Getting to Third Date (15 page)

Ralph had a great time playing the radio interview over and over again. Tyler didn't want to print my column. But I told him I'd never speak to him again if he didn't. I think, after the Sophia thing, he just wasn't quite ready for that one. So he printed it. And the campus went wild. If I thought they'd talked about me too much before…I started carrying my iPod everywhere to tune out the world around me.

But even the earbuds couldn't keep me from assimilating the campus opinions. A bitter fall—everyone said it was great that Mother Hubbard got past the third date, but they seemed even happier when she got dumped. And, for some reason, the stupid adage about getting back on the horse was everywhere—on the blog, in the letters to the editor, and even on a banner outside the student union.

Apparently the consensus was that Mother Hubbard would get over it. It wasn't a consensus I agreed with. In fact, little old me had retreated to bed two days into the whole thing. I'd tried to be strong. But then Professor Golding started another Mother Hubbard discussion and I lost it. I left class before I could hear what she—and the rest of the class—had to say about this latest twist in the Mother Hubbard history. And I decided to do a Rip van Winkle and sleep until it was all over and done with. After stocking our—oops, I mean
my,
because Sophia was gone—tiny dorm fridge with Ben & Jerry's ice cream—Karmal Sutra, of course.

The bad thing was that I was running out. There was a little Chunky Monkey, but that wasn't going to cut it. I was in heavy-duty broken-heart recovery. Still in ICU stage. And Sookie had flat-out refused to go get me some more when I called to beg her to help.

I thought she was the meanest person ever, until there was a knock on the door and Tyler appeared, with more Karmal Sutra and a worried frown.

“Midterms are coming up, kid. The doctor's got a double dose of meds to get you up and out of that bed.”

Tyler didn't give Sophia's empty side of the room—I'd packed her stuff up and taken it to the RA's room so she could mail it to Sophia in Seattle—a second look. His concern was all for me. Which, I have to admit, helped even more than Rocky Road for soothing a broken heart.

With the added danger of breaking it again before it was even healed, of course.

“I don't want to get out of bed. I just want to lie here and eat ice cream and never go anywhere again.” Which was true, if completely self-indulgent and practically impossible to do.

“That's not the Mother Hubbard I know.”

“It's the new Mother Hubbard. Wait until you see my next column.” Which I hadn't written, except in my head. Annoyingly, the question was what to do when your roommate runs away with your boyfriend. And Mother Hubbard's answer was always the same—concentrate on my classes. Be the best engineering student I could be. Count myself lucky to be rid of Stephen. And Sophia, too.

So why didn't my heart respond with a quick healing—and my midterms benefit from extra study? Because, gosh darn it. I am a human being, and human hearts are not susceptible to common sense. Especially not broken human hearts.

“Do you have a column for me?” Tyler sounded so hopeful, I felt guilty I couldn't hand in a column in exchange for the ice cream.

“Not yet. Can you do it?”

“Okay.” He sounded like he had something to tell me that he wasn't sure I wanted to hear.

I dug the spoon in again and said, “Spill it, Tyler. What else do you have for me besides ice cream?”

He tried not to grin. He really did. Which was some comfort. Not. “The radio interview got picked up by the
News and Courier
.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, but I really didn't believe he meant it. I thought he was trying some kind of wacko shock therapy.

He held up a copy. The headline read
BROKEN HEARTS ON CAMPUS
:
SHOULD STUDENTS BE LOOKING FOR
“
THE ONE
”
OR THE
4.0?

Why was it especially galling to find that the campus—and the local newspaper—was even more interested in a brokenhearted Mother Hubbard? I don't know. But it was.

 

I guess the writer was long out of college, because the article came down firmly on the side of libraries and books. And the old Mother Hubbard. The one, the reporter said, with attitude.

“The local TV news wants you to do an interview with them.” I could tell he thought I should do it. But he wasn't going to come out and say so, because, after all, I was a girl in my pj's at four in the afternoon—eating ice cream and wearing ear buds that weren't currently attached to an iPod.

An interview with the local news. Were they kidding? No. They weren't. It was a sign. A sign that it was time to return to my sensible alter ego.

I, Katelyn, was about to give Mother Hubbard a run for her money.

“Forget it, Tyler. I'm not going to do the interview, or the column, anymore.”

You'd think I'd told him I was going to cut off his arm. “Katelyn, I'm counting on you.”

“Well, stop, or you'll get your heart broken, just like I did. Or haven't you heard? Mother Hubbard is a bitter old cow who doesn't know how to handle disappointment.”

He sat down on the bed next to me. This required more bravery than you might imagine since I hadn't showered or brushed my hair in days. With one finger he dug into the ice cream container I was cradling and scooped out some ice cream for himself. “Don't let them win, Katelyn. Show them Mother Hubbard is not bitter, old, or a cow.”

He said a lot more, but mostly he just sat there and ate ice cream and listened to me complain about how unfair life was. He flinched a little when I said Sophia's name, and we had to get a new carton of ice cream when I came to the subject of Stephen. I don't know how he did it. But just by sitting there and eating ice cream with me in the dark, he did convince me to do the darned interview.

“On one condition.” I couldn't believe I was caving in again. To Tyler. But I was. “I'm not going to the station. They'll have to interview the blogging Mother Hubbard. You can be the talking head. You're good at it.”

He got that wheedler look in his eye. “What about—”

But I'd given as much as I was going to. “No more voice distorters. No brown paper bags over my head. Or no interview.”

“Done.” He took another scoop of ice cream with his finger. And then he hugged me. Hard. “Welcome back, Mother Hubbard.”

I pushed him away, despite the definite buzz that was demanding I pull him closer. “That's another condition. I quit the column as soon as this is over.”

 

I prepared for the interview by pretending I was talking directly to Sophia and Stephen. Traitors to me, but not to their own feelings. I must have had enough ice cream to make me see the light. Or make me light-headed. They loved working on robots together. They belonged together. So why couldn't I make it hurt less?

Tyler was right. If I was going to stay on campus and not run away, I needed, for my own sake, to make up for the unfortunate radio interview. I would never have done that interview in technipain ad-lib if I'd had time to think about it.

I didn't really want to leave Mother Hubbard on that bitter note. It wouldn't be fair to the person who took up the column when I quit. And someone would take it up, because it was a century-old tradition. Just because I didn't believe in Mother Hubbard didn't mean the tradition wouldn't continue.

So come interview time, I sat on the bed with my laptop on my lap and IM'd with the TV anchorwoman. It was quiet and dark in my room, and I felt a million miles away and completely disconnected, even though I knew that there were probably thousands of viewers who would see me IMing.

The questions were predictable, and light as cotton candy.

There was a time delay so they could cut the interview in with something that would be more visually interesting, so when I logged off from the interview after the inevitable quick reporter kiss off/thank you, I turned on the TV to see them just introducing Tyler.

It made for funny TV, but those news guys know how to handle even interviewing through IM. Tyler was great—he reacted to the little rolling IM of my answers as if I were sitting there talking to him big as life.

The station even had an interview clip with Professor Golding, whose sound bite was “The college years are meant for exploration. Sure, there can be some heartbreak, but generally everyone learns to navigate relationships just a little bit better by the time they graduate. Mother Hubbard has helped students recognize that there are many ways to do this, but they're all difficult.”

The only thing I wasn't sure I liked was the little graphic they'd whipped up, of Mother Hubbard sitting on her cupboard shaking her finger at the world. Her nose was way too long. She almost looked like a witch.
Maybe I should send them a new drawing of Mother Hubbard?
Nah, I flunked drawing in kindergarten—I was too stubborn to color things appropriately. I liked my suns blue and my grass pink. Or sometimes purple, if I was feeling pinked out.

But with this whole Mother Hubbard thing, I felt like the crayons available to me had been reduced to one. Brown. Mud brown. Mother Hubbard brown.

The reaction to Mother Hubbard's new return to third-date hesitation—and radio ranting—was overwhelming. Apparently, people were more enamored of Mother Hubbard's advice pre–getting to third date. So was I, for that matter. For different reasons. I believe in common sense and fewer broken hearts. The world at large just liked controversy. The messier, the better.

Things might have ended there. But they didn't. Who knew there really was such a thing as a slow news day? Not me. Until Tyler caught me just before I went into Human Sexuality class and pulled me away so no one would overhear him when he said, “We're going big time, what do you think of that?”

“Big time? Are you kidding?” I knew him well enough to know he wasn't. But I still hoped he would say he'd just decided to try to see how close I'd come to killing him. He didn't.

“You know that hot new MTV show,
Pimp My News
? They want us.” He was practically floating a foot off the ground as he told me.

I guess I was still a little raw, because the look in his eye reminded me of the way Stephen looked every time he made some radical improvement in Jezzy. I stepped back. “
Pimp My News
wants to interview Mother Hubbard?”

Well. I guess when I wish for things to be different in college, I should be more specific. For example: me, no longer every guy's platonic best friend: good. But me, interviewing with the hottest new news show aimed at the eighteen to twenty-four crowd: not so good.

“We can't possibly do
Pimp My News
.” I couldn't help being shrill. My life was going crazy—in a bad way. I wanted to be done with Mother Hubbard. And MTV thought the Mother Hubbard broken-heart story was worth an interview? Were they crazy? “What could they possibly see in us? And I do mean see, by the way. Or have you decided that you don't mind being the editor who lets out the secret of Mother Hubbard's identity?”

“That's the beautiful part. When I told them that Mother Hubbard had a century-old tradition of anonymity, they said they'd take any girl on campus who had followed Mother Hubbard's advice. I picked you. Because we're friends. And you had that thing with Stephen and that thing with Richie, too.” I stuck a mental Post-it note up to remind me never to tell Tyler anything ever again. He'd seen the Stephen thing. But I hadn't had to blab about Richie.

Great. I'd caused my own trouble. Well, all I could say was that's nothing new. “So they want us to fly to New York? And be on TV? To discuss Mother Hubbard, who can't be there because she doesn't exist.” My head hurt. “What would they expect me to even say? Broken hearts suck? Doesn't everyone already know that? Especially people our age.”

Tyler stopped smiling for a minute, and I remembered that his heart had been through the shredder not that long ago too.

“I'm sorry.” I stood up and paced. “I didn't mean that.”

“Yes, you did.” Tyler wasn't grinning, and he wasn't trying to hard sell me either. He was struggling to make sense of everything as much as I was. “Broken hearts suck. But it's what you do about it that matters. To everyone. Even the national news.”

“Well, they don't need me, then. You can spread the news. You deserve this trip. You're the one who thought up the third-date challenge. You're the one who thought up the blog. You go. Leave me here.”

“No.” Tyler shook his head. “You're representative of all the women you've given advice to—I mean that Mother Hubbard has given advice to. You're not supposed to be Mother Hubbard. You're just the girl who tried her advice and got burned and then decided to try again, even though you've found dating in college to be a whole new animal.”

“Have I now? Says who?”

“Says you. You say I don't listen, but I do—doesn't this prove it?” His voice got higher, and he did a bad imitation of me. “Forget the loser and get back out there and find someone who will treat you well.”

“It proves you don't know me at all, Tyler. All it will take is one question from the
Pimp My News
guy about whether or not I am Mother Hubbard—and I'll spill the beans. I'm not a good liar. Not at all. Or haven't you noticed?”

“You can do it—especially when you know what it would mean if you actually told people who you are. You don't need any hate mail addressed directly to you, do you?”

“Why am I even talking to you? As soon as they come to their senses, they'll rescind the invitation.”

“They might.” He nodded. “The person who called was pretty up front about it. If big entertainment news happens, we'll get bumped.”

“Then why don't we just bump ourselves first, before suffering that kind of humiliation?” I tried to work the humiliation card—it had become obvious to me over the past few months that Tyler didn't love being publicly humiliated.

“How could you possibly turn down a visit to
Pimp My News
? Do you know how many people they don't ask? It's an honor!”

“Well, so's dying for your country, but that's not something everyone signs up for, now is it?”

“Fine. You don't need honor. Don't need glory. Don't even need fame. But consider this: It's a free trip to New York. All expenses paid. A night in a nice hotel. And you get a chance to have your say in front of more people than you'll ever see again in your lifetime.”

I put my hands over my ears. “Stop.”

He waited me out, which was surprising. I would never have tagged Tyler as the patient type. Of course, I'd never have tagged Sophia as the type to run off with her roommate's not-yet-officially-broken-up boyfriend either.

When I'd finally taken my hands from my ears and opened my eyes, he just said three little words that made me cave.

No. Not those three little words. I wish.

What he said was, “I need you to do this with me.”
I need you.
Powerful words from a guy with a buzz factor of ten who brought me ice cream to heal my broken heart—a broken heart caused by another guy.

So, yes. Apparently I could be bought. The going price at the moment was starkly obvious and highly depressing. And it wasn't a free trip to New York, or a chance for twenty-five seconds of fame on MTV. No. It was a weekend in the Big Apple with Tyler.

It was a chance to be as brave as Richie had been. To make my move on Tyler. If nothing happened between us then, I might as well tie it up with a pretty pink ribbon and toss it in the Dumpster. The boy was not going to see me as anything but a best friend.

I hit the gym the morning we flew out, determined to be in the best shape I could. I had a black dress my mom had made me buy when I graduated from high school. She said every girl needed a little black dress she could throw on for special occasions.

If this wasn't a special occasion, I couldn't imagine what was.

So in went the black dress, my cutest pajamas—just in case—and my best dancing heels. New York clubs had to let in the two hot young things who were interviewed on
Pimp My News
, didn't they?

I hadn't ever stayed in a hotel room by myself. The flight the show had put us on—coach, not first class, but I'm not complaining—was okay. And at least I had Tyler sitting next to me—no weakness allowed when he was looking on. I'd had one breakdown in front of him and I needed to make up ground if I really wanted to try to make something happen between us.

We did our best not to be gawky tourist types. I'm not sure we succeeded, because the desk clerk and the bellman both had big smiles on their faces when we asked for rooms next to each other on the highest floor they could give us.

I felt like a princess for a minute. The show had sent us a fruit basket and a welcome note—to each of us, in our rooms. Very nice rooms too. Since my mom and dad liked Motel 6 when we traveled, all four of us crowded together, I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of a big, luxurious room all to myself. In the end it was the all to myself that got to me. Yes, it was a nice hotel room. But still, people were walking down the hallway and the heating unit was noisy. I'd had a hard enough time sleeping in my dorm room alone since Sophia left. This was a thousand times more nerve-wracking.

I gave up around midnight and called Tyler's room (I would have just knocked on his door because he had the room on my left, but I kept thinking about how the hotel advised that you look through the peephole before you open the door). “I can't sleep.”

“Want to try to get into a club?”

“We have to be up early tomorrow.”

“So?”

“Okay.”

He was knocking on my door so fast I wasn't sure he hadn't been ready to come if I called. I liked that thought—but I knew better than to trust it.

We headed out to do the club scene. We were all the way to the lobby when we realized we didn't have a clue where to look.

“Should we just walk a few blocks and see where people are lined up?” I didn't know which way to walk, but I also didn't know what else to suggest.

“Probably a great way to get mugged.” Tyler looked uncertain. “I guess that would make a good editorial—how to survive getting mugged in New York City. Not that I really want to be the one to write it.”

“I'm not writing it either. Maybe you can tell Sookie what happened—if we get mugged—and she can write it.”

“Maybe.”

We stood there for a minute. I think we might have chickened out if it weren't for the light over the concierge desk. I guess New York is not only the city that never sleeps, it's also got concierges who never sleep.

Or maybe we just had a really nice hotel. The concierge on duty didn't seem to think it was at all strange that we would be looking for something to do at midnight.

He gave us directions to three different clubs no more than four blocks away. And he made Tyler go back up to his room and change into something more appropriate. Apparently, Sophia's influence had rubbed off on me enough that I was dressed well enough. I suppose I had something to thank her for. Not that I would.

We didn't get into the clubs. Not old enough. I think Tyler took it harder than I did, because after the third club's bouncer just shook his head and pointed us away, he stuck his hands in his pockets and looked uncharacteristically uncertain.

“Sorry. I bet they'd let you in if you weren't with me. You look hot.”

That wasn't hard to hear. But he clearly needed some cheering up. So I took his arm and draped it over my shoulder so that we stood together, staring at the gaudy wonder that was Times Square. “I don't care about the clubs. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“On TV. On New Year's Eve.”

“Tyler. We're here. We're really here. Let's enjoy it.”

“If they won't let us in…”

“Let's go to Serendipity for ice cream. Like in that movie.” My stomach clenched, still a little upset after all the ice cream I'd eaten to get over Stephen. “Or maybe hot chocolate.”

“Is that in Times Square?”

“Does it matter? I can't sleep anyway.”

He shrugged but didn't take his arm off my shoulder. “Guess not, then.”

We walked all over Times Square, going wherever they'd let us in. We didn't get hot chocolate, but we did get to see an ad for
Pimp My News
that had our college ID pictures plastered a hundred feet high (okay, so that's an exaggeration, but you try looking at a bad head shot that's blazing on a video billboard in Times Square, and you'll lose your sense of proportion too).

I took a picture of the ad with Tyler in the foreground, just to document the fact that I'd—at least once—gotten to make my mark in Times Square.

Who knows what my life will be like once I get back. I mean, I have finals to take. And a new roommate to find.

 

MTV arranged for a taxi for us. So one more thing to add to my list of things I've done. I've ridden in a taxi in NYC. And it was everything the movies promised it would be. Fast, furious, and boy was I glad to get to the curb on Forty-third and Broadway.

Pimp My News
was the hottest new show on MTV. It had the quirky offbeat news style of Comedy Central's
The Daily Show
, but had a take on the news more suited for a teen crowd. MTV billed it as news that was terminally hip. I guess that meant, for at least fifteen minutes, Tyler and I qualified as the same.

The receptionist was nice and didn't treat us as if we were just college students at all. “Welcome to MTV, Katelyn and Tyler. Please have a seat and Jessica will be right with you.”

“I can't believe I'm really here,” Tyler said in a low voice when the receptionist turned away to call Jessica, whoever she was, to come get us.

“I know.” I'd always known Tyler cared about the journalism business. But here, it was like he was in heaven. He was taking in every detail, checking out every person who walked in and out of the doors, darting down one of two hallways.

He sat on the reception couch, but I could tell he'd rather be moving down one of the hallways himself. “I wonder which one we'll go through?”

“I'm sure Jessica will let us know.” It took a little while for Jessica to show up, but we didn't mind, because we had fun watching the people. Some of them were famous, but we did well, not gawking like tourists.

When Jessica, who turned out to be an intern, came to get us and lead us to the greenroom, she asked if we'd like a tour.

Tyler said, “That would be excellent.”

And it was. The room where they ran the show was fascinating. Noise and monitors and headsets, and an energy level that must have been Mach 10. I felt it. The passion of the people in the room. Even Jessica, the lowly intern. And Tyler. Especially Tyler.

“Don't try to be funny,” Jessica warned us while we were checking out the soundstage where we'd be interviewed. “AGOAJ hates that. Just talk to him.”

“No problem,” Tyler said, as if he'd been interviewed a dozen times before.

“I think I'll just skip the talking part and nod and smile,” I said.

She laughed. “Not if AGOAJ has his way.”

The host went by a string of initials. AGOAJ. It was supposed to be very newsy. He wore a loose-fitting suit over a wifebeater.

He was kind of cute, too. With a smile that made guests forgive him when he twisted the news in an attempt to make it terminally hip.

Tyler picked Jessica's brains about how to get an internship before she left us in the greenroom, which had been supplied with the root beer Tyler liked and the lemonade I drank. Not to mention a bowl full of assorted candy bars and one of popcorn. Hot popcorn.

“This is cool. I could live like this.” Tyler didn't mean the greenroom, even though he was unwrapping a Milky Way as he spoke. He meant the news atmosphere. The rush of adrenaline that you could feel in the air here. I suddenly saw him here in a year. It was a weird feeling, seeing him as Tyler the school newspaper editor and then seeing Tyler the college graduate and MTV intern superimposed over the top.

Which, I guess, is the real difference between high school and college. It may be subtle, and it may take a few months to really feel it. But there's only a few years of school between me and a career.

And guess what? I can see Tyler as an MTV intern, and a news guy. Maybe not as goofy as AGOAJ. But I can't see me as an engineer.