Meg Cabot - All American Girl

On the way to Susan Boone’s that first day, Theresa was totally setting some limits. She was on to the fact that I had every intention of bolting the minute she drove away.

“If you think, Miss Samantha,” she was saying as we crawled down Burrito Alley, which is what people are calling Dupont Circle since lately so many burrito and wrap places have popped up all along it, “that I am not going in with you, you have another think coming.”

This is one of Theresa’s favorite expressions. I taught it to her. And it really is “another think coming,” not “ thing .” It’s a Southern saying. I got it out of To Kill a Mockingbird . I have worked very hard to acclimatize Theresa to our culture, since when she first started working for us she had just arrived here from Ecuador and didn’t know squat about anything to do with America.

Now she is so in touch with what’s hot and what’s not in the U.S. of A., MTV should hire her as a consultant.

Also, she only calls me Miss Samantha when she is mad at me.

“I know exactly what you are thinking, Miss Samantha,” Theresa said as we sat on Connecticut Avenue in a traffic jam caused, as usual, by the president’s motorcade. That is one of the problems about living in Washington, D.C. You can’t go anywhere without running into a motorcade. “I turn my back on you, and you run straight into the nearest Virgin Record Store, and that is the end of that.”

I sighed like this had never occurred to me, though of course I had fully been planning on doing exactly that. But I feel like I have to. If I don’t attempt to thwart authority, how will I retain my integrity as an artist?

“As if, Theresa,” is all I said, though.

“Don’t you ‘ as if Theresa ’ me,” Theresa said. “I know you. Wearing that black all the time and playing that punk rock music—”

“Ska,” I corrected her.

“Whatever.” The last of the motorcade passed by, and we were free to move again. “Next thing I know, you will be dyeing that beautiful red hair of yours black.”

I thought guiltily of the box of Midnight Whisper colorfast hair dye in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Had she seen it? Because in spite of what Theresa might think, having red hair is so not beautiful. Well, maybe if you have red hair like Lucy’s, which is the color they call titian, after the painter who invented it. But red hair like mine, which is the color—and consistency—of the copper wire they run through telephone poles? Not so lovely, let me tell you.

“And at five thirty,” Theresa went on, “when I come to pick you up, I will be going into the building to find you. None of this meeting you at the curb.”

Theresa really has the mom thing down. She has four kids of her own, all mostly grown, and three grandchildren, even though she’s only a year older than my mom. This is because, as she put it, her eldest son, Tito, is an idiot.

It was because of Tito’s idiocy that you could not pull anything over on Theresa. She had seen it all before.

When we finally got to the Susan Boone Art Studio, which was on the corner of R and Connecticut, right across from the Founding Church of Scientology, Theresa gave me a very dirty look. Not because of the Church of Scientology, but because of the record store Susan Boone’s studio was on top of. As if I’d had something to do with picking the place out!

Although I have to say, Static, one of the few record stores in town that I’d actually never been to before, looked tempting—almost as tempting as Capitol Cookies, the bakery next door to it. You could even hear the strains of one of my favorite songs thumping through the walls as we walked toward the store (we had to go around the block once and park a million miles away on Q Street; you could tell Theresa wasn’t going to be insisting on walking me to the door again after this). Static was playing Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains.” Which if you think about it really sums up my whole attitude about life, since the only time parents will actually let you stay inside and draw is when it is raining out. Otherwise it’s all, “Why can’t you go outside and ride your bike like a normal kid?”

But Susan Boone must have had her place soundproofed, because when we finished climbing the narrow, whitewashed staircase to her second-floor studio, you couldn’t hear Garbage at all. Instead all you could hear was a radio, softly playing some classical music, and another sound I could not quite identify. The smell, as we climbed, was comfortingly familiar to me. No, it didn’t smell like cookies. It smelled like the art room back at school, of paint and turpentine.

It wasn’t until we got to the door of the studio, and I pushed it open, that I realized what the other sound I’d been hearing was.

“Hello Joe. Hello Joe. Hello Joe,” a big black crow, sitting on top of, and not inside, a large bamboo cage, squawked at us.

Theresa screamed.

“Joseph!” A small woman with the longest, whitest hair I had ever seen came out from behind an easel and yelled at the bird. “Mind your manners!”

“Mind your manners,” the bird said as he hopped around the top of his cage. “Mind your manners, mind your manners, mind your manners.”

“Jesu Cristo,” Theresa said, sinking onto a nearby paint-spattered bench. She was already out of breath from the steep staircase. The shock of being yelled at by a bird had not helped.

“Sorry about that,” the woman with the long white hair said. “Please don’t mind Joseph. It takes him a while to get used to strangers.” She looked at me. “So. You must be Samantha. I’m Susan.”

Back in middle school, Catherine and I had gone through this stage where all we would read were fantasy books. We’d consumed them like M&Ms, by the fistful, J.R.R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks and Susan Cooper and Lloyd Alexander. Susan Boone looked, to me, like the queen of the elves (there’s almost always an elf queen in fantasy books). I mean, she was shorter than me and had on a strange lineny outfit in pale blues and greens.

But it was her long white hair—down to her waist!—and bright blue eyes, peering out of a lined and completely unmade-up face, that cinched it for me. Even the corners of her mouth curled upward, the way an elf’s would, even when there was nothing to smile about.

Back in the days when Catherine and I had gone around tapping on the backs of wardrobes, hoping to get transported to a land where there were fauns and hobbits, not Lunchables and Carson Daly, meeting someone like Susan Boone would have been a thrill.

Now it was just kind of weird.

I reached out and took the hand she’d stretched toward me, and shook it. Her skin was dry and rough.

“Call me Sam,” I said, impressed with Susan Boone’s grip, which wasn’t at all elflike: the woman could definitely have handled Manet in a pinch.

“Hi, Sam,” Susan Boone said. Then she let go of my hand and turned toward Theresa. “You must be Mrs. Madison. It’s nice to meet you.”

Theresa had caught her breath. Now she stood up and shook her head, saying that she was Mrs. Madison’s housekeeper, Theresa, and that she would be back at five thirty to pick me up.

Then Theresa left and Susan Boone took me by both shoulders and steered me toward one of the paint-spattered benches, which had no back, just a tall board along one end, against which leaned a large drawing pad.

“Everyone,” Susan Boone said as she pushed me down onto the bench, “this is Sam. Sam, this is—”

Then, exactly like brownies popping out from behind giant toadstools, the rest of the art class popped their heads out from behind huge drawing pads to look at me.

“Lynn, Gertie, John, Jeffrey and David,” Susan Boone said, pointing at each person as she said his or her name.