#58: Stacey's Choice
“My recent life has been rife with drama.” - Stacey, page 2
Stacey is in Stoneybrook with Mrs. McGill, who’s living that single mom life and applying for a ton of jobs while doing temp work. Mr. McGill calls and announces to Stacey that he’s just received a huge promotion and has been named the vice president of his company. He wants her to come visit the following weekend and attend the celebratory dinner in his honor. The elder stateswomen of the BSC spend their Saturday shopping for Stacey’s new outfit and celebrating. Stacey gets a sophisticated and glamorous outfit from some punk shop named Zingy’s (leave it to Stacey to manifest “sophisticated” and “glamorous” from a punk shop) and she’s really excited about the upcoming weekend in New York.
Meanwhile, though, Mrs. McGill seems more and more tired (and even a little sick?) every day as she continues the job hunt. Then, on the Monday before Stacey’s NYC weekend, Mrs. McGill collapses at a job interview and is taken to the ER. Turns out she has pneumonia, and Stacey is now her home nurse. (How amazing would Stacey look in a candy-striper uniform?) Stacey is all about helping her mom get better, but she starts to wonder whether her NYC weekend is going to happen after all. The more she thinks about it, the more she feels guilty at the thought of leaving her mom. So she calls her dad to let him know that she can’t make it, and when he protests and says “you’re all I have,” Stacey goes off on him and tells him he might have more in his life if he wasn’t a workaholic married to his job. Yikes. Alexa, play “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo.
As Mrs. McGill starts to feel better, Stacey comes up with a different plan: she’ll go to New York on Friday for her dad’s dinner, but then come back first thing Saturday morning so that she’s leaving her mother for less than 24 hours; plus, she’s going to get a “mom-sitter” to take care of Mrs. McGill. (Ugh, Stacey’s so mature.) Stacey also talks to Dawn about being a child of divorce and asks Dawn if she ever resents her parents. Dawn’s like “HELL YEAH” and neither of them can decide if they’d prefer their parents to stay married but fight a lot, or to be divorced but leave their kids in the middle a lot. There seems to be no good choice. (This book gets real about divorce! Side note: my biggest fear as a kid was that my parents would get divorced, even though they didn’t fight much or have any major problems that I knew of. I think these books helped quell my fears a little bit - at least if my parents got divorced I’d be a little more like Stacey! - but, anyway, my parents have now been married for 45 years.)
Stacey makes it to New York for the fancy dinner, but she keeps getting up and using a pay phone to call and check on her mom. Then, she wants to leave as soon as dinner’s over (no dancing) so she can get home and get some sleep before waking up at 4:30am to take the early train back to Stoneybrook. Mr. McGill is bothered (he wanted all her attention and participating) but poor Stacey is trying her best to take care of both of her parents. (Meanwhile… SHE’S THIRTEEN. They should be taking care of her.) Plus, she and Mr. McGill have double-booked the caretakers for Mrs. McGill, so that when Stacey gets home there’s a visiting nurse, plus Mrs. Kishi and Mrs. Arnold, and more than a little confusion. At this point Stacey’s mother sits her down for A Talk about how Stacey is only thirteen and can’t take care of everyone. (THANK YOU, MRS. MCGILL. THIS IS A HARD THING FOR PEOPLE OF MAAAANY AGES TO ACCEPT.) Stacey is relieved and makes plans to make up with her dad, and to keep being Stacey effing McGill.
