Jessi's Wish: Chapters 11-15
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Chapter 11
The Ramseys, plus Charlotte, have been invited to Danielle’s house for a cookout. “Daddy pulled up in front of a small brick house. The lawn in front was sort of scraggy (if you know what I mean), but somebody obviously tended the two flower gardens very carefully.”
To say nothing of the heinousness of snotting about the Robertses’ yard (maybe they have more on their minds right now than grass maintenance, Jessica), I have seen suburban Connecticut lawn, and I’d bet the laptop I’m writing this snark on, plus any remaining wine, that “scraggy” probably means “I can’t believe these rubes don’t even have their own tennis court”. Though I have a feeling “if you know what I mean” is code for “possible meth lab in toolshed, get K. Ron down here STAT”. Jessi is from New Jersey; it’s probably a familiar sight.
The families grill beef products and roast marshmallows, and the kids run around shrieking after the new kitten. Mrs. Roberts pauses the festivities to give Danielle her medicine, and Jessi pontificates on sickness and the nature of it and what Danielle’s parents must be thinking as they watch her suffer. There’s really not a whole lot to snark here. I’m seriously surprised at how tasteful this handling of cancer is turning out to be. Props for unexpected realism, too: Danielle’s brother whines about his big sister getting more of their parents’ attention, which is a pretty nuanced topic for a BSC book.
But I have my mocking pants on and I have to point and laugh at something, so I’m going to rag on the fact that Jessi is only two years older than Danielle. The same difference between Jessi and the older club members. If Jessi “can’t remember” what it was like to be so staggeringly immature, wouldn’t it follow that Kristy and Claudia can’t remember what it was like to be Jessi’s age? Has it ever occurred to Jessi that they’re probably thinking of her exactly the way she thinks of Danielle and Becca and Charlotte?
There’s a sort of postscript at the end of the chapter about the Baby-Sitters meeting at Jessi’s house.
“‘Welcome,’ said Kristy, ‘to another totally casual BSC meeting. Today’s topic of conversation is … Our Activities, An Update. I’ll start.’”
I don’t think you know what “totally casual” means, K. Ron. Also, pardon my tinfoil hat, but I think it’s fucked up refer to all gatherings as “BSC meetings” even when you’re not answering the phone or planning activities or doing anything remotely club-related. It’s in the same vein of seeing your siblings as charges rather than family: if your friends are colleagues first and foremost, what does that do to intimacy?
“‘When you look at the charts and you see that this week Frankie sat up for eight seconds straight, and last week his record was six seconds, then you know you’re making a difference.’”
Mary Anne has been working with this kid for, what, TWO WEEKS? What the fuck kind of difference could she have made that the parents hadn’t managed in the kid’s entire lifetime? I also think it’s pretty cold to pawn off the disabled one on the thirteen-year-old while you handle the neurotypical ones yourselves. Frankie sure as hell needs a lot more competent adult supervision than the other two. I’d hire Mary Anne to watch the other kids while I took care of Frankie myself.
Chapter 12
“‘[Candace] treats them the way you’d treat kids who aren’t in wheelchairs or wearing braces.’”
Well hurr de durr, a gold star and an extra pot brownie to Candace. This is like when inattentive fathers demand a reward for successfully diapering their kids. You don’t get points for displaying an ability that should come standard with being a human.
“Kendra is nine years old. She has cerebral palsy. … [S]he doesn’t have much control over her arms. … Slowly [Kendra] reached into the tote bag that hung from the side of her chair. She pulled out a piece of paper and held it toward Dawn.”
Selecting, sight unseen, one piece of paper from a probably stuffed tote bag takes more than a little fine motor coordination. Lemme pour a round of Jebus, Mary, and Joseph. I’m applying my artistic license and putting absinthe in this time.
Chapter 13
“Mr. Katz and I were getting ready for a Kids Club meeting. I had passed my four-meeting trial and was now the permanent temporary assistant.”
“Permanent temporary” aside (the one place where parentheses WOULDN’T be out of place, and Miles callously abandons them), Jessi said back in chapter 10 that Becca and Charlotte had befriended Danielle “during meetings of the Kids Club”. Chapter 13 begins about a week after Danielle spent Saturday at the Ramseys’, so two meetings between then and now. Considering that Becca and Charlotte only MET Danielle during Jessi’s second Kids Club meeting, when exactly did they have time to befriend her? I suspect this is the cabal at work again, though I can’t put my finger on how.
“‘[T]he kids were given vision tests this morning, and this afternoon they had an assembly.’
‘Oh. They will be off the wall, then,’ I agreed, remembering the excitement over assemblies. And over eye tests, as well.’”
If Stacey were narrating, I’d read this particularly juicy bit as deadpan, but given Jessi and Mallory’s fetish preoccupation with ear-piercing, it’s not all that farfetched to imagine them creaming their panties over eye tests. That said, Jessica, stop acting like you’re sitting around dredging up your Most Vivid Memory. You are recalling a period of your life only two or three years in the past. If even in the past at all: who doesn’t love an assembly? Why do these girls see any kind of excitement (except screaming bloody tampon in department stores, natch) as inherently childish? Another moment of silence for Jessi’s small, small life.
Danielle barrels in exclaiming that YWIMC granted her wish and she’ll be flying out to Florida next week. Now, I’m not trying to get all “joyless adult” on her parade here, but this charity is either obscenely loaded or their priorities are pretty damn misplaced. If they can afford to fly every kid whose wish gets granted down to Disneyland on exactly seven days’ notice, that’s cool, but if not, Danielle isn’t exactly dying here. She’s stable enough to attend school and gallivant after her cat; she could put off the trip by a month. I’d rather the short-notice tickets went to a kid who might not be able to wait that long.
“‘Mr. Katz!’ I exclaimed. ‘Look! The kids are touching Danielle! They’ve forgotten she’s sick, I think.’
‘Finally,’ murmured Mr. Katz, which was the way I felt.”
Given that these kids are eight and nine, I’ll resist the urge to segue into poorly written smut. Seriously, though, what’s this “finally”? It has been THREE MEETINGS. I get how long it must seem to a fourth-grader who’s aching to fit in, but kids aren’t going to make that psychological adjustment overnight.
The kids exclaim that Danielle’s hair is growing back. I’ll say it one more time, and then I’ll finish off the wine so I won’t be capable of saying it anymore: It has been THREE. GODDAMN. MEETINGS. If my hair grew fast enough to be noticeable in a week and a half, I’d bankrupt myself on dye.
“‘What do old people like?’ asked Wendy.
‘Wendy!’ cried Danielle. ‘Old people are just the same as any other people. They like all sorts of things.’
‘But some of them don’t have many teeth,’ Wendy objected.”
Am I alone in feeling this lesson is somewhat misplaced? It would be well learned if you subbed in “sick people” or “black people”, but the elderly is one demographic that might actually like things fourth-graders don’t. Not that all they do is quilt and fish, but is it so politically incorrect to suggest that your grandma might not want a bag of jawbreakers or a Justin Bieber CD?
Chapter 14
Becca’s hopping around rhyming all her words (…maybe Vanessa Pike is the Svengali), and Jessi chews her out for annoying Aunt Cecelia. How much do sixth-graders really mature over a few months? Just 12 books ago, Jessi was putting goddamn shaving cream in Cecelia’s slippers. Now she’s too SUPHISTICCATED to remember what it was like to get excited about a school assembly.
Danielle attempts to pack three suitcases for her trip to Florida, but her mother talks her down to one. Man, I feel that. I mentioned in the first installment that I run a fashion blog, and I’m a huge fucking clotheshorse. Yes, I know I won’t wear everything I brought, just like I don’t wear everything in my closet every day. The point is to have OPTIONS.
I have better things to do than snark a sick nine-year-old’s Disneyland trip. I’ll skip ahead to Danielle’s return, upon which she presents Jessi with “a delicate silver necklace in the shape of a star.
‘It’s a wishing star,’ Danielle told me. ‘Because you helped one of my wishes come true.’”
You’re about to see why my friends send me out of the room (or, failing that, duct-tape my mouth) at the mushy parts in movies: because some inner twelve-year-old boy compulsively deconstructs, via kicks and screams, anything I deem maudlin or romantically oversimplified. This scene is both. For one thing, how does Danielle know who nominated her for the trip? Holy security breach, Batman. For another, nominating Danielle for the trip was literally all Jessi did. She didn’t pay for it herself or start a campaign or anything. If Jessi hadn’t nominated her, someone would’ve; if YWIMC is anything like its real-world counterparts, its ads run every twenty minutes on every channel. Let’s stop acting like Jessi reinvented the wheel.
Chapter 15
It’s Jessi’s last day at the Kids Club, and (don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming) Danielle is in the hospital again. This is not snarkworthy stuff, so I’ll harp, once again, on the fact that Jessi is ELEVEN. Becca and Charlotte start sobbing, and Jessi takes them to the bathroom to calm down. “My chest ached. That was how hard I was trying not to cry with them.” So CRY. You are first and foremost Becca’s big sister. You are THREE YEARS APART. My boyfriend and I are also three years apart, and he’d be out on his ass for treating me like Jessi treats Becca. You are under no obligation to suppress your completely legitimate eleven-year-old feelings in some half-assed attempt to be strong for her. Where the fuck are your parents? Cry with Becca. Be kids together, and let Ma and Pa Ramsey pick up the goddamn slack every once in a while. Think of it this way: if you store up some perfectionism now and don’t let it go to waste, you’ll be an especially anorexic successful ballerina when you finally make it to the Met.