Charmed Thirds_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [51]
the twenty-fourth
I wasn't the only one anxiously awaiting Marcus's arrival at my parents' house.
“MMMMMMMMMMAHCUSSSSSSSSSS!” shouted Marin as she careened into my knees.
“She associates you with Marcus,” Bethany explained, setting out a tray of Papa D's Holidaze Donuts, which, to my knowledge, were the same as their regular variety, only coated in red, white, and green sprinkles. “Where is he, by the way?”
“On his way. He'll be here very soon.” I stroked Marin's curls to console her. Her fair hair is the same color mine was before it darkened with age and temperament to its current bitter chocolate hue. Sometimes this gives me hope: The Blond Bond is broken! On more jaded days it makes me grieve for her future, which will be more dun than sun.
“YAY! YAY! YAY!” Marin whooped as she bounded toward the Christmas tree.
“She's more excited about Marcus than Santa Claus,” I observed.
“So how are things between you two?” Bethany asked.
“Well, you know, this is Santa's really busy time of year . . .”
“I meant Marcus,” she said, clarifying the obvious. “You haven't talked about him in ages.”
I wanted to point out how she'd scarcely mentioned her husband in the past six months and she was married to him. But bringing him up would have created a Christmas crisis. G-Money believes no American of any color, class, or body mass index should ever be deprived of the opportunity to go into a diabetic coma. So if a Jew gets a craving for a king-sized cone of eggnog custard with a side order of Holidaze donuts at 2 A.M. on Christmas morning, someone has to keep the Shoppe open to serve him, and that person is G-Money. I'm sure if you asked him—not that I have—G-Money would tell you that he's doing it all for his wife and child. But haven't those priorities gotten a bit out of whack when loyalty to the brand seems to come before everything else, including your wife and child?
“You're not having problems, are you?” my mother asked, pinching stray sprinkles off the poinsettia print tablecloth.
Now that Marcus has been endorsed by Bethany, my mother is less hostile about our relationship. This proves the indestructibility of their Blond Bond.
“No,” I said. “It was a tough semester, that's all.”
“How tough could it have been?” my dad asked, the bells on his corny Santa hat jangling. “You got four As and a B-plus.”
“That B-plus is really going to ruin your record,” my mom said mockingly.
“I don't know if Bethany could find four As and a B-plus on all her report cards, ever,” my dad said.
My sister gasped in offense. “I made the Dean's List my last semester in school!”
“Was that the semester you got an A in step aerobics?” Dad asked.
My sister huffed herself out of the room. As she's gotten older, Bethany has grown less tolerant of her role as the Hot but Dumb One. Guess what that makes me?
I shouldn't complain about my status. After all, I just completed my third semester at one of the most selective institutions of higher learning in the world (and I have used up almost all of my dead granny money for the privilege of doing so). I have read Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche. I have listened to Josquin des Prez, Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Verdi, Wagner, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. I've analyzed works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Brueghel, Bernini, Rembrandt, Goya, Monet, Picasso, Wright, Le Corbusier, Pollock, and Warhol.
La-di-da.
See, you'll forgive me for all this name-dropping when I confess that I don't remember a damn thing about them. Okay, that's not entirely true. I remember Pollock paint splatters and discordant Stravinsky noise and Machiavelli's primitive political methods, you know, the stuff of Jeopardy! daily doubles. But my knowledge really doesn't go much beyond