Check out the cover and read both excerpts below.
A crying-on-cue audition for yet another connection police procedural,Without a Trace, has just come through.
I’m sitting in the waiting room mustering up all my sadness when something shifts in me.
‘I’m Glad My Mom Died,’ by Jennette McCurdy.Simon and Schuster
I feel detached, disconnected, and then irritated.
I tug on Mom’s arm.
She dog-ears the diet section in her current issue ofWoman’s World.
The diet section is her favorite, even though I’m not sure why.
Mom’s very petite, four foot eleven “and a whopping ninety-two pounds!”
as she often announces with proud irony, knowing her pound count is far from whopping.
“Mommy, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to cry.”
Mom looks at me, puzzled at first, then her confusion turns to intensity.
She furrows her eyebrows and tightens her lips.
“Of course you will.
Mom often says this when she’s “getting me into character.”
She’ll say, “You ARE Emily.”
Or whoever I’m supposed to be that day.
But today, right now, I don’t feel like being Emily.
I don’t want to be Emily.
This has never happened before, but it’s happening now and it’s scaring me.
A part of me is resisting my mind forcing this emotional trauma on itself.
A part of me is saying, “No.
It’s too painful.
I’m not doing this.”
That part of me is foolish.
I take a deep breath, then smile up at Mom.
“You’re right.
I’m Emily,” I say half to convince Mom, half to convince myself.
The part of me that doesn’t want to cry on cue is not convinced.
What I want and what I need deserves to be listened to.
“You’re gonna book this one, Emily.”
But I don’t.
The audition doesn’t go well.
My heart isn’t in it.
I don’t “feel my words.”
And worst of all, I do not cry on cue.
We’re on the way home, in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101 South.
I was in my head during it because that scary part of me decided to try and speak up.
That part of me that doesn’t want to be doing this.
Mom looks at me in the rearview mirror.
A mixture of shock and disappointment fills her eyes.
I immediately regret saying anything.
“Don’t be silly, you love acting.
I look out the window.
My face gets hot, compelling me to say something.
“No, I really don’t want to.
I don’t like it.
It makes me uncomfortable.”
Mom’s face looks like she just ate a lemon.
It contorts in a way that terrifies me.
I know what’s coming next.
“you could’t quit!”
“This was our chance!
This was ouuuuur chaaaaance!”
She bangs on the steering wheel, accidentally hitting the horn.
Mascara trickles down her cheeks.
She’s hysterical, like I was in theHollywood Homicideaudition.
Her hysteria frightens me and demands to be taken care of.
“Never mind,” I say loudly so Mom can hear it through her sobs.
I’m not the only one who can cry on cue.
“Never mind,” I repeat.
“Let’s just forget I said anything.
I suggest we listen to Mom’s current favorite album, Phil Collins’s.
She smiles at the suggestion and puts it in the CD player.
She flips to “Another Day in Paradise,” and the song starts blasting through the speakers.
She eyes me in the rearview mirror.
Why aren’t you singin' along, Net?!”
she asks giddily, her mood having switched.
So I start singing along.
And I throw on my best fake smile to go with it.
Either way, it’s performing.
I’m sitting in the back seat of the Ford Windstar.
We’re driving to the Art Supply Warehouse to visit Dustin on his shift.
Dustin seems to hate this, but Mom loves it.
I think she enjoys knowing people who work at the place she’s visiting.
I think it makes her feel like a VIP.
She gets this aura like she owns the place.
I love seeing Mom so confident.
“Susan’s calling!”
I know why Susan’s calling.
(Mom loves saying the word “leverage” on calls with Susan.
She says it makes her sound “in the know.")
I had my screen test foriCarlyyesterday, so they have first choice as to whether they want me.
Susan calling right now means Nickelodeon has made up their mind.
While she dials Susan, she thrusts her hand back behind her and toward me.
I’m sitting in my booster seat.
(I’m fourteen and still in the booster.)
I’m trying to reach her hand but I can’t.Click, click, click.
“Hi, can I speak with Susan?
It’s Debbie McCurdy.”
Click, click.Mom’s hand wags around, trying to find mine.
Our fingers almost graze.
“Okay, yeah, I think I can figure out how to put it on speaker.”
Whatever it is, it takes her hand away from mine and my whole body feels that.
But just for a second.
Because then it hits me.
I’ve booked my first series regular role.
Mom pulls into the Art Supply Warehouse parking lot while we both scream at the top of our lungs.
She pulls into a reserved-for-handicapped spaceshe’s thrilled she has a handicapped card since her diverticulitis diagnosis.
I unbuckle my seat belt as quickly as I can.
I jump into Mom’s arms.
Everything’s going to be different now.
Everything’s going to be better.
Mom will finally be happy.
Her dream has come true.
