Totally Crushed

by Kristen Tracy

  “She does,” Drea said. “We only live four streets away.”

  Suddenly, I felt really guilty for not knowing how close Drea lived to me.

  “Do you want some pizza?” Piper asked. “It’s delicious.”

  I watched Piper take another enormous bite. I wondered if Bobby was somewhere ignoring his quinoa loaf and chowing down on pizza too.

  “Okay,” Drea said, taking a seat next to Piper on the banquette. “This looks great.”

  “We’ll need more paper towels,” my mom said, heading off toward the hall pantry.

  “So what brings you here?” Piper asked Drea.

  My sister was so direct. I wished I could be more like her.

  “I want to be more popular,” Drea said.

  Wow. Drea was pretty direct too.

  “You’re cute,” Piper said. “You can probably be as popular as you want. It’s really just a matter of projecting enough confidence and not being socially weird.”

  Drea forcefully shook her head. “It’s not that easy. I have a terrible smile. And all my friends are really geeky. I’m only friends with kids in the band.”

  “Why?” Piper asked. “I just don’t understand middle school nowadays. I was friends with everybody.”

  I rolled my eyes at that comment. Sometimes Piper acted like she was too perfect, even if it was true.

  “The band kids are nice to me,” Drea said. “I’m worried other kids will be mean.”

  That was a wise move on Drea’s part. She’d figured out her clique and was staying in it.

  “That’s a weird thing to assume,” Piper said. “I’ve never walked into a room and thought anybody would be mean to me. I’m always excited to see who’s going to be there. Maybe I’ll meet somebody cool. That’s what I’m thinking when I walk into a room.”

  “Yeah,” Drea said. “But you’re gorgeous.”

  Piper didn’t miss a beat. “We’re all gorgeous,” she said, flashing a smile.

  “No,” Drea said. “I’m not gorgeous. And worse than that, I did something really embarrassing on the Internet.”

  This seemed to catch Piper’s attention. She stopped smiling and leaned forward. “How embarrassing? What did you do?”

  Drea took a deep breath. “I puked up twenty hot dogs into a bucket.”

  “Oh my God,” Piper said. “Why did you let anybody film that? Did you have the flu or something?”

  And then Drea took another deep breath and explained the hot dog eating contest and her initial win, and then the reversal of fortune, when she threw up everything and lost the prize.

  “Well,” Piper said, “as tough as this sounds, you can’t let your entire life be defined by thirty seconds of vomiting. You need to forget your head was ever in that bucket.”

  And that was pretty wise counsel.

  “But the problem is, everybody else needs to forget that my head was in the bucket. That’s why I want Perry and Venice to help me. I want to get really awesome pictures in the yearbook, so that when people look back at middle school they remember me that way.”

  “That’s profound,” Piper said. “And totally possible.”

  My mom finally returned with the paper towels.

  “Thank you so much!” Drea said. “This gives me hope.”

  “What are you talking about?” my mom asked. “And why does the kitchen smell like smoke? Is that a burned candle on the table?”

  My mom had missed so much. I didn’t even know how to explain it.

  “Perry and Venice have a super-awesome idea to hold a clinic to teach kids how to pose for their portraits so they look their best,” Piper said. “My sister is such a giver.”

  And it felt great to hear Piper compliment me. When the doorbell rang again, my mom sighed.

  “Your dad goes to one denture conference in Omaha and the house turns into Grand Central station,” she said.

  “Well,” Drea said. “I should probably get going.”

  “Do you want a piece of pizza for the road?” Piper asked.

  I was impressed with how persuasive Drea had turned out to be. She’d biked right over to my house unannounced and got exactly what she’d asked for. It was surprising stuff.

  “I’m good,” Drea said. “But thanks.”

  Piper stared at Drea in a really intense way.

  “I feel a connection with you,” Piper said. “Do you have a spirit animal?”

  “Um,” Drea said. “I have a rabbit.”

  “That’s not it. My totem animal is a dolphin,” Piper said, opening up her purse. “Here, take this. I want you to have it.”

  I watched Piper hand Drea a little white jar.

  “What is it?” Drea asked, sounding stunned.

  I was stunned too. If my sister had something cool in her purse that she wanted to give away, she should have handed it over to me.

  “It’s berry lip balm,” Piper said. “It’s got blue undertones, so it will make your teeth look whiter, and your skin will look more bronze. It’s a trick I learned in high school for taking photos after watching a bunch of makeup tutorials online.”

  “Thanks!” Drea said.

  Piper had watched makeup tutorials and not invited me? That disclosure felt very unpleasant.

  “Don’t worry,” Piper said. “I bet Perry and Venice will teach you a metric ton of amazing stuff at the photography clinic.”

  Drea stared at the white jar in awe and admiration. “Can I give you something?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Piper said.

  Drea reached into her back pocket and pulled out what looked like a bottle cap. It was painted pink and white on the inside and had a design on it.

  “I made a bunch of these at camp,” Drea said. “I sold them. But you can have this one. They have healing flowers on them. This one is a lotus. My number is glued to the back in case you want more.”

  “Cool,” Piper said. “That’s super nice of you.”

  She took the bottle cap and gently set it beside her glass of water. I wasn’t very comfortable with what was happening in my kitchen.

  “Bye, Drea,” Venice said. “See you Monday.”

  I thought Venice had picked up on my uncomfortable vibes and was trying to help move Drea along.

  After she left, we sat and finished our pizza without talking much. I thought it was because my mom was sitting right there.

  “She seems really nice,” my mom said. “I don’t think you’ve mentioned her before.”

  And I wanted to explain to my mom that Drea was a geek who needed my help. That having a geek plan wasn’t such a bad thing. That sometimes people needed the guidance of other people even if it interfered with homework. But I didn’t.

  I said, “Yeah. She’s in my grade, but I had no idea she lived four streets away.”

  Piper’s phone buzzed to life. I suspected it was Bobby. “If you need more help, just ask,” she said, walking into the other room to take the call.

  Venice’s phone buzzed. “It’s Leo,” she said. “Do you mind if I take it?”

  “No,” I said. Because I was trying to be more accepting of my best friend’s boyfriend. Even though it was hard.

  I looked at my mom. She smiled at me. “We’ve got each other.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I felt glad about that.

  “You know what I was thinking might be fun?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “That’s okay, Mom. I don’t need to do anything fun.” Waiting for Piper and Venice to end their calls and return to the table was safer than doing a possibly fun/weird thing with my mom.

  “Don’t mope, Perry. Listen, I’ve been thinking that it’s time to reestablish the craft corner in the garage. Declutter. Clean off the counters. Maybe start painting pottery again.”

  I blinked. Why did my mom think I wanted to paint pottery in the garage with her? Whenever I went into the garage I always held my breath, wore shoes so I could stomp on spiders, and left as fast as I could.

  “I’m pretty busy with school,” I
said. “But you could do that.”

  My mom sighed. “I could do that.” She looked down at her hands. Ever since she’d stopped working part-time at my dad’s dental practice, she’d been at loose ends. “Do you want more of this or should I wrap it up and put it in the fridge?”

  I looked at the pizza all shiny with grease. I didn’t feel hungry anymore.

  “Wrap it,” I said.

  So many deep things had happened in the last little bit. I wasn’t sure what they all meant. I kept thinking back to Bobby’s question to Piper. Would the future Piper be the same as the present Piper? I hadn’t taken it seriously when she’d first mentioned it, but it seemed important now. Because maybe the person you were today didn’t have to be the person you’d be in the future. Maybe you could be whoever you wanted.

  I wasn’t actually sure how to get my school to approve a photography clinic. So I decided to take a page from Drea’s playbook and be fearless and ask for exactly what I wanted. I wrote up a formal proposal and emailed it to Ms. Kenny.

  To: Ms. Kenny

  From: Perry Hall

  Subject: Looking Good

  Dear Ms. Kenny,

  Venice and I would like to teach a photography clinic at lunch. Javier suggested this idea. We think giving students a few tips on what to wear and where to put your tongue when you smile would help everybody take the best picture possible. What do you think? Do you have any advice? Can we do this?

  But I hadn’t heard back from Ms. Kenny in the morning. And I was too shy to bug her about my email during class. She, Javier, and Eli were at work on something that required lots of stapling. So I refocused my mind on what mattered: teacher portraits. And I kept my focus there during my first four classes.

  When the bell rang for lunch, I immediately began looking for Venice. We had to grab equipment and get to the teachers’ lounge ASAP.

  Unfortunately, instead of crossing paths with Venice when I went into the Yearbook room to retrieve the camera, I bumped into Anya. “I hope you don’t screw it up. Teachers are hard. They never look natural.” Anya said this while wearing a very intimidating outfit: a tiered, retro-looking lavender tunic, silver jewelry, a white crocodile belt, and superdark jeans. And even though most people would wear shoes that matched a color already in their outfit, Anya had on super-shiny green jelly flats. But instead of looking weird, they looked fierce. Just like Anya.

  I made myself stop looking at her intense shoes. “I’m sure I’ll take awesome portraits,” I said, forcing myself to project confidence. “I’m very talented.” I was surprised I sounded so smooth and assured. And I think she was too. Because she didn’t have a good comeback.

  “Whatever,” Anya said, walking past me out of the room.

  Venice ran up and kissed her hand and then smacked me with it on the cheek. “You slayed her!”

  I thought Venice was hilarious. “Anya is such a downer.”

  “Totally,” Venice said. “But I love her shoes.”

  We speed-walked to the teachers’ lounge and when we entered, it felt a little bit like walking into the pet store at the mall that sold exotic parrots. There was a certain excitement in the air and it felt like something unexpected could happen at any moment. Plus, the room had an extra-high ceiling and a plastic sign forbidding nuts.

  “Where do you think we should put this chair to reduce shadows and maximize light?” Javier asked.

  Was Javier wearing a notched-lapel blazer with brass buttons? He sure was. Where had that thing come from? He hadn’t been wearing it first period. I watched Javier drag a folding chair from a dim corner of the room to a spot near the window.

  “Do you have a reflector?” I asked. Because that would’ve been useful if he planned on using the window’s light.

  “A reflector?” Principal Hunt said. “We’ve never needed one before.”

  And when your principal says those words, you stop asking for a reflector.

  “Why can’t we go outside?” Ms. Pitman asked. “We did that three years ago and everybody looked great. Fresh air. Natural light.”

  “That’s true,” Ms. Stott said.

  I tried not to feel deflated that Ms. Stott was wearing a shirt with a million yellow polka dots on it. She was such a pale person. I just didn’t see that translating well in my lens.

  “Would that be okay?” Principal Hunt asked. “Do you mind?”

  And I didn’t really feel like bossing my teachers around. So I said, “I don’t mind.”

  Javier carried the folding chair outside and Venice followed behind him. He kicked a few pinecones out of the way and set it down on the grass.

  “Maybe we should take them next to the tree,” Ms. Pitman said. “I love that elm tree.”

  Of course she loved that elm tree. Ms. Pitman, who was stout in an athletic way, had on a green blouse and brown pants. She resembled that tree. Which didn’t surprise me, because the more photographs I took, the more it became clear that people tended to look like the things they loved. Even poodles and milk shakes. You could see it on them.

  “The tree is a great idea,” Ms. Stott said.

  But I wasn’t sure that was a great idea. All I wanted was a picture of each of their faces. Putting a giant elm tree in the shot was completely unnecessary.

  “Are you going to do a group picture?” Ms. Pitman asked. “You’ll need to make sure Ms. Stott is on the front row. She’s so short.”

  “I didn’t really dress for a group shot,” Ms. Torres said.

  Ms. Torres was wearing a cute navy-blue skirt and fuchsia lipstick. I thought she looked better than she’d ever looked at school.

  “They are very picky,” Javier whispered to me. But I didn’t want to agree with that. Because I didn’t want to judge my teachers in front of them.

  “Ms. Pitman,” I said, “do you want to go first?”

  “By the tree?” she asked, really excited.

  I had no idea why teachers liked trees so much. They never let us hold class outside underneath them. And if you stared at them through the window during class, they asked you to stop doing that and pay attention.

  “Okay,” I said. I figured I’d just try to crop the tree out.

  “Should I pop out around it?” Ms. Pitman asked, lunging around the tree and making a strange face.

  “No,” I said. “You should stay perfectly still and smile.”

  But when she did that she looked totally frozen and unnatural. Just like Anya had warned. I didn’t want to take a bunch of terrible pictures of my teachers. Javier noticed that too. So did Venice.

  “Does she need more lipstick?” Javier asked. “Or less?”

  I really wished I’d brought a tube of berry lipstick. Because I noticed Ms. Pitman’s teeth could’ve looked a little whiter.

  “Why don’t you sit down here,” Venice instructed. “And close your eyes. When Perry counts to three you should open your eyes, and you’ll get a very natural look.”

  “Okay,” Ms. Pitman said.

  Venice was so good at giving instructions. And Ms. Pitman was very good at taking them. She sat down in the folding chair and closed her eyes.

  “One, two, three,” I said.

  Ms. Pitman popped her eyes open and looked amazing. She had a very sincere smile. And her eyes looked kind. I was sure she’d love it.

  “Can I see it?” Ms. Pitman asked.

  I worried that if I let all the teachers see their pictures they might object to some and I’d have to retake them again and again and I’d run out of time. People can be very critical about how they look in their photos.

  “Let her see it,” Javier coaxed.

  So I did. And to my surprise, she wasn’t upset at all.

  “That’s a great picture,” Ms. Pitman said. “I should use that as my profile picture. Can I get a copy?”

  And I thought that was a huge compliment.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Next it was Mr. Falconer’s turn. I felt really self-conscious taking his photo because he
was such a hard teacher. I wanted his picture to be perfect because he always wanted my Idaho History assignments to be perfect.

  “Don’t you think I should stand like this?” Mr. Falconer asked.

  He’d dressed up for the picture and was wearing a gray sport jacket and black slacks. He stood in front of the tree and crossed his arms. He did not make a pleasant face when he did this.

  “It would be better if you sat down,” I encouraged. “And turn your head this way. Look up. It will make your neck look longer.”

  “You think I have a short neck?” Mr. Falconer asked.

  I didn’t think it was a good idea to be criticizing my teachers. Luckily, Venice was right there and she fixed it.

  “It’s a technique to use when you’re wearing a high collar,” Venice explained.

  “Oh,” Mr. Falconer said, angling his head upward.

  “And unbutton your jacket,” I encouraged. It was bunching up around his stomach in an unnatural and unpleasant way.

  His photo looked pretty good too. He came over to inspect it. I showed him the difference between the short-neck look and the long-neck look.

  “The second one does look much better,” he said. “You’re very talented.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I felt myself blush.

  “So have you girls picked a topic yet for your oral report? I thought for sure you’d take precious and semiprecious gemstones.”

  “Um,” I said. Because my mind did not need to be thinking about my oral report in Idaho History. My mind still had weeks to think about that.

  “We’re pretty focused on this,” Venice said, pointing to my camera.

  Mr. Falconer gave us a quick smile, and then returned to looking serious again. He was the kind of person who never wanted you to know he was having a good time. Which was weird to me.

  “Let me know when you decide,” he said.

  Next up was Ms. Kenny. I knew her picture would be easy, because she was very cute and knew how to pose for shots. Of course she looked adorable in a chiffon-bow top and pleated floral-print skirt.

  “She has the best clothes,” Venice whispered to me. “How can she afford them?”

  And I just shrugged. Because I wished I had more money to be stylish and accessorize more. But I didn’t see that happening.