Glitter Girl

by Toni Runkle

  “By the way, Jules!” Ms. Donovan said, pushing a strand of highlighted hair away from her face. “There won’t be any Shakespeare Club today after school. Coach Scofield and I have a date, that is, a faculty meeting to attend.”

  Just as Jules was making a valiant attempt at digesting this information, the second bell rang. Time to get to class.

  “I’ll let you know about the new date for Shakespeare Club. It’ll probably be next week sometime!”

  As Ms. Donovan scurried down the hall she passed Coach Scofield, who was walking the other direction heading to the gym. And right on cue, Scofield swiveled his head around and watched the new-look Ms. Donovan move down the hall. Ms. Donovan must have sensed it, as Kat could see that she slowed down and was putting a little extra “cute” into her step as she walked away from him. This all during passing period, no less!

  Jules looked at Kat, who was looking quite smug. And it irritated Jules more than a little bit. She shook her head as she turned and headed to class. Had the entire population of Willkie Junior High gone insane?

  Chapter 12

  The Course of True Love Runs through the White Oak Mall

  It was the absolute best day ever.

  Everywhere Kat went, kids were stopping her, telling her how cool she looked or that they had read her blog (her traffic was up 500 percent!) and had gone out to buy Glitter Girl stuff. She had even gotten a text from Chelsea congratulating her—telling her every single item at the temporary Glitter Girl store they’d put up in the mall next to Ya-ya’s Yogurt had sold out and that she, Kat, was responsible.

  Kat didn’t know if that meant she would be picked as the Face of Glitter Girl, but she knew it couldn’t hurt. And it definitely went a long way toward subduing the extreme irritation she was feeling at having to wear that stupid hat all day long. It was hot, it was annoying, and who knew what it was doing to her hair? Why did she even bother using her root-lifting spray that morning? Habit, she supposed. Anyway, Kat didn’t dare take the hat off, even for a second, for fear of what she might find up there. Oh well, life was good in spite of the stupid hat, and she couldn’t imagine how it could possibly get better.

  Then she walked out the front doors of Willkie at the end of the school day and knew—oh yeah, life could definitely get better.

  Kat usually hit the Sip N’ Suds with Zoe and Darcy on Mondays. However, Jules’s Shakespeare Club meeting had been canceled due to Ms. Donovan’s suddenly coming down with a case of the “cools” so Kat was going to grab a ride home with Jules’s dad instead. She really wanted to get home and cruise the Internet to see if she could get an idea of how the Glitter Girl launch campaigns in other cities had gone. She had thought about asking Chelsea but didn’t want to seem overeager or desperate. Her mom always said, “Desperation is an emotion felt by losers. Winners feel expectation.” Not that Kat expected to win, but she was sure hoping for it.

  But her excitement to hop on her computer had been replaced by a whole other emotion she wasn’t entirely familiar with—something like that feeling in the pit of your stomach just before you go over the first drop of a really high roller coaster.

  Because when she walked out the front door of the school, instead of the Prius sitting at the curb waiting for her and Jules, she saw a classic red Mustang. Leaning against it was Kyle, his arms crossed over a white T-shirt that was so tight it showed the beginnings of his fifteen-year-old muscles. Because that’s how old he was now, fifteen. In all the Glitter Girl fuss, Kat had forgotten it had been Kyle’s birthday that weekend too. As Kat walked down the stairs toward him, he held up a set of car keys to prove it.

  “Just got my learner’s permit on Saturday. Want to go out for that burger?” asked Kyle.

  And there it was. With those words, Kat’s whole being began a free fall down the first hill of that impossibly tall roller coaster. Her face flushed, her heart leaped into her throat, and she felt a hot surge course through her body.

  “Sure, but I have to be home by six. Adams totally slammed us with homework,” she said casually so as not to betray her eagerness.

  “Not a problem,” said Kyle as he opened the front passenger door. Kat slipped in, smiling ear to ear.

  “All righty, put your hands at nine and three o’clock and prepare to pull away from the curb, just like we practiced,” came a voice from behind them. Kat’s head swiveled around and she discovered that Mr. Finch was planted in the backseat. Ugh! Darn Indiana and its restricted licenses for teens! Kyle’s dad had to be there, and unless there was an act of the legislature in the next five minutes, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Wait for me!” called Jules from the curb, hopping into the backseat next to her dad. Another passenger! Kat fumed in the front seat. Some date!

  “So where are we headed?” asked Jules.

  Ten minutes later, Jules stood deposited at the end of her driveway—feeling like so much discarded baggage—as the Mustang drove off.

  She had waited all day for an apology from Kat. And if not that, at least a chance to ignore the incident and let things go back to normal, which had sort of been how they handled all their disagreements since the days of yore when they were still drinking out of sippy cups. But instead, Jules was left to stew in the backseat with her dad all the way home. Kat had barely spoken to her.

  As Jules walked up the driveway to her house, she thought about just how complicated things would get if her brother and her best friend actually started dating. Yuck! The very thought of it made her skin crawl. And if she were really honest with herself, which she was not interested in being at the moment, she might admit that she was feeling more than just a little bit jealous of her friend and her popularity and her perfect day. And that was not good.

  • • •

  “This is sooooo good!” Kat exclaimed as she sipped on her nonfat Mangolade smoothie across from Kyle in a booth at Oh Donna’s! ’50s-style diner. Ten minutes earlier, Kyle’s dad had finally disappeared into the home improvement section of the bookstore next door with instructions to text him when they were ready to leave, so it was almost like a real date now, which made the two teenagers relieved and a little nervous at the same time.

  “Yeah, they’re delicious,” agreed Kyle. “And wait ’til you get a load of the french fries at this place. They’re fantastic.”

  “I think it’s so cool that your dad restored that car for you as a surprise. You must have been totally stoked when he gave you the keys this morning.”

  “Yeah. I have to say that as days go, this is one of the best ever,” Kyle said in a dreamy sort of way that made Kat fairly certain he was including being here with her as part of that awesome day. Her stomach filled with butterflies as her whole being took another plunge on that internal roller coaster.

  “So tell me about building those houses,” Kat said, hoping to calm the butterflies with some conversation and another sip of her smoothie.

  “It actually turned out to be pretty cool,” Kyle said. “I thought it was going to be totally lame—you know, a bunch of vegetarian goody-goodies running around with hammers and nails who didn’t know what they were doing. There was some of that, but most of the volunteers were actually fun to hang out with. It made the work go a lot easier. And you know what the best part was? Seeing the families move into their new houses at the end. They were so grateful. Some of them even cried, they were so happy to have a place to call their own. It really made me feel good about what I had done all summer.”

  “Wow, that sounds really nice.”

  “Plus, I won a free Xbox in the employee raffle so, you know, that helped too.”

  Kat laughed at Kyle’s joke but at the same time was impressed with the boy sitting across from her. He didn’t seem at all like the annoying jock that Jules was always complaining about. “Yeah, we have to do some kind of volunteer work for school this year,” she said, “but I soooo have no idea what
I should do.”

  “Well, I think the program needs some local volunteers. You want me to give you the information?”

  “That would be totally cool,” Kat said, even though she didn’t know a hammer from a stewed tomato.

  “Maybe we could figure out a time to go together,” Kyle said, smiling, “as long as you don’t mind my dad in the backseat.”

  Kat smiled back at Kyle. Their eyes met for a moment, and then she looked away shyly.

  Now that Kyle’s dad was out of the picture, she had to admit that as first dates go, this had to be one of the best ever. She’d read about nightmare first dates in some of her teen magazines. All kinds of horrible things went wrong, like getting a huge zit on the end of your nose right before, or finding nothing to talk about and having awful awkward pauses, or saying something totally stupid or, OMG!, passing gas or burping in the middle of a kiss. But nothing like that happened on this date. No siree.

  They ate burgers and played a few games at the Funtasia Family Arcade, where Kyle won her a plastic key chain with a heart on it, which she immediately hooked onto one of the belt loops on her jeans. They did a round of goofy golf, and Kyle had even put his arms around her to help her sink a putt on that really hard hole in the giant whale’s mouth under the waterfall. And no one had a zit, and no one passed any bodily gases, and never once did they not have something to talk about. It was like they had known each other their whole lives, which, in truth, they had.

  • • •

  The sun was just beginning to set as Kyle pulled the Mustang toward the end of the cul-de-sac. It was 5:57 p.m. Right on time.

  “Let me off here,” said Mr. Finch from the backseat when they were still half a block from the house.

  Kyle thought it might be some kind of test. “But I’m not supposed to—” he objected.

  “I imagine you can navigate the rest of the way on your own, son,” his father said, putting a firm hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Besides, I need to go check with O’Shea Building Supply to see if my drywall’s in. Good night, Kat.”

  “Good night, Mr. Finch,” said Kat, who was as unprepared as Kyle to be left alone so suddenly.

  Kyle looked at her and shrugged and slowly maneuvered the car into the Connors’s driveway, which Kat thought was so gallant. He could have just parked it in his own driveway which was, after all, just a few yards away, and made her walk. But no. He was a true gentleman and proved it further by getting out of the car and rushing over to open her door. He handed Kat her backpack, and they finally hit their first awkward pause. It wasn’t like Kat was surprised. She had been thinking of this moment the whole entire date.

  She wondered if he would want to kiss her—secretly hoping with all her heart that he did. And if he did, how would she know it? Would he ask her first, like they showed you were supposed to do in those health training videos at school? Would he just move in with his head tilted at an angle? Or would there be that kind of magnetism she had seen a million times in romantic movies where the guy and the girl would just look into each other’s eyes and find themselves locked in a sort of invisible tractor beam that would pull them slowly together until their lips met, their eyes closed, and the deed would be done? Then there was the issue of tongues—would there be tongues involved? And if there were, her stomach lurched as she suddenly worried that she might not be good at it!

  Kat and Kyle looked at each other a moment. Kat finally broke the silence.

  “Thanks. I had a really good time.”

  “Yeah. Me too. Would you, uh, like to go out again sometime?”

  “I’d love to.”

  That was all the encouragement Kyle needed, because at that moment he went in for the kiss. It happened faster than Kat would have imagined. She almost didn’t see it coming but that didn’t matter because somehow, maybe on a cellular level, she was ready for it. And her lips met his with the sort of perfection in timing usually reserved for those triple axels in ice skating that ended in a flawless landing on exactly the right beat of music.

  The kiss was soft and sweet and on the lips, without tongues. And it lingered for a moment, allowing them both to feel the warmth and excitement of it. Kat felt herself go all light in the head and was sure she was floating outside her body. When they finally pulled apart it was at exactly the same moment, so it didn’t seem that one of them had chosen to end the kiss before the other.

  Kat looked into Kyle’s warm brown eyes that reminded her a lot of her favorite milk chocolate pudding. She felt a little embarrassed at what was at this point in her life the most intimate moment she had ever shared with another human being. Feeling her cheeks burn and her ears get hot, she quickly took her backpack and headed up the sidewalk. She heard the engine of the Mustang roar to life and paused to look back. Kyle waved as he drove the fifty feet from her driveway to his, parked the car, and went inside.

  She turned back, took a deep steadying breath, and headed up to her house, which suddenly looked different to her. Her house that had seemed so huge most of her life suddenly seemed a little smaller. The steps that she once had to struggle up could easily be taken two at a time. The handrail that had felt so huge in her hand now fit so comfortably, as if it had been custom made just for her. Yes, something had changed, like maybe she was suddenly bigger. She didn’t know when it happened. But she knew that at this moment, she noticed it. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. And she really liked the feeling.

  She bounded up the front steps, two at a time, and stopped in her tracks when she saw Jules sitting at the far end of the porch in the porch swing.

  “Holy cow, Jules! You scared the life out of me! Have you been there the whole time?” asked Kat.

  “Be nice to my brother, Kat. He’s not just another accessory,” said Jules.

  Kat was appalled. Not only because Jules had been witness to her intimate moment, but because she would even make such a statement.

  “Jules. How could you say that? You know me,” said Kat defensively.

  “I thought I did. I’m not so sure anymore,” replied Jules and then got up and walked past Kat, down the steps, and into the darkening street.

  Kat stood there stunned. She had no idea where this attitude was coming from. Okay, maybe she did. But she didn’t want to think about it right now. The whole thing gave her a big, fat headache. She knew the cure and went into the house and headed straight to her computer.

  Chapter 13

  To Go or Not to Go, That Is the Question

  While Kat pounded out another blog entry singing the praises of Glitter Girl on her computer, Chelsea Ambrose was across town in her hotel room, looking into her laptop. She was in the middle of a video conference with the board of directors of Remoulet, Inc., back in Los Angeles.

  “The tracking is off the charts,” Chelsea said. “At every one of our temporary stores, we’re hearing the same thing. From Maine to Miami, Glitter Girl is a hit. Traffic at the website is way up, and we’re trending big-time on both Yahoo and Google.”

  Chelsea brought up some charts that she and her assistant, Amy, had put together that afternoon on the computer screen. Even though they were just pie charts and graphs, Chelsea thought the colors they had chosen added a certain feminine flair to the entire presentation.

  “As you see here,” Chelsea said, using her mouse to navigate among the charts, “sales of Glitter Girl merchandise in each of the fifty target markets have exceeded our projections. This buzz should build well for us as we get closer to our national launch next month.”

  Back in Los Angeles, Chelsea’s charts were projected on a huge TV screen in the conference room on the thirty-fifth floor of the Remoulet office building. Gregory Remoulet nodded his head approvingly.

  “Excellent!” he said. “It’s clear that our trust in you was well placed, Miss Ambrose.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Chelsea, trying her best to be humble, whic
h was about as easy for her as trying to be an iguana. Still, she thought she pulled it off. “I’m sure you’re going to be equally pleased once we go national in November.”

  “Who says we have to wait until then?” Remoulet replied. “This is a brushfire you’ve started, Miss Ambrose. I say we keep it burning.” He turned away from the screen for a moment. “Dave!” he barked. “How quickly could we get the Glitter Gear into the stores?”

  “Well, I’d have to check with the suppliers, but I imagine if we shipped this week, we could have the stores stocked by the weekend.”

  “And what about the TV campaign?”

  Chelsea couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Were these executives actually talking about moving up the launch date of her little project? The project all her friends and colleagues had told her not to put too much faith in? What could make this any better? She had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

  “Wait a minute, sir! I have an idea!” Chelsea said, barely conscious that this was the time where she should just keep her mouth shut and let the more experienced executives work out the details.

  All of the eyes in the boardroom in Los Angeles turned to the screen. Chelsea gulped. She had trusted her instincts so far, and she’d been right about everything. She might as well go all in on this idea.

  “If we move up the date of the launch, we might as well take advantage of our Alpha Girls,” she said. “Instead of just announcing the ‘Face of Glitter Girl’ on our website as we had planned, what if we brought all fifty girls to the same place, I don’t know, an auditorium somewhere, we sold tickets, alerted the media…We could call it the ‘World’s Biggest Girl Party’!” Chelsea wasn’t sure about that last part and couldn’t really tell what the suits in LA were thinking about all this, but she was just rolling now.