My mom hugged me back, but it turned out she wasn’t crying because she was sad. She was crying because she was so happy.

     “Oh, Mia,” she said. “We want you to be the first to know.”

     Then she pulled me out into the living room. Mr. Gianini was standing there with this really dopey look on his face. Dopey happy.

     I knew before she said it, but I pretended to be surprised anyway.

     “We’re getting married!”

     My mom pulled me into this big group hug between her and Mr. G.

 

     It’s sort of weird to be hugged by your Algebra teacher. That’s all I have to say.

 

Tuesday, October 21,1 a.m.

 

     Hey, I thought my mom was a feminist who didn’t believe in the male hierarchy and was against the subjugation and obfuscation of the female identity that marriage necessarily entails.

     At least, that’s what she always used to say when I asked her why she and my dad didn’t ever get married.

     I always thought it’s because he just never asked her.

     Maybe that’s why she told me not to tell anyone just yet. She wants to let my dad know in her own way, she says.

     All of this excitement has given me a headache.

 

Tuesday, October 21,2 a.m.

 

     Oh, my God. I just realized that if my mom marries Mr. Gianini, it means he’ll be living here. I mean, my mom would never move toBrooklyn , where he lives. She always says the subway aggravates her antipathy toward the corporate hordes.

     I can’t believe it. I’m going to have to eat breakfast every morning with myAlgebra teacher.

     And what happens if I accidentally see him naked, or something? My mind could be permanently scarred.

     I’d better make sure the lock on the bathroom door is fixed before he moves in.

     Now my throat hurts, in addition to my head.

 

Tuesday, October 21,9 a.m.

 

     When I woke up this morning, my throat hurt so much, I couldn’t even talk. I could only croak.

     I tried croaking for my mom for a while, but she couldn’t hear me. So then I tried banging on the wall, but all that did was make my Greenpeace poster fall down.

     Finally I had no choice but to get up. I wrapped my comforter around me so I wouldn’t get a chill and get even sicker, and went down the hall to my mom’s room.

     To my horror, there was not one lump in my mom’s bed, but TWO!!!! Mr. Gianini stayed over!!!!

     Oh, well. It’s not like he hasn’t already promised to make an honest woman of her.

     Still, it’s a little embarrassing to stumble into your mom’s bedroom at six in the morning and find yourAlgebra teacher in there with her. I mean, that kind of thing might warp a lesser person than myself.

     But whatever. I stood there croaking in the doorway, totally too freaked out to go in, and finally my mom cracked an eye open. Then I whispered to her that I was sick, and told her that she’d have to call the attendance office and explain that I wouldn’t be in school today.

     I also asked her to call and cancel my limo, and to let Lilly know we wouldn’t be stopping by to pick her up.

     I also told her that if she was going to go to the studio, she’d have to get my dad or Lars (please not Grandmère) to come to the loft and make sure no one tried to kidnap or assassinate me while she was gone and I was in my weakened physical state.

     I think she understood me, but it was hard to tell.

     I tell you, this princess business is no joke.

 

Later on Tuesday

 

     My mom stayed home from the studio today.

     I croaked to her that she shouldn’t. She has a show at the Mary Boone Gallery in about a month, and I know she only has about half the paintings done that she’s supposed to have. If she should happen to succumb to morning sickness, she is one dead realist.

     But she stayed home anyway. I think she feels guilty. I think she thinks my getting sick is her fault. Like all my anxiety over the state of her womb weakened my autoimmune system, or something.

     Which totally isn’t true. I’m sure whatever it is I have, I picked it up at school.AlbertEinsteinHigh School is one giant petri dish of bacteria, if you ask me, what with the astonishing number of mouth-breathers who go there.

     Anyway, about every ten minutes, my guilt-ridden mother comes in and asks me if I want anything. I forgot she has a Florence Nightingale complex. She keeps making me tea, and cinnamon toast with the crusts cut off. This is very nice, I must say.

     Except then she tried to get me to let some zinc dissolve on my tongue, as one of her friends told her this is supposedly a good way to combat the common cold.

     That was not so nice.

     She felt bad about it when the zinc made me gag a whole bunch. She even ran down to the deli and bought me one of those king-size Crunch bars to make up for it.

     Later she tried to make me bacon and eggs in order to build up my strength, but there I drew the line: Just because I’m on my deathbed does not mean it’s okay to abandon all of my vegetarian principles.

     My mother just took my temperature. Ninety-nine point six.

     If this were medieval times, I would probably be dead.

 

TEMPERATURE CHART

11:45 a.m.—99.2

12:14 p.m.—99.1

1:27 p.m.—98.6

     This stupid thermometer must be broken!

 

2:05 p.m.—99.0

3:35 p.m.—99.1

     Clearly, if this keeps up, I will be unable to be interviewed by Beverly Bellerieve on Saturday.

 

     YIPPEE!!!

 

Even later on Tuesday

 

     Lilly just stopped by. She brought me all of my homework. She says I look wretched, and that I sound like Linda Blair inThe Exorcist. I’ve never seenThe Exorcist, so I don’t know if this is true or not. I don’t like movies where people’s heads spin around, or where things come bursting out of their stomachs. I like movies with beauty makeovers and dancing.

     Anyway, Lilly says that the big news at school is that the “It Couple,” Josh Richter and Lana Weinberger, got back together, after having been broken up one whole entire week (a personal record for the both of them: Last time they broke up, it was for only three days). Lilly says when she went by my locker to get my books, Lana was standing there in her cheerleader uniform, waiting for Josh, whose locker is next to mine.

     Then, when Josh showed up, he laid a big wet one on Lana that Lilly swears was the equivalent to an F5 on the Fujimoto scale of tornado suck zone intensity, making it impossible for Lilly to close my locker door again (how well I know that problem). Lilly resolved the situation pretty quickly, however, by accidentally-on-purpose stabbing Josh in the spine with the tip of her number two pencil.

     I thought about telling Lilly my own Big News: you know, about my mom and Mr. G. I mean, she’s going to find out about it anyway.

     Maybe it was the infection coursing through my body, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just couldn’t bear the thought of what Lilly might say regarding the potential size of my future brother’s or sister’s nostrils.

     Anyway, I have about a ton of homework. Even the father of my unborn sibling, who you would think would feel an iota of sympathy toward me, loaded me down with it. I tell you, there isn’t a single perk to having your mother engaged to your Algebra teacher. Not a single one.

     Well, except when he comes over for dinner and helps me with the assignment. He doesn’t give me the answers, though, so I mostly get sixty-eights. And that’s still a D.

     And I am really sick now! My temperature has gone up to ninety-nine point eight! Soon it will reach one hundred.

     If this were an episode ofER, they’d have practically put me on a respirator already.

     There is no way I’ll be able to be interviewed by Beverly Bellerieve now.NO WAY .

     Tee hee.

     My mom has her humidifier in here, going on full blast. Lilly says my room is just likeVietnam , and why don’t I at least crack the window, for God’s sake.

     I never thought of it before, but Lilly and Grandmère sort of have a lot in common. For instance, Grandmère called a little while ago. When I told her how sick I was, and how I probably wouldn’t be able to make it to the interview on Saturday, she actuallychastised me.

     That’s right. Chastised me, like it wasmy fault I got sick. Then she starts going on about how on her wedding day she had a fever of one hundred and two, but did she let that stop her from standing through a two-hour wedding ceremony, then riding in an open coach through the streets of Genovia waving to the populace, and then dining on prosciutto and melon at her reception and waltzing until four in the morning?