by Libba Bray
“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I knew what he meant. Dee had bloomed into a babe while I was still a babe-in-waiting.
“Just that she’s… I don’t know. Different these days. Maybe it’s the hair.”
And the body. And the face.
The sounds of Channel 11’s nine o’clock movie theme crackled over the line. I was suddenly more tired than I ever remembered being. “I should go. Your movie’s coming on.”
“Another Friday night well spent. Before I forget, let’s go to the mall tomorrow.”
“What for?” I asked, yawning.
“I want to get my ear pierced.”
This was news. “Why?”
“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Another Jared mystery. “Fine. But if you want to cut your hair into a rat tail, I’m drawing the line.”
A note of irritation crept into Jared’s voice. He was getting more and more touchy and secretive around me. “What’s wrong with getting an earring? Just last week you said guys with earrings were, what was the Teen Beat phrase you used? ‘Hotties.’”
“Chill. We’ll go. Pick me up at three, and don’t be late.” I let my legs tumble over my head and drop to the floor with a thud. My head still felt all tingly.
“Roger. Don’t worry about the college apps. We’ll get you in if we have to stage a musical benefit.”
“Thanks, Jared.” I sighed. I hit stop on my CD player and started hunting for Sarah McLachlan, my favorite pity party music.
“See you tomorrow,” Jared said, then added, “and Kar?”
“Yeah?” I asked, hoping he had some last-minute words of encouragement. You’re too brilliant for NYU to ignore. You’re so much cooler looking than Nan Tatum. You’re nothing like your loser family.
“Don’t get all mopey about this and listen to Sarah McLachlan over and over, okay?” There was a click and silence. That’s the trouble with best friends. They know you too well.
I know it sounds sort of pathetic, but as long as I was feeling like toe jam, I figured I might as well go for the total wallow. That’s why I opened the closet door and found my father’s old photographs. They were hidden deep inside a shoe box I kept hidden on a shelf behind a collection of Barbie dolls missing various limbs. I was kind of hard on Barbie.
I opened the box and began sorting through the photos. I’d cataloged them according to mood and scene, like a good director would. There were family shots, vacation pictures, still lifes, and nature studies. I pulled out a still life first. Waxy fruit spilled out of a wooden bowl in front of a window. He’d gotten the light just right, so that the banana looked yellow and perfect. No bruises. No icky spots on the apples.
My dad could’ve been a top-notch photographer. Instead he’d spent his days working in an office, overseeing data entry clerks and stuffing his dreams down where no one could see them.
The phone rang downstairs, but I ignored it. I pulled out a picture of Mom from the family stack. She was seated in our old living room with the beige sofa. Isis was curled up in her lap. She couldn’t have been more than three. Mom looked young and beautiful with a closed-mouth smile and red lipstick. Something about the photo unsettled me. Like there was something missing. And then the sadness crept up on me like a ghost. It was my favorite way of torturing myself, looking at Daddy’s photos. Like if I looked hard enough, he’d show up in one of them and spring to life again.
Isis gave a quick knock and barged in my room. “Mom called. She needs you to pick her up from that party. And she said to bring your camera so you could get some airtime of her reading fortunes.”
The last thing I wanted was to pick up my mom from some geriatric party in Silver Shores—or to get footage of her in action predicting life changes and maybe a toe bunion. “Can’t Lila do it? I’m comfy.”
Isis held out a piece of paper. “I’m just the messenger. Here’s the address.”
Reluctantly I grabbed the address: 1024 Stonington Lane. Deep in the heart of exclusive Silver Shores. I grabbed my keys and started to change, then thought better of it. Why should I care what a bunch of rich old geezers thought of me? In silent protest I kept my Daffy Duck slippers on, readjusted my scrunchie, and set off with my camera to record ten minutes of extreme boredom.
chapter 3
It took twenty minutes to cross town into North Greenway, Land of the Beautiful People. The headlights of the Jesus mobile threw a beam onto the cutoff for Silver Shores, A Luxury Community, as the sign said. No duh.
I drove far into the maze of mansions, each more beautiful than the last. Stonington Lane popped up on my right, and I followed it to 1024. A massive, newly built house with arched windows everywhere stared down at me from the top of a small, amazingly landscaped hill. From the car I could see people floating by those windows inside the well-lit house.
I closed my eyes for a minute and imagined what it must be like to live that way, with everything clean and neat and totally in place.
The front door opened a sliver, and a couple in formal wear ran out and around the back. Once they’d disappeared behind a tall hedge, I made my way up the hill with my trusted party cam strapped across my shoulder and rang the bell. Even the doorbell sounded happy to be there. Party sounds beat against the windows. Looking down at my feet, I wished I could rethink the shoe thing.
A woman about my mom’s age answered the door. She had her blond hair pulled off her face in a gold clip and a tan courtesy of the Silver Shores Country Club. She gave me a wary smile. It looked familiar for some reason, but I couldn’t think why.
“Hi. I’m Kari Dobbins?” I said. It came out as a question. “My mom is here. She asked me to come film her reading.”
The woman opened the door wider. “Oh. You’re the tarot card reader’s daughter.” That wasn’t exactly how I wanted to be remembered for posterity. “Come on in. She’s out back.”
I stepped into a dream. The foyer was tall and open. A waiter whizzed past me, carrying a silver tray filled with yummy food things. Now this was a party straight out of the movies. Cut to our heroine, we’ll call her Kari, in a long, flowing evening gown. She tap-dances into the party on the arm of her tuxedoed date. Camera pulls back on a wide shot. They glide. They twirl. They run hand in hand up to their hostess in white, who says, “So nice to meet you, Kari. I’m Mrs. Tatum.”
Cut, cut, cut!
I stared at the woman. Tatum? As in Nan Tatum’s mom? This couldn’t be happening. The scene in the living room confirmed my worst fear. This wasn’t some old-timers club. This was Nan Tatum’s Sweet Sixteen party! I was surrounded by the coolest cliques of Greenway High: the preppies, drill teamers, cheerleaders, jocks, do-gooders, and other assorted people I did not want seeing me standing there like a video geek in my Daffy Duck slippers.
Mrs. Tatum was leading me through the house to the white-tented backyard, right into the thick of the party. “How old are you, Karen?” Mrs. Tatum asked absently.
“Sixteen,” I whispered, trying not to look at anybody. I could hear snickering, and I knew I wasn’t being paranoid to assume it was at me.
“Oh. You’re Nan’s age. Do you two know each other?” I didn’t get a chance to answer. “Nan, sugar, here’s your friend Karen.” Nan poked her head out from a cluster of fans, then disappeared again.
“I’m speaking with a few of my guests, Mother. Be there in a minute.”
My mind clicked into overdrive. I could pretend I was sick, then wait for Mom in the car till my mortification blew over, which would be sometime around 2010. A voice from my dreams stopped me cold.
“Hey, Kari.” Connor materialized in front of me. He cocked his head and took in my slippers. “I like your choice of footwear.”
“I was sort of in a hurry,” I babbled, pulling my camera in front of me like my old security blanket, Mr. Cuddles.
“What’s with the camera? Wait, don’t tell me. You’re doing an exposé on teens forced to dress up for boring Friday night bashes.�
�
Boring? It looked incredible to me.
“Actually, it’s a new FOX show: Sweet Sixteen 911. I’m following the medics who are sedating anyone caught doing the chicken dance. It could get ugly.” Okay, well, my mouth was still working, even if the rest of me was comatose with embarrassment.
Connor laughed, and a warm, syrupy feeling bubbled in my veins. “You’re pretty funny. You’ll make a great director someday.”
How was it that he could make me feel good even when I was so clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time? Why was he even talking to me?
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.”
Stop the presses. Connor was glad to see me? Had they run out of people to mock? I was making myself a little dizzy. “You are?” I murmured.
Connor looked around, leaned in, and lowered his voice. “Yeah. I mean, this party is in danger of flat lining. All these Sweet Sixteens are the same. The girls play princess. There’s a spastic DJ with a wedding playlist. The food gets catered by Levenger’s or The Manor. Big cake-cutting ceremony. Lots of Polaroid shots. And then parting gifts. So…unoriginal.”
“Right,” I said, not because I knew any better, but because I wanted him to keep leaning over me.
Jen Appleton was getting an eyeful of Connor and me from the dining room. A minute later Nan stood beside her, giving me that small, pained look girls get when they can’t decide how to wring your neck without coming off as too mean. When I looked back again, Nan was nowhere to be seen and Jen was right beside me. The old send-in-the-second-in-command trick. Jen would cut me down while Nan stayed safely, sweetly in the background. True to form, Jen barreled right in between Connor and me.
“Connor. Nan wanted me to tell you that she’s gonna cut the cake now.”
Connor flashed me a knowing look. “What did I tell you?”
“Excuse me?” Jen snapped.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Connor said, arms crossed.
“Connor,” Jen whined. “You have to be there when she cuts the cake. It’s a moment. And you’re her boyfriend…of the moment,” she added, like a threat.
“You can cut it out, Jen. I’ll go when I’m ready.”
Sigh. Connor had traveled beyond babedom. He was approaching godlike status.
Jen changed tack and turned to me. “So. What are you two talking about? It’s Crystal, right?”
“Kari.”
“Right. Did you find your invitation after all?”
A girl in a black, velvet Jessica McClintock dress spoke up. “Isn’t your mom the fortune-teller?”
Oh, God. There it was. The weirdo connection again. I didn’t get a chance to answer. Jen had taken the stick and was running with it faster than Fric and Frac on a good day.
“That’s your mom? The lady who was putting party food in her purse?”
My usual smart-aleck defenses were down. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Instead Connor did the talking.
“Hey, Jen. Isn’t that your broomstick double-parked outside? Maybe you should move it.”
Jen didn’t even register the dis. “I mean, does your mom really believe all the hoodoo guru stuff, or is it all an act?”
There was no way to answer that. I was starting to deflate.
“She seems nice,” the black-velvet girl said, shrugging.
“Oh, I’m sure she’s really, really nice,” Jen said with emphasis. Sometimes there’s no greater insult in the world than nice. “But anyway, is that why you’re here? To turn the cards for her? Or are you, like, getting some home movies?”
I don’t know what came over me. There’s just so much humiliation a girl can take before she snaps. I was tired of being thought of as an Odd Dobbins. I was sick of being treated like a joke. The time had come for action, even not-so-well-thought-out action.
“I’m making a documentary!” I blurted out, wondering where the words had come from even as I said them.
Jen looked clueless over the five-syllable word usage.
“A movie. I’m making a movie about Sweet Sixteen parties for my application to film school.” I was? I mean, I was! I didn’t know where the idea came from, but the longer my words floated in the air, the more I liked them.
Maybe it was my imagination, but the place seemed to get quieter. People were listening to me like I actually had something to say. So I just kept saying it. My mouth had a will of its own. “I’ve got some footage from a few parties in Charleston and one in Atlanta. From all over, really. People just keep inviting me. I’ve got some really interesting stuff.”
Connor gave me that killer smile. “Well, check you out!”
The student body president, a guy named Ted Hodges, spoke up. “What a cool project. You thought that up yourself?”
Yeah, right this minute, in fact.
I nodded. “I haven’t decided yet whether I’m going to NYU, USC, or UCLA. I guess it depends on how this turns out. I’ve been talking to them, and they’re really into it.” It was such a bogus thing to say, I couldn’t believe it leaped out of my mouth.
“It’s cool the way you just go after what you want, Kari,” Connor said appreciatively, as if fifteen other people weren’t suddenly listening in on the conversation. “Can I get you a Coke or something?”
“Sure,” I managed. The happiness was so huge and sudden, I wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Velvet Girl pulled me aside. “Would you come to my party and do the document thing? It’s next month.”
A redhead from the basketball team yelled to me from across the patio. “Mine too. It’s not till July, though. Is that too late?”
What had I gotten myself into? I wanted to salvage my pride, not start a revolution. But I have to admit, the attention wasn’t exactly unpleasant.
One of the cheerleaders tapped me on the shoulder. “I’d love for you to come to my party. It’s in May. Maybe we could hang out at school this week and talk about it.”
Jen was still eyeing me like chicken gone bad. “So who’s starring in your movie?”
“Well, um, actually,” I began, “there is no star in a documentary. It’s supposed to be a real slice of life about farmers in Idaho or blues musicians or, you know, Sweet Sixteen parties.”
A guilty feeling was spreading through my gut. I’d crossed over the line from creative butt saving into full-fledged lying. Before I could feel totally icky, though, an idea buzzed in my brain.
Why couldn’t I do a documentary of a Sweet Sixteen party? More important, why couldn’t I do a documentary of my own Sweet Sixteen party? A film about a Sweet Sixteen would be a great way to make myself stand out on my college applications. And if it was a documentary, I wouldn’t have to worry about scripts or rehearsals or any of that stuff. I’d even have a chance to show Connor that not all Sweet Sixteen parties were boring and unoriginal. I was going to throw a cool party. No cheesy Polaroid shots. No lame DJ. All it would take was careful planning. And that was my specialty.
“Well,” Jen said, crossing her arms. “If you’re so into this Sweet Sixteen documentary thing, how come you didn’t have one yourself?”
It was the perfect lead-in. “Actually, it’s in the works,” I heard myself saying. “I’ve been, uh, getting the details together.” I was buying time now. I needed to get home and make a list, to plan my attack. For the first time that evening I was feeling really, genuinely hopeful. I couldn’t help adding, “That’s where I’ll be interviewing people about, like, who they are, what they want to be, what it’s like being sixteen. That kind of stuff.”
Velvet Girl was beside herself. “You have to invite me!”
“That does sound really cool,” said a girl in an elegant green shift.
“Hey, don’t forget about us,” a varsity baseball guy yelled from his cluster of buddies.
Even Jen was getting in on the act now that half her peer group was psyched. She tucked her hair behind her ear and spoke in a low, sugary voice. “Listen, don’t tell Nan, but I really wanted her to invite yo
u tonight. I mean, if it had been up to me, I definitely would have. Keep me posted about the movie, ’kay?”
Connor sneaked up on me in that ultrasmooth way of his and handed me my soda. “I hope I make the list,” he said, and gave me those puppy dog green-grays. My heart screamed, You are the list.
“Guess we’ll see,” I said, raising my glass of Coke in a toast and taking a sip. I missed, and Coke dribbled down my chin. I wiped it really quickly and hoped he hadn’t noticed. I put down my glass and hoisted my camera onto my shoulder like I’d done a million times before. Only this time it felt different, like I was somebody else. “I’m just gonna get a few shots of my mom,” I said sheepishly.
“That’s cool. You’ll get to have your own mom in your film. Nice.”
Okay, now I felt a little smarmy about the whole I’m-making-a-documentary thing. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough person to go out with Connor. “Yeah, it is,” I said, hoping my skin wasn’t getting all hot and blotchy. “Well, gotta get to work.”
I tossed back my hair and tried to act like I really knew what I was doing. Kari Dobbins. Together filmmaker. Cool chick. Nonfreak.
It wasn’t so impossible. With some planning I could put together a Sweet Sixteen party that was so amazing, people would have to reevaluate the Dobbins family. I’d make my dad proud.
Salvation was only one party away. I just had to convince my mom to let me have it.
Mom was laying the wu-wu on pretty thick with one of the chaperons, a middle-aged lady in a sequined dress that practically screamed “former prom queen.” In contrast, my mom had on what I called her gypsy moth outfit: layers of colorful, wrinkled skirts and tunics, beads and bangles, and a hot pink Indian print T-shirt wrapped around her head like the top of an ear swab. Mom leaned forward and took the sequined lady’s hand in hers.
“Louisa. Do you have gallstones?”
Louisa seemed to think Mom was moving too far into the personal space for comfort. She put her hands on her lap. “Gallstones? I don’t think so. Doesn’t it say anything about what my husband is buying me for our anniversary?”