Sealed With a Kiss

by Robin Palmer

  At the mention of the word bread all the girls started buzzing.

  “Can we go home now?” I whispered to Laurel. Before she could answer me—hopefully with an “Of course we can, Lucy, because as your big frister, I can understand how uncomfortable you must be at this moment, so why don’t we go back to the hotel and order a pizza and stuff ourselves as we watch something on pay-per-view?”—Austin walked in from the deck. I watched as they did that their-eyes-met-across-a-crowded-room thing that always happened on the telenovelas that I liked to watch with our housekeeper, Rose. “Hey, Laurel,” he said, all dreamy-like, when he was standing in front of us.

  “Hi, Austin,” she replied, her eyes now so googly that you could barely see the blue part because her pupils were so big. When I went online before we left, I saw that the gossip blogs were already calling them Laustin.

  “Hey, Lucy,” he said, not bothering to take his eyes off Laurel.

  “Hi,” I said glumly.

  “Sorry about the crowd,” he said. “You know how these things get—you mention to one person that you’re having a little barbecue and before you know it, half the city finds out.”

  Actually, I didn’t know anything about how these things got, seeing that I was just a normal twelve-and-a-half-year-old girl and he was a ginormous fourteen-year-old superstar. “There are grown-ups here, right? Like your mom, right? Because my dad and her mom would kill me if they knew I had taken her to a party where there weren’t any adults,” she babbled.

  “Yup—my mom’s in her room watching a movie. Want to meet her?” he asked.

  “Meet your mom? Now?!” she asked nervously. “Um, maybe later.”

  He shrugged and smiled at her. “Hey, wanna see the beach?”

  She turned to me. “Are you going to be okay if I leave you alone for five minutes?”

  I shrugged. “I guess so.” As long as I found the bathroom I would be. Or a cookie.

  She pulled me aside. “Try not to talk to anyone too old, okay?” she ordered.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes.” Boy, she was going to be a really annoying mother when she grew up.

  After they walked away, I turned back and scanned the room for snacks. Connor was still strumming away on the couch, and he said, “So how you doing, Lucy B. Parker?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Oh no. Not the tongue-tied thing again. I cleared my throat. “I . . . um . . . I . . .” I started to say. Then I sprinted toward the kitchen.

  As I passed the front door it opened, and another group of kids barreled through—not one sweatshirt in the bunch. I realized it was going to be a long night. I felt like Alice when she drank the potion that said “Drink Me” and fell down the rabbit hole. Not only did I feel small, but it was like my potion also made me feel invisible. Here I was, at my first boy-girl party ever, and half the people were super-famous and all over TV and movies. But instead of being excited about that, or the fact that I was in the same house as a boy whom I may or may not have had a crush on, all I could think about was how I would’ve much rather been playing Monopoly with my dad in Northampton or hanging out on the couch in the lobby of my apartment building listening to Pete go on and on about what he’d do if he were president.

  Luckily, because I was in a house where two boys lived, the kitchen was stocked with all sorts of very un-L. A.-like bread-and-sugar-based snacks that helped to make me feel a little better and a little less lonely. As did the text from Laurel saying “R U OK?”

  Until a trio of Bikini Butts wandered in.

  “Omigod—is that an Oreo?” one of the girls asked.

  I couldn’t talk because my mouth was full of them, so I just nodded.

  “I had no idea they even made those anymore,” another of the girls said.

  I held the package out. “Want one?” I asked after I swallowed. Food was a good way to make friends.

  They all shook their heads in unison. “You’re not from here, are you?” asked the third one.

  “Nope. I’m from New York City,” I said proudly. From the looks on their faces, you’d think I’d said I was from Mars instead of New York. Uh-oh, I could feel the oversharing coming on. “Technically, I’m not a native . . . I’m originally from Northampton, Massachusetts . . . but Pete—he’s my doorman—says that even though I’ve lived there only a few months, I totally have the personality of someone who was born there. But how’d you know I wasn’t from here?” I asked.

  “Because no one in L.A. eats Oreos,” the first one explained. “We eat Pinkberry.”

  “Right,” I said. “No Oreos, no bread, no walking . . .”

  A fresh wave of confused looks came over their faces. “Huh?” said the second one.

  “What are you doing at this party anyway?” another one of the girls asked. “You’re, like . . . really young.”

  Yes, that was true, and, yes, I was feeling it, big-time, but still, she was so rude to say that to me! “I am not really young,” I said defensively. “I’m twelve and a half.”

  “Yeah, but what are you doing here?” asked another one.

  I sighed. These girls were going to end up having really bad karma if they kept acting like this. I didn’t like what I was about to do, but I had no choice. “I’m here because Laurel Moses is my frister,” I replied. I almost added, “And because Connor Forrester asked that I come here,” but thankfully I didn’t. Because even though no one would be able to blame me for oversharing on account of the fact that being questioned by a bunch of older Bikini Butts makes a person really nervous, I had a feeling saying something like that would not be good.

  At that, their eyes got all wide. They looked like dolls.

  Another text came through. How come ur not answering me? R U OK? Do u need me to come get u??? I grabbed the entire pack of Oreos for the road. Now that I knew no one in the state of California was going to eat them, I didn’t feel so bad taking them. “And if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find her.”

  As I walked out into the living room, the crowd seemed to have doubled, which made it hard to get toward the glass door to go out toward the beach. I couldn’t see Laurel, or Austin, or even Connor. So instead of pushing through all the strangers, I decided just to head for the bathroom and lock myself in there. It was total déjà vu of how I spent my first lunch period at my new school—especially when I started crying. Unfortunately, because it was a boys’ bathroom, they didn’t have any good tissues, and there was hardly any toilet paper around, so I just used the sleeve of my sweatshirt to wipe my tears. But when you’re stuck in a bathroom crying, it gets pretty hot, so finally I just took it off.

  I stared at myself in the mirror, and Pete’s voice popped into my head. All you gotta do is be yourself. If you do that, you can’t go wrong. “Okay, Lucy,” I said out loud. “You’re going to go out there, and you’re going to walk over to someone, and you’re going to say, ‘Hi. I’m Lucy B. Parker. What’s your name, and why don’t you tell me about yourself?’ ” One of the things I had noticed about L.A. was that people loved to talk about themselves—even more so than in New York—so even if it didn’t make me any new friends, it would at least take up a lot of time while I waited for Laurel to say we could leave. “And after that, you’re going to . . .”

  I was stumped. What was I going to do after that?

  Before I could figure it out, there was a loud sound from over near the bathtub, followed by a huge crash and a moan.

  “Ooof.”

  I yanked back the shower curtain to find Connor Forrester splayed out in the tub with his eyes closed, holding his head. “Ahhh!” I screamed.

  “That window is small,” he announced. “How’s a person supposed to climb in through there without killing himself?” He opened his eyes. “Oh, hey—it’s . . . you.” He turned red and gave a nervous laugh. “Jeez, I’m really embarrassed now.”

  Connor Forrester got embarrassed, too? Who knew?

  “Hey, I was wondering—for some reason I was thinking about this yesterd
ay during the photo shoot I did for Seventeen—do you think a person could actually die of embarrassment? Not, like, metaphorically, or whatever that word is, but literally?”

  How many hours had I spent wondering that exact same thing? The tingly feeling in my spine started coming back, and when I looked down, I realized I was probably about to find out if you really could die of embarrassment for sure. Because in all the excitement of having someone break into the bathroom I was hiding in, I had completely forgotten I had taken my sweatshirt off and was standing there in my teensy-weensy bikini top. My body may have been pale, but at that moment, my face sure wasn’t. In fact, if it was as red as it felt, I’m sure I looked like a tomato. I quickly reached for my sweatshirt. I wished I could hide behind something. The minute I got out of this bathroom, I was going to have to go drown myself in the ocean.

  “And why are you climbing through windows?” I demanded, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. A thought flashed through my head—what if I’d been peeing when he climbed in?!

  “Oh. ’Cause of the girls,” he sighed. “There was a whole group of them coming toward me, and it was the only way I could get away. I learned that move in the film Goin’ Bananas that Austin and I did with that chimp.” He shuddered. “Man, was he a pain in the butt. Whenever it was time for someone else’s close-up, he totally freaked out.”

  “Austin?” I asked.

  He rubbed his head. “No—the chimp.”

  Even with my sweatshirt on, I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Look, I know this is your house and all, so you can do what you want,” I said. “But it’s kind of rude to just jump in windows without knocking or anything. People go into bathrooms because they want privacy.” So they can cry. Or hide from Bikini Butts. Or from boys they may or may not have had a crush on. Another text came through. Lucy, where r u??? I’m freaking out! I sighed. She was going to explode if I didn’t respond. I’m fine. I’m just in the bathroom, I typed. I wasn’t fine, but the last thing I needed was Laurel coming over and making the whole thing even more embarrassing.

  “I know,” he said. “Sorry ’bout that. Hey, when you’re done in here, you want to go for a walk on the beach or something? The sunset is completely rad.”

  Connor Forrester had just asked me to go on the beach with him. At sunset. That seemed like something you’d ask a person that you kind-of, sort-of didn’t hate to do with you. If I said yes, it would be a good opportunity to see if I really did have a crush on him. But then there was always the chance that I would embarrass myself in ways I couldn’t even imagine, and this trip had already been eventful enough without having to deal with that. “Thanks, but I can’t,” I said nervously. “I, uh . . . I’m not allowed to be outdoors at sunset time.”

  “How come?”

  “I have a rare skin disease,” I replied.

  “You do?” He squinted. “You’re kind of pale, but you look okay to me.”

  “That’s because it only kicks in if I’m out at sunset.” I was getting really good at coming up with realistic lies on the spot.

  “Okay,” he shrugged, opening the door to leave. “See you around then, I guess.”

  “Yeah. See you around,” I replied as I watched him walk through the door.

  I was probably the only girl in America who would choose to stay locked in a bathroom rather than walk on the beach with Connor Forrester.

  Was “completely losing your mind” another warning sign of a crush? I made a mental note to look that up when we got back home.

  chapter 12

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  Boy, this iTouch really has come in handy, huh? If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be able to e-mail you all the time. Okay, you are NEVER going to believe what just happened to me. So this BBQ at Austin and Connor’s has turned into a full-blown boy-girl party, which is why I’m hiding in the bathroom, and who do you think just came flying through the window? You probably won’t guess, so I’ll tell you—CONNOR FORRESTER.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t, you know, peeing or anything embarrassing like that—I was just talking to myself in front of the mirror—but still, it was awkward. Especially because I was wearing just a bikini top. I mean, that’s not ALL I was wearing—I was wearing my jeans, too—but . . . anyway, that part’s not important. What’s important is the fact that Connor asked me if I wanted to go for a walk on the beach because it’s supposedly a rad sunset.

  Now, I don’t have a lot of experience with boys—okay, I don’t have ANY experience with boys—but still I’ve seen enough movies to know that walking on the beach at sunset is a very romantic thing to do. In fact, when Mom’s BFF Deanna made her sign up for SoulMates.com so she could meet a guy (this was obviously before she met Alan), I snuck a look at Mom’s profile, and she had listed “walks on the beach at sunset” in the Romantic Things I Like to Do section, which was news to me. So was the fact that she weighed 125 pounds, because once when I was looking over her shoulder as she got on the scale it said 132, but I didn’t say anything, because I was kind-of, sort-of technically snooping.

  I’m not sure what advice I’m asking for here because I already told him I couldn’t go, but I just thought you’d want to know that. Plus, typing this gave me something to do while I’m trying to avoid going back out into the party.

  yours truly,

  LUCY B. PARKER

  P.S. I don’t mean to be a pain, but any news on tickets for the show?

  I’m not really a claustrophobic person, but forty-five minutes in a bathroom is a long time, even if you’re taking a bath, and the last thing I wanted was for people to think I had stomach problems or something gross like that. When I walked back out into the living room, there were now even more Bikini Butts all over the place. And not only that, but even more famous people had arrived, including this guy Clayton Carr, who had just played the totally average, no-special-powers son of two superheroes in this movie that was playing near our apartment back home. What was I, Lucy B. Parker—so unpopular that she was still known as the New Girl at school (or Period Girl, ugh!)—doing at a party with the most popular kids in the entire universe? And not only that, but they were all like two years older than me.

  Which is why it totally made sense that I then sprinted outside onto the deck. At least it was quiet out here, with just the sound of the waves. And like Connor said, the sunset was super-pretty.

  I looked around for Laurel and Austin, but there was no one else around, and because I was near the ocean, I didn’t have reception on my phone to text her. Rolling up the legs of my jeans, I started walking on the beach. I knew it was littering, but because of my poor sense of direction, every few steps I threw part of an Oreo down to leave a trail so I wouldn’t get lost. In the distance, I saw a guy who kept whipping around holding an imaginary gun like he was a character in an action-adventure movie. At least he looked like he was enjoying himself, unlike me, who had tears falling down her cheeks—again!—because she felt like an idiot for spending her time hiding in bathrooms and not being able to talk to boys or strangers or anything.

  Just then the crazy guy stopped trying to shoot the bad guys, put down his imaginary gun, and started waving at me. At first I assumed he thought I was someone else. But when I looked around, I realized I was the only one on the beach, and I got scared. I wasn’t going to die from embarrassment—I was going to die because I was alone on the beach with a crazy person, and no one was around to hear me scream if he attacked me.

  Crazy Guy stopped waving at me and started jogging toward me. I turned around and started sprinting away from him. But because of the sand and my coordination problem, I couldn’t go very fast.

  “Lucy!” I heard the Crazy Guy say. “Wait up a sec!”

  Oh my God—how’d he know my name? Maybe he was some freak who was stalking Laurel, and he was planning on kidnapping me and holding me hostage until she agreed to go out with him. I huffed and puffed my way through the sand, cursing myself for skipping so many gym classes. As soon as I got back to New
York—if I did get back to New York—I was going to take up jogging. But when I tripped and landed flat on my face, it looked like I was doomed.

  “You decided to come for that walk!” I heard Crazy Guy say as I sat up and wiped the sand off my face. When I managed to get it out of my eyes, I realized that Crazy Guy equaled Connor.

  “What? Oh, yeah,” I said, trying to sound all nonchalant. “And now I’m just, you know, sitting here taking a little break. Enjoying the view. Boy, you were right—the sunset sure is pretty tonight,” I babbled.

  His eyes narrowed. “But what about that rare skin disease thing?”

  “Oh, it’s okay,” I replied. “I just have to be careful at the beginning of the sunset. Once it gets to the middle or end, I’m safe.”

  “Well, do you want to, I don’t know . . . walk for a while?” he asked.

  “With you?” I replied nervously.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, we don’t have to . . .”

  “No, it’s okay. I guess I could do that.”

  “Cool.” He held his hand out.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, confused.

  “Helping you up.”

  “Oh.” I reached for it. I don’t know what I expected a boy’s hand to feel like, but I didn’t think it would be so . . . soft. Or mushy. It wasn’t mushy in a bad way, though. It actually felt kind of nice. Like the bagels from H&H.

  As we started walking, he started talking. And talking. And talking. It wasn’t like he told me his whole life story—he did tell me his whole life story, starting with how he was almost born in a taxicab in Chicago. Usually, I found those people who went on and on about anything and everything like their favorite cereal and what they thought happened when you died really annoying (hello, Marissa and Alice), but in this case I was glad just to listen. It gave me time to try to figure out how to make my legs stop feeling like Jell-O and how to get my tongue moving again so that in case he asked me a question, I could answer it.