Fan Girl Read Free Page A

advantage.
    I’m still the poor rich girl stuck in hell with my shrew of a mother in my ear all hours of the day, shrilling how fat I am, how dumb I am (I got my first B). Shoulders back, suck in, do you need that much food on your plate, what music are you listening to, why are you out so late? But on the weekend I get to blast music in the new Honda Accord I got from my dad. Now my twenty dollars of bribe money for Bobby goes in my own gas tank, and I get to the gigs myself.
    I don’t sit in the corner anymore. There are no more seats to be had. It’s standing room only so I jump up and down, lost in the crowd of valley girls, and sing along with the band. It’s a release from the stress and anxiety that is my life. I bob and yell the words to the songs, coming away sweaty and without angst. I feel completely calm and a little what I think being buzzed must feel like, not that I’ve ever tried to get a drink. The thought of cops escorting me home is enough to make me break me out in a sweat.
    Taking a break from my homework the next day I decide to check the mail. Report cards were mailed out, and I wanted to head that off at the pass. Sifting through the bills and multiple magazines for my mother — who needs all this crap? — I see a small plain white envelope with my name beautifully written on the front. It looks like calligraphy, it’s so pretty. I look at the corner of the envelope but it’s empty. When I flip it over there are two names of people I know only in context. I normally never get letters. Who writes them these days? Today was different. ‘Estelle and Bernie Dawson’, it says. My dad’s parents. I quickly run to the house, dumping all the other mail on the foyer table, and rush to my room. Reading the single piece of paper as fast I can, then slower a second and third time, I take in their request.
    They’re coming here and want to meet me early in the year. I think back on what I know of them. I know from my mom that they’re free thinkers; hippies she would say. Dad tells me they lacked structure, rules and that they hated that word ‘discipline’. I know my parents met on the Stanford campus in California but my dad graduated from high school in New York. To my knowledge, I’ve never met them. I don’t think my mom has ever considered it. So she’s been spouting her hate just based on what my dad has told her. Deciding that’s completely unfair, I resolve to meet them. I write back that I’ll be at a Barnes and Noble the next town over on January third, and not to tell my parents.
    When I arrive, the smell of coffee grounds and ink hits me like a wall. Scanning the room and breathing deeply, I take in the various college students wearing backpacks, and women holding self-help books in the checkout. Moving to the right where the Starbucks is located, I immediately see a wrinkly old couple sitting at an outside corner table with tea bags in their cups. I wave shyly as I pass on my way to the counter and order a Venti Chai Frappuccino before joining them. We all study each other, and I fight to fidget in my seat. I have to bite down on my lips to keep from nervously babbling about God only knows what. After a minute, my grandmother leans forward holding her cup in her hands.
    “Dear, you are so beautiful.” She says it quietly, and in a kind of soft maternal voice I’ve never heard before.
    My eyes immediately flood with tears and I look away, trying not to blink so they don’t flow over. No one has ever told me I was beautiful before. It suddenly dawns on me how my life would be so different if I had just heard some loving words every once in a while. Being put down all the time makes me not want to try anything new or be any better. I knew from the time I took dance lessons in the first grade, that anything I tried was just one more thing she could criticize.
    My mother is the worst, but my father has always supported her, never saying a word to counteract her venom. Phillip is