by Robin Benway
“You know,” James said after we broke apart, “I’m really looking forward to the day when we aren’t kissing in storage freezers or weird offices.”
“By the looks of things,” I told him, “those days are far, far away.”
25 “Swallowing panic in the face of its force …”
—Joanna Newsom, “Peach, Plum, Pear”
THE SECOND PHONE CALL I made to my parents that evening was a bit more eventful than the first one. “Um, Mom?” I said, and I guess my voice sounded all funny, because she got it.
“Uh-oh.”
“Um, yeah. The paparazzi? They followed me and James from the restaurant? And now we’re kinda trapped at the record store.”
“Trapped?”
“By the paparazzi. And some fans. But it’s okay, because the police are on their way—”
“The police?”
“The police!” My dad suddenly piped up in the background.
“Audrey, we’re on our way,” my mom said, and then she hung up before I could tell her to leave Dad at home. And not that I wanted my parents to show up on James’s and my first date, but it was sort of a relief to think that people who were really good at being in charge would be showing up soon.
After my mom and dad got there and realized that James and I were okay and not damaged or anything, my dad went berserk.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he was screaming at some police officer just outside the office, “that my sixteen-year-old daughter cannot even go on a simple date without being harassed in such a manner?”
I looked at James.
He looked at me.
My mom looked at me.
James looked at my mom.
My mom looked at James.
I looked at my mom.
“I am a taxpayer!” my dad continued. I had heard those words so many times before, but usually it was being muttered at the TV or a newspaper, not yelled at the police. “And I expect my daughter to have the same rights as any other teenager in this town and—”
“Sir, I understand your frustration, but right now, your daughter is not a normal teenager and—”
“Not normal?” I said.
“Not normal?!” my dad yelled. “She is as normal as the rest of them!”
“Well, when you put it that way …” I said, thinking of all the people at our school that I would never want to be like.
“Not now, Aud.” My mom was rubbing her head in that headachey way.
“Sorry, but Mom, can you please go stop Dad? Before someone clubs him over the head?”
It turned out to be the worst advice I could have given her, because she went out to calm my dad down, but then she got sucked into the argument, and pretty soon it was the police versus my parents. I could hear the officer trying to placate them, but I knew it was useless. “He’s doing it all wrong,” I told James. “Believe me, when they’re tag-teaming, they’re unstoppable.”
“They sound pretty mad,” James said. He had paled considerably when my dad started yelling, and even more so when my mom jumped in.
“They met at a political rally at Berkeley,” I sighed. “Social justice is kind of their gig.”
“Oh.”
“Still want to date me?”
“Still think your dad isn’t going to kill me?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.” James was quiet for a minute. “Are you sure he’s not going to kill me?”
“Social justice, remember?”
But then the yelling started up again and James and I both sighed and flopped back in our chairs. “I’m dead,” he moaned.
It ended up that the police officers had to go outside and tell everyone to “STAND BACK! STAND BACK, PLEASE!” before we could leave the store. When we walked out, flashbulbs went off yet again and my mom kept trying to hold her sweater over my head, but all that managed to do was suffocate me with synthetic fibers and cause me to step on the back of James’s slip-on Vans, which promptly slipped off. I really wanted to hold his hand, just so I could know he was there and so he would know I was there, but no way could we do that, not with all the cameras. And besides, there were some autograph seekers, pushing covers of last week’s magazine toward me, trying to get me to sign the article about me and Simon. I brushed past all of them and their Sharpie pens and followed everyone to the parking lot.
“Head down, feet forward,” one of the officers said as we shuffled into the lot.
It was the best advice I heard that night.
26 “By protecting my heart truly, I got lost in the sounds.…”
—Regina Spektor, “Fidelity”
THE NEXT MORNING brought nothing but crankiness and misplaced anger, which aren’t the best feelings to have after a first date. I slept for shit that night, with paparazzi and camera flashes hiding in my head, popping out every time I closed my eyes. Judging from how my parents looked the next morning, they slept about as well as I did.
“Do you want something to eat?” my mom asked me. “Maybe eggs or something?” I could tell she felt bad for me, since our family has always had a DIY attitude toward breakfast. I’ve been putting cereal in the bowl myself since I was three years old and figured out how to climb up the pantry shelves. Eggs might as well have been a foreign custom, as far as eating them for breakfast was concerned.
“I’ll eat on the way to school,” I told her. The weather outside was gray and cloudy, totally mopey weather, and I grabbed the entire box of Cheerios and a banana. “Look in the paper tomorrow for pictures of me eating straight out of the box,” I told her. “I’m sure those will be super flattering.”
“Honey, you can’t let this—”
“Mom.” I stopped in my tracks and turned around. “I do not. Want to talk. About this.”
She took a deep breath and I could tell she was deciding whether or not to push the subject. “Okay,” she finally said. “Have a good day at school.”
“Which part? The part where I get to be stuck in the office with no one to talk to all day? I’m sure that’ll be especially swell. Or maybe when everyone starts asking about me and James and trying to get information to give reporters. That could be a real highlight.”
And then I left before I could tell that I had hurt her feelings.
I’m sure I looked sort of insane, clomping into school with a box of Cheerios tucked under my arm, my hair flying everywhere, and puffy bags under my eyes. There was a new banner spanning the ceiling of the main hallway, right toward my locker, and I craned my head back to read it. AUDREY, WAIT! IS AT #10! it read. LET’S MAKE IT #1! GO, DO-GOODERS!
“Hey, superstar,” someone said to me, and I gave them the finger without even looking to see who had said it.
“Yo, Aud, I’m kidding. Wait up, I’m totally kidding!”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Jonah jogging to catch up with me. “I swear, I’m only kidding,” he said again as soon as he was close enough. “Don’t kill me.”
“Oh, God, sorry,” I sighed. “I’m just in the crappiest of crappy moods, Jonah.”
“Yeah, I heard about your date last night.”
“From who?”
“Victoria. Who else?”
“But I haven’t even talked to her about it yet!”
“She saw the pictures online.”
“Is she here?”
“Yeah, she’s somewhere.” Jonah looked around the hallway. “She’ll find you, I’m sure. She’s all excited about some reality show thing? I don’t really know what the hell she’s talking about.”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“Are you gonna be on a reality show?”
“Would you watch if I was?”
“I’d TiVo that shit, for sure.” He nudged my shoulder. “So where’s your new guy?”
“Probably hiding somewhere to avoid me.” Despite all of James’s reassurances the night before, I still thought that our first date had been too Dickensian with its “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
dramatics. And, to be honest, that was not the sort of excitement I had been going for. I was hoping for ice cream freezer excitement, if you get my drift. Or even just a conversation where we weren’t interrupted by a camera.
“Well, any guy that hides to avoid you, you just tell me and I’ll straighten that fool out.” Jonah punched his fist into his open palm, then grinned. When Jonah smiles like that, you can’t help but smile back, especially because we both knew that he would never actually hit someone. He won’t even kill spiders. (Unlike Victoria, who whacks the hell out of them with a folded-up magazine.)
“Thanks, Jonah,” I told him. “You’re a pal.”
“No worries.”
“Want some Cheerios?” I held out the box to him.
He peered into it. “Where are the marshmallows?”
“No marshmallows. Just fiber and heart-healthy goodness and the taste that kids love.” I shook the box at him.
Jonah wrinkled his nose. “Dude, kids love the taste of marshmallows.”
I shrugged. “More for me, then.”
Right before the first bell rang, I got a text from Victoria. “Bathroom 9:30,” she wrote, and I sent an “OK” back. This had become our preferred on-the-sly method for talking during school, since we didn’t have any classes together and there was no way we were going to wait until after school. So much could happen between eight fifteen and two o’clock! Was I really supposed to wait to talk to her?
I brought the box of Cheerios with me to our meeting.
“Uh, nice breakfast,” she said. She was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, pulling product through her tiny spikes of hair.
“Just for that, you can’t have any,” I said as I opened each one of the stall doors, checking to see if they were occupied. “Good, no one’s here. We can talk. Did you see that lame banner?”
“Yeah, I know. The pep squad is, like, doing phone drives to request the song on radio across the country. The Do-Gooders are the most famous thing to come out of school, besides you.”
“Great.”
She turned around to face me. Her cheeks were bright pink with excitement. “Anyway, Aud. This. Is. Amazing.”
It wasn’t the response I was expecting. “Excuse me?”
“You got media swamped at RPM Records! Did they give you any free stuff? Or a shopping spree? Or a gift card? Can you at least get a discount? Can your friends get a discount?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You brought them so much publicity!” she squealed. “Tell me they at least gave you some promo stuff.”
I could feel the beginning of a massive headache. “No, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
“Well, maybe when you do the reality show, they can film some scenes—”
“I’m not doing a reality show, Victoria. First off, you don’t even make any money doing them.” I was about to continue my list of why-nots when I glanced in the mirror and saw my undereye circles. “Do you have any eye cream?” I asked Victoria. “I’ve got full-on luggage.”
She produced a small pot of cream and handed it to me. “You don’t make money from the show directly, but then everyone will see you and then the advertisers—say, RPM Records—”
“All right!” I interrupted. “You know what? Can we just not talk about this right now? Can we maybe talk about something more important, like the fact that my first date with James got interrupted by a million photographers, five police officers, two way overenthusiastic RPM employees, and let’s not forget my parents, who got into a shouting match with the five police officers? Do you think maybe we could discuss that! Because I’d like to, if that’s okay with you!”
Victoria looked a little taken aback. I’m not a yeller, but when I hit my limit, I hit my fucking limit. “All right,” she said after a few beats. “Let’s talk. Don’t hold back.”
I ignored her sarcastic shrink talk. “James hates me!” I wailed.
“Did he actually say that?”
“No, but—”
“Oh, then, by all means, accuse him of it. He’s done absolutely nothing to prove himself trustworthy or faithful to you.”
Now it was my turn to be quiet for a few seconds. “I know,” I finally admitted as I dabbed on some eye cream, then handed her back the jar. “Want some Cheerios? Your boyfriend hated them.”
“Yeah, I know. He’ll only eat cereal with marshmallows. Even then, he just goes through and picks out all the marshmallows. Fucking nasty.” She reached into the box and pulled out a handful. “So when are you seeing James again?”
“We’re meeting in the library at lunch.”
“Ooh, sexy rendezvous choice. The dusty books, all the hidden desire, the uncracked spines—”
I gave her an odd look. “The fact that no one ever goes in there.”
“Yeah, there’s that, too.” She glanced at her watch. “You better get back to your classroom.”
I suddenly didn’t want to leave her. Even though she was pushy and more opinionated that a Supreme Court justice, she was my friend. She was familiar. She was Victoria. “Can’t you fake sick or something and come up to visit me?” I said, trying to sound lonely and pitiful.
“And fuck up my GPA? I’ve already sacrificed the Perfect Attendance Award.”
“I don’t know if getting chicken pox counts as a ‘sacrifice.’”
“Still.” She fixed her hair one last time, then patted my shoulder. “Come on. Buck up. There are twenty thousand girls who would give their left eye to be you right now. It could be worse.”
“Oh, so now I’m not grateful enough that I’ve had my life interrupted?” That slow-burning rage was starting back up again.
Victoria sighed and held the door open. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back to your crazy life. Don’t forget your Cheerios.”
By the time I met James in the Animals & Wildlife section of our school library, I had motored my way through half the box and felt like I was wearing one big Cheerio around my waist. I suppose that, technically, no eating was allowed during school hours, but Connie the secretary wasn’t saying anything. She probably knew about my date last night with James, thanks to her daughter, and besides, she and I had formed a sort of silent partnership. She let me eat cereal out of the box and disappear to the bathroom for minutes at a time, and I didn’t say anything when she pretended to have a headache and snuck out to get her hair done.
“Here,” I said when I saw James in the library. “Please. Take the Cheerios. I’m going to explode.”
He smiled and took the box. “So my brother has started calling me ‘King Stud,’” he replied. “I don’t think it’s a compliment.”
“Can I just apologize one more time?”
“Sure, let’s round it up to an even million,” he replied.
I was about to say more, but then he kissed me, and for a brief minute, everything was all right. “Hi,” he said softly after we broke apart.
“Hi,” I sighed. “I missed you.”
“The King Stud missed you, too.” I could tell that he was enjoying this new nickname.
“Uh, this third-person thing isn’t going to work for me, King Stud,” I told him. “And neither is the ‘King Stud’ part.”
“Okay, all right, I’m over it.” He hung onto my elbows and took a step back. “Wow. You look exhausted.”
“Yeah, well, this fluorescent lighting isn’t exactly a girl’s best friend.”
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“No. Did you?”
“Nope. I was kind of hopped up on adrenaline.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I figured you might.” He shoved my hair out of my face and I let him. “Are your parents still having coronaries?”
“No, they’re calm. At least for right now. Who knows, though? One more magazine, one more phone call from US Weekly? They could snap. It won’t be pretty.” I glanced around in either direction before pulling him further down the aisle. “But serious
ly. They might make me stop working at the Scooper Dooper.”
“Really?” James looked stricken.
“Really. I think last night was the final straw. I think the house might go to full-on lockdown. For me, anyway. I’ll be lucky if I see daylight again before New Year’s.” I was still pulling him further into the aisle’s recesses. “Look at me, I’m already so fucking paranoid. In two weeks, I’ll probably be putting combination locks on the refrigerator. Just wait.”
“Work is going to blow so hard if you’re not there.” He sort of looked like a kicked puppy, all defenseless and sad. It was terrible.
“Well, they didn’t say that I had to quit yet,” I pointed out. “Maybe they won’t make me leave.”
But then neither of us said anything, and both James and I knew it was only a matter of time before I was officially jobless. We weren’t idiots. We were both there when our first date ended with a police escort. “Sucks,” he finally sighed. “Sucks, sucks, sucks.”
“Wanna come over after school?” I asked after a minute, trying to think of ways to make both of us feel better. “You should take advantage of the offer before I get locked in the garage, you know.”
He grinned. “Are you gonna show me your collage wall?”
“Maaaayybe. Will you rent movies before you come over?’
“Maaaayybe. What do you want?”
“Something really bloody and violent, with jaw-dropping thrills and chills.” I waited until his face showed the appropriate level of shock. “Ha! I kid! Your pick.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Okay, in my limited dating experience,” he said, “and we are talking limited dating experience, girls tell you to pick the movie, but they don’t mean it. They’re just testing you.”
“That’s the kind of shit that girls like Sharon Eggleston pull,” I told him, then watched as the grin slid off his face. “What? Is she behind me with a butcher knife or something?”
“No, but…” He sighed heavily. “Okay, you have to promise that you’re not going to freak out or anything.”
“I’m not gonna freak out.” I was crossing my fingers behind my back, though. “What is it?”