The Paparazzi Project

by Kristina Springer

  Wow, I’m as cool as an ice cube. I really need to stop turning him on so much with my charm.

  Chas laughs. “Great, wanna go to a movie? I can pick you up at your house Saturday night if you want.”

  I bite the insides of my lips so I don’t say anything else and just nod.

  “Cool,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”

  I raise my hand halfway in a wave and get the heck out of there. Wahoo! Livvie Peterson has a date!

  Chapter 12

  I walk into my house at 4:23 p.m. Tessa’s there and clearly annoyed that I’m so late today, but hey, I’ve got a life too. Now, anyway. Play practice was as boring as I’d predicted. Talia didn’t do anything interesting there, either. Just sat in the audience watching the actors perform. I didn’t stay long.

  “Notice anything different about me?” I ask Tess. I put my hands on my hips and wait.

  “You’ve got spaghetti sauce on your shirt,” she says.

  “Ah crap, do I?” I look down at my pink button-up shirt and sure enough, a blob of red at the bottom. Darn. I hope Chas didn’t see that. “No, that’s not what I meant. Notice anything else?” A certain twinkle in my eye? A pep in my step?

  “You’re not wearing a watch? You’ve lost all sense of consideration for my very valuable time?” she asks.

  “Hey now, no one said you had to come over. I didn’t know for sure that you’d be here today, anyway. Half the time you’re hanging out with Mike. Why aren’t you with him today?”

  Tessa rolls her eyes, avoiding my question. “So what is it that’s different about you, then? Tell me.”

  I sit down on the bed opposite Tessa and put my hands on my knees. “I have a date!”

  Tessa’s arms shoot above her head in a victory pose. “Whoo-hoo! Yay!” She throws her arms around my neck for a quick hug and then sits back and claps her hands. “Finally. Finally you’ll have a boyfriend and we can swap stories and double-date and…”

  “Hold on,” I interrupt. “No one said anything about a boyfriend. It’s just a date.”

  “Well, duh. A first date, then a second, then a third, and then he’s your boyfriend. God, catch up, Livvie,” Tessa says.

  Suddenly I’m panicked. I just got my head wrapped around the idea of a date, not a boyfriend. But Chas might not even like me enough to want me to be his girlfriend. Girlfriend! Ah! He might think I’m a total bore on our first date. I may hardly talk, dress really poorly, and behave moodily and weird. And he’ll be all kinds of glad to drop me back off at my front door and never talk to me again. Wait. What if I’m not being dramatic and I really am all of those things, and he actually doesn’t want to date me again? How will we keep working together? This is bad. Very, very bad.

  “All right,” Tessa says. “Press pause on the horror movie in your mind you’re playing and come back to earth.”

  “Huh?”

  “You look upset all of a sudden,” she says. “Knock it off and tell me who your date is with. Is it Chas?” She gives me a knowing look.

  At the mention of his name, I relax my cheeks into a smile and rest my head on my hand. “Yeah.”

  “Aw, look at you. You’re already hung up on him,” Tessa says.

  I blush.

  “Yeah, that’s no good. You’ll have to knock that off,” she says, matter-of-factly.

  “Huh?” I give her a startled look.

  “Guys hate that. Nothing’s more of a turn-off than a girl who’s all googly eyed over you. It’s so desperate. Guys like a challenge. They want to win. If you’re too easy to catch they won’t want to catch you.”

  “Oh. Wow. Um…” Man, this dating stuff is hard.

  “Don’t go and start worrying now. That’s what you have me for. I’ll walk you through it,” Tessa says. “Lesson One: Never be on time.”

  ***

  After twenty minutes of Tessa’s Tips for Dating, I feel like my head is going to explode. There’s so much to remember and none of it feels right to me.

  “I don’t know,” I say, following Tessa’s theory that aloof is cute. “It seems like a bunch of games to me and I suck at games. You know that.” Not to mention I’m not so sure Tessa’s the one I should be getting dating tips from anyway. Not with her messed-up relationship with Mike. Lately she’s been acting just like the type of girl she’s warning me not to be.

  “It’s not that hard, Liv,” Tessa says. “Just don’t hang all over his every word. If he’s telling you a story about something, let’s say a football game, just look really bored. Sigh a lot. Look out the car window. Start painting your nails. Anything, really. You just don’t want to seem too interested.”

  What about rude? Do I want to seem rude? “I don’t know,” I say again, wanting to change the subject. “I’ll think about it. What’s going on with you and Mike these days? How come you aren’t hanging out with him today?” I press.

  Tessa’s lips draw tightly together and she shifts uncomfortably. “He’s got a test tomorrow and he needs to concentrate on his studying. He can’t be distracted. And I—” she gives me a smug look, “—can be very distracting.”

  A bell goes off in my head. “I’ve gotta go.” I jump up to my feet. “You don’t mind, right? I’ll text you later. I just remembered something I need to do and I’ve got to do it right now.” Mike’s “alone” at home studying. This is the perfect time to see if he’s really with Denise.

  “Wait,” Tessa says, “I wanted to ask if you’ve seen that Tattler site. Everyone’s talking about it at school.”

  They are? A small thrill shoots through me. I want to hear more, like who “everyone” is and what specifically they’re saying, but I’m crunched for time. “Tell me later,” I say quickly. I race out of the room, grabbing my car keys and camera on the way out. I slide into the driver’s seat and smile to myself. Wow, so Tessa’s heard about the blog. How many others have? I’ll have to check my stats when I get home later.

  Chapter 13

  I park my car behind a satellite TV truck down the block from Mike’s house and step out of the car, clutching my dad’s clipboard and pulling his old baseball hat low on my head. They were sitting on the table in the front entryway and pretty much the only cover I could think of as I ran out of the house. I figured if anyone asked why I was walking around in the neighborhood, I could lie and say I was taking some sort of survey.

  I walk up the street toward Mike’s house, spotting his cow mailbox first. I only see Mike’s rusty old red jeep in the driveway. If Denise is at his house, she didn’t drive herself here. I pull my hat down lower on my forehead and look around. There’s only one man outside getting his mail. He notices me, and I nod and pretend like I’m writing something down on my clipboard. When I look up again the man is gone. He must have gone back in his house. I cautiously approach Mike’s house, trying to decide what to do. Do I wait outside in the bushes, hoping to get a departure shot? It’s a little chilly outside but I’m wearing my light jacket, so I should be okay for a while. What if someone sees me though? That would be hard to explain.

  I look around Mike’s block again to see if anyone else is outside and don’t see a soul. I think the quickest approach would be for me to just run up and look through his windows. Very peeping Tom-ish, but if no one is outside to see me I can probably get away with it. Mike lives in a long ranch-style house with a lot of windows in the front. I walk up near his garage and pause. I do one more block check to see if anyone’s watching and also peek around the corner of Mike’s garage, just to make sure he or his parents aren’t coming out of the house at this exact moment. All clear. I better make it fast.

  I turn on my camera, flash off to not attract attention in case there’s a shot to get, and hold it in my right hand, safe between the clipboard and my chest. I make my way down the length of Mike’s house, peeking into each window. First is the kitchen, right above what’s probably the sink. The room’s empty. The next set of windows is bay and has blinds, but they’re partially open and I can tell it’s
the family dining room. I keep walking. When I reach the next set of windows there’s a light gauzy-like curtain in front of them, but I can clearly make out the family room. There’s a TV on with the screen facing the window. It looks like one of those stupid reality shows, where the guys are doing dumb tricks like riding down the middle of a busy road in a grocery cart. The back of the couch is facing the window and I don’t see anyone in the room, which is odd considering the TV is on. But wait. Something, or someone, just moved on the couch. Maybe Mike’s family has a dog. I lean in closer to the window, using my hand to shield the light. And then I see them. A big mound of poofy blond hair pops up and, while I can’t see the face behind the hair, it’s clearly Denise. And unless she’s suddenly got a growth covered in black spiky hair sprouting from her face, she’s kissing Mike. Snap, snap, snap. I start taking pictures, praying that they turn out.

  I glance over my shoulder, nervous someone is going to catch me out here and knowing I should just leave with what I took. But I want to try and get a better shot of Denise’s face. Right now I can’t see them at all because they must have laid back down on the armrest of the couch. And then I get my chance. Mike and Denise windshield-wiper the couch, meaning they sit straight up briefly and then reposition so that Denise is now on the bottom with her head on the other arm rest. It was long enough for me to get a few good shots of the left side of her face. Even through the gauzy curtain everyone will know it’s Denise. It occurs to me that Chas and I will be able to use these pictures in a series in this week’s summation report. Denise’s hair piles over the right armrest of the couch, and I take a couple more shots for good measure. And then I hear Mike’s garage door open and my heart practically stops.

  Without much thought, I leap straight into their giant snowball bush a couple feet off of the family room window and try to curl myself up as small as humanly possible. Who opened the garage? It didn’t look like anyone else was here, aside from Mike and Denise. I peek out between the leaves and balls of flowers, which look like they need some pruning soon, and see Mike’s mom pulling her blue mini-van up the driveway and disappearing into the garage. I don’t think she saw me. My left cheek stings a little. I think I got scratched jumping in here.

  Suddenly I hear shuffling. Someone is running from the back left side of the house and he or she is getting closer to me. I quietly turn around, still trying to shield myself in the bush, and I see Denise coming toward me. I pick up my camera and start taking pics. She runs right past me and down the sidewalk, away from Mike’s house. I don’t know what her plans are, since she didn’t drive here. Maybe she lives nearby. I wait a few more minutes to be sure Denise is gone and get ready to stand up. My knees are sore from crouching in this position for so long. Just as I’m about to stand, I hear Mike’s front door open and I crouch right back down in the bush. Mike comes bounding down the sidewalk toward his jeep. Of course, I’m taking shot after shot with my camera. He climbs into the jeep, starts it up, and pulls out of the driveway. Probably going to look for Denise.

  Man, this is going to be one crazy spread in our summation report if all the shots come out. Not to mention the blog. The whole school will know what a cheat Mike is and what a skeez Denise is. Which means I definitely need to show the pictures to Tessa first.

  ***

  When I finally get out of Mike’s snowball bush and get back into the safety of my car, I pull down the windshield mirror and examine my face. Yikes, I do have quite a few scratches. This will be fun to explain at school tomorrow. At least my arms and legs were protected by my clothes. I start the car and head straight for home. Before I go into my house though, I need to go have a talk with Tessa.

  It’s a quarter to six when I ring her doorbell. A moment later Tessa answers, chewing. They must be having dinner.

  “So who has no sense of time or respect for other people’s family dinner time?” Tessa’s dad calls from their dining room.

  I cringe. I hate being here when her dad’s home. He’s always unpleasant.

  Tessa’s face flushes with embarrassment. “It’s just Livvie, Dad,” she yells over her shoulder.

  Ugh. I wish she wouldn’t have said it was me. I don’t want to be on the receiving end of one of his rants. “I can go…we can talk when you’re done, really.” I start backing away.

  “What, did her parents stop feeding her? She doesn’t look like she’s starving,” her Dad says loud enough for us to hear. Her mom shushes him. Tessa looks horrified.

  I scrunch up my nose and frown. Is he calling me fat? “Forget it,” I say, “I’m outta here.” I turn to leave, and Tessa grabs my shoulder and stops me. I look back at her.

  “Wait.” She studies my face for a moment. I can tell that she knows I’ve got news. “No, it’s fine. He’s such a jack. Just go to my room. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  I nod and head up the stairs, away from her Dad and their dinner, and into Tessa’s room to wait. Her room is so different than mine. Very classy. Whereas mine has yellow walls covered in collages and vitally important things covering every available surface, hers is minimalist and spacious. Her walls are painted with foot-long stripes, alternating between hot pink and black, and she has a queen-size bed with a glossy black headboard. Over her bed is a shiny silver mirror chandelier. She has only one painting of the Eifel Tower on the wall opposite her bed and a wire mannequin bust like dressmakers would have in one corner. Just for decoration since Tessa can’t even repair a tear in a top.

  The door opens, and Tessa walks in, looking a little stressed from dealing with her dad. “So, what’s up?” She plops down on her bed.

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Yeah. You know how he is. Forget him.”

  “Okay then,” I begin. “Well, the best way for me to do this is just come right out and say it, because you’re not going to be happy and there’s no scooting around that fact. So I’ll just tell you like is. Lay it all out on the table. You’ll have all the information in front of you and then you can make the best decision as to what’s right for you. You’ll—”

  “Will you stop stalling and spit it out already?” Tess says, sounding irritated.

  “Um, yeah.” I take a deep breath. “Mike’s still cheating on you with Denise,” I let out in a whoosh.

  Tessa looks taken aback. “No he’s not.”

  “He is,” I say, nodding.

  “That’s impossible,” she insists. “He’s with me all the time. And I heard him call her and tell her it was over.”

  “Well, one, he’s not with you all the time. And two, maybe they patched things back up. Or maybe he wasn’t even talking with her on the phone to begin with,” I add.

  Tessa’s eyes dart downward. I don’t think she ever considered that he was only pretending to call Denise. She looks back up at me. “Uh-uh. He’s not seeing her. There’s no way.”

  “I’ve got proof,” I say. I hold up my camera and wait.

  Tessa takes a couple of deep breaths and rubs her eyes. “Okay.” She pulls her hands away from her face. “Show me what you’ve got.”

  I page through my pictures, pointing out the relevant ones to Tessa. Like Denise wearing the exact same necklace Tessa’s wearing. She gasped when I showed her that one, touching her own necklace.

  “And then there’s this afternoon,” I say. “When I ran out of my house, I went straight to Mike’s.” She gives me a surprised look. “I had a hunch. Anyway,” I continue, “I was right.” I pull up the first picture that I took through Mike’s family room window today and hand Tessa the camera. “Start there,” I say and then keep going after that. “It’s a little hard to see at first but I’m sure you’ll recognize what’s going on.”

  Tessa looks through the pictures, her eyes widening as she examines each one. “I’m going to kill him,” she says, still looking. “I’m going to kill him, bring him back to life, and then kill him again.” She finishes looking through the pictures and throws my camera on her bed.
>
  “Hey, now. Be nice to the camera.” I pick up my camera and turn it back on. It seems to still be working.

  Tessa gets up and begins pacing the room, her arms crossed tightly. Her eyes are angry slits.

  She walks back and forth for a few minutes without saying a word. “Um, Tess?” I finally say. “You okay?” Which I know is a stupid question, because of course she isn’t okay.

  She stops pacing and looks at me. She’s furious. “No one makes a fool out of me.”

  Dang straight. Mike better watch his back.

  Chapter 14

  Tessa pleaded with me not to give the pictures of Denise and Mike over to Chas for this week’s summation report. She’s planning to get back at him and wants time to put a plan together without him knowing that she’s onto him. I agreed not to show Chas the pictures. Sometimes you have to choose your friends over your job. Do the real paparazzi do this? It does leave me in a bit of a situation though. Now I have no big story to give Chas this afternoon. With Talia being such a bore at play practice and me not being able to turn over the Denise and Mike shots, I’ve got nothing. I’m going to have to do some serious Garrison stalking today.

  I race down the junior hallway, trying to get to first period English before the bell rings. Man, why am I always running late? I’m almost to the door when someone catches my eye. It’s Brittany. I slow down and look at her. She’s different today. I can’t put my finger on it. Her hair is flat on her head, she’s kinda pale-looking, and she’s wearing a baggy black top that’s not very Brittany-like at all. Maybe she’s shooting for a new style—some kind of laidback/goth mix. I take my camera out of my bag and snap a picture of her. Brittany doesn’t even seem to notice. She just keeps slowly trudging down the hall.

  The Brittany stuff I post to the Tattler gets a lot of hits and a ton of comments. Some people are saying she looks like she has an eating disorder, and others say she’s doing it for attention and watch, she’ll start tweeting to everyone that she’s just naturally skinny and not starving herself at all. That seems to be what all the super skinny celebrities do. Some people are concerned for Brittany but most want to know what diet plan she’s on and if she’ll share so they can do it too. Brittany doesn’t comment of course. I don’t even know if she knows about the blog, but lots of kids do now. It has over five hundred followers. And I can’t say that I don’t find it sorta exciting. Kids are checking in every day just to read the stuff I put up there. I’m kinda like the Perez Hilton of Thompson High. Though thankfully no one knows it’s me. I don’t need a Jennifer Aniston confrontation moment like Perez had. And I really don’t want Chas to find out either. He likes that I’m not as gossipy as other girls. At least from his perspective.