The Paparazzi Project

by Kristina Springer

  Okay, maybe I’m being too hard on myself. I suppose I'm okay-looking enough, but I don’t know. Ugh, I blame the media for severely impeding my self-esteem. If only I had two-foot blonde extensions, a frozen forehead, and concave stomach, life would be good. Ah well, Que sera, sera, right? Sometimes I think maybe if I did dress up a little and wear fancy shoes I might attract more—okay, any—guys. But seriously, I Googled the dangers of heels and it ain’t pretty. Who was the genius who deemed women should teeter around on skinny sticks all day? And we thought the Chinese were barbaric when they bound women’s feet—until it was banned in the early 1900s, anyway—so they wouldn’t grow more than three inches. Yeah, Google that mess. No, I prefer to believe that my being the strong, independent woman that I am threatens boys. Or something.

  God, Tessa can be so mean. It’s a wonder how we stay friends.

  “Well,” I finally say, “I may have never had a boyfriend but I do have eyes, and a brain, and the ability to decipher right from wrong on most days, and Mike messing around with Denise Bengston while he’s still dating you is wrong. Period.” I give Tessa a satisfied look, proud of my comeback.

  Tessa looks surprised. “Wait, you know the girl in the picture?” she asks, disregarding the rest of my completely brilliant statement.

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. “It was going to be a surprise, but I may as well tell you. She’s in my IPC class. And she’s a celebrity,” I add.

  Tessa’s eyes widen. “Really? Maybe this class project won’t be so bad after all.”

  Chapter 4

  Any sight of Black Ice? I text to Tessa.

  Who?

  You know. BLACK ICE. I told you the code name at lunch. Duh. I type back.

  Oh! Denise! she replies.

  Argh! Delete text. I told you not to use names!

  No, I haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s not here. Which is fine by me, Tessa writes.

  No. She’s totally here. She keeps giving me the slip. Hence, the code name. Keep up, would ya? Okay, I’ll find her. Text later. I slip my phone back into my purse and head for the girl’s locker room. I think Denise has gym this hour and if I’m right, she might be changing for class. Maybe I’ll get lucky and uncover that she wears full-body Spanx to school every day.

  I’m about to push open the girls’ locker room door when Chas appears by my side.

  “Hey.” I pull back from the door, sorta feeling like I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar. But it is Chas. We’re working together, so he wants my hand there. I can relax.

  He nods at the camera in my hand. “About to get a shot?”

  “No, not really. Just being prepared.”

  “Well, you got a minute?” he asks.

  “Of course.” I step away from the door and follow him to a more secluded corner of the hallway.

  “I was thinking,” he says, stopping and turning around to face me. “Our first report is due Friday. I need to start getting pictures from you. Actually, I’m thinking maybe we should meet every afternoon for a quick check-in. For fifteen minutes or so. Would that work for you?” He reaches up and pushes some hair out of his eyes.

  Meet every day? Heck yeah. I definitely think we need to meet daily. But I should play this cool.

  “Um, I don’t know. I’m awfully busy.” I take my phone out and pull up my calendar. Which is totally blank.“Hmm. Let’s see, let’s see. I’ve got my Thursday afternoon turbo kick workout with the cat in the family room,” I mumble. “And of course, library books are due Friday…” I trail off. “Um, okay,” I say louder. “I can make some time.”

  “Great. I meet with my honors English study group in the library at four every day. Can you meet me in there at 3:30? That should give us plenty of time.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I say, hoping I don’t sound too eager. “See you at 3:30.”

  “Perfect.” He smiles and walks away.

  I check out his denim-covered butt as he retreats. “Perfect.” My gaze lowers to his shoes and I note that he’s wearing a really great pair of dark, thick-soled oxfords. I’m not sure why but I like that he’s not wearing gym shoes like every other guy in this place. Like Tessa’s boyfriend, Mike. Sure, he plays on the Varsity baseball team so he’s athletic or whatever, but I still think there might be something shady there. Like, you’ve always gotta be wearing gym shoes so you can run fast if your girlfriend catches you making out with Denise Bengston.

  After Chas turns the corner I return my attention to the girl’s locker room, which is about a thousand times more boring than Chas’s backside. I’m sure Denise has finished changing by now and gone on to class. I’d better go peek in the gym. At least I’ll know her schedule if nothing else.

  I stand at the swinging gym doors and look through the small glass window. Bingo. There’s a mass of blonde hair scurrying up the climbing rope in the center of the gym. Dang, she’s fast, like one of those little monkeys at the zoo. I hate doing the rope climb. I always get about ten feet off the ground and then fall down on the mats. And it’s completely humiliating because everyone is watching you try to get up the rope and fail. Denise is probably burning off some pent-up aggression. According to Tessa, Mike called Denise on his cellphone yesterday afternoon right in front of Tessa so she could hear every single word. He told Denise that he never wanted to see her again and that she should lose his number ASAP. It was his grand gesture to show Tessa that he was serious about repairing their relationship. Whatever. Tessa said she’s playing it cool and is going to really make him work to get their relationship on track again, but I can already tell she’s going to cave in and take him back. So lame.

  I wrack my brain, trying to think of a good shot to take of Denise here. I could run in and snap one of her butt as she comes sliding back down the rope. I mean, it would kinda be funny. And Tessa would love it. I’m sure it would make the summation report too. Tabloids love the unflattering celeb shots. Hmm. I’m feeling a twinge of compassion. She did just get a verbal lashing from Mike via the phone. And I sure wouldn’t want someone putting a picture of my butt in the weekly summation report for everyone to see. Okay, she gets one freebie and that’s it. Tomorrow she’s back on my radar. For now, I think I’ll take a quick detour to our local Starbucks. We’re allowed to leave campus during our free periods and for me this generally means an afternoon latte run.

  Ten minutes later I’m sitting in the drive-through, waiting for my drink. I’m bopping around to a top ten hit when I look up through the pick-up window just as it automatically slides opens. No way. No way! Brittany’s inside! There she sits, all alone at a small wooden table, thinking no one sees her or what she’s doing, but I sure as heck do. This is too good to pass up. I’ve got to get the picture for our report.

  Next thing I know I’m standing on my car seat, most of my body bent through my open car window, and I’m leaning in through the pick-up window, the straw dispenser on the metal counter poking me in the arm pit. The barista is standing to the side of the cash register, headset tilted, mouth agape, and she keeps saying, “Um, um, um.” But I ignore her and snap away.

  Livvie’s Reflective Journal: Entry #1

  I saw something today that is pretty life-changing, if you ask me. Not my life but for sure one certain head cheerleader’s life. It’s definitely front-page stuff for our weekly summation report and it’s enough to change the opinion of all our readers on one person’s character anyway. Okay, specifically, Brittany Griffith. You know how she is. Miss My Body is My Temple, I only eat no-carb, organic, unprocessed foods, and if I eat chicken, not only must it have been free-roaming but it must have been hugged often and read bed-time stories nightly as a chick. Well, today I caught her anti-carb highness chowing down on one serious-looking muffin at Starbucks. Which begs the question, what the heck was she thinking? Did she forget we’re smack dab in the middle of the PTC project? Hello? You’re being watched. Talk about outing yourself. And please note: Starbucks is a public place, so this one is all on her.

  Her non-v
erbal communication was crazing (that’s “crazy amazing.” I just came up with that. Catchy, right? Do you know anything about trademarking, Mrs. B.?). By cramming a giant, fist-sized double chocolate, gazillion-point-two-calorie muffin into her perfectly pink outlined mouth, she was telling the whole world that she was a big ‘ol fakity fake fake. Girlfriend lectures to anyone who’ll listen about how evil carbs are, the danger of early onset cellulite, and how once you have fat cells you can never get rid of them, only shrinky dink dink them. She once gave me a glare smackdown for popping a miniature Snickers into my mouth. Yeah. MINIATURE. And there she was, large as life in her Thompson High School cheerleading uniform, in a Starbucks, slamming back a muffin. Of course, I guess if I were to step back and evaluate all possible reasoning for this terrible lapse in judgment on her part, I suppose it’s possible that she might not have been acting as a cover girl for the “do as I say not as I do” philosophy but could have been just having a bad day and turned to a source of familiar comfort, a muffin similar to that her dear old granny made her whenever she was feeling blue and needed a pick-me-up as a child. A one-off not likely to be repeated on a normal day.

  But nah. I think she’s just a LIAR. And she’s caught on film, BAM!

  Chapter 5

  I walk into the library at 3:31, not wanting to appear too eager. It’s good to make a boy wait. So I’ve heard anyway. Chas is facing away from me, and I take a moment to check him out without his noticing.

  “Hey.” I slip into the seat across from him at a rectangular table. I notice he’d been working on some rather difficult-looking math homework.

  “Hey, Livvie. Thanks for making it. So what’ve you got for me?”

  “May I?” I nod to his laptop and combo USB hub and memory card reader.

  “Sure.” He pushes it toward me.

  I position the laptop so we can both see and get to work pulling the memory card from my camera and sticking it into the reader. An explore window opens, displaying tiny thumbnails of my shots. My stomach flips and I find I’m suddenly nervous. It was one thing when I was taking the pictures and pretending to be a real paparazza, tailing celebrities. And it was fun to rip on Brittany in my journal, because who’s ever going to read it? I know Mrs. B. says she will but hello, can we say total busy work? She’ll probably just glance to see if there are words on a page and make a check at the top. But now that I have to talk about the pictures and the people in them with Chas, it feels sorta…weird. Like I’m a real catty you-know-what.

  It is the project though. And cattiness is rewarded in the form of a grade. I take a deep breath. “So,” I begin, “I thought I had our top shot when I snapped Garret Young and Madison Campbell…you know.” I nod toward the pic.

  “Holding hands?” he asks. “Okay. Is that unusual?”

  “Well…yeah. Sorta.”

  “So they just started dating, then? That’s the story? Or is one of them cheating on an existing girlfriend or boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, about the new relationship thing. I mean, it seems everyone was taking pictures of them.” I pause. “They’re calling themselves Garrison.”

  “Like Brangelina? Ha, that’s good. Okay, we’ll use that.” Chas makes a note on a piece of paper.

  He knows Brangelina?

  “What else have you got for me?” he asks.

  I look through my thumbnails. “Man, this is so weird,” I mumble.

  “What is?”

  I hesitate. “Just the whole gossiping-about-people thing. I’m not used to it.” With a guy anyway. A very cute guy. With Tessa, yeah. We’ll talk about people, but she’s my BFF. I really try hard not get roped into it at school. It’s too easy to get burned.

  “Really? I thought all girls loved to gossip. I hear enough of it in the halls.”

  I shrug.

  “No, that’s cute. It’s refreshing to meet a girl who doesn’t.” He smiles at me.

  I can feel my cheeks redden. Chas thinks I’m cute and refreshing.

  “You know you’re going to have to, right?” he says. “To get through this project anyway.”

  “I know.”

  “So what else have you got?”

  I show him a picture of Tony taking an extra brownie in the lunch line.

  “What’s the story here?”

  “Well, he only paid for one,” I say. “See how the lunch lady isn’t looking and he’s putting a second one on his tray?”

  “Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one,” Chas says. “Maybe if I draw circles around each brownie and an arrow showing Doreen looking away, it might work. Anything more scandalous than this?”

  I launch the picture of Brittany scarfing down the muffin at Starbucks. Total win. I glance at Chas, kinda excited for his reaction.

  “I don’t get it.” Chas frowns at the picture. He leans back in his chair and looks at me. “She’s just eating.”

  “What? Just eating? Girls don’t just eat. Where’ve you been?” Typical male. I suppose he thinks our legs are also naturally hairless and the streaks in our hair come from the sun.

  He tilts his head, considering this. “Well, yeah, okay. I can see that it’s a big muffin, but who cares? Maybe she was hungry.”

  “Oh,” I say, nodding. “You’re one of them.”

  “One of who?”

  “The three percent of the school population who hasn’t been subjected to one of Brittany’s lectures on how sugar is going to wipe out the human race.”

  “What?” Chas says, laughing.

  “Think of it like a vegetarian eating a big, raw, bloody steak. Or a super environmentalist throwing a party and using all Styrofoam plates and cups and then having everyone not recycle. It’s a big deal. Trust me.”

  He nods. “I get it. Okay then, we’ll use it for the cover of the report. But will you help me write the copy for it? Since you know more about it and all.”

  I hesitate. I’m supposed to take the pictures and give them to Chas. Not do the trash-talking about the celebrity. But he is awfully cute. And apparently clueless about the dietary habits of the female population. He needs me. Ugh. “I guess so,” I say. I launch a Word doc on his laptop and write the title, “HOT CHOCOLATE MESS.”

  “Hey, guys,” a girl says. I look up and suddenly feel panic. It’s Brittany! Yikes. It’s like we conjured her up just by talking about her. I’m practically paralyzed with guilt. My eyes dart to Chas’s laptop screen but you can’t see Brittany’s picture behind the Word document. Phew.

  I try to smile but I feel really weird since I was just talking smack about her seconds ago.

  Chas returns a cool, “Hey.” Man, he’s good under pressure.

  “What are you guys doing?” Brittany smiles sweetly and tilts her head toward Chas. It seems she only wants to have a conversation and from the way she’s looking at Chas, I don’t think she really cares if I’m here or not.

  Chas and I glance at each other briefly but neither of us answers.

  “Is it math? Tonight’s homework looks killer. I could stay and help you with it if you want,” she offers, still looking at him. She bites her bottom lip.

  Math my butt, she’s flirting with Chas! My eyes dart to him, gauging his reaction.

  “No, it’s not math,” he says curtly. He doesn’t offer anything more.

  She readjusts her books and sticks her chest out farther. “Well, you should take my number anyway. In case you do want to study later.” She pulls out a sheet of notebook paper and starts scribbling.

  I feel a wave of jealousy. Which makes no sense. Chas and I aren’t together. We’re just friends. Not even friends. Acquaintances, really. Acquaintances working on a class project. So why am I scooting my chair a few inches closer to his?

  Chas folds the paper and lays it on top of his books. I wish he would have crumpled it up and thrown it in her face. Unless he actually likes her. But what would he want with her anyway? She doesn’t have anything I don’t. Except really clear skin. And perky bosoms. OMG, did I just say bosoms? Wh
o am I, Judy Blume? I bet they’re not that perky on their own anyway. Bet she uses one of those water bras. Or what are those little insert thingy-majiggies called? Chicken cutlets. Yeah, bet she’s sporting chicken cutlets. Better be organic.

  “Thanks.” He gives her a tight smile and turns his attention back to me and the laptop.

  “Okay, later then,” Brittany says with a shrug and walks away.

  Dismissed! I smile.

  After Brittany exits the library, Chas turns to me. “She’s so obvious.”

  “She is?” I ask. “I mean, she is.” I think. Well, she’s certainly untidy, leaving all these bits of notebook scrap on our table anyway. I sweep the mess into my hand.

  He nods. “Acting like she’s suddenly interested in me. You know she just did all of that because she must have found out we got dirt on her.”

  My jaw drops. “You think? But how would she know? I don’t think she heard us talking.”

  “Maybe she saw you taking her picture. I don’t know, but she’s never made an effort to talk to me before. It’s a little too coincidental that she suddenly wants to give me her phone number as we’re putting together the summation report with her as the main story.”

  Oh my gosh, he has no idea how hot he is. He just got fifty percent more adorable!

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I agree. “Here, let’s finish writing the report before we run out of time.”

  Chas crumples up the paper with Brittany’s phone number and tosses it in the nearest garbage can.

  Awesome.

  ***

  By the time I finished giving Chas all of the pictures I’d taken and helped him write the copy to go along with Brittany’s picture, his study group had arrived. What a bunch of smarty pants they were too. I don’t know the one girl’s name but everyone called her “Harvard” because she already got early admission there. And I do my best to never get in a conversation with the one guy, Ralphie. He’s on the debate team and loves nothing more than to get you to debate something with him. He once caught me in the lunch line for fifteen minutes discussing the pros and cons of the spork. My soup was cold by the time he stopped talking long enough for me to break away. Though his point about the difficulty of eating salad with a spork was spot on. And the other guy, I don’t even know his name but he seems way immature if you ask me. He’s one of the kids who is always coloring on his arms. My little sister doesn’t even color on herself anymore. I think they believe they look cool, like they’re making a sort of tattoo but really, they just look silly.