“This is her house?” Daphne asks as I ring the doorbell.
“Yeah,” I say. “So what?” I’m being nonchalant, because Emma’s house is BIG. Like, really big. Like, it has all these gigantic columns, and there’s a statue of a lion on the front porch. A lion! Like, with a big steel mane and everything!
“It’s just so big,” Daphne says.
“Daphne, she’s nice,” I say.
“Are you forgetting that she wants to marry Jake?” Daphne’s looking distastefully at the lion statue. Then she reaches out and pats it on the head. “I wonder what this guy’s name is,” she says.
“I’ve decided to name him Alphonso.” I, too, give the lion a pat on the head. “Good boy,” I say. “And she doesn’t want to marry Jake.” Why is no one coming to the door? I don’t even hear any footsteps. Shouldn’t there be a butler or something?
“Please, please, please try to have fun,” I tell Daphne. “It’ll be fine, I swear; she invited you, she wants to be friends.”
“She asked if you could trust me!” Daphne says.
“I know, but she didn’t mean it, she was just nervous, because she didn’t want anything getting out about Olivia’s business. She was looking out for me.”
“I guess,” Daphne sighs. “But I’m serious, Samantha, if she—”
The door gets flung open then. “Hiiii!” Emma yells. She grabs one of my arms and one of Daphne’s arms and pulls us into the house. “Come on, we’re karaoking!”
“Um, okay,” I say. She’s leading us through a maze of hallways now, and her house is so big I don’t even know where the heck we’re going. “Um, where are we going?” I ask.
“To the karaoke room!”
Right. I should have known. I look over at Daphne, who just rolls her eyes.
Be nice, I mouth.
Fine, she mouths back.
The karaoke room turns out to be part of Emma’s basement. Like, a big part of it. And when I say “basement,” I mean it in a very loose sense of the word. The whole entire downstairs is refinished, with a big-screen TV in one corner, all these floppy chairs and couches, a big floor-to-ceiling bookshelf crammed with books, and a bar in the corner.
Charlie is standing by the TV, in front of a big karaoke machine, messing around with some buttons. On the screen, a Jordin Sparks video is playing.
“Hello,” Charlie says coolly. “What do you two want to sing?” She says it like we might just be so lame that we won’t know any of the songs they have, and might need a special CD, like Karaoke for Losers or something.
“They have to get into their karaoke outfits first,” Emma says. “What did you two bring?” Then she opens Daphne’s bag where she dropped it on the floor and starts rummaging through it. She just starts going through Daphne’s stuff! Like it’s hers or something. Which is a total invasion of privacy, I mean, what if Daphne has something embarrassing in there?
“Why’d you bring these?” she asks, holding up a pair of Daphne’s socks. They’re pink with green polka dots.
“Um, because I like them,” Daphne says. She looks at me, and for a second, I think she might go crazy. Like, have a temper tantrum or something. Daphne doesn’t have many tantrums, but when she does, they’re not pretty.
“Those socks,” Charlie says, “are green.” She wrinkles up her nose like she hates green, which doesn’t make any sense since she’s wearing a green sparkly shirt. Maybe she just doesn’t like green socks?
“It’s okay,” Emma says to Daphne. She gives her a big smile. “You can borrow something of mine.”
“I don’t want—” Daphne starts to say, but Emma cuts her off.
“You would look ah-mazing in my black leggings. You have such long legs, you are soooo lucky.” She steps back and looks Daphne up and down. “Seriously, you’re tall enough to be a model.”
Daphne’s face softens a little.
“Here’s what I brought!” I yell like a crazy person. I want Emma to compliment me, too! I’m not as tall as Daphne, but I do have a pretty kick-butt karaoke outfit. I pull the stuff Taylor let me borrow out of my bag—the silver dress and black tights and ballet flats.
“Oooh, cute,” Emma says. “You can change in the bathroom over there.” She walks over to the wardrobe standing in the corner and flings open the doors. “Now, this,” she announces, “is the karaoke cupboard, and you can pick anything you want out of here to wear.” She pulls out a hat. “How do you feel about fedoras?”
“I’m not sure,” Daphne says warily.
I take my dress and silver shoes into the bathroom. I wonder why Emma made us bring our own karaoke outfits when she has a whole karaoke cupboard. I start to change, but I’m having a hard time getting the dress on because it’s a little big for me and also because I can’t tell which is the back and which is the front. Either it’s almost backless, or the front is realllly low cut. Hmm. I really should have tried this on.
Someone pounds on the door. “Hello!” It’s Charlie. “What are you doing in there? We have to do our makeup!”
“Just a second!” I yell back. I decide to go with backless, so I pull the dress on, then shove my feet into the tights.
I pull open the door.
“Do you want makeup or not?” Charlie asks. It seems vaguely threatening, like she’s in charge of the makeup, and if I don’t give her the right answer, I won’t get any.
“Um, yeah,” I say. “I guess.” I’m still a little confused about this whole karaoke game.
“Good,” Charlie says. “Get back in there.”
I walk back into the bathroom, and Charlie pulls out a ginormous bin of makeup from underneath the sink.
“So,” I say. “What’s the deal, you know, ah, with the karaoke thing?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, frowning. She’s rummaging around in the big bin, pulling out tubes of lipstick and cases of eye shadow. Some of them she lines up on the counter neatly, and others she makes a disgusted face at and then drops into the trash can. She’s not very environmentally conscious, this girl. First the yogurts and now the makeup. Which is so not biodegradable.
“I mean, so we just do karaoke?”
“Nooo, we get dressed up,” she says. “And then we karaoke. And we pretend we’re rock stars and sometimes Emma films it with her dad’s flip cam.”
“Oh. Okay.” Charlie pulls out a big compact full of what looks like bronzer. Then she opens it and smears it all over my face. “I don’t think I need much bronzer,” I say. “I’m actually still pretty tan from the summer, and also I don’t—”
“If we record anything, the camera and the lights are going to wash you out.”
I decide it might be best not to argue. And honestly, who am I to tell her what’s going to look good? I have little to no makeup experience, and the one time I tried to do something beauty-related to myself, I ended up at the salon getting my eyebrows ripped off me in a terrible wax-related incident.
So I stay quiet and watch Charlie as she bites her lip in concentration and does my makeup. She has a smattering of freckles across her nose, which makes her look even prettier than she already is. She works for a while, and then her mouth sort of dips down at the ends, and she steps back a little bit and looks at me. “What’s wrong with your eyebrows?” she asks.
“Oh, I have to use makeup to fill them in,” I say.
“Because you plucked them all off? Don’t you have a good waxer?”
“I do now,” I say proudly. “Her name’s Jemima and she’s amazing. But yes, I plucked them all off.”
She sighs, but keeps going. When she’s done, it feels like I have about five pounds of makeup on my face. And when Charlie finally lets me look in the mirror, I don’t know how I feel about my new, um, look.
“You look very edgy,” Charlie says, pleased. “It’s like Lady Gaga or something.”
My eyes are smeared with purple eye shadow, my lips are lined in a plum lipstick, and I am very, very, very tan. Seriously. I look like Taylor that time she
went for a spray tan and the lady working there went a little overboard and then my mom freaked out because Taylor was supposed to have been saving the money she used on her spray tan gone wrong for a new winter coat.
Charlie starts yelling about how I need some fake eyelashes and a hair straightener. “Fake eyelashes!” she yells out the bathroom door to Emma. “Do you have ’em or what?” She’s rummaging around in the drawers in the bathroom, where there’s apparently every single beauty product or tool you could possibly want, except fake eyelashes.
Emma doesn’t answer. I hope nothing bad is going on out there. A few minutes ago I heard her saying to Daphne, “Honestly, with your skin tone, this lime green skirt is PERFECT,” and then I sort of tuned out, not really wanting to think about what kind of activity was about to take place in which a lime green skirt was the couture of choice.
“FAKE EYELASHES!” Charlie screams. She pokes her head out of the bathroom door. “Oh,” she says. “She’s on the phone.”
From the other room comes the sound of Emma giggling softly.
“That’s okay,” I say, sensing an opportunity. “I don’t think I really NEED the eyelashes.”
“You totally do,” Charlie says. “Without them you just look . . . normal.”
She says “normal” like it’s a bad thing. Also, I most definitely do not look normal. Not even close. I look kind of like a clown. But maybe she’s right about the eyelashes. Maybe I need to take some chances. Will chances get Jake to notice me? Does he think I’m completely normal since he’s known me for so long? Do I need to shake things up? I might be in a rut and not even know it.
From the other room, I hear Emma say in this totally flirty voice, “You could just tell me what it’s going to say. Since I’m going to find out anyway.”
“Who’s she talking to?” I ask Charlie.
Emma laughs loudly from the other room. Charlie rolls her eyes. “She’s obviously talking to some guy. You can tell by the way she’s being all giggly.”
Some guy? Yes! If Emma’s talking to some guy, maybe she’ll get together with him! And maybe she’ll forget all about Jake! In fact, maybe she likes one of Jake’s friends, like Leo Wheeler. Maybe she just sent Jake that note to be like, “Hey, I like your friend, can you ask him what he thinks about me?” because she was too embarrassed to tell him in person. And that’s why she said she usually doesn’t play games!
I stick my head out of the bathroom so I can try and figure out who she’s talking to. If Emma does like Leo, maybe Emma, Jake, and I will double date! Or at least all hang out in a group. Of course, Daphne would feel left out, but I’m sure we could find a boy to bring for her.
But when I finally focus on what Emma’s saying, Daphne feeling left out is the least of my worries. That’s because Emma is lounging on her big poufy couch, her legs draped over the side, her long red hair in a perfect halo around her on the cushions. And then she giggles again and says, “No, Jake, I told you . . . if you’re going to send a note back, then just tell me what it’s going to say!”
Her words are like a horrible dagger to my heart. And the worst part? Emma’s on my phone.
“I saw his name on the caller ID and so I answered it,” she says, like it’s no big deal. Which it wouldn’t be, normally. Normally, as in, if I didn’t like Jake.
“Oh, it’s no big deal,” I say. “I was just wondering why he was calling me.”
“He didn’t say,” she says, handing me back my phone. “He had to go, he was going to spend the night at Leo something-or-other’s.” Just like that, my double-date fantasies disappear into the night.
Daphne, who had apparently been sent up to Emma’s room to fetch some sort of gold beaded shirt that Emma thought would be perfect on her during the whole Emma-Answering-My-Phone Incident, is looking nervously back and forth between us. Charlie is still in the bathroom, where she finally located the fake eyelashes. Since there was only one pair, she is gluing them onto herself.
Emma squeals, then grabs me and dances me around the room. “He said he got my note and that he was going to write me back and give it to you on Monday.” She looks at me. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“Well, I guess it’s—”
“I mean, it’s so romantic. Passing notes back and forth.” Her eyes narrow. “Plus there’s something so old-fashioned about actually writing a note to someone, instead of sending a text or an email. It’s like . . . retro. Olivia totally sucks; you’re way better.”
Daphne clears her throat, and when I turn to look at her, I notice for the first time that she’s wearing a lime green miniskirt over black leggings. Which is so not Daphne.
“You look fab,” Emma says. She pulls a flip cam off the bar in the corner. “And now,” she says. “It’s time to karaoke. Charlie!” she screams. “Get out here so we can sing.”
We karaoke for most of the night. Fast songs, slow songs, duets. We change outfits a million times. We film ourselves, and then spend some of the night uploading the footage and editing it into music videos using Emma’s dad’s computer software.
“If they come out good enough, we’ll put them on our Facebook pages,” Emma declares. “Or enter them into one of those online karaoke contests.”
We order pizza at 1 a.m. from the twenty-four-hour pizza place down the street, then sit around Emma’s huge glass kitchen table, eating slices and planning our revenge against Olivia.
“What you have to do,” Emma declares, “is beat her at her own game.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. I take another delicious, globby bite of pizza off my plate, and wash it down with some lemonade. I can’t believe I can eat at a time like this—meaning when Emma has basically told us she’s in love with Jake, and when Jake might be in love with her.
The thing is, I’m kind of having a lot of fun. Yeah, Emma and Charlie are a little over the top with their karaoking and their fashion (they seem to favor fedoras, feathers, and anything fake—eyelashes, fur, etc.), but they’re also really fun and nice. And besides the whole “I want to date Jake” thing that Emma has going on, I think we could really be friends.
“I mean that you have to start an online secret business as well,” Emma says. “Expand into the twenty-first century!”
“But you said earlier that something about passing notes the old-fashioned way was romantic.” Honestly, all these conflicting messages are not good for my mental state.
“Well, it is,” Emma says, “but maybe you could do both, you know, like have an online part, and a regular part that you just do out of your locker. Just like Olivia.”
“But then wouldn’t she just be copying Olivia?” Daphne asks from her seat next to me.
“I still think you should read the secrets,” Charlie says. She’s eating a salad with gluten-free, fat-free, sugar-free dressing because the sauce on the pizza aggravates her acid reflux.
“I told you, I can’t,” I say. I take another bite of my pizza. “It would totally ruin my reputation, and my business would be over.”
“Whatever,” Charlie says. “I’m sure people, like, expect you to read the secrets.” She rolls her eyes.
“No, they don’t!” I say, shocked. “They would never pass things through me if they thought I was reading everything. And if they did think I was, they’d totally use Olivia over me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Emma says. “Because Olivia’s not going to keep this up.”
“What do you mean?” Daphne asks. “She’s not going to keep what up?”
I take another sip of my lemonade.
“I mean that she’s a quitter,” Emma says. “Like last year when she tried to start up this collection to help the needy? She ended up keeping, like, half the money for herself so she could buy a new iPod and a sweater for her dog.” She spears a piece of salad on her fork, then dips it in the pile of dressing that’s on the plate next to her.
“She did not!” Daphne exclaims.
“Well, it wasn’t, like, proven or anything,” Charlie sa
ys. “But it was a little weird that everyone was giving money, and like, she had none for the needy. But she somehow had a new video iPod and this totally expensive sweater for Bitsy.”
“She sounds like a brat,” Daphne declares.
“She is,” Emma says. “But I’m totally right about her being a quitter. So really, there’s nothing to worry about. You just have to wait her out until she gets sick of the dumb secret-passing.” A worried look comes over her face. “I mean, not that secret-passing is dumb, I just meant that her trying to steal your idea was dumb. Of course I don’t think that what you’re doing is dumb; I think it’s awesome.” She smiles.
“It’s okay,” I say. And then she’s off and running, telling some story about her mom and this new car the family wants to buy. I guess that’s it for our strategy session.
Later, when Emma and Charlie are asleep, Daphne and I whisper. The karaoke room has two big couches that pull out into queen-sized beds. Charlie and Emma are sleeping on one, and Daphne and I are on the other. The best part is that the couches are far enough away from each other so that even if Charlie and Emma were awake, Daph and I could whisper without anyone hearing us.
“So that wasn’t that bad, was it?” I ask.
“Which part?” she says. “The part where they made me wear a lime green miniskirt, or the part where they filmed it and are now going to put it on their YouTube channel?”
“Not their YouTube channel,” I say, giggling. “Their Facebook pages.”
“Oh, right,” she says. “They only put it on YouTube if the lighting is right and they think it can go viral.” We both giggle, covering our mouths to muffle the sound.
“Thanks for coming,” I whisper. “You’re a good friend.” I grab my cell off the table next to us and check the time. It’s 3:09 a.m. I scroll through until I get to my received calls. “What do you think Jake wanted?” I ask Daph.