Something Real (18 page)

I resist the urge to pull my hair out. “This day is never going to end.”

Our fifteen-hour picture marathon in the studio is finally over, but that doesn’t seem to be reason enough to cancel our weekly family meeting. It’s always a clumsy ballet of scheduling and chore assignments, peppered with complaints and arguments.

“How many texts have you gotten so far?” Lex asks, falling into step with us. She’s glowing. I may have been born on camera, but Lex was born
for
it.

“More than I wanted,” I say. And none from Patrick.

“OMG, everyone from school is going to be fuh-reak-ing out,” she says.

But her walk is bouncy because Lex can’t wait to lord her celeb status over the plebes at Sequoia Arts.

“
Fame! I’m gonna live forever. Baby, remember my name
,” Benny sings.

“Jazz hands,” I stage-whisper, waving my fingers around.

Lex just raises her eyebrows. “And
that
little impromptu performance is why I go to an arts institution, and you go to a lame-ass public school.”

I roll my eyes. “She says, her eyes glittering with malicious intent.” My heart skips at the word, and I have to force myself not to replay that part of my date with Patrick.

“Grow up,” she growls, pushing Benny aside as he executes some surprisingly limber Rockettes kicks.

“I’m surprised she doesn’t get a sunburn from the rays of her own awesomeness,” Benny says as Lex heads to the first floor.

“It’s a problem that has stumped scientists for years.”

When we get downstairs, everyone is seated at the dining room table. There are fresh flowers in the vase and lit candles. I guess I have to get used to my home being a set—all the world’s a stage and yaddayaddayadda.

“Okay, guys,” Mom says, holding her cell phone and typing into it as she speaks. “The Meanies are back, and we have to stay away from them as much as possible.”

“Meanies!” shrieks Jasmine™, aka the Triplet Whose Voice Can Break Glass.

Daisy™ and Violet™ giggle, their little hands covering their faces.

“Who are the Meanies?” prompts Chuck.

He’s off camera, just behind Old Guys Rule Dude.

“The Meanies,” Mom says, “are the paparazzi. They’ve set up camp outside our house, and now Kirk and I have to find a way to make sure the kids don’t get harassed. This is my number one priority right now.”

I think if she hadn’t written that book, we might not be having this problem until the first episode airs, but I don’t say that because we’re barely on speaking terms right now. Plus, there’s the whole Chuck-threatening-me thing. I feel like he’s watching every word I say, waiting for an opportunity to screw my family over.

Kirk clears his throat. “It’s important that we don’t acknowledge them.”

How the hell does
he
know how to act?

Mom nods. “Benton™, Bonnie™, and Lexie™, I’m sorry but you’re probably going to be seeing them a lot. They’re not allowed on campus at your schools, but they’ll set up shop across the street. Just don’t give them the time of day.”

The rest of the kids are homeschooled, so they only need to worry about it when they go out with Mom or Kirk. I nod and play with my cuticles, pushing them down, pressing against my nails. I go to my happy place during times like this. I’m on a beach, the waves are licking my toes, I’m— Okay, my happy place is currently unavailable.

“So let’s talk about tomorrow,” Mom says, opening up her massive day planner.

I tune Mom out and lean back in my chair. Part of me wants to go online and see what people are already saying, just so I’ll be prepared. The other part of me wants to never open my laptop again. I picture Tessa, Mer, and Patrick Googling me, and I have to bite my lip to keep the tears back. Mom drones on forever, pointing to the big whiteboard calendar that’s on the kitchen wall. I hear the words
book tour
and
Kaye Gibbons Show
, and I mentally vomit.

“Great, thanks, everyone,” Kirk says. “Meeting adjourned.”

Lacey Production Assistant comes up to me right away. “Hey, Bonnie™?”

When I look at her she backs away a little, like I’m a rabid beast. Maybe I’m glaring, I don’t know.

“Um. We need you for a little one-on-one. Can you come down to the basement?”

“It’s been a really long day.”

“Just a quick chat,” she says in a voice that makes it clear she’s not asking. I look over toward Chuck and he nods.

I shrug off the hand Lacey puts on my arm and start toward the stairs. When I get down there, the camera is facing a plush couch that has a table next to it with a pretty little lamp and a vase of fresh flowers. I sit down on the couch, cross-legged, and Lacey sits to the right of the camera, on a stool.

“Hey, Bonnie™,” Puma Guy says. “Long day, huh?”

I should really learn his name. I can see he’s trying to be nice. Maybe he even feels bad for me.

“You know it,” I say.

“Okay, ready?” he asks. The red light is blinking.

“Yep, I guess.”

“Okay, and five, four, three, two—”

Puma Guy points to Lacey, and she glances down at her clipboard.

“So, Bonnie™, tell me a little bit about how it feels to see the paparazzi again.”

I know they will edit out her voice so it seems like I’m just chatting, sitting here and dying to tell America all my feelings. I shake my head.

“If you want to know how it feels to have people point cameras in your face and not care at all that they’re freaking
vultures
and to have your friends texting you being like, who
are
you?, then I would have to say it feels like crap.”

Lacey closes the big O she’s making with her mouth and kind of coughs.

“Um. Okay. So … how do you think it’s going to be at school tomorrow?”

I grip the little throw pillow on the couch and shrug. “Guess I’ll find out when I get there. My prediction is that it’s going to suck a lot. Speaking of … I have to get up in five hours, so I’m gonna go. ’Night.”

I don’t wait for permission. I just get up and walk past the camera.

*   *   *

“I resent that the Vultures wouldn’t even let us go through the Starbucks drive-thru in peace,” I say, slamming the passenger-side door.

Good thing we left the house a little early—the student parking lot is almost full, which means the bell for first period will be ringing soon. So much for being early enough to explain myself to Tessa and Mer.

Benny sets his latte on the roof so he can throw on his coat. “Guess we’ll have to invest in an espresso machine,” he says.

“God, we sound like spoiled assholes, don’t we?” I say.

He raises his cup to me in a toast. “I like to think of us as inmates of a comfortable prison.”

“Hey, hey. If it isn’t my favorite celebrity friends,” says Matt.

He and Benny do the fist-bump, half-hug combo that guys do. This is how in-the-closet boyfriends greet each other in public. I wonder, will this change once people start paying more attention to Benny? Maybe they will finally have to be who they really are—or will Matt say he can’t handle it?

“Hey, friend,” I say, accepting his bear hug.

“Are you sure you want to be seen with us?” Benny asks. He says this seriously, like he’s finishing a conversation that started a week ago.

“Yes.” Matt’s voice is firm, and I feel a tiny prick of jealousy when I see the way he looks at Benny. I wish someone would look at me like that.

“I’m gonna…” I point in the general direction of the school.

“Love you,” says Benny.

“XOXO,” I singsong, mimicking Sandra’s voice.

Benny rolls his eyes as I make my way to the front door. My face is already hot, and I keep my eyes down and hide behind my hair. If it weren’t so cloudy, I would be wearing the retro sunglasses I bought in the Tower District.

“Chloe.”

It’s Tessa. She’s standing near my locker, holding on to both straps of her backpack. No hug.

“Hey.”

I had sent both her and Mer a long e-mail, detailing all the reasons why I hadn’t told them the truth. It was apologetic, full of ellipses, and probably the e-mail equivalent of a kicked puppy’s whine. Pathetic. Neither of them had gotten back to me.

Tessa just sort of looks at me, like I’m an alien. “I don’t know what to say.”

I kick at the dirty linoleum. “Um. Did you get my e-mail…?”

She nods. “Yeah. Yeah. It’s just so…” She kind of waves her hands around.

In a way, I feel so much better, knowing that she knows. Even if it means we can’t be friends. Because I always knew I’d have to tell her someday, if we were ever going to have any kind of real friendship. But I just wish I had been in control of the when, where, and how.

“I know this is shitty,” I say. “And I totally understand if—you know. I mean, whatever you want to do.”

The bell rings, and she kind of shuffles backward.

“Okay. Right. I’ll see you, uh, later, I guess.”

I’m not sure if that means
please don’t eat lunch with me
, or what. It’s not like I was planning on doing anything other than hiding out in my car.

“Cool. See you,” I say. I open my locker and shove a book into my bag. I don’t even know which one it is, I just have to do something with my hands.

There should be a class on where to put your hands during awkward moments. Like, no other animal has to stand around with these ridiculous appendages that make everything worse. Hands are awkward as hell. I watch Tessa disappear down the hall, belonging, being absorbed into the crowd.

I feel disoriented trying to get to class. People are staring, a few obnoxious guys shout “Bonnie™!” as they bolt down the hall to their classes. I don’t even know them. It dawns on me that I’m living my worst nightmare. I literally have had almost this exact dream. Except that just when I would reach the feeling of total panic that is beginning to poison my system right now, I would always wake up. Sweating and shaking, I would look around my room and smile into the familiar shadows. But here, now, I don’t get to breathe that sigh of relief and fall back against my pillow.

Who am I kidding? I can’t do this. I’m about to turn around, back toward the entrance and the student parking lot beyond that, when I see him walking toward me. I can’t help it—I stop dead in the center of the hallway, the bodies around me parting like the Red Sea. If this were a movie, Patrick would stop too. We’d stare at each other, breathless, with longing in our eyes.

But he doesn’t stop.

I look down and turn around, walking fast. I know he’s caught up to me only when I feel his hand slip into mine. I jump, startled by the unexpected touch, but he doesn’t let me stop. Instead, he kind of drags me down the hallway, and I stumble after him, confused and a little bit ecstatic because he’s
holding my hand
.

“Um. Patrick?”

He looks at me for a second, but he doesn’t say anything. I can’t get a read on him because his eyes dart away too quickly. The hallway is emptying out, and I keep waiting for a teacher to yell at us to get to class, but just before we reach the door that leads outside, he makes a sharp right, into a tiny hallway I’ve never noticed before. Probably because it’s dark and the door off the side of it says STAFF ONLY.

Patrick opens the door and pulls me inside, shutting it behind us. We’re in the kind of darkness that obliterates everything in it, and my heart is doing all kinds of uncomfortable things, and I can hear my blood pumping in my ears, and what is going on? I hear a chain pull and then the little closet flickers with wan light from an overhead fluorescent tube. As the light sputters, it kicks slivers of incandescence around us, some of them cutting into Patrick’s face and eyes. When he lets go of my hand, cold air hits my palm. It’s important to note that I don’t ask why we are in a janitorial closet. Actually, I don’t ask anything at all. My voice seems to be malfunctioning.

“So this is what you meant in the park when you said ‘it’s complicated’?” he asks.

I nod. We stand there, sharing air, listening to the scurrying outside in the hallway. It smells like bleach and Pine-Sol and mold.

It’s heaven.

“Should I call you Chloe or Bon—”

“Not the other name.” It would feel like defeat, if this boy called me by my MetaReel namesake. “I hate…” I shake my head. “Just Chloe. That’s my name. I mean, to me. It’s my name to me.”

He sets his backpack on the ground and leans against a big sink that takes up a third of the closet.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice quiet. Serious.

Outside, I hear a locker slam, then it’s silent. I wonder if he saw the 911 episode or read the articles about me getting my stomach pumped.

“I’m fine,” I say, smiling a little. I’m an “I’m fine” kind of girl, after all.