Audrey, Wait!

by Robin Benway

  “You mean Simon?”

  “Yeah. Simon.”

  It felt like there was a shimmery spiderweb thread between me and James, like if one of us did or said the wrong thing, it’d snap and melt away. My heart was ricocheting against my ribs and I pressed my hands against the cool metal of napkin holder. “At the time,” I replied, “I thought I did. But he was—”

  James looked up and his gaze was the kind that makes you understand how elliptical orbits occur, how one thing can pull you in so tight that you can’t break away. My breath got shallow. “I don’t like him,” I whispered. “I didn’t know him. It just happened. Sort of like an accident.”

  “Good.” James didn’t break eye contact. “’Cause I really hate him.”

  “Yeah. I hate him too.”

  “I know. But I hate him for kissing you.”

  Ding-dong! The automatic door chime told us we had customers.

  Both James and I stood up so fast that I got a little dizzy from the head rush. His cheeks were flaming and I could feel the hotness in my own. The napkins were damp from being clenched so tight in my hand and there were beads of sweat on the back of my neck, almost like chills. I was either going to throw up or start dancing around—I wasn’t sure which. What I needed was a time-stopper so I could figure things out. What did James mean by that? Did he want to kiss me? Would he have? Would our first kiss have been surrounded by melting ice cream and recycled paper napkins? Were we saved by the bell? Was his heart beating as fast as mine? Did he want a time-stopper too?

  “Hi, welcome to the Scooper Dooper!” James called out to our new customers, that fake smile returning with lightning speed. I had never heard him quite so boisterous. “Can we interest you in a free sample?”

  But the customers who had interrupted us were no ordinary customers. They were our store’s owner, Ron, and some guy in a suit who was beaming from ear to ear. Ron didn’t really show up too much; owning this branch of the Scooper Dooper was just a retirement thing, a way to stay busy and make cash, but ever since he hired James, Employee Extraordinaire, he really didn’t have to do much. He had the glowing orange look of someone who spent a lot of time on a boat and had never heard of SPF.

  “Audrey!” he said when he saw me. “How are you? Our star employee!”

  “Hi, Ron.” I tried to do some deep breathing so I wouldn’t hyperventilate. “What’s up?”

  He looked like someone’s proud grandparent. “Audrey, this is Mr. Farris.” When I didn’t say anything, Ron continued. “He’s the regional sales manager for all the Scooper Doopers across the country. You know, Mr. Farris?”

  I don’t know about you, but if I ever became regional sales manager for the Scooper Dooper franchise, I’d try to pinpoint where my life went so wrong. Mr. Farris, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with the fact that his business cards had ice cream cones printed on them. “So nice to meet you,” he said as he pumped my arm up and down.

  “And this is James.” Ron introduced him the way you might introduce your batty, toothless great-uncle to your super-cool friends.

  Mr. Farris barely acknowledged James before turning back to me. “Audrey, we’ve been hearing a lot about you lately at corporate headquarters.”

  “Oh?” Oh?

  “Yes, sales have been up in this store nearly fifteen percent over the past four weeks, and I’d be lying if I said you had nothing to do with that.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I don’t know about that, but—”

  He cut me off with a grin. “We know about that. That’s why we’ve designed a new ad campaign based around you!” He pulled out a glossy folder and flipped it open to show a bright pink press kit. “See this? This is just the beginning. We have plans for a national ad campaign, from Maine to Hawaii! How would you like to star in your very own commercial?” His eyes twinkled.

  Mine, however, had gone flat. “I’d rather swim in battery acid.”

  “Excuse me?”

  James choked and started coughing, which offered Ron a reason to jump in and no doubt save his year-end bonus. “Audrey! Such a kidder! Always joking!”

  I could feel my brain starting to unravel like a ball of yarn and, in all honesty, it felt sort of good, like coming up for air after being underwater. “With razor blades,” I continued. “I’d rather swim in battery acid and razor blades and spoiled milk—”

  Ding-dong! Customers.

  “Welcome to the Scooper Dooper!” James practically shouted across the store to our new customers. “Welcome to our very fine establishment! Would you like to try a free sample of anything? Anything at all! Just ask! Really, we don’t mind! Try us!”

  “Oh, I will,” said a voice, and it was all I could do to keep from banging my head against the countertop.

  Sharon Eggleston and Natasha sidled up to the glass display. “There’s the star,” Sharon said when she saw me. I was wearing a stained Scooper Dooper shirt with Chocolate Kiss smeared on the sleeve, and my face was still burning from both my encounters with James and Mr. Farris. Sharon had on (I hate to say it) a cute purple shirt and perfect jeans and perfect makeup. She had dressed up for the sacrifice, I could tell.

  “Hi,” I said to her, but only because my two bosses were standing six feet away. I swear, if I ever have to swim in battery acid and razor blades and spoiled milk, Sharon is so going to be my swimming buddy.

  “Would you like to try a free sample?” James leaned past me toward Sharon and Natasha, the tiny plastic spoon already in his hand.

  Sharon turned her full-beam smile on him and I burned inside. “Yes,” she said. “Absolutely. I would love to try any of your samples.”

  James could only sputter and probably would’ve died of embarrassment if Mr. Farris hadn’t jumped in. “Audrey, why don’t you help these young women?”

  A mean Cruella smile drew Sharon’s mouth up. “Audrey, is this your boss?”

  I mentally drew a target on Sharon. “Yep.”

  Mr. Farris beamed with pride. “She’s our best employee!”

  She and Natasha exchanged knowing grins. “Oh, really? How convenient.”

  “Did—did you want a sample?” James was still trying his best to stammer out a full sentence.

  “You can both help me,” she announced, like we had won a prize. “But I just don’t know what I want.” She pressed a finger to her lips and pretended to think. “What do you suggest, Audrey? You’re an expert at doing all sorts of things, aren’t you? How about you try your hand at ice cream suggestions.”

  I thought back to the graffiti on the bathroom wall and said nothing.

  “How’s the strawberry?”

  Everyone looked at me. “It’s okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “It’s great.”

  “What about Chocolate Kiss?”

  “Great.”

  “Just great?”

  “Great plus one.”

  “And French vanilla?”

  And so on. We went through each individual flavor, and Sharon and Natasha (will she ever breathe through her nose?!) sampled nine flavors each. James got each sample for them, and then Sharon ate each one in this really sexy way that no one in their right mind would do in public. “Mmm,” she would say, making big flirty eyes at James the whole time. And then, “Umm … no, I don’t think so,” and she would hand me back her gross used sample spoon. “How about …?”

  And on. And on. And on.

  By flavor number seven, some other customers had come in, but they wanted me to wait on them, not James, and Mr. Farris had tucked the shiny pink folder under his arm and was standing back, watching his profits grow with my humiliation. James was forced to get all the samples for Sharon and Natasha, and he kept dropping the sample spoons and fishing around for them on the floor, all knees and elbows and hipbones bumping against the cupboards.

  And of course, after all that, Sharon got a small fat-free scoop of vanilla first on a cone, then in a cup; then she decided she wanted nuts on top, and it wasn�
��t until after I poured the chopped almonds on that she said, “Oops, no, I meant the walnuts.” I got the same thing for Natasha without even asking, and when she started to protest, I shoved it at her with as much control as I could muster. “It’s yours now,” I said through clenched teeth. “Try not to choke on it.”

  “Did you hear how mean she’s being to me, James?” Sharon said in that stupid faux-pouty voice of hers. “How can you stand to work with someone else’s castoff when she’s such a bitch?”

  “Thanks for coming by,” James replied. “Watch your step on the way out the door. Wouldn’t want you to trip and break your nose.”

  Wait a hot minute. Was he defending me?! He was defending me! My heart leapt, then quickly sank back down once Sharon realized that the tide had turned and her latest boy-crush wanted to toss her out on her ass.

  “This is just the beginning,” Sharon hissed at me as she pushed her sunglasses higher up on her head. “You’re fucking finished at our school.”

  “Yeah, way to pose in a paparazzi photo,” I glared at her. “That doesn’t look desperate at all, Sharon.”

  She glanced over at James, who was ringing up the sale. “I don’t blame you for settling for her, James,” she said to him. “You look like the kind of guy who shops secondhand for everything.”

  The adults in the room were already out of earshot, so I grabbed her change out of the register and shoved it into her hand. Then I leaned in and let my hair hide the side of my face. “Get. Out.”

  Sharon grinned at both of us, but something had changed in her eyes. There was no flirtiness now. It was war. “Thanks for the ice cream, Audrey!” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow!” She turned and walked out with Natasha a step behind, and I slammed the register shut so hard that it flew back open.

  “I’m taking my break,” I said to no one in particular, then yanked my hat off and went to the only place where it was quiet: the storage freezer.

  All I did was pace for a minute, my brain racing. I wanted to call Victoria and tell her everything. I wanted to call my parents and tell them to come get me. I wanted to call Evan and tell him I would freaking marry him if it meant the song would never exist and I could go back to having a normal life. I didn’t care anymore about VIP passes or free lip gloss or homemade gifts from fans. I just wanted to be normal, anonymous Audrey.

  The day kept crashing over me like a wave and I sank down on a tub of Marmalade Madness and finally, finally started to cry.

  The door opened a minute later. I didn’t even have to look up to know who it was. “What, does someone want an autograph?” I snapped at James as I wiped my eyes. “A picture? A commercial? Or do they just want to harass me and threaten me with social extinction while sampling twenty billion flavors?”

  James took several slow steps toward me, and when I didn’t reach out and try to kill him, he sat down next to me and very, very carefully, put his arm around my shoulders. It felt like just a whisper of a touch, his arm was so thin and light, but when I started to cry harder, he moved closer and his arm grew heavier, pulling me back down to Earth. “This has been the worst day ever,” I said through my tears. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  “I know,” James said, and even though he really had no clue, it was still a nice thing to say. He touched my hair again and again, barely stroking it, and I sniffled against his sleeve and tried to calm down. He was pretty cool about me crying all over him, too. Evan would always get really uncomfortable or say something stupid like, “Do you want me to go?” whenever I got upset. He certainly wouldn’t have sat on a tub of ice cream in a huge walk-in freezer with me, that was for sure.

  But James would. And did.

  After a minute or so, I finally got it together and sat up, realizing that I was not having my best-looking moment. “I’m really sorry if I got snot on you,” I said as I wiped at my face with my sleeve. “I’ll pay for the dry cleaning.”

  He laughed and handed me a napkin from his pocket. “Don’t worry about it.” He had really nice teeth, not too perfect and not too wonky. Definitely a flosser.

  “And I’m sorry that Sharon was a bitch to you.”

  “Well, she’s a bitch. That’s what they do. They’re bitchy.” He shrugged. “I don’t really care about Sharon, anyway.”

  The freezer got quiet then, the sort of quiet that makes every thought in your head amplify ten times in volume. It was so cold that we could see our breath, tiny cloud puffs that came quickly. “What do you care about?” I asked. “If you don’t care about Sharon.”

  “You,” he whispered.

  It was starting to feel warmer by the second, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  “Audrey?”

  “Yeah?” We were so close that our noses were almost touching.

  “Do you think maybe you’d want to go out some time? I mean, with me?”

  “Yes.” The answer came so fast that I didn’t even have time to think about it. “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Audrey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You … you have a pretty mouth.” I could see him blushing, and I wondered if he had ever said something like that to a girl before. “You do. It’s just like … yeah. It’s perfect.”

  “James?”

  “Yeah.” His voice was really quiet, like he was trying not to breathe.

  “Do you …? Do you want to kiss me?” We were getting closer and closer, and then our noses touched once, twice, before our lips met.

  I had my answer.

  When we pulled apart, we were both gasping a little. “Wow,” I said.

  “Is that okay?” he asked quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “No!” I said. “Don’t apologize, it was fine. I mean, it was better than fine, but … yeah. Good executive decision. Two thumbs up.”

  He smiled, looking embarrassed. “We probably have to go back out there before Mr. Farris sends out a search party for you.”

  I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to be working. “Oh. Right.” I tried to pat my hair down and smooth my shirt as we stood up, then realized that my knees were a little wobbly. Next to me, James put one hand on the freezer door and then, right before pulling it open, bent down and kissed me again, a quick impulse of a touch. “You ready?” he said.

  I was still reeling from the second kiss, but I managed to nod before following him out into the fluorescent light of the back room. I had to squint against it, and then I went to the tiny employee bathroom to put water on my face while James went back to deal with customers and bosses.

  In the bathroom mirror, I looked at my mouth. James thought it was perfect. Maybe it was. I smiled.

  The girl in the mirror smiled back.

  19 “Don’t let them tell you that there’s a right way to fall in love….

  —Voxtrot, “Biggest Fan”

  SO OF COURSE, the one time I really have to tell Victoria some-thing—kissage in the freezer with James, OMG!—I couldn’t find her. She had been out with Jonah that night, so she didn’t know anything about me and James, or about how I was now going to be forced to sit in the school office every day.

  When I was driving to school, though, a phone call distracted me. My head was so in the clouds that I answered my phone without even looking at the caller ID, just assuming that it was Victoria because who else would dare call me at seven forty-five in the morning?

  It was definitely not Victoria.

  “Hello!” a voice said. “Is this the Audrey?”

  “Um, sure,” I replied. “Why not.” Who’s this weirdo? I thought.

  “Audrey! This is Jim Jenkster! Agent extraordinaire! Honey, we are going to change your life starting today! Starting this very minute!”

  “Jim Jenkster?” I repeated. Jim Jenkster was the tool who was always in the back of C-level celebrities’ paparazzi photos, a slimy agent guy who had settled som
e sexual harassment lawsuits out of court. A real winner. But then again, anyone named Jim Jenkster is sort of set up to fail at life.

  Still, I didn’t believe he was calling me. “Jonah, is this you?” I asked. “It’s ass o’clock in the morning—I didn’t even think you were awake at this hour. Did Victoria put you up to this? Because if she’s there I really, really, really need to talk to—”

  “Oh, this is perfect already! That voice, your vibe! Honey, by the time all this is over, no one’s going to remember the Do-Gooders, but everyone’s gonna know who Audrey is!”

  I sat in my car at the red light and openly gaped. This was so not Jonah. “Are you for real?” I said.

  “As real as the sun in the sky! Or the UV rays in the tanning bed, heh heh!”

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Why are you calling me?” I asked between giggles. “Because seriously, dude, I don’t need an agent. Thanks, but go sell yourself to someone who’s buying.”

  “I love it! Oh, darlin’, I absolutely love it! You’re so Audrey, Audrey!”

  “No, I’m just Audrey.”

  “No, you’re Audrey! Capital-A Audrey! Let me tell you what I’m thinking. We gotta start getting you to premieres, honey. That’s the first thing. The red carpet plus you equals dynamiteness.”

  “Is that even a word?”

  “Next, I’ve got a list of guys here. Hot ones. Hotties. All of them have pilots coming up for the spring. Big shows. Huge. We gotta get you seen with them.”

  I took a deep breath. This guy was truly unhinged. All that tooth bleaching must have gone to his brain. “Look,” I told him, “I’m not interested in dating TV actors. Or rock stars. Or anyone who has a publicist or frequents a red carpet. Okay? Later, alligator.”

  Then I hung up on Jim Jenkster. Agent extraordinaire.

  And went to sit in the office.

  By myself.

  Sigh.

  When Victoria walked past between first and second periods, she stopped short in the hallway. “What are you doing here?” she screeched, as three other students crashed into her. “Why aren’t you going to class?”

  “Because my parents got called into a meeting with the principal yesterday and they decided it’d be less of a distraction to the other students if I did independent study in the office.” In light of the James kissing and that Jenkster nutcase, this news seemed a lot less exciting. “But look, Victoria, I have to tell you—”