I turned to face him. “Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“No, it’s not nothing. Why do you always come out with this weird stuff? Do you think I’m a … are you calling me a sloth?”
“No. Uh-uh. No way.” He kind of snickered and stepped back. “It’s just that … I don’t know. I’m weird, I guess. I mean, I know a lot of obscure facts. I was a real nerdball when I was a kid. Read the Guinness World Records books and stuff like that from cover to cover about twenty times.”
“So why do you keep … ?”
“I can’t help it. Weird facts pop into my head, and I just blurt them out when I get nervous.”
I smiled. “Why would you get nervous around me?”
“Because.” He looked down at his boots. “I always get nervous before performing with my band. Or when I’m about to play them a new song I wrote. And when I’m around a girl I like.”
O!
M!
G!
Z ! ! !
A part of me wanted to leap into the air and pump my fists. Another part of me wanted to run away. And the biggest part of me wanted to pee. But I stayed right where I was, ignoring my bladder and trying not to look away from him. He lifted his head and I could see in his kiwi-green eyes that he was sincere. I just knew it. I couldn’t help it, I looked away. I couldn’t think of anything to say, even though I knew I liked him, too. I thought maybe I should just say that, so I swallowed, took a deep breath and …
But before I could say anything, he started singing “Duet Forever.” The love song. He started singing it without the music. You know, a cappella. He sounded great. I joined in. He reached for my hand. I reached for his. We sang the entire song that way, just looking at each other. When the song ended, he leaned in toward me, I mirrored him. His head tilted, my head tilted, too, and …
“Seriously! No. Really? You mean it! Call the ambulance, I’m gonna have a heart attack!” Izzy slammed her ample body against the door of a parked car, and the alarm went off. We were both so shocked, we ran down the street screaming and laughing. We finally stopped on the next block. Izzy looked back to where the car was still whooping. “Holy heart attack.” She crossed herself. “You think the police are after us?”
She was so dramatic, but I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Quit laughing and tell me about the kiss before I’m carted off to jail.”
“Calm down. It wasn’t really a kiss. It was more like a peck.”
“A peck on the cheek or a peck on the lips?”
Heat rose to my face. “On the lips.”
Izzy started yelping again. “That is so trending worldwide!”
I grabbed her hand, and we continued walking home. “Listen, keep this to yourself, okay? The last place I want to be trending is all over the school.”
“Of course. The news of your first kiss will never cross my lips.”
That made me think. Was it really my first kiss? Or was it my character Juliet’s first kiss? Or both? I know TJ said he liked me, but did he really like like me or was he just trying to get me to play the full scene?
I began to question why every time something good happened to me, my insecurity would find a crack in my happiness and drip, drip, drip inside like water until the happiness was washed away.
As I was saying goodbye to Izzy, she grabbed me in a bear hug and whispered in my ear, “Welcome to the First Kiss Club, Mango!” Walking the rest of the way home, I wondered if I looked different, if Mom and Dada would be able to tell that I had passed a life milestone today. I slowed down, trying to catch a glimpse of my reflection in the windows of parked cars, but decided that looked kind of sociopath-vain, so I just picked up my pace on the rest of the way home, imagining a lavender aura glowing all around me.
CHAPTER 15
Good Taste
Mom was too busy to notice that I’d had a life-changing experience. She, Jasper, and his diaper bag were on their way out when I arrived.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, hi, Mango. I was waiting for you to get back and take care of Jasper, but I’m in a hurry.”
“Why?”
“Your father is about to have a tasting for the party menu. He wants me to sample everything before the Pinkeys arrive.”
“Oh, can I go, too?”
“Do you have a lot of homework? We may be there for a while.”
“I can do most of it in the car. Don’t worry, I’ll get it done. Please say yes.”
“All right. Come on. We have to leave right away.”
I was so excited. Dada had rented a commercial kitchen to prepare the food for Hailey Joanne’s birthday party. Caterers had to use restaurants or commercial kitchens when preparing food for the public. It was the law in our city. Luckily Dada had included the cost of renting the space into his fee, so he was still going to make a healthy profit from the party. Almost five thousand dollars!
The commercial kitchen was large and super-clean. It had the same kind of cooking equipment we had in our at home, but there was more of everything, and everything was bigger.
Dada and his assistant had laid out trays of hors d’oeuvres, yummy cake samples, colorful non-alcoholic drinks, and slices of twelve varieties of pizza. He gave me a hug when I entered the space, looked into my eyes, and said, “Hey, baby, what’s that sparkle in your eye?”
“Sparkle? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Had he actually seen a difference in me? A new glow? A maturity? A twinkle that said, “Yes, your baby girl kissed a boy!”
Before I was able to find out what he meant by sparkle, Mom insisted we start tasting, because the Pinkeys would arrive any minute.
I loved the shrimp, cheese, scallion, salami, and asparagus canapés, but the anchovies made me want to barf, and I suggested Dada eighty-six those. He did. The salmon-and-shrimp phyllo purses were yummy, but my favorites were the jerk-beef sliders and the pan-fried pâtés, made with chicken livers, bacon, spinach, and garlic. I knew I didn’t have the same tastes as an ordinary girl my age, but I’d been living with a chef my entire life, and my palette had been exposed to all sorts of flavors since the day I started solid foods.
All the pizzas and cakes were wonderful, so I couldn’t choose which ones I thought the Pinkeys would like best. But while Mom thought the ginger ale and tropical fruit punch were the most appropriate beverages, I assured Dada that his homemade blueberry soda would win the day. Number one: it was delicious. Number two: no one had ever had soda made out of blueberries before. And number three: Hailey Joanne would want to serve something unique so her party would stand out above and beyond any birthday party for years.
The Pinkeys arrived in a flurry of air-kisses. I noticed Mrs. Pinkey observing my mom’s dreadlocks (which she was wearing in a stylish French roll) very closely but pretending she wasn’t looking at them at all. Mr. Pinkey strode over to Dada and gave him—what I could tell from Dada’s wince—a bone-crushing handshake. Hailey Joanne was noticeably subdued in the presence of her parents, but when they weren’t around, she stepped into her mother’s place as the queen of all she surveyed.
The tasting was going great. Hailey Joanne skipped all of the hors d’oeuvres except for the jerk-beef sliders. I prodded her into trying one, and she loved it. She concentrated on the pizzas and the cakes, insisting that I try each one along with her, although I explained that I had already tasted them. I was getting very full as we went along, but I kept taking bite after bite after bite because Hailey Joanne wanted me to, and she might think that I thought the food wasn’t good if I didn’t.
I could tell that she really liked the food, because she kept closing her eyes, savoring every bite. She kept thanking me for Dada and saying, “The secret to a great party is great food, and this food is spectac! My party is going to be one for the history books thanks to you.” I felt such a rush of warm feelings toward Hailey Joanne. Who was this girl, and why had I never seen this side of her before? Was it my fault? Had I been in the wrong about her
all along?
After we’d tasted almost everything and our parents were finalizing the menu, Hailey Joanne pulled me aside with “The most exciting news ever!”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I’ve hired an iconic band for my party. You’ll never guess who. Try. Go on. Try to guess!”
“Uh, Maroon 5?”
“Huh? You’re not trying hard enough.”
I thought of all the groups on the pop charts. Her family would be able to afford entertainment like that. I mean, she did have Gabriel Faust at her last birthday party, why should this one be any different?
“Oh, all right, you’re taking too long—I’ll tell you. I’ve hired the Halfrican Americans!”
The Halfrican Americans weren’t famous anywhere except at our school and around the community. “TJ’s band? That’s who you hired?”
“Yes! I love them. And that TJ, OMGZ, he’s is so cute in a crazy, weird kind of way. I think he likes me, but that’s not why I hired them.”
Chunks of my heart crumbled and landed in my stomach amongst the canapés, pizzas, and cakes. Nausea wrapped its arms around my torso and began to sway me from side to side as Hailey Joanne kept on talking. “He played a couple of the songs from Yo, Romeo! for me, and I was wishing you and TJ would sing a few of them at the party.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed hard, using the grip she probably inherited from her father. “Please say yes! Pretty please. It would be your birthday gift to me. Please!”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” I slid my fingers from her grip. “I didn’t know you liked TJ.”
“I’ve always liked him from afar. You know how it is with a boy you really like. Those are the ones you can’t really talk to or flirt with or be yourself around. But now that he’s in the play and you’re in the play, he couldn’t say no when I told him how much you wanted to sing with him at the party.”
“When did you tell him that?”
“Last night. We were texting back and forth for over an hour before I finally convinced him. Aren’t you happy about it?”
I couldn’t risk angering Hailey Joanne, not after my dada spent all this money to rent a kitchen and make all of this sample food. So I said, “Of course I’m happy. I’m beyond!”
She looked at me suspiciously. “So why don’t you tell your face?”
I realized my expression was showing my real confusion and heartbreak, so I plastered on a bright smile as fast as I could. “Seriously, I’m … I’m delighted, just a little full. You know how sleepy you get just after you’ve eaten a lot of great food!”
“Oh, Mango, you’re the best. You know the girls on my squad, the other Cell-belles, I could never tell them anything like this.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.… Maybe it’s because I have to act differently around them. They treat me like I’m their leader or something. If they knew my real feelings, they would make fun of me for liking TJ, because, well … he’s not the type of society boy my parents or my friends would expect me to go for. Of course, they’d text about it behind my back so I wouldn’t see it.” She bit her lip and stared at me for a couple of seconds. “But you’re different, Mango. I can be myself around you. You get me. You know what I mean?”
It took me a moment before I realized I was holding my breath. I mean, in the last minute, I found out she liked the same boy I liked and on top of that she really liked being my friend. She trusted me, she wasn’t faking at all, and she was being really nice! So, I couldn’t help it—I just blurted out the most fake thing I’ve ever said: “Yeah. You get me, too!”
Hailey Joanne leaned in and air-kissed both my cheeks. “Listen, I’m having my glam squad—a hairstylist, manicurist, masseuse, and makeup artist—come to my house on the day of the party, and I want you to come, too. We’ll have a spa day and get all dolled up and roll up to the party together. Say you’ll come! After all, that’s where your fabulous dress will be.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them again. “Say yes. I can’t even hear the word no. When it comes to my birthday, no is not in my vocabulary.”
Deep down I wanted to say no, because it wouldn’t be fair to keep faking with her when she was inviting me because she thought we were becoming real friends. I didn’t want to turn her down, not after what she just said. If I turned her down and hurt her feelings, she might have changed her mind about Dada. So I flashed the brightest smile I could and said, “Yes, sure, of course I’ll come. I’ve never had a glam squad before. This’ll be über crisp!”
Watching the Pinkeys leave, my feelings tumbled all over each other. Should I be mad at TJ for playing at the party of a girl who had a crush on him? Did he know she had a crush? Did he kiss me because he liked me, or was it just rehearsal for him? Would I really have told Hailey Joanne yes if I weren’t afraid of ruining everything for Dada?
Besides, she was becoming a real person to me—not just some queen diva I could use to get what I wanted. Faking a friendship with her was becoming harder and harder, because she actually believed me. I was beginning to get a headache. I closed my eyes, shook my head to reset my brain, and decided I wouldn’t think about it any more … at least, not until I was at home in my bed.
Dada and Mom were bubbling as they put all the food away and cleaned the kitchen. I realized I hadn’t seen the two of them this happy together since Jasper was born. They were joking and laughing and kind of bumping into each other on purpose. Yep, I believe they were actually flirting.
I sat by the door with Jasper asleep in his car seat. He looked so sweet and innocent. Must be nice to be a baby with no worries except who is going to feed you and change your diapers. As he got older, like me, the worries and responsibilities would pile on. And he would have to make choices to let go of things he might really want if it’s for the good of the whole family.
As we walked to the car, Dada put his arms around me and said, “The Pinkeys gave me carte blanche and a limitless budget. I can buy the best of the best ingredients and do pretty much whatever I want. The most influential people in town are going to be at this party eating my food. This could make my name as a caterer, and I owe it all to you, Mango.”
Well, that did it. I had to wipe TJ’s kiss and what he had said to me from my memory. I had to erase the newly human Hailey Joanne from my emotional hard drive. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to put my feelings aside for the good of Dada and my family.
I know this is super weird, but on the ride home, sitting in the back of the car next to Jasper in his car seat, I suddenly got the urge to call Brooklyn Minelli. Yep, that’s right: the only person I could think of sharing my feelings and confusions with was “she who must not be named.”
With everything going on with the play and TJ, and trying to get the catering job for Dada, and suddenly being Hailey Joanne’s “instant bestie,” I had kind of blocked Brooklyn from my mind. But I had to admit: every so often she would seep through the tiny cracks in the wall of distractions I’d built against her, and I’d miss my ex-bestie. Yeah, she did me major wrong, but we’d had a lot of fun together before that. And right then, she was the only person I could think of that I could talk about my deepest, most secret feelings with.
As soon as we got home, I picked up the cordless phone, headed to my room, and began punching in Brooklyn’s home phone number. Just as I got to the last digit—
Whoa! Hold up! What was I thinking? Brooklyn had already betrayed me once. Who’s to say she wouldn’t do it again? If I called her and told her about what was going on between me, Hailey Joanne, and TJ, who’s to say she wouldn’t text Hailey Joanne with everything I told her just to sabotage my life again? And since Hailey Joanne was morphing into a real person, I started to wonder why I hadn’t seen who she really was in the first place. Was it because she and Brook were rivals and because I was so close to Brook that I could only see Hailey Joanne through her eyes?
No, I would never let myself get brainwashed that way again. No way. There was no one I could trust with every
thing going on inside me right now. I’d just have to deal with my feelings on my own. I clicked the phone off and sat on my bed.
Then Izzy popped into my head. Maybe I should call her? We were becoming really good friends, but … I wasn’t sure. I confided private things to Brook really early into our friendship, and look what happened. No—even though I really liked Izzy and how our friendship was growing, I decided to take my time before going all in with any friend ever again. All of a sudden, I felt cold and clammy, and a chill rattled my rib cage.
It was loneliness wrapping its skeleton arms around me.
CHAPTER 16
Triangle Crush
There was nothing more important than Dada catering Hailey Joanne’s party. His future was riding on this, and since my falling out with Brooklyn was the reason he got fired in the first place, it was up to me to do whatever I could to make things right. Task number one: keep Hailey Joanne from having a meltdown and calling off the party or firing Dada. She was the kind of girl used to getting what she wanted, and for the next week, all she could talk about was how much she wanted TJ to be her boyfriend. Task number two: Discourage TJ from liking me and myself from liking him.
The next time I saw TJ was at rehearsal. I was sitting in the auditorium going over my lines when he came in and sat next to me. I looked over, and he gave me the sweetest, shyest smile ever. “Hi, Mango.”
It took everything I had not to return his smile. I simply said, “Hi.”
He leaned in. “How are you?”
I looked at him with the most annoyed expression I could make and said, “I’m studying my lines now, if you don’t mind.”
His smile melted away. “Okay. Sure. Didn’t mean to bother you.” He got up and walked off. I put my head down, my eyes focused on my script. It felt as if my guts were being twisted into a loom bracelet. What I had just done was cruel. I had never been cruel to anyone on purpose, and it felt horrible. But I owed it to Dada; I couldn’t mess this up for him or my family.
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