Prom Kings and Drama Queens (3 page)

“It’s for your grandmother.”

“Grams?”

Now if that wasn’t the most adorable thing ever.

Brian Harrington, naked from the waist up, calling his grandmother Grams.

Maybe
adorable
wasn’t exactly the right word.

“Why’d you write a note?” Brian said. “You could just come in and talk to her.”

“No, no,” I explained. “It’s not from me. It’s from the boat captain. You know, on the cruise last night—in the white jacket and the hat. The captain is apparently a big fan of your grandmother and he asked me if I would deliver this.” I held out the note, folded in the shape of a boat.

Brian eyed it suspiciously. “Are you sure this guy isn’t a psycho or something?”

I shrugged. “He seemed normal to me. He was totally impressed with your grandmother, said she was 18

a bright spot in his life.”

A smile crept across Brian’s face as he grunted in surprise. “I guess there are some people who don’t think she’s a couple inches short of a three-pointer after all.”

“Guess not,” I said. Was that the right response?

Brian opened the door wider and motioned for me to come in. Finally.

The white marble floors looked like you could ice-skate on them. Between that and the ultrahigh ceiling, I felt like I was walking into a mall. Brian guided me through the foyer, then the living room, then another room filled with about a hundred snow globes. When Brian saw the confused look on my face, he explained,

“This is the snow globe room. My parents collect them.”

I nodded.

“My mom once read that if you collect something, it makes you more memorable to people. When they’re on trips and stuff, if they see a snow globe, they’ll think of you and buy it as a gift.”

“Cool,” I said, even though they made me kind of claustrophobic.

Brian shrugged. “It makes it easier for me on holi-days.” He picked up a globe with a basketball player and ball in midair trapped inside. “This was last Christmas.”

We made our way past the kitchen where Brian’s 19

parents were watching a basketball game on TV.

Thankfully, Big Brother cam was behind them. They glanced our way as Brian paused and said, “This is Emily-from-next-door.”

“Which side?” his mother asked.

Brian pointed in the direction of our house. “Oh,” his mother said, “the one with the little boy whose ball keeps going in the yard.”

“That’s my brother.” I laughed nervously. “Nice to see you again,” I said, wondering if I’d ever really seen her a first time.

“Emily and I have to work on something for school,” Brian said. That was news to me.

His mother nodded and turned back to the game.

His father’s eyes never left the screen.

I followed Brian through a pair of French doors in the back of the house. I couldn’t help but notice that Brian’s rear view was right up there with the front in the quality viewing department. “Why’d you tell your mother we were working on a school project?” I asked.

“They’d go into a whole big thing if I told them the truth,” he said. “They don’t think Grams is wrapped too tight, so they don’t like her to have much contact with the outside world.”

We stepped onto an open patio with a huge pool and fountain. A small cottage sat across the way.

Brian knocked on the side window and then stepped 20

around to open the door.

An older woman in a bright-red robe, wearing a pair of chopsticks in her gray bun sat in front of the television, watching a rerun of
Full House
.

“Brian, dear, how nice of you to visit,” she said, “and you brought a friend.” She got up and gave Brian a kiss on the cheek, then rubbed off the red lipstick mark she’d made.

“This is Emily-from-next-door.”

“It’s Bennet,” I said a little too loudly. “Emily Bennet.”

Lily pointed to the television. “Which one do you like best?” she said.

I looked at Brian for an explanation.

He mouthed the words
Uncle Jesse
.

“Um, Uncle Jesse?”

Lily elbowed Brian and smiled. “She’s got good taste.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, like I’d just passed a pop quiz.

“And she’s so much prettier than that other girlfriend. What’s her name? Whiskey? Vodka?” Brian rolled his eyes. “You know her name’s Brandy—and she’s not my girlfriend. I’ve told you a million times, Grams, I
don’t
have a girlfriend.” Lily turned toward me and winked. “We’ll fix that, won’t we?”

21

I’m sure my face turned as bright as her lipstick. I tried to get out of answering the question by thrusting the origami note forward and almost shouting, “I have a note for you!”

Lily’s eyes widened. “Are you one of my fans?”

“Um, oh yes, a fan. Definitely.” If that was what it would take to get Brian’s attention, I was so going to be a fan. President of the whole freakin’ club if necessary.

“But it turns out you have a huge fan—even bigger than I am.” I dropped the note into her hands. “This is from the captain of the
Conga Queen
.”

“Well,” Lily said. “I’ve gotten a few letters in the mailbox, but most are anonymous.”

She reached for the note and unfolded it. At the same time, Brian’s gym shorts began to play the Crestview fight song.

As he fumbled for his cell, Lily shook her head and frowned.

Brian answered the phone with “Hey.” He looked at Lily and me, said, “Be back in a sec,” and disappeared onto the patio.

Lily looked me up and down. “So, Emily, do you dance?”

“Not really,” I said. “I took some lessons—ballet and tap—in elementary school, but I wasn’t very good.”

“Nonsense,” Lily said, raising her voice. “Anyone can dance.”

22

I laughed. “That’s not what the teacher told my mother when she asked why I was always in the back row.”

Lily smiled. She didn’t seem like the type who would stand for being in the back of anything, except maybe the Harringtons’ mansion. “Do you mind if I take a minute to read my fan letter?” she asked.

“No problem,” I said, moving to the couch to give her some privacy. “I’ll wait here.” I sat on the flowered cushion and surveyed the one-room cottage. It was like the anti-Harrington house. Every surface where Brian and his parents lived was adorned with some vase or statue. Lily’s place was streamlined and sparse, with no more than two of anything. Two plates, two cups, two chairs around the small kitchen table—a Noah’s ark of inanimate objects.

Alone on the couch, I was beginning to think the whole gofer-girl thing had been a big waste of time, when suddenly, Brian’s voice streamed through the window screen behind me.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s worth it.”
If what was worth it?

“They’re a bunch of losers.”

Pause.

“Everyone? All the guys?”

Another pause.

“Okay, I’ll meet you in the parking lot next to the 23

school at seven thirty.”

I looked at my watch.
Something
was going on in an hour and a half.

Brian’s phone clicked shut, and in a few seconds he was inside the cottage. “So, hey, Grams,” he said, nudg-ing her with his elbow. “You’ve got an admirer, huh?” For a second I wondered if he was being sarcastic, but I could tell by the look in those baby blue eyes that he was sincere. I wondered if those eyes would ever look at me that way.

Lily tucked the note inside the V-neck of her robe.

“Emily,” she said. “I’d like to write the captain a response to his lovely note. Will you come back tomorrow to get it?”

Tomorrow? I’d thought this would be a one-time deal. Deliver the note. Get to know Brian better. Then, boom. We’re at the prom together.

Well, maybe I’d seen a few too many teen movies.

But I really hadn’t expected to become a courier between the captain and Lily. That was so middle school—except for the part where they were in their seventies and their acne had cleared up a long time ago.

Brian put his arm around Lily’s shoulders. My own shoulders tingled. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll come after school.”

Lily clapped her hands. “That would be wonderful!” Brian looked at his watch. “Sorry, Grams, gotta go meet the guys.”

24

“You and the guys,” she said, shaking her head.

“Save some time for your poor old Grams later tonight, okay?”

“Sure thing,” Brian said, ushering me out of the cottage.

Lily looked at me and winked once again. What was up with the secret winking language?

“Sorry to rush,” Brian said, “but I’ve got to change.”

“Sure.” I left through a side door in the wooden fence instead of going through the house again. “So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” Brian said. “At school.”

“I meant after school when I come to pick up the note,” I blurted. Oh God, it sounded so desperate.

“Basketball practice,” Brian said. “But I’ll tell the maid you’re coming.”

I tried to hide my disappointment. “Okay, then, thanks.”

I trudged through the grass to my own house, wondering what had just happened. With only a few words, I had become some kind of matchmaking, letter-delivering go-between for the geriatric set and I wasn’t even going to see Brian again.

But there was
some
good news.

Brian Harrington didn’t have a girlfriend.

Yet.

25

FOUR

Emily on Path of Destruction?

I managed to slip past both my parents without endur-ing an inquisition on where I’d been for the last half hour.

My dad and my brother were playing a game of Jeopardy on the computer. My mother was in the kitchen, slathering a turkey with iodine.

No, it wasn’t some kind of death-by-fowl plot to knock off the family with Sunday dinner. She’s a food stylist, which means she arranges meals for photographs in magazines and cookbooks. Sometimes she has to go to extremes to make a dish look appetizing.

Since we’re the fattest country in the world, I’m not sure why this is necessary.

26

“Potent Potables for two hundred,” my father yelled, as I passed the study and climbed the stairs. My dad’s an accountant, or as my mom would say, a “numbers guy.” But he and my brother seem to bond best over games like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.

“Computer Game Show Geeks for five hundred,” I shouted, before closing my bedroom door. The second I sat on the bed, the phone rang.

“He-llo,”
Lindsay said. “And when were you planning on filling me in on the Harrington caper?”

“Caper?” I said. “What are you, fifty years old?”

“You know what I mean. Did you get to see Brian?” I leaned back on my pillow. “Not only did I see him, I saw him sans shirt.”

“And . . . ?”

“And . . . it was a pretty fine sight.”

“That’s it?” Lindsay said. “I want details.” I hesitated. “Well . . . I think he shaves his chest hair.

And—”

“Ewww,” Lindsay interrupted. “Way too much information. I meant details about the interaction, not the anatomy.”

“Oh, okay. Short version: Knocked on the door.

Apparently made an appearance on the Harrington Home Security Network. Met the parents—sort of. Met Grams and—”

Lindsay interrupted again. “Grams?” 27

“That’s what Brian calls his grandmother. Cute, huh? Anyway, I gave her the note. She read it, stuck it in her bra, and told me to come back tomorrow to pick up a response for Captain Miguel.”

“A response? Are you going back?”

“I guess so,” I said. “She’s sort of intimidating—in an old lady kind of way.”

“Maybe you could start an online dating service for old people,” Lindsay said. “You know, like squeeze-a-geezer dot com.”

“Very funny,” I said, trying to get the visual out of my head and replace it with one of Brian.

“So in addition to your newfound matchmaking avocation, did you learn anything about the world of Brian Harrington?”

“Well, he apparently doesn’t consider Brandy Clausen his girlfriend—he told his grandmother he didn’t have a girlfriend.”

“Whoa, that’s major,” Lindsay said. “What else?”

“Not too much,” I said, “just that his parents seem to have a thing for snow globes. They’ve got a whole room for them.”

“What?” Lindsay’s voice rose an octave. “I’m sleeping in a room that triples as a den
and
my mother’s office, and they’ve got a whole room devoted to a bunch of knickknacks?”