by Robin Benway
“I heard this girl talking today in my history class—the one who’s always hanging out with Sharon and was there that day at the Scooper Dooper?”
“Natasha,” I told him. “The mouth breather.”
“Yeah, that one. Anyway, she was saying to some other girls that Sharon was the one who called the paparazzi and told them that we were at the diner last night. And that they paid her two hundred and fifty dollars, cash, for the info.
“And you promised,” he added quickly, “that you wouldn’t freak out.”
“Freaking out is too mild a reaction!” I cried, then remembered we were in a library. “She’s scummier than the bottom of a pond! She’s like—God, I can’t even think of anything as disgusting as Sharon! Not only did she get to ruin our date, but she made money doing it! Gah!”
James leaned forward a little. “Okay, breathe,” he said. “And did she really ruin it? ‘Cause it was sort of fun. At least until your parents showed up.”
I took a deep breath and realized he had a point. While Sharon had been sitting around at home and making secret phone calls with Natasha, I was the one on a date. I’d take that over two hundred and fifty dollars any day. “It was fun,” I admitted. “But I still hate her.”
“Cool.” He grinned and waited until I smiled back. “So what movies am I bringing over?”
“Any movie. I mean it, I’m open to anything.”
“What if it has animated bunnies?”
“Love animated bunnies!”
He smirked. “Somehow you don’t strike me as the animated-bunny type.”
“And what makes you so presumptuous?” I wrapped my arms around his waist and put my chin right against his sternum, craning my head to look up at him. “Hmmm?”
“I think it might be that knife charm on your necklace last night.”
Something inside me burned bright when he said that. A hell of a lot of people had seen me last night, but only one person had noticed the tiny details. Only one person had been close enough to see what really mattered. And that person was still standing with me now.
27 “Ten days of perfect tunes, the colors red and blue…”
—The Knife, “Heartbeats”
THAT AFTERNOON, after James came over and we motored our way through a bag of red Twizzlers and DVDs of The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Notebook (“Two thumbs up on the picks,” I told him when he held up the movies and waited to see my reaction. “See, no judgment whatsoever!”), we went upstairs to see my collage wall. My mom was downstairs, so we had to leave the door open, but I was perfectly happy to just lie with him on my bed, nothing else. With Evan, we were always talking about him. Even when we were cuddling, he would talk nonstop about the band, his songs, who wasn’t speaking to whom, and on and on. One time, I even nodded off mid-rant, too tired to care about chord changes or song bridges. There was never any time to be silent.
With James, though, there was no way I was falling asleep. It felt like every nerve ending was buzzing with happiness, and even though I was all warm and content, I burned with adrenaline. Or it might have been sugar from the Twizzlers, but that’s not very romantic.
“Your turn,” he told me, handing me a penny from my change jar. We had come up with our own game, which involved us throwing pennies at my collage wall. After it bounced off a picture, we listened to a song from that band. So far we had gotten through the new single from Doomsday Scenario; Scenic Panic, a local band who’d gotten a one-page write-up in a U.K. magazine two weeks earlier; and two songs in a row from AFI, since theirs was one of the bigger posters on my wall.
I took the penny from him and launched it straight into Björk’s forehead. “And that’s for wearing a swan dress,” I said as I scrolled through her songs before clicking on “All is Full of Love.” “Prepare yourself for something mushy and sappy,” I told James.
“She wore a swan?”
“To the Oscars. Long story.” I curled back up against him and watched as Bendomolena stalked into the room, swished her tail twice, and stalked out again. “See that? She’s staking her territory. She’s jealous of you.”
“She should be. With this bod, this hair…” He reached up and tugged on an unruly lock of red hair. “There’s a lot to envy.”
I grinned and pressed my face into the zipper of his hoodie. “Ouch.” I readjusted myself.
“Did you just give yourself grill face?”
“None of your beeswax. And I happen to like your hair.”
“What about my bod?”
I lifted my head just long enough to give him a look. “I can’t call it your ‘bod,’” I told him. “Not without laughing so hard that I pee my pants.”
“No King Stud, no ‘bod.’” He sighed loudly. “You’ve left me with nothing. I’m a shell of a man.”
“No, you have me,” I told him, setting my head back down on his chest.
We were both quiet as his hand tangled in my hair, as I listened to his heart thud in my ear. “I can hear your heartbeat,” I said after a minute. “Good news: You’re alive.”
“Audrey?”
“Hmm?”
“I really like you.”
“I know. I like you, too.”
“No, I know you know. And I know you like me, too. I just…” He paused for a minute and then smoothed my hair that he had just snarled up. “I just want you to know that, okay? I don’t want you to be scared that I can’t handle this. I mean, you know, whatever this is.” He waved his hand to indicate the general insanity that had taken over my life.
His heart was beating even louder now, and I closed my eyes and tried to calm my pulse down to match his. “I’m not scared of that,” I murmured, and I wasn’t. “That doesn’t scare me.”
“What does scare you?”
I thought for a minute, tapping my index finger against my bottom lip. “Sock puppets.”
“Excuse me?”
“They’re horrifying.”
I could hear his breath hitch in his rib cage. “Audrey, they’re just socks.”
“Yeah, I know. But they talk.”
Another pause. “You know sock puppets aren’t real, right?”
“No, but think about it.” I sat up a little so I could see his face. “How creepy is it that some guy took an old sock…and gave it eyes? Actually, all puppets in general are scary. And ventriloquist dummies. Oh, God, ventriloquist dummies!” I shivered. “Can I change my answer to ventriloquist dummies?”
James blinked. “You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m just self-aware.”
“So no puppet theater at your next birthday party. Got it.”
“No balloon animals, either. They’re creepy, too. Especially when they pop.”
James rolled his eyes. “You’re the most self-aware person I’ve ever met.”
We were both trying hard not to smile, but I gave out first and fell into giggles. (It should be noted that I’m not a giggler. My laugh is rather honky. I believe “angry duck” is the way Victoria described it once, just before I tried to disembowel her.)
“You’re sure you’re ready for whatever happens?” I asked him after I recovered. “Really and truly?”
“Bring it on.”
“Yeah,” I agreed as I dropped my head back against his chest. “Bring it on.”
28 “This fame thing, I don’t get it.…”
—R.E.M., “E-Bow the Letter”
OF COURSE, when you say, “Bring it on,” it sounds cool and tough at the time. (It should also be noted here that Bring It On is an awesome movie and made me want to be a cheerleader for about five seconds, before I realized that me + cartwheels = death). But people definitely brought it. Good Lord, did they bring it.
The press, of course, had caught on to the fact that the redheaded guy that I’d gone on a date with was the same guy who worked with me, and now pictures of James at work were on almost every website out there, taken by twenty million camera phones. (If you want to know what it’s like to be famous, get
a thousand people to aim their camera phones at you and start clicking. That’s fame in a nutshell.) And Sharon Eggleston, who would probably eat dirt and bugs on live TV just for the chance to be famous, figured this out and decided to start hanging around the Scooper Dooper to be in the photos.
Not that anyone gave a shit about her, though.
Instead, the latest gossip was who was going to be cast in the video. When the Do-Gooders went to film their acoustic set for AOL (the one that got a gazillion hits when it went online, I’m sure you saw it), they did an interview where they talked about who was being cast in the upcoming video. (Okay, I watched the interview online just like everyone else. I admit it.) “We don’t know yet,” Evan said. He was drinking tea, which surprised me. Evan hates tea—he says it tastes like piss. “Maybe we’ll cast Audrey herself, who knows?”
“Hell to the no,” was my response.
But to the press, that sort of open-ended answer gave them all they needed to start speculating on who was going to be in the video. “Starlets Fight for ‘Audrey, Wait!’” one magazine screamed. James and I thumbed through the magazine together, reading our favorite parts out loud. By the fourth paragraph, I was in shock. “According to a source, ‘All the girls are after this part,’” I read out loud to James while he rooted through the Teddy Grahams box to find a whole teddy. “The label is tight-lipped, but rumors are spreading that Ashlee, Lindsay, and several other starlets are all in the running. Even Audrey herself has requested to star.”
“Who’s their source?” James giggled. “Sharon Eggleston? Is that their source?”
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “They think I’m like those girls! They think I run around and crash my car and forget to wear underwear.” I sank into the kitchen chair and stared at James. “I’m having a life crisis. Pass me the Teddy Grahams.”
He handed over the box. “All that’s left are little paws and legs at the bottom of the box,” he said. “It’s a massacre.”
“Are you gonna leave me for Paris if she gets cast in the video?”
“Yes,” he said seriously. “I’m glad we can finally talk about it. She’s the kind of girl I’ve waited for all my life.”
“Do you think she’ll have you?”
“Of course she will.” He popped a few more Teddy Graham limbs in his mouth. “I’m dating a celebrity, haven’t you heard? I’m right up her alley.”
Christmas shopping became completely out of the question. I thought I would try going to some little out-of-the-way shops two cities over and try to blend in with all the shoppers, but a couple of paparazzi ran across the middle of a busy intersection when they saw me going into Winkin’ and Blinkin’, this cool electronics gadget store. Unfortunately, when they ran across said intersection, it was against the light and they ended up causing a lot of honking and swearing, as well as two fender benders.
While all this was going on, the owner of Winkin’ and Blinkin’ kept asking me to sign something—“anything!”—that he could put in the window, like I was an actual working celebrity. “No, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I kept saying with this stupid embarrassed grin plastered on my face while I watched the carnage ensue outside. When I finally managed to leave the store, I had to stuff my dad’s gift into my purse so no one would take pictures of it and ruin the surprise, but then it fell out just before I got into my car and sure enough, the photographers saw what it was; some stupid entertainment newswire picked up on it and ran the story in some holiday shopping guide; and suddenly everyone in the free world had to have this universal remote control, and they had to buy it from Winkin’ and Blinkin’.
Victoria added the store to her list of Places Where We Could Get Free Things.
In twenty minutes, I had indirectly caused two car accidents and created the most popular Christmas gift for adults. I was like the elf from hell. An anti-elf. But the worst part was that I had to give my dad his gift early, since everyone knew what it was. He kind of broke my heart, too, because he kept trying to act surprised as he unwrapped it, even though we both knew he wasn’t.
Then a couple Saturdays before school let out for Christmas break, I was all set to do volunteer gift-wrapping at the mall, as per my responsibilities as Key Club secretary. (Don’t be fooled by the impressive title.) It was a long day, but Victoria would always volunteer, too, and Jonah would dress up as Santa and usually everyone would get really caffeinated and hyper and be rolling on the ground with laughter by the time the day was over. But the plans got changed when Mrs. Marchette, the teacher in charge of organizing the volunteer gift-wrapping, came up to me in the office and said, “Audrey, I think this year it might be better if you help coordinate the volunteers.” In other words, “Don’t show up to gift-wrap, because you’ll cause a stampede and the Scotch tape will fly.”
“I’ve been banned from volunteering!” I moaned to James on the phone. He, Victoria, and my parents were the only ones who had my cell number, because someone—and if you’re reading this, I will find you, oh yes, I will—hacked into my phone and got the number and posted it online, so I had to change it for a third time. Greatness.
“You weren’t banned,” James started to say, but I was in no mood to be consoled.
“Banned from volunteer work! Do you know how bad that is? Like, if you break the law and they sentence you to community service, you’re allowed to volunteer! Criminals are better than me.”
“Not all of them,” he said.
“Don’t even try to make me laugh.”
“Okay.”
But on the volunteer Saturday, James showed up at my door. He and his brother, Pierce, had worked out this system for coming over where James would duck down in the backseat of Pierce’s car; then Pierce would drive him over to my place and deposit him as close to the front door as possible. The paparazzi hadn’t caught onto it yet, but only because the local Neighborhood Watch had started calling the police every time they saw a photographer on our street. (My parents sent all the neighbors bottles of champagne to say thank you.)
“Hi,” James said after my mom let him in. I had heard the bell, but door answering was another thing on my ‘No Can Do’ list. We had been surprised too many times by fans of mine and Evan’s. But now James was standing in the doorway to my room, loaded down with gifts, wrapping paper, scissors, and curling ribbon. My mom was standing behind him, mouthing, “I like him!”
“I need a volunteer,” James explained. “I’m a really bad wrapper.” He crossed his arms and made the Westside sign, only he did it upside down so it looked like an M instead of a W. “And rapper, too, come to think of it.”
It can take a long time to wrap gifts when you have to kiss your boyfriend every five seconds for being so wonderful.
Don’t even get me started on how many concerts I was missing. At first, Victoria and I had started keeping a list, just for fun, but it stopped being funny after I missed Scenic Panic’s Third Annual Save-a-Turkey Thanksgiving benefit concert. I loved that show, I loved that band, and I knew that everyone else would be there. James went with Victoria and Jonah, and they all called me and held up their cell phones so I could hear it, but whatever. It wasn’t the same. I wanted to dance and save a turkey, too.
Then the L.A. radio station that was now playing “Audrey, Wait!” on heavy rotation announced the lineup for their holiday show, and I was bereft. Doomsday Scenario were playing, amongst many, many other bands that I either hadn’t seen live or loved seeing live. I was sort of thinking about going, but then they announced their special guest.
The Do-Gooders.
“You’re going,” Victoria said. “You and me. We’re so going.”
“Are you high?” I asked her, then sipped at the hot apple cider she had brought me from Starbucks. “I’m not going to that.”
“Too late. I already got tickets.”
“You what? They haven’t even gone on sale yet.”
Victoria grinned. “I happen to know some people who know some people.”
“Wh
o do you know?”
“You, doofus!” She punched my shoulder. “I just emailed the promoter and told them that Audrey from ‘Audrey, Wait!’ wanted to go to the show, and it was done.”
“You what?” All of a sudden, I felt sort of dizzy.
“Seriously, Audrey—what do you want? Shoes, hats, bags, Earl jeans? All we have to do is make a phone call.” She laughed delightedly. “Isn’t it ridiculous? I mean, if you have to deal with Sharon Eggleston and paparazzi and that freaking nutball girl Tizzy, you might as well get some cool stuff, too. You could use a break, y’know?”
I was speechless. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. “Victoria!” I cried. “This is insane!”
She giggled. “I know, right?”
“No, I mean—forget it. I’m not going. Remember what happened last time I went to a concert where people knew who I was? Let me refresh your memory. I ended up starring in the third-most-popular video on YouTube!”
“Look, this time, just don’t make out with any musicians and you’ll be fine.”
I sighed heavily. “Everyone’s gonna recognize me, and then they’re gonna realize that Evan and I are in the same building, and then they’ll take pictures and Photoshop them and—”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Look, it’s not for a while, so just breathe, calm down. Ask your dad for some yoga tips or something.” She snickered under her breath.
“Evan. Is going. To be there!”
“Relax—you probably won’t even see him.” She swirled the last of her cider in her cup. “So what are you gonna wear?”
“A paper bag over my head.”
“You’ll probably start another trend if you do that.”
“I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are.” She patted my knee. “I can be very convincing.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to fight with my best friend. Especially not now, when I needed her more than ever. So instead I just poked her in the shoulder. “Traitor.”
