“I’ll text you guys later. My dad’s calling.”
“Hey, kiddo, what’s the good word?” Dad asked when I clicked over.
“Um, what’s going on with you?”
“Work, work, and more work. How’s school?”
“Fine,” I said.
“Good, good. And everything going okay with—”
“Everything stinks! Tori told Mom I did something stupid and now she’s telling other people and Mom believes me, but I’m going to look bad and I hate confrontation, but obviously, I’m going to have to confront her and I don’t know what to do and I hate when people get mad at me, but that’s—”
“Whoa, kiddo. Slow down. Now tell me what happened.”
“Um… all of it?” I said thinking my mom’s radar would go off and she’d ground me for life if I told him the entire story.
“Well, the gist of it,” he said.
I told him I had gone to the library with Vladi, but made it sound like a study date, which it technically was — I just left out all the handholding and the deep, meaningful stares and the conversation that basically confirmed that Vladi and I were soul mates. I told him how Tori told her mother Vladi and I were making out behind the stacks, which my teacher had already confirmed wasn’t true.
“Did your mother know you were having a study session with a boy, or did she just assume it was a girl?” he asked.
“She was fine with us meeting to study.”
“Even though he’s in another grade and goes to a different school?”
“The library is super open and she wasn’t worried, and there was no reason to be worried, but this little jerk face, Tori, is now—”
“Okay, hold on, was there kissing?”
Oh man, why did he have to ask that?
“My teacher was watching us the whole time and there are librarians everywhere, so no, no, but… we have kissed.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Did you kiss on that day?”
I started to speak when Dad interrupted me.
“You know what? Never mind. I don’t need to know that. Nothing happened and yet this girl is saying something did. Is it because she likes him?”
I told him what Mrs. Kharazzi said.
“Well, that makes perfect sense, Landry. Your friend feels left behind, and she thinks if she puts a stop to you being able to hang out with your guy friend then she can somehow still hold onto you.”
“But if I say anything to her, she’ll get defensive and turn everyone against me,” I said.
“You’re right.”
“No offense, Dad, but that’s not helpful. Not even a little bit.”
He laughed. “I think you should call her and say, ‘I guess things got a little mixed up when you talked to your mom and it sounded worse than it was,’” he said. “And make it sound like both your moms are super overprotective and let them be the bad guys. Give Tori an out, and then ask her if she wants to come over and watch a movie or something.”
“I’m sorry. You want me to invite that lying liar pants to the house and let her off the hook?”
“Yes, I want you to give her the opportunity to come clean and apologize and not have to go on the defensive,” he said.
“Why? She’s the bad guy here and she should be groveling at my feet.”
“But she’s not going to, and she might keep spreading rumors and make you look bad. You need to address that with her and ask her why she’s saying that. I’m not saying she will apologize or even admit she’s wrong. I’m just saying you give her the chance and take it from there.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked.
“Then you tell her you’re disappointed that your friendship doesn’t mean more to her.”
I couldn’t see any of that working, but what else did I have to try?
“Okay, I’ll try that.”
“Good luck, kiddo.”
I called Tori, afraid she wouldn’t pick up and I was right. So I tried her landline and her brother answered. I said who I was and asked to speak to her, but he got all weird and flirty.
“So whatcha been up to, Landry?” he asked.
“Not much,” I said.
“Still modeling?”
I cleared my throat, uncomfortable, because I hadn’t had one job since the Wild Card thing, but I said, “A bit.”
“Well, I’m not surprised. You always were the prettiest one of the three of you.”
Weird. He barely gave me the time of day before and now this?
“Um, thanks. Listen, I need to talk to Tori, but I’m afraid she won’t get on the phone if she knows it’s me. Do you think you could get her on the line without saying I’m the one calling?”
“Sure,” he said.
A few seconds later I heard someone pick up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Tori. I’m so glad you’re home,” I said. “Some crazy stuff is going on, and I just want to get it all cleared up.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, my mom got this call from your mother and she was asking all kinds of questions about me and Vladi. Luckily my mother ran into Mrs. Kharazzi who was at the library yesterday, and she told my mom nothing happened.”
“Oh?”
“Mm-hmm. Mrs. Kharazzi was watching us the whole time. I guess both our moms got weirded out about one of us dating, huh?”
“Yeah, maybe…”
“But then I heard you said something about me being all over Vladi and I—” I stopped. “I wondered why would you say that?”
“I—I kind of thought you were.”
“How? By holding hands?”
“You two were totally making out,” she said.
“He kissed me once — on the forehead. I don’t appreciate you spreading rumors about me.”
“I call it like I see it,” she said.
“Do you think kissing someone once is being all over them and making out?” I wanted to add something about her never having had a boyfriend, but I wasn’t going to go there.
“I guess it’s… I just thought it was dumb for you to act like that in the library.”
“Act like what? Like I like him?” I asked. My heart was racing now.
“I need to go. I have homework.”
“So you’d rather get off the phone than try to work on our friendship? I want to get this straightened out.”
Even I was surprised by my backbone. Way to go, me!
“I’m sorry if you think I overreacted,” she said.
I opened my mouth to say something, but then I remembered something my Mom said about how in business meetings, you always let the other person keep talking and get everything they needed to say out so they felt heard, so I waited for Tori to keep going.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to my mom. You know how she gets. And I guess I shouldn’t have made a big deal about it on the bus,” she said.
I wanted to say, “You’re right, you sneaky, jealous, little jerk,” but Dad did tell me to be the bigger person.
“I just — you’re always with your new friends and now you’ve got this boyfriend and you’re not the same person. I mean, the old Landry wouldn’t have just told me off,” she said.
“I didn’t tell you off, Tori. I stood up for myself. There’s a big difference.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a different person, and I’m not sure I want to hang out with this person.”
My stomach felt like it was twisting up. I didn’t want to lose a friend over this —so much was changing. Ashanti changing groups and then to lose another friend I had had for so long? I couldn’t take it, but I also couldn’t handle the idea of being treated like a doormat.
“But I haven’t changed. I just learned to speak up. I’m sorry if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore because of that.”
“I didn’t say that,” she said.
“I feel that from you. You and Ericka are always by yourselves.”
“Yeah, well, you and your crew are always together,
and you never invite me with you guys.”
“Yeah, but you used to go do things with your soccer friends without me all the time. I felt left out, too, and when’s the last time you asked me to do anything with you?” I asked.
“That’s because I—I was afraid you’d say you had something better to do.”
“I know we’ve been hanging out with other people lately, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be your friend,” I said.
She said it felt like I was moving on without her, and she started to cry. Tori had only cried three times in our entire friendship and once was because her cat, Snowflake, died.
“I’m not. I wouldn’t do that,” I said, but in my heart I knew we weren’t as close as we had been. I still felt betrayed over how she treated me when I moved on in the Ingénue competition when she and Ericka stopped talking to me. I couldn’t pretend we were still super close besties when I no longer trusted her, but I also didn’t have to shut the door on someone who was hurting.
“I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that way,” I said.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said sniffing.
I didn’t know what to say after that. It felt wrong to bring up past feelings when she was so emotional, so I told her how her brother acted flirty on the phone and she started laughing.
“He’s so dumb,” she said.
We got off the phone, and I texted Ashanti and Peyton about what happened. They both said I handled it well, but they didn’t trust her. I agreed with them and it made me feel sad. I went to start my homework on my laptop when Vladi messaged me online. I wrote him about the whole mess with Tori and her mom.
Vladi: Are you serious? But your mom is okay with everything?
Landry: Yeah. Mrs. Kharazzi spoke all glowingly about us, so it’s fine.
Vladi: That’s a relief. I’d be so mad if Tori ruined that for us.
My cheeks got warm. “Us.” He said, “Us.” Sigh.
Landry: Me, too.
Vladi: I mean, how else am I going to get to check out your mom without you there? Sheesh, way to ruin my plan, Tori. LOL
Landry: Well, now there are TWO people I don’t want to be friends with, one is Tori, can you guess who the other one is?
Vladi: Hahaha. I think I can! You know I’m just kidding. ;)
Landry: It has not been a good day.
Vladi: I can imagine. I’m glad your Mom’s okay with everything. I’d be bummed if we couldn’t hang out anymore.
Landry: You would?
Vladi: You know I would. I love hanging out with you.
He just used the word “love,” in a sentence about me!
Landry: Me, too.
Vladi: I’ve gotta finish my stupid history paper. For some reason I keep getting distracted.
Landry: Why?
Vladi: I keep thinking about something that happened yesterday…
Landry: What?
Vladi: Um… I think you know ;)
Landry: Oh! Right.
I am so dumb and naïve — completely clueless. He was flirting, and I was like a two year old asking, “What???” Such an idiot.
Vladi: I better get back to my homework. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
Landry: Okay, good luck.
Vladi: Night, cutie.
I almost passed out, and I took a screen shot of the last part of the conversation and then the, “Night, cutie,” part. Then I sat there staring at it until Mom came in and told me to get ready for bed.
Chapter 16
The next day Mom got a call about me appearing on a local talk show. It was a cable access show that had one of their guests cancel. The producer had seen me on the other talk show and wanted to know if I would come on and talk about my Ingénue experience.
Part of me was excited I’d get to be on TV again. The other half of me was thinking I needed to stock up on anti-diarrhea medicine and bring an extra roll of toilet paper with me just in case.
“It’s not live, so you can relax about that,” Mom said. “The lady seemed nice on the phone. Because of your age, the host called me herself to put aside any fears or worries I might have about you appearing on the show. You’ll only be on for a few minutes, but they said it would give you some exposure and a chance to get used to being on camera again. It’s up to you if you want to do it.”
As nervous as I was about it, there was always the chance of someone big seeing it and casting me in a commercial or music video or something — or a certain show called As the Days Roll On, which needed a new love interest for Colin.
“Yeah, I want to do it,” I said.
“We have to get up early tomorrow to do this, and because it’s last minute, there are no prep questions or anything. You just go and talk about the show.”
“Okay, I need the practice to feel comfortable doing these things,” I said.
“All right, I’ll call her back.”
I said, “Fine,” but that night my stomach was anything but fine, and I could not shut off my brain to sleep. Mom insisted I go to bed early since we had to get up at the butt crack of dawn, but it was, like, a little kid bedtime, not a teenager’s bedtime. I reached over, got my phone, and texted Vladi about my interview.
Vladi: Cool. I’ll check and see if we get that channel.
I wrote him that I was getting super nervous about the whole thing. Then I wondered if I should have kept that to myself. He wrote back that his coach told him how to prepare for a game the night before. His coach said to picture all his shots going into the basket and the whole game going well. He said if you visualize it going well, it mentally prepares you and you go in more confident. Then he wrote:
Vladi: Maybe you could try that and picture yourself being confident on the set with that lady. I’m sure you’ll do great.
I decided to try that, but my stupid overthinking brain went haywire and I was up for hours thinking about the perfect interview. When my alarm went off the next morning, it felt like I had slept maybe three hours. And then I moved to look at my clock and realized that was about right. Ugh.
I got ready putting on a pair of school pants and my lavender V-neck sweater, but Mom told me my outfit didn’t look right for an interview. She made me change into a pink sweater dress of hers, which had a cowl neck that made my hair super staticky.
“My hair didn’t look great to begin with, and now I look like I got electrocuted,” I said.
“Here. Let me get a dryer sheet and I’ll smooth it down.”
The dryer sheet got rid of the flyaways, but now my hair was super flat. Mom took her big barreled curling iron and began to roll my hair around it. She hadn’t curled my hair for me since I was little. And then I remembered why as she burned the top of my ear.
“Ow!”
“Oops, sorry. I never was good with this thing,” she said. “Well, the front’s all that matters and it’s pretty much done. You look fine.”
Fine? Fine didn’t get you cast on As the Days Roll On. Fine didn’t get you a date with the lead singer of the Puking Baby Dolls. Fine didn’t—
“Come on, we need to leave now so we’re not late,” she said.
The studio was on the east side of town near two of the universities. The show’s producer told my mother that the building was next to one of the campus parking lots. I stared at the college buildings and wondered if I’d end up going to one of these schools. As a kid, I always thought I’d go to the school my parents went to or maybe another one in Chicago, but now I wasn’t sure. College seemed so far away in some ways, but at the same time I had to start thinking about it. Would I go away to school and be so far from my mom? What if I had some big emergency and I was a couple hours away? The schools here seemed nice, but they were big and overwhelming and I couldn’t see myself walking on this campus.
“This school is a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” Mom said. “You should keep this one in mind for down the road.”
My friend from the Ingénue competition, Kyra, told me she was going to go to a univer
sity in Flint for her undergrad stuff and then go to med school in either Ann Arbor or Lansing. She wanted to be a doctor because her mom had been sick for so much of her life, and Kyra wanted to be able to help people the way so many doctors and specialists helped her mother. My dad always knew he wanted to be a doctor, too, because his grandfather had health problems while my dad was growing up. It seemed like a lot of people decided what they wanted to do for a career based on things that happened when they were kids that impacted them. I knew I liked to write and that English was my favorite subject, but I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. In a perfect world, I’d be an actress/model/writer, but I knew that was a long shot.
“Okay, we’re here. You ready?” Mom asked.
We walked up to the building and found a sign telling us to go to the side door. We went around the corner, and it was like we hit a wind tunnel. A blast of air hit me in the face, and my hair blew backward. Even Mom was taken by surprise as it blew something into her contact lens.
“Oh no, my eyes are watering,” she said shielding her face. “Don’t let me walk into anything.”
I guided her by the arm and buzzed us into the building. My eyes were watering, too, as I signed myself in as a guest.
“Landry?” one of the assistants said. “Why don’t you come back to the green room with me? Your sister can come along, too.”
I gritted my teeth as I explained she was my mother. Mom followed me back and we went into a small room that had two couches, a table, TV set, and a vanity where I caught my reflection.
“Ugh. My hair got destroyed in that wind,” I said.
“I have a comb in my purse,” Mom said as she poked at her eye. I was so glad I didn’t have to wear contacts because I couldn’t imagine having to touch my eyeball.
“What do I do? Comb through the mess and have it look super flat, but at least not like a bird’s nest?” I asked.
Mom bit her lip. “I don’t think you have a choice. You’re going to have to brush the curl out.”
If my hair had been longer, I could have pulled it all in front or over to one side — even put it up — but with the bob, all I could do was try to make it look presentable. I guess having it shorter did mean it fell into place a little better even if the style wasn’t as exciting.
Landry in Like Page 10