Boy Shopping

by Nia Stephens

  “Maybe he’s looking for a fix,” one of the cheerleader types said when Kiki asked where he had gone. Everyone but Kiki laughed.

  One of the players—Kiki thought his name was William—took pity on her. “I think he went to get another drink.”

  “Thanks!” She headed back to the house and found Josh in the den, doing a keg stand. The crowd had already reached the count of twenty when she crossed the threshold, and he was still going strong. She decided to go look for Camille again, and perhaps the kitchen, when she got drawn into a conversation with some people standing by the stereo.

  “Best group ever with a color in their name?” a tall, red-haired girl asked her. It was the first friendly question a girl there had asked her, so Kiki had to answer.

  “Pink Floyd.”

  “Is that what Pink’s band is called?” one of the lacrosse boys asked.

  “No way!” Kiki wanted to wash his mouth out with soap. “They were one of the most creative rock bands ever. Haven’t you ever heard of The Wall?”

  They shook their heads. The boy who had asked about Pink sneered. “They can’t be that good if no one has ever heard of them.”

  Kiki thought that was one of the stupidest things anyone could ever say. “Music is a business, and a band doesn’t necessarily succeed because they’re the best. Sometimes it’s just because they produce the right sound at the right time. Right as in popular, not right as in good. Pink Floyd was completely ahead of its time in terms of—”

  “Hey, Josh,” yelled the Pink fan. “Can you come shut your girlfriend up?”

  “Show some manners, Reg,” Josh said, weaving his way over. “Be polite to the ladies. Now what’s your damned problem?”

  “She’s getting all hot and bothered about some stupid band.”

  “Pink Floyd is not a stupid band!” Kiki insisted. “They are legendary! Just because you’re so ignorant you’ve never heard of them—”

  “Chill, girlfriend,” said the redhead. “You need a drink. Is that keg tapped?”

  “I don’t want a drink,” Kiki said, fuming. It would have bothered her less if Josh’s friends all hated Pink Floyd rather than the fact that they didn’t even know who Pink Floyd was. But even that bothered her less than the way they all seemed to agree that if a band was any good, they would know all about it. That really was ignorant, and it wasn’t an attitude Kiki could tolerate very long. “Josh, do you know who Pink Floyd was?”

  “Is that Pink’s last name?” he asked. “I’ve heard of her.”

  “See? Nobody has ever heard of these girls,” Reg said.

  “Just because you haven’t doesn’t mean nobody knows who they are. And there were no women in Pink Floyd!”

  “What’s the big deal?” Josh asked. He looked genuinely confused. “I mean, they’re just a band.”

  “It’s not about the band, Josh! It’s about being so close-minded that you think you and your friends are the entire world.”

  “Huh.” He nodded, then patted her on the shoulder as if she were a dog that could be soothed by petting. “I’m going to get you a drink.”

  “Don’t bother,” Kiki said. “I’m feeling kind of tired. Have you seen my friend Camille?”

  “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure she’s not going anywhere any time soon.” The way the guys all laughed told Kiki what Camille was up to, even if she didn’t know who Camille was doing it with. She thought about asking more questions, but trusted that Camille knew what she was doing. She was a big girl, and she always kept plenty of condoms in her purse, just in case.

  “Ah. Okay.” This night had seriously gone downhill. “And I guess you can’t drive right now, huh?”

  “I probably could, but there’s no way I could pass a Breathalyzer if I got pulled over. Could you wait another hour? Or I could get someone else to drive you home.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ll find a ride.”

  Josh pulled her aside, well away from his friends. “I’m really sorry. If I had thought you’d want to go home so soon, I wouldn’t have done that keg stand.”

  “No big deal,” she said, speed-dialing Jasmine. Her friend didn’t pick up. She knew that Sasha was with Thomas somewhere, and wouldn’t want to be interrupted. That left her other best friend.

  “Hey, Mark. Would you mind coming to get me?”

  Kiki expected Mark to make a big deal out of it. He had to know that another boy was involved. Even before his recent weirdness, Mark would have made fun of her for getting stuck like this. But he hadn’t had a terribly good time at Laura Keller’s, especially after Franklin got puking drunk. Mark had had to watch over him in the bathroom to make sure he didn’t drown in the toilet. He was glad to have a good excuse for passing the responsibility for Franklin on to someone else.

  “You have any Pink Floyd in the car?” Kiki asked, tilting her seat back.

  “Of course. Check the CD case.” Kiki slipped Dark Side of the Moon into his nice new CD player. It was probably more expensive than the car itself, and the sounds of the world-famous album pouring from the speakers soothed Kiki’s jumbled emotions.

  “You know they’re doing Dark Side of the Wizard tomorrow at the Belcourt.”

  “Hmm?” She had been doing the breathing exercise again, and it had done its job. She wasn’t as pissed off at Joshua anymore. The music thing wasn’t that big a deal, after all, and even if Josh’s friends were idiots, he was still a decent guy. After all, he could have flipped out when Kiki called a guy to come pick her up, but he was perfectly fine about that.

  “There are all these weird moments when Dark Side of the Moon seems to describe what’s going on in The Wizard of Oz, if you start the music at the right time. Like when the wicked witch shows up, it’s on the line, ‘You don’t know which is which and who is who.’ Stuff like that. It’s supposed to be really cool. Franklin and I were talking about going to see it.”

  “That sounds like fun.” She wondered if Josh would like to see it, but he would probably be doing volunteer work.

  That’s when it hit her: volunteer work was the same thing as community service, which was the punishment Kiki’s mom liked to give for underage, first-time offenders. Was Josh doing hundreds of hours of community service because he wanted to, or because he had to? Did Kiki want to go out with someone who might be a criminal?

  SHOULD KIKI TRY HIM ON?

  Turn to page 181 to see if Joshua’s her perfect fit.

  SHOULD KIKI PUT HIM BACK ON THE RACK?

  Turn to page 189 to see what happens if she tells him goodbye.

  Think Josh is too good to pass up, even with a shadowy past? Then keep reading!

  Chapter 6

  Welcome to the Dark Side of the Moon

  The next morning—well, early afternoon—when Kiki rolled out of bed, she gave Josh a call.

  “How would you like to find out what’s so great about Pink Floyd?”

  “Sounds good to me,” he said cheerfully. “I’m glad you got home all right, even if you didn’t dig the party.”

  “It was okay, I guess, but there is something I have to ask you about. Something someone said at the party.” Of course, she’d heard about it long before the party, but she didn’t see any reason to tell him that. “Were you arrested for dealing heroin?”

  After a long pause he said, “Not exactly.”

  “How do you ‘not exactly’ get arrested?”

  “I did get arrested, but not because the police thought I had drugs. I got arrested because I was driving home from a party and I realized that the road seemed a lot curvier than it was on the way to the party, so I pulled over to sleep it off. A cop turned up around five in the morning. I had sobered up by then, but apparently you’re not supposed to sleep in cars on the side of the road. I got a little angry, because I’d pulled over so I wouldn’t endanger anyone, and here’s a cop hassling me for that. So then they decided to search the car. They found a bag of creatine powder—I was trying to bulk u
p—and basically just decided it was heroin. They wound up dropping all the charges, but that was about the worst hangover of my entire life.” Josh laughed at the memory.

  “So you didn’t get sentenced to community service?”

  “Of course not. Is that what you thought? That I had to do volunteer work?”

  “Well, yeah, I wondered.”

  “I won’t say that I’m only doing it out of the goodness of my heart. I’ve got some selfish reasons too. I’ve got my eye on college applications. For the Ivy League, just being good at lacrosse might not be enough. But no one is making me do community service.”

  Kiki had to laugh. She’d thought he was a criminal, but the worst thing he was guilty of was worrying about college. Two hours after their discussion, she was getting into his car.

  “Hey,” he said, kissing her hello very chastely on the cheek. When that first kiss turned into a second, sexier one, giving him a taste of her new cake-batter flavored lip gloss, and a third, flavored by the mint he had eaten on the way to pick her up, Kiki broke it off.

  “Josh, my mother is weeding the gardenias right over there.” She jerked her head toward the shadows on the far side of her front porch.

  “She isn’t watching us.”

  “Hello,” Kiki said firmly, removing his hand from her lap. “I am not interested in testing that. And we need to leave anyway if we’re going to get popcorn.”

  “All right. Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He winked at her, and she had to smile back.

  But she wasn’t smiling later in the movie theater when he started fondling her knee, before Dorothy Gale fell into the pigpen while the movie was still black-and-white.

  “Cut it out,” she whispered, elbowing him in the ribs. She glared at him to show him she meant it. They arrived late, so that the only seats available were near the front, where everyone could see them by the light reflected of the screen. There was a better-than-even chance that Mark and Franklin were in the crowd somewhere. Kiki had searched in vain for Franklin’s platinum head, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t there somewhere. And The Wizard of Oz was rated G, so there were plenty of kids in the theater, and Kiki was not interested in giving them a show.

  Josh sighed and gave up. He slumped in his seat, making the springs creak. He fidgeted with his watch, turning the In-diglo on, then turned his cell phone on. Several people, including Kiki, shushed him when it beeped to let him know that he had messages.

  “What?” he whispered back. “I’m bored.”

  “SHHH!” hissed half a dozen people. He glared over his shoulder before settling back into his seat. Then popcorn began flying in their direction.

  “Who’s doing that?” Josh shouted, jumping to his feet. “You need to meet me outside, asshole!”

  Kiki slid farther down into her seat, wishing she were invisible. Her standards for theater behavior weren’t high— Franklin had been known to throw popcorn once in a while, and she and Mark were terrible about whispering snarky comments during movies. But whispering and goofing around was one thing. Challenging people to fight was a whole new level. And he made no effort to hide how bored he was, even though he knew that Kiki really wanted to be there.

  “This is bogus,” Josh growled. “I’m outta here.” He stood and looked at Kiki. “You coming?”

  Kiki shook her head. She didn’t want to go anywhere with Josh, now or ever.

  He didn’t seem surprised—or disappointed.

  “Fine. Enjoy your old-ass movie and your weird-ass music.” Joshua stomped up the aisle and out of the theater.

  Kiki tried to focus again on the movie, but someone plopped into the seat beside her. Mark. Great, she thought. “Here to tell me my date was a complete jerk?” she whispered. “’Cause I already worked that out for myself, thanks.”

  “Um, no, actually, I was going to apologize. That was me and Franklin throwing the popcorn.”

  Kiki punched him in the arm, but not as hard as she could. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “You know us too well,” he said, giving her a one-armed hug. It was the most comfortable moment they had shared since the night he had asked about Jasmine. “Come sit with us.”

  She followed Mark to the back of the movie theater and settled into her seat. On-screen, Technicolor had just enlivened the world of Oz. Kiki and Mark sat a few rows behind Franklin and his favorite groupie, Lizzie. They were making out energetically. Mark glanced at Kiki, who gave him a little nod. He flicked a piece of popcorn at Franklin’s head.

  Franklin didn’t notice, so Mark threw a few more. The man sitting in a row between him and Franklin didn’t seem to mind; he was already shielding his ten-year-old’s eyes from Franklin and Lizzie’s spectacle. But when a couple of pieces hit Lizzie, it was her turn to jump to her feet.

  Mark and Kiki ducked, but it didn’t help. Lizzie threw her entire bag of popcorn in their general direction.

  “You four: out!” hissed an usher, waving his flashlight at them. They slunk out in embarrassment, Kiki clutching her bucket of popcorn to her chest as if it was a teddy bear. As soon as they hit the pavement outside the Belcourt, the contents of the bucket hit Lizzie and Franklin.

  “You guys suck!” Lizzie wailed, running down the street.

  “What are you going to do to defend your girlfriend?” Mark teased Franklin, who was red-faced with a combination of anger and amusement. “Challenge us to pistols at dawn?”

  “Super Soakers at Jamie’s party tonight,” Franklin declared. “After practice.” He spun on his heel and chased after Lizzie.

  “You’re on,” Kiki called after him. It wouldn’t be the first time they had chased each other through the woods with water guns, and it wouldn’t be the last. She and Mark wandered up the street, back to his car, their hands not quite touching.

  “You know, we really do make a good team,” Mark said once they had climbed into the Karmann Ghia.

  “Yes, Mark. I do know.”

  Then, because there would never be a better moment, Kiki kissed him, gently, sweetly, on the lips.

  “Why didn’t you do that six months ago?” he asked her, pulling away.

  “Why didn’t you?” She kept her voice light, but her question was serious.

  “Because you’re my best friend.” His eyes were just as serious. “You’ve got Jasmine and Camille and all. I have Franklin. I couldn’t just say, ‘Hey, let’s get it on.’ What if you said no? Everything would be screwed up.”

  “You don’t think things have been more than a little screwed up lately? Like when you asked if Jasmine was free?”

  “I was going to ask you out. Out out, I mean. But then, when the moment came, I froze. I just asked the first question that came into my mind. I had some idea that Jasmine could tell me whether you were interested, but mostly I was just afraid.”

  Kiki wanted to be angry with him, but, in the end, it was fear that had kept her from asking him out. Fear that he would reject her, fear that the rejection would kill their friendship. And it cheered her to know that their friendship meant just as much to him as it did to her.

  “Good thing one of us is brave, huh?” she said, kissing him again. It didn’t turn wild and forceful like Josh’s kisses. It was the kiss of two people who knew each other inside and out, slow and lingering and playful, arms wrapped around each other so tight Kiki wondered if they would ever let go.

  “I have an idea,” Mark whispered, winding a couple of dreadlocks around his fingers. “Let’s go over to my house and think up a strategy for killing Franklin later.”

  Kiki smiled up at Mark. She knew Mark well enough to know that whatever he might say about strategy, he was thinking about something else entirely. “I can’t think of anything I would rather do.”

  This wasn’t the happy ending Kiki expected, but she doesn’t mind. Want to know what would have happened if Kiki had decided to dump Joshua instead of going to the movie with him? Turn to page 189. To try out another boy, turn to page 57.

  Think K
iki should dump Josh before she gets wrapped up in his dirty laundry? Then read on!

  Chapter 6

  There Is No Dark Side of the Moon

  When Kiki finally rolled out of bed the next morning, she checked her cell phone. There was a text from Camille letting her know she’d gotten home all right. Kiki texted back Me 2. She frowned at the phone a minute, then she gave Josh a call.

  “You know, Josh, I’ve been thinking, and I don’t think we should see each other again. We don’t actually have all that much in common.”

  “Is this just about the music thing? ’Cause I have to say, I think I felt a real connection.”

  “Of course it’s not just about the music.” Kiki could date someone who didn’t like Pink Floyd—in fact she had, at least twice. Classic rock was not everyone’s gig. But Kiki could not imagine dating someone who spent all his time with such mindless losers, the kind of stereotypical prep school kids who gave all the others a bad name. And she didn’t appreciate the way he was downing beer while she was left to fend for herself with a bunch of snotty strangers. She wouldn’t drag a date to band practice, and didn’t appreciate that Josh was unable to find any time during the entire weekend to spend alone with her. And, yeah, there was the whole dealing heroin thing.

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll see you around. Nice knowing you, Kiki,” he said.

  “You, too. Good luck with your lacrosse and stuff.”

  “Yeah. Later.”

  When the phone rang a little while later, she thought it might be Josh calling her back. Instead it was Mark, asking if she wanted to go to Dark Side of the Wizard. Kiki persuaded her mother to leave her gardening chores long enough to drop her off at the Belcourt.

  She spotted Franklin, Mark, and Franklin’s groupie Lizzie through the glass doors of the movie theater, buying popcorn. She hurried to the ticket-buyers’ line and was surprised to find Josh standing near the front. He was slumped in a baggy jacket as if he was afraid someone would recognize him.