Read Online Also Known As by Robin Benway - Free Book Online

snapped at her, throwing a quick glance down the hallway to make sure no one saw us. “You could get us both suspended for having that here!”
    “Oh, relax. I have a prescription.”
    “You do?”
    “No, I lied. It’s my mom’s.”
    I shoved the bottle back in her bag. “Here. Go. Do something.”
    “I will. I have a massage appointment with Rosie theMiracle Worker. It’s not her official title, but it should be. She’s way better than a parent-teacher conference.”
    “Well, enjoy your relaxing life,” I said. “I’ll be here, dying of embarrassment.”
    “Ta-ta,” she said, wiggling her fingers at me. “You probably won’t recognize me the next time we meet, I’ll be so mellow.”
    “We can only pray,” I replied.
    But when my parents showed up at school, I realized that I should have gone with Roux.
    “Um, excuse me,” I said to them, “but what in the world are you wearing ?”
    My mom was wearing a Chanel suit and taller heels than I had ever seen her wear before, making her an inch or two taller than my dad. A double strand of pearls hugged her neck, and her makeup looked professionally done. She had a wig on, a blond bob that hid her black hair and looked completely natural. I smelled perfume, too, something strong.
    “Too much?” my mom asked.
    “Too much perfume ,” my dad told her, waving his hand and wrinkling his nose. He had a suit on and kept tugging at the collar, but his shoes were polished and his hair looked newly cut. They seemed to be the perfect Upper East Side parents I had never had.
    “One problem,” I said, then stopped myself. “Actually, there are multiple problems, but this is the main one. You look uptown and we live downtown.”
    “Downtown is the new uptown,” my dad said. “Look, my socks match my tie!”
    “He read that in the Times Style section.” My mom rolled her eyes. “Maggie, fix your hair.” She reached out to brush a lock of hair off my shoulder.
    They may have looked different, but they were still my parents.
    They were suitably impressed by the school building. “Wow, look at this masonry,” my dad said. “What is this, prewar, do you think? Or maybe—?”
    “It’s old,” I said, cutting him off. “That’s what it is. And it’s worth thirty-thousand dollars a year, apparently.”
    “Is that a community garden?” my mom said, peering out a window. “Do they do organic?”
    “Sure,” I said. I wasn’t the only student hurrying their parents through the hallway, though. Several other kids were herding parents into classrooms and looking just as mortified as I felt. “All the organic you want.”
    My parents were due to meet with my French teacher, Monsieur McPhulty, whose name my dad had a hard time swallowing. “I’m pretty sure ‘McPhulty’ isn’t in the original French,” he had grumbled when I first told him, but when I introduced them, it was all “ Bonjour ” this and “ Merci! ” that.
    “I didn’t realize that Maggie had French-speaking parents,” Monsieur McPhulty said, shooting a glance in my direction. “Her accent is, well, terrible.”
    Parent-teacher conferences, I decided, were the dumbest things ever.
    I hung out in the hallway while they talked, dragging the toe of my boot back and forth across the floor. I couldhear someone banging on a locker and I finally got annoyed and went to inspect the noise. I found Jesse Oliver trying to get his Master Lock open. He would try, then bang it against the locker in anger, and try again.
    If this wasn’t a sign from the heavens, I didn’t know what was.
    “Hi,” I said. “Do you need help or is this just an extreme sport?”
    “I’m fine,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “This lock is just broken.”
    “Want me to try?”
    “Be my guest,” he said. “I hope you enjoy frustrating experiences.”
    “Oh, I live for them,” I said, then starting spinning the dial around. “Are you here for your parent-teacher conference?”
    “Yeah, my dad’s