Girl,15: An Overview

She calls you "Trish," as in, "Trish, would you like to start the coffee? That would be lovely." Trish is not your name.

She papers your office with girly hearts and kisses and Jeopardy! style requests written on index cards: What is Starbucks?

She crawls into your bed and refuses to leave until you have agreed to listen to "just one song." It is never, ever just one song.

She calls you on the phone when you are driving home from work just to listen to you sing, because you have a terrible voice and it makes her laugh. She swears this is your own private joke and that she is not broadcasting your voice over speaker phone.

She lies.

She makes fun of your clothes and then borrows them. She returns them stained. Her room is a mess. She camps out for concert tickets and sells the extra ones for profit. She is getting a C in economics, if she's lucky. She writes on herself. She tries to trick you into watching weeper movies by calling them comedies. She never gets tired of crying over the imminent death of young and beautiful people living out their brave and final days over a cloying soundtrack.

She laughs as hard as you do, but her specialty is deadpan. When there is a joke to be played she goes all in. If you suggest bringing balloons to the airport to welcome/embarrass her brother, who is coming home from college for the holidays, she will suggest more balloons. Bigger balloons. Balloon animals. She cried when he left. Then she moved all her stuff into his room and put her name on the door.

She calls him almost every day. She makes him put his roommates on the phone.

She can do things with her hair and makeup that will make everything within 15 feet of her look like unwashed laundry. If something in your wardrobe provokes her disapproval, you will have no choice but to dispose of it. Then you will notice she has paired black leggings with one of her brother's t-shirts and has drawn triangles on the backs of her hands with a green Sharpie, but it will be too late to get your corduroys back from Goodwill.

She knows how to make you laugh when you are mad. She knows when you are sad. She knows the songs you put on repeat when you are alone in the car. She knows how to do your voice on the phone well enough to trick everyone but your best friends. She knows where you hide things. She knows how to make creme brulee but she is powerless against the allure of recipes that require food coloring and cake mixes and go mostly uneaten. She knows her rainbow cake will go mostly uneaten, but doubles the recipe anyway because otherwise what would be the point of using so much food color?

She knows way too much. She doesn't know where she left your scarf. She has no idea what happened to all the food coloring.

She knows you will buy more.