by Robin Benway
By 8:01 A.M., that theory was shot straight out of the water.
Victoria saw me walking out of the school parking lot and came running down to meet me. “Hi!” she said breathlessly. “You’re not gonna believe this!”
“Based on the events of the past forty-eight hours,” I told her, “I’m gonna believe it. And good morning to you, too.”
“Whatever. Hi. You suck for not answering your phone, by the way. But I was talking to Chris Collins and his brother’s a freshman at Rutgers and he said—”
“Hi, Audrey!” Sharon Eggleston called across the quad, waving to me with that perfect bone-china wrist of hers.
I blinked. “Did Sharon Eggleston just say hi to me?”
“Of course she did,” Victoria huffed. “She’s moving in on you. Prepare to be invaded. Did you ever call her back?”
“No, of course not. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, you had a huge crush on my ex-boyfriend, let’s be beffies and go shopping’?” We were walking toward my locker and I was painfully aware of the fact that many, many people were staring at me, including a group of freshman girls that sounded like they sucked helium. “Hi, Audrey!” they cried out as I passed.
“Hi…?” I said, not sure how to respond to three people who looked like they were about to either spontaneously combust or eat my head.
Victoria, of course, kept moving forward. “So anyway, Chris Collins IM’d me last night and he said that his brother’s going to school in New Jersey—”
“Why Jersey?” I interrupted. I couldn’t help myself. “I mean, why didn’t he go to New York and spend time frolicking in the city? That’s what I’d do if I were him.”
Victoria paused and I could tell she was trying not to smile. “Did you just say ‘frolic’?”
“Is it not a word?”
“Who the hell says ‘frolic’?”
I spun the lock on my locker and waited for it to stick like it always did on 33. “I say frolic,” I told her. “And more people should.”
“They should say frolic or actually frolic?”
“Both.”
“Hey, Aud.”
“Hi, Audrey.”
“Audrey, wait!”
Victoria glanced at her watch. “Wow, ninety seconds before the first ‘Audrey, wait!’ I was way off.”
I shoved my geometry book and copy of The Awakening into my locker and pulled out my American history text. “On a scale of one to ten, how hard do you think today’s gonna be?”
Victoria bit her lip and leaned against the wall. “Honestly?”
“Like you’ve ever been anything but. C’mon, pretend you’re the Russian judge.”
“Pretty fucking hard.”
“I don’t think the Russian judge would say that.”
“I believe the correct term is ‘Soviet Republic’. And I’ll say 9.8.”
I sighed. “And tomorrow?”
“Worse.”
I looked into her round eyes and I could tell that she knew something I didn’t. “What, exactly, did Chris Collins tell you?”
She lit up like a Christmas tree. “Damnit, you and your frolicking got me all distracted! So his brother’s in Jersey, right?”
“And not frolicking in New York.”
“Right-o. But Chris did say that his brother emailed him yesterday to tell him ‘Audrey, Wait!’ is playing on the Rutgers radio station, too. I guess it’s really popular because people keep requesting it and Chris said that his brother said you can hear it in all the dorm rooms when they party.”
Now, I know that, physiologically speaking, my heart didn’t stop when Victoria said that. I know that’s impossible, because I’m still standing here today. But it did some flippy thing it’s never done before, that’s for sure.
Victoria mistook my silence as permission for her to continue. “And there was a picture and an article about the Do-Gooders in the local paper. That’s how his brother recognized them, because he had gym one year with Evan. Was it gym? I can’t remember. Maybe it was geology. Or geography. It wasn’t geometry because—”
“Victoria!” I screeched. “Did you hear what you just said?”
“I know!” Her eyes were radiating a weird energy, like she had been initiated into a cult and wanted me read a pamphlet. “Isn’t this amazing? I mean, they play local shows, whatever. But now they’re nationally known! And so are you!”
“How old do you think you have to be to have a heart attack?” I asked her.
“At least thirty-five.”
“I’m about to break the record.”
“That’s really not gonna help your anonymity.”
“Did they talk about me in that article?” I squeaked. I suddenly wanted to be back in my bedroom with the door shut tight and my “Suck it Up!” mix playing on ten.
“I don’t know. Good Lord, Aud, that vein in your forehead is about to burst.”
I took a deep breath. (I happen to be very self-conscious about that vein. It’s not exactly my best physical feature.) “Victoria, this is insane.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Do you think they’ll have that paper at the bookstore?”
“I dunno. Don’t they have to, like, ship them here?”
“We have to get to the bookstore!” My skin was suddenly freezing while every muscle underneath it was on fire. “We can take my car.”
“Okay, all right. At least wait until after third period. I heard a rumor about a pop quiz in bio and if I miss it, I’m screwed.”
“You’re in a three-way tie for the highest GPA in the school,” I pointed out. “One quiz will not kill you.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be goddamned if Sharon Eggleston steals my best friend and my rightful spot as valedictorian.”
“Okay, fine, but after third?”
“I promise.”
I was going to add something about how Sharon Eggleston would never steal me away when I saw James walk past me, alone as usual. He had headphones on and was carrying the same black-washed-to-gray hoodie he always wears, and I moved to wave or say hi or something. I kinda felt like I should, since Mr. Scoop-Now-Think-Later had sort of saved my ass on Saturday. But he just kept going straight, cutting a clean line through the crowd. I wondered what he was listening to, why he always wore the same hoodie day after day, and I wondered why, when dozens of people I never talked to kept saying hello to me, why didn’t he?
6 “The beat is complete with the sound of your world going up in the fire.…”
—The Cure, “Doing the Unstuck”
UNTIL THIS WHOLE BUSINESS with Evan and The Song and my nationwide fame started, Victoria held the record for Most Strife Ever at Jackson High. She came in one day with her hair royal blue (assisted by me, of course) and by the end of first period, she was in the principal’s office and they were calling her mom. Here’s the thing, though: Victoria’s mom is even more kick-ass than Victoria. After her husband left her, she had this rebirth or something and went back to school and ended up becoming a lawyer, so when the school called, she swooped in like a hawk. I was in the nurse’s office getting aspirin for a “headache” (i.e., eavesdropping), so I heard the whole thing. They were even threatening to suspend Victoria, but her mom was all like, “Yeah, nice try, bucko,” and then threatened to sue them and call the ACLU if Victoria “is forced to miss one minute of one day of school because of something as inane as hair color!”
It was incredible and ever since then, our principal kind of hates Victoria and is kind of scared of her, too. It doesn’t help that she always gives him this really big fake smile whenever their paths cross.
All this to say that sneaking out of school with Victoria is a real pain in the ass, which is why we ended up not going to the bookstore together. Instead, I made Victoria swear on her Nirvana box set that she would go and scour the shelves while I went to work.
In the meantime, though, three things happened:
(1) In second-period geometry, a girl named Tizzy leaned across the aisle toward
me. We hadn’t really talked before, despite sharing two classes, which was a conscious decision on my part. Let’s just say the girl was aptly named. “Um, are you the girl that Evan Dennison wrote the song about?” she hissed over at me while we were getting our homework out.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “What’d you get for number four?”
“Screw the homework!” Tizzy cried. “Oh my God, that song is so awesome! And you’re Audrey! Oh my God! This is crazy! Just crazy!”
“How’d you get the name Tizzy, anyway?” I asked.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“So is Sharon nice? She seems really nice. What’s it like dating Evan?”
“Um, we’re not really dating anymore,” I started to explain, but Tizzy wasn’t interested in that answer.
“Hey, do you think I could meet the band? Their guitarist is really cute!”
“Well, I—”
“So you’re not dating anymore? What a bummer, right?” I swear to God, her eyes were going in two different directions by this point.
(2) During fifth-period bio, apropos of nothing, Jared Simmons turned around in his seat and handed me a CD. “Hey, do you think you could give my band’s demo to Evan?” Well, a herd of giraffes could have run through the lab right then and I don’t think anyone would’ve noticed because up until that moment, we had all thought that Jared was mute. No joke, we really did. So when he (a) talked, and (b) revealed he was in a band, the whole room came to a standstill. Even our lab teacher was like, “Holy crap.” I was so surprised that all I could say was, “Um, sure,” and he just nodded and turned back around in his seat like nothing had happened. Meanwhile, my buddy Tizzy was having kittens in the back row. “Did you guys just hear that? Oh my God! Audrey, you’re like a miracle worker!”
(3) I made it a personal mission to track down Chris Collins, original source of the famous-in-New-Jersey story, which didn’t happen until after the last bell. I was a wreck by this point, and over the day I ended up braiding my hair into all these little braids because I had to keep my hands busy and collaging wasn’t really an option during history class. Plus, it gave me an excuse to not have to make eye contact with people.
Yeah, so finding Chris Collins took some time. Talking to him, however, was like talking to time suckage personified.
“Oh, yeah, that,” he said when I prompted him about his brother’s news. “That’s right. Pretty fuckin’ awesome, huh?”
“Totally. Best day of my life. So your brother told you about it? Did he say anything more?”
“Uh…I dunno. Not really.”
“Like if I was mentioned in that article or anything…?”
His eyes were heavy-lidded and I couldn’t tell if he was just in a general haze or suffering a pot overdose. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?”
“Uh, maybe? I don’t really remember. I wasn’t there.”
“Of course you weren’t.”
“So that song’s about you, huh?” Chris shoved his hair out of his eyes and laughed. “Wow, you really pissed him off. What, did you suck in bed or something?”
“Hey, I—” I stopped myself from giving Chris Collins a detailed outline of my sex life, limited as it was. “That’s a really rude question to ask a girl,” I finally said. I was trying to go for a cool, detached, Karen O vibe but I just ended up sounding like someone’s pinched grandmother.
“Hey, it’s a party!” Victoria came running up and grabbed my elbow. “Hi, Chris.”
“Whatever, dude.” Chris waved us both away.
“What crawled up his ass and died?” she asked as I took her arm and practically dragged her into the parking lot.
“Hopefully something sharp and poisonous.”
She was giving me the fish eye. “What’s up with your hair?”
“Oh, um…” I reached up and fingered a braid. “Nervous habit.”
“It’s sort of like Bob Marley meets Pippi Longstocking.”
“That’s not a compliment, is it?”
“Hell no.”
I sighed and began unraveling my hair. “Can we go to the bookstore now?”
“I did better than that.” She held up a printout from the computer. “I Googled.”
I smacked my palm to my forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Nice facepalm. You trying to keep that vein down?”
I ignored that last bit. “Thank God one of us is good under pressure.”
“Yeah, you caved like a wet noodle. So anyway, if I may.” She held up the paper and began to read as we walked to the parking lot. I took her arm so that she wouldn’t walk into a parked car or something. “Okay, it’s titled ‘Band We Love This Week,’ exclamation mark. ‘If “Audrey, Wait!” is any indication, the Do-Gooders are in for a long ride down the musical highway. Led by the vocal athleticism—’”
“It does not say that. You made that up.”
She pointed to the paper. “Look, I highlighted it. Anyway, ‘Led by the vocal athleticism of seventeen-year-old cute-as-the-boy-your-parents-warned-you-about Evan Dennison, this Los Angeles-area band plays its heartbreak song the way you want to hear it: loud, fast, and hard, with—”
“Oh, good Lord,” I sighed. “Please, stop, I get the idea.”
By now, we were at my car. “Yeah,” she said. “Not exactly award-winning journalism, but yeah.” Victoria pushed a hand through her freshly pink hair. “So are you going to work?”
“Yeah, just a normal day, you know. Wake up, hear about my love life on the radio, read a college newspaper article about my ex-boyfriend, then go scoop Double Bubble Gum for strangers. The usual.”
Victoria grinned. “Can I have a ride home? Jonah’s got something after school.”
“Like detention, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
We smiled at each other over the roof of my car. “What can I say?” she shrugged. “First period is not his friend.”
“Get in,” I told her. “I just have to stop by the house first and get my shirt for work.”
“Scooper Dooper!” she replied, and ducked away before I could punch her shoulder.
Judging from the way my day went, it was only fitting that my Scooper Dooper shirt was on the floor of my bedroom. Laundry is not always at the top of my to-do list, as my mother will attest. I gave it a quick sniff, deemed it acceptable, and was mid-change on the stairs when my phone started to ring. “Can you get it?” I yelled to Victoria, who was flipping through the new J. Crew catalogue on the kitchen table.
“Okay, who comes up with these color names?” she asked, waving the catalogue. “Pool? Celery?” She answered the phone even as she ranted. “I mean, Christ, it’s a sweater, not a—Hello, Audrey’s phone. She’s currently suiting up for a soul-deadening hourly job that provides no benefits, how may I help you?”
“Dead to me,” I hissed at her, but she was no longer paying attention. Her eyes were getting wider and wider and she kept saying, “Uh-huh…uh-huh…okay, hold on.” Then she covered the mouthpiece of the phone and pulled it away from her ear. “Aud!” she hissed. “Audrey!”
“I’m right—oof!—here,” I said, trying to pull the shirt over my head. “Who is it?”
“It’s the L.A. Weekly!” she said. Pool-colored sweaters were no longer her biggest priority that afternoon, I could tell.
“What do they want?”
“They want to talk to you!” She was jumping up and down like she does at shows during our favorite songs. “Here, talk to her! She’s a reporter!”
I backed away from the phone even while stuck inside my ugly work shirt. “No way,” I told her. “I’m already late for work.”
“Audrey.” Now Victoria was using her please-don’t-fuck-with-me-or-so-help-me-God-you-will-regret-it voice. (She’s gonna make an awesome mom one day.) “Get over here and talk to her. She’s a reporter, not a Dementor.”
“Harry Potter nerd.”
“Whatever. Take the damn phone.”<
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I sighed and did as she said. “Hello?” I answered while trying to squeeze both my arm and my head into the shirt at the same time. “Ouch! Sorry, hello?”
“Um, hello, I’m looking for Audrey Cuttler, please?”
“You found her.” Either my head had grown or the shirt had shrunk while decaying on the floor.
“Hi, my name is Isabella, I’m a reporter over at the L.A. Weekly and—”
“Where?” My head was so constricted that I couldn’t hear, so I pulled the shirt back off and realized that I had been trying to squeeze my head in through the armhole. “Oh, for pity’s sake.”
“Sorry?”
“No, sorry, it’s me. You’re a reporter from where?”
“The Weekly? We’re doing a feature on local bands, and we wanted to put something in about the Do-Gooders, and I was wondering if you had a minute?”
“Um, sure, okay.” I looked at Victoria and shrugged. She was still all excited and had her hands clasped in front of her mouth, but I beckoned her closer so she could listen, too. “How’d you get this number, anyway?”
“Their press agent gave it to me.”
Press agent? Evan had a press agent now? My rage boiled up again and I glanced at the clock that hung over our kitchen sink. If this conversation took five minutes, I could get Victoria home and make it to work in two Cure singles (but not ones from Disintegration) and clock in one minute late. “I have plenty of time,” I told her. “What do you want to know?”