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A Not-So-Simple Life: Maya: Book 1 (Diary of a Teenage Girl, Band 13) - Softcover

Buch 12 von 15: Diary of a Teenage Girl

Carlson, Melody

 
9781601421173: A Not-So-Simple Life: Maya: Book 1 (Diary of a Teenage Girl, Band 13)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1601421176 ISBN 13: 9781601421173
Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Fifteen-year-old Maya Stark seems to have it all–fame, fortune, a Beverly Hills lifestyle, and an eighties pop star dad who’s making a comeback. But looks can be deceiving, and on the inside, Maya is miserable. Her parents are divorced, her dad is away on tour, and being biracial, she struggles with her identity. Then, to make matters worse, her mother has returned to using drugs and is quickly depleting their finances. In a plan to become emancipated from her messed-up mom, Maya takes a job on Rodeo Drive. Selling designer clothes compromises Maya’s earth-friendly “green girl” values, but she is desperate.

Just when Maya thinks she’s got it all worked out, her life caves in. Her mom “embezzles” Maya’s savings and is later arrested on DUI and cocaine possession charges and is facing jail time. With nowhere to live, Maya is sent to spend the summer with her relatives. In the collision of two very different worlds, Maya must figure out where she fits in–or does she fit in at all?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Melody Carlson is an award-winning, best-selling author of more than two hundred books for teens, women, and children. She and her husband enjoy an active lifestyle of hiking, camping, and biking in the beautiful yet mysterious Pacific Northwest, where she says, “A new story seems to lurk around every corner.”

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

May 10
These two things I know for sure: (1) nothing about life is fair, and (2) it is not going to get better. How’s that for an optimistic way to begin this journal? Not that I’ll continue this exercise in depressing futility. I mean, how can writing about my miserable life improve one single part of it?

The only reason I’m even attempting this now is my cousin Kim Peterson. A cousin I didn’t even know existed just a couple of weeks ago. Not that she’s actually related. Not genetically anyway. Kim’s mother, who died before I could even meet her, was my mom’s sister. I suppose if I’d known her, I might’ve called her “Aunt Patricia.” Or not. But Kim, since she was adopted from Korea, is not an actual relative. Although I suppose that I sort of wish she were…but that’s my secret.

Anyway, as if I needed help to confirm my theory (that life is not fair), by the time I learned about this mystery aunt, she was already dying from cancer. My “cousin” Kim (who I think is seventeen—anyway she’s a couple of years older than me) had done an extensive online search to dredge up Shannon (that’s my mom). Kim’s plan had been to reconnect the two sisters. They’d been out of contact for more than thirtyyears, and Patricia was longing to see her younger sister before it was too late.

As fate would have it, that happy little family reunion never took place. And naturally, I blame Shannon for this unfortunate fact. Although she knew her sister was terminally ill, instead of booking the next plane out there, she went shopping. Shannon, being Shannon, set out for the swankiest shops in Beverly Hills in search of the “perfect” outfit—something she planned to wear in order to “impress” her dying sister. As it turned out, she wore that stupid outfit to Patricia’s funeral.

My aunt’s funeral still feels rather surreal to me—like I wasn’t actually there, or perhaps I was simply watching a movie about some nice family who had lost a loved one. And as I sat there in the front row with my mom and Kim and her dad, listening to the preacher going on and on about how wonderful this Patricia person was and how everyone who knew her loved her, all I could think was how totally unfair it was that I’d never known her. And how I never even got a chance to meet her. Never said hello or good-bye. Nothing.

Because it occurred to me, sitting there and staring at a small sea of flowers, that I would’ve liked this woman. She sounded kind and thoughtful and truly good. Good in a way that you just don’t see down here in L.A. And although I don’t consider myself to be “good” in that sense, I do think that in some small way I might be a little bit like my aunt. But now I’ll never really find out.

Of course I blame Shannon for that too. And rightly so. For starters, she never even told me that I had an aunt. And then when Kim contacted her, Shannon acted as if she’d been the one cast aside by her older sister. Come to find out, it was Shannon who had run away, leaving her home and family far behind, and then never getting back in touch with any of them. It’s hard to admit this, especially here in Beverly Hills, where they’re a dime a dozen, but my mom is a real phony.

“Patricia is dying,” she had sobbed to me after the phone call a couple of weeks ago.

“Who’s Patricia?” I thought it was probably one of her drug friends, perhaps someone who’d OD’d or gotten in a car wreck while driving under the influence. These things do happen…I know.

“My sister!” Shannon cried out, acting like I should’ve known this already, like it was an established fact.

“What sister?”

“Patricia Peterson—she’s my older sister. That was her daughter on the phone. Patricia is dying, Maya! My only sister is dying!”

Then instead of hopping on a plane like a normal person who had just learned her long-lost sister was dying, Shannon insisted on taking me shopping for most of the following day. She claimed I needed something “decent” to wear for the trip. Of course, this was totally bogus, but feeling sorry for her, I played along. So it wasn’t until later that evening that Shannon finally did a quick online search for cheap airline tickets. She wanted to get a deal on airfare— and that same day she’d just paid more than twelve hundred dollars for a Dolce & Gabbana purse!

So it seems that stupid designer bag, which not only looks almost exactly like another purse in Shannon's cluttered closet but is also made of real leather (suggesting that an innocent cow gave up its life so my mom could spend way too much money on a purse that she didn’t even need), was the main reason we missed the opportunity to see her sister while she was still alive. Okay, it sounds like I’m blaming the purse. As usual, the only one to blame here is Shannon.

Perhaps now you see how my theory about life not getting any better proves itself once again. And Kim wants me to write about all this in a stupid diary! Like she thinks it’s going to be cathartic and revealing and “spiritual” (that’s what she told me). But instead, I’m feeling more bummed than ever. Recording the sad bits and pieces of my life in a journal feels like one great big downer. And yet, I think it’s for Kim’s sake I am still writing. I don’t know why I even care about her. Furthermore, I know I made the worst possible impression on both her and her dad. Normally, I wouldn’t give a rat’s rear end about what other people think of me…but something about those two took me by surprise. Just sitting with them at my aunt’s funeral, observing their faces, their sadness, or the way they interacted with all their friends—their many, many friends.

Well, as much as I don’t want to, I do care. And that bugs me. But the fact is, I like them. I like them both. Not that they would have the slightest clue of this. No, there’s not a chance they would suspect as much. Because I’m absolutely, positively certain that they both think I am (1) a totally spoiled brat, (2) a moody, self-centered adolescent, and (3) just plain rude. Oh, did I mention that my mom and I got into a huge ugly argument right after we met Kim and my uncle?

Uncle Allen was driving us home from the airport, and he and Kim were being rather quiet—probably still dealing with their own shock and grief. Patricia had been dead for less than twenty-four hours at the time. And admittedly, her death had taken my mom and me by surprise as well. Not that it gave us an excuse to act like morons. So when Shannon made some stupid comment that suggested she was the only one hurting over Patricia’s death, well, that just got to me.

And Shannon and I got into the worst catfight ever— including a colorful exchange of some foul words I’m sure neither Kim nor her dad has ever used. Not one of my proudest moments. And yet, I just couldn’t stop myself. That’s how much my mom gets to me. Sometimes I hate her so deeply that I think I could kill her while she’s passed out on the sofa. Then sometimes I feel so brokenhearted sorry for her, and I
realize that I’m the only one she has, and I am torn in two— split right down the middle.

Take today…or what actually began yesterday morning when Shannon was in one of her moods. She was stomping around the house, acting like she was the only one in the world who had ever suffered.

“Your father is late...

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Verlag
Random House Children's Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2008
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1601421176
ISBN 13 
9781601421173
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
256
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Europaallee 1
Bad Hersfeld
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