Audrey, Wait!

  All this over arm huggies. I mean, really.

  “So when you say trash-talking …” my mom continued as she followed me. “Were they talking about you?”

  “Not really,” I fibbed. “Just about each other. Do you know if Dad has any argyle socks?”

  “Probably. Are you going to wear them on your arms?”

  See what I mean? “Arm huggies are so over, Mom.”

  “Of course.” She gave me a wink and leaned against the doorway. “So how are you?”

  Are you kidding me? I wanted to scream. You want to do the mother-daughter thing now? NOW?!

  “I’m fine. I’m late.” I went down the hall, combed through my dad’s sock drawer, found the argyles, and yanked them onto my feet. Again, my mom followed me.

  “Because your father and I were thinking that maybe you should take it easy. Maybe you should quit at the Scooper Dooper.”

  That caught my attention real quick. “Now you want me to quit the Scooper Dooper?” I cried.

  “Not quit, but maybe a leave of absence?”

  My parents had immediately vetoed the endorsement deal, to my immense pleasure, but this was going beyond. “How am I going to pay for gas? Or get new speakers?”

  “Well, maybe we could—”

  We were interrupted when the doorbell rang.

  “Shit!” I cried. “Sorry, Mom. Shoot! It’s him! He’s early! I’m late! I’m not wearing any eyeliner yet! He won’t even be able to see my eyes if I’m not wearing eyeliner!”

  “Relax, your dad will keep him occupied.”

  I froze. “Mom. He cannot be alone with Dad. I’ll die. I’ll never even get to go on my date with James because I’ll be dead and you’ll have to put me in a casket without any eyeliner on because I’ll be so dead that I won’t even care.”

  My mom opened her mouth to say something, but Victoria’s voice floated up the stairs as my dad answered the door. “Is she home?” I heard her ask.

  “Oh, thank God,” I sighed. “I’m upstairs! Please come save me!”

  She ran up the stairs two at a time and burst into my room. “Guess what! Great news! Hi, Mrs. Cuttler!”

  “Hi, Victoria.” She grinned. “I’ll be downstairs, Audrey, in case you need to be resuscitated.”

  Victoria waited until my mom was on the stairs. “Great! Fucking! News! What would be the best thing that could ever happen?”

  “If after I died, I was reincarnated as Meg White?”

  “Okay, the second-best thing.”

  “If my parents acted totally normal in front of James and didn’t humiliate me and send me screaming for the hills?”

  “Audrey! Just play along, okay?”

  I started searching in my jewelry box for my tiny knife-blade charm necklace. “Okay, sorry. Best news ever! Hit it!”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, now, don’t be mad.”

  I looked up. “The best news in the world usually doesn’t start with ‘don’t be mad.’”

  “I know, I know, but … okay, you know how everyone’s always trying to get information about you from everyone at school?”

  “Ha!” I held up the necklace, triumphant. “Put this on me?”

  She came around as I held up my hair and looked in the mirror. “So last week,” she began, but I cut her off.

  “Victoria, I’m sorry, but I don’t have time, okay? James is gonna be here in like, thirty seconds, and I haven’t done makeup or anything.”

  “You already look beautiful.”

  I eyed her in the mirror as she clicked the clasp into place. “Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Be all nicey-nice so I’ll listen to you. It won’t work. And where are my shoes?” I leaned over the banister. “Mooooom! Where are my shoes?”

  “I’m not the shoe fairy!” she yelled back.

  “But if you were?”

  “By the garage door!”

  I peeked back at my bedside clock. “Crap! Five fifty-three!”

  “What’s the big deal?” Victoria said. “You still have seven minutes. I can tell you so much in seven minutes!”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  She followed me into the bathroom as I began to draw on eyeliner. “But seriously, you need to hear this.”

  “You know what I’ve already heard?” I tried to keep my face extra still as I drew. “James and Simon verbally bitch-slapping each other on MTV today.”

  “Yeah, old news. I got a text alert about it.”

  “From who?”

  “MTV. I’m on all of the alerts now. Any time your name is mentioned in the news, I know about it.”

  I sighed. “Great. Hand me the eyelash curler?”

  She did. “Okay, so you know how your family isn’t talking to any agents or publicists or anything?”

  “Very aware, thanks.” It was hard to talk without blinking.

  “Well, the other day, I got this email from this producer and he was like, ‘We hear you’re Audrey’s best friend,’ and I’m all, ‘What about it?’ and he’s all, ‘We want to talk to her.’ So I started talking to them.” Victoria took a deep breath and leaned against the door-jamb. “I’m talking to a lot of them. It’s like with the lip gloss, y’know? There’s a lot more than just lip gloss out there, Aud. Lip gloss is like the tip of the iceberg, and it’s all there for the taking. And this way you don’t have to be involved.”

  “How benevolent,” I said, letting the irritation creep into my voice. “And when you talk to these leeches, what do you talk about?”

  “Selling your soul. It’s a seller’s market, Aud. We should do it now.”

  “Not funny.” I released my eyelashes, then looked at Victoria’s watch. “Shit. Can I hear about your little group discussions later? Please?”

  “Well, when? Because I’m kind of on a time crunch right now.”

  I zoomed back into my room, threw everything into my super-cute red patent leather purse, then went back to add a second coat of mascara. “Me too. James is gonna be here in five minutes.”

  “I think this is more important.”

  I almost stabbed myself in the eye with the mascara wand. “This from the girl who’s been trying to set me up with James for the past three months? And did you bring that one lip gloss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I borrow?”

  “You have a whole box of gloss just waiting for you! And it was free!”

  “Yeah, but yours is better. C’mon, I’ll love you forever.”

  “You’ll love me even more once I tell you the good news.” She began digging around in her bag and produced the gloss. “Don’t lose it. It’s my favorite and I have no money to buy more.”

  “No worries.”

  Victoria glanced out the bedroom window. “Does James drive a black Toyota?”

  My heart picked up the pace. “Yes! Is he here? Oh, God, please don’t say yes!”

  She was oddly quiet.

  “Victoria! Is it him?”

  “You said not to say yes!”

  “This is a really bad time to go all literal on me!” I smeared on the lip gloss, grabbed my bag, and flew down the stairs, Victoria close behind.

  “Mom! I think he’s here!”

  “Let the roasting begin!” my dad yelled back.

  “Dad!”

  “Audrey!”

  “Look, Aud, okay, I’m just gonna say it!” Victoria just cannot be stopped. I don’t even know why I bother to try. “This is big!”

  I ran past the garage door and didn’t see my shoes. “Mom! They’re not there!”

  “What’s not where?”

  “My shoes! By the garage door!”

  “Which shoes?”

  I was ready to rip all my hair out.

  “Remember that email I was sending last week?” Victoria kept going. “The one I was writing when you faceplanted while painting your toenails?”

  “It’s a painful memory on many levels, but yes, I remember. Where are my freaking shoe
s?!”

  “Okay, it was just to confirm the following two words!” Victoria said as I rushed toward the hall closet. “Reality! Show!”

  The doorbell rang and I pulled open the closet door and found my beat-up black Converse, the ones that Victoria had drawn silver hearts on during a particularly mind-numbing English class. “Who put them in the closet?” I cried.

  And then the words reality show finally registered in my brain.

  “Wait a minute!” I turned to Victoria. “What reality show? I’m not doing a reality show!” I cried as I yanked the closet door open wider.

  Then there was a muffled flump! sound followed by a “Yeeeeeoooowwwllll … !”

  I froze. “Bendomolena?” I slowly peeked around and saw my cat standing there, looking like she had been hit in the face with a closet door. Which, of course, she just had. “Oh, Bendy! Oh, your cute little face! I’m so sorry!”

  “Meeeeoooowwwwlllll!” I guess my cat inherited my dramatic gene, because she was really milking this one. Of course, I did just smash her.

  I dropped my shoes and bent down to pick her up. “Lift with your knees,” both Victoria and my dad warned at the same time, then exchanged grins.

  “I think your date is here, Audrey,” my dad said. “I’ll let him in.”

  Uh-oh. I cut him off and held Bendomolena up in front of him as my mom walked past, ever the rescuer. “Look at her nose!” I cried. “Does it look redder than normal? Do you think I broke it?”

  My dad raised an eyebrow. “She’s a cat, Audrey. Her nose is already red.”

  “No, it’s normally pink! I think I hurt her!”

  “Hi, James, come on in,” my mom was saying, and I looked past my dad and Victoria to see him standing in our entryway. He was taller than both my parents, but then again, neither of them are Amazons.

  “Come on in, James,” my dad said. “Welcome to the circus.”

  James gave me a nervous wave. “Hi, Audrey. Hi, Mr. Cuttler.” He shook hands with my dad like he was pulling the pin out of a grenade.

  “Hi,” I said to him. “I think I just broke my cat’s face.”

  “That’s a cat?”

  Victoria grinned. “I’ve been saying that for years.”

  “So,” my dad said to James. “You work at the ice cream store with Audrey. How’s it going?”

  “Uh, just fine, sir.”

  I guess my mom could see my eyeballs starting to bulge, because she expertly stepped in and said, “Audrey speaks very highly of you, James.”

  And then I guess Victoria saw my eyeballs practically fall out of my head at my mom’s idea of conversation, because she stepped in to run her own brand of interference. “Isn’t that the biggest cat you’ve ever seen? I think she’s world-record material.”

  “What’s her name?” James asked.

  “Bendomolena,” I told him. “Does her face look broken?”

  “Um, no. Just kinda cranky, maybe?”

  “I just smashed her face with the door. By accident, I swear.”

  James gingerly patted her head. “Good thing she’s got all the extra padding.”

  After everything calmed down and they all convinced me that Bendy didn’t have a concussion or brain damage, Victoria left (“Audrey! We’re talking tomorrow about … that thing! That we talked about today!” she yelled before going out the door), and it was just me and my mom and James.

  And my dad. Who never fails to disappoint.

  “So,” he said to James as we stood in the entryway. “Do you plan on writing a song about my daughter?”

  “Oh, my God, Dad,” I sighed. “He’s not a musician.”

  My dad looked to James for confirmation.

  “I can’t play a single instrument,” he agreed. “I can’t even snap my fingers.”

  “And do you plan on doing anything that will make her even more famous?

  “Um, no? I mean—” James stopped to clear his throat. “No, sir. Not at all.”

  “You’re not gonna sell pictures of her to tabloids?”

  James blushed and I knew he was thinking about how we had been joking about that very thing earlier. “No, sir. Never.”

  “You’re not in with the paparazzi?”

  James was blushing so bad that his ears were red. “No, sir.”

  “Okay. Dad? You’ve met him. Mom, you’ve met him.” I had to step in before James’s head exploded with embarrassment. “And James, you’ve met my parents. Can we go now? Please? Before Dad tries to get a DNA sample?”

  My mom smiled. “Home by midnight.”

  “I know, I know.” I half-guided, half-shoved James toward the door. “And call every half an hour,” I added before she could remind me.

  “You have money?” my dad asked James.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t need to borrow any from my daughter?” Evan had always been borrowing ten and twenty dollars at a time from me, which drove my dad crazy. Come to think of it, it drove me crazy as well.

  “No, sir, not at all.”

  “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad.” I gave them both a look. “We have to go now.”

  “’Bye, have fun!” My mom waved. And then, because she couldn’t resist, “Try not to attract too much attention!”

  By the time we were in James’s car, I was exhausted. “I? Am so sorry,” I told him. “Really. They’re just overprotective right now.”

  “No, it’s okay.” He was fastening his seat belt and looking relieved. “How do you think I did?”

  “Well, I’m in your car, so I’d say fine.” I smiled as he kept shoving his hair out of his face. “Although I did lose count of how many times you called my dad ‘sir.’”

  James started to laugh. “He’s your dad! What was I supposed to do? I was trying to make a good impression!”

  I had never really heard James laugh before. It was an unusual one, the kind that you hear and it makes you laugh too, even if you don’t know what’s so funny. “No, it was cute,” I told him. “I’m only teasing. Sort of.”

  “Yeah, I kinda guessed.” He was looking at me oddly. “Hey. You’re not wearing those arm things of yours.”

  I fastened my seat belt. “C’mon, dude, those are so over. And I won the worst-dressed award for wearing them, so yeah. Don’t expect to see them again.”

  “Okay. You hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  So we went.

  23 “Reoccurring episodes with each and every kiss….”

  —New Found Glory, “All Downhill From Here”

  ASIDE FROM THAT whole meet-the-parents-and-Victoria-and-the-cat-with-the-smashed-face scenario, my first date with James was definitely becoming one of the Top 5 Moments of My Whole Life. From the car to the restaurant, James held my hand the whole way. Some guys just have a knack for hand-holding, have you noticed? They’re not all limp or sweaty-palmed, and it doesn’t feel like they’re leading you around like a little kid.

  We went to this twenty-four-hour diner by the beach, and the air was cool and salty, like I could put my tongue out and taste it. And then I found out the restaurant he had picked had a jukebox, and James’s cool factor jumped up five thousand points. Three songs for a dollar? A bargain at twice the price.

  “So if you did get your own TV show,” James mused over veggie burgers and french fries, “could I guest star?”

  “You better,” I said as I dipped a fry in ketchup. “You can be the wacky neighbor who lives next door. Every show has one.”

  “Audrey, which part of me sounds wacky to you?”

  “Well, it doesn’t even matter, ‘cause there’s no way I’m doing it. What would they film? Me sitting in the office, doing SAT questions? Ooh, so scintillating. Stand back, Real World! Audrey has arrived!”

  In fact, everything was going so well that I felt it was okay to ask James a question that had been bothering me for awhile. “So,” I said as I bit into a deliciously floppy french fry. “Can I ask you something?”

/>   “Uh-oh.”

  “No, it’s not bad! I promise!”

  “I’ll decide if that’s true.” He sipped at his Coke and raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, “Go ahead.”

  So I did. “What took you so long?”

  He choked mid-sip and came up sputtering. “What?”

  I handed him a napkin. “I mean, when I first started working at the Scooper Dooper, you wouldn’t even talk to me. Remember when I asked you what music you liked?”

  James gave me a small smile as he wiped his mouth. “Butter pecan,” he murmured.

  “Exactly!” I cried, smacking the tabletop for emphasis. “That’s all you said. ‘I think we need more butter pecan.’ What was up with that?”

  James sighed. “I kicked myself for days afterward.”

  “And you never talked to me, either, unless it was about sugar cones or reorders. Why?”

  “Well, um, Audrey, you’re kind of … um, intimidating? Kind of?”

  I drew back. “Intimidating?”

  “No, not in a bad way, just like …” He set his napkin down and leaned forward. I could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “You’ve just got all this, like, light around you. You’re always talking or dancing or flipping the radio stations around. And you talk really fast, too. And I’m not really like that, and I didn’t know what to do. So then I just sounded stupid every time I opened my mouth.” He took another sip of Coke. “And then there was the fact that you had this cool musician boyfriend.”

  I smiled. “Oh, yeah. Him.”

  “Yeah. Him.”

  I couldn’t resist. “That is so cute.”

  “Oh, jeez.” He balled up his napkin and ducked his head so I wouldn’t see him blush.

  “Don’t hide! It’s cute that you were jealous! So when did you know you liked me?”

  James sat back up and thought a minute. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.”