Life's Tough. Get a Helmet!
"Your life is going to change forever tonight, so be ready."
Issa Mazumder stopped in her tracks at her mother's mystifying phrase. "Mom!" she protested. Still clad in Power Puff Girl pajamas, not to mention sans coffee, Issa was in no shape for guessing games. "You are not messing with me right now!"
"I won't say another word. I was going to wait till the weekend, but today seems like a good day. It's a surprise."
Issa dropped into the chair opposite her mother and prepared her best wide-eyed "look how cute I am" expression. Nothing she loved more than one of Alisha Mazumder's surprises.
Just last month she and Alisha had made an impromptu trip to Manhattan when the Cirque de Soliel had come to the city. They had worked as ushers and seen the show for free from the front row.
"I'll die! I'm not even kidding. Physically die!"
"I'll pick you up here at six. Be ready!" Alisha Mazumder raised an eyebrow over a steaming coconut latte. "I don't think you'll physically die."
"I can't think of anything else now. How could you do this to me?"
"This is quite the change from the panic-stricken daughter who was totally freaking last night about some exam." Alisha laughed. "What happened to 'Oh my God, I'm totally going to fail the World Politics midterm. My life means nothing beyond this exam!'"
"Whatever. I'm never panicked. Steady as a train. See that?" Issa flexed her puny biceps. "And quit changing the subject."
"Steady like a train wreck." Alisha grinned. "Talked to Adam finally?"
"Yup." Issa had to smile. She supposed the subject could turn to Adam. For a few seconds anyway.
Anxious, adorable Adam. Her boyfriend of two years had called at midnight with a panic attack of his own. He needed help. He needed support. More than anything…he needed her notes.
And if anything could make Issa feel better, it was fixing a problem. She'd drilled the study material into Adam's head and realized that she knew her stuff pretty well in comparison to her first and only love.
"He hadn't studied for the exam at all. His ass was set up to fail," Issa said as she got up to fill a mug with soy milk and pop it into the microwave. The Mazumder family ritual of spending a half hour every morning discussing school, work, cute boys, etc., over coconut lattes was Issa's favorite part of the day. Often, she felt it was the only time she and her mother could completely and totally be themselves, fuzzy pajamas and bed-head included. Over the years, she'd come to savor these last few minutes of dreamy innocence before the Mazumder girls donned protective shields and journeyed into the perilous world of high school.
"So, if Adam wasn't studying, what was Nerd Boy doing all weekend?" Alisha folded a corner in her Modern Art and Design magazine, buffed nails gleaming as she flipped the pages. "Shooting up? Loose women, fast cars?"
"Ha-ha." Issa made a face. She retrieved the steaming mug of milk from the microwave after the insistent beep.
"He was sick, remember? He called me yesterday and told me he was on bed rest all day Friday and Saturday. Do you need to be calling him Nerd Boy all the time?"
"Uh, yeah. Otherwise, why would he date you?" Alisha teased, swirling her coffee cup. "Nerd Girl!"
"Hey!" Issa glanced up from where she was adding coconut syrup and two shots of espresso into her monstersized latte. "I protest!"
"Mommy, Mommy, I'm going to fail school. Will you still love me? Will you support me if I don't get into any college and have to live in a two-story cardboard box on the driveway?" Alisha mimicked Issa's paranoid ramblings from last night. "I swear, if I'd studied half as much as you do I would have been the mayor by now."
"You could be a rocket scientist, Mama." Alisha was an enigma to Issa. An eternally glamorous, bohemian version of Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alisha looked ten years younger than her thirty-six years and was one of the most dynamic people Issa knew. Everyone who met Alisha was in love with her wit, charm and vivacious personality within ten minutes. "Thanks for your concern, my love." Alisha stood and shook the cheese Danish crumbs off her tiered blue velvet skirt. "You need a ride to school?"
Issa had to call Adam one last time to make sure he wasn't panicking, but refused to confess that to her mother and risk more teasing. "I'll walk, actually. Clear my head. Make sure I have all the world politics straight."
"Again, I repeat. Nerd!" Alisha called as she waltzed up the stairs. "Where do you get it from?"
Issa caught sight of Alisha's half-empty mug on the kitchen counter and almost laughed.
A total free spirit. No rules and regulations could keep Alisha in one place for long. While Issa envied Alisha's daydreamy attitude, she knew that one person in the house had to be somewhat responsible.
"I wonder too, Mama," Issa murmured, smiling as she rinsed out the cup and placed it into the dishwasher. Sometimes she swore her list-making obsession and punctuality existed to compensate for Alisha's short-term memory. Speaking of short-term memory, Alisha had managed to escape without revealing her surprise.
"Damn. She's good. She's really good," Issa grumbled as she grabbed a notepad off the kitchen counter. So much to do today, she thought. One, drop off article at Apex.
She wrote for the school newspaper as part of her writing scholarship at the prestigious private school. She worked hard on all her articles for the Athens Apex knowing Alisha would never be able to afford to send her to the hoity-toity school without the scholarship.
Last night, Issa had just finished up an investigative article on Thomas Calabran, one of the reclusive oil tycoons in town, three days before the deadline. Even she had to admit the article was one of her better works.
"Hey, your aunt Helen called," Alisha yelled over the sound of her hair dryer upstairs. "She wants to know if you want to do Kwanzaa in Atlanta again this year. Call her back, would you?"
Strict Aunt Helena. Her father's oldest sister had never approved of the mixed-race marriage of her Indian mother and African-American father. But she loved Issa like her own child and insisted Issa "keep her black flavor ripe." Issa had celebrated the African holiday during the last week of December with her father's family every year since she was a kid. Despite her father's absentee status, it was the one holiday she looked forward to, just to be able to see her extended family. The black, red and green decorations, the homegrown fruits, beautiful objects of art…she loved it all. The weeklong celebration made her feel like a part of her father's culture. A part she felt like she barely got to experience in the preppy, white-bread Connecticut town they had moved to at the beginning of high school.
"I'll call her, Mom. Please just finish doing your hair. You don't want to frizz."
"Aye-aye, Capitane."
Issa smiled and returned to her list.
Two, talk to Professor Kidlinger about the independent-study project.
English was the class she excelled at without trying and her teacher, Ms. Kidlinger, was always telling her she would accomplish great things with her talent for words. Issa had come up with a master plan to ask her teacher if she could do an independent-study project on Jane Austen and her life during the Pride and Prejudice era next semester.
Three… "Hey!" Alisha called again, snapping Issa out of her list. "Cute-boy-on-the-patio alert!"
Issa's pen hit the counter a second before the knock on the kitchen door. "Are those cheese Danishes I smell?"
Adam. "Hey!" Issa threw open the door and greeted the smiling junior with a big kiss. "I didn't expect to see you this morning."
Her Adam. Buttery ribbons of blond hair, eyes that twinkled like Christmas lights and the most innocent smile Issa had ever seen. So he wasn't traditionally gorgeous with his mild sprinkling of acne and too-thin frame, but Issa found him adorable and perfect for her.
Adam's lightly freckled face crinkled even more around the eyes than usual. "Hello, gorgeous."
Issa's cheeks burned. Adam always claimed she looked like the girl from Bend It Like Beckham, but she didn't believe it for a second. Alisha was the great beauty in the family, Issa was just a mess of tangled, murky brown hair and tennis-ball-sized, anxious eyes. Their homecoming pictures had been beautiful, though, his cream complementing her cocoa.
"How're you feeling? Better?" Issa stuffed a Danish into his hand.
"Listen, I need to run to an early morning Science Club meeting, but I wanted to bring you this." From behind his back appeared a single lavender rose, Issa's favorite. "Thanks so much for helping me last night."
"You didn't have to." Issa took the flower and inhaled.
"I did have to," Adam said, encircling his hands around her back, pulling her head under his chin. Issa breathed in his CK aftershave as she leaned on him.
"Thanks so much, Iz. You're amazing." He kissed her nose. "Now I really need to go. I'll see you in class."
"Love you!" Issa called to him as he jogged down the driveway. He held up an arm without turning around.
She smiled and twirled on her bare feet. Adam was happy again. Problem solved.
After the last period of the day, the World Politics exam successfully behind her, Issa left the school newspaper office where her article was safely nesting in the editor's layout box. She sped through the halls, having gotten a text message from Gigi five minutes earlier.
EMERGENCY! I NEED TO SEE YOU! CHEM LAB! NOW!
Issa flew around a corner and skidded on the freshly waxed floor, her Sketchers screeching to a stop.
Latina Barbie and the Skipper twins, combined weight and IQ of 100, stood blocking the hallway.
"Well, well." Cat Morena, aka Latina Barbie, crossed her arms, a smirk in her slanted green eyes. "If it isn't the affirmative-action case." She emphasized the word with an extra S at the end. She covered her slight Cuban accent with a faux British one. "Off to help Mummy scrub the floors to earn your keep?"
Issa clenched her teeth. Rudeness on a daily basis was expected from Cat, but she was dissing Alisha now, the best...
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