The Paparazzi Project

by Kristina Springer

  I take out my phone and text Tessa, All done.

  I hope he melts her trampy butt, Tessa texts me back.

  What?! I type, totally confused.

  You know. BLACK ICE, she reminds me. You’re the one who came up with the code name.

  LOL, I type. Totally forget. Hope he throws a bag of salt on her head.

  Huh? Tessa texts.

  Nevermind. Going to class. Talk later. I turn off my phone.

  I’m walking slowly to lunch, scanning the hallways for Denise. I heard she got to school after second period today, following an early dentist appointment. I’m dying to know if she’s heard anything about our summation report this morning. I’m thinking she’s had to by now. Everyone got such a kick out of it, and the students here aren’t exactly the type not to rub something in someone else’s face. I also can’t wait to see what Mike thinks about it.

  I stop in the girl’s bathroom to wash my hands and hear crying. Not loud sobs or anything, but steady, quiet crying. “Who’s in here?” I call out. But no one responds. “Do you need anything?” I ask. Still no response. “How about a wet towel?” I pull out a few paper towels, wet them, and then hold them under the stall and wait for the crying girl to take them out of my hand. She does, and I straighten up and wait. A few seconds later I’m hit with the bathroom door—my fault for standing too close—and Denise barrels out of the stall and out of the bathroom without saying a word to me. She must have found out about the report. I race out of the bathroom too and head for our lunch table to fill Tessa in on what I just saw.

  “We did it!” I say, taking my seat next to Tessa. Claire is sitting at our lunch table again. I guess she and Tessa must be getting closer now.

  Tessa looks really happy. “I know!” she says. “Well, I’m not one hundred percent positive but I’m pretty sure. Claire here—” Tessa nods her head in Claire’s direction, “—said she saw Mike reading the page from your summation report at his locker a little bit ago.”

  “Yeah,” Claire pipes in. “He was pissed. He looked at it, got really angry, then crumpled it up and whipped it into the nearest garbage can. Then he slammed his locker door and went stomping down the hallway. He’s not a happy little two-timer, that’s for sure.”

  I’m sure he’ll be even more irate when he sees it up on the blog this afternoon, I think.

  “Good,” Tessa says.

  “And Mike must have dumped her too,” I add to the conversation. “That’s what I was coming over here to tell you. Denise was in the bathroom crying just now. I didn’t know it was her at first and offered her a paper towel. She went running out of the bathroom past me.”

  “He must be stewing somewhere,” Tessa says. “He usually tries to see me before lunch or at least walk me to our table. I didn’t see him at all. Poor thing, it must have been so hard for him balancing two relationships like this. Well, he won’t have to worry about that much longer.”

  Just then, Tessa’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. “Speak of the devil. It’s Mike.”

  “What’s he say?” Claire asks, and I lean over to look.

  “’Hey, Bear Bear, I’m having a rough day and could use some snuggle time,’” Tessa reads.

  “Shut. Up. He needs snuggle time?” I ask.

  “Yeah, he’s an idiot,” she says. “Let me finish. He says, ‘Meet me in the cafeteria after last bell, okay? I want to spend time with you.’”

  “Aw, how sweet. He needs snuggle time with you, Bear Bear,” I say. “Won’t you be a sweetie and comfort him after his breakup with his other girlfriend?”

  Tessa laughs. “Yeah. He hasn’t hung out with me after school for a while. Guess his schedule has suddenly cleared up,” Tessa says. She texts him back, Okay, Baby, I’ll be there. XXOO.

  “Why are you being nice to him?” Claire asks.

  “’Cuz I want him to show up,” Tessa says with an evil twinkle in her eye.

  ***

  Tessa’s over at my house, helping me put together an outfit for tonight and telling me all about her big blow-up with Mike in the cafeteria.

  “It was a beautiful, beautiful thing,” she says as she lays out a pair of leggings and a long shirt on my bed. “He never saw it coming.”

  I pick up the leggings, stick them back in my closet, and lay out a pair of jeans. Tessa scowls at the jeans and pulls the leggings back out. “Trust me, Livvie,” she says, tossing my jeans in the direction of my closet.

  “Tell me, tell me,” I urge, taking a seat on the bed and letting her finish putting my outfit together.

  “Okay. So, Mike comes up, right? And he put his arms around me and was all, ‘Bear Bear, I love you,’ blah blah blah,” she says. “There were all these people around us too, getting ready to go home and stuff. So I pulled his arms off of me and said, ‘Mike, we need to talk.’”

  “Awesome!” I say. “Go on, go on.”

  “He looked at me, kind of panicked-like. And said, ‘Wh-wh-what?’ Like he’s suddenly worried. Which his stinkin’ cheater butt should have been. And I said, ‘Mike, it’s over between us.’”

  “Whoo-hoo!” I say.

  Tessa smiles. “I said, ‘Mike, it’s not you, it’s me.’”

  “Oh my gosh, Tessa.”

  “I said, ‘I’ve changed what I want in a boyfriend, and you’re just not it.’ His mouth dropped open, like he couldn’t believe he was being dumped. Like, how can anyone not want the great Mike Rodgers?”

  “Then he’s all,” she continues, “‘No, Bear Bear. I need you. Let’s try again, I’ll be a better boyfriend. Puh-lease.Wah wah wah.’ So I said, ‘Sorry Mike, I like another guy now and I’m going to date him. I just wanted to let you know first so I that wasn’t a two-timing low-life dirty troll.’ He just stared at me with this completely stunned face. So I said, ‘Have a good weekend’ and walked off. It was beautiful.”

  I clap my hands together. “You rock, Tessa! And Mike so deserves it. What a jerk. Now he’s got no one, ha!”

  “I know! I’m so happy. No one messes with me,” she says triumphantly.

  Ain’t that the truth. “Hey, what about the new guy you want to date? Was that true? Is it Joey?”

  Tessa blushes.

  “Aw, it is true! But, what about…” I trail off.

  “The Tattler blog?” Tessa asks. “That story about him?”

  Oh good, she saw it. “Well, yeah.”

  “It isn’t true. Not entirely, anyway. I asked him about it, and he said that Courtney had been the one who asked him earlier in the year about getting back together. But he thought they’d be better as friends. He was surprised anyone even knew about that. It was a private conversation.”

  Privacy as a celebrity? Ha. “So he’s single then. Perfect,” I say.

  “Yeah. I double-checked with Courtney too, and she said the same thing.”

  “You asked her?” Wow, Tessa is so gutsy.

  “Heck yeah,” she says. “I’m not getting mixed up with any more two-timers. And she was actually pretty nice about it.”

  “I’m happy for you, Tessa. He seems so sweet too.”

  “I know. He is. That’s the one part that hangs me up a bit. He’s almost too sweet. But we’ll see.”

  Tessa leaves me to get ready, and I head for my laptop to check in on the blog. I put up two more of the tabloid stories from class and the Denise Bengston story. My followers shot up by another fifty since I checked last and I have a number of e-mails in my inbox. I skim through them and my gaze settles on one in particular. It’s Echome43 again. This time he says, “Tony Hernandez may sometimes seem clumsy, but he isn’t clumsy in matters of the heart. Tony’s fallen hard for a freshman girl at Thompson. Pour vivre heureux, vivons cache.”

  Interesting. A freshman, huh? Tony’s a junior, but it’s not like he’s the first junior to date a freshman. And who is this Echo guy? I look at the IP address that’s logged by one of the comments he left on the blog and it looks like the one that comes up whenever someone is in the school compu
ter lab. Doesn’t really narrow it down. I guess it could be Tony himself. Maybe he’s trying to get better coverage in the summation reports. I mean, it probably stinks to keep making the reports because you’re dropping food all over yourself.

  Well, I’ll help him out. I’ll put this up on the blog too, with a really nice picture of Tony. Maybe some of the tabloids in class will pick up on the story this week.

  Chapter 21

  Chas arrives for our date, and we’re out of the house in just a few minutes. Mom was light on the grilling this evening, probably because she’s busy working on the family calendar for the coming month. Emma’s piano teacher wants her to start coming in an extra day a week for lessons to get ready for some big competition, and Mom was mumbling some colorful words under her breath about how is she supposed to make it all work. Emma was excited to meet Chas though. She played him a piece of the song she’s working on, and I could hear her talking his ear off from my room when I went back to look for a light coat.

  “What do you have in mind for tonight?” I ask, securing my seat belt over my lap.

  “How do you feel about hanging out at the arcade?” he asks.

  I hesitate. I love hanging out at the arcade. Maybe too much. But that’s because I rock at most of the games. Is Chas the macho type who will pout and be moody if I beat him? Because if I play for real, I’ll cream him. I’m not sure I’m the type to just let a guy win so that he feels good about himself. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m not that type. Aw, nuts. I may never get to that first kiss after all.

  We arrive at the arcade ten minutes later and head in. The huge room is dim, and bright lights in every shade of the rainbow bounce from machine to machine. Sounds of aliens being demolished, basketballs hitting hoops, and ping-pong machine paddles hitting the metal balls into dinging bumpers fill the air.

  I’m practically giddy.

  “What’s your best Skee-Ball score?” I ask Chas.

  “Hmm, I don’t remember.”

  “Let’s find out.” I grab his hand and lead him to the lanes.

  I proceed to crush Chas at Skee Ball, Dance Dance Revolution, and Ace Combat. Now we’re on side-by-side snowboards. I check Chas’s score and again, mine is higher. Geez, I really should toss at least something small his way so that he doesn’t feel like a complete loser. Chas looks at my screen, and I suddenly crash into a tree. “Whoopsie.” My little snowboarder gets back up, and I crash him into a ski lodge. “Man, I’m not having any luck with this game.”

  Chas’s game ends and he gets off his snowboard and stands next to me to watch me finish my game. Ah, pressure. I veer hard to the left and right into a billboard. Game over.

  “Oh well, can’t win them all,” I say, climbing down from the snowboard.

  “Yes, you can,” Chas insists, a twinkle in his eye. “You crashed on purpose.”

  I start to argue but close my mouth. He’s got me.

  “It’s okay, you know. I like when you win.” He leans in a few inches closer, and I hold my breath. And then he kisses me, right on the lips, next to the snowboard game. It was different than I expected, but a great kind of different. It wasn’t wet at all like I’d been afraid of. It was soft and sweet and spicy at the same time, like he’d just been chewing on cinnamon Altoids or a handful or Red Hots. And it lasted seven and a half seconds—I counted, which falls nicely in the guidelines of the five-to-fifteen-seconds first-kiss recommendation I read in Super Teen Magazine.

  He pulls back and smiles at me. I return his smile but don’t say anything. I’m not sure how to transition from this moment. Am I supposed to kiss him now? Do I say thank you? Do I comment on the quality of the kiss? Can I put in a request for another?

  “Feel like bowling?” Chas asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Huh? Bowling?” I repeat.

  “Yeah, we can go next door.” He points to the hallway that connects to the bowling alley side of the building.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  We get to the bowling alley, pay for a lane, and pick out our bowling shoes. I consider trying to squeeze my giant feet into a pair of size eights so Chas thinks I’m dainty but instead I give over my real size nine to the bowling shoe guy. I figure Chas would eventually find out my shoe size anyway, so why lie? And do guys even care about shoe size? If anything, my big ol’ feet make me more stable and less likely to be pushed over. All these girls who brag about their size sevens would probably blow over in a big gust of wind.

  Chas sets up the scoreboard with our names, and we begin. And he’s pretty good. It doesn’t take long before he’s wiping up the floor with me. Which I suppose makes us even, since I basically destroyed him at the video games.

  Chas takes his turn and gets a spare. He comes back to wait for his ball to return, and I’m just staring at him from my seat. He sees me and tilts his head. “What?” he asks. He looks so adorable standing there with the neon lights bouncing around behind him.

  “Nothing,” I reply, but I’m smiling.

  “You look like you want to say something,” he pushes on.

  “No, it’s just, you’re such a sweet guy. I’m surprised you don’t already have a girlfriend.”

  “I could say the same about you not having a boyfriend,” he counters.

  “I suppose,” I agree. I hold my gaze steady.

  Chas walks over and sits down next to me on the bench. Next thing I know, we’re kissing again. It’s so loud around us, with the music and the people talking and the balls hitting the pins on all the different lanes. But Chas and I are just sitting here right in the middle of all that, kissing. And it’s really nice. I’m pretty sure I could get used to it.

  When he finally pulls away I’m a bit dizzy and winded. It takes my eyes a minute to readjust to the flashing lights around the bowling alley.

  “Your turn,” he says, holding his hand out to help me up.

  Chapter 22

  I have to say, this whole dating thing is utterly Uh. Mazing. Chas is the perfect boyfriend. Not that he’s technically my boyfriend boyfriend yet. But if the three additional kisses—fifteen seconds, twenty-six seconds, and ten seconds, respectively—are any indication of his feelings for me, then I’d say he’s just about my boyfriend. I’m not going to do anything drastic, like change my Facebook status from “single” to “in a relationship,” but I’m ninety-nine percent sure he’ll ask me on another date for this weekend.

  I take my seat in IPC second period, and Chas leans over and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I look around to see if anyone noticed but there’s too much chatter and no one’s paying any attention to me. Mrs. B. announces that we can work on our summation reports in partners or journal quietly for the first twenty minutes of class, and I smile at Chas. Talia’s hand shoots up in the air.

  “Mrs. B.?” she says.

  “Yes, Talia?”

  “The person running the Thompson Tattler blog still hasn’t taken it down. Is there anything you can do? Like, give him or her an F?”

  My eyes widen, and I search Mrs. B.’s face. I can’t get an F.

  Mrs. B. sighs. “Talia, I can tell all of you what a horrible idea it is to put pictures and information from our class project online. I can tell you that stuff that goes online is pretty much there forever. That there’s always a chance a future employer might Google your name and one of these stories comes up. But I’m not sure what I can do to get the person doing it to take it down. I don’t have any authority when you guys do stuff outside of school. I think it’s a rotten idea when you post provocative pictures on Facebook or—”

  “I don’t do that,” Talia interrupts.

  “Okay, not you specifically,” Mrs. B. continues. “I mean, teens in general. I think teens today put entirely too much information about themselves online. You’re Facebooking, you’re Tweeting, you’re telling people where you are and what you’re doing throughout the day. It’s just too much.”

  Some people are rolling their eyes. I know what they’re thinking. That Mr
s. B. is just old and doesn’t get it. But I can see what she’s saying. That’s why I didn’t want to be a celebrity in the first place. I didn’t want people talking about me and knowing my every move. I didn’t want any part of the drama.

  Oh, I’m majorly adding to it though, aren’t I? Hmm. Maybe Mrs. B. is right. Maybe I should pull down the blog and just let the class finish the project as we originally planned.

  “I still think it sucks,” Talia says. “And whoever is doing it sucks too.”

  “All right, Talia,” Mrs. B. says.

  Chas and I pull our desks to the back corner of the room for some privacy. We face the desks toward each other, and he leans in to whisper. “So who do you think is behind the blog?”

  “The blog?”

  “Yeah. The Tattler. Who do you think is doing it?”

  “Who’s doing it?” I have got to stop repeating him. Can I sound any guiltier?

  “Yeah,” he says. “Know what I think? I think it’s Talia. All this goody-two-shoes stuff. No one would expect her.”

  Or me.

  “And then she keeps throwing a fit about it. Notice no one else really says anything? It’s like that old saying, about the one who protests too loudly is the one who did it.”

  I must have a confused look on my face because Chas elaborates.

  “You know. Along the lines of the ‘he who smelt it, dealt it’ philosophy.”

  I nod. Interesting. Wrong, but interesting. And I’m sure as heck not correcting him. I don’t want him to know it’s me. I’m sorta happy he suspects Talia of doing it. That pretty much cancels any fears I had that he had a crush on her.

  Bang! We hear a loud crash toward the front of the room, and everyone looks up. Brittany’s books are all piled on the floor to her right and she’s glaring at them.

  “This is so stupid,” she mutters angrily, slamming out of her seat. She walks around her desk, accidentally kicking one of her notebooks further out of her reach.