Read Not a Star and Otherwise Pandemonium for Free Online Page A

my room, and then I did a little test on it. I recorded some news show for a couple minutes, and then I played it back–A-okay. I checked out the remote–fine. I even put my tape of The Matrix in the machine, to see what kind of picture quality I was getting. (The kind of picture quality you get on a fifty-buck VCR was what I was getting.) Then I worked out the timer, and set it for the last part of that night’s Lakers game. Everything was cool. Or rather, everything would have been cool, if my mom hadn’t decided to interfere, although as it turned out, it was a good sort of interference.
    What happened was, I got a lift home from Martha’s dad. With Martha in the car. I mean, of course Martha was in the car, because that was why her dad had turned up at the community center, but, you know. Martha was in the car. Which meant…well, not too much, if you really want to analyse it that closely. I didn’t talk a whole lot. Like I said, give me a few hours to think about it and I’m William fucking Shakespeare; I’m just not so good in real time. I guess it’s my dad’s genes coming through. He can write OK dialogue if he has enough time to think about it–like a year. But ask him the simplest question, like ‘What’s going on with you and Mom?’ and he’s, you know, ‘Duh, yeah, well, blah.’ Thanks, Dad. That’s made things real clear.
    Anyway, we got in the car, and…Oh–first of all, I should tell you that it’s turning into a regular thing, which is how come I wasn’t too disgusted by my performance that night. And maybe I should confess that I nearly blew it, too. This is where Mom’s good/bad interference comes in. What happened was, she dropped into this little gallery in the neighborhood, to see if they’d be interested in exhibiting her stuff, and she got talking to the owner, who turns out to be Martha’s dad. And somehow they got on to the subject of the Little Berkeley Big Band, and like two seconds later they’ve divided up the rides. I’ll be honest here: I completely freaked out when she told me. No amount of singing her song would have calmed me down. She explained that she met this guy who lives real near and his daughter was in the band and so he was going to drop us off and pick us up this week and it was her turn next week and…
    ‘Stop right there.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Do you realize what a bunch of pathetic losers they are in that band? You really expect me to sit in a car with one of them every week?’
    ‘I’m not asking you to date her. I’m asking you to sit in a car with her for ten minutes once a week.’
    ‘No way.’
    ‘Too late.’
    ‘Fine. I’m quitting the band. As from this second.’
    ‘You don’t think that’s an overreaction?’
    ‘No. Goodbye.’
    And I went up to my bedroom. I meant it. I was going to quit. I didn’t care. Even if I was giving up a future career as a superstar jazz trumpeter, it was worth it if it meant not sitting in a car with Eloise and her bad breath. Or Zoe and her quote unquote gland problem (in other words her intense fatness problem.) Anyway, Mom came up five minutes later and said that she’d called the guy and canceled the ride, told him I had a doctor’s appointment first so I wouldn’t be leaving from home.
    ‘A doctor’s appointment? Great, so now everyone thinks I’ve got some gross disease. Thanks a lot.’
    ‘Jesus.’ She shook her head.
    ‘And anyway, how am I going to get out of coming back with them?’ I will admit, I was being pretty difficult.
    She shook her head again. If I hadn’t been so mad, I might have felt sorry for her. ‘I’ll think of something.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know. Just get in the car. We’ll be late.’
    ‘No. Now it’s too embarrassing. I’m still quitting.’
    ‘Paul will be disappointed. I got the impression that he had high hopes for you and Martha. He thought you sounded like…’
    ‘Whoa. Martha?’
    ‘Do you know her?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Do you like