“Well, for starters, what’s it like to have a song written about you?”
“Oh, it’s all good.” I practically had to wipe my dripping sarcasm off the phone. “I love being singled out in public, it’s the best.”
She laughed and I could tell I was charming her. Finally, someone to hear my side of the story! “And did Evan talk to you about the song at all after he wrote it?”
“No, we were broken up by then. He didn’t have the guts!” I laughed again and Victoria and I knocked elbows in solidarity. “You know guys—they say everything to their friends after you walk out the door.”
“Tell me about it.” I could hear her frantically typing on the other end. “What do your friends think about the song?”
“Well, there’s a lot of ‘Audrey, Wait!’ being screamed in the hallways, and it seems like now everyone wants to be my friend, but that’s about it.” Then I thought about Chris Collins. “This one guy I know said that his brother heard it at his school in New Jersey. That was weird.”
“Oh, it’s all over the radio in London, too.”
“You mean like the English London?”
“The one and only. They’ve released it in Europe, and according to the label, the U.S. is next. They’re really giving it the full-court press.”
My throat suddenly felt sort of tight. “Really? Wow. Fantastic.”
“What’s fantastic? Tell me!” Victoria whispered away from the phone, but I waved at her to shut up.
“Any plusses to the attention?”
“Uh, all the sex?” We both laughed and I forced myself to unclench my hands. “Not really, it’s just a song about me, that’s all.” And even as I said the words, I started to believe them. I mean, I really did. “They were just words written by someone who didn’t know me anymore. Maybe he never did, I dunno.” I reached over so I could refill Bendomolena’s water bowl. “I broke up with him and I hurt him and I guess he wants to do the same thing to me.”
Seriously, Isabella must have been the world’s fastest typist. “Any plans to release a song of your own?”
“Um, not right now!” I laughed. “I don’t think that’s ever gonna happen. I only sing along to the radio.”
“And what do you think about music right now? Are you listening to local bands besides the Do-Gooders?”
“God, I’ll listen to anything. I love music, it’s like…” I sighed and put the water dish back down. “I mean, sometimes it’s like the only thing that matters. Sometimes when I hear a great song, it means more than anything, like even my family or friends or anyone.” Next to me, Victoria made a face that clearly said, “Not more than me, your very best friend in the world.”
“Is that how it felt when you heard ‘Audrey, Wait!’ for the first time?”
Just then, the garage door opened up and my mom came struggling in through the door with groceries and cat litter. “Help…me…” she said, trying to keep the door from slamming behind her. “I’m too young to break a hip.”
“Look, I have to go,” I told Isabella. “Good luck with everything, all right? I hope it turns out okay.”
“That’s fine, I think I’ve got everything I need. Thanks for your time!”
We hung up and I ran to take the kitty litter from my mom while Victoria grabbed a bag of paper towels. “Thanks,” she sighed. “Who was that?”
“Um, just someone from the newspaper,” I said. In the grand scheme of house rules, I wasn’t sure if talking to a reporter was a violation, so I decided to selectively edit.
“We canceled our subscription months ago!” my mom cried. “What, are they offering us another deal?”
“I dunno, I hung up.”
She set down the groceries and pulled a bag of oranges out of the top. “For our still-life class,” she said, her eyes shining.
An explanation: A couple of months ago, after the whole Evan breakup, my mom decided that we needed to spend more time together. I was all up for shopping and eating pasta lunches by the beach, but in her words, “Let’s broaden our horizons, why don’t we?”
So we signed up for tae kwon do classes, but that was doomed from the start. Partly because my mom, while not a pushover, is also not the violent type and apologized every time she hit someone or something. Wham! “Sorry!” Pow! “Sorry!” A superhero she is not. The other reason it was doomed was that whenever I’m supposed to be really serious about something, I get the giggles and can’t stop. Seriously, it’s embarrassing, but I can’t help it. By the fourth class, I was practically turning purple and our teacher kept barking out orders until I finally lost it and doubled over with laughter while my mom alternately beat up the practice dummy and apologized to him.
“So,” she said in the car afterwards. “How do you feel about watercolors?”
I looked at the oranges. “They’re very orange-y, Mom.”
“That’s the best you can give me? Orange-y?”
“Orange-y like a brilliant sunset.” I kissed her cheek and then one of the oranges for good measure. “See, I love them already. They’re adorable. I gotta go. It’s been fun and all that, but I’m late.”
“And she’s taking me home,” Victoria said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and taking an orange from the counter. “It’ll help prevent scurvy,” she explained. “It’s been going around school.”
My mom just grinned. Victoria can do no wrong in her mind. “Do you think you can remember the ice cream this time?”
“Already etched onto my brain,” I told her. “I’ll put it in the car at the start of my shift so I don’t forget, how’s that?”
“Ha ha, funnypants.” She smiled and gave me a squeeze goodbye. “Is your shirt dirty?”
“I can’t hear you—I’m too busy remembering ice cream!” I grabbed my bag and car keys at the same time.
“Do your laundry!”
“I hear nothing but the demands of my customers!”
James was already behind the counter when I came running in, still holding my hat while diving to slide my time card. One minute late, just like I thought. I am nothing if not accurate. “Remind me to bring home a pint of Coffee Dream ice cream,” I told him after (reluctantly) putting on my hat. “My parents are crack fiends for it.”
“Okay.” He was straightening the towers of sugar cones into something resembling a skyline. “Do these look even?”
“Um, sure.”
“You think?” He took a step back and eyed his handiwork.
“So…” I fiddled with the ice cream scoops in their well. “Way to say hi to me at school today.”
To say we were both surprised by my comment would be an understatement. “When, today?” he said, heading back toward Sugar Cone Town.
The ship had already sailed: I might as well go with it. “Yeah, today. This morning. I was gonna wave at you and then you looked away so that I was doing that weird half-wave thing—”
“I hate when that happens.”
“Yeah, me too.” There was another awkward pause. I hated those even more. “So what were you listening to while you weren’t saying hi to me?”
“Oh, um, just a mix my brother made for me.”
“James!” I cried. “You’re finally speaking my language! Halle-freaking-lujah, I live and breathe mix CDs. What’s on it?”
He left the sugar cones alone and started refilling the napkin dispensers. I suspected James suffered from a mild form of OCD. “Just some Clash, some Dylan, y’know. The standard mix-tape stuff.”
“You listen to the Clash?”
“You don’t?”
“Not all that much.”
“I could burn you a CD, if you want.”
“Cool, thanks.” I boosted myself up onto the counter and swung my feet against the cupboards, probably committing ten health code violations in the process. “What about new bands, do you listen to any of them?”
“You mean like the Do-Gooders?”
I never thought I’d see the day when James would make me blush. Thank G
od Victoria would never hear about this. “No, I just meant, like, other bands.…”
He smiled a little. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“Because today hasn’t been hard enough, thanks.”
“Yeah, you’re kinda famous at our school.”
“I’m not famous, I’m just…” I fumbled for words. “There’s a bump in my popularity numbers, let’s put it that way.”
He smiled and the back of his neck turned bright red, almost as red as his hair. Looked like I wasn’t the only one blushing.
But when I turned around, I saw that I wasn’t the only one making James blush. Sharon Eggleston was standing in front of the register, doing her patented flirty girl smile at James. “Hey, Aud!” she said, like she was surprised to see me, like it was some big secret that I worked at the Scooper Dooper. “What’s up?”
“Um, hi,” I said, while scanning the store for an escape route.
“You know, all the sorority girls at USC are totally into your song.”
“It’s not my song,” I told her.
“Do you want to try a free sample of our latest flavor, Pumpkin Pie?” James offered her a tiny spoon with a bit of ice cream on the end. “It’s seasonal.” I kind of wanted to bop him on the head.
Sharon moved her eyes over to him and did that thing girls do where they tilt their head down and look up at guys through their lashes. “Wow, thanks,” she said. “That’s so sweet.”
“Uh, no problem,” James said, and Sharon did her full-on megawatt smile.
I tried not to roll my eyes and almost gave myself a migraine in the process. Why was my heart suddenly too big for my chest? Why was I mad? Why was James acting like a bumbling idiot around her? And why did I care? I mean, it wasn’t like I had a cru—
Evan’s voice on the radio suddenly cut through the noise in my head.
“Hey, this is Evan from the Do-Gooders, and you’re listening to our new song ‘Audrey, Wait!’ on the world famous KROQ.”
Holy shit.
“Did he just—?” I said to James as Sharon’s mouth fell open.
“Was that—?” she said.
“I don’t—” James tried to answer both of us at the same time.
“He did a promo for KROQ?” I squeaked. “Are you kidding me?”
“We said we loved and it was a lie! I touched your hair and watched you—!”
Sharon was honest-to-God squealing. “This is, like, the biggest station in L.A.! In California! On, like, maybe the planet!”
I mentally shot death rays at Sharon’s head as James reached over and turned the radio off. “Wow,” he said. “This is…uh, yeah. This is kinda big.”
Sharon and I both looked at him. “Holy shit,” I said after a minute. “Holy freaking shit.”
7 “Can’t help the feeling I could blow through the ceiling…”
—Radiohead, “Fake Plastic Trees”
IT TOOK TWO WEEKS for the L.A. Weekly article to come out, and to be honest, I wasn’t really thinking about it. But the whole time before that, I was still trying to navigate the weird popularity circle that Evan’s song had landed me in at school. I didn’t know what Evan was doing anymore, but it’s a safe bet that he was having a better time of it than I was.
“Audrey, Wait!” entered the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart at number eighty-four, then zoomed to number forty-seven the very next week, which was apparently some big to-do that only a handful of bands had ever done before. I know all this because I started reading the Do-Gooders new website, which was all fancy-schmancy with a message board and photos of the band in a recording studio. Evan looked exactly the same, only with longer hair and a bigger smile, and okay, I admit it, I still thought he was cute. Maybe hot. But you didn’t hear that from me.
Their message board was getting pretty popular, too, and I will shamefully admit to spending more than one late night clicking “refresh” on my computer screen to see what comments people were posting. In this weird way, I was proud of Evan, like he was finally achieving all the success he had ever wanted, and then I’d read some comment like “Screw that Audrey bitch, you’re too good for her!” and that would pretty much kill my benevolence. (That one comment came from someone named “QTpie,” by the way, if that gives you an idea of Evan’s new fanbase.)
Sharon Eggleston, never one to miss a party, kept saying hi to me along with her gaggle of friends and telling me what she was doing for the rest of the day. For example: “Oh, hi, Audrey! We were going to go to Sbarro for lunch today, okay?” Translation: “If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in Loserville Hell eating egg salad sandwiches, I suggest you eat lunch with us.” I don’t even know who she thought she was kidding, since no one has ever seen Sharon Eggleston eat anything in her life except butter rum LifeSavers and the lemon wedges that she squeezes into her Diet Coke.
But of course, I kept wimping out and saying, “Oh. Oh, okay. But see, I have this orthodontist appointment/study session/“Save the Whales!” rally I have to go to, so…” I really wanted to wish Sharon a lifetime of frizzy hair and chin zits, but that’d just be mean, and I couldn’t be mean. At least, not yet.
If there was one thing that Sharon knew how to do, though, it was hitch a ride on the Popularity Train and then take over as conductor. If she couldn’t date the guy, then she was gonna be my friend whether I liked it or not.
Victoria, on the other hand, was less sympathetic than I was and had plotted a cruel fate for Sharon that involved piranhas and a chainsaw and wasn’t for the faint of heart.
And then there was Tizzy, speaking of the faint of heart. She was on me like a barnacle, following me between classes, offering me food from her lunch during classes, which was making Victoria either jealous or irritated, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t ask her, either, because unlike Sharon, you couldn’t really hate Tizzy. She was well-meaning and probably a little lonely, which meant that she didn’t show up on Victoria’s radar. And besides, all Victoria wanted to do was talk about The Song and Evan and What Possibilities It Presented. Possibilities that I myself had yet to see.
“You sound like a guidance counselor,” I finally told her as we were sitting on the grass during English two weeks after the song had come out on KROQ. We were supposed to be reading Leaves of Grass but instead everyone was just sitting in the sun and glancing at the book every once in a while.
“I’m just saying,” Victoria began for the forty-sixth time, “that maybe—just maybe—you should look into getting some representation or something and try to make something out of this. This could be an opportunity, you know. We could go to movie premieres, get free swag at the Grammys—”
“Swag?” I asked.
“Swag.”
I flopped down and watched the leaves flutter over my head. Whitman had been on to something with his “let’s all love nature” philosophy, I had to admit. “And what am I gonna do in between the swag collecting?” I argued, also for what felt like the forty-sixth time. “What? Christen new strip malls? Tell knock-knock jokes as Evan’s opening act?”
“Ha, yeah, no. Look, you’re Audrey. You’re my best friend, you’re the most awesome person I know, and everyone is going to love you. Capital L love. L-O-V-E. All you have to do is just put yourself out there and be open to whatever opportunities might be available. Like, say, opportunities for free jeans.”
I snorted.
She threw a handful of grass at me. “Why are you being a raging pessimist?”
“I’m not. I’m a realist.”
“A real pessimist.”
And so on. It would’ve kept going, too, but a shadow suddenly came over me and I opened my eyes to see James standing there, looking almost as tall as the trees. “Oh!” I said. “Hi!”
And if you don’t think that the sight of James standing next to me didn’t get the whispers going, then you haven’t been paying attention.
“Oh, hey,” he said, like he was surprised to be standing next to me, like it wasn’t him who h
ad walked over. “I, uh, I burned you a copy of that CD we were talking about. Remember…? The Clash? I, uh, I put some other stuff on there, too.”
Victoria sat up like an eager puppy, almost like she was expecting him to pat her on the head. Behind her, I could see Tizzy’s eyes widening and Sharon Eggleston’s narrowing. Every single copy of Leaves of Grass had been, well, left in the grass.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Thanks, that’s really cool.” I took the case from him. The front cover was this awesome collage of black-and-white photos. “Did you make this?”
“Yeah, I…” He cleared his throat and was now turning as red as his hair. “Yeah, I did.”
“It’s awesome,” I told him. “I do collage sometimes too, in my room.”
“One whole wall of her room is almost covered,” Victoria piped up. “You should see it sometime.”
I looked over at her as James’s eyes widened. “Um, I gotta go,” he said, then held up the potted plant he was carrying, the instantly recognizable hall pass from Mr. Elson’s U.S. history class. “Enjoy the CD.”
“I will, thanks,” I said, still pretty impressed by the collage. “Good luck with the plant. Don’t forget to water it.”
He smiled as he slunk away, and I held onto the case a bit tighter. Victoria leaned in close and whispered, “We need to talk!”
“What’s there to talk about? He made me a CD.”
“You’re shitting me, right? He made you a mix CD and carried the fucking potted plant all the way over here just to give it to you.” She studied me for a long minute. “Someone has a crush,” she finally said.
“James does not have a crush on me,” I told her. “It’s just a CD.”
“Yeah, well, you’re blushing.”
“I’m blushing because everyone’s staring at me!” I hated when she was right, especially about this.
“Um, news flash, Audrey. Everyone’s been staring at you for the past two weeks.”
Sharon Eggleston wasted no time getting her two cents in. She and her friends found me as I was going toward the language arts building to get my stuff after class. (Side note: language arts? It’s one or the other, people, not both.) Victoria had abandoned me for Jonah, who had some major project due for chemistry and needed someone to help him who wouldn’t mind if her eyebrows got singed off. That’s the kind of girlfriend Victoria is. I, on the other hand, happen to like having eyebrows on my face, so I left the two of them in the lab and instead got a faceful of Sharon and the Clones.