Saturday, Jan. 17, very late
That stupid made-for-TV movie got it all wrong. Lilly is right about that. And don't think I'm in the habit of conceding that my sister is right about anything.
When I met Mia, she was only my sister's playmate in the first grade and I was in fourth. I didn't really notice her back then. She was only the friend Lilly took with us when we went to the house in Albany for weekends or whatever. She was born on May 1, 1990. All we knew about her then was that her mother was the artist Helen Thermopolis (of whose work my parents are big fans) and that her dad was some big shot politician from Genovia, and that every summer (when Lilly and I went off to Hebrew Camp) she went to hang out with him and her grandmother at their chateau in France. In retrospect, I don't know how we never put the pieces together. I mean, we knew her dad's name. Phillipe Renaldo? That's like having Albert Grimaldi for your dad and not knowing he's the Prince of Monaco, but instead living under the delusion that he is just the minister of state or something. Of course, Albert is probably more famous over here due to being Grace Kelly's son. But still. Prince Phillipe and Mia are Grimaldi cousins. Grimaldi is even one of their many names. But we didn't know that then. We just thought Mia's name was Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis because her mother didn't subject her to the cult of the patriarchy. Mia can be really oblivious to things even when they are staring her in the face. Things like being surrounded by bodyguards who were trained in Israel when you fly to France on the Royal Genovian Jet. See, I didn't know these things at the time, but if I had known, you can bet I would have asked questions. The thing is about Mia is that she lives in her head, and that head is living in the clouds. So I can believe that Mia never noticed that the picture of the young military officer, with a mustache and full of head of hair, on the Genovian currency was actually her DAD before he was BALD and went through chemo. Yep. That is just like Mia. I fully believe it. Now if it was me, I would have noticed. But that's just me!
We had some good times growing up. Mia was always coming over to eat Nana's rugelach or whatever. She says now that she was in love with me even as far back as the first grade. I'm not so sure. Mia has a very wild imagination. Once there is a spark of something, it's fireworks. I mean, full on New Year's Eve fireworks. At age 14, she realizes that she has a major crush on her best friend's older brother, so of course she fancies that she was ALWAYS in love with him. Forget that her first few weeks of high school were tainted by her obsession with Josh Richter's eyes. But whatever. That's just Mia. The Mia I love with all my heart.
I don't kid myself. I wasn't ALWAYS in love with Mia. I wasn't struck by the arrow of Cupid the moment I saw her. Hearts weren't fluttering out of my head. I was just trying to survive peewee hockey! But I don't know. I always liked her. In a big brother sort of way. But not the same as Lilly. I've never liked Lilly. Like, when they fought, I was always on Mia's side. Now that I think about it, I did feel very protective towards Mia in a way that I didn't feel for my actual kid sister. But that could be because I've always known Lilly can take care of herself. Mia can too, of course, but the fact is that Mia has always let Lilly push her around. Mia's problem isn't that she can't take care of herself. It's that she doesn't ASSERT herself. She even lies about her feelings to avoid asserting herself. My parents and Lilly and I (yeah, the whole Moscovitz gang) all recognized this in Mia and have tried in our own ways to extract her inner Chutzpah.
I honestly don't know when I started falling in love with her. It came upon me so gradually. Was I in love with her when I was 12 (and she was 9) and she came to me with questions about Crackhead? Was it love with her when I was 14 (and she was 11) and making out with that one girl at Hebrew Camp? One thing I know: I was in love with Mia when I was fooling around that one Saturday with Judith Gershner last semester. I was just in total denial about it. Even Felix and Paul recognized that I had a thing for Mia. One time I guess I was staring at Mia in the hallway in school (she was walking away) and Felix elbowed me and said, "Dude, she's a freshmen. And your sister's best friend. Get a grip." I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he rolled his eyes and replied, "Oh nothing. Nothing at all." I realize now that he was being a sarcastic asshole. Lilly, my kid sister, recognized it too. God, how deep was my denial? I was totally pulling a Mia in my oblivion. It was staring me in the face. Lilly thought I was walking around the apartment without a shirt on purpose to show my biceps to Mia. Was I? OK, yeah I was. It's never been a habit of mine to walk around without a shirt on, but if I knew Mia was hanging around, I kind of "forgot" to put a shirt on.
The whole Mia-chose-Josh thing in the Post-Armageddon Lifemate Question killed me. It was like a slap in the face or a bucket of ice water being dumped over my head. Suddenly I realized, oh shit, I have the hots for this girl! Apart from wanting to beat Josh Richter into a pulp, I was really worried about him taking advantage of Mia. It was partly that concern that gave me the courage to start trying to get closer to her, like helping her with algebra in G&T. Somehow, focusing on it as a mission to protect her from Josh made being completely lovesick for her more bearable. I don't know. I guess I felt heroic. So I didn't feel all Clark Kent because Lois Lane, being fixated on the man in tights with the big S on his chest, didn't care for the bespectacled fellow reporter. I had to protect Mia from... Lex Luther?
First of all, Mia is way more Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) than Lois Lane. Secondly, I consider myself more Han Solo than Superman. I'm just not big on the tights, or the anatomically correct body suit thing.
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