Book 11: First Crush

Lara and Barbie look good, altough more like twentyfive year olds, and I totally remember those styles around the new millenium. Lara looks nice here. Nothing else to say. Hey, that's totally Barbie taking a picture of the Spice Girls! Ana as Sporty, Chelsie as Ginger, Lara as Posh, Nichelle as Scary, and Tori as Baby.

It's nearly Valentine's day. Ana tells Chelsie that Blaine asked her to the dance. Lara will help Evan and Andy, which has a small cassette player in his back pocket, with their secret plan. She meets Max, which compliments her on the scool Valentine website. He like the cupids, especially the one with Mr. Budge's face. Max wears arm braces, and cultural difference here, that didn't completely make sense(easy to play the violin, but your arms are wrapped in metal braces), but I googled and arm braces can be the same as crutches(?). He's sophisticated, witty and charming, speaks several languages and is a big reader. Sounds like my type of boy. And I thought of violin players as stereotypically pretentious, snobby and overly intense until, but now my slighly prejudiced opinions has been challenged after I heard about Alexander Rybak, and Emilie Autumn, so I could live with that Max is a violin player. He comes with them as Lara will help the pants boys surprise Tori and Chelsie. She finds them in biology class and says that she needs to speak to them. (Lara and Max have a substitue, so they are allowed to be some minutes late for class.) Evan and Andy's music doesn't work, so Max agrees to accompany them on violin. They've made a rap to ask Chelsie and Tori to go to the dance with them. Max starts improvising with his violin to accompany Evan and Andy and actually makes it sound good. Tori and Chelsie collapse in laughter and say yes. Lara goes with Max to the chemistry lab. He started playing violin a long time ago and likes chamber music best. Lara would love to hear him really play, and he wants to see some of her art.

Lara literally bumps into this handsome boy after class, when she's eager to find Tori and Chelsie. She feels a large bump in her head and reverts into French, as she always do under stress. She wonders how she could have missed a cute boy with a renaissance angel's face, a wrestler's body and silky brown hair, in school. Lara is slightly embarrassed. They boy helps her up, and Max, which has come out of the classroom now gives her a hand. He asks them both if they're okay, but Lara flees before the boy, Chris has time to ask her name. Lara has started living part time with each parent. She is in the kitchen, shredding lettuce when her mother asks her if she should put some ice on the bump on her head. Lara's mother is practicing speaking more English instead of Italian at home. They talk about the MIH-student only website made by Tori and Lara, where the kids can leave each other valentine messages, signed or anonymous. It even has a countdown calendar with pierced hearts and little cupids with teacher faces. Lara isn't sure if she she's going to the dance. She asks her mother how she knows if she likes someone from the first moment.
Lara says "I just want a relationship that challenges me. And one that is dramatic. And romantic. Someone who will shake me up and wake me up. Someone I can respect and who will respect me. Is that too much to ask?" "Yes. But you should want it anyway." her mother replies. Aww, sweet. After dinner, Lara climbs up to the bedroom to look at the fire and ice collage she's making. Then she checks the website for messages. Lara clicks on her screename, eurogirl. How original. I wonder what the other girls screen names are? Probably Nichelle will be mizzmodel, Chelsie britchick, Tori xxxtremeaussie, Ana swimmerbabe, and Barbie sunnyactress, or something. She has seventeen messages, five from her closest friends, some from other friends, some anonymous and general, and one last, mystery message, from "justme", a secret admirer hoping that she'll be his valentine". It says something about a chance encounter, so Lara hopes it's from Chris.

Lara keeps thinking about Chris and the valentine at school tomorrow. She'll ask Max about Chris, since he's sweet and mature and clearly knows Chris. So he'll meet her in Latin Class, and then he'll give her the real story on Chris. Lara is worried that Max isn't here today, but he eventually come to class. She stops him after class. Max is not busy as he has lunch after that, Lara wonders why she never sees him in the cafeteria as she also has third period lunch. He says that he does other stuff... He has known Chris since they were very little, as they live in the same building. He's a wrestler, but very nice and sincere. Max says that Chris should speak for himself about what he thinks and cares about. Lara meet Tori in the cafeteria. Lara answers that she isn't going to the dance with anyone. She does admit that she's a little interested in Chris though. Tori points him out in the cafeteria. Tori, who is really spontaneous thinks Lara should go over to him, or at at least go over to Melanie, a nice girl they know who sits at the same table. When she goes up to Melanie, Chris taps her on the elbow and asks if she remembers bumping into him yesterday. He asks about her name. It's obvious that he likes her. Lara goes over to Melanie and chat with her for a couple of minutes. Lara goes back to Tori, feeling stupid and embarassed. She tries to look at Chris without seeing him staring, then she rushes downstairs to the art room. She hears a beautiful violin sonata coming from the next room. It's Max sitting there playing. He lets her in and she sits there listening to the music. Now she has discovered what he does in early lunch. He even offers to let her share his sandwich. They talk about the dance and Lara says that she received this lovely email, and she hopes it's from Chris. Max suggests that she writes back to get to know the emailer back. She types a reply back, asking him some questions about what he loves and what makes him cry.

Lara still thinks about the letter she wrote back. Max joins her and Tori for lunch. Chris and the other wrestler guys talk to him and they all sit together. She and Chris speak about Mr. Budge, she mentions checking her email, Chris doesn't react and says that he wish he was better at English. The wrestler guys are being silly. Tori ask them if any of them are into extreme sports. Mike says that wrestling is pretty extreme and he'll arm wrestle Chris for his dessert. Mike loses in front of the girls. He gets grumpy and wrongly interprets Max's smile as making fun of him. "Little you know about it" he says to Max. The others wants him to apologize to Max, but Max fights his own battles and challenges Mike to arm wrestle him. Loser buys tickets to a Knicks game. Mike feels awful, but loses again to Max. Max says to that he gets very strong arms from going around on arm braces all day, and that they could forget the bet as his father has good seats to the Knicks games. In fact, he invites Mike to go with him next Wednesday. At the end of the day, Lara drops by the art room and she hears Max putting his soul into a violin piece again. She's so glad they've become friends. She has a lot to learn from his fearless outlook, and she realizes she has more in common with Mike than she thought, as they're both afraid to look stupid in front of his friends. She asks Max if he can find out if Chris is the email admirer and if he likes her. Then she spontaneously throws her arms around Max. And by the way, is he going to the dance with someone? He's not sure.

Max sits at home in his room covered with Rock'n'roll posters, books, cd and recovers. He plays a Back sonata. His most prized possession is a signed photography from when he met Yakov Brin, a fellow gifted violinist who walks with the aid of arm braces. Music is Max's wings, and he has been dealing with people like Max, who doesn't know any better, his whole life. His flips over his notes, where he has written drafts for the email Lara received in the margins. He couldn't compete with Chris anyway, and now Lara even asked him to help her find out if the secret admirer is Chris. He is sure that Chris also likes Lara. Max can't write a reply as himself, as Lara hopes it's Chris who is her admirer. But he can't write a reply as Chris either, as Chris has no idea of his role in this drama. If Lara talks to Chris now, she would end up feeling hurt and betrayed. He has to do what makes Lara happy, even if it breaks his own heart. Max calls Mitzi, a friend.

Mitzi has had a crush on Chris for ever so long time. She's very disappointed to hear those news. Mitzi is a close friend of Max, and as a gifted pianist, she often plays duets with him. She thought she has made progress with Chris as he had sat next to her at the subway some times and he shone up when he saw her in her beautiful concert dress and she accepted coming by later to help him with his homework. Max goes over to Chris' apartment and fifteen minutes into their conversation, he understands that Lara likes him. So Chris is blissed out as he thinks Lara is lovely and beautiful. Max pulls a story that he created a Valentine and sent it to several girls at MIH. He used the words chance encounter, so Lara thought and hoped it was Chris. Lara sent a reply before Max had the chance to explain. Lara had asked Max, as he lived in the same building as Chris, to find out if Chris was "justme". He gives Chris a printout of Lara's email to show him the questions. Chris panics, as he can't write, and asks Max to log onto the school website with him to help him make a reply. The make a letter describing babbling around Lara and wrestling with words that won't come. He loves challenges, and he sees that in art and Lara's beauty. After that, Max and Mitzi are so depressed that they go out to drown their sorrows in butterscotsh ice-cream soda.

They keep exchanging emails between justme and eurogirl, but none of them mentions the dance. All the girls meet up at Eatz. Another kinky passage, quoted word for word. "She paused, trying to think of what large item could fulfil her needs. "We might not want to know" said Nichelle." And if you're wondering, it's Ana who is hungry after swim practice and need something filling. They order cheese fries. Ana is going to the dance with Blaine, but as he's going to deejay, so they can't dance the whole time. Chelsie and Tori are going with the pants boys, Barbie is going with Randall again, and Nichelle might go to a broadway show with her mother instead. They advice Lara to get more one-on-one time with Chris so her secret admirer can ask her to the dance. So she waits for Chris by the history classroom after last period. Lara is just going to do homework and work on her collage, maybe go to a movie with Chelsie and Nichelle. Chris asks her if she wants to come along and watch his wrestling practice. Lara will never been interested in wrestling, but she admires the grace and team spirit Chris brings to the sport. Chris offers to walk Lara home. On the way, they talk about Italy and food, Chris isn't very adventurous when it comes to food, he's only adventurous in climbing things. They stand outside Lara's building for a while. He doesn't want to go, and Lara doesn't want to go up. They don't say much until Lara asks him if he wants to go out with her sometime. He says yes, happily. Lara suggests tomorrow at seven, but she wants Chris to surprise her and decide where to take her.

Chris knocks on Max's door. He doesn't have a clue where to take Lara, as he thinks she'll be too refined for a Knicks game. Max suggests a concert, not rap, but classical. Chris couldn't sit through that, so Max suggests a museum. Like combining music and art, at the Guggenheim museum there will be jazz music playing tomorrow and an exhibit from Picasso's blue period. He advices Chris to just talk about things he's interested in and to be interested in her.

Lara is nervously pacing around the loft waiting for Chris. She jumps at the doorbell, then she lets Chris in to show him the flat and let him meet her mother. Lara is happy to hear about the Guggenheim plans. She promises to be home before ten. Chris treats her to a cab. They sit in silence before they both start speaking. Lara starts talking about books. She just read Emma by Jane Austen. The latest book Chris read contained thought-eating, slug-like aliens. Aww, I'm not by any means a literature snob(if you ever thought so by reading one of my blogs...) so I would have a good time talking about thought-eating aliens with the guy. Lara loves the Guggenheim museum, which is built like a spiral. She had never been her when they have music before. Chris gets her a club soda. They sit and listen for a while before Lara just has to go and look at the paintings. She's surprised that Chris have never been here to look at the Calder paintings before. They go up and look at the Picasso paintings. Lara really enjoys them, but she won't spend too long time as she sees Chris looking bored and studying his watch. They walk a bit outside, then they take a cab the rest of the way. Lara feels strange after the evening, almost like she isn't speaking to the same person as in the emails.

Lara is not having a good Monday morning. She's at her father's noticing that she forgot her Physics notebook at her mother's house, and she feels awkward around Chris even if she still thinks they like each other. So she decides to avoid him and rather go and listen to Max practice at lunch. He's playing this beautiful heart-wrenching sonata which really relates to Lara's feelings. She wants to see the sheet music he's playing. She sees the notes that are identical to her emails. She thinks that Max has written this for Chris for the boys to have a laugh at her. She runs out, almost blinded with tears to get Chris. He explained that Max sent her the email first, and they didn't want to disappoint her. It was not their intention to make fun of her at all. Chris still really like Lara, but the paintings and music were not his style at all. She forgives him a little. He asks her if she wants to go with a hockey game with him and she believes that he didn't mean to hurt her. Before going home, she buries her feelings in paint. Lara is still mad at Max. He has called two times, but Lara asks her dad to say she isn't home. She falls asleep reading Emma on her bed, then she has Chinese takeout with her father. He says that he and Lara's mother has agreed to go out on a dinner date on Valentines day. Barbie calls and advices Lara to sleep on the situation. She's going to write a essay, so she check her e-mail(one message from Chelsie, one from Melanie(author self-insert?) in her English class), but the e-valentines are still on her mind. She opens the page. Five from her friends, six ridiculous ones, and one from "justme", just called "please".

She hesitantly opens the message. She couldn't believe that sweet Max would deliberately make a fool out of her. Max says that he's sorry he hurt her most by doing what he thought would hurt the least. He understood that she would never be into him, so he helped Chris to get her instead. He just hopes she will remember that it was he who wrote her the first message. Tears stream down Lara's cheeks. She feels awful, as she hasn't cared about how Max felt and didn't give a thought about his emotions in this. She calls him, apologizes for hurting him, and asks him to go with her to the Valentine's dance. He says yes. They're sitting at the dance, talking after they've had a few dances. Ana is helping Blaine choose music. Randall and Barbie are practising swing moves. Chelsie and Andy are doing the "funky chicken", Tori and Evan are just goofing around, and Nichelle is at the Broadway show with her mother. Lara asks if she can ask him what's wrong with his legs. Max says that he has a mild form of cerebral palsy, probably caused during the pregnancy. He can use his legs some, but the arm braces makes it easier for him. Chris is dancing with Mitzi, happy to just be himself. Lara and Max discuss "Emma" and she tells him about her parents on a date. They dance some more with each other and their friends and friend's dates, then they talk some more. Lara has had a great time and don't want to leave. She says "All the time, it was just you I was meant to be at the dance." "Yes, just me." says Max.

Article in the back of the book is about the school dance and email etiquette. Hturt=ytsenoh=gnitirw.

This book in one word: Predictable and cute.