Reel Life Starring Us (29 page)

Sasha Preston piece of advice: At an exciting event,
step back for a moment and take it all in.

The day of the fiftieth-anniversary
celebration, my mom is happier than I've seen her in weeks. She's getting decked out in her new dress. It's navy, because she swears everyone else will be in black and she does not want to be like everyone else. She even got her hair done for the occasion.

We get to the Country Club and there are a million cars in the parking lot. The Country Club looks as beautiful as I've ever seen it, since it's all decorated for the holidays, with tiny white lights everywhere.

Inside, the parents are milling about, sipping drinks and eating appetizers with tiny napkins. The teachers look so different in fancy dresses and suits, and it's almost hard to recognize them.

The students are all dressed up, too, hanging out in a separate room with a buffet and music. Once everything gets going, we'll all be in the main room together.

A few people will be making welcoming remarks, and then it's time for our video! The thing that will kick off the event!

Dina texts me and we meet by the stage. When I get there, she and Ross are standing together and they look really happy. I never thought Ross could be with someone like Dina, someone who doesn't care about fancy stuff, who doesn't get manicures with her mom, who spends more time pondering life than pondering her wardrobe. But it's like they bring out the best in each other.

These thoughts are so totally cheesy and I'd never say them out loud to anyone, but seeing them together just makes me happy. Dina had to have a first boyfriend sooner or later, and who better for a first boyfriend than Ross Grunner?

Ross is wearing dress pants and a sports jacket and a tie, and I can tell he's wearing cologne.

“Who has the disc?” he asks.

“I do.” I reach into my bag and hand it to him.

“Okay, follow me,” he says. He's volunteering, helping with all the tech stuff for the event. Mr. Valakis told us to give the final video to Ross and have him make sure it's all in place in the DVD player before the ceremony starts.

Dina grabs my hand and squeezes it, and I feel calmer right away. She always makes me feel calmer, and I wonder how she's able to stay so calm herself or if she's just acting like she's calm.

“Girls, you're all set?” Mr. Valakis asks. “Ross, thanks for being our resident tech expert. Texpert, you could say.” He laughs and then leaves the stage.

Finally, it's time.

Ross stays backstage so he can help with the microphones and lights and sound equipment, and Dina and I go to the back, where all the other kids are.

Kendall and Molly are in matching little black dresses, but they swear they didn't plan it.

“We didn't,” Molly whines.

Dina and I laugh. We're laughing at her, but I don't know if Molly can tell. And I don't really care.

All of a sudden, I notice that the room is totally quiet and everyone's turned toward the back, to where we're standing. I have no idea what's going on, but it feels like something's coming, like a billion balloons are about to drop from the ceiling.

Then I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I turn around and I see what's going on.

“Sasha!” I scream.

“I had to come,” she says. “I know I e-mailed my clip, but I wanted to be here.”

Everyone's standing around, staring at her, and it's so crazy because Sasha looks so beautiful and amazing but also like a regular person, just hanging at this celebration.

She stands with us when the event starts and Mr. Oliver, the principal, comes to the microphone on the stage. Dina squeezes my hand—this is happening. This is really happening! I think back to that first day, when I laughed at Dina and got forced to do this, when Kendall and Molly didn't include me in their group and everything seemed so messed up.

I never expected that I'd feel good about things when we got to this point.

“Welcome, everyone, to Rockwood Hills Middle School's fiftieth-anniversary gala!” Mr. Oliver yells, and I swear this is as animated as I've ever seen the man. “We're so happy you're here! All the teachers and the eighth graders have worked so hard to make this night possible. We know you're excited to view the science fair and catch some of the debate tournament, and to listen to the chorus serenade us, and to talk and enjoy each other's company. So, without further ado, please turn your attention to a brief video that two of our eighth graders have made.”

It opens with a bang: “Be True to Your School” by the
Beach Boys, with shots of kids in the hallways, the cafeteria, at their lockers talking with one another, and with the other footage we got in the beginning, when we really had no idea what we were going to do.

And then it goes into my introduction to the video and the thing about everyone being different and cool. It's weird to see myself up there. But it's good, too, because I feel like I've done something. For the first time, I feel like I didn't just sit here and go along and have people see me the way they wanted to see me. For the first time, I feel like I made a difference and said what I wanted to say.

And when the video's playing, everyone's cheering, and not just for their friends—everyone's cheering for everyone. Even Christine Whitmore and her thing about the T-shirts, and Paul Bellogs and his thing about arriving at school at exactly 7:43 every single day. And even the more common ones, like Drew Phillips loving to play guitar—people still cheer and clap.

The parents are happy to see their kids, and the kids are happy to see themselves and their friends.

And at the end, the surprise part: Sasha.

“I'm Sasha Preston,” she says. “And I'm proud to be an alumna of Rockwood Hills Middle School.” She pauses and smiles. “And from now on: no one gets chipped!”

After she says that, everyone's yelling “Yeah!” and cheering so loud—louder than I've ever heard them cheer before. And it feels like some kind of private joke that only the kids in the room know about. Even though being chipped is a bad thing, right now it seems funny, and unique, and special to this school.

When the video ends, Mr. Oliver smiles and says, “It's a special place. And there's something you all should know: it's only getting better.”

There's lots of applause after that, and Mr. Oliver tells everyone about the events for the rest of the night.

Dina and I look at each other.

“I'm sad it's over,” I tell her.

“Me, too,” she says. “But it was good, wasn't it?”

I nod. “Definitely.”

I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around.

“So this is what you were working on in the library all these weeks,” library helper says, and as he's talking, I finally remember his name. Sebastian. Such an awesome name.

“Yeah, pretty good, huh?”

“It was awesome,” he says.

“You haven't been in the library in a long time,” I say, and then realize that sounds a little stalker-ish.

“Yeah, I finished my community-service hours,” he says.
“Guess you'll have to find me in other parts of the school.”

We both crack up.

“I'm gonna go get some more soda,” Sebastian says. “See you in a bit.”

I turn back to Dina, and she's standing there smiling at me like she totally knows what's going on, that I had a tiny crush on Sebastian this whole time even though we didn't talk at all and I couldn't even remember his name.

We all spend the rest of the night dancing and eating and visiting the science fair and the debate team and watching the improv troupe.

Dina has her video camera, of course, documenting the whole thing, and when I see her doing that now, I don't think it's weird. I think it's cool. There are things you want to remember and record, because if you don't, you'll forget them or you'll remember them differently from how they actually were. There are moments you want to capture just as they are.

“You're going to think I'm such a video nerd for saying this, but I'm going to say it anyway,” Dina starts, after she takes a sip of her Shirley Temple. “Sometimes in order to really see things, you just have to look through a different lens.”

I grab a few mini hot dogs off the tray. “I don't think you're a video nerd,” I say. “I think you're right.”

And I really, really mean that.

I owe oodles of gratitude to: Dave, Mom, Dad, David, Max, Heidi, Aunt Emily, Aaron, Karen, and the rest of the Rosenbergs, Libby Isaac, the Indiana relatives, Shark Attack, the BWL Library team, and every single girl who has written me an e-mail or a real letter.

“Thank you” doesn't seem like enough for Alyssa Eisner Henkin, the best agent in the history of the world, but I will say “Thank you” anyway. To everyone at Abrams and Amulet, especially Susan, Howard, Jason, Chad, Jim, Mary Ann, Laura, and Elisa: you all make the most beautiful books, and I am so lucky to be a part of that.

Maggie Lehrman, thank you for making me work so hard and for putting so much of yourself into my books. I owe you something huge, and I will send it along as soon as I figure out what it is.

Finally, to my little Aleah Violet: thank you for being you.

Lisa Greenwald is the author of My Life in Pink & Green and Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes. She works in the library at the Birch Wathen Lenox School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. She is a graduate of the New School's MFA program in writing for children and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit her online at
www.lisagreenwald.com.