Boy Proof
Page 11
I laugh.
“You really want to go to Poland with your dad and not to Greece with me?” Mom says.
“If I go to Greece, I’ll have fun — you know, the Acropolis, Greek myths, and all. But if I go to Poland, I’ll be learning something. I’ll be doing something of my own.”
“I know you are very talented.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yes, Victoria. I’m so proud of how talented you are. I’m really happy you’ve found something that you like to do. Even if I find it horrifying.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I say. “Let me know who you find holding hands.”
Mom salutes me and closes the door and goes off to Mann’s Chinese Theater to the film premiere. I am glad that she’s getting invited to those things. I like seeing her now on ET or Access Hollywood. I like seeing her laugh so much. I love her telling me stories about walking the red carpet.
My mom is a funny lady.
My comfort level drops, though, once her Town Car pulls away, leaving me alone at the steps of the Beverly Hills Hilton.
I head inside.
“Guest or recipient?” the woman at the registration desk asks.
“Recipient,” I say.
I pull myself up to full height, posture straight. I open my evening jacket that I made myself out of some dyed fake fur and show that I am wearing a very nice outfit, a dress I created this afternoon. I let the woman know I look like a winner because I am one.
“Name?”
“Victoria Jurgen,” I say.
The woman scans the guest list with her finger and then crosses my name off and hands me a badge with my name on it.
“Where’s your guest? Is he or she coming later?” the woman asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m here alone.”
“Here’s your goody bag,” she says, and hands me a heavy canvas bag packed with swag from all the sponsors. Most of it is paper.
“Guess they killed a lot of trees,” I say.
A man standing behind me laughs and I laugh, too. I’m not so nervous anymore.
I am Victoria Jurgen. Winner.
I park my jacket at the coat check and wobble over to my table. I’m not an expert at walking in heels yet. These aren’t even high, but they’re higher than combat boots and sneakers. I am on a higher plane. They make me walk different. I am taller, and I’m already tall.
The slip of paper the woman gave me says Table 13. I scan the crowd for a familiar face. I see Max at the same moment that he sees me. He puts his napkin down and stands up as I approach the table.
“Wow,” Max says. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”
“Is that a compliment?” I ask. I know it is. But I want him to say it.
“Hell, yeah,” Max says.
My hair is growing in, and in general I am less scary looking. But I’m never going to be normal. I’m glad about that.
He moves out from behind his chair and pulls out my seat for me. I feel like a lady.
“Mom,” Max says, pointing to a short spiky-haired, sharp-looking woman with big silver jewelry. “This is Victoria.”
“Hi,” she says. “You’re a legend in the Carter household.”
The Carter family laughs, but no one explains why I’m a legend.
I wonder if Nelly is as much of a legend as I am. I doubt it as I watch Nelly and her parents approach the table. Max does not get up. He does not pull out her chair. He is not sitting next to her. He stays in his seat next to me.
There is something different about Max and Nelly. Maybe they had a fight?
“Hi,” Nelly says, and the inevitable introductions are made.
“Where are your parents?” Nelly asks, calling attention to the empty seat that doesn’t complete our table.
“Yes, I was hoping to meet your mother,” Nelly’s dad says. “I had a poster of her on my wall when I was in college.”
“I move alone,” I say.
“The mechanas can track packs of humans,” Max says, completing the line from Terminal Earth.
“What are you talking about?” Nelly asks, half-buttered whole-grain roll in her hand. She has to lean across the table to be included. “Are you guys speaking in comic-book code?”
“No, it’s from Terminal Earth,” I say.
“Oh, I never saw that movie,” Nelly says. “When I’m an actress, I think I only want to do romantic comedies.”
Max and I give each other a look.
I kick my shoes off under the table. I’m afraid I’m getting a blister from where the new shoe rubs against my foot. I listen to the ebb and flow of conversations. I’m not taking part — not because I’m isolating myself but because I’m listening.
Max makes an emphatic point to his parents about animal research, and his fork flies off the table and onto the floor. We both reach down instinctively to grab it, our heads knocking into each other. While still under the table, beneath the cloth, in our own private world, he takes his hand and touches my head where we have connected. His mouth is so close to me I could kiss it.
His eyes are holding mine. He notices my shoeless foot, and he slips the fingers of his forkless hand down under my toes and squeezes them.
“We’re up,” Max says as the master of ceremonies suddenly calls out our category and announces our names. We emerge from under the table to the sound of applause and are met by Nelly’s angry eyes.
I don’t bother putting my shoes on as we cross between the tables to the podium and receive the medal for our Garbage Art piece.
“Outstanding,” Max says to me.
I’m in the back seat with Max. I have my medal in my goody bag and my leg pressed up against him. Neither of us moves our bodies an inch in either direction. It is amazing how long you can go without even daring to breathe. The energy running between us makes a perfect electric current.
Mr. and Mrs. Carter’s conversation becomes a hum in the front seat. The light from the streetlamps occasionally highlights Max’s face. I steal glances at him. I love his high cheekbones. His awkward nose. The loose strand of hair falling from his ponytail.
I feel Max stealing glances at me. When I look at the floor of the car, I notice his hand perched on the edge of his leg, which is still pressing against mine. I notice the curl of the fingers and how open they are. Welcoming. My hands are in my lap. I can see how easy it would be to put my hand in the curve his thumb and forefinger make. How easy it would be to hold his finger, or lace mine through his. I can see how fun it would be. How meaningful. But I can’t seem to make the jump from my body to his.
What if he didn’t hold my hand back?
Besides, he’s with Nelly. Isn’t he?
“This is my house,” I say, breaking the silence in the back seat. After talking all night, after having so much to say to each other after not having spoken for so long, after monopolizing each other throughout the evening, in the car we didn’t speak at all. “Thanks for the ride home.”
“A pleasure,” Flint Carter says. “And I mean it, come by the editing room anytime.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Bye, Max.”
“Bye,” Max says.
I pause for a second, waiting for something else to follow, but it doesn’t. So I leave the car.
“Wait.” Max runs after me. My heart jumps. Max is running toward me. Then I notice my goody bag is in his hand. “You forgot your medal.”
“Brain freeze, I guess,” I say.
“So you’ll meet me at Pershing Square, for the Frankenfood protest?” Max says.
“Yeah, I’ll look for you, and you look for me.”
He stands there for a minute.
“Nelly and I are over,” Max says. “I just wanted you to know.”
Max shoots his head forward and kisses my cheek roughly with his slightly dry lips.
“See you,” he says. He runs back to the car.
He does see me. Because I’m not invisible anymore.
In my pile of opened mail are three college acceptance envelopes.
Better news than all three of those things put together is the trigonometry exam in my back pocket with the grade of seventy percent and Ms. Weber’s smiley face that says, Well Done!
But the most outstanding thing of all is the e-mail from my dad’s travel agent with my confirmed flight itinerary for Poland.
I, Victoria Jurgen, am going to be a Vampire and Bat Wing Apprentice.
It takes a lot of yarn to make a broccoli headdress. On the flyer for the Frankenfood protest march, it said to come dressed as a genetically modified food item. I have chosen to present myself as Franken-broccoli.
This time, going downtown, I know exactly which bus to take. I hop on the number 14, glaring at everyone who stares at me with my painted green face and my broccoli statement. I look around the bus, imagining which vegetable each person looks like most. I do this by taking the lines of their face and imagining how I would extend them and mold them.
There is a tomato in the back seat, a radish by the back door, and a yellow squash next to a spinach leaf by the window. I amuse myself with this until it’s my stop.
There is a large crowd of people assembling at Pershing Square. There are signs. Singing and music greet me. I begin to feel like an idiot for coming here by myself and not trying to hook up with Max earlier. I wonder if I’ll see him on the long walk to the convention center.
A guy with a large puppet dressed up as a corporate office drone with wads of toilet-paper dollars flowing out of its felt pockets says hello to me.
I don’t see Max.
“Where do I go?” I ask a girl with rings and widening earlobe holes and more tattoos than skin.
“Oh, you look great!” she says, and points me over to the table where other demonstrators are.
There are many more people there than I imagined. I get lots of compliments on my broccoli outfit.
A horn sounds and we begin to march.
The walking is slow. The chanting is loud.
“Do we want fish genes in our spinach!”
“No!”
“Do we want frogs in our carrots?”
“No!”
As we are walking, chanting, and singing, I keep scanning the crowd for Max. But after a bit, I get over it because the protest is exciting. It’s important. I am singing. I am broccoli.
We arrive at the convention center — firm, proud, together. People are giving impassioned speeches. In the distance a drum circle is beginning. There are stands of organically grown vegetables.
Hungry, I make my way over to one of the stands and get an organic veggie wrap. That’s when it happens. I feel a vacuum of silence. And then drops of water begin to rain down on me. I know something bad is happening. That’s when the roar begins.
“You need to clear this area,” a bullhorn blares. I turn around and I see the police horses and riot gear.
“What’s happening?” I ask the person next to me.
“I guess there’s trouble,” she says. “Better try to get out of here.”
Like a distant hum, the police begin to move in, sprays of water arcing above the crowd. People are pushing to get out.
I feel paralyzed. It seems wrong to run. It seems more sane to stand my ground. Like Dad says, Document, document, document. I pull my camera out and begin snapping pictures.
I am still standing there snapping away as the people — scared, crying, wet — push by me.
“Egg!”
“Max!” I say, following him down an alley. He pushes me into a doorway. We peer out and see the crowds running by.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
“Somebody threw a bunch of rotten vegetables at some scientists entering the convention center,” Max says. “The police decided to break up the protest.”
“It was so strange. The silence, right before everything went haywire,” I say.
Max finally takes a good look at me in my outfit and laughs. “Egg, are you in there?”
“Egg is gone. It’s just me,” I say. “Victoria.”
The shouting just outside the alleyway begins to subside. The only sound I can hear is the beating of my heart.
“You okay?” Max asks.
“I’m a fighter,” I say.
It’s something that I always said because Egg said it, but now I say it because I mean it. I am a fighter.
“I think it’s safe now,” Max says.
We emerge into the empty, trashed remnants of the protest. I start snapping pictures. The wet, running poster board. The spoiled food. The cops.
“You can’t be here, kids,” a burly officer says to us. “We’re clearing the area. Go home.”
“I’m with the press,” I say.
“Let’s see some ID,” he says.
Max and I pull out our Melrose Lion press cards and show them to him along with our student IDs.
“Freedom of the press,” I say.
Max gives me the thumbs up.
The police officer turns his back to us and moves along to help another officer.
“Let’s head toward the subway,” I say. “We can go to Hollywood and Highland and maybe catch a movie?”
“Cool,” Max says.
We head toward the nearest subway stop.
“Hey, I got into my first-choice college,” Max says. “I’m going to go to the Chicago Art Institute. And I’m going to submit my graphic novel to this new comic-book company. They’re looking for new stuff.”
Here amongst the ruins of the day, there is still time for casual conversation. It’s funny. Real life, just like in all those post-apocalyptic stories, goes on.
I put my hands to my head and feel my broccoli headdress.
“Does it still look okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, why?”
“’Cause I think it’s a good design. It sure took a beating today and it’s still on my head. Sturdiness is important in the movies.”
Max laughs.
“What about you? What are you going to do?” he asks.
“I’m going to work with my dad on his next movie in Poland,” I say. “Then I’m coming to visit you in Chicago.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Max says.
Then his hand catches mine and I don’t push it away. Instead I curl my fingers into his.
News flash:
For supporting me and my arty ways, I’d like to acknowledge my family — Lise, Vincent, and Laurent Castellucci; my most excellent friends — you rule most mightily, especially those who bought me a latte, lent me $100, or drove me somewhere; my agent, Barry “Mr. Fantastic” Goldblatt; SCBWI-LA Working Writers Retreat, Kerry Slattery and Skylight Books in Los Feliz, Margot Gerber and American Cinematheque, The Banff Centre Writing with Style Program, Andrea Kleine, Phil Glau, Collyn Justus, Carolyn Kellogg, Tim Wynne-Jones, Tom Burman at the Burman Studio, the Tuesday Night Writers Group (R.I.P.), The Alpha 60 Filmmaking Club, and Liz Bicknell at Candlewick; special thanks to my editor, the divine Kara “Kick-Ass” LaReau; and a very special thanks to Steve Salardino for suggesting I write a book called Boy Proof.
There’s more to read by Cecil Castellucci
CECIL CASTELLUCCI grew up in New York City. She is a writer, filmmaker, actress, and singer-songwriter, and engages in many other creative pursuits. She is also an avid science fiction fan — as a testament to her devotion, she lived for six weeks on Hollywood Boulevard, waiting for the opening of Star Wars: Episode One. “Sci-fi fandom is always given such a bad rap,” she says. “I’m a card-carrying geek and proud of it.” Cecil Castellucci is also the author of The Queen of Cool and Beige. She lives in California.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2005 by Cecil Castellucci
Cover photograph copyright © 2005 by Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval syste
m in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2011
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Castellucci, Cecil, date.
Boy proof / Cecil Castellucci. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Feeling alienated from everyone around her, Los Angeles high school senior and cinephile Victoria Jurgen hides behind the identity of a favorite movie character until an interesting new boy arrives at school and helps her realize that there is more to life than just the movies.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2333-3 (hardcover)
[1. Identity — Fiction. 2. Motion picture industry — Fiction. 3. Motion pictures — Fiction. 4. High schools — Fiction. 5. Schools — Fiction. 6. Interpersonal relations — Fiction. 7. Los Angeles (Calif.) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C26865Bo 2005
[Fic] — dc22 2004050256
ISBN 978-0-7636-2796-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-5428-3 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29