Don't You Wish (3 page)

“Or give him an idea for a new invention. The infinity bathtub.” I laugh, but Mom doesn’t. And she would totally have laughed at that, like, half an hour ago.

I lean my head against the window, still sick from the bus incident and a little sad about the rich doctor who might have been my father.

Courtney wouldn’t laugh at me if I had a house so big it was in a magazine. Not when I got a Z or a Beemer for my birthday, and had … a date to homecoming. I sure wouldn’t be wearing crappy clothes and—

Mom’s hand lands on my arm, yanking me out of my thoughts. “I love who you are, honey,” she says. “I wouldn’t give you up for all the money in the world. It would just be nice not to have to worry about money constantly.”

“Nice” is an understatement. With that much money, I wouldn’t be a
nobody
. My “dad” could give me a boob job,
better cheekbones, and a smaller nose. I’d be at the top of the A-list, not target practice for backpacks.

“So don’t even think about it again,” she says. “Because you are who you are meant to be. Annie Nutter, daughter of Mel and Emily Nutter.”

“But you don’t know, Mom. What if I were the daughter of Jim and Emily Monroe? What if you’d had a daughter with a different husband? Who knows if I would still be me?”

“That’s a silly question.”

Is it? Would I play the violin? Would I have my same lousy hair but pretty blue eyes? Would I still love Jolly Ranchers and SpongeBob, or would I be too rich and cool for candy and old-school cartoons? Would Lizzie be my BFF? Would Theo still gross me out? Would I still be the poster child for the website My Life Is Average? Or
worse
?

I think not.

“If you even existed,” Mom says. “You’d be somebody else entirely if you had different parents.”

“But wouldn’t I have the same soul?”

Mom looks at me, her eyes clear now, but still mascara-smudged. “I have no idea. Nobody can answer that question.”

But I think about it all the way home.

If
Architectural Digest
did a pictorial on our home, it wouldn’t be called “Living a Flawless Life.” More like “Navigating the Nutter Clutter.” The minute I make my way through the maze of discarded printers, car parts, and rusted tools in the garage and manage to get into the kitchen, Theo comes bounding up from the basement, hollering for our attention, with Watson the Howling Basset on backup.

“This is it!” Theo announces, drama-king style. “Dad has done it this time!” He opens his mouth and burps. Every word my ten-year-old moron brother speaks is punctuated with an exclamation point and a belch.

“What are you doing home so early?” I ask, dumping Walmart bags onto the counter.

“Dad picked me up from school to help him. Wait till you see this!” He grabs my arm. “Where’s Mom?”

“Getting the rest of the stuff.”

“You gotta come downstairs!” he insists, pulling at my arm.

“Okay, okay.” I slip out of his slimy touch just as Mom comes in.

“Mom! Dad’s got the best idea ever! This one is killer! We’re gonna be rich!” Theo shouts.

Mom and I share a quick look, but Theo misses it, of course, as he digs through the Walmart bags and yanks out the electrical cable. “Did you get the duct tape? ’Cause that’ll really finish the whole thing.”

Mom’s shoulders sink as she reaches into one of the bags, and I know exactly what she’s looking for. Not duct tape.

“We forgot it,” she says.

“No biggie. Dad rigged it up with something else.”

Of course he did. Dad’s middle name is Rigged It Up.

“Tell Dad I …” Mom inches the magazine out of a bag and avoids my gaze. “I’ll come and see whatever it is later,” she finishes weakly. “You go down, Annie.”

I follow Theo down the basement stairs to find Dad standing next to a full-length mirror, the kind you might hang on the inside of a closet door. His curly brown hair is messed, like he’s been running his hands through it a zillion times, and his glasses are crooked from being pushed up his nose. But behind those nerdy horn-rims, his eyes are bright with a look I’ve seen so many times.

Hope. Enthusiasm. Sheer lunacy.

“C’mere, Annie,” Dad says, waving me past a carton overflowing with old telephone books. “Stand in front of this mirror and get on that scale.”

“Hey, is that my laptop?” I almost choke at the sight of my secondhand el crappo Averatec on the floor. It’s the only computer I have! It’s completely taken apart, with a circuit board on the floor connected to other tiny electronic gadgetry I suspect was all taken from the discard bin at RadioShack.

“I had to borrow the motherboard,” Dad says. “I’ll put it back together again.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said about my flip-flops,” I mutter. “What’s that other stuff?”

“A solid-state relay, some rectifiers, and a couple of PIN diodes.”

“And is that Mom’s digital scale?” I shoot a look at Dad. “Do you actually
want
to die?”

“Just get on the scale, Annie. You’ll see.”

All I can see is my precious—if cheap and as slow as a diseased turtle—laptop disassembled next to the digital scale that we got Mom for Christmas last year. Still, I step on the scale, because when Dad is in this mood, you have to humor him.

“Look in the mirror.”

On the left side of my reflection, a series of red numbers and letters appears:
70 in. 143 lbs. 20.5 bmi
.

“See?” Dad says. “Height, weight, and body mass index.”

“Not mine,” I say, doing some quick math. “Unless I gained twenty pounds and grew five inches.”

“Well, that’s a little glitch,” he admits, coming around
the front of the mirror. “I can only get it to register one set of information now, but I have a friend at Process Engineering, and he’s going to help me iron that out. But wait, Annie. Here’s the amazing part. This mirror and scale combination alone would make a very cool product, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, if you want a full-body view while weighing, that’s a neat idea, Dad.” Not sure it would sell, but then, what invention of his does?

“Now comes the good part,” he says, kneeling down to the electronics on the floor. “Nobody can touch this contraption but me because it’s so delicate that an ant could ruin it by walking over the top. But …” He takes out something that looks like an iPhone knockoff, obviously used and refurbed by RadioShack, and starts to flick the screen.

“Watch the mirror, Annie.”

At first, the change is barely noticeable. My waist narrows. My hips flare. My boobs … whoa.

“Holy cow, Dad. That is so not my body.”

“Look at your face.”

My hair has grown, my eyes have widened, my skin has cleared. Dear God, I got cheekbones.

“Dad!” And the image moves … as I do. “This is unbelievable! How are you doing that?”

“I programmed about a hundred faces in here, and I’m just picking the best of the best. I used that iPhone app Famous Faces, where you can put your picture in and replace all your features with celebrities’. Now look at you. Like it?”

Like it? “It’s perfect!”

“Then voila!” The phone makes the click of a picture,
and he holds up the screen to show me. “Saved on the phone in a new app.”

I look from the phone to the mirror to my dad. And back to the mirror, because, wow, I am hot.

“Those numbers will change on the side when we get this thing wired right,” he adds quickly. “So you know what weight you’re shooting for to have that particular body. Doesn’t it just rock?”

Oh, God, Dad. Please don’t say that. Ever
. “It’s pretty cool,” I say, getting off the scale.

“Pretty cool?” Theo chokes instead of burping, for once. “Dude, this is, like, the freakiest.”

The freakiest? Theo is worse than Dad, if that’s even possible. “But why would people buy it?” I ask.

“Visualization, Annie!” Dad’s eyes are wild. “It is the key to success. Just ask any sports psychologist! Use your mind to picture what you want to be, and you’ll be it. Now you can visualize in full color, and then put it on your iPhone so you can carry your image with you as a constant reminder of how you want to look. Just think what motivation that could be to a dieter!”

“But I can’t get my eyes to look like that.”

“Maybe with the right makeup.”

“Or plastic surgery,” I say dryly, fighting the urge to sigh. Dad’s inventions are brilliant and ridiculous, and so is he. “So, uh, who do you think would buy this, Dad?” I ask.

“Only the six billion people who’ve downloaded that Famous Faces app.” He takes the phone and waves it. “This country is obsessed with looks and weight loss. This is the most incredible combination of the two in history!”

Easy to see where Theo gets his drama-king gene. “That’s saying a lot, Dad.”

“Well.” He shrugs modestly. “It needs work, obviously. I have to somehow create a permanent motherboard and computer that attaches to the mirror, but once I do, and I patent the smartphone app, then I have sole ownership of what will be known as the hottest new invention of this millennium. I could get this into every health club in America.”

“Or into every plastic surgeon’s office.” Mom’s voice comes from the top of the stairs.

“So true, Em. Come and look at this!”

“Really, Mom,” I call. “You need to see what I’d look like if I were perfect.”

“You
are
perfect,” she says softly.

I almost snort with laughter, but something strange about her tone makes me stop.

“Of course, this is just a prototype,” Dad says quickly. “We need to get a really high-end computer and a special—”

“And where are you going to get the money for a really high-end computer?” Mom’s voice is cold as ice as she slowly makes her way down the stairs.

Dad looks a little taken aback. “You remember the idea that woke me up in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, Em? I really think I nailed it. First you see what you weigh. You love that, right?”

“Especially if you’re five-ten and weigh a hundred and forty-three,” I add, trying to make light.

“Those numbers are just a placeholder.” Dad dips his head to see Mom’s face as she reaches the last few steps. “Mom knows why I used one-four-three.”

Theo and I know their little inside message. One, four, and three are the number of letters in the words “I love you.” Dad always signs notes to Mom like that.

She navigates the last few steps deliberately, like she’s thinking about every single movement, not just trying to avoid the stacks of old newspapers.
You never know when you’ll want to find an article
, Dad would say.

And then I notice what she’s holding.

Architectural Digest
.

“Anyway,” Dad adds, filling in the awkward silence. “I told you I’ll figure that out later. You know I hate details. I’m a big-picture kind of thinker.”

Mom stands very still, looking at the mirror. Neither Dad nor Theo seem to notice that anything is wrong, but I do. I see that drawn look across her mouth, usually a sign she’s about to lose her temper. I see her eyes glisten, like she’s been crying again. And the magazine in her hand shakes. Once when she was shaking, I asked her why, and she said she had PMS.

Maybe that’s why she was crying over that stupid article in Walmart. Maybe that’s why she’s looking at Dad like he’s The Biggest Loser, and I don’t mean the kind who’d love to own a mirror that helps you visualize a perfect body.

“Well, perhaps you need to be a smaller-picture kind of thinker, Mel.”

He gives her a quizzical look. “What’s up, honey?”

“Why are you doing this?” Her voice has a funny hitch in it.

Dad blows out a breath. “I know what we talked about
last night, Em, and I promise, I swear, I’m throwing everything out this weekend. Tomorrow. As soon as I—”

“
This
, Mel. This …” She sweeps her empty hand toward the mirror. “This complete and utter waste of time.”

“Mom!” Theo jumps up. “Don’t you want to see what you’d look like with Angelina Jolie’s lips?” God, he is so clueless.

“Yeah, Em. Try it. I’m telling you, this is the big one.” Dad sounds pretty clueless, too. But on he goes. “And this isn’t just for fun! It has commercial potential. Everyone in this country is hung up on self-improvement and celebrities. Not to mention iPhone apps! It’s the perfect combo of our biggest fixations. I call it—”

Mom pitches that magazine so hard, it sails across the room like some kind of wild colored airplane, all six dollars’ worth of gloss and glitz, and
wham!
It slams into the nest of electronics, sliding the motherboard, cracking the diodes and rectifiers and whatever else there is. The contraption yanks the mirror so hard the whole thing tumbles forward, shattering with a noisy crash.

“Picture-Perfect,”
Dad finishes with a whisper.

No one moves. We all just stare at the jagged jigsaw puzzle of mirror shards and computer parts and really bad ideas.

Then Mom runs back upstairs, shoving a whining Watson into the kitchen and banging the basement door behind her.

Theo throws his arms out, his mouth wide in speechless surprise. Dad stares at the stairs, his expression as broken as his invention. Then he steps over the glass and the carton
and all the newspapers and follows Mom, quietly closing the door, leaving us alone with what was once the prototype of Picture-Perfect.

Theo lets out a loud belch, and I just kneel down and carefully start to pick up the pieces.

The whole night royally sucks. I can’t get on Facebook—which I am dying to do, because there has to be something on there about the bus incident. In fact, when Lizzie doesn’t call after her flute lesson, I’m pretty sure that means I am Facebook-ruined for life.

And we don’t even eat dinner together, which is really bizarro for the Nutter house, since Mom and Dad insist on it most nights if everybody’s home.

To top it all off, a storm moves in, pounding our roof with nonstop rain, which means I have to get the bucket from the mudroom and put it in the hall where the ceiling leaks. Lightning and thunder add to the doom and gloom of a really dismal day.