(30) Be Mine

“Dar, what do you want for dinner?

I pause at the top of the stairs and sigh. “A Reuben!” I call out of breath.

“But we don’t have any more white bread!” my mother bellows from the kitchen.

“Then rye bread will work! Or call Olivia before she heads to Audrey’s house and tell her to pick up some more!” I start up the last step.

“I thought Livy had to bake something for French class this afternoon!” Echoes my mom.

Exasperated I reply, “She does, she is just going to pick up some green tea from Starbucks and bring it to Audrey because she stayed home sick.” My mother mumbles something about Olivia never letting her know of her schedule, but I am down the hall and make no effort to listen. Only a few more days until vacation I remind myself wearily.

At last I reach the safety and comfort of my own room, I flip on the radio and let myself fall back into the depths of my covers. As Shaggy loudly chants for probably the tenth time today about showing the nation his appreciation I’m too lazy to switch it to another station. All I have enough energy to do is stare idly up at the ceiling and glance around my clothes invested room. I look over the bookshelf that contains the three postcards I bought in Martha’s Vineyard this summer, the blown up photo of Charissa and I on her dad’s boat hanging on my wall, and then it stares at me. The small desk calendar my Aunt gave me for Christmas that still has January third facing me and I can feel it begging me to rip it to its rightful page.
Stumbling over to it, I begin to hastily tear numerous pages with quotes and pictures until finally I reach the thirteenth of February. Since the day has almost come to a close anyway, I split off one more page and then instantly regret it.

I have always liked this Mary Engelbreit desk calendar with its cheery gingham patterned border and happy pictures, but not this night. I hold it on my lap and a dumb clown with a tea pot that has hearts spilling out of it laughs at me with the words “You suit me to a tea valentine,” written under it. I toss the calendar onto the floor, but though the words were tiny, they were unmistakable, I hadn’t been able to let myself forget that tomorrow was that day of days after all.

In just seven hours it will be that one date out of the entire year when it’s okay to down a whole box of assorted chocolates in one sitting. Soon it will be time when it’s not abnormal to walk around high school with a gigantic heart balloon bobbing behind you, and some random guy can get up enough nerve to hand you a red rose as you hurry to your next class. For me though, one of the few hundred overly stressed and busy girls in the world who just hasn’t gotten around to having a boyfriend yet, it is going to be just one more boring, uneventful day when the guy I’ve liked for what seems like forever will still have no clue I exist. Maybe I’ll wear all black tomorrow I think to myself bitterly.

I pick up a strand of my hair and twirl it around my fingers in thought. My dad of course will show up from work tomorrow night with a large bouquet of flowers and a small heart shaped Whitman’s sampler tucked in the crook of his arm and I will act all surprised and happy like always, but secretly this year I will hate it.

How many more years will my dad have to fork over twenty dollars because I have no real romantic relationship? I bet he’s probably asking himself the very same thing right now. I can see him at his laptop on his desk, thinking to himself, “When is my Daria ever going to get a boyfriend?” Then another image floats through my mind that simply terrifies me. I’m sprawled out on my parents’ couch, pushing sixty five and watching soap opera re runs with a bag of Cheetohs clutched in the hand that isn’t holding the controller. I have two extra chins, my hair is gray and straggly, and I can barely fit into my size 20 and a half jeans. Then a hunched over figure makes his way into the living room, stumbling along the faded carpet from the support of his cane. “Happy Valentines Day, Daria.” He says in a hacking cough and pushes a Whitman’s sampler across the coffee table on top of all my other Cheetoh bags and old issues of Cosmopolitan. “Thanks, Dad! Sweet more chocolate!” I say with my teeth covered in orange gunk. The thought makes me shudder.

But what can a girl do? If a guy desires a relationship, he just has to find the right moment and the right girl and then make it happen. Girls? No, all we can do is try to look pretty and wait until our face turns blue for a certain guy to ask us out. And if that guy we pine for has no guts, then it is just a hopeless situation.
Him! The name tears at my soul. I had walked past him this morning as usual, he on his way to Chemistry, me all ready late for Spanish. My heart had started to thump loudly as it always seems to do when I see him. I had taken in every inch of him from his perfect hair to the dusty feet of his Nike sneakers. I had glanced at his tanned face, daring him to look up at me so I could attempt to say a weak “hi” or smile at him, but he had just stared out in front of him and I ended up passing him, terribly disappointed and unsatisfied.

Maybe if I just taped a sign on my forehead saying in large, bold letters, “Ask me out!” he would get the picture. Even if he did though, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself, barely knowing anything about the boy other than his entire schedule, that he has exactly seven freckles across his nose, three on the left side, four on the right, he has a house in Stratton, Vermont, sleeps with three pillows and his faded basketball, and has never gone out with anyone except for Bridget Thomas which was in fourth grade at his old school in California and doesn’t really count. I run my fingers along the edge of the calendar.

Then it comes to me. I’ll print his name in this week’s article, hidden somewhere in one of the paragraphs. He’d die probably of embarrassment and fear of me madly stalking him and publishing his name mysteriously for the whole town to see. Maybe not though, maybe he would realize I’ve had my eyes on him ever since we’d met and perhaps some day, somehow, in some way he will finally be mine!