that easily when I'm speaking.

  Moskowitz clapped his hands to call the many chattering students to attention. “Who is making all of that noise ?” he yelled, clueless as ever.

  The thirty of us bad sheep were temporarily silenced as Moskowitz slammed shut the classroom door.

  “I think it is time for French music. There is no better way to learn French than through music.”

  Moskowitz proceeded to code open a padlock and remove a portable record player from the teacher's locker next to the chalkboard. The record player was dusty and chipped and looked like it was made fifty years ago. Where did that come from? I'd thought I knew all of his teaching gimmicks. He had never brought it out before; in fact, I'd never even seen insi
de his private cabinet. I couldn't help but notice that in addition to the expected stockpile of textbooks and papers to grade, he had practically a grove of fruit in there too, including, inexplicably, two coconuts.

  Clara glanced over at me with a worried expression, and so did Willie.

  Then Moskowitz put on Edith Piaf, the mournful French songstress my parents both like.

  “Ecoutez, s'il vous plait! You will all be quiet and take in Piaf's glory. Listen hard to her words, and what she is singing.”

  As we listened to Piaf's voice, my teacher's eyes got wet, but thank God, actual tears did not fall down his cheeks. I was sure I couldn't handle that.

  The afternoon was turning out strange but kind of cool. This woman could sing. Beautifully.

  Then—and no one saw this coming—Moskowitz started to sing too!

  “Non, je ne regrette rien …”

  His voice was not half bad. Deep and baritoney.

  I quickly translated Edith Piaf 's/Mr. Moskowitz's words in my head as No, 1 have no regrets.

  As Moskowitz wiped his damp eyes, my class fought back titters.

  The thing was, I found my French teacher singing sad love songs surprisingly comforting, and I was soon caught up in my own thoughts again.

  I wondered how Vaughan had done on his first day at the emergency room. I was sure he wouldn't barf at dangling limbs.

  I looked around the class and saw Zane all the way on the other side of the room. He was in both of my afternoon classes. He caught my eye and smiled at me.

  He pointed to Moskowitz and with a grin put an imaginary pistol to his own temple, squinted, and pulled the trigger.

  Afterward the whole class was gathered outside the door, trying to make sense of what we had just witnessed.

  “What does one say after that experience?” Blanca said.

  “One doesn't,” Clara said.

  “He's just so pathetic that I can't find it in myself to ridicule him,” Willie said.

  “You know, his voice isn't so bad,” Blanca said.

  I nodded. “I was getting into the whole thing.”

  Clara peered at Blanca and me with some form of emotion … disgust? “You two are unreal.” But her eyes gave her away. She was as seriously amused as us.