“I think I already know,” she said from the other side.
“It’s not about my haircut.”
“You got your hair cut without me?” Gemma was appalled.
Shit, I thought she knew about my hair. What did she know then? Good God, what in the hell was wrong with my bra? The girls were spilling out of it. Were they bigger? Did my bra shrink? “Gem, um . . . I swear I meant to tell you about my hair. It was spur of the moment. Mr. Bruce dragged me into the salon and the next thing I knew, he set my baseball cap on fire, cut my hair into long layers and put in some kick ass highlights.”
“Fine, Astrid.” Her voice got tinny and high. “Just don’t be surprised if I go get a perm without you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I might,” she threatened.
“Gem,” I begged, “with me or without me, Do. Not. Get. A Perm. That’s so 1980s.”
“You’re right,” Gemma sighed, “I’d get a lobotomy before I’d get a perm. What do you need to tell me?”
I gathered myself. I realized I was about to sound like an idiot, but when had that ever stopped me? I closed my eyes and let her rip. “Um . . . after my haircut, I got hypnotized by a big blonde Amazon gal to stop smoking, and now I can’t breathe. I think it must be a side effect, but it’s freaking me out.” Gemma was silent on the other side of my bedroom door.
“You can’t breathe?”
“No.” I couldn’t tell if she believed me.
“Are you sure?”
“I think I would know if I couldn’t breathe,” I shouted.
“Do I owe you a thousand bucks?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
At least I was honest. The entire reason I’d gotten hypnotized was because I’d bet Gemma a thousand dollars I could quit smoking. I knew she thought it was a no-brainer bet due to the sorry fact that this was my ninth attempt to quit in the last three months. Nicotine gum, cold turkey, weaning off and all those self-help books weren’t doing it for me. I needed outside assistance. Short of having my lips sewn shut, I hadn’t been successful at quitting. Hypnotism was a last resort because having my lips sewn shut was simply not an option.
“Where did you get hypnotized?” she quizzed.
“House of Hypnotism over by the Chinese restaurant that serves cat.”
Gemma was speechless. I was getting more nervous with each passing second. “Do you have a pulse?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, what did you just ask me?”
“I said,” Gemma yelled through the door, “do you have a pulse?”
“What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course I have a . . . ” I checked for my pulse, then I checked again, then I checked again and then I checked one more time. “Um . . . no,” I whispered.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“What’s your skin temp?”
“Really cold,” I told her.
What in the hell was wrong with her? She was awfully calm about the whole thing. She was silent for what felt like an eternity. These questions were right up Gemma’s alley. She loved all things weird, especially anything astrological or supernatural. I could tell she was thinking because she was humming ‘Billie Jean’. Gemma, besides being a Prada whore who like me couldn’t afford it, knew the lyrics to every Michael Jackson song ever recorded. She wore black for an entire year after he died. “I think I know what’s going on.” She began to hum ‘Thriller’.
“What’s wrong with me?” I shrieked.
“Come out here, Astrid.”
“Wait Gemma . . . am I dead?”
“Kinda,” she said with excitement. The same kind of excitement she exuded when she tried to convince me of Bigfoot’s existence. “Just get dressed and get out here.”
I quickly whipped on some overpriced jeans that made my butt look asstastic and put on the first shirt my fingers touched. I pulled on some hot pink sequined Converse and made my way out to my living room. That took about ten and a half steps because my house was the size of a postage stamp.
Gemma was standing by the window bouncing like a ball, so excited she was about to burst . . . and the Queen of Daytime Talk was sprawled on my couch reading my diary. Wait . . . what?
“Holy Jesus,” I gasped. “You’re Opr . . . ”
“Don’t say it,” my idol cut me off, throwing my diary aside as if I wouldn’t notice she’d been reading my most private and embarrassing thoughts. “I’m not her, never fuckin’ have been, never fuckin’ will be. If you call me that, I’ll leave. Trust me, that would be very fuckin’ bad for you.”
“Oookay, you have quite a vocabulary.” I smiled, wondering if Gemma thought this was as screwy as I did. She did seem a little freaked, but not nearly enough to merit the fact Oprah was here. “If you’re not Opr . . . I mean that woman who you look exactly like, then you are . . . ?”
I peeked around my tiny living room and looked for cameras. This had to be for a show segment. Right? Gemma must be in on the whole thing with Oprah.
Was she going to redecorate my crappy house or give me a car or tell me something wonderful about my birth mother?
That was impossible. My birth mother was actually the woman who, for lack of a better word, raised me and there wasn’t much wonderful about her. My Nana, may she rest in peace, was wonderful. Her daughter, my mother . . . not so much. Hopefully, Oprah was here to redecorate.