Just Like Me (2 page)

The end of the day gets here sooner than expected. My last class ends around 3:45, but my professor always lets us out about 3:15. I call Lisa.

“Hello?”

“Why do you say hello like that, you know who I am.”

“Hellooooooooo?” She repeated, more obnoxiously. I rolled my eyes.

“I’m off and I never had lunch. I’m starved.”

“Oh, boo hoo. Poor Kale.”

“I’m serious! I’m feeling some bad food today.”

“Hmm…you mean like, unhealthy?”

I nodded even though she couldn’t see it.

“Yea…I’m thinking…fried.”

She gasped in mock horror.

“Oh, you are so bad.” And she giggled.

“Bert’s?” I asked hopefully.

“Yea, meet you at the counter.”

“Alright.”

I hung up, shoving the phone into my pocket without locking it. I could care less if I accidentally called someone today. Walking the campus I saw a variety of people walking along the painted brick sidewalk. Those painted bricks were murder in the rain. You could have on shoes with steel spikes at the end and still end up slipping and sliding on the sidewalk. Huge cement and brick buildings lined roads for cars. People were walking either terribly slow or really fast. They had classes to get to or flowers to smell. Girls in neon colored leggings and black nail polish, boys in saggy pants and baseball caps. I guess I’m pretty tame in a black t-shirt and jeans. Pink dresses, jock hoodies, and heavy backpacks whirled past me. It was getting cold fast, and I’m sure all the girls with short skirts were dreading their choices.

The building that contained the restaurant Bert’s finally came into view. I quickly crossed the street and entered the multi-purpose place. It had a smoothie stand (which also served coffee), a cafeteria, a career office, a game lounge, and Bert’s. At the counter with the condiments Lisa was smoothing her hair, watching some jock in a tight t-shirt walk past.

“Now, what would Ben say?” I asked as I was walking up to her. She jumped, startled, and when she realized it was me her gaze went back to the jock. My gaze followed hers as he met up with some girl with too much lipstick and they exited out of the building.

“I’m just looking.” She slit her eyes with a mischievous grin.

We both looked up at the menu, observing the fried chicken, sandwiches, and pizza galore. She settled on a burger, I settled on chicken tenders. Fries were a must when it came to Bert’s. It’s not like the fries were any good, but their seasoning none other than heavenly. We probably would die from it eventually, because all the grease and calories were surely clogging up our arteries. But hey, you could get a combo for five bucks. And we’re starving college kids, so a five buck meal is heaven within our starving hell.

After patiently waiting we loaded up on ketchup and honey mustard (don’t forget the seasoning), grabbed our sweet teas and settled into a booth. Lisa likes tea more than I do, but I wasn’t in the mood for coffee. It’s unseasonably warm for this time of the year. These booths are pretty fancy; they’ve got T.V.s that you can change the channels on. I guess that’s one upside to this forsaken place.

Lisa immediately starts flipping through channels.

“Not even gonna take a bite?” I asked, chomping into a chicken tender.

“I want to find out more about that contest thing.”

I took a generous helping of honey mustard.

“Oh yea, you were talking about that last night. But I was kind of asleep.”

She finally settles on the trashy Hollywood gossip channel, which is currently showing a commercial about some kind of blanket with sleeves and the sleeves have gloves on the end. What they need to do is start working on glow-in-the-dark light switches.

“Yea.” She finally starts to pay attention to her hamburger and starts stuffing it with fries. “It’s this organization. They want to prove to the world that celebrities are just like us, or something.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.” I said, biting off pieces of fries. “They’re not these immortal gods everyone makes them out to be.”

“This organization is trying to get a celebrity to take part in a competition.”

“What kind of competition?”

She had just took a huge bite out of her burger and made a face at me, unable to answer. But she didn’t need to; the gossip show was back on. A short red headed man appeared on the screen in a purple suit, talking to the camera.

“Welcome back! So! If you’ve been following along with the Just Like Me competition sponsored by the CAPT, you’ll know they have been trying to find someone to be the first to take part in this global phenomenon. Here to talk more about it is the president of CAPT, Celebs Are People Too. Harry?”

A man with a full beard and thick glasses appeared on the television.

“Thanks, Joe. I’m Harry Tolland and I’m here to talk to you a little bit more about our competition. We have narrowed specifics to not only sponsor an awareness of celebrities being just like you and me; we have found a way to support education. This Friday, we will launch our competition across college campuses.”

“No way!” Lisa yelled, a handful of fries halfway to her mouth.

“The competition will consist of this: On one college campus…a celebrity will be hiding. A grand game of hide and go seek, if you will. Whoever finds the celebrity in hiding will win a date with them! If the celebrity and the finder turn out to be the same gender, then they will have a girl’s or guy’s night out on the town.”

“Oh my gosh, that’s so lame, Lisa.” I muttered, feeling embarrassment for this Harry guy. Lisa waved her hands at me wildly, trying to shush me as the details for this elementary-level competition continued.

“Now, Harry, have you found a celebrity willing to take part in this competition?”

“Yes we have, Joe. We will be revealing the celebrity’s identity on Thursday, that’s tomorrow.”

“Don’t you think hiding a celebrity will make students skip class, therefore not supporting education at all?”

“Well, we’ve thought about that, and decided that the competition will take place at about 5:30 a.m., Eastern Time. That way the celebrity will more than likely be found by the time regular classes take place.”

“Thanks, Harry.” Harry bleeped out of the picture. “So that’s right folks, for official rules tune in to Thursday’s show of Star Gaze. That’s tomorrow, folks. We will also reveal who the star is right here on our show around this time. Remember, tune in tomorrow for the celebrity of this national competition to be revealed. On Friday we will be broadcasting how the competition is progressing and will announce the winner that finds the star. In other news, Bailey Arrows was found leaving her children at a local park in Los Angeles…”

Lisa was still staring at the screen, open-mouthed.

“Yea, that girl leaving her kid in the park? What was she thinking?”

“I have to win that competition.”

“Don’t even try it.” I said, waving a fry at her. “Ben would flip.”

“A date with a celebrity? Or a girl’s night?” She finally recognized she had fries halfway to her mouth and started eating them. “If it’s a girls’ night I can swing it. That’s what I can hope for.” She crossed her fingers, mouth full of crunched of starches. “Margaritas in Vegas! Shoe shopping in New York! Star gazing in Hollywood! Can you imagine?”

“No, I can’t. This whole thing is stupid. And you’re not old enough to drink margaritas.”

“Oh come on, Kale! It’s brilliant! You can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to spend a night with a celebrity.”

“I wouldn’t.” She gave me a look. “Seriously. They’re obnoxious, arrogant, and it’s all publicity. They don’t give a crap about you or what you do. They’ll probably make you look awful on T.V. They’ll say what you can and can’t do; they’ll probably just take you to some place local. Why would a celebrity waste money on you?”

“Because it’s publicity! You just said it!”

“But that’s not good enough. If a celebrity signed up for some junk like that, there’s got to be more to it.”

Lisa pouted while chasing more fries around her plate into ketchup.

“Maybe it’ll be Bailey Arrows.”

“Maybe she’ll leave you in a park.”

We both grinned.

Picking up our trash we headed over to the garbage can and started making our way back to the dorm.

“What if it’s a boy? You gonna convince Ben that it’ll just be a night out?”

“Well, if he’s on my To Do list. Maybe he’d let me try to find him.” We passed a few giggling girls, looking at a flyer promoting the Just Like Me competition.

“To Do list?” I made a face. “Do I even want to know?”

“We each have a list of three people in the world…if we ever got the chance, we wouldn’t mind if they strayed to do them.”

“That’s gross, Lisa.”

“It’s not! It’s not like it would ever happen.”

“It’s not like they’re going to be on this campus. It’s the whole
world
and this is the smallest college ever. They’ll choose like…a law school or something. They did say they were promoting education. They’re not going to pick North Carolina out of every freaking place in the world.”

“Yea…I wonder if Ben will ask to look. Maybe we could make a truce…we both could look. Double team, ya know?”

“What if you have to skip class?”

“Well then I skip, or maybe I can get up extra early. They did say the competition started at like 5:30.”

I snorted. She glared at me.

“What? I could get up early if I had to. I’m just not motivated. A hot guy or a free night in Hollywood? That’s motivation.”

“Good luck with that.”

We crossed the street, darting in front of a car. I gave them a glare because we were in a crosswalk. The car wasn’t happy, but let us pass by without beeping at us.

“You mean you’re not even going to look?”

“I have tests to study for. I don’t have time to go looking for someone who isn’t even going to be on this campus. I’ve gotta finish this speech thing.”

“I wonder where he’ll hide?” She glanced around the campus as we continued along the sidewalk to the dorm. “You think he’ll be in the cafeteria or something?”

“I dunno, Lisa. He?”

“The building of education?”

“Maybe.”

“Or the library.”

“Lisa…”

“Maybe it’ll be a boy. And he’ll be on my To Do List.” She winked. I winced.

“Do I want to know who’s on there?” She grinned.

“Paul Rico, Jude Harrolds, and Lucas Poles.”

“So…three guys that are all about 40 years apart and can’t act their way out of a paper bag?”

“Well, that may be the case, but they’re all extremely attractive.”

“Do you know who’s on Ben’s?”

“Yea.”

“Well?”

“Stacy Helmes, Gianna Renaldi, and Veronica Stouza.”

“All roughly our age, and same about the acting.”

“Yea.” She scratched the back of her head as we yanked on the door and entered our dorm building. “Maybe we could watch the movies that my three are in to celebrate and hope they’re doing the competition.”

“Maybe we should watch Ben’s and get you prepared.”

“Wouldn’t it suck if it was Gianna Renaldi and I ended up finding her?”

“Suck for you or suck for Ben?” We pushed the elevator button and the doors opened. We got on and Lisa pressed three.

“I guess I didn’t think about it that way…”

“Stuck all night with a girl your boyfriend would want to screw? That seems kind of like hell on earth.”

“You’re probably right.”

We got off the elevator and made our way down the aisles and finally made it to our door. I shoved the key in the lock and opened up to our room. Lisa’s side was a little messy. Clothes were on her chair and floor, a few strewn over her unmade bed. My side was pretty clean. I had left a water bottle on the desk, but at least my bed was made.

Lisa flopped down among the stuff on her bed and flipped her computer on. I settled into my desk and looked at the drawing I had cast aside yesterday.

“I want to watch a movie.” She clucked.

I picked up the remote on my desk and threw it at her.

“Turn the T.V. on. There’s bound to be something worth watching.”

I heard the click and fuzz as the T.V. started turning on. When the screen finally popped up I heard Lisa whirl through different stations, all carrying different voices. She finally stopped on a movie that had an actress portraying a bad scream. I turned back and Lisa’s face was excited.

“Lemme guess, this has that Jude dude in it?” I laughed at my rhyme, and pushed the power button on my laptop. I thought about unplugging the power cord, because I read somewhere that it was bad to keep your laptop plugged in all the time.

“No! Kale! This is that new zombie movie. They’ve got two movies out; the third one comes out in November I think.”

“Since when are you into zombies?”

“Since the main actor is a total hottie.”