From Laurie Halse Anderson’s WINTERGIRLS (Advance Reader Copy; may be different in the version available in stores and libraries). The number is the calorie-counting the anorexic narrator does throughout the book:
When the bread is done I scrape on a microscopic layer of [honey] (30) and pour a cup of coffee, black. She pretends not to listen or watch as I crunch through my breakfast. I pretend that I don’t notice her pretending.
…Now if only it’d been “pour a cup of coffee, black, with three or four sugars,” we’d be in a whole other realm of My So-Called Life reference. But anyways. This is from THE SWEET FAR THING by Libba Bray:
“I said, don’t look now,” Felicity hisses through clenched teeth. “The key is to make it seem as if you do not notice their attention.”
It may seem tenuous to connect these two quotes, which after all, don’t really have much in common. But what they do have in common is that they both totally echo this classic line from the pilot episode of MY SO-CALLED LIFE:
ANGELA (voice-over): Like with boys, how they have it so easy! How you have to pretend you don’t notice them, noticing you.
Of course, since this is television, that line precedes an ironic segue — in this case, a brilliant one, to Brian getting shoved up against some lockers. Oh, Angela. What don’t you notice, indeed.
Posted in Anderson, Laurie Halse, Bray, Libba, Gemma Doyle series, Shades of My So-Called Life, Wintergirls
Oh, I love that moment. It’s brilliant–another reason why I love My So Called Life.
Also love how many different layers of people wanting people who barely acknowledged them there were. The episode “Life of Brian” is so great in showing that. (And so, so painful to watch.)