by Meg Cabot
… and publicity stunts, like the one today: a supersized grand opening, including free food and drinks (Stark Cola and Stark Cookies and Pretzels), with live performances on all three floors by some of the hottest young entertainers of the moment, followed by an opportunity to get a personally autographed CD from them.
Which was why Frida was so determined to go.
Because unlike the rest of our family — and residents of our community — Frida was thrilled about the new Stark Megastore opening up within spitting distance of her bedroom window (not that Frida would ever do something as déclassé as spit). She could not have cared less that Mama’s had relocated to a windy, desolate corner way over in Alphabet City, nowhere close to walking distance to our apartment building, or that we were being forced to eat wilted lettuce and brown bananas from Gristedes.
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Frida kept insisting to Mom. ‘I’ll look out for ELF protestors. I’ll wear my bike helmet, if I have to.’
Mom just rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not ELF I’m worried about, Frida,’ she said. ‘It’s Gabriel Luna.’
Frida’s round cheeks (well, they are. What can I say? Round cheeks — like stick-straight brown hair, brown eyes, medium height and weight, and size-nine feet — is our genetic destiny, the way high cheekbones and perfect everything else are Whitney’s) instantly turned bright red.
‘Mo-om!’ she cried. ‘Whatever! He’s, like, twenty. He’s not going to be interested in a kid like me.’
That’s what her lips said. But anyone could tell by the glint in her eyes that Frida didn’t actually believe this. She honestly thought Gabriel Luna was going to fall madly in love with her as he personally autographed her CD. I could tell. I used to be fourteen after all, just two and a half short years ago.
So it was a good thing when Mom replied, ‘Then you won’t mind bringing your sister along. Just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’ Frida wanted to know.
‘In case Gabriel Luna invites you to a party back at his penthouse.’
You could tell this was exactly what Frida had been hoping would happen. Not that she’d ever admit it. Instead she snarled, ‘Gabriel doesn’t have a penthouse, Mom. He’s not into the trappings of fame.’
When I burst out laughing at trappings of fame, Frida glared at me and said, ‘Well, he’s not. He lives in a studio apartment somewhere here in NoHo. He’s not one of those music-company-fabricated pretty boy-band types Em hates so much. He’s a singer-songwriter. Even though he’s already a sensation back in his native London, hardly anyone outside England knows who he is.’
‘Except everyone who reads COSMOgirl! evidently,’ I pointed out. ‘Since you just quoted that verbatim from their article on him last month. Including the trappings of fame part.’
‘How would you know, Em?’ Frida demanded snarkily ‘I thought you never read teen magazines. I thought you only read your lame Electronic Gaming Monthly, or whatever.’
I sighed. ‘Yes, but when I’ve finished that and your COSMOgirl! is the only thing that’s lying around, what choice do I have?’
‘Mo-om!’ Frida cried. You could tell she was really upset that Stark had been so short-sighted as to schedule their grand opening on the last warm weekend in September, which all of her fellow Walking Dead members were being ‘forced’ to spend at their families’ vacation homes in the Hamptons. They’d invited Frida along of course.
But she’d as soon eat glass as miss an opportunity to meet actual celebrities — even ones who don’t live in a penthouse.
‘Em’s going to ruin everything. Can’t you see that? She’s a dork, you know, Mom. Not even a geek, which would be semi-respectable, but a dork. All she ever does is play her stupid computer games with Christopher, study, and watch disgusting surgery shows on the Discovery Health Channel. And she’s going to say something mean to Gabriel, and embarrass me.’
‘I will not!’ I protested, with my mouth full of microwave waffle.
‘Yes you will,’ Frida said. ‘You’re always mean to guys.’
‘That is completely false,’ I said. ‘Name one time I was mean to Christopher.’
‘Christopher Maloney is your boyfriend,’ Frida said, rolling her eyes. ‘And I mean a cute guy.’
This was such a libellous statement — since no way is Christopher Maloney my boyfriend — that I nearly choked on my waffle. Not that I haven’t sometimes wished Christopher were my boyfriend, and not just my boy friend — or my best friend, actually.
But Christopher has never once expressed any sort of similar desire. You know, that we should take our friendship to a more-than-platonic level. In fact, I’m not sure Christopher has ever even realized that I’m not a boy. I’m not actually the most feminine girl in the world. I honestly wouldn’t mind trying to be, but the two or three times I’ve experimented by putting on eyeliner or whatever, Frida has just burst into hysterical laughter and told me to ‘Take it off! Just take it off right now!’ before I’ve even gotten out of the apartment.
So I’ve taken it off.
I guess it’s unusual that my best friend is a boy. But the truth is, I haven’t had a girl friend since fifth grade. The few occasions girls ever actually invited me over in middle school, it was always so… awkward. Because we ended up having nothing in common. Like, I always wanted to play video games, and they always wanted to play Truth or Dare (with an emphasis on the Truth part… like, ‘Is it true that you have a crush on that Christopher guy, but that you just tell everyone you’re really only friends, and that even he doesn’t know you secretly love him? Do you want us to tell him how you really feel for you? Because we’ll be happy to.’).
Yeah. Like that.
It just didn’t work for me. I told my mother I’d rather stay home and read.
Which is one of the good things about having parents who are academics. They know how you feel. Because the truth is, they’d always rather stay home and read too.
Christopher was different, though. From the day almost eight years ago that I saw him hanging out with the moving van that was delivering all his stuff to our building, I knew we were going to get along.
And OK, mostly because I peeked into the box marked Chris’s Video Games as it sat next to the freight elevator, and saw that we liked all the same role-playing games.
But whatever.
I guess because we hang out so much, people think we’re dating, but nothing could be further from the truth (alas).
Still, even though we’re not dating — however much I might wish that we were — I resented Frida’s implication that Christopher isn’t cute. He isn’t, under the standard Walking Dead definition of hottie, of course. I mean, he’s over six-feet tall and does have the requisite blond hair and blue eyes the WD so favour. Except that Christopher has been trying to see how long he can grow his hair before he drives his father, the Commander (he teaches political science), completely insane. It’s almost past his shoulders now.
And he doesn’t spend four hours a day lifting weights, so he isn’t a muscle-bound freak like Whitney’s boyfriend, Jason Klein.
But just because Christopher isn’t what the WDs consider hot doesn’t mean he isn’t cute.
‘Thanks,’ I snarled at Frida. ‘A lot. See if Christopher ever comes over to defragment your computer again.’
‘Christopher’s hair is longer than mine,’ Frida hissed. ‘And what about yesterday in the cafeteria, when you screamed at Jason Klein to shut up while you were both in line for ketchup for your burgers at the condiment bar?’
‘Well,’ I said with an uncomfortable shrug, ‘yesterday was a bad day. And besides, he deserved it. And at least Christopher can cut his hair. What’s your excuse?’
‘All Jason said was that he preferred the cheerleaders’ spring haltertop uniforms to their winter sweater ones!’ Frida cried.
‘Well, that is sexist, Frida,’ Mom said.
I flashed Frida a triumphant look over my waffles. Still she wouldn’t let it go.
‘Ch
eerleaders are athletes, Mom,’ Frida insisted. ‘Their halter-top uniforms are less binding than their sweater ones, allowing them more freedom of movement.’
‘Oh my God.’ I stared across the breakfast table at my little sister.
‘You’re trying out for cheerleading this year, aren’t you?’
Frida took a deep breath. ‘Forget it. Just forget it. I’ll ask Dad. Dad’ll let me go by myself.’
‘No he won’t,’ Mom said. ‘And you will not disturb him. You know he got in late last night.’
Dad lives in New Haven during the week, where he teaches at Yale, and only comes home to Manhattan on weekends (it’s tough on married academics when they can’t get hired by the same college).
Because of the guilt he feels about this, Dad will generally let us do anything we want. If Frida had asked if it would be OK if she went to Atlantic City with the men’s swim team for the weekend to gamble away her college-education money, Dad would have been like, ‘Sure, why not? Here’s my bank card, have a blast.’
Which is why Mom watches us like a hawk when Dad’s home. She knows perfectly well that he’s a pushover when it comes to his teenaged daughters.
‘And what’s this about you trying out for cheerleading?’ Mom wanted to know. ‘Frida, we need to talk… ’
While Mom went on about how women weren’t allowed to play men’s sports in school until the 1970s, and so were relegated to cheer for the male athletes on the sidelines, thus giving birth to cheerleading, Frida sent me a withering look that said, I’ll get you for this, Em!
I had no doubt she’d get her revenge later, at the Stark Megastore opening.
And it turned out I wasn’t wrong.
It just didn’t happen quite the way I’d been expecting it to.
Three
Frida turned out to be right about one thing: Gabriel Luna is a great singer-songwriter.
And — truth be told — he was pretty cute too. He wasn’t one of those music-company-fabricated pretty boys… the ones Frida and her friends are always freaking out over on TRL or whatever.
Nor did he seem to be harbouring any strategically placed, look-at-me-I’m-so-indie tattoos, or the latest popular trend amongst male singers, eyeliner. Gabriel, as far as I could tell (which wasn’t easy, since there was quite a crowd between us and the stage on which he was performing), appeared to be tattoo and make-up free.
He was even dressed sort of normally, in a button-down shirt and jeans. His hair was choppily cut and a little too long (though not compared to Christopher’s), and very dark in contrast to his somewhat piercing blue eyes (not, you know, that I noticed), but it still looked good. His hair, I mean.
But it was his voice — oh God, and that English accent — that got to me. Deep and rich and soulful — but also playful when the song called for it — his voice filled the Broadway Tunes and Soundtracks section of SoHo Stark Megastore, where the mini-stage had been set up for him to perform. People who were in the aisles looking for discount CDs couldn’t help but pause with their Stark shopping baskets to listen, because Gabriel’s voice was so compelling and his presence so commanding.
He came out on stage with a fast dance number — the first single from his new album. And it was, I have to admit, pretty catchy. I found myself kind of bouncing along to it.
But, you know, secretly, so Christopher wouldn’t notice, since I knew he’d make some cynical comment.
Then Gabriel traded in the electric guitar he’d been using to accompany himself for a regular one, and went acoustic for his second number, which he performed sitting on a stool.
And OK, I’ll admit, Frida wasn’t the only one who might have swooned a little. I had a hard time reminding myself that I’m not a teenybopper any more… even though I might have been attending an actual teeny-bopperfest.
At least until it came time to get in line to get Frida’s CD signed. That’s when reality came crashing back, as we found ourselves surrounded by a mob of thirteen- and fourteen-year-old girls, all wearing sparkly low-rise jeans exactly like Frida’s, and all clutching slips of paper on which they’d written the name to whom they wanted Gabriel to personalize their CD… along with their cellphone number. Just in case Gabriel happened to ask for it.
What had been a magical few moments turned tedious. And fast.
‘He’s not looking at you,’ I assured Frida as we stood in the long (did I mention it was long?) line to get Gabriel’s autograph.
‘Yes he is,’ Frida insisted as she waved. ‘He’s looking right at me!’
‘No,’ Christopher said, standing beside us. Good friend that he is, Christopher had come along to lend me moral support… and also to check out Stark’s electronics section, which was featuring a newly released, Stark-designed hand-held gaming device with a screen wide enough that you could actually play tactic-style games on it without going blind. Even better, they were selling them for under a hundred bucks.
Christopher and I are ethically opposed to Stark Megastores… but we’re not above taking advantage of their heavily slashed discount prices.
‘He’s looking at her.’ Christopher pointed towards a plasma screen that was hanging from the ceiling above our heads, showing Nikki Howard — looking coolly beautiful in a filmy evening gown and ridiculously high stilettos — against a hot-pink background, gyrating in time to the thumping rock music that filled the store.
There were dozens — maybe hundreds — of similar plasma screens suspended by thick wires from the open duct work along the ceiling all over the store, each featuring Nikki Howard in various states of undress, urging patrons to try Stark Enterprises’ new line of clothing and beauty products, which would be available exclusively in Stark Megastores worldwide in the new year.
‘He’s probably trying to see if she’s got anything on under there,’ Christopher joked.
‘Gabriel doesn’t think of women as sex objects,’ Frida sniffed with the merest flick of a glance in the direction Christopher was pointing. ‘I know. I read it in his interview with COSMOgirl!. He respects women with brains.’
I nearly choked on my free Stark Cola at the suggestion that Nikki Howard had a brain.
Frida got defensive right away. ‘She does!’ she insisted. ‘What other seventeen-year-old do you know who’s gotten as many modelling and product-endorsement contracts as Nikki has? And she started with nothing — nothing. Seriously, how could you not know that? Don’t you people do anything but play that stupid video game?’
Fortunately it wasn’t all that easy to hear Frida going on about how out of touch Christopher and I were with our own generation, considering the rock music that was blasting all around us (except that it was all right, since it was Gabriel’s music)… not to mention the hordes of people crowding the store.
Not all of them were there to meet Gabriel Luna, like we were, though. A lot of them, in fact, were there for an entirely different reason: to make trouble. Every few minutes we saw a uniformed security officer dragging another protester from the store. The rabble rousers were pretty easily distinguished from actual customers, like Frida, by their combat fatigues… and the paintball guns they all seemed to be carrying beneath their trench coats. Their primary targets were the plasma screens, many of which had already been hit (in strategic locations) by giant blobs of yellow paint.
In other words, the place was a zoo. Which meant that Frida was in her element. My little sister was taking in all the excitement like it was pure oxygen, frantically text-messaging her friends, letting them know what they were missing, and taking snaps with her camera phone.
‘Besides, you guys,’ Frida was saying as she pointed her phone in Gabriel’s direction — even though we were still so far away he was only going to appear as a white-shirted blob to whoever she was sending the photo, ‘Gabriel’s deeply spiritual… and intellectual. Just like I am.’
I choked on another free sample of Stark Cola.
‘I am!’ Frida insisted. ‘Just because I’m not a math and science dork
like some people… Besides, Gabriel says what matters is the size of a woman’s heart, not her bra.’
‘Right,’ I said sarcastically. ‘I’m sure Gabriel’d rather be with a total dog than Nikki Howard.’
Christopher got a good laugh out of that one — even though as I said it I was sort of hoping it was true. But Frida didn’t find it funny at all.
‘I’m not a total dog,’ Frida said, shooting me an injured look.
‘Frida.’ I stared at her with my mouth open. ‘I didn’t mean you.’
But it was too late. I’d hurt her feelings.
‘Maybe you think of yourself that way,’ Frida said stiffly. ‘But don’t drag me down to your level, Em. At least I make an effort.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I demanded.
‘Well, look at you,’ she said.
I looked at myself.
And, OK, I’m not the fashion plate Nikki Howard might be, in her stilettos and bikini and spray-on tan, or Whitney Robertson, with her flirty skirts and sexy camis.
But what’s wrong with jeans, a hoody and Converse?
Frida was only too eager to tell me.
‘You look like a guy,’ she complained. ‘I mean, maybe you have a figure, but it’s not like anybody could ever tell thanks to how baggy you wear your clothes. And have you ever even tried to do anything with your hair except throw it back in a scrunchy, which, by the way, are completely 2002? At least I try to look nice.’
I could feel myself turning bright red under the less-than-flattering
Stark Megastore lighting.
It’s one thing to be dissed by your little sister. But it’s another thing entirely to be dissed by her in front of the guy you’ve been secretly crushing on since the seventh grade.
‘Gosh, I’m sorry,’ I said, stung. Really, did I need this? I didn’t even want to be in this stupid store, in this stupid line, to meet this guy who, OK, was cute, but who I’d practically never heard of before this morning.
I could have been having a perfectly nice time at home, trying to reach level sixty of Journeyquest with Christopher. The last thing I needed on one of my rare days off from that hellhole otherwise known as Tribeca Alternative was this. ‘I didn’t know I was supposed to conform to some random standard of beauty dictated by some tween-queen fashion model.’