Reel Life Starring Us

by Lisa Greenwald

  “You’re picking your friends,” I say. “We can’t just do a video of your friends.”

  “I can’t work with you!” she says, and throws down the yearbook. “You’re insane. You’re more insane than I thought at first.”

  “Really?” I ask. I’m not offended, just genuinely curious. What did I do that was so crazy?

  “Really.” She picks up her bag and makes a pile of the yearbooks.

  “Girls, if you’re using the yearbooks for the project, feel free to take them home,” Mr. Singer tells us from the circulation desk, interrupting our conversation.

  “Thank you so much!” I say, and then realize I probably shouldn’t be this excited about taking a bunch of dusty old yearbooks home.

  Chelsea takes a few yearbooks and puts them in her bag. She raises her eyebrows like she also thinks it’s cool that we can take them home.

  I want to get back to our conversation. “Well, what would you say if I told you I could find Sasha Preston? And I could get her to talk to us?”

  “You can’t find her. I just told you that. So I’d say the same thing—you’re insane.” She picks up her bag and walks out of the library, reading something on her phone instead of looking ahead. Then she stops and looks back at me. “But, fine, find her if you can. What do we have to lose? Just more time when we could be working on this dumb thing.”

  I nod.

  “Tell me when you find her,” she yells back to me as she’s leaving the library. “I’ll be holding my breath.”

  I smile even though she can’t see me anymore.

  After finding Sasha in that yearbook, and taking a few yearbooks home, I think I can consider today a success. Now all I have to do is convince Chelsea of the same thing.

  Sasha Preston piece of advice: Take a second to

  think before answering a question. It will prevent

  you saying something you may regret.

  I’m going to the movies in a few hours, and my dad is still sleeping. It’s after ten a.m. I hate when he does this. This is bad. This is a sign that he’s really depressed and things have gotten worse and nobody is telling me what’s going on. I can’t tell if I want to know or if I don’t want to know. When things reach a really bad point, they won’t want to tell me; they’ll feel like they need to protect me like I’m some little kid.

  My mom is at the orthodontist with Alexa, and I’m dreading what happens when she comes home. And isn’t fourth grade, like, really early to need braces? Why does Alexa have to have such bad teeth?

  Braces are so expensive, and I know my mom’s going to show the bill to my dad and he’s going to get weird. He’ll try to act like he has everything under control, but I’ll know the truth. I can always tell what’s happening, even if people aren’t saying it.

  I hope Kendall’s mom picks me up before they get home. But then I feel bad leaving Alexa to deal with the chaos all alone. She’s only nine, after all.

  As I’m waiting for Kendall’s mom to arrive, I look at one of the yearbooks a little more closely.

  When Mr. Singer told us we could take home the yearbooks, Dina was really excited about it. Like, crazy excited—like when Molly got the jeans excited.

  She asked me what I was doing this weekend, and I swear she had this look in her eyes, like she wanted me to invite her to do something. She didn’t say anything, though. It was just a feeling I got.

  But there was no way in the world I was inviting her to hang out. For one thing, Molly and Kendall already think she’s weird, and after that whole accidentally read text-message thing, I doubt they’d all get along. It was never going to happen.

  The thing about my friends is that we were all paired up at birth to be friends. Before birth, really. Our moms all traveled in the same circle after college and then all moved to Rockwood Hills after living in Manhattan during their single and newly married days.

  Sometimes I feel like the only reason I’m the way I am is because of my parents. But I guess that’s true for everyone in some way.

  The yearbook I’m looking at now is from 2006, from when Sasha Preston was in seventh grade.

  That year, all the students got a little section to write messages to their friends and they were printed along with candid photos.

  Hers says:

  To Lulu and Fi, thanks for being the bestest of the best. Never forget midnight swims, taco charlies, and the red racer scooter. Next year, 8th grade! It will be totally radically amazing. Love and tacos, ha ha. xo Sash

  It’s so funny to read other people’s private jokes. What in the world is taco charlies? And why didn’t she put an apostrophe? It sounds like she has like an obsession with tacos. And the red racer scooter? Huh? It’s probably pointless to wonder and try to figure this out.

  In the yearbook last year, Molly, Kendall, and I wrote “BEEP BEEP BEEP” to each other because we were obsessed with the sound of Kendall’s mom’s car alarm. It was such a stupid thing, and no one else would ever get it or find it funny. But we found it totally hilarious. We were so immature.

  Maybe there’s something to that, something that would be good to add to the video. I mean, everyone has private jokes. Even the weirdos at school have private jokes with each other, right?

  I can’t believe I’m actually thinking about this video outside of school. What’s happening to me? Is Dina’s weirdness rubbing off on me?

  I hear a honk and look outside to see Kendall’s Range Rover in my driveway. I quickly shove the yearbook under one of the couch cushions, grab my jacket, and head outside.

  Molly gives me a halfhearted smile as I get into the car.

  “Hello, gorgeous,” Kendall’s mom says. “Did you cut your hair?”

  “Nope.” I shake my head.

  “New shampoo?”

  “I don’t think so.” I smile. “Guess it’s just a good hair day.” Kendall’s mom is kind of obsessed with knowing every little detail about people, especially Kendall’s friends and her friends. It’s like she has an imaginary Excel spreadsheet in her brain that she’s constantly updating.

  “Well, you girls sure are heading out early today. I didn’t even know they showed movies this early,” Kendall’s mom says. “But I guess that’s what happens when you’re teenagers.”

  She’s also kind of obsessed with the fact that we’re teenagers.

  Kendall turns around to look at us in the backseat and makes a face like her mom is a total imbecile. “Mom. I told you, we’re not going to the movies until one. We’re just meeting the guys at the mall before. Why are you so dense?”

  “God. Sorry,” Kendall’s mom says. She doesn’t even get mad when Kendall or her sisters talk to her like that. She cares so much that they like her that she’ll basically let them do whatever they want.

  “Is Grunner coming?” Molly asks me. “He didn’t text Kendall back.”

  Kendall turns around and snorts.

  “Yeah, he texted me this morning. He said he’d meet us by the smoothie place in the food court,” I say. I push the window button down and open the window as far as it goes. It suddenly feels like a million degrees in here. I pull my hair up off the back of my neck to cool it.

  “He texted you? Grunner texted you and you didn’t even tell us?” Kendall’s yelling, but her mom doesn’t seem to mind.

  “I just told you now, didn’t I?”

  “Chels.” Molly leans her head on my shoulder. “What has gotten into you? If Ross Grunner ever texted you in the past, you always told us immediately. Why do you not even care? Don’t even tell me you’re over him already.”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem so cute this year. I feel like his head and nose are growing faster than the rest of his body.” Everyone laughs, and I take my phone out of my jacket pocket and see another text from him. I don’t know why I can’t just admit that I don’t really like him or that I do like him as a friend, but not like that. Maybe they know what that library kid’s name is, but I’d never ask them. They’d just make fun of me.
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  “Of course he texts you back and he doesn’t text me back,” Kendall says. No one responds. We’re pretty much used to the fact that Kendall is in a constant competition with anyone and everyone, most of all Molly and me. So now that there’s talk of Ross Grunner liking me, Kendall needs him to like her, too. She could have her own reality show: The Kendall Competition, but they could make the C in competition into a K to be funny.

  Kendall’s mom drops us off right in front of Nordstrom, and then we walk to the food court. I try as hard as I can not to be jealous of Kendall’s jeans and Molly’s new silver flats. I’m still wearing my old black shoes and they’re a little scuffed. I wouldn’t have chosen silver, I’d have chosen gold, but I’m still jealous that hers are so new and shiny and perfect.

  Ross is waiting for us with the rest of the guys. They’re all wearing polos and dark jeans, like a uniform.

  “Hey, Chelsea,” he says as soon as he sees me, and Molly pinches the top of my arm.

  “Hey.” I smile. Everyone’s standing around us. It’s the first time I’ve really hung out with them since I’ve been back at school, and it seems okay so far, but I feel like I have a running list in my brain of things I shouldn’t bring up: parents, the fiftieth anniversary, Dina. If I can keep my secret throughout today, then I’ll know for sure I can do it for a while.

  “So, how’s your new BFF?” Marcus asks me.

  “Huh?” I notice Kendall pulling Ross over to the side like they’re conferencing about something. I’m trying to keep an eye on them and pay attention to whatever Marcus is saying at the same time.

  “Y’know, that girl you’re always hanging out with.” Marcus smiles. “She’s been chipped, like, ten times already.”

  “I’m not ‘always’ hanging out with her,” I declare, and then feel bad about saying it like she’s a disease or something. “Who chipped her? You?”

  “Only once by me.”

  I roll my eyes. “Okay, can we just stop talking about her? I’m forced to work with her and you know that.”

  Thankfully, Molly interrupts before I have to talk more about Dina. “Can we please discuss who is wearing what to Cami Feldman’s bat mitzvah?”

  “Yes, can we please, please, please discuss?” Eric mocks her. “I have no idea what to wear. My black suit or my other black suit or my other black suit.”

  Molly hits him on the arm, hard. And he laughs. But you don’t want to get into a fight with Molly, physical or emotional. Either way, it’ll hurt.

  To distract myself from the things I’m not supposed to talk about, I spend the rest of the day trying to figure out if Ross really likes me or not. Even though I don’t like him that way, it’s still important that he likes me. Does that make me like Kendall, always competing?

  There are signs that he does: he sits next to me in the movies, he buys me a box of Sour Patch Kids (my absolute favorite candy), and he asks me how things are going at school like he really actually cares and isn’t just trying to be annoying about me working with Dina, the way everyone else is.

  But there are also signs that he’s just being like every other boy, the way he stops a conversation midsentence to say some dumb line from The Simpsons to Marcus and Eric even though it has absolutely nothing to do with what we’re talking about. And he spends as much time talking to me as he does whispering with Kendall off to the side.

  And I could be imagining it, but it seems like when they’re talking, they’re always looking at me. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I spend the whole day on pins and needles instead of having fun.

  It didn’t used to be like this. I used to be the one in the middle of conversations, the one people were off to the side with.

  If I were on Sasha Says So and I could ask Sasha Preston for advice, that’s what I’d ask: how to keep things the same, how to make things go back to normal, how to keep a secret without freaking out.

  Maybe if Dina really does find her, I can ask her that. Maybe Sasha’s just the person who can help me sort things out. Just the thought of that makes me feel better—like thinking about it will actually make it happen. Yeah, right. But I get so excited anyway. I guess being excited can’t really hurt anything.

  On the way home in Molly’s mom’s car, Molly turns around in the front seat. “Hey, Chels, you gotta see this.” She hands me her phone, and it’s on the video camera screen. “Just hit Play,” she says.

  So I do and it opens up into a video of our school cafeteria. Kendall and Molly are laughing in the background, and then it turns into a shot of Dina at her lunch table. No one’s talking, and Dina’s eating a bag of mini-carrots, crunching and crunching, staring into space. Then the video ends, and I hand Molly back her phone.

  “What do you think?” Molly asks.

  I say, “Um … it’s a video of Dina eating carrots?”

  Molly’s mom stays silent during this whole thing, clicking her nails on her fancy wooden steering wheel.

  “Isn’t it funny?” Kendall screeches. “See, we can take videos, too!”

  Molly and Kendall crack up, and I guess it is kind of funny, actually, and it’s not really mean or anything—it’s just a video of her eating carrots. Everyone eats carrots.

  “We’re so putting it on Facebook,” Molly says. “It’ll be really funny.”

  “No, come on,” I say. “Really?”

  “Don’t be lame, Chelsea,” Molly says. “Or I’m telling Ross.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just say nothing and hope that they forget about this.

  Video tip: Avoid talking heads. Shoot a lot of

  B-roll so you don’t bore your audience.

  Nathan is so lucky to be in fourth grade. It’s not even a big deal for fourth graders to start a new school, and they obviously don’t have to worry about chipping.

  Also, all the third and fourth graders in Rockwood Hills are on soccer teams. It’s a coed league, and it’s a huge deal. So of course my parents had to sign him up for one. They made sure to do that before we even moved here.

  My mom is always on top of this stuff.

  So Nathan has built-in plans on Saturdays. He’s getting ready to leave for his soccer game, all geared up in his cleats and his shin guards. All I want at this minute is to be a fourth-grade boy. Seriously.

  Because right now my mom is doing that thing that she does. She asks me what my plans are for the day when she knows I don’t have any. It didn’t used to be like this. She didn’t used to have to ask because I always had plans.

  “You could call someone,” she says, all casual.

  “Who should I call, Mom?” I don’t look up from my laptop when I talk to her. Making eye contact would only make things worse.

  “What about that girl that you’re working with on that project? You said she was very nice, and popular, too. And didn’t you say she lives in the Pine section of the neighborhood?”

  Our neighborhood is divided into four sections. Each of them has a tree name. So Chelsea lives in the Pine section and we live in the Elm section. Everyone knows the Pine section is the fanciest and the Spruce section is the least fancy, mostly because it backs the expressway. The Elm section is one step above Spruce because it doesn’t back the expressway and the houses are bigger, plus that’s where the neighborhood pool is. People in the Pine section have their own pools. Some of them, anyway. The Maple section is right below the Pine section, and some of the houses are actually bigger, just not as new or fancy.

  “Yeah, she does. I’m not calling her, though, Mom. So please don’t even think about it.”

  “Dina,” she says in that tone that leads me to believe that whatever comes next is going to be impossible to say no to. “You have to make an effort. You’re the new one. Please just call her.”

  “She has a million friends, Mom,” I say, ending the round of the computer version of Connect Four. “She doesn’t need me. We’re just working on the project together, and she doesn’t even want to be working on it, really. We’re not BFFs.” I pau
se and wait for her to say something, but she doesn’t. “It’s different here,” I say under my breath.

  My mom sits next to me on the couch and closes the laptop. “First of all, it’s very rude to be on the computer when someone is trying to talk to you. Second of all, how do you know she doesn’t need another friend? You can never have too many friends. And besides, what’s the worst that can happen?”

  “The worst that can happen is that she tells all her friends how I called for plans and everyone knows how pathetic I really am.” I get up from the couch and walk into the kitchen for a snack. “Just forget about it. Go with Nathan to his soccer game. I’ll be fine here.”

  “You can at least come with us to his soccer game.” My mom follows me into the kitchen. She doesn’t understand the term personal space.

  I grab a handful of almonds. “No way. Then if by chance anyone from school is there, they’ll know how pathetic I am that I didn’t even have plans so I had to tag along with my parents to my younger brother’s soccer game.”

  “Well, if they’re at the game, they must be pathetic, too, right?” My mom leans onto the island in the kitchen. She has a look on her face like she’s just so smart.

  “No, because I bet they’ll be there with someone else.” I clench my teeth. My mother has to be the most infuriating person in the world. I’m sorry it pains her so much that I don’t have any friends, but it was her idea to move us here. If we were back home, I’d be with Ali right now. We’d be planning our outfits for the next two weeks and drinking iced tea on her back patio.

  “Either call the girl or come with us to the game,” my mom insists. “One or the other. But I’m not leaving you here alone.”

  “I’m thirteen years old, Mom. I can handle staying home alone.”

  “Stop talking back to me, Dina.”

  “Fine, I’ll call Chelsea, but leave the room, please.” I don’t know why I think this is a good plan. Clearly, she’s not going to leave the room. And I could have made it much simpler by leaving the room myself and pretending to call upstairs. Sometimes I just don’t think things through.