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“Why not?” Chela said.

“Because she’s a supe. She’s gotta give them glamazon Amazon ... These would be better.”

Prageeta handed Chela a pair of high-heeled patent leather Mary Janes.

Chela looked them over. “These will work.”

Elsie said, “Okay, London girl, your turn.”

Prageeta said, “I think Bee is so unique, so un-model–like, that she should do something that reflects more of her independent spirit. That’s why I asked my friend at Decades in L.A. to send me this vintage Anna Sui dress.”

She pulled out a sleeveless black dress with a ruffled white bib front. It was cool in that Austin-Powers-London-in-the-sixties kind of way. It was the kind of dress that I always dream about wearing in a photo shoot: something so graphic and clean that it’s almost more like a piece of architecture than a dress.

“That’s gorgeous,” I said.

Everyone agreed; there were murmurs of approval all around. Trust Prageeta to find something you couldn’t even get in a regular store.

“It’s hot,” said Elsie. “That’s look number four.”

“What are you thinking about for shoes?” I asked.

Prageeta pulled out a pair of thigh-high patent leather black boots. “Aren’t these funky?” she said.

“They are. And so will my feet be if I wear thigh-high boots in the summer!” I said.

Prageeta rolled her eyes.

“I know, I know,” I said. “You’ve got to suffer for beauty.”

Elsie was the only one who hadn’t chosen.

“So, Elsie, what do you have in mind?” I asked.

“I was thinking about how much you’re always talking about your agent, Leslie, and how impeccable she always looks,” Elsie said, pulling out a simple sheath dress. “I think you should channel some of that tonight. Do a bit of Park Avenue princess.”

“Shoes?” Melody asked.

“Black Louboutins. Simple black clutch,” Elsie said, pulling out the matching items.

“Nice,” Melody said. “Really nice.”I gazed over at the different “looks” my friends had pulled for me: 1940s movie star. Rock star casual. Country club cool. Austin Powers mod. Park Avenue princess.

I loved them all, and I had a ball trying them on. Chela was playing DJ, and hip-hop, salsa, and reggaeton blared through the apartment. I pretended my hallway was a runway and I strutted my stuff, not the way Savannah Hughes would do it, but the way I did it, in each and every outfit. “Do
you
,” Chela was always saying. As I tried on each outfit that my friends had picked for me with love and affection, I did me—and it felt good.

The minute I slipped on the dress Elsie had picked, I knew it was the one. The top of the dress was leaf green; the bottom half was a solid navy block. It was like a Rothko painting, and it felt so comfortable.

I walked down the hallway putting a little extra “sashay shante” into my walk. When I got to the living room, all the girls started hooting and hollering.

“That’s fabulous,” Melody said.

“I want it,” Prageeta said, which was her way of saying the same thing.

“That dress puts a little sauce into her walk,” Chela said, nudging Melody with her elbow. “Did you notice how she walked out here like a girl who just got some? Now, that’s how you host a television awards show.”

“It’s good,” Elsie said.

“It’s better than good,” I said, giving her a big hug. “It’s the one.”

Elsie asked Andy to sweep my hair into a high ponytail. Then, to give it some extra vavoom, he attached a hairpiece—an extra-long ponytail that made it seem like my hair hit the top of my butt.

Syreeta did my makeup—really soft cheeks and lips but super–bright blue and green eyes and pink, glossy lips.

Chela even did my nails in a color that Elsie picked although she said, “It’s killing me to paint them in this boring clear shade.”

“It’s not clear,” Elsie said. “It’s ballet pink.”

Chela swiveled her neck. “I guess that’s why I don’t like ballet. Ballet pink is boring pink.”

By the time I was sitting back and enjoying my manicure, it was after six o’clock. Where did the day go? I wondered. Then I remembered: it didn’t go, it flew because I was hanging with my real best friends.

The Teen Choice Awards were a blast. It seemed like every star I’d ever seen a music video of or in a movie or a TV show was there. It was really hard not to geek out backstage, but when I was onstage, all I had to do was look in the fifth row and see my mom, my dad, and my aunt Zo smiling up at me and I felt mega-calm again. Sometimes, when you’re in a huge auditorium like Lincoln Center, you can get something known as crowd blindness and you can’t make out specific faces in the crowd. But my mother was wearing this ginormous hand-beaded Zulu headdress that not for nothing was totally blocking Jessica Simpson’s view. So my family was pretty easy to spot.

Even though we stopped for commercial breaks and the tech guys were constantly adjusting lights and mikes and sets for the musical numbers, the evening flew by so quickly. Before I knew it, I was giving out the last award, for Best Kiss.

I looked at the teleprompter to read the nominees. But instead of the list of names that had rolled during rehearsal, the prompter just said, Enter DJ Drop and Roll.

I turned to the left of me and there he was, Kevin. He was wearing this really sharp black suit with a bright yellow shirt, and he had a mike in his hand.

I looked in the third row, and I could see that Melody, Elsie, and Chela were stomping their feet and screaming. All of a sudden, the day of beauty they’d given me had a much bigger purpose than just hosting the award show.

He was walking toward me, and I felt that fluttery butterfly feeling like when you think a boy likes you and you know you like him but you’re not really one hundred percent sure of anything.

“Y’all know who it is. DJ Drop and—” Kevin prompted the audience.

“Roll,” they screamed back.

“I didn’t hear you. DJ Drop and—”

“Roll,” the auditorium screamed.

“Y’all like my outfit?” he asked the crowd. “I’m dressed in the colors of my favorite Bee,” he said, putting his arm around me. Then he started to rap ABOUT ME. Right there. On live, national TV.

He said:

“DJ Kev’s on fire, but baby girl brings the heat. Since the first day of class, honey dip was sweet. Then she got into modeling and blew up the spot. Love them curves and them swerves, Man, y’all know she is hot.

We done had some beef, but I’m gonna put it to rest. I’ve been waiting too long to put my love to the test.”

Then he kissed me. Right there. On live, national TV. Even though all those people (including my parents, I mean, REALLY) were watching, I didn’t feel embarrassed or awkward, like which way would I turn my nose and what happens if one of us slobbers too much. At the risk of sounding too corny, it was like our lips were made for each others’, and I realized that I’d been wanting to kiss him for a very long time. We even took home the evening’s last trophy. The Teen Choice Award for Best Kiss: Bee Wilson and Kevin Manning.

I do kind of worry that it’s all downhill from here. I mean, not for nothing, it kind of puts a lot of pressure on that second kiss when your first kiss with a guy is seen by fifty million people nationwide and wins an award and stuff. But as Chela would say, these are high-class problems. I’ll cross that bridge, I mean that kiss, when I get there.