Reel Life Starring Us

by Lisa Greenwald

  “No, it’s not what you think,” Chelsea says. It’s not much, but at least she finally opened her mouth. She’s been silent since we got into Sasha’s trailer.

  “Look, we’re not asking you to be in it. We’re not asking you to do anything for us. We just need to talk to you,” I plead. “I know it seems weird. Two kids coming in here, trying to get you to talk, but think back to when you were in eighth grade. Think back to the kinds of stuff you went through.”

  There’s a long pause. I don’t know what else to say.

  “We can talk,” she says finally. “Just wait here for a few minutes, okay?” She gets up and walks outside. We hear her talking to Drake, but we can’t exactly make out what she’s saying.

  “Can you believe this?” I ask Chelsea.

  “I can’t. Seriously. You’re like some kind of mastermind.”

  I laugh.

  “No, really. First of all, you figured out where this movie was shooting. Then you figured out how to get here and how to get onto the set. And now you’re getting Sasha Preston to talk to us!” Chelsea raises her hand to high-five me. “I don’t know anyone else like you.”

  “I’m just awesome.”

  “I guess so.” She smiles like she means it. “You are pretty awesome.”

  And it’s so, so good to hear. But I couldn’t have done it without her coming along with me. And the truth is—the day has been really fun, like a constant adventure.

  I want to say, Then how come you don’t invite me to hang out? How come I can’t go to the movies with you and Kendall and Molly and Ross Grunner? I want to say all these things. Because even though we’re in Sasha Preston’s trailer, I’m still the new girl in eighth grade. I’m still the girl who had to start school a month late. I’m still the girl with no friends.

  It’s funny how you can be doing something totally amazing and yet the blahs of your life still creep into your brain and affect you.

  Still, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right now.

  I don’t know exactly how I did it, but I did it. We’re in here. We’re going to talk to Sasha Preston. She’s going to talk to us. We’re going to make an amazing video.

  Sasha Preston piece of advice: If you’re at risk

  of hurting someone’s feelings, white lies

  are okay. But be careful.

  The people with the headsets keep saying they can’t finish the scene till they find those two kids, so we really don’t have a choice but to go and get our makeup done and then do the scene. Our little trick of pretending to be extras actually got us to be extras!

  Sasha says she’ll talk to us when the scene is over and we all have a break. I’ve spent so many hours thinking about what I’d ask Sasha if we ever got the chance to talk to her, and now that it’s here, I’m worried I’ll forget everything I wanted to ask.

  Being extras wasn’t at all what we thought would happen today, but it’s really cool. We’re going to be in a real movie. Dina and me, together as extras and sleuths and go-getters.

  They do our makeup in a really simple way, just covering up blemishes and adding some color to our cheeks, and then they send us back to that strip of sidewalk where we just walk back and forth a million times.

  Sometimes they tell us to smile, or pretend that we’re talking to each other. They give us backpacks to sling over our shoulders and we’re supposed to look like we’re on our way home from school.

  It’s actually pretty funny.

  Finally, we’re done shooting the scene and all the extras are standing around.

  A bulky guy comes over and says, “You guys signed your release forms?”

  Dina nods.

  The guy leaves.

  “We did?” I ask Dina.

  “No, but if we sign something now, they’ll find out we weren’t even supposed to be extras, so we really can’t do that. It’s not a big deal. It’s just that we won’t get paid.”

  Too bad—I could really use the money.

  When the scene’s over, we go back into Sasha’s trailer. I look at the clock and notice that it’s already after five.

  “Do you know what time it is?” I ask Dina.

  “No clue. But I should check my phone again. I felt it vibrating, but couldn’t exactly answer it while we were shooting the scene.”

  Dina looks at her phone, and I look at mine.

  Two texts from Ross.

  A text from Molly.

  A text from my mom.

  After I read that, I feel on top of the world. It’s pathetic, but it’s true. I am so happy my parents have plans. And I can tell my mom is happy also; she even put a smiley face in her text message! She is so high-tech! I don’t even mind babysitting Alexa. First of all, I don’t mind because I’m so happy my parents have plans, and I also don’t mind because this means I can get out of going to Kendall’s and dealing with whatever they have to talk to me about.

  “Do you think I can go sneak outside? I have to call my mom back. She’s called six times,” Dina says, and for the first time since I met the girl, she actually looks nervous.

  “Yeah, I guess you can,” I say. “We’re allowed to be in here right now. Aren’t we?”

  She nods and gets up but doesn’t say anything else. Sasha is still in the back area of the trailer changing, and I feel a little silly just sitting here by myself. I’m tempted to walk around and look at her photos and makeup and other stuff, but that just seems wrong.

  So I text Kendall and Ross the same thing:

  Kendall doesn’t respond, but Ross does, in about three seconds.

  Drew is Ross’s best friend and one of the guys on the fringes of our little group. He lives next door to me, and we used to take baths together when we were little, which really grosses me out now when I think about it. He’s the guy that everyone’s just friends with and no one really ever wants to go out with him.

  I write back:

  I wonder what my parents would think about Ross coming over while they’re out. It’s never come up before, so I never asked. We always hang out in groups, and my house used to be the place where everyone hung out, so people were always over. But now it’s always Kendall’s house. I know it’s because I really don’t want people at my house, but still.

  I wonder what it will be like to be alone with Ross. I wonder if he really likes me like everyone says. It’s weird; yeah, he’s cool and everything, but it’s hard to see him as anything other than the boy who ate a crayon when we were six and the first boy who asked me to dance at the carnival in fifth grade.

  I get excited thinking about it, though, and I’m happy to be excited about something. I’m happy to be happy about my parents having plans. I’m even happy about the fact that we were just extras and now we’re just hanging out in Sasha Preston’s trailer.

  Dina comes back in and she looks all shaky. She keeps pushing her hair back and fiddling with one of her earrings.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Well, my parents seemed a little suspicious when they hadn’t heard from me all day, and then my mom took my brother to his soccer game and she ran into all these moms from school there. She mentioned that I was with someone named Fiona, and they all said there’s no Fiona in the grade. I should’ve picked a more common name.” Dina sits down next to me. “So now they totally don’t believe me, so I had to say something. So I said I was in the city with you and we were working on the project, but they still didn’t believe me and they’re really, really mad and they want me home right away.”

  “Wow. Are you okay?”

  She shakes her head. “I mean, I’m already in huge trouble, so I feel like we should stay and talk to Sasha, right? If we go home now, we’ll never be able to talk to her again.” She moves closer to me and whispers, “Where is she anyway?”

  “Still changing.” I don’t say anything about leaving—not when we’re so close to our goal. But then I feel bad for Dina getting in trouble. I’m not sure what to do or say.

  She slumps back in
the chair and throws her hands up. “Let’s just stay. I’m already grounded for the rest of my life. It doesn’t matter.”

  A little part of me feels bad for her because she’s done so much to get us here and now she’s in trouble, and it’s all because she doesn’t really have any friends to say that she’s with.

  “Too bad you’re grounded. I was going to invite you over tonight. I have to babysit my sister,” I say without really thinking about it. Is that even true? I’m not sure. But it seems like just the thing to cheer her up. I don’t like to see her upset.

  “Really? That would have been awesome.”

  Finally, Sasha comes out and interrupts our conversation.

  “Okay, girls, let’s talk,” she says, pulling up a chair to sit next to us. “First of all, tell me what grade you’re in and what this project is about. Tell me everything.”

  Dina and I look at each other. “You go first,” I say. I figure it’s the least I can do.

  “So, we’ve been assigned to make this video for the school’s fiftieth anniversary: a day in the life of a Rockwood Hills student. And I figured a good way to start was to look at old yearbooks,” Dina tells Sasha. “And that’s when we found you.”

  “She means, that’s when she found you,” I interrupt. I think it’s important for Sasha to know that, otherwise she’d think I was living under a rock my whole life. “I knew you went to our school.”

  Sasha laughs. “Oh, okay. So how can I help you for the video?”

  I look at Dina and she looks at me, and neither of us says anything. She should be the one talking now, the one who worked so hard to find her and then get us here. I don’t know why she’s so quiet all of a sudden, but it seems like there are words on the tip of her tongue, she’s just not saying them.

  Finally, she opens her mouth again. “Well, what was your life like at Rockwood Hills? Did you love it? Hate it?”

  After she asks that, it occurs to me that it’s really not something I ever thought about before. School was just school and I liked it because all of my friends were around, but also because it was the only school I ever went to, the only place I knew.

  I wonder if everyone spends time thinking about if they’re happy somewhere, if things could be better somewhere else. Of course, I realize it’s not the best place in the world right now, but I guess it used to be, before all the bad stuff happened.

  I remember all the stuff I wanted to ask Sasha—about her friends, her social life, what it was like to go to Rockwood Hills when she did.

  “I’ll wait until you’re ready,” Sasha says.

  I look at Dina. What is she talking about? We’re ready, duh. We just asked her the question.

  When we don’t respond to that, Sasha asks, “So are you recording this?” She looks at Dina and then at me. “Isn’t that the point? I’m going to be in the video?” She laughs again. “Sorry if I’m confused; it’s just kids don’t usually come find me for help on a school project.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, we could put it in the video,” I say. “That could be the opening!”

  Dina takes out the camera and pushes Record. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s the right thing for the video, or the way to start it, or anything since I basically know nothing about video. But not recording it would be stupid. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

  Sasha takes a deep breath and then starts talking. “When I started sixth grade at Rockwood Hills Middle School, I was like any other girl. I had friends. I loved school. All was fine. I was really into singing, and I took piano lessons and it was all good.”

  Dina and I are just sitting here silently, nodding. We don’t want to interrupt her—well, I don’t want to interrupt her, that’s all I know.

  “But around seventh grade, things began to change. It was kind of a weird time of people drifting away from things that always seemed normal and steady,” she says, like she’s answering my question without me even having to ask it. “Everyone just kind of wanted to be the same as everyone else. I was suddenly this weird girl for wanting to play piano in the talent show.”

  So that explains it, how she seemed to have BFFs her first two years and then was a loner her last year.

  “That was something I really wanted to ask you,” I jump in. “Like, how do you get things to stay the same?”

  “They can’t. Things are always changing and evolving,” she tells us.

  “I mean, like, one day everything’s perfect and the next day it’s not.” I bite my bottom lip. “So what do you do in that situation?”

  She looks at me with crinkly eyes, like she’s confused and doesn’t know what to answer, and then we get interrupted. “Sasha, we need you for a scene in ten,” a guy says after knocking on her door.

  “Okay,” she yells back. Then to us she says, “I’ll speed up my story. I hope this will help answer some of the questions you have, and help with the video in some way.”

  “Oh, it is,” Dina tells her. “And I play piano, too.”

  I smile because that’s a nice little fact that Dina decided to share, but now that I’ve gotten the courage to ask Sasha my questions, I really want her to answer them.

  “So, over time, my friends and I kind of drifted apart. But then I started auditioning and moved to the city, and, well, that was the end of my time at Rockwood Hills.” She shrugs. “I just didn’t really fit in; I couldn’t find my niche. Maybe if you were there when I was in eighth grade, I wouldn’t have hated it so much. Maybe we could have been friends.”

  That’s a pretty awesome thing to hear. Sasha Preston would have been friends with us! How amazing is that?

  “Are you guys best friends?” she asks.

  “Uh,” Dina stammers.

  I didn’t see this coming. I answer without really thinking about what I was going to say, “We were just assigned to work on this project together.”

  I hope that didn’t sound so totally mean, but it’s the truth, and that’s why I said it.

  “So, to answer your question,” Sasha says, looking at me. “Things really can’t stay the same forever. And you just have to do your best to keep up with the changes.”

  “How do you think we could make the video good?” Dina asks, and it’s kind of obvious she wants to change the topic and get it back to the video. “On your show you’re always giving advice. And I know that’s a character, but maybe you have advice?”

  “You should probably try to focus on a wide range of kids in the school. Oh, and once you tell them it’s for a project, people won’t be honest and it won’t seem real. Just be casual, get the stories when you can,” Sasha says. “Pay attention to what goes on around you.”

  The thing about Rockwood Hills is that the different groups of kids don’t talk to each other. I wonder if it was like that when Sasha went there. I know the other kids and have known them my whole life, but we just don’t talk.

  If I saw them outside of school in the mall or something, maybe I’d say hi. But seeing them in school, passing in the hallway, never. We’d never, ever say hi.

  It’s just the way it is.

  “Well, I’ve tried,” Dina says, sounding defensive. “The only thing is, I don’t really know anyone because I’m new this year. And people get quiet when they see the video camera.”

  “I see.” Sasha sighs and readjusts herself in her chair. “Being new someplace is never easy … Oh, I just remembered something! Do they still ‘chip’ people?” She makes quotation mark signs with her fingers when she says it. “That was so cruel. I definitely don’t miss that.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been chipped five times already. And I’ve only been there a month and a half,” Dina admits. “Rockwood Hills is nothing like my old school. I was cool there. Here, I don’t have any friends, really. Oh, and I lied to my parents about where I was today to be able to come here.”

  I don’t know why I can’t say anything else. I feel like it’s obvious that I’m just sitting here not adding anything more to the conversation, but I kind of feel
like a third wheel all of a sudden. Dina’s in charge of the video, and Sasha’s the celebrity … and I’m just, like, here.

  “Hmm. It sounds tough,” Sasha says, looking at her watch. “What about you?” She turns to me. “Do you like the school?”

  I guess I have to speak now. “Well, that’s the thing I was talking about before.” I stop myself for a second and think about what to say next. “I mean, it’s okay,” I say. “I’ve lived in the neighborhood since kindergarten, so I know a lot of people.”

  “You really just think it’s okay?” Dina blurts out, not letting me really finish what I was going to say, seeming like she’s mad or trying to start a fight with me. “You have a million friends. Everyone thinks you have the perfect life. Even Ross likes you. Why is it just okay?”

  “What are you saying?” my face tightens, and I feel like I could start crying any moment. “Why are you getting so worked up?”

  Dina doesn’t answer me; she turns to Sasha instead. “She’s popular, so she likes it, but I don’t know why she won’t admit that. The truth is, if you’re popular, school is great. If you’re not, it’s awful. That’s it.”

  I try to take a deep breath and try to say something to defend myself, but I can’t.

  Dina turns to Sasha and says, “Even on your show, it’s a high school, but it’s the same thing. You obviously love the school because you give advice and everyone knows you. But that character Martha—come on, she’s such a loser. Everyone makes fun of her.”

  Sasha laughs. “Okay. First of all, that’s television.”

  “It resembles real life, doesn’t it?” Dina asks.

  “But the thing is, you guys have the power to change things,” Sasha says. “That’s what I didn’t realize then and only realize now because I’m a little older. No one speaks up and that’s why nothing changes. Everyone just goes along with it and no one says anything. But I bet more people feel like you than you realize.”

  She’s only a few years older than us, and she talks like a mom. I guess her celebrity status has gone to her head.

  Sasha must’ve read my mind because she says, “Really, you can make it better. Trust me.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m so glad you guys came and found me.” She winks. “Now go home and try to get out of your punishment,” she tells Dina. “Your parents will forgive you sooner or later.”