by Jen Brady
“JoJo, wait!”
I shook my head and kept moving as Ted trailed me, my laptop tucked under his arm. I spotted his car (we’d gotten a great spot right outside the level 2 entrance, since most people were sleeping in after a late night of New Year’s Eve partying) and focused on the Porsche’s shiny black bumper.
I got to the passenger’s side, but when I pulled on the handle, the door didn’t open. I waited for Ted to hit the unlock button, but the click-click didn’t sound. His footsteps got louder, then his arm wrapped around me. I leaned in to him, the useless laptop bumping my shoulder from its position under his other arm.
“We can redo it,” he murmured.
I pulled back and looked up into his face. “Are you crazy? We’ve been working on it since summer. We can’t recreate the entire thing in two-and-a-half weeks.”
“Maybe we can. It would mean a lot of full days and not much sleep, but I bet we could get Megs and Mya on board. I’ll buy another camera, and you, me, and Bethany can take turns filming from different angles so we can get the scenes shot faster.”
“But school starts again tomorrow.”
He gave me a weak smile and shrugged the shoulder holding the laptop. “Then we skip.”
If only it were that simple.
“My mom would never go for that, and neither would your grandpa.”
Everything we’d worked so hard for was suddenly and unequivocally out of reach. There was no way I could afford film school without a hefty income increase from the channel. And that wasn’t happening without a massive influx of subs and views. Winning Lights, Camera, Vance! had been our best shot at that.
“We can do some cross promos,” Ted said. “I wonder if Siblings Pranking Siblings would be down for something. Our demographics would cross over well, and I think they’re past the five-mil mark. They’re in Maine, so the travel wouldn’t be too bad. Or we could start posting every day.”
“Ted.”
Neither option would work, at least not fast enough. They were slow-burn tactics that would take years to generate enough momentum to make a noticeable difference. I had a year and a half until I needed to set up a dorm room and attend my first class. I might as well sign up for community college and give up the film school dream. I was going to be stuck in Concord for the rest of my life at this rate.
“Or we could get some sponsors.”
“Ted.”
“Lizzy Chu Games did a series of sponsored videos for that makeup subscription company. I could message her and ask—”
“Ted!” He shook himself out of his rambling and looked down at me. “It’s over.”
He looked pained, too. He’d put almost as much work into that movie as I had. His stakes were lower, as his grandpa could afford to send him wherever he wanted for college. Lately he was even talking about checking out Trinity College in Dublin or LSE in London, although NYU had always been his dream school. But he’d really wanted the subscriber spike placing in the contest would have given us as well. He’d always been way more into subscriber numbers and view data than I was.
“There’s got to be a way . . . .”
He trailed off, and we stood in silence in the cold parking garage. I tucked my hands into the sleeves of my hoodie and wrapped my arms around myself. I stood by my decision not to wear a coat that morning. I’d rather be cold for the thirty seconds it took to run from the car to the mall entrance than roast inside a heated store with a winter jacket on. But now that we stood in the cold, I wished I’d worn the coat. Or that Ted would unlock the car doors instead of trying to figure life out in the middle of level 2 of the Concord Crossings parking garage.
“Hey, wait!” Quick footsteps on the pavement sounded. “Wait up!”
Ted turned, and I leaned around him. It took me a second to realize it was Angry Scruffy Bench Guy . . . AKA Bhaerly Believable . . . AKA my new passive-aggressive email pen pal Rick, looking much less Angry but Scruffier than he had the day we’d met him.
His wavy brown hair went everywhere, as if he hadn’t bothered brushing it before he left the house that morning.
Ted tensed. “Seriously? What do you want? We’re dealing with a crisis here.”
Rick stopped a few feet from us. His facial hair had grown since we’d seen him last, and it now resembled a nearly-official beard rather than lazy scruff. He wore a gray T-shirt with the same unbuttoned flannel over it, but his jeans were lighter and full of more rips than the ones he’d worn before. I had no idea where he’d come from. Evidently, he was a mall regular?
“I have an idea. Actually, more like a favor to ask.”
Because, naturally, when you scream at someone in the middle of the mall on Christmas Eve eve and then bash them in their own YouTube comments, the next thing you do is ask them for a favor.
“How about no?” Ted replied. “Come on. Let’s get home and figure this out. We can throw together something different. It doesn’t have to win. It just has to place or catch Vance’s eye enough to get a mention.”
Ted started to walk around the car to the driver’s side. The click-click of the doors unlocking sounded. I put my hand on the door handle.
“Please,” our stalker said, taking a couple of steps toward us. “Just give me one minute.”
I sighed. As much as I wanted to jump into Ted’s car and squeal out of there, we did sort of owe Rick. We had ruined the shot he’d planned on nabbing for months. Granted, he’d done a pretty poor job of warning people to watch out, but we’d still (in our defense, unknowingly) wrecked it and caused him extra work. The least we could do was hear him out.
I stepped away from the car and turned. “Okay. One minute.”
“JoJo,” Ted protested.
“One minute,” I repeated, holding up an index finger. “Go.”
Rick startled. “Oh. I didn’t think . . . .” He seemed flustered for a few seconds, like he hadn’t expected us to agree, then cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you’d let me borrow your camera. Mine’s broken, and—”
“Nope,” I decided. “See ya around.” I turned back to the car door.
“Hey!” he protested. “You said I had a minute.”
“And you said your camera’s broken. I’m not lending expensive equipment to someone who already broke theirs.”
“I didn’t break it. The switch stopped working. I promise I’ll be really careful. I just need to borrow it for a couple of days. A week tops.”
The thought of my camera in a stranger’s hands made me feel a panic attack coming on. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Okay, one day. I just need to get one interview and some extra shots. I promise I’ll treat it like a newborn baby.”
“Sorry, not interested.”
I opened the car door, but Ted held his hand up. “Hold on.”
I met his eyes over the top of the Porsche and gave him a questioning look.
“I don’t think you should blow him off.”
“What?”
“There’s another solution here,” Ted said, frowning. “You have a camera. He has a half-finished movie.”
“Film,” Rick corrected, which earned him an eye roll from Ted.
“What if,” Ted went on, “you worked together and used your equipment to finish his submission? Then you could share the credits and shout-outs. He gets a movie filmed, we still get millions of views and subs. It’s win-win.”
“Win-win?” Ted had to be crazy. “You want me to spend hours working on some boring documentary?”
“Hey!” Rick interjected.
I gave him the briefest of apologetic glances. Big mistake. His offended puppy-dog eyes tugged at my heartstrings. Jeepers, his eyes were big and brown and beautiful. My heart flipped into my throat. Why did he have to be so cute? It would be much easier to tell him to get lost if my eyes didn’t keep locking onto his.
“Sorry. No offense.” Then I turned back to Ted. “Not happening.”
“Could I rent it from you then?” Ric
k asked. “I can’t afford much, but I could give you something. Anything.” Wow, was this guy desperate. It almost made me feel bad for him. “Name your price.”
Ted let out something that was half-laugh, half-snort. “No way, man. She barely lets me or Bethany touch her camera. The only way you’re getting to use it is if one of us mans it. I’m not hanging out with you, and there’s no way Bethany would work with a stranger. So it’s Joanna behind the camera shooting your footage or nothing.”
“Ted!” I exclaimed. Was he seriously offering my services to Angry Scruffy Bench Guy? I was not going to waste my time filming a boring documentary that wasn’t even mine.
“I’ll give you credit,” Rick said. “On the entry form and everything. It has a box for contributors. I’ll list your channel.”
I was caught deciding between the lesser of two evils. There was no way we could recreate The Witch’s Curse or slap together something new in the less than three weeks we had left. That was wishful thinking on Ted’s part. Also probably a bit of ignorance as to how much time the editing process eats up, given that I did most of the actual work while he lounged around blowing people up on a game with banana-headed avatars.
The movie was lost, and that would sting for a long, long time. But when I let go of my emotions and focused objectively on what I needed, it wasn’t actually our movie. It was a link to JoJo+Teddy sent out to all thirty-some million of Vance Sanders’s subscribers.
Did it matter in the long run what entry that link was attached to?
Maybe not.
It wasn’t ideal—not even close—but it was a way to salvage the situation and still potentially walk away with exactly what I needed.
“Full creator credits.”
“Excuse me?” Rick tilted his head as if he hadn’t heard me correctly.
“I don’t want to be listed as a contributor. I want full creator credits. In the creator box, right next to your name.”
He bristled. “No way. Just because I borrow a camera from you, doesn’t make you—”
“Then no.” I turned to get into the car, praying he’d fall for my bluff. I needed any sort of shout out I could get from Vance Sanders, even one in tiny font that only thousands of viewers would click on instead of a prominent link that would attract millions. But I had to fight for the best I could get.
He didn’t say anything. I started to slide slowly into the car, my mind humming with potential next negotiation moves. Maybe I needed to cut my losses and try again next year. Could I gamble and take out a massive amount of student loans and then next year enter—
“Wait. Yes! I’ll do it!”
I turned slowly, battling the conflicting emotions of excitement that I might not be sunk after all and dread at getting involved in a project that wasn’t my style with a guy who thought my creative passion resulted in drivel. I somehow managed to maintain what felt like a fairly cool demeanor.
“Okay then.” I nodded and pulled my phone out of my hoodie’s front pocket. “Put your number in my phone, and I’ll text you times I’m available to shoot.”
Rick took it from me eagerly and typed in his contact info. “Thank you so much.”
He handed my phone back, and I stashed it back in my pocket. Ted leaned inside the car to set the laptop on the console between the seats.
“I guess I’ll see you around,” I said.
Rick grinned at me, and the dimple in his left cheek popped. He held his hand out.
“Partners?”
Everything inside me screamed to get in Ted’s car and order him to speed me away from the situation. I’d learned a long time ago that the only people I could truly trust to get me to film school were myself and Ted. Even my dad had walked out the door three years ago, taking my entire college fund with him.
How could I count on a stranger who hated my YouTube channel when I couldn’t even rely on my own family members to help me achieve the most important dream I’d ever had?
But thanks to Mya’s pettiness, this stranger was my only chance.
I reached out to take his hand and shake on it. His palm was somehow warm, even after he’d stood outside in the freezing parking garage for several minutes. The moment our hands touched, a tingle went up my arm. Before I could even process what that unwanted reaction had meant, he started to pull away and his thumb gently grazed against the back of my hand, sending my heart into tiny flutters.
Was I attracted to Angry Scruffy Bench Guy?
I couldn’t be! I didn’t even like him as a fellow human being, much less a potential crush. He was annoying. And made boring documentaries. And called my channel drivel.
He nodded and smiled as he backed away.
And he had a cute smile with that dimple and perfectly straight, white teeth.
I was going to regret this on so many levels.
10
RICK
I DIDN’T KNOW IF SHE’D show or not. I kind of assumed she’d change her mind after she had time to think through our arrangement. But at 3:29 on Thursday, an oldish red Camry pulled up in front of my house, and Joanna emerged. A quick map search had told me it would take seventeen minutes to get from her house to mine, so given that it was a school day for her, she must not have even hesitated, which surprised me.
I’d been watching out my second-floor bedroom window, so I knew she was here even before she got out of the car, but I forced myself to count to ten after the doorbell rang before I walked downstairs to let her in.
I couldn’t look desperate. That would give her all the power, which, yes, she had in this situation, but she didn’t need to know that.
I figured she’d come alone based on our conversation from the parking garage, but I still breathed a sigh of relief when I opened the front door and Laurence was nowhere to be found. No way could I have handled working with that guy. He was so obnoxious, I’d for sure end up saying something to make them ditch me (and my film), and then I’d be back to square one.
“Hi,” I said, trying to be friendly and all.
“Hey,” she muttered, concentrating on whatever she was typing with one thumb on her phone.
She stashed her phone in her backpack and turned her eyes upward to meet mine. My chest ached. Her sharp, sassy gray irises had turned a mottled, cloudy-day gray. They were dull, hollow, sad even. On her videos, her eyes are always so animated. They shine, twinkle, glisten—all those cheesy ways you can describe joyful, expressive eyes.
Dropping out of the contest was killing her.
She didn’t want to work on someone else’s film; she wanted hers. I’m sure she and Laurence thought whatever fail-at-humor they’d produced was hilarious and LOL-worthy, a comedy deserving of an Oscar or something. And it was gone.
If I turned on my computer one day to find half a year’s worth of work wiped away, I’d be devastated, too. That I could understand, even if I didn’t think the contents of her movie would have been anything worth being devastated over losing. Her backup mishap had no doubt saved the world from more whoopie cushion pranks and/or toilet paper waste.
But it still had to hurt.
Instinctively, I reached out to touch her arm. My fingers were about an inch away from making contact with the sleeve of her hoodie when I remembered we weren’t friends . . . or even acquaintances. We were rivals—rivals that didn’t even particularly like each other. My hand hovered in the air for a moment, then I pulled back and ran it through my hair, trying to act like it was natural to reach out to comfort someone and then not follow through.
“I’m sorry about your movie,” I said instead.
She brushed past me and invited herself into my entryway. “You don’t have to say that.”
Not buying my sentiments then. Understandable. I’d ragged on her YouTube channel pretty hard.
I closed the door behind us and motioned to the stairs. “My room’s upstairs.”
She started up the stairs ahead of me, even though she wouldn’t know which door at the top led to my room. I had to
hurry to catch up to her. She paused at the top of the stairs, looking back at me, and I gestured to the right. She walked down the short hallway and stopped at the closed door, waiting for me to open it. I reached around her to do so and caught a whiff of her strawberry-scented shampoo that made something stir in my chest.
I opened the door. She stepped in, glancing around as she made her way to the middle of my room, and I followed. An awkward silence stretched on as I tried to figure out how to skip the small talk and get right to work on my film.
“Well,” she finally declared, “this is an interesting way to live.”
“What is?”
Then I looked around my room, seeing it through a stranger’s eyes. I’d gotten so used to my organized chaos that the piles of clothes and papers didn’t faze me. I knew where everything was . . . mostly. But to an outsider, I probably looked like a total slob.
“I mean, I’ve been busy . . . with . . . college stuff.” Did that sound cool or nerdy? And why did I care what she thought?
She raised her eyebrows. “Aren’t you on Christmas break?”
“Well, yeah, but . . . ” I trailed off as warmth climbed up the back of my neck. I probably should have straightened up a little before she came over—or at least shoved everything into my closet or under the bed. “Being a Sophomore is busy, and I’ve been working 24-7 on my submission.”
Wow. Did people even say 24-7 anymore? And it was probably way uncool to brag about having college Sophomore status when I was only a year older than she was and still lived at home. I had to get off this topic before she called me on it.
“Speaking of my film . . . .”
I led her to my desk and wheeled my computer chair out of the way, managing to trip over one of the feet (because I’m smooth like that).
This was not going well at all. But I guess it didn’t matter what kind of impression I made since she seemed to have already made up her mind about me, my film, and my channel. It wasn’t like the messy state of my bedroom could make her like me any less.