Can You Say Catastrophe?

by Laurie Friedman

  But then the worst thing happened.

  I heard giggling, and it was coming from under my bed. I snatched up my bedspread, and my evil, spying little sisters were not only hiding under my bed, they had my cell phone! May started snapping pictures of me. Naked! I grabbed my phone and both of their arms and pulled them out from under the bed. May was laughing like crazy, and June was rubbing her chest and imitating me.

  I’ve never screamed so loud in my life. “GET OUT! YOU’RE NEVER ALLOWED BACK IN HERE! IF YOU EVER SO MUCH AS TOUCH MY PHONE AGAIN, YOU’RE DEAD!”

  I pushed them out the door and slammed it shut behind them. After I deleted the naked pictures of myself on my own phone, I kept screaming at them through the closed door. But all I heard was more laughing. I’m so furious. My throat hurts from screaming.

  And I still have one boob that’s smaller than the other.

  10:52 P.M.

  I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about everything that happened today. Billy’s toe touching mine. Naked pictures of me on my own phone. A boob that refuses to grow. Fifty-one days till camp. I can’t wait to go away with my best friends and leave my sisters and parents behind for four perfect weeks. Mom just came into my room to tell me it’s time to turn my light off. Which part of her doesn’t understand that I’m thirteen?

  She doesn’t need to come into my room to tell me to turn my light off. What is the point of being a teenager if you can’t make simple decisions like when to turn off your light?

  Friday, April 26, 5:45 P.M.

  The humiliation continues

  I was just forced to roam the streets of my neighborhood yelling for my dog. Sadly, for me, it was not the first time this has happened.

  Even more sadly, I know it will not be the last.

  There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

  —George Bernard Shaw

  Friday, May 3, 4:45 P.M.

  I’m a torture victim

  Tonight is the grand opening of the Love Doctor Diner. The night when everyone in Faraway is going to be at the diner. The night that my mom has made matching red vinyl jackets for my entire family with the logo of the Love Doctor Diner embroidered across the back of them. She’s insisting we all wear jeans and white Ts and the jackets she made. This is cruel and unusual punishment for being born into what is clearly the wrong family for me. I’m not even sure it is my family. It seems so obvious that in no way do I share DNA with these people.

  I don’t want any part of this. I’m going into the kitchen to speak my mind.

  4:53 P.M.

  I’m back from the kitchen. I spoke my mind and, as usual, no one (specifically Mom) cared what I had to say.

  “I’m not wearing this,” I said to Mom and handed her back the jacket she made.

  “You’re not wearing this?” She repeated what I said, but she didn’t say it like a statement. She said it like a question that was so absurd it didn’t need to be answered. Then she handed me back the jacket and told me to go get ready, because we had an opening to go to and Dad was counting on all of us to do our parts.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “What does ‘do our parts’ mean?” I asked.

  Mom made her you’re-going-to-like-this face, and instinctively, I knew I wasn’t. “We’re all going to be servers tonight.” She said it like it was going to be a grand adventure that my entire family was taking together. Maybe May and June and Mom and Dad are taking it, but there’s not a chance I’m going to serve pie to my friends in a tricked-out jacket.

  “NO WAY!” I yelled at Mom. Then I kept on going, even though I knew by the look on her face that I should stop. “I’m thirteen now, and you can’t keep telling me what to do.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d had this kind of talk with Mom. Just this morning before school, I was at the kitchen table trying to finish my math homework, and Mom kept standing over me asking why I hadn’t finished my homework last night. I could hardly think to do my math, so I stopped trying to divide fractions and looked up at her.

  Me: Do you know what a helicopter parent is?

  Mom: Do YOU know what a helicopter parent is?

  Me: I asked you first.

  Mom: Don’t get fresh with me, young lady.

  The conversation with her completely ruined a perfectly good plate of frozen waffles.

  So this afternoon, I crossed my arms and waited for the full effect of my words to sink in. I waited for Mom to say something reasonable like, “I’m sorry, April. Of course, you’re a teenager now and you deserve to make your own decisions.” But all she said was, “Young lady, this is not a democracy. Now go get dressed. Tonight is an important night for your father, and we’re leaving soon.”

  Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. On a scale of 1 to 10, I think tonight is going to be a -44.

  10:35 P.M.

  I was wrong about tonight. It was a -3,456,789.

  It was the most embarrassing night ever. When Mom, May, June, and I got to the diner, Dad was already setting up. There were tables of food, racks of pies, and strolling musicians. The whole place, which is already heavy on the hearts motif, was decorated with extra hearts. There were hearts hanging on the walls and stuck to the windows and printed on the napkins. Dad even had heart-shaped candles and heart glitter confetti he gave to May and June and me to sprinkle across the tables. The whole thing looked like something Brynn and I would have made up to play when we were seven. The only kind-of cool thing Dad had was a blackboard by the front door with the pie and quote of the day written on it, kind of like they do at Starbucks. I love finding cool quotes, and the quote he had written on the blackboard tonight was one that I found and gave him.

  Anyway, when we were done sprinkling confetti, Dad lined us up and gave us what he called our “marching orders.” Serve pie. Be friendly. Make sure people enjoy themselves. More blah, blah, blah about how we are the Ambassadors of Love at the Love Doctor Diner, and it’s up to us to make people want to come back and eat here again.

  The Ambassadors of Love? What planet is my dad from?

  Before I could beg him to shutter up before he opened, people started pouring in. Everyone I have ever known was there. My grandmother, my aunts, my cousins, my friends, my teachers, my neighbors, my pediatrician, our vet, the lady who works at the dry cleaners, the man who runs the concession stand at the baseball park, the lifeguard from the pool, even the crossing guard from my school.

  “Go!” said Dad, like it was time to spring into action.

  He handed May and June plates of what he says will be his world-famous pecan pie. He tried to give me one. “Take this pie to Mrs. Wallace,” he said.

  I didn’t budge. I rolled my eyes in the direction of my overweight neighbor. “I don’t think Mrs. Wallace needs pie.” But Dad seemed to disagree. He took my arm and gave me an I-don’t-like-your-attitude look. “Young lady, I expect you to be pleasant around the customers.” Then he stuck the plate in my hand and sent me off.

  There were lots of things I wanted to say to Dad, like: Do I look like I’m wearing a T-shirt that says waitress on it? Did I ask you to open a restaurant with a neon sign of a heart with a stethoscope wrapped around it right in the middle of town? And if the answer to all these questions is no, why am I stuck serving pie? But I couldn’t ask any of those questions. All I could do was pull my jacket up around my ears and hand out pie to everyone I know. It was bad enough handing it to old ladies from my neighborhood, but it was complete humiliation handing it to my friends.

  Brynn and her parents got there first. “April, I’ve always loved you in red,” said Mrs. Stephens. She wrapped a bangle-braceleted arm around me and smiled as if she actually liked what I was wearing. Brynn’s mom is very fashionable and she’s always nice, but unlike her daughter, she’s not always brutally honest. I know she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a jacket like mine.

  Brynn’s dad was nice too. When he saw me, he wrapped his big arm around me and asked how his “other daughter” was doing.

>   Brynn wasn’t as nice as her parents. I don’t think she was trying to be not-nice—she was just being Brynn. When I handed her a plate of pie, she stuck her pretend journalist mic in my face. “Tell us, April Sinclair, do you think red vinyl will be in this fall?”

  When Billy and his family arrived, things went from bad to worse.

  Billy and I have barely spoken since the toe-touching incident, which is totally weird because we usually talk every day, but he hardly said anything to me in school all week. It’s not like we’re mad at each other. It’s just like we’re pretending the other person doesn’t exist. I wouldn’t be pretending that, except Billy is, so I’m stuck doing it back and I’m not even sure why.

  It’s confusing, and to make matters worse, I can’t talk to Brynn about it. I know if I tell her about Billy’s toe touching mine and that I think it happened in more-than-just-an-accident way, she’ll say I’m crazy. She’ll say that the three of us are best friends and that toes or other body parts touch all the time, especially when we’re doing things like lying around on the floor. Then, she’ll probably say something that she’ll consider to be totally honest like, “April, do you think you’re being a good friend when you make it seem like Billy likes you more than he likes me?”

  That’s what I was thinking when Billy and his family walked into the diner.

  “There are the Weisses,” said Dad. He handed me plates and pushed me in their direction. “Please help them find a place to sit.”

  I wanted someone else to give them pie and help them find a table, but they were already looking at me and it was pretty clear that’s what I was supposed to do. I steered them through the crowds of people laughing and talking and eating every known Southern delicacy.

  When I gave them their pie, Dr. and Mrs. Weiss both said they could use some pie after the drive over.

  “Ha, ha,” said Bobby, Billy’s older brother, who got his license last week. “My driving isn’t that bad.”

  Dr. Weiss laughed like he was just teasing Bobby.

  All the Weisses were chatty except for Billy. It was so un-Billy-like. I guess it’s what Billy has been like lately. Normally, he would say something to make me laugh, but tonight, he just sat there eating his pie.

  I didn’t really want to stand there and not talk to Billy, so I walked off like I had some official Love Doctor Diner server business to take care of. That was a big mistake because the person I walked into was Matt Parker. I actually walked right into him.

  He stepped back and looked at me. “Cool top,” he said.

  “It’s a jacket,” I said back. The minute the words left my mouth, I regretted them. What’s wrong with me? Why would I say something so dumb?

  Matt shrugged like he didn’t care if it was a top or a jacket.

  I could feel my face turning as red as my jacket. I tried to think of something clever to say, but while I was thinking, Matt just said, “See ya,” and walked off.

  He must think I’m a total freak.

  I certainly looked like one.

  Saturday morning, May 4

  Too early to even write the exact time

  All I wanted to do this morning was sleep off the humiliation of having to serve pie in a custom-made jacket to my not-so-secret crush. However, sleeping is now impossible because apparently Gilligan chose to leave home early and my Dad went out looking for him.

  The sun isn’t even up, but I am. Listening to my Dad yelling for my dog outside my window. My only hope is that this is all a nightmare, and that I’ll go back to sleep, wake up, and see that my family is normal, my dog is asleep by my bed, and that I’m one of those girls who always says cute, clever things to boys.

  Still Saturday morning

  A little later

  Still too early to write the exact time

  I couldn’t fall back asleep, which means two things:

  1. What I hoped was just a terrible dream was not.

  2. I’m going to the kitchen to eat pancakes.

  9:17 A.M.

  Back in my room

  I went to the kitchen. One of the good things about my mom is that she always makes pancakes on Saturday mornings. Except, guess what was for breakfast this Saturday morning? Leftover pie.

  Who feeds pie to their children for breakfast?

  I officially hate pie.

  A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

  —Ingrid Bergman

  Wednesday, May 8, 8:45 P.M.

  In my room with the door locked

  OMG! The most unbelievable thing happened today. I’m not even really sure it happened, except that I know it did.

  It started this morning after homeroom when I told Brynn I wanted to download some new music to my phone, and Billy asked if I wanted him to come over after school and help. Billy knows more about music than anybody I know, plus it was the first time he’s spoken to me since the toe-touching thing, so I was like, “Yeah, I’d love that.”

  When Billy came over, he didn’t say a word about why he hasn’t said a word to me in a week. We just started talking and laughing and listening to music like we always do.

  Anyway, we were listening to music in my room, but it was hard to do because May and June were outside my door singing. They wouldn’t stop and they were really annoying. “We’re trying to set a world record for singing the longest without stopping,” said May.

  “We’re trying to set a world record for singing the longest without stopping,” repeated June.

  “GO AWAY! FAR AWAY!” I yelled over the noise. They were driving me crazy. They just kept singing, and June kept repeating everything May was saying and they were really loud.

  I put my fingers in my ears like I couldn’t take another second, but Billy pulled them out. “Want me to get them to stop?” he asked.

  I laughed at Billy. He’s good at a lot of things, but I knew even he couldn’t reason with the real-life versions of Thing One and Thing Two. “No way can you get them to stop,” I said.

  That’s when Billy made his I’m-always-up-for-a-challenge face. “Watch me.”

  He opened my door. “You two have awesome voices,” he said to May and June. He sounded so sincere, like he was listening to Katy Perry singing in person and was blown away.

  Just like that, May and June were quiet. Billy kept talking, slowly, like he was thinking about their talent and trying to decide what to do with it. “You have a very distinct sound. I think you could make an album.”

  Now May and June were really quiet. They were hanging on every word Billy was saying. He crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. “I’ve got it,” he said. “Why don’t you write your own songs?” He went and got a stack of paper and pens off my desk and handed it to them. “Really put some thought into what you want to sing, and then write your songs. You should write a lot of them. You’re really good. When you’re done, you need to practice singing each one.” Then he went and got Dad’s old tape recorder out of the top of my closet. Honestly, I don’t even think it works, but they didn’t know that. He handed it to them. “When you’re done practicing, record your songs on this. Then we’ll see if we can find someone to turn them into a real album.”

  May started jumping up and down. “Are we going to be famous?” she asked Billy.

  “Are we going to be famous?” repeated June.

  Billy nodded his head slightly like he thought it was a definite possibility.

  “We’re going to be famous!” they were both screaming and jumping. Before I knew it, May and June took the paper and the pens and the tape recorder, and they were gone. As loud as it had been in my room only moments before, suddenly it was completely quiet.

  “You’re amazing,” I said. I did this little bow like I was worshipping Billy. But when I came back up, something happened that was even more amazing than Billy getting my sisters to go away.

  Billy caught my hands like it was possible I might fall over and he wanted to make sure I didn’t. I gave him a
look like I wasn’t going to fall over, but he didn’t let go of my hands. Then he leaned over and kissed me.

  ON THE LIPS!

  He kissed me just for a few seconds and in a light, soft way, like I was a fragile doll that might break if he pressed too hard, but he definitely kissed me. It wasn’t like the toe-touching where I wasn’t sure if he knew our toes had touched or not. Our lips definitely touched, and we both knew they did.

  I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then, almost as soon as Billy started kissing me, he stopped, and looked at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” was all he said.

  I looked at Billy. I wasn’t sure what to say. I was confused. First, the toe-touching. I thought I felt something, but it seemed like Billy didn’t, so I pretended I didn’t. Then he practically stopped talking to me, and then he said he wanted to come over and help me download music. It seemed like everything was back to normal, and then he kissed me. Part of me wanted to ask him why he kissed me and part of me just wanted him to kiss me again. All my thoughts were swirled together in my brain.

  Billy and I stood there for a few seconds, looking at each other. Then, the next thing I knew, May and June barged into my room and our moment ended. Billy cleared his throat. “Is your album done?” he asked them.

  “Not yet,” said May. “Your mom called and said you have to go home for dinner. Now!”

  “Now!” repeated June.

  They had their hands on their hips like they were the dinner police, and it appeared they weren’t going anywhere until Billy left. So he gave me a smile and walked out, but it was kind of a lopsided smile like he wasn’t sure about what just happened.

  And the truth is that I’m not sure about it either. It was my first kiss and it was with Billy. It sounds weird even saying it, but it was weird in a good way.