“We should go out first. Get to know each other.”
“Really?” I cleared my throat. “That would be—” Don’t seem too eager. Don’t seem too eager. “Fine.”
“Thursday night?”
Mom and Adrian would be at karaoke. “Sure.”
“The Harvester Restaurant, okay? Seven o’clock?”
“Great!”
Then the bell rang for assembly, and I did my very best to look normal, which I completely was.
• • •
So the rest of the day unfolded in a normal way, except for not having anyone want to sit next to me in any classes or at lunch, and except for the part where Jill, my guitar teacher, came to ask me why I didn’t go to my lesson, and I had to explain that I was no longer going to play the guitar, and I found myself getting surprisingly upset. It didn’t last beyond the end of the double cheeseburger that I ate to cheer myself up again, though, so that was all right.
Best of all, when I came out at three thirty, there, parked right across that zigzag area that you’re not supposed to park on, was Dad!
“Hop in, darlin’.”
I hopped in.
“This is nice! How come you’re here?”
“Just thought you deserved a bit of a treat.”
“I do,” I said. “Everything’s been so”—don’t bring things down, Katie—“annoying, recently.”
“Your mother said. Want to talk about it?”
“There’s not much to say. I was a pop star. Now I’m not.”
“You’ll always be a star to me,” said Dad.
“Great,” I said, starting to turn the radio on, maybe find some Jay-Z to lift the mood, and then remembering I wasn’t doing that anymore and folding my hands back into my lap.
“So”—Dad spun the wheel—“when you were in there. Top Music. At the office…did Tony say anything about me?”
“What?” I held my breath as we squeezed past a street sign, where Mands had once lost a side mirror. “When?”
“When you saw him. Did Tony mention my demo?”
“We didn’t really get to that.”
“Oh. And you don’t think you could ask?”
“Um, maybe.” I thought about it. “Actually, probably not. No.”
“Right.”
A flare of annoyance, like a match being lit, sparked in me. It had been pretty much the worst ten minutes of my life, in that room, and now Dad wanted me to make it about him? Then, like always when I light matches, the feeling sputtered out again. He needed a job. I’d said I’d help him. And I hadn’t.
I decided to change the subject.
“Anyway. I’ve got some news, Dad. I’m going on a date. My first date.”
He’d been looking thoughtful, screwing up his face in the sun, but now he sat up straight and revved the engine so hard that the driver in the van next to us gave me a funny look.
“My baby is going on her first ever date!”
“He’s called Dominic Preston, and he’s really gorgeous. We’re going to the Harvester.”
We pulled up onto the driveway, and he stopped the car. “Now, Katie, have we ever talked about the birds and the bees?”
Oh boy.
“Yes, Dad. Not you and me—but I have had that talk.”
Thank goodness for Amanda. How people cope without big sisters, I do not know.
“Well,” said Dad, “don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”
“Dad.”
“Anyway, I guess there’s a limit to what you can get up to in a Harvester. Although, there was this one time, in a Taco Bell, I’d just started seeing Catriona and—”
“Dad.”
“Maybe I’ll save that one for when you’re older.”
I’d been hoping for time to do some pre-date psyching myself up, but after a full-scale disaster involving nude tights, a run in one leg, and a bottle of red nail polish, I was running seriously late. I got off the bus and found that he was already there, standing by the door, fiddling with his phone.
He seemed different, away from school. Taller. Older.
Stay calm, I told myself. What’s the worst thing that could happen?
My imagination immediately responded with one word: diarrhea.
“Katie! Hi!”
He saw me as I was crossing the road. I did a small wave.
“Hello, Dom. In. Ic.”
“Call me Dom?”
His voice was friendly and nice-sounding, and as I got closer, close enough to give him a sort of air kiss on the cheek and smell his deodorant, it occurred to me that I’d never had an actual conversation with the guy. I didn’t know anything about him at all.
Beyond the fact that he was gorgeous, of course. “Ready to go in?”
“I was thinking we could maybe sit outside,” I said, and we looked at the Harvester’s picnic tables, which were lined up next to the parking lot and facing the very busy main road, and then up at the heavy sky. “Nah, that was a bad idea. Let’s not.”
“We can if you want?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“If you want to sit outside, we should sit outside.”
“I don’t want to sit outside.”
He stepped backward.
“I mean…inside would be great,” I said.
Inside was dark, with shiny red leather chairs and menus that were a little sticky. We sat down at a table near the bar and under a speaker. The stereo was playing something catchy but faint, and I strained to hear it above the rattle of the till.
It was…oh, man, it was Karamel.
The restaurant dissolved, and I was standing by the side of the stage again, watching Kurt dip his head in concentration as all of the O2 screamed.
No. No, no, no. This would not do. This would not do at all.
I needed to be focusing on Dominic Preston, who was here and gorgeous, unlike Kurt, who might have been a tiny bit good-looking and maybe slightly talented and who seemed to really get me, but he had sold me out to the press and was not even been big enough to admit it and anyway had understood the old musical Katie, not the new, normal one.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman behind the bar. “Is there any chance you could play something else?”
She gave me a funny look, then walked off. A second later and we were listening to Rihanna.
“So,” said Dominic Preston, smiling at me over the menu, clearly not having noticed my mini meltdown, or if he had, being too polite to mention it. “So.”
“So!” I said, thinking, Be normal. “What’s your favorite food? Mine’s roast beef. But they only do that on Sundays. So I guess I’ll have a burger.”
“Two burgers,” said Dominic to the woman behind the bar, and I have to say, I got a little tingle at the thought that I was on a date with someone who liked burgers as much as me, i.e., a lot.
There was a long silence. Long enough for me to clock that the stereo had stopped playing “We Found Love” by Rihanna and started playing “Umbrella,” also by Rihanna. Long enough to count how many other people were there, which was twelve, not including waiters, and thirteen including them. Long enough to notice that time was slowing down and that the second hand on the clock above the bar was actually creaking around, and I still didn’t know what I was going to say, and I really should say something.
Message from Katie’s mouth to Katie’s brain: Hey there. Any possible conversation topics you might want to throw me here?
Katie’s brain: Diarrhea?
Katie’s mouth: Okay, that’s great, thanks brain, thanks very much.
“Umbrella” ended, and “Red” by Taylor Swift started up, and maybe it was just getting some much-needed Tay fierceness into my ears, but I finally had the courage to stop pretending this was all fine and say:
“Sorry, this is weir
d. We don’t know each other at all. I shouldn’t have…this is a bad idea. Should I go? I’ll just go. Maybe bring my burger to school tomorrow. I’ll have it cold for lunch.”
“Katie!” His hand was on mine. “Don’t… I know it’s weird. And yeah, we don’t know each other. But I’ve liked you for, well, forever.”
“You have?”
He looked down at the table, and I thought how very gorgeous he was, those long eyelashes brushing his cheeks, the way his chin…was.
“Yeah. You must have noticed.”
“Not really. But, um, yay.”
We grinned, and everything seemed a little better. “So. What’s it like being famous then?”
“Oh”—I scrunched my napkin—“I’m not doing that anymore. My contract got canceled. It’s all over.”
“No!”
“Yes. But I wasn’t really down with the whole celebrity thing anyway. Let’s talk about other stuff. Where do you live? Have you always been in Harltree?”
“But you’re still going to get lots of money from that song you did, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. So we used to live on the other side of Harltree, and then after my parents split up, near the fields in this crazy falling-apart house. I hated it for a long time, but now I think I maybe don’t hate it quite as much as I did. Although I do still hate it. You?”
“I’m not very interesting,” said Dominic.
“Of course you are!”
“Not as interesting as you. Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever met?”
The answer was obviously Kurt, but I wasn’t going to say that. “I chatted with Crystal Skye once at a thing, but it wasn’t really that exciting.”
Our burgers arrived, which was good, because I really like burgers. He didn’t seem particularly happy about his. After about three minutes of frenzied eating on my side of the table and a bit of poking around on his, I said, “Not hungry?”
“I’m okay.”
“Because this is really good,” I said, managing to squirt burger juice down my front. “Go on. Eat some.”
“I’m…I’m sort of…a vegetarian,” said Dominic.
“Oh. You could go to the salad bar if you want. I think it comes free with any main course.”
“Are you going?”
I laughed so loudly that an old man at the bar gave me a look. “I’m not really a salad person.”
“Then I’m fine,” said Dominic.
“Why did you order a burger?”
“Because you did.”
“Er, okay.”
Was that an odd thing to do? This is the problem with first dates. You don’t have anything to compare them to.
Maybe it wasn’t odd. Maybe it was nice. After all, he was smiling at me and saying, “You’re really cool, Katie.”
“Am I? I mean, thank you. So, anyway, what kind of music do you like?”
He put his chin into his cupped hand and smiled. “Your music.”
No, this definitely was kind of weird. But a good kind of weird. Definitely the good kind. “Thanks!” I said. “But other than that?”
“Oh, you know.”
I’d finished my burger and was now down to the last few fries. Dominic had barely touched his. Not even the fries. Not even the fries that weren’t touching the burger. He was just watching me with an intense expression.
Maybe this was chemistry.
“I don’t!” I said. Maybe he was just shy. “Look, okay. So I’m majorly into Joni Mitchell right now and Adele. I know she’s everywhere, but it’s totally justified. She’s this incredible talent, isn’t she? And Feist. And Amy Winehouse. She only made two albums, but they’re so perfect. Have you ever heard any Ella Fitzgerald? The way she sings, it gives me chills. And Billie Holiday, obviously. Lorde’s pretty cool. And Caitlin Rose. And…” I was talking far too much. “Okay, now you say someone.”
He coughed. “I…guess…I like…the Beatles.”
“Yes! Me too! Which is your favorite album? Mine’s probably The White Album, but I’m majorly into their earlier stuff too.”
“I like The Dark Side of the Moon.”
“See, that’s not actually a Beatles album,” I said. “It’s by Pink Floyd. But it is really good. I absolutely get why you’d choose it.”
“Katie, will you go out with me?”
And there it was.
Normal life!
I was going to be Dominic Preston’s girlfriend!
We’d go to the dance together and hang out and listen to The Dark Side of the Moon.
“Yes! That would be nice.”
We linked hands across the table, and I hoped that he didn’t mind mine being a little sticky and smelling of meat.
“And now, when you do concerts and stuff, I can come with you!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Except I gave that up. Like I said—um, sorry, what are you doing?”
He had his phone up in the air. “Just taking a photo.”
“Great. Why?”
“To show everyone. Because you’re my girlfriend.”
“Because I’m your girlfriend,” I said, trying not to flinch as he took one, then three, then five photos, some of me, some of me and him, one of me and my empty plate. “Cool.”
“So we should plan another date. Me and my celebrity girlfriend.”
“Yes,” I said, wondering why it was that another date with Dominic Preston wasn’t sounding nearly as exciting as it would have even half an hour ago. “But look. I’m not this celebrity. I’m just like you, like everyone else at school. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
A new waitress came to take our plates, and as she did, she gave me a double take. “Aren’t you…?”
“She’s Katie Cox,” said Dominic. “The one who got all those hits on her video. She had a number two single.”
“Oh wow,” said the waitress. “Will you sign…will you sign—” She looked around for something for me to sign. There wasn’t anything. Even the menus were laminated. “My pad! Will you sign my pad?”
“I don’t want to,” I said. “I mean, I can, but I’m trying not to do that sort of thing. Sorry.”
She took a step back. “I see. Think you’re too good for us?”
“No! It’s just…”
“I’ll get your check.” And she stomped off.
I was almost too shocked to cry. Almost. The tears wobbled on my lashes as I said, “Sorry, was that…? I only said that I didn’t want to…”
“I guess that means you won’t sign this, either,” said Dominic, sliding a CD out of his pocket. It was “Just Me,” still in its wrapper.
“I’d rather not,” I said.
The check came smacking down onto the table. I got out a ten. He didn’t move.
“Aren’t you…this is all I have…”
“But you can afford to pay it,” he said.
“I can’t really. At least, not tonight.”
Finally, he got his wallet out and put down a ten too. And then we were walking out, past the horrible waitress, who was watching me like I was made of solidified puke or something, and into the parking lot.
“Well, this has been—”
He was looking at me funny.
“Really great and everything. And—”
He was leaning in.
“And I’m so glad we did it, but—”
He was close now, so close, because, oh man, he was about to kiss me. Either that or he was examining my earrings.
No, he was tilting his head, and I could feel his breath. In fact, I could even smell it. This was definitely pre-kiss territory. I was about to experience my very first kiss. And—
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m…that we’re…I’m sorry.”
He took a step back and half closed his eyes. Eyes tha
t somehow didn’t seem nearly as gorgeous as they had. “Is it because you only like celebrities now?”
“No! Just—”
“That waitress was right back there. I’m not good enough for you. None of us are good enough for you.”
“No! That’s not what…no!”
“Get lost, Katie Cox.”
But…
But, but, but, but, but…
But…
My mouth formed the word, over and over again, only before I could finish, he was gone.
Even if he’d stayed, I don’t know what I would have said.
He’d looked at me, the waitress had looked at me, and what had they seen? Not me, or at least, not the real me. They’d seen a version of Katie Cox, the girl who sang and played and grinned into her webcam. They hadn’t seen the me who wanted to disappear.
My hand went for my phone. Mands didn’t pick up.
Mom didn’t pick up. Adrian didn’t pick up.
Dad didn’t even have his switched on.
Lacey, she screened me. I could tell because it rang five times. Just long enough for her to see who it was and hit Ignore. So cruel. She could at least have let it go to voice mail naturally.
I didn’t even stop to think about the last person I’d dialed until I heard her voice saying, “What?”
“Um, hi, Jaz.”
“Go away.”
“Okay!”
I put the phone down. It began to drizzle.
I redialed.
“What?”
“Jaz, I—”
“I told you to go away.”
“All right.” I hung up again.
The rain was really coming down now.
“What?”
“Jaz, can we do this face-to-face? I’m worried water’s going to get into my phone, and it’s not insured.”
Jaz, it turned out, lived two streets away from me, which was a forty-five-minute walk from the restaurant, minimum. And I was wearing my red sandals—sandals that completely broke my usual shoe rule, which is that all footwear needs to be good for at least an hour of standing slash walking.
And all for Dominic Preston, who clearly hadn’t noticed them.
In fact, I thought, as I made my way toward the underpass, I don’t think he had noticed actual me at all.
Katie Cox vs. the Boy Band Page 16
