Without even waiting for a reply, Mom opened it, looking furious. Mads stopped pretending to be asleep and sat up guiltily, smoothing her hair down from the sleep-induced beehive it had turned into.
“Good morning Mrs. Douglas,” Mads said cautiously.
“Save it,” Mom said. That was it. We were dead.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Poppy?” Mom said, clenching and unclenching her hands. “What are you doing? Both of you – because I know you had to have something to do with it, Mads.”
Mads opened her mouth and closed it again and turned to me, her panic-stricken face back in place.
I wasn’t sure which bad thing she might have been talking about, was she talking about the sext or the bitchy song dedicated to my ex-boyfriend the super star? Or jeez, was it something else entirely? I felt the conversation needed some clarification and I wasn’t admitting to anything until I had it. How had she found out about it so fast? It felt like my intestines were practicing sailing knots. Really painful, really complicated sailing knots.
“What exactly are you talking about?” I said.
“Your father was listening to the radio on the way to tennis this morning and they were talking about how Tyler Madigan the front man of the band Academy of Lies was outed on the internet by his girlfriend, as being a, cheat and a…” she raised her hands in the air and did angry air quotes, “‘douche, womanizer and man whore’, after a naked photo of her was leaked to the internet. And we’ve just seen it all in the Hollywood roundup on The Breakfast Show.” She stopped and licked her lips. Forcefully. With teeth involved, I was surprised she didn’t draw blood.
“Mom-” she held up her hand and I was quiet.
“You are Tyler Madigan’s girlfriend, are you not?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“So it’s a naked photo of you, my sixteen year old daughter that has been leaked onto the internet? That the guys on the radio and the freaking Breakfast Show have seen? You sent him a naked photo of yourself? Actually it doesn’t matter who you sent it to because it’s all over the bloody internet and-”
There was a god-awful screech from downstairs. “Mom! Poppy!” Rory said. “Come, quick! Poppy’s on TV!”
We froze for a moment, staring at each other. An image of the sext flashed into my mind’s eye, and my brother sitting in front of it on the TV. Oh no no no. It was probably only a second of staring before Mom was out the door and I threw my covers off and jumped over Mads as she struggled and scrambled, trying to shimmy her way out of the sleeping bag.
The living room was packed. Rory’s friends were all there – why were they always there? – and Bex was sitting on the couch. The only way I knew Bex was there was because her favorite doll, Kevin, was on the arm rest. My little sister was barely visible underneath Poo Bum who lay stretched out on top of her. Dad was conspicuously absent, probably he’d gone for a drive or was down in the basement with the door locked. Doubted he was at tennis.
I caught the end of some camera phone footage of me and Ty from that day he was mobbed, followed up by some paparazzi footage of Ty and some girl and the band surrounded by photographers and cameramen as they came out of some night club. Then there was more footage still of another night and another girl. Then daytime of Ty standing on the street with a girl – ugh, I felt sick, it was Roxy Washington – and he reached behind her ears and flicked her sunglasses up and down a couple of times until she batted him away, both laughing. It was an adorable, intimate moment. With another girl. With her.
The reporter’s voice came over the footage, saying “It appears that all the rumors are indeed true, with Ty’s girlfriend recording a very brutal and very public breakup with the musician in the late hours of last night.” It cut to footage of me singing my heart out in the video I had uploaded mere hours ago. While I had been sleeping, it appeared the Sunday Morning Hollywood Wrap had been hard at work, scouring for footage. Footage of me. I grabbed the remote and muted the TV. If they showed much more of the song, I was about to say some words I didn’t want Bex learning from me. I stepped in front of the TV, blocking it just in case they showed my nakedness. Please don’t let them show my nakedness.
“Hey!” Rory said, he and his pervy buddies craning their necks, trying to see around me to the TV.
“What were you thinking, Poppy!” I flinched as Mom turned around and kicked the doorframe and swore because she hurt her foot. I guess Bex was learning the word from Mom, then.
“It could be worse,” Mads said. “I mean they’re on Poppy’s side, they’re pretty much saying Ty’s the bad guy here. Which he so is. And that Roxy chick.”
Mom shot Mads a hateful stare and Mads looked at her toes, which she was scrunching into our discount oriental rug. “Sorry,” she said. “Maybe I should go.”
“Oh no you don’t, this video of Poppy’s was made last night, don’t think I don’t know you had something to do with it. What are you doing talking about private things on the internet, where anyone can see? We can all see that the media have already caught onto it, I can’t believe you would do something so irresponsible and foolish!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But he lied to me, cheated on me, he said he’d deleted the photo and instead he puts it on the internet!”
“What photo?” Rory asked.
“He’s an asshole and he deserves what he gets!” I cringed and glanced at Bex. She seemed to be thinking. Great. She’d be saying things were assholes at school next week, for sure.
“What about you, Poppy?” Mom said. “This isn’t just reflecting on him. You stupid, stupid girl!”
Mads stared at the carpet, her toes were so curled up under themselves it looked like they had been cut off. Mom noticed and breathed out heavily. “Alright, get out of here Mads,” she said. Mads scampered toward the front door. Wearing boxers and a tank top. She wasn’t even going to get changed she was just going to get gone. “Don’t even think this is over,” Mom called after her. Mads grimaced, said bye and the door closed behind her. Mom surveyed Rory and all of his prepubescent friends. Some of them were looking kind of pubescent, actually. I think one of them was starting to grow a moustache.
“Out, all of you,” Mom said. “Go and get some sun.”
“But Mom-”
“Go!”
They all did the boy shuffle out of the room and soon it was just Mom, me, and a Poo Bum-pinned-down Bex.
“You,” Mom said, shaking her head at me. She let out a sigh and ran her hand through her hair, making strands stand up like they were static. “Are so grounded. And you’re forbidden from dating. Until you’re fifty!”
Chapter Nineteen
Being grounded over Spring Break actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I got to stay home like a hermit and pretend the whole world didn’t exist. Pretend the paparazzos climbing the tree in the front yard were simply cats that got stuck, and I pretended the reporters for the local papers and a couple of producers of TV segments that came to the door were actually Girl Guides selling cookies. They weren’t hounding me and reminding my parents daily of just how disappointed in me they were, no, they were poor little kitties and enterprising Girl Guides. It was scary actually, that first day after I posted the video and the Hollywood Wrap did that segment the doorbell rang and I went and answered it and was immediately blinded by camera guys aiming their cameras with lights on high beam at my face, and reporters shoved microphones practically in my mouth and paparazzos snap-snap-snapped my startled face with yesterday’s make up still on.
I couldn’t understand what they were saying they were all talking at once. I know for a fact I looked like a startled rabbit before Mom wandered out of her office, shoved me out of the way and into the wall and slammed the door in their faces. And then told me I wasn't answering the door anymore and then she called the police. The startled rabbit pictures of me and angry momma-bear shots of Mom turned up on the internet within the hour and were in the papers the next morning. My family tried to hide
it all from me but I found a copy in the recycling bin. Guess it proved to the world I wasn’t some Hollywood starlet with a press agent to handle the fallout of her high profile relationship. I was just a girl from the ‘burbs with protective parents. It didn’t take long for the media to get over me since as long as they were around I wasn’t even allowed near the windows. I wasn’t allowed to go into the back yard or help unload groceries from the car. I couldn’t even take the trash out.
The media either decided the story was dead or they turned their attention to Ty’s side of it, since he had no choice but to go out in public. I wouldn’t know what they did or what he said, since I was forbidden from watching live TV. And there was no internet, especially any news sites, email, Facebook and I was lucky they didn’t make me delete my YouTube account entirely. Maybe they just didn’t think of that.
The kids from the middle school took a little longer to lose interest in me than the media. These kids had staying power. Once the reporters were gone I peeked out the windows sometimes and there they were, cruising by on their bikes and some high schoolers did drive bys, slowing to stare at the house. I pretended they were just ordinary traffic in the street. It also freaked me out that suddenly everyone seemed to know my address. I was so accessible.
Being grounded and all, I stayed in, reading old copies of Rolling Stone that did not have Academy of Lies in them, and this book, The Hunger Games, that Vanya loaned me ages ago and I’d forgotten I had. It was actually really good. I would have played my guitar if Dad hadn’t stolen it when I was in the shower that time and locked it and my amp in the basement. Yeah. He started locking the basement now. A good thing about house arrest, while the world was outside my window trying to catch glimpses of me and my parents were slamming the door in their faces, I was getting pretty good at Gran Turismo and officially kicked Rory’s ass a couple of times. But it didn’t matter. My Spring Break turned out to be insanely boring and I couldn’t help but wonder what everyone else was doing. What was Ty doing? What was he thinking? Was he trying to contact me? Even if I hadn’t blocked his new number, Mom and Dad had confiscated my cell. And they weren’t letting me take calls, not even from Vanya – the good influence. Except that she was really the one that started my whole YouTube channel with me and was my regular camera girl, but whatever. I guessed she was probably back from the relatives’ place by now. And what about Cam? That last time we had spoken, at his house…that had been weird. And he was back together with Nikki…or was he? Who even knew where they were at now? And I was broken up with Ty.
I lay on my bed and placed a cushion over my face and moaned. My stomach sprouted wings that tickled against my insides any time I thought about it, any of it. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Not that I could do anything just now. Nothing but read and sleep and play video games with The Pest and teddy bear tea parties with Bex. And according to Mom and Dad, I could do homework and study and get ahead for after the break. God, I was so bored. Shockingly, I was actually looking forward to getting back to school, there was only so much of the same house and same four people I could take.
Two weeks after I uploaded my video “Academy of Lies: Star Pupil” and the Saturday before school was going back, it was official: I was old news. People had gotten bored of cruising by and skulking outside my house. Because I wasn’t the star in the relationship, Ty was. I was just the scorned lover, he was the dirt bag adulterer. And the chart topping celebrity that made girls scream and faint (Yeah. Faint.). Regardless, the Saturday before school went back, the Dewberry Gazette had found a new angle on my story, just to bleed the whole thing dry. I plucked the newspaper out of the recycling bin in the kitchen and felt a chill run through my whole body as I scanned the article. They had found someone who knew me, to comment and speculate. An old workmate of mine. They had talked to Nikki.
“Yeah, we worked together last summer. She was my best friend for a while there. I’m honestly shocked that she would send out a text message like that, even to her boyfriend,” Nikki said in the interview. “It’s stupid, a really stupid thing to do.” Like she hadn’t sent them before. “I always thought she was smarter than that.” So Nikki thought I was a dipshit. Like I cared. I kept reading. “She used to be smarter than that, anyway. Maybe this whole brush with fame thing is changing her, which is sad.” They asked her about my personality, if I was embellishing, fictionalizing my experiences in my songs. “She definitely believes what she writes about, I wouldn’t doubt that, but I would also say she’s quite emotional when she’s writing these songs everyone loves so much. And I learnt the hard way that when she gets sad she gets angry. Enter The Kiss Off, and this Star Pupil thing,” she said. Typical, she was making this whole article about her. And I didn’t get angry when I was sad. I was sad like normal people. Then I thought about it, about The Kiss Off and my anguish and shame that they put me through. And again, with Star Pupil. Huh. She’d never hear it from me that she might have a point.
As Mom, Dad, Rory and Bex all wandered into the kitchen, I scrunched up the newspaper and stuffed it deep into the recycle bin again, covering it over with empty milk cartons and a dog food tin.
“Okay, well we’re going out,” Dad said, twirling his car keys around his pointer finger.
“Right,” I said. “Family night.” Minus one (who I like to think is a rather important) member of the family.
Mom looked like she felt guilty about it. “I’m sorry you can’t come, honey,” she said. “But rules are rules and it’s probably best, you laying low at the moment, so-”
“It’s fine, Mom,” I said. “Whatever. So what are you guys doing, anyway?”
“We’re going to Ben & Jerry’s!” Bex shouted, jumping on the spot, practically shivering with excitement.
“Yes,” Dad said. “But that’s after ice skating and we’re having dinner at Luigi’s.”
Rory pumped his fists in the air and twirled around, his face screwed up in triumph. Rory was obsessed with the supreme pizza from Luigi’s. He didn’t like anyone else’s supreme – just Luigi’s. I liked their ice cream sodas.
“What am I supposed to eat?” I said.
“There’s a couple of Lean Cuisines in the freezer if you like,” Mom said. “Or there’s chicken you could grill.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ll find something. So how long are you going to be?”
This question got my parents attention. They exchanged glances and both faced me head on. “A couple of hours,” Mom said slowly. “Why do you ask, Poppy?”
I shrugged. “I’m just asking.”
“Hmm,” Dad said, squinting at me suspiciously.
“We can trust you to honor the terms of your grounding while we’re gone, can’t we Poppy Elizabeth?” The second name. He went for the second name. There was a serious lack of trust going on here.
“Wow,” I said sarcastically. “It’s touching how much you trust me, really, it is. Have I left the house this century? No. No I haven’t.”
“Okay Poppy.”
“Any of those times people called for me, did I once ask if I could talk to them? No.”
“Alright alright. We’ll be back by ten,” Mom said, motioning for everyone to head toward the door.
“Ten o’clock,” Bex said. “That’s really late!”
“We’re trusting you, Poppy.” It was weird, the way she said it, with that edge to her voice…they weren’t even remotely trusting me. No way.
“You have one more night until freedom. You wouldn’t do anything stupid, would you? To jeopardize it?”
“Just go,” I said, turning Dad around and pushing him toward the door. “I’ll be here reading a book and doing homework and being boring.”
Rory and Bex raced out to the car and Bex started crying when he locked her out and blew raspberries at her on the window. It took forever for Dad to calm Bex down and Mom to supervise Rory’s apology. Come on come on, just leave already.
I blew a sigh of relief when the headlig
hts flashed onto the curtains in the living room, meaning the car was in motion. Soon the room was gloomy again as the sun went down, and they were gone.
The house was mine. I could do whatever I wanted. And I knew exactly what I wanted. I thumped up the stairs and straight into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I scanned the room and my eyes fell on Mom’s bedside table. Yeah, that was my best bet. I opened the top drawer. Bingo. My cell phone. I grabbed it and switched it on, but the battery was dead. Scurrying to my room I plugged it in and the outside world came rushing back to me. Well. Not as intensely as I would have liked. I had a tonne of voicemail from numbers I didn’t know, who I assumed were reporters, and a couple of texts from Vanya and Mads until they figured out I was off the air entirely. And there was a voicemail from Cam. After the surprise wore off, I played the message.
“Hey…it’s me. I mean it’s Cam. Ron. Cameron. Hey.” He was quiet for a moment. “So um I just, I heard about…I saw your video. You were pretty pissed, huh? Pissed off! Pissed off, not like wasted pissed, I don’t mean, though you might have been…um…” My lips curled up in a smile as he groaned into the phone with frustration. “What I mean is I saw your video. I’m sorry about…I’m sorry that he turned out to be such an ass hat. And that he…that your…that that photo got out. I’m so mad at him for you. I swear, I don’t care if he’s surrounded by photographers, if I ever see that punk I will beat him down with my tiny girly fists.” My smile broadened. One time when we were happy together and just lazing about in his room, we’d been lying on his bed and he had his eyes closed, humming along to the music playing from his laptop, and I’d been curling and uncurling my fingers with his. Holding his hand up against mine, I declared that he had tiny girly hands. He had told me I was most decidedly mistaken. They were rugged and masculine hands.
The Kiss Off Page 18