Everyone's a Critic

by Rachel Wise

  I sighed a big sigh. Apparently Hailey did not have a problem with saying whatever she thought. Maybe she should answer the Dear Know-It-All letters. I looked down at my dark, dull clothes. Maybe she was right. Maybe she had more of a knack for fashion than I gave her credit for. Sporty Soccer Player Becomes Famous Stylist.

  “And there he is,” she said, jumping up and down. “Pinch your cheeks. I read somewhere that it brightens up your face.”

  I finished packing up and putting away what I needed. I stood up again. I was not pinching my cheeks. People in old-fashioned English novels pinch their cheeks. Samantha Martone does not.

  Michael was walking with Jamal Williams, one of his friends from the baseball team. He waved to us and walked over. I was about to say a nice, normal “Hi” when Hailey shoved me in the back, pushing me toward Michael. Now, Hailey may have meant this to be a gentle shove—a shove that says to the person getting shoved “Go for it” or “You can do it”—but sometimes Hailey doesn’t know her own strength.

  “Oof!” I couldn’t help but yell out, and suddenly I was standing about a centimeter away from Michael Lawrence. I did manage to get a whiff of the shampoo he must have used and the scent of Tide, which has become one of the best smells in the world for me. I hope I smelled just as good. I certainly didn’t mind being so close to Michael, but I wanted to be close on my own terms. I stepped back and smoothed my hair, hoping my cheeks weren’t as red as cherries. What was Hailey thinking?

  “Easy there, Trippy,” Michael said, smiling, because I guess he’s just used to me being clumsy.

  “You okay?” Jamal asked in a worried way, genuinely concerned.

  “Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Guess I tripped on something,” I said through gritted teeth, giving Hailey a sideways look.

  “She’s fine and I’m fine. We’re all fine!” Hailey said in an extra-cheery way. “Sam, what was that thing about the play that you wanted to ask Michael?”

  My mind immediately raced. What exactly was she talking about? I opened my mouth, but I really didn’t know what to say.

  “You know, that thing . . . about . . . the . . . play?” she said really slowly.

  “Right, yeah!” I finally said. “The play. I guess we both need to see the play.”

  “Can we talk about it at lunch? Jamal and I have a huge test in language arts first thing. We wanted to go over a couple of notes before class.”

  “It’s a date!” Hailey called out.

  Michael looked at her, and then back at me.

  “Okay, um . . . well, see you both then,” he said as he and Jamal walked away. My head was spinning. I watched Michael and Jamal until they rounded a corner.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Hailey?” I said as we both started walking toward our classes.

  “What do you mean?”

  I stopped walking and faced her. “Well, it’s just that you shoved me toward him and I was planning to bring up the play soon anyway. Now he thinks we’re both meeting him at lunch to talk about the play, which is weird.”

  “Look, you were so bummed out when he wrote that story with Austin. I’m just trying to help things get back on track with you two. Do you want the same thing to happen all over again? The early bird gets the worm.” She obviously cared a lot about me and Michael, but I just wasn’t sure about her approach.

  “So I’m the bird and Michael’s the worm?”

  “Exactly,” she said, looking pleased with herself and not getting my sarcasm at all.

  I started walking again. “I don’t know, Hailey.”

  “Just trust me. He won’t be able not to think about you.”

  “I just think we’re being a little too proactive.” I took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “Sometimes you get a little charged up about things. I just want to handle this my own way.”

  “I do not get too charged up about things! Are you just going to stand there and let life pass you by?! I’ve been watching you two dance around each other forever.”

  We came to our classrooms, mine next to us and hers across the hall. “I guess you’re right,” I said, looking down.

  “Attagirl!” she said, and slapped me on the back.

  “Ow.”

  “Sorry,” she said. We walked into our classrooms. I just didn’t have the heart to go any further with the issue. Girl Tells the Truth. Best Friend Spontaneously Combusts. At least that’s what it felt like would happen. I didn’t realize I was this wimpy. And I didn’t realize Hailey was so bad at taking what she dishes out.

  At lunchtime I walked into the cafeteria and looked around. I was hoping to see Michael before I saw Hailey so she wouldn’t get all “proactive” on me. He was sitting at a table with Jamal and a couple of other guys from the baseball team. Maybe he forgot about our Hailey-arranged lunch date. I looked around for another place to sit and heard my name, or my rather lovely nickname, from behind me.

  “Hey, Pasty, I was just hanging with them until I saw you. Want to sit here and talk about the play?”

  My shoulders, which must have been next to my ears, relaxed. Finally I had Michael all to myself in what felt like a really long time.

  “Yes!” I said, a little too enthusiastically.

  “Should we wait for Hailey?” he asked. That’s just one more thing I like about Michael. He’s always a nice guy.

  “No, she’ll be here soon,” I said, kind of hoping she’d skip lunch for some unknown reason. I felt guilty as soon as I had the thought.

  We put our bags down at the table and stood on line. We both decided to get the organic option—rice-and-bean burritos with fresh salsa. Yum. After we brought our trays back to our table, I saw Hailey walk in. I hoped she wouldn’t come and do something like shove my chair even closer to Michael’s than it already was. She seemed like she was walking toward us, and then she suddenly sat down with a few girls we were friends with. I caught her eye and motioned her over, but she just gave me a thumbs-up and started chatting it up with our friends. That’s Hailey for you. Just when she does something to drive me crazy, she makes up for it big-time.

  “So, the play is in two weeks,” I said. “When should we see it?” I hoped he wouldn’t think this was too forward of me, or that I was asking him to see it with me.

  “Well, when were you planning to see it?”

  I hadn’t really thought about the logistics of this. Okay, if I’m being honest, I did think of the logistics and thought that Michael and I should go to see the play together, like an almost date, even if it might be a working one. I even thought of the perfect outfit to wear, a flowing white peasant blouse, black leggings, and Allie’s black suede boots if she’d let me. The way Michael asked his question, it did not seem like he had the same plan in mind.

  “Oh, well, since my sister’s in it, probably opening night?” I said, wondering if I should have just said I didn’t know.

  “Great! That’s just what I was thinking,” he said, and took a big bite of his burrito. He couldn’t talk, because he was chewing, so I took a bite of mine and sweated out the next few seconds while I wondered what he was thinking. I finished my bite first.

  “So we’ll both go that night?” I ventured. Hailey would be proud of me for being so proactive.

  He laughed, “No, no. I thought you meant that you would go then, and I could go for the second performance. It would make a much fairer review. That’s what a lot of professional reviewers do—they go a few times to get a well-rounded picture. We wouldn’t want to give them a bad review if opening night didn’t go so well but the other two performances did.”

  As much as it made my heart hurt, the journalist in me knew he was right. We had to see more than one performance, and it probably didn’t make sense for the two of us to go to both. I nodded back at him, not able to summon the energy to actually say yes.

  “So you go opening night and I’ll go to the Saturday matinee. I believe we have a plan,” he said with a pleased look on his face, taking another bite of burrit
o as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He grinned and held out his free hand for a high five.

  “Awesome. Sounds perfect,” I said, trying to muster up a smile and gave his hand a slap. I saw Hailey out of the corner of my eye and she gave me another thumbs-up, probably thinking I was having a blast. I examined my half-eaten burrito, but I wasn’t really hungry anymore. Hailey was going to love hearing the real story. Young Reporter Attempts to Win “Proactive” Medal. Fails Miserably.

  Chapter 5

  INNOCENT GIRL DISCOVERS SHE’S A BIG FAT LIAR

  I didn’t talk to Hailey for the rest of the day. I knew she was dying to know how my conversation with Michael went, but I just needed time to think about it. She left the cafeteria before me anyway, and then had soccer practice right after school. I was sitting in my bedroom, turning it over and over in my head. What could I have done differently? Should I just have come out and said to Michael, “Why don’t we go together on opening night?” But the truth is, I didn’t want to have to be so . . . well, honest.

  An IM from Hailey popped up on the screen.

  Are you avoiding me???

  Of course not! I sort of lied. I wanted to spend more time with Hailey, and normally I couldn’t get enough boy talk, but lately I’d been wishing she’d back off from the Michael thing a little.

  So are you and Michael going to the play?

  Sigh. I spun around in my desk chair a few times before giving my superexciting answer. Not.

  Yeah, on separate nights, I answered.

  What??? So bummed for u!

  It’s ok. Better for the review, I wrote back. But it wasn’t okay. For some reason, I didn’t feel like telling that to Hailey just yet.

  After dinner Allie walked around the house “in character,” dressed up as Anita from West Side Story, wig, fake eyelashes, and all, rehearsing her lines and songs. She said it helped her get into character to walk around the house as if she were Anita. I decided it would be a good time to hang out in my room. I noticed my mom was hidden away in her office as well. I decided to get started on the Dear Know-It-All letter. Here went nothing. I gently opened the fragile, freshly washed notebook paper it was written on and read it again.

  Dear Too Honest, I typed.

  There isn’t anything wrong with being honest with your friend.

  Then I just stared at my computer screen. I had no idea what to say, and we needed to run something for next week.

  The following day we had a meeting in the Voice office with Mr. Trigg. Trigger wanted to see how his crazy idea was going. I didn’t want to sit next to Michael. It just made me sad to think that my one chance of going to a play with Michael Lawrence was already dead in the water. I got there first, as usual, and just as I was sitting down, there he was.

  “Hey there, P,” he said, slightly out of breath, and he plopped himself right down next to me. His hair fell into his eyes and he tossed his head in a particularly adorable way. This only made me feel more sorry for myself.

  “How’s the switcheroo going, lads? Easy peasy?” Mr. Trigg asked. Everyone grew quiet. Nobody, in fact, said anything.

  “Hello out there?” he said. “Does that mean everything is hunky-dory?”

  “Well, it’s definitely harder than I thought,” said one of the sports reporters now covering news.

  “Yeah!” said an arts reporter covering sports. “I never knew it was so complicated to cover a sports game.”

  “I knew this was going to be a disaster,” I whispered in Michael’s ear. He just smiled; then Mr. Trigg looked at me. I hoped he hadn’t heard what I said.

  “Ah, see? I’m keeping you on your toes,” he said to the group. “The worst thing for any journalist is to be too familiar with a subject beforehand. That stops you from asking interesting questions, thinking about things from all angles. Change is good. It helps you get closer to the truth.”

  I hope so, I thought. Afterward, Mr. Trigg had us break up into groups and discuss any problems we were having with our stories. I couldn’t discuss the problem I was having with my Dear Know-It-All letter and Michael and I hadn’t started our piece yet, so we just listened to some of the issues other people were having. Some of the arts writers complained that in a news story they couldn’t voice their opinions. Duh, I thought. Some of the newswriters complained that writing a sports story didn’t allow for any research, which some of the sportswriters said was wrong. All in all, it seemed that no one was really happy. I wanted to wait until everyone was gone so I could talk to Mr. Trigg and check and see if there were any new Dear Know-It-All letters.

  After our meeting was done, Michael turned to me. “You walking out?”

  “Not yet. I have to ask Mr. Trigg something.”

  Michael stared at me for a moment. I’ve always wondered if he’s known all along that I’m Dear Know-It-All, but he’s never come out and asked me.

  “Oh, okay. I’ll catch you later, Paste,” he said, and bounded out the door.

  Yeah, later, like in after the play that we’re not going to together.

  “So what can I do you for?” Mr. Trigg said after everyone had left. “How’s the column treating you?” He took a sip of tea out of his mug, which had a British flag on it, and leaned back in his chair.

  I sat down in a chair near his desk and took a deep breath. Suddenly I felt tired. It had been an exhausting week, but I wasn’t even sure why.

  “That good, huh?” he said, and winked at me while taking another sip of tea. “Tea?” he offered.

  “No thanks. I’m okay, but I have a tough letter that I want to answer this week. I didn’t think it was so tough, but the more I think about it, the more I’m not sure how to answer it.”

  “So why don’t you answer another letter?” he asked. This was weird. Mr. Trigg was all about going after the hard stuff.

  I considered this for a moment. “I think I just need more time,” I said, getting up and going over to my secret box. I looked toward the door to make sure no one was coming in to catch me red-handed. Then I opened it and two new letters were sitting there patiently, waiting for me to take them out.

  “What’s the difficult one about?” Mr. Trigg said.

  “Honesty. A girl’s friend asked her for her opinion and she gave it, but then the friend told her she was wrong. She wondered why the friend asked for her advice in the first place,” I said, sitting down again and stuffing the new letters in my bag.

  “Ah, the old ‘Tell me what you really think’ trick,” he said, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “So what’s hard for you about answering it?”

  “I realized that I have a hard time getting through the day being truly honest. I feel like I’m always hiding the truth to protect others’ feelings. Do people really want to hear the truth?”

  “Do you?” Mr. Trigg asked.

  I bit my lip and thought for a second.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I do.”

  “Well, maybe that’s why you’re a good writer. You’re not afraid of hearing the truth. You might be afraid of telling it, though.”

  After I left Mr. Trigg’s office, I couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation I had with him. If I wasn’t afraid of hearing the truth, why was it so hard to tell it sometimes?

  I stopped by Hailey’s practice, and she was just finishing up. I waved. She waved back.

  “Want to walk home together?” I called. She nodded and ran off to get her things.

  She joined me and we walked for a minute in silence. I could hear the wind blowing through the trees. The spring air smelled sweet and fresh, and put me in a better mood. “Do you always tell the truth?” I asked her after a while. She was fishing something out of her bag. She stopped and looked up, a pack of gum in her hand.

  “Sure, I guess. Well, maybe not always.”

  She held the pack out toward me. I took a piece, unwrapped it, and put it in my mouth. It was one of those weird flavors that Hailey always buys, like kiwi-melon or something li
ke that. I preferred straight-up mint, but chewed it anyway.

  “What about you? And why in the world are you asking me this?” she said, chomping on her gum. She looked at me questioningly.

  “I don’t know. You just seem to say whatever’s on your mind so easily.”

  “I do?” Hailey stopped walking and looked at me. “That’s what I think about you.”

  My mouth hung open for a second. “Really? I feel like I think something, but then change it before it comes out of my mouth. Especially with Michael.”

  “But we all do that with boys. I hope you don’t do that with me!” she said, and looked at me hard.

  “No, of course not,” I said, and crossed my fingers behind my back. Innocent Girl Discovers She’s a Big Fat Liar.

  “Phew! Because what’s the point of having a best friend if you don’t tell each other what you really think? Want to come over? We could make a new list of ways to get Michael’s attention. I have some more ideas.”

  “Sure,” I said. What was going on with me these days that I couldn’t even tell my bestie how I really felt?

  Hailey’s list was kind of the same as it was the first time. She did have one possible idea, though. She offered to fake being sick on the opening night of the play so I could call Michael at the last minute and ask to go with him. The only problem was that I could easily just go with another friend or my mother on opening night. He wouldn’t buy it. Hailey promised she would come up with a better plan. After that, I tried to change the subject to who she liked these days, but no one was catching her eye at the moment. Then I had to go home and finish boatloads of homework.

  That night I tried going to sleep early, but Allie was practicing one of her West Side Story songs in her room and I couldn’t sleep. I went into my mom’s room. She was organizing her closets and had piles of sweaters and shirts and pants and skirts everywhere on her bed. I found a small square of a spot near her pillows and sat down cross-legged.

  “What’s up, honey? You look tired. You okay?”