FRIDA' S LIST

Chapter 6 ALMOST THERE

The following day, when I woke up I had some questions in my mind. Everything seemed somehow unreal to me. Was Anthony really going to pick me up? Was he supposed to call me? After my shower, I found my parents sitting in the kitchen, and according to their faces, they were having a serious conversation before my arrival.

"Fifi, I'd like to talk to you. Come on in," my mother told me as I was watching her from the living room.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of chamomile. My father rushed out of the kitchen avoiding making eye contact with me.

"Don't call me Fifi, Mom. I'm not a kid, you know," I muttered, dragging myself to the table.

"Sure, Fi....Sorry. Did you stop by the post office?" she said.

A cold thrill ran down my spine. She was talking about my application to LOUIS X High school.

"Sure," I cleared my throat.

"Good," she nodded.

"By the way, Mom. I...I was wondering if I could..."

"If you could what?"

"I really like my peotry club, so I was wondering if _"

She sighed loudly.

"Frida, we already talked about this," she interrupted me.

"I know."

"Sweetie, it's not for us. You should focus on college, not on that."

My mother had no equal for killing my motivation. I wanted to take poetry studies in College, but she was clearly against the idea. It was according to her a waste of time, money and energy.

"Right," I nodded. "Where's Grandma?" I asked, looking around.

"At Philip's. Frida, sit down, please. I'd like to talk with you about something," she said.

I sighed and pulled out a chair. I sat down across from her. I didn't like when she told me to sit down. There was ALWAYS a catch. The last time she asked me to sit down to have a talk, it was about my cell phone bill. But they had changed my plan, as far as I knew.

"Is it about my cell phone bill?" I asked.

"No," she frowned. "Even though I don't know why you're always calling Maeva, it's not about that. I want to talk with you about something else. You said that you wanted to go to a party tonight, with Maeva, right?"

It was fishy. Why was she asking me that? The problem with lies is that the truth always comes out. I should write it down somewhere to keep that in mind.

"Yeah," I said.

She pursed her lips. From the way she was looking at me, I knew something bad was going on.

"Well, it's strange. Today, I ran into her mother at the grocery store this morning, and she told me that Maeva wasn't going anywhere tonight. So..."

I got it. I was busted. She paused. She was probably waiting for an explanation.

"Okay. Actually, I'm not going there with her. I'm going there with... someone else," I replied, looking away.

"Celestin?" she tried.

"No, not Celestin."

"So? Who is it?"

"It's ... a friend," I said, still avoiding her eyes.

She watched me quietly.

"A friend? What kind of friend?" she said.

"Just a friend. He invited me_" I began.