by Summer Day
‘Well,’ I said, ‘break a leg in New York. The drink machine awaits...’
But before I could turn he leant over and kissed me and the last thing I expected was to kiss him back, especially as he was all smoke-addled and I was sweaty.
Proof your love life can change in a second.
‘I always wanted to do that...’ he said. Then we heard the squeak of unoiled hinges and Mark walked out from behind a nearby locker. Trust Mark to ruin my day. He glanced at Joel knowingly, then turned around, and walked off in the opposite direction.
Joel smiled at me like the kiss hadn’t meant a thing, said ‘adios amigos’ and left.
‘How rude,’ I wrote in the diary that night and when I told Mouche she agreed. ‘They just love you and leave you. What’s the point of that?’ I started to cry. Mouche consoled me.
‘This is so unexpected...’
‘I know,’ Mouche said. ‘...but was it good?’ she asked.
‘Well, it would have been...if we hadn’t been interrupted. It was kind of special because it was the first real kiss I’ve ever had apart from my dozens of stage kisses, as you know, and most of them were with Peter Williamson...’
‘Here, I have something for you. I found it backstage when I was going through the costume boxes.’
‘The vintage jeans...but don’t I have to obtain them via a date?’
‘Obtaining items from so-called dates will not a self-determined woman make...except maybe in France. So, I’m going to add that the rules of ‘obtaining items’ can be amended as and when we see fit. I think the unexpected encounter you had with Joel can definitely count as a date and you just need a little help with the items. Anyway, these jeans are perfect for treasure trove item three.
We both tried them on. They were a little long for me but I just rolled them up.
I got to keep the guide that night. I sat up in my canopy bed like Pollyanna thinking about Joel and how best to describe what had happened. A little part of me was seriously annoyed. For ten minutes he’d taken me out of my triple threat Princess-hating world and taken me into the possibility of Loveland. And in Loveland, it seemed to me all the rules, the entire plan, went out the window. It’s like that old disco record Mrs Mouche plays all the time when she’s doing the vacuuming once a year.
Love was way complex.
But in the end, I kept it simple.
‘Keep it simple sister,’ Wednesday was learning to say. I know because Mouche taught her and there is nothing funnier than a three year old with glitter face saying; ‘keep it simple sister,’ in a bluesy voice. Thom is just chomping at the bit to take her on at Starz; I think he’s given up on Mouche and me, but what you really need in the biz is an agent who believes in you.
‘No’, I replied when Mouche asked me if I’d heard from Thom since the Alien audition, ‘I really need him to believe in me...’ I whined a few seconds later.
‘What you need is to believe in yourself,’ Mouche said. In any case, Thom wanted Wednesday to audition for a commercial that will be ongoing and set her up for life, financially (or at least for college), if she gets it.
‘We shouldn’t exploit her talents,’ Mouche said.
‘But couldn’t we ask your mom?’
‘You know what she’ll say,’ Mouche replied.
Somehow, Thom convinced us to take Wednesday to the open call the next day. Thom rang and rang until we relented and Mouche agreed to take Wednesday to her first Kidz audition without telling her mother who, ‘didn’t want anything to do with that exploitative business,’ now that she had her own career and love life back on track.
If Wednesday gets it, the commercial will set up her college fund. Then Mrs Mouche might be happy about it, and glad we arranged to take her. Besides we both love any excuse to drive to the heart of Los Angeles.
I was wiping sparkles and face paint off Wednesday’s face.
‘I want more,’ Wednesday said.
‘No Wednesday. Kids wearing make-up look like little hussies. They want to see you looking natural!’
Wednesday was immediately put out and crossed her tiny arms and legs and snuggled up to Mouche.
‘Okay,’ I said, finally deciding to use the curling tongs on Wednesday’s hair. Mouche’s mother had forbidden me to do this to Wednesday’s golden baby locks long ago. But Mrs Mouche was away on a business conference and wouldn’t be back until Sunday so I was in charge.
‘Okay girls, I trust you,’ Mrs Mouche assured us as she flounced off the front porch, her suit freshly dry-cleaned, her make-up newly applied, her hair blow waved. Mrs Mouche was really a great role-model for young girls. She had lifted herself up from male and financial disaster.
‘Out with the old and in with the new,’ Mrs Mouche always said.
Once she had left for the airport we were safely on our way.
‘I hope this works out better for you than it did for me,’ I tell Wednesday.
The casting was in Santa Monica.
After we sat with Wednesday for the morning while they took her photo and listened to her say a few cute words, we had the whole afternoon to ourselves and we went to Third Street Promenade for lunch. Then we drove to Venice again and checked out the market stalls all afternoon.
‘This is fun,’ Wednesday said, in full sentence. Mouche wiped ice-cream off her baby sister’s face and smiled.
At home that evening, Wednesday slept deeply.
‘She’s exhausted,’ I said to Mouche.
‘I know,’ Mouche said, ‘I hope we did the right thing.’
‘Of course we did,’ I told her.
‘I can’t wait to have children one day. Well, I mean, I’d like to get married first, and of course, I wouldn’t plan on kids until I’m at least twenty or thirty.’
I smiled. I knew Mouche would make a great mother.
‘But not yet,’ I told her.
‘No, not yet,’ Mouche joked.
‘Now, getting back to the Boy-Rating Diary,’ I continued...
Of course I had to re-capture the story of the previous date as well as update the encounters section with the brief but slightly beautiful moment between Joel and me.
Mouche said she was too emotionally exhausted to re-live the episode with the Princesses or my speed date with Joel. Besides, she said, ‘I have a meeting to prepare for tomorrow...I have the best idea, the funniest idea in the whole world....we’ll beat those skanks at their own game and get our dates sorted out in the process...’
I must admit, I was not one hundred percent sure what Mouche was up to, but she promised to brief me at 8am the next morning before school.
‘Oh, and I have news to tell you regarding Jack Adams, film school tragic.’ Mouche said, brushing her teeth. ‘We’ve developed a mutual love for All About Eve and things have progressed. We may even decide to go skating together if I can drag him away from his blue screen,’ Mouche said.
‘I’ve only got my one interlude with Joel to write up and now he’s skipped town just when we were on the verge of becoming epic.’
We both laughed as I continued writing in the original Boy-Rating Diary.
‘This should have come at the end,’ I wrote. ‘I don’t care about gathering stupid treasure chest items anyway, I never really did.’
When it was Mouche’s turn to write up her chapter, she scribbled next to mine in pink fluoro; ‘big mistake Pheebs, always keep your eyes on the prize and remember the rules of the game.’
But what were they?
Mouche seemed to be changing them as we went along and sometimes I wondered if she was telling the whole truth. I saw her flirting with Ethan Mandel whole days before she ever mentioned it in the boy rating notes under ‘Mouche’s Boys: (sub-heading) Boys I’ve kissed this year.’ It was getting a little bit confusing, for sure.
Then I stuck in the note with Joel’s name on it and when I looked on the other side, where the tape met the paper, I noticed Joel had scrawled his number and his email, just in case, he wrote, you’re in
New York.
Chapter 17
Perfume
We’d all arranged to gather the day after we received Teegan’s note. The Princesses waited for us in the park next to the mall near the picnic alcove opposite Sunrise High. It was as good a place as any, with a picturesque view of the town, not far from the lakes. In the distance you could see the gated community where Jet and Mark and the Princesses lived. The house of Mark’s relatives (he resided with his aunt and uncle) was famous for its secluded opulence; its tall, winding security fence. Instead of a duck pond, it was rumored his uncle, who was a wealthy businessman, had even installed a moat.
‘A moat, like in one of those old fairytales?’ Brooke asked Jet.
‘I guess,’ Jet told Brooke who told Teegan who told me.
‘I heard there are two swans that swim around in it all day and sometimes they disappear for minutes at a time under the drawbridge!’
‘The drawbridge?’
‘It hides the dark and eerie swampland that inhabits the backyard! It’s even rumoured that the actual house is haunted,’ Brooke said.
‘I bet it’s for security purposes,’ Freya added.
‘The rumor?’
‘No, the moat.’
The house (‘more like a mansion’, Mouche commented, the first time she saw it) was quite the most opulent in Sunrise. It was built high in the Sunrise Hills, about a half-hour drive from the cul-de-sac Mouche and I inhabited. Of course, Jet lived next door to Mark but his house wasn’t quite as lavish. Jet only had a pool and a tennis court but it was huge and grand and garish because his mother was a fashion designer and his dad a major shareholder of Sunrise Bank.
This possibly accounted for Jet’s elevated status in his own mind, according to Teegan.
The first meeting had begun.
It was the second last day of the week and we didn’t have rehearsals for Rocco and Julie so nobody was actively squabbling. Mouche arrived with the hem of a costume hanging out of her tote; Teegan was not far behind, talking on her cell with her notes jutting out of her antique jeans. Freya paused by the gate to check her lip gloss. Brooke turned up a few minutes later painting her fingernails and Tory arrived...help us...with an open guide: the one we had discarded, the one Mouche and I loathed, The Good Girl’s Guide to Behaving like a Man and Getting what you want.
Mouche looked worried, ‘Tory is not supposed to be seeking out her own subversive dating literature,’ she whispered to me under her breath.
Tory just smiled pleasantly and said, ‘I’m re-educating myself. I’ve seen what’s happening with you two and I want to be knowledgeable as well...’
Mouche leant over and said, ‘well, there’s no need for that, Tory. We’ve done the reading and we can tell you everything you need to know about our system...’
Teegan and Freya and Brooke and Tory all smiled and looked very relieved as we nibbled the delicious food in front of us.
A truce had been grudgingly entered into and we were all acting sisterly.
Freya even offered to help with the costumes and passed a skirt to Brooke who was attempting to gather a ruffle. Brooke held the hem and waited with baited breath on every word Mouche said. Mouche really had a way with monologues. When she spoke, people listened.
If we’d been of the generation that went to Girl Scouts when they were little, I’d say it was kind of like what I imagine a Girl Scout meeting to be like. Everyone brought something extra, apart from the obvious attitude; we brought extra food and extra smiles and extra humility to make the late afternoon seem more like a suburban picnic than a gossipy teenage girl fest.
Mouche brought cookies she’d baked the previous night; I offered muffins in a pink cake tin that I’d made with pink frosting and white chocolate; Teegan brought a bag of non-fat chips (‘because I don’t cook, my mother says it’s a waste of time, a woman needs to develop ‘real skills’) Tory laughed as she placed her basket of fruit on the table because she knew ‘real skills’ meant ‘other skills’ which meant ‘bedroom skills’.
Mouche rolled her eyes because she was the chair of the meeting and it took a while for everyone to stop chatting.
Mouche began:
‘I’d like to announce that Tory (who raised her hand) will be taking the minutes of this official meeting between us; a group of girls now to be known officially as The ex-HSYLs. Freya will be responsible for passing out snacks. And I would ask everyone to be as polite as possible whilst attending our official meeting. After that, I guess, all bets are off.’
Brooke giggled. Tory chewed gum. Teegan rolled her eyes and Brooke searched for her misplaced contact lense and Bible just in case she needed to swear on something (in a good way). I’d noticed Brooke had become way more religious this week.
‘Firstly, I’d just like to say, Mouche and I have been forced to unleash upon our small society, The Plan. And since we’ve had more secret dates this month than you all have had hot dinners, the plan obviously works.
But we are not evil girls and since we are all pre-women the time has come to declare a truce and forget past wrongs all of us may have caused each other...’
Teegan and Brooke looked magnanimously at me and Mouche, but Mouche understood the importance of straight-talking in the sales pitch and continued on...
‘The Plan is essentially a secret and if you (you meaning Phoebe, Teegan, Freya, Brooke and Tory) tell anyone else, it will be less of a girls club and all out war. Besides, I have to warn you, our plan for dangerous dating is so good that if you tell anyone else, everyone will want to do it and there will be anarchy...’
Freya looked quite alarmed and Teegan mouthed, ‘what’s anarchy?’
Brooke mouthed back with her cupie doll mouth, ‘chaos, famine, destruction, the end of the world, dummy...’
Mouche continued to talk whilst I flexed my ankles and pretended to look serious, ‘before we start on the topic of...Teegan’s discovery...(Teegan beamed with pride) I’d like to thank everyone for arriving promptly...’
The meeting continued and everyone’s face lit up after grievances about school, boys and clothes had been aired:
‘I would now like to officially ask you all to join our Plan for The Year of Dating Dangerously. Please take the time to read it well and hide it even better. The meeting place is here; the guide book (Teegan presented a large blank faux-leather bound pink diary – empty – our original one was hidden safely). This diary will be kept at all times, in a common place; a group locker ostensibly used for sports and other sundry items but which shall now be referred to as ‘the secret locker’ – spoilage (i.e. treasured gifts) from the dates can be kept there (we weren’t too worried because we didn’t think a new plan would bring any but of course, we’d underestimated the resolve of the overindulged, who would make it their mission to outdo us and especially each other...)
The girls in ‘our group’ took the paper in silence and read it wistfully. This is what it said:
RULES FOR THE YEAR OF DATING DANGEROUSLY
1. A kiss is meaningless, remember the higher prize and use what you can to get it. Let everyone know you’ve staked your claim, including the object of your affection.
2. Romance is so yesterday, a date today is so different from a date in the sixties. Pre-men expect a casual hook up. So why should we care? Act like a guy and care as little as they do.
3. For the secret rules of this game ‘a date/ hook up’ must consist of a beginning middle and end and all details have to be written up in the Boy-Rating diary which is kept in a mutually hidden place. All secrets must be revealed in this guide. All secrets to all of us, all the time. At the end of the school year, if we all agree to go public with an edited version, it can be uploaded onto a shared blog.
4. Proof: there needs to be proof of the date in the form of photographs for our treasure chest, gifts, love tokens (and especially red roses) as these are indicative of true love.
5. The girl needs to make every effort to impress the boy; after all, around h
ere, any decent guy is a wanted commodity.
6. The ultimate love token comes in the form of a love letter. Whoever gets the most love letters and gets Mark Knightly to take her to the prom, wins the competition.
7. All details must be shared; contributions to be made by all parties, with an overview and progress report due on the last Friday of every month; meeting to re-convene here.
8. Any previously dated man must not enter our mutual place of work.
9. All resources have to be combined in our secret box (AKA ‘the Treasure Chest’) to be bestowed upon the winner.