Not only had my insides turned to jelly, but I looked like a schlumpy mess, too. Bridget and I had decided to wear our Otters camp T-shirts for solidarity (well, actually, it was her idea), but now I was having big-time second thoughts. My T-shirt combined with my limp ponytail made me look like I’d crawled out from under a rock. This compared to Mer and Brynne, all camera-ready in their matching pastel sweater sets and sleekly straightened hair. What was I thinking? Meredith’s fashion report was starting to seem like a good idea. I could use some help.
And speaking of help, Ms. Stephens said she liked my new essay, but was she just being polite? Was it totally stupid? If so, I was about to make a supersized fool of myself. Why couldn’t I be content to just read the announcements? Bridget, that’s why. Every time I found myself way over my head, all roads led back to Bridget.
Speaking of…
I took a deep breath as I noticed Bridget from the corner of my eye, doing a countdown on her fingers, mouthing the numbers as she went along. “Five, four, three…” Uh-oh. Ready or not, it was time for my first Oddcast commentary.
As Bridget’s last finger curled down to her hand, Ben turned the camera toward me in my seat next to Shelley’s. Was it possible for a heart to explode? I was about to find out.
“Reporting live from Crossroads Middle School, this is Talia Farrow with ‘Talia Talk,’ a new weekly commentary for the Oddcast.
“You heard Brynne mention that Monday is the deadline for us to turn in parent volunteer forms, and that got me to thinking.”
Breathe, Talia, breathe. Inhale, already.
“As you know, the forms give a list of volunteer opportunities at school so the parents can sign up if they want to.”
I saw Bridget stretching out her hands in the corner of my eye. “Slow down,” she was mouthing. “Slow down.”
“Okay, I’ll admit it,” I said slowly. “I’ve put off giving the form to my mom until the last minute. The problem isn’t that I think she won’t sign up. The problem is that I know she will.”
Bridget was making a stirring motion with her hand. “Speed up,” she mouthed. “Speed up.” God! No pressure there.
“We all know the type: the moms who volunteer for everything, especially if it has anything to do with our education,” I said a little bit faster but not too fast. Breathe. “I’d like to educate these moms about how to be a good school volunteer. The short version: Everything you normally do, do the opposite.” The Oddcast staff chuckled. I inhaled deeper and continued.
“The biggest problem is that mom volunteers are way too perky. Every time my mom comes to school, she has a big smile pasted on her face and waves to all the kids, calling them by name.
“Note I didn’t say calling them by their names, because she usually gets them wrong. I’ve gone to school with a guy named Peter since kindergarten and Mom calls him Caleb. No, Caleb isn’t his middle name. No, Caleb isn’t the name of his identical twin brother—he doesn’t have one. There’s no reason at all to call him Caleb, but that name is stuck in my mom’s head. He just smiles politely when she calls him that. What’s the point of correcting her after all these years?
“Mom-volunteer perkiness spills over in other ways too. My mom likes to chat with my classmates, which I wouldn’t necessarily mind if the conversations were halfway interesting. Sadly, no such luck. So when she’s driving a carload of kids to a museum for a field trip, for instance, she’ll ask them one by one what their parents do for a living or what their favorite subject is. The kids are always sneaking me frantic looks while they’re answering her questions, like they’re thinking, When is my interview over? And why does your mom care that my dad is an accountant? It’s like being chaperoned by the CIA.”
The Oddcast staff chuckled again. I noticed my heart wasn’t pounding through my chest anymore.
“I know mom volunteers mean well, but I can’t help wondering: would it be so terrible if I accidentally forgot to show my mom this form?
“I’m thinking ‘Caleb’ would vote no.
“Signing off for now, this is Talia Farrow for the Crossroads Oddcast.”
Bridget mouthed “Cut.” Ben turned off the camcorder. I blinked hard and came up for air for the first time in three minutes.
“Great job!” Ms. Stephens said, her eyes twinkling.
“Ms. Stephens, could I double as a makeup artist?” Meredith asked. “I didn’t get many lines in the Oddcast anyway. I might as well put my talents to use by making sure everybody looks halfway professional.”
She wrinkled her nose as she looked at Bridget’s and my T-shirts. I tugged at mine self-consciously.
“Mer, considering you have a piece of bacon stuck between your teeth, I’m not sure you qualify as an authority,” Bridget said.
“Omigod!” Meredith slapped her hand over her mouth.
“I was kidding,” Bridget groaned. “You think I’d let you on the air with food in your teeth?”
Meredith’s eyes narrowed. “You are the worst director ever!”
Bridget took a bow.
“Settle down, guys,” Ms. Stephens said. “It’s time to get to your first-period class. Be here at seven-forty-five Monday morning for the next Oddcast. I’ll have a script ready to go…lower-maintenance next time, with just announcements. We’ll let Fridays be our pull-out-the-stops day. Keep up the good work.”
As we filtered out of the room, Ms. Stephens gently pulled my arm. “You’re a natural, Talia,” she said. “Can you have your next commentary written by Thursday?”
I blushed. “Sure. Thanks, Ms. Stephens.”
I was glad she was pleased, but the real test would come thirty seconds from now when I walked into my classroom. My legs felt like lead as I walked down the hall. Would the kids be rolling their eyes, or worse, giving me polite little nods? I felt so exposed. Mom’s job was harder than it looked.
I stared at my shoes as I entered Mr. Lambert’s algebra class.
“Ah! Here’s our Crossroads celebrity in the flesh,” Mr. Lambert said from his desk.
I managed a weak smile and settled into my desk.
Paul Pereyo poked me playfully from the seat behind mine. “Awesome job,” he said.
A couple of kids nodded, and several were smiling at me. I relaxed a little.
“My mom’s a dorky volunteer, too,” Casey Lindley said from a couple of rows over. “She makes cupcakes with smiley faces. Barf!”
I chuckled and relaxed my shoulders. They really seemed to have liked it, or at least not totally hated it. I sighed. How was it possible that a few random thoughts in my head the night before had morphed into talking points for the whole school? It was wild…a little scary, a little exhilarating, a little…wild.
“My mom calls people by the wrong names too,” Carleigh Brody whispered from the desk in front of mine. “I thought it was just her.”
How weird was this? People I barely knew were suddenly talking to me, all because of the Oddcast. I was famous! Well…by Crossroads Middle School standards, at least. And fame, I was beginning to realize, wasn’t half bad. It wasn’t bad at all.
17
“She said what?”
It was drizzly that Saturday, so Mom and I were lazily chilling around the house when Meredith’s mom called her around lunchtime. The longer the conversation lasted, the higher Mom’s eyebrows rose.
“And it’s on the Internet?” Mom continued into the phone. “So anybody could watch it?”
When she hung up, Mom groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“Talia!” she moaned. “Your first Oddcast commentary was about me?”
I grabbed an apple from the kitchen counter, took a bite and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mom,” I said as I chewed. “Nobody your age sees the Oddcast.”
She peeked at me between splayed fingers. “Except that it’s on the Internet, which limits the potential audience to, oh, about six billion. Are all of your commentaries going to be about me?”
I shrugged. “You
have to understand, Mom,” I said, taking another bite, “my commentaries aren’t really about you. They’re about Everymom. All my friends can relate. The experiences are universal.”
She shook her head and muttered, “I’ve created a monster.”
I shrugged. “You know what’s funny? Frankenstein wasn’t the name of the monster. It was the name of the doctor who created him.”
Mom took a deep breath. “Do I dare see it for myself?” she asked.
She turned on the computer, typed in Crossroads Middle School’s Internet address and clicked on the podcast. As I assured her that, no, Peter’s name really wasn’t Caleb, the color slowly drained from her face.
When the podcast was over, her hands fell into her lap. “How often will you do a commentary?” she asked.
“Weekly.”
Mom winced. “But being a dorky volunteer is my only fault, right?” she asked weakly. “I mean, what else could you possibly have to say about me?”
“Well, there’s that toenail fungus you’ve been battling,” I said, “and those gray hairs you’ve started plucking in front of the mirror, and—”
“Talia!” Mom said. “There’s such a thing as privacy!”
I tossed my apple into the trash can and put my hands on my hips. “Explain that concept to me, Mom,” I said. “And you better do a good job explaining it, because I have no firsthand experience. What exactly is privacy?”
“Honey, I know I get paid to talk about my family on TV,” she said, “but I’m very selective about what I share with my viewers.”
“If crayons up the nose makes the cut, what exactly do you consider off-limits?” I challenged.
“Anything you tell me in confidence,” she said. “Or anything that could hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“You’ve hurt my feelings lots of times,” I said with a pout.
Mom’s eyes softened. “I know I make you cringe a little now and then, but I’ve never really hurt your feelings…have I?”
I shrugged, then peered at her closely. “I didn’t really hurt your feelings, did I?”
Mom bit her bottom lip and grinned. “You certainly made me cringe.”
I held up the palms of my hands. “Like mother, like daughter.”
Mom sighed. “I think,” she muttered, “that I’ve met my match.”
I offered her my hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Frankenstein.”
18
“Talia, E-bay. E-bay, Talia.”
E-bay looked suspicious, but he let me shake his paw.
Jake smiled. “Good. You’re friends.”
E-bay didn’t look convinced. “He’s growling at me,” I said, eyeing Jake’s dog nervously.
“No, that’s not a growl,” Jake assured me.
“I think it’s a growl,” Mom said, pulling me closer to her side as the three of us crouched in front of E-bay, staring into his chocolate brown eyes.
“E-bay’s just a little protective of me,” Jake said. “He’s a really nice dog. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
I believed Jake; E-bay probably was really nice. He just knew we didn’t fit in his apartment.
Mom had made our visit to Jake’s apartment seem like a spur-of-the-moment decision. We’d been cooped up in the house the whole drizzly Saturday, and I’d assumed we’d be cooped up that whole drizzly Saturday night. But when afternoon turned to evening and I asked Mom what we were having for dinner, she shrugged.
“Hmmm. I hadn’t really thought about it.” Mom rubbed the back of her neck, then widened her eyes and held up an index finger. “Oh, I have an idea.”
“What?” I asked, already feeling suspicious.
“Um, Jake? You remember, Jake, the sportswriter from work? The one we ate pizza with last week? Jake?”
“Yes, Mom. I remember Jake.”
“Right. Jake. Anyhow, Jake mentioned that we might want to stop by his apartment this evening…just if we were in the neighborhood, or whatever. He said he makes really good pasta and was whipping up a batch tonight.”
“You told him we were coming?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.
“No! No, honey, I just said we might stop by, maybe, if we didn’t have anything else going on.”
“Anything else going on?” I repeated slowly. “Like maybe we’d decide at the last minute to throw a neighborhood barbecue or something?”
Mom laughed too loudly. “Oh, Talia, you’re such a riot. You know what I mean; you know how we go to Grandma’s sometimes, or she and Grandpa come over here, or I thought maybe you’d want to invite Bridget for a sleepover, or…I just didn’t know if we’d be busy or not.”
“But just in case we weren’t…”
“Right! Just in case we weren’t, I told Jake maybe we’d stop by. If we were in the neighborhood.”
“And why might we be in Jake’s neighborhood?”
Mom flung her hands in the air. “Talia! You’re so literal.”
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, if you want us to eat at Jake’s, why don’t you just say so?”
Mom blushed. “I didn’t say I want us to eat at Jake’s. I just said that if we weren’t busy, and if we were in the neighborhood—”
“Please, Mom. Stop talking in circles. You’re making me dizzy.” I stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Mom fanned her overheated face with her hand.
“Oh, man. You’ve got it bad.”
So that’s how we ended up at Jake’s that evening. We just happened to be in the neighborhood.
And now, here I was, standing in front of a growling dog who was wondering why the heck I was there, and frankly, I was wondering the same thing.
Thwack! Jake clapped his hands. “So. My marinara sauce needs just a few more minutes on the stove, then dinner will be ready. Let me finish things up in the kitchen while you two—I don’t know—watch TV or something?”
“I’ve seen enough for one day,” Mom said, walking from the foyer over to a couch. She sat at one end, then patted the cushion and motioned for me to sit beside her.
“Talia’s doing a weekly commentary for her school’s morning broadcast,” she said to Jake. “It’s uploaded onto the school’s Web site as a podcast, so anybody in the whole world, virtually, can watch it if they want.”
“Great!” Jake said, walking me over to the couch. “That’s quite an honor, huh? To do a commentary for your school?”
I shrugged and sat beside Mom. “It’s no biggie.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Jake said, tousling my hair. “You keep it up and you may be your mom’s cohost some day.”
Mom tossed him a smile. “Or replacement. Go easy on the encouragement. Her commentary was about me.”
Jake looked quizzical for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Ah. A little tit for tat, huh?”
“She talked about what a dorky volunteer I am at school,” Mom said, pinching me playfully.
“No way!” Jake said, smiling broadly and falling back into a well-worn armchair. “Your mom’s way too cool to be a dork.”
I pinched my lips into a tight smile. “O-kay.”
“No, really,” Jake said, his eyes twinkling. “Your mom is, like, the coolest person I know. I can’t imagine her acting dorky.”
Mom laughed and put a hand over her face.
“Moms can’t be cool,” I said. “It’s a law of nature.”
Jake rubbed his beard, grinning. “So this volunteer work at school: Does she have to wear a name badge and everything?”
I nodded. “And she wears holiday sweaters. You know, pumpkins on Halloween, hearts on Valentine’s Day….”
Jake inhaled sharply and grimaced. “Theme sweaters? Very uncool.”
Now Mom had both hands over her face and was giggling so hard, her shoulders shook.
“Okay, you’ve worn me down,” Jake said. He walked over to his desk, grabbed his laptop and plopped back into his chair. “What’s the address for your school’s Web site? I gotta see th
is for myself.”
“Jake!” Mom moaned.
“Classic!” I said, then told Jake the Web address.
He typed it in, clicked a couple of times to get to the podcast, then watched intently as I gave my commentary. By the end, he was tossing his head back and laughing.
“Does your mom sing in the car when she takes you on field trips?” Jake asked when it was over. By now, E-bay had relaxed and trotted to his side. Jake scratched the dog’s neck lazily.
“Yes! And gets the words wrong half the time but keeps singing them anyway.”
Jake feigned a look of shock. “Chelsea, I’ve never seen this side of you before. I have to say, I’m stunned. And frankly, I don’t know if I can associate with people who wear holiday theme sweaters and sing the wrong words to songs.”
Mom threw a pillow at him, sputtering with laughter. “Stop ganging up on me,” she said. “I’ll never live down Talia’s commentary as it is. How can I ever face Caleb again? Or Peter…or whatever that kid’s name is.”
“You call lots of people by the wrong name,” I said, smiling lightly in spite of myself. It was weird to see her flirting, yet she looked so content. I looked closely at Jake. “Are you sure your name is really Jake?”
We all laughed, and E-bay barked in approval of our good moods.
19
“And we ate pasta, and I played with his dog E-bay, which was pretty cool, and—”
“E-bay?” Bridget asked as we walked toward the Oddcast room Monday morning.
“Yeah. Jake’s other dog was named Freeway, so—”
“Never trust a guy who gives his dogs rhyming names,” Bridget said.
“Why not?”
Bridget shrugged. “I don’t know. On second thought, maybe you can trust him. But never trust people who name their pets after spices.”
I tossed a lock of hair off my shoulder. “I think my mom really likes him,” I said, quickening my pace so we wouldn’t be late. “She was, like, flirting with him. Totally weird.”
Bridget and I approached the Oddcast room. Meredith and Ben were already there, and other staff members were filtering in behind us. Ms. Stephens began handing out scripts.
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