I smeared some of it onto my thigh, waited for it to harden, then ripped it off.
Sigh. The ingrown hair was still there. Maybe I wasn’t doing it right?
I tried it again, but I must have heated the wax too much this time because it started dribbling down the back of my thigh. Oh god. I couldn’t see back there and figure out how to pull it off. It had coated my entire leg now. How was I supposed to remove it?
Water, I thought to myself. I turned on the bathtub faucet and waded in, letting my legs lie against the porcelain tub. I reached my hand below my leg, ready to wipe the wax off, and—
Oh my god. The wax had fused with my bathtub. It had stuck to the enamel.
“MOM!” I called out again. She barged into the bathroom and saw the blue wax clearly glued to the tub. “I couldn’t wash the wax off and now I’m stuck,” I explained helplessly.
Mom shook her head, eyes wide. “Oh, Parvin. What are we gonna do with you?”
The worst part was that the ingrown hair was still there.
And that my mom had to practically cut me out of my own bathtub.
Thursday BAND 12:45 P.M.
I told Ms. Kaiser I’d go ahead with the bassoon. Instead of sulking in the last clarinet chair, I might as well give the new instrument a shot. I figured Matty would probably find me playing a new instrument more interesting than being the worst at the clarinet. After all, I only had a month to get a Homecoming date, and I would take any potential advantage I could get.
Ms. Kaiser seemed relieved when I said I’d switch in band today. “Here, let’s go get it for you,” she said.
We walked into a dusty closet to the side of the band room that was packed with instruments. I sneezed. She began opening and closing a bunch of random cases, a lot of them filled with instruments I’d never seen before.
“Mellophone . . . marching euphonium . . . sousaphone . . . bass clarinet,” she mumbled to herself. “Aha, here we go.” She took down a long, flat, rectangular case. Then Ms. Kaiser opened it up slowly, almost reverently, and showed me all the pieces.
“See that, Parvin? The keypads are made out of kidskin, or baby goat. That’s why it’s so soft.”
I looked down, horrified. I was the only one in band with an instrument that was Not Vegan. Not that I was vegan. But still.
“Here’s the bocal,” she said, taking a long squiggly metal piece and sticking it into the main bedpost part. She attached a little chimney to the top of it. It looked like a ginormous pretzel that had folded in on itself, with a hole at the top for Santa to come down and deliver presents. She handed it to me, as if I knew what to do with it.
I was starting to seriously doubt my commitment to bassoondom.
I waddled out of the closet with the bassoon, and she showed me how to sit on the leather belt attached to the bottom, which helped offset the weight of the four-foot-tall instrument. I laid the belt across the chair, then . . . I sat on it.
Dear God, when I die, please don’t let it be while sitting on a bassoon.
“Here, Parvin—it’s the login for a tutorial website. There are a bunch of beginner bassoon videos I want you to go over for the rest of class. You can use a practice room while we rehearse.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the piece of paper with the URL on it from her. She headed toward the podium.
“Cool instrument,” I heard someone say behind me. I turned. Matty Fumero was admiring the wooden serpent that I’d somehow agreed to play.
“It’s a bassoon, right?” he asked, walking up to me. But I couldn’t answer. My face had frozen into a pathetic grin, as if I was happy all the time and this was just how I normally looked. It worked! Switching to bassoon had worked, because Matty was talking to me now.
“Yeaahhhp,” the air between my teeth expelled from my mouth.
“Nice,” he said. I nodded back, the top of my bassoon nodding with me. He headed back to his chair and emptied the spit valves from his (vegan) trumpet. Success!
I turned to my music stand, thinking. All throughout orientation, and that time at lunch, I had been pretty quiet around Matty, even though Ruth or Fabián would never describe me as soft-spoken. But it seemed like the quieter I was around him, the more he responded to me. So far the only words I’d said to him were my name, better, and yeah, yet he still seemed under the impression that I was a normal, not too-much person. It could only mean one thing: My Quiet Parvin plan was working.
“You gorgeous bedpost,” I whispered to my instrument. “It’s me and you, kid.”
Or was it kids, because of all the baby goat skin?
To be googled.
■ ■ ■ WALK HOME 3:00 P.M.
Ruth and Fabián had Gay-Straight Alliance today. That meant I was walking home alone, completely abandoned by my friends, lugging a hundred-pound bassoon case.
Now that I had chosen Matty as the target for my Homecoming plan, I needed “actionable” steps on how to win him over. I couldn’t just be quiet around him (though that was important, and it seemed to be working). I needed clear direction on what to do next.
I got out the Notes app on my phone and began brainstorming, thinking of all the steps that happened before the guy and girl fell in love in the movies, and how I could re-create them with Matty.
ACTIONABLE MATTY FUMERO STEPS:
Have him initiate a conversation with me (CHECK!)
Talk for longer than two minutes
Laugh at one of his jokes
Compliment him on something
Make physical contact (hug? elbow touch? accidentally run into him?)
Have sustained eye contact (every movie had this)
??
???
Go to Homecoming together, make Wesley jealous, etc., etc.
My phone buzzed, letting me know that Fabián was starting
