The Baby-sitters Club #4: Mary Anne Saves the Day
And we're back! New year, same old Stoneybrook. Thank God we have Mary Anne to save the freakin' day.
The BSC is inordinately attached to the Newton family. Now I like the Newtons. I've said before that I like to think Mrs. Newton was probably a pretty hip, cool mom, and all the girls seem really comfortable with her (unfortunately, as we'll see later on, that means they feel really comfortable acting like jerks in front of her), but their obsession with the Newton family, and especially baby Lucy, is getting kind of creepy at the point. Of course, that said, my co-worker brought her 6-month-old into the office today, and I got super-excited and probably spent half an hour making funny faces at her and could have gone on much longer except the baby had to go home. On the other hand, you have to factor in my absolute lack of desire to do anything resembling my actual job, so... where was I?
Oh yes, the BSC is creepily fixated on Lucy Newton and really, that is the crux of this whole shitshow of a book. Mrs. Newton calls the club and wants a baby-sitter for both Jamie and Lucy (remember that Mrs. Newton really doesn't trust these 12 year-olds with her infant. And with good reason-- they lose kids.) Kristy takes the job without offering it to any of the others (and FYI, in case anyone doesn't buy my "Mrs. Newton is awesome" theory, please note that the Newton's need a sitter because they are throwing a classic cocktail party from 6-8 pm on a Friday night. This is one of those awesome things that I fully intend to do once I a) have an apartment that is not someone's 300 square foot basement, and b) can afford to fully stock a bar. I will probably need to get married to achieve either of these goals. That's what Mrs. Newton did.) ANYWAY, Kristy taking this job without offering it around (club rule!) sparks this WAY out of proportion fight that sounds remarkably like all their other fights. Kristy is job-hog, MA is a baby, Stacey is a snob, Claudia is stuck up (I don't really see this one, but oh well. When you're 12 and yelling insults at each other, they don't always have to make sense. That is one thing I very vividly recall about 7th grade.) So suddenly, the very fabric of the BSC is threatened.
Mary Anne, who, let's face it, is a baby, freaks out the next day at school because everyone is still mad at each other and Kristy won't sit with her at lunch so she has to sit by herself. A fate worse than death, apparently. Hey Mary Anne, why don't you pull a Rory Gilmore, get a pair of headphones, and STFU? Please? But MA doesn't need to freak out, because Dawn comes along (Hi Dawn! Welcome!) and sits down and asks Mary Anne if she's new too. MA says no, but all her friends are absent today. Is it just me or is this the dumbest lie ever? If I were Dawn, I'd be backing the hell away right now. Take your gross school lunch and head for the library, Dawn. It's better than being sucked into Mary Anne's delusions. But, seriously, MA, all your friends are absent? That makes you look more pathetic than just saying you're fighting. And she carries this charade on and on and on. For realz, yo, this fight goes on for almost a month (Stacey even notes this in a notebook entry.) and Dawn doesn't catch on until the very, very end. Dawn, I know you're desperate, but I thought you were supposed to be at least marginally clever.
So the club stops meeting because they're still not talking and they are way immature and can't be in the same room together. They take turns going to Claudia's room during meeting times so someone is always there to cover the phones. The phone answerer takes as many jobs as she can and only calls the others if she has to. If they're going to be this ridiculous, this actually seems like a fairly decent way to handle the issue, except for one thing: Claudia is kind of a biz-natch. One day, MA stops by the Kishi's to talk to Mimi, and Claudia hears Mimi call MA "my Mary Anne" and completely flips her shit because apparently she is the only one Mimi calls "my [whoever]". Claud, get a freakin' grip. So now Claud doubly-hates MA, and when it's MA's turn to answer the phone, Claud cranks up her biz-natch-ity by hanging out in her room blaring music while MA is trying to answer the phone. I shall now transcribe for you Claudia's taste in music. Bear in mind that this girl is supposed to be "cool."
DUM-DE-DUM-DE-DUM DUM. CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU-OU-OU-OU-OU.
DE-DOOOO. DE-DOOOO. MY LIFE IS YOU-OU-OU-OU-OU.
DE-DOOOO. DE-DOP. IT'S LIFE AT THE TOP, THE TOP.
OH, MY, MY. OH, MY, MY. MY BABY'S SAD AND SO AM I.
That's all we get before Mimi comes upstairs and tells Claud to knock it off. But what a great 4 lines it is. I laughed for an hour and I'm still trying to figure out what the tune of this music might be. And bear in mind that my taste in music is admittedly abominable. I'm a big fan of easy listening. So Claud? If I think your music is bad, it's pretty freakin' bad.
OMG, there's a lot going on in this stupid book. I haven't even gotten through half of it. Ugh. Must soldier on. The things I do for you people. (J/K, obvi. Clearly I love my readers!)
So in the midst of all of this, MA is also trying to convince her dad to stop treating her like a baby. And while he does seem to be pretty overprotective, she is kind of an idiot. So really, I think it all evens out. Example: MA and Kristy are baby-sitting for the Pikes (oh yeah, and this is while they're not speaking. They manage to go the entire night without the kids noticing that they're not talking to each other. If we didn't already know the Pikes are idiots, I think we have our proof.) and Mr. and Mrs. Pike are a few minutes late getting back. MA has to be home at 9 and they get back just a few minutes before. So MA if freaking out and insisting that they have to take her home right now, and she's going to be in so much trouble, and her dad is going to be so mad at her, and really? No one thinks to just call Richard? I mean, it's not like Mary Anne did something wrong. She couldn't leave the kids. The Pikes were caught in traffic. She's going to be 5 minutes late. I really don't think Richard is so unreasonable that he wouldn't understand that. And if she's really freaking out, couldn't she ask one of the Pike parents to call her dad and explain the situation? Then he wouldn't worry and would know that she was telling the truth. And sure enough, that is exactly what Richard suggests. That she freak out a little less and think about what she could do (call) to improve the situation. You know, when I was like 7 and I read these books, I thought Richard was crazy strict (emphasis on CRAZY.) But now that I'm older, I'm like, "Uh.... duh?" I've come to appreciate his style all the more. I mean, maybe not the "hair in braids" thing. But the "My daughter is clearly not mature enough for more independence" thing. Because it's pretty clear MA is pretty much a dingbat.
But then, Mary Anne Saves the Day! We are introduced to the Prezzioso's in this book, and it's no secret that I adore the whole Prezzioso family (side note: Prezzioso pretty much means precious in Italian, right? (I should really know this; I was an undergrad Italian minor.) but let's just assume it's true. So fitting for this family! Oh, Ann M. and your cunning wordplay!) Mrs. P is pretty freakin' awesome. She says things like "To whom am I speaking?" because she understands the importance of proper grammar! She buys three piece suits and monogrammed handkercheifs for her husband and gets him to wear an ascot (if I had a husband I would totally do this!) She and her husband get invited to tea on Sunday afternoon! I want to be her. Seriously. Don't judge me.
So MA baby-sits for Jenny/ "our angel" once and she lets her paint with watercolors even though she's wearing a super fancy dress because MA is a total pushover who can't even insist that the kid wear a smock, much less say NO to painting. Of course, Jenners spills the paint, but Mary Anne is able to save the dress so whatevs. The next time she watches Jenny, the Prez parents go to a basketball game (to which Mr. Prez wears jeans, while Mrs. Prez wears a cocktail dress. I bet she was the best dressed person there!) After a bit, MA realizes that Jenny is running a pretty high fever of 104. She starts freaking out and making calls: the doctor (she gets his answering service), the neighbors (no one's home), her dad (he's out shopping). Finally, she calls Dawn to come over, then calls the gym where the Prez parents are going to be watching the game and asks for them to be paged. Dawn suggests calling 911 since neither of their parents or the neighbors are around to help them. The 911 operator is all calm and cool and collected, which I assume is normal, but I'm only basing that on a childhood of watching "Rescue 911" reruns with my dad, having never actually called 911 myself. After establishing that MA is only 12, he agrees to send an ambulance. So MA and Dawn go to the hospital with Jenny, where she gets a diagnosis of strep throat but is going to be fine. The Prez parents come flying in not long after, Mrs. Prez near hysterics, but Jen is totes going to be fine. So Mr. Prez drives the girls home and pays them 10 dollars each (Yes, the each is emphasized in the book) and the girls are blown away Um... seriously? I realize this was 1987, but $20? I mean, they took your kid to the hospital, Mr. Prez. Seems like you could cough up a little more. You, unlike the Pikes, are not having money troubles. But I like Mr. Prez because he puts up with his wife, and I someday hope to find a man like him to put up with my Mrs. Prez-like tendencies, so I'm gonna overlook this. Maybe he took the extra money he didn't pay the baby-sitters and bought his wife a special treat!
But after this whole adventure, Dawn finally catches on to the whole "MA was lying about her friends being absent" because MA and Kristy are making faces at each other through the window in MA's bedroom. So Dawn stalks off and Mary Anne throws herself on her bed and cries like the baby her father thinks she is.
That night, Mrs. Prez calls while Richard and MA are having dinner and tells Richard the whole story and how thankful she is that MA took such good care of her angel. MA was so worked up about Dawn hating her that she forgot to tell him. So Mary Anne and her dad have a sort of heart to heart about how she's growing up and would like to be allowed to choose her clothes and stay out later, and Richard gives her a really good speech proving that he is a good parent, about how she's in a rush to do things because her friends are allowed to do them, but he doesn't care about them, he has to be sure that he does what's right for her, based on her behavior and attitudes. It is EXACTLY the type of Danny Tanner speech that my dad used to give me that I HATED (of course, I usually proved his point about my own immaturity by stomping off to my bedroom and slamming the door and screaming in the middle of his speech) but now that I am older, I just keep thinking "Go, Richard! You are so much better than those tutti-frutti, no rules Pike Parents." And they come to some sort of agreement. Hug.
Richard's speech about maturity strikes a chord and MA decides to write apology letters to Dawn and Kristy. Dawn and MA make up at school, but Kristy doesn't get MA's note because her locker is stuck (oh, middle school plot contrivance!). In the midst of all of this (this is when Stace notes the fight has been going on for almost a month and everyone is sick of it) Mrs. Newton has invited all 4 girls to be helpers at Jamie's 4th birthday party. They all show up but they act ridiculous because they are still being bitches to each other. God, Mrs. Newton should just toss them all out the door. I would never let these idiots baby-sit for my kids. They argue about who gets to check on the baby (enough already, you creepsters!), trip each other, spill fruit punch on each other, throw napkins at each other, and just generally act several years less mature than the 4 year olds they are supposed to be supervising. And Mrs. N has seriously had enough of this shit. Before she can really lose it though, MA pulls the whole BSC aside and insists that they put aside their differences long enough to get through this party and then finally have a meeting, where they all admit that they'd rather make up than break up the club, and they miss each other and they're sorry, and oh, haha, they can't even remember what the were fighting about in the first place. How original.
In what I promise is the final plotline in this infernally long-seeming book, this is where we first learn about the forbidden high school romance between Richard Spier and Sharon Porter Schafer. Right from the start, Mary Anne and Dawn are creepily invested in their parents' romantic life, trying to figure out the tragic story of their doomed early romance and get them back together. I pretty much understand this from MA's point of view, since her mom passed away several years ago, but at this point, haven't Dawn's parents only been split up for like a few weeks? I mean, Dawn's only been in Stoneybrook for about a month, based on the timeline of the fight, and I always had the impression that Sharon moved them to CT very shortly after the divorce. It just seems pretty weird to me that Dawn is instantly ok with her mom moving on. I wonder if there was more to the Schafer divorce than we ever heard.....
In conclusion, the BSC has a party at Mary Anne's and invites Dawn to officially join the BSC and seals it with a pizza toast. Lame-o, girls. I'm toasting the end of this interminable book with a bottle of Chardonnay. Pretty sure I'm getting the better end of that deal!
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