My Little Phony - 13 (8 page)

“Oh, sure.” Art quickly scribbled down his name. “Facebook me. Karma Chameleon could always use more help.”

Layne beamed. “Well, I guess we’ll geck-o-ing.”

“Enjoy your new pets!” he called out as the girls walked away.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Layne giggled, high-fiving Claire. “We will!”

“I still don’t understand why no one told
me
about the extra credit,” Kristen said, shaking her head as she and Massie entered Auditorium 7 at the Clearview Multiplex.
Liaisons Diaboliques,
a black-and-white French film about a teenage girl who falls desperately in love with a much older vampire, was about to start. The other theatergoers were also finding their seats, overstuffed containers of popcorn and boxes of Sno-Caps and Twizzlers in hand.

Massie, in a Burberry trench and D&G sunglasses, led Kristen and Bean (who was dressed in her own tiny puppy trench from Bark Jacobs) to a row near the back. She slid into the seat on the end and scanned the theater to confirm that she didn’t know a single soul sitting in the orange reclining chairs. The Pretty Committee was otherwise accounted for—Dylan was having dinner with her mom, and Alicia was at dance practice—but you couldn’t be too sure.

“I don’t know,” Massie said. “Maybe because your average is already ninety-eight?”

Kristen shrug-blushed and sank into the plush seat.

In order to convince Kristen to join her, Massie had told her the movie was for extra credit. And she wasn’t completely lying. She
had
brought Kristen here for educational
purposes. Though this education had nothing to do with school.

It was now T-minus one day until lip touchdown, and Massie was nearing panic mode. She had watched movie kiss after movie kiss on YouTube. But the theater’s enormous high-def screen would make it a much more effective teaching tool. And who better to learn kissing
en français
from than the people who invented it?

Besides, the rest of the audience was almost all couples, which meant Massie would be able to observe other daters in their natural habitats. By spying on a couple in the “wild,” Massie could notate and memorize how to act when she and Landon were out on their own date.

The crystal-sconced lights dimmed, and a hush fell over the theater. The screen switched from an ad about a wine-tasting movie to a warning for theatergoers to be quiet and silence their cell phones. Massie folded her D&G glasses and replaced them with a pair of sleek silver binoculars.

“What are those for?” Kristen whispered.

“To see the subtitles better,” Massie whisper-hissed back. “Now, shhh! It’s starting.”

The film began with a shot of a dark forest in the south of France. On the screen flashed the words
LIAISONS DIABOLIQUES
. A silky-voiced narrator set the scene in French, and white, block-lettered subtitles appeared at the bottom of the screen.

“Wait!” whispered Kristen, horrified. “Will Madame Vallon still give us extra credit even though we don’t have to translate?”

“Of course,” Massie said. “But be quiet. I need to focus.”

She trained her binoculars on a couple near the front. The guy had a frizzy blond ’fro and wore horn-rimmed glasses. The girl barely had enough hair to fill out her ponytail. They were feeding each other Jujubes, and the guy kept pretending to bite the girl’s finger off. Massie wrinkled her nose.

Quel désastre.

She turned toward another couple in matching crocheted winter hats. They were sharing a bag of granola and a hummus sandwich, which they’d obviously made at home and smuggled in.

Horreur!

For a moment, Massie gave up her search and watched the movie as the heroine, Genevieve, appeared on-screen. With her pert, upturned nose and long dark curls, she looked like Christina Ricci’s French younger sister. She wore a white dress and clutched a textbook to her chest as she made her way home from school. Dusk fell over the rolling landscape, and day quickly morphed into night just as Genevieve reached the edge of the forbidding woods. She crossed herself anxiously as she passed gnarled, ancient limbs that seemed as though they wanted to reach out and grab her. As soon as she made it safely inside the white clapboard house on the other side of the forest, two glowing eyes appeared in the darkness and the shadow of Olav, a 313-year-old Norwegian vampire, stepped out from behind a fat oak tree. In his arms was the body of a young girl, two prominent, bloody teeth marks imprinted in her lifeless neck.

Kristen gasped. Bean hid her head in the crook of Massie’s arm. Massie just rolled her eyes. Vampires were so passé.

The scene changed to show Genevieve in a discotheque with her friends. A boy in dark wash jeans and a white button-down shirt—the picture of innocent teenage hawtness—emerged from the crowd just as Genevieve ordered a Coke from the bartender. The boy swooped in to pay for it and introduced himself as Jean-Luc, a budding poet. Genevieve shook his outstretched hand. “My, what cold hands you have,” she commented. The camera panned in for a close-up of Jean-Luc’s eyes. They smoldered with intensity.

Massie clutched her arm rest. Was it smooch time already?

Mais non.
Genevieve merely took her Coke and rejoined her friends. Jean-Luc gazed longingly after her, then scribbled a short love poem in a small leather notebook he pulled from his jeans pocket.

Massie scanned the theater crowd again with her binoculars. Frizzy curls.
No.
Gelled spikes.
No.
Bedhead.
No.
Heidi braids.
Definitely not.
And… ah! Just two rows in front of them and one seat to the right, a girl with long, blond Gisele hair sat next to a boy whose mane was almost as perfectly shaggy as Landon’s. The girl wore a headband and a plaid jumper, and the boy wore a Brooks Brothers blazer and scarf. They were a few years older—high school juniors or seniors, maybe—and were leaning in toward each other.

Voila!

Massie activated the voice recorder on her iPhone and
raised it to her lips. “Notes from the field, part one,” she whispered. Little bars rose and fell, calibrating her volume. “Test subjects sit close but not too close to one another.”

“Did you say something?” Kristen asked out of the side of her mouth, her eyes glued to the screen.

“I’m taking notes for extra credit.”

Kristen gave a
wish-I’d-thought-of-that
frown.

On the screen, Jean-Luc asked Genevieve to dance. She flashed him a luminous smile, but instead of leading him to the dance floor, she took him to a utility closet at the back of the club. Once they were alone, he leaned close, as if mesmerized by her clear blue eyes. She leaned in too, like she was getting ready to lip-kiss.

Massie clutched her iPhone in anticipation. But then, suddenly, Genevieve held up a cross that she’d been hiding in her dress pocket. Jean-Luc hissed at her, his front teeth elongating into fangs.

“Ehmavampire!” Kristen gasped. “I so did
not
see that coming.”

Unfazed, Genevieve pulled a vial of holy water from her pocket and tossed it on Jean-Luc, and he collapsed to the floor with a
thunk
. His leather-bound
cahier
followed with a
thud
.

Gisele Hair buried her face in her date’s shoulder.

Massie bent over her iPhone. “Female test subject uses fear at a scary event as an excuse to get closer to male test subject.”

In the row in front of them, a woman with salt-and-pepper hair turned around and
shhh
ed Massie.

“YOU shhhh!” Massie glared back and pointed to the screen. “We’re trying to watch the movie.”

On-screen, the heroine gave a quick glance around before staking Jean-Luc through the heart with a pencil she pulled from one of the shelves in the closet. Then, with a devil-may-care smile, she disappeared down the hallway and out into the night.

The scene dissolved into a foggy evening. A thin man with straight blond hair and chiseled features—Olav, the vampire—drove a car down a narrow, winding path, when suddenly a figure dashed out in the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid it, then braked sharply to see what he had come close to hitting.

“It’s warm in the car,” the antihero said in French as he pulled up beside Genevieve.

Bean yawned.

“Ah-greed,” Massie whispered. It was no wonder French people had invented kissing. They had probably come up with it to pass the time during their snoozefest movies.

A few rows in front of them, the female test subject was feeding the male test subject popcorn a few kernels at a time. Occasionally the girl would reach out and brush the popcorn crumbs from his cheek. Massie pictured Landon’s mouth being that close to her fingers and felt her neurons flash down her spine, strobe light–fast.

The male test subject finished a final mouthful of popcorn and then put his arm around the female test subject, who yawned and put her head on his shoulder.

“Female test subject uses the excuse of being tired to lean against the male test subject—who, on second thought, needs a haircut.”

“Ix-nay on the ommentary-cay,” said Kristen. She motioned to the screen with her chin.

Massie closed down the recorder and opened her iPhone notepad instead.

Uch.
Couldn’t
someone
get to kissing already? Massie let her mind wander to thoughts of Landon. How his eyes crinkled whenever he was in the sun. The way his dark curls tickled the edges of his ears. How he half smiled whenever his pug, Bark, licked him. How he had opened the door for Massie to his mom’s couture dog boutique, Bark Jacobs. How he liked to put his arm around Massie whenever other boys tried to flirt with her. And how waves of crushness flowed between them whenever they were together.

A quiet giggle two rows up brought Massie’s attention back to Gisele Hair and The Mane. The female test subject leaned in close and whispered something to the male. Then she leaned back the tiniest bit and nodded. Their lips were
almost
touching.

Use whispering to increase closeness,
Massie typed into her iPhone notepad.

The test couple was leaning in: 3… 2… 1…

“Kiss should begin slowly,” Massie whispered.

The male test subject opened his mouth slightly. And then wider. And wider. The female test subject opened her mouth even wider than his and stuck her tongue all the way out of
her mouth, like she was getting ready for a throat culture at the doctor’s office. Then, suddenly, they smashed their faces together like two trains crashing at top speed.

Massie gasped and almost dropped her phone.

The female test subject brought her hands up to both sides of the male test subject’s face. He moved his jaw up and down, like she was a double cheeseburger. And she made the same lip-smacking, slurping noises Layne had made when she’d dared herself to eat a whole watermelon without using her hands.

And that’s when Massie saw The Mane pass a blue wad of gum to Gisele Hair
with his tongue
.

Massie clutched her iPhone. This was awl wrong! This wasn’t sweet or romantic. This was… gross!

A second later the couple pulled apart. The male’s tongue hung out of his mouth, like he was a Doberman after a long run. The girl chewed on the piece of gum, then wiped her slobbery mouth with the back of her sleeve.

And then they went back in for more.

Massie tasted the Nutz Over Chocolate Luna bar she’d eaten on the ride over.
Ehmabarf!

The couple had looked so normal, with their fashionable outfits and adequate haircuts, but they were chewed-gum-sharing freaks!

Massie put her hand over Bean’s eyes, hoping her pup had not suffered long-term eye damage.

On the screen, Genevieve was sneaking into Olav’s motel room. Pale moonlight splashed across his face as he lay in a coffin, eyes wide open. She lowered her face down over his.
They stared into each others’ eyes and opened their mouths ever so slightly, in perfect unison.

Maybe this movie wasn’t so useless after all…

Notes from the field, part two,
Massie typed into her phone.
Stare into eyes. Part lips in unison, no more than three-quarters of an inch. Ideally, female test subject will have stray lock of hair or tear on her face so male test subject has something to lovingly brush away…

There was simply too much occurring to type, so she switched her iPhone to video and held it up.

On-screen, Olav, with his centuries of lip-kissing experience, sat up in his coffin and cupped Genevieve’s chin in his hand. Tears sparkled in her eyes as she admitted that she’d only ever kissed one boy before and she’d never even dreamed of kissing a vampire. “Do not worry,
ma petite cherie,
” Olav said in a husky voice. “I will not bite.”

As the actors touched lips, Massie smiled and scratched Bean’s ears. From where she was sitting, that didn’t look too hard. Stare, part lips, initiate kiss, tilt head. It was exactly the same maneuver she’d used with Derrington. Maybe kissing an older man was like kissing an older vampire—and like kissing a regular old eighth-grader. So long as lips were involved, it was all pretty much the same thing.