Teen Idol (11 page)

"Well, I don’t have a Spring Fling date anymore," Geri said, opening her purse and taking out her lipstick. "So my dreams are about to come true. I’m going to go out there and ask him right now."

I stared at Geri in horror. "Ask who? Luke? To go to the Spring Fling? But—but I thought you were going with Scott!"

"Not anymore, I’m not," Geri said, expertly applying a layer of gloss.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, I’d suspected, but to hear her just blurt it out like that . . . "You and Scott broke up? For real? Just now?"

"That’s right." Apparently satisfied by what she saw in the mirror, Geri dropped her lipstick back in her purse and turned to me. "And
don't
try to talk me into taking him back, Jen. I know you thought we were a great couple, but the truth is, it’s better this way for the both of us. I’m leaving for UCLA at the end of the summer, and he’s still got another year left here in Clayton, and . . . and it’s just easier this way."

I could tell by the set of her jaw that Geri meant it.

Still, in spite of her warning me not to, I felt like I
had
to say something.

"But you guys have had fights before, and you've always worked it out. Maybe you should sleep on it, Geri. You might feel different after you've had some time to think about it."

"Not this time," Geri Lynn said. She reached back into her bag and pulled out her date book.
The
date book. The one she’d shown me, the one with all the hearts in it. She opened it and, taking out a pen, put a big black
X
through today’s date.

I couldn’t help noticing that the number of hearts on the month At-A-Glance pages had diminished somewhat drastically over the past six or seven weeks. Like, to nothing. Either Geri had slacked off recording their most intimate moments, or she and Scott hadn’t had any in quite some time. . . .

Her next statement cleared up the mystery.

"No," Geri said, "this has been a long time coming, Jenny. I've felt as if Scott and I were drifting apart for some time now. We just don’t have the same interests . . . the same goals. Can you believe he didn’t even
want
to go the Spring Fling? He wanted to go to some anti-Spring Fling party Kwang is having—"

I knew all about Kwang’s anti-Spring Fling party. I was planning on going to it myself.

"So you’re just going to
ask
him?" Trina demanded. Trust Trina to completely ignore the fact that Geri's—not to mention Scott's—heart might very well be broken. All she wanted to know was what Geri’s plans for Luke Striker were. "Luke, I mean? You’re just going to march up to him and ask him to the Spring Fling?"

"You better believe it," Geri said, throwing back her shoulders. "Get outta the way."

"Wait a minute," Trina said. "Asking Luke Striker to the Spring Fling was
my
idea. I thought of it first!"

"But you already have a date, don’t you?" Geri reminded her sweetly.

"Not for long," Trina declared, and bolted for the bathroom door.

"WAIT!" Geri practically broke her neck pelting after Trina.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I mean, here were two people whom I’d basically always thought of as mature young women—two people whose keen intellect and independence I had always envied and respected—and they were practically at each other’s throats. Over a BOY, of all things!

"You guys," I yelled, running after them through the Chi-Chi’s vestibule and then out into the parking lot. "You guys, remember, you promised not to—"

But I never got to remind Trina and Geri not to tell anyone about Luke’s identity. Because by the time I caught up with them, they were standing on the outer fringes of this huge crowd that had gathered around Luke and the sedan he’d been washing.

Only now Luke was on top of the car’s roof, shouting frantically into a cell phone while he tried to fend off the grasping hands of about seventy-five Troubadours, Chi-Chi’s waitresses, random housewives who’d been on their way to the mall, and even a few of the guys from the pickup trucks, all of whom were screaming "
Luke! Luke! LUKE!
"

"Oh my God, you guys," I yelled at Trina and Geri as I watched Luke struggle to avoid the groping hands all around him. "What’d you
do
?"

"It wasn’t us," Geri said with a shrug. "We came out and they were already at it."

"I guess I’m not the only person in Clayton who knows about Luke Striker’s Angelique tattoo," Trina said glumly.

Geri stamped her foot. "How am I going to ask him to the Spring Fling
now!
I can’t get anywhere near him!"

As if that were the worst of anyone’s problems! Poor Luke was about to be torn limb from limb, and all his most diehard fans could worry about was how they were going to ask him to the
Spring Fling!

I looked up at Luke. He didn’t seem scared or anything—though
I
would have been, if I were in his shoes. He’d hung up the cell phone and was trying to speak rationally to the horde of screaming women around him.

"Listen," he was saying. "You can all have autographs. Really. Just one at a time, okay?"

Nobody listened. Girls were thrusting pens and Chi-Chi’s menus at him from all sides. The sopranos were the worst. Karen Sue Walters wanted Luke to sign her chest, I guess because she couldn’t find any paper.

But the altos weren’t behaving any better. I even saw Bored Liz—only she didn’t look so bored anymore—climb up over the hood of the car and fling her arms around Luke’s legs. He nearly lost his balance and fell, but Liz didn’t seem to care. She was sobbing into his pant legs, crying, "Luke! Oh, Luke! I love you!"

It was way pathetic. I have to admit, I was totally embarrassed for my gender.

But the girls weren’t the only ones. Even some of the guys were acting like complete fools. I heard this one guy in a John Deere baseball cap say to his friend, "I’m gonna get me an autograph and sell it on eBay!"

And Mr. Hall? Mr. Hall, a teacher who should have known better? He was the worst of all! He was screaming up at Luke, "Mr. Striker, Mr. Striker, would it be all right if I gave you the screenplay I've been working on? It’s a dramedy about a young man’s coming-of-age while working in the chorus of a major Broadway musical. I think you’d be perfect for the part!"

Only a couple of people in the parking lot were hanging back that I could see. One of them was Scott. He was leaning against his car, just watching, a pillar of sanity in a sea of total wackos.

I rushed over to him. I’d completely forgotten about the Geri Lynn thing. All I could think of was the fact that if somebody didn’t do something, and soon, Luke was going to be torn in two, just like Mel Gibson in
Braveheart
, only by his fans, not the British.

"Do you think we should call the police?" I asked Scott worriedly. "I mean, I don’t want to call the cops on my friends, but—"

But the only alternative I could see was trying to help Luke myself—except that I didn’t see how I could. I mean, the crowd around the car he was standing on was about ten people deep. No way was I going to be able to get to him. . . .

"Don’t worry," Scott said. "Already done."

I blinked up at him. "Already—you called the police?"

He held up his cell phone. Even as he winked at me, off in the distance I could hear the wail of a police siren.

"Oh, thank you," I said, feeling a huge wave of relief.

"So I take it he’s not really enrolled," Scott said, putting his cell phone back in his pocket.

"What?" I’d been watching a Chi-Chi’s waitress lunge for the autograph Luke had just given her. "Oh, no. He’s just doing research for a part."

"Do Lewis and those guys know?"

"Yeah. It was their idea."

Scott shook his head. "They’ll probably refuse to comment. Too bad. Still, this’ll make a great story."

The fact that Scott could think about the
Register
at a time like this made me think he wasn’t too concerned for Luke.

Or upset over the whole thing with Geri.

"Scott, I—"

I’m sorry about you and Geri Lynn
. That’s what I’d been going to say.

Except that right then three different things happened. The first was that a Duane County squad car pulled into the parking lot, its siren blaring. The second was that a long black limo—the same one, I guess, that picked Luke up from school every day—appeared from behind the restaurant, almost as if it had been there all along.

And the third was that Geri Lynn came running up to us, her eyes shining.

"Can you believe this?" she wanted to know. "I’m killing myself that nobody’s got a camera. Something finally happens in this hick town, and we've got no way to record it!"

I couldn’t tell if she’d managed to ask Luke to the Spring Fling or not. I was guessing not, as the crowd around him was still pretty thick. A lot of people had backed off at the sight of the squad car, and even more were milling away as the police officer, who was a really big guy, strolled confidently into the fray. Still, Luke hadn’t gotten down from the top of the car.

"If only Kwang were here!" Geri said regretfully. "He has one of those digital cameras on his cell phone!"

The police officer had fought his way through the crowd and made it up to the car. He said something to Luke, who smiled gratefully at him, then climbed down from the car roof, while the officer held back the really diehard fans, the ones who were just not getting the point. I’m sorry to say that a good number of the sopranos, Trina among them, were in this group.

"Okay, everybody," the police officer said, as the limo pulled up in front of Luke and he swiftly dove inside it. "Show’s over. Let’s get this traffic moving—" Because of course every single car on Clayton Mall Road had slowed down so that its occupants could observe the strange goings-on at the Troubadour car wash.

Trina came rushing over to us. She looked flushed and upset.

"Did you see that?" she demanded. "He just got into that limo without so much as a word to anyone! I didn’t even get his autograph! And after supporting him all these years—"

"Some support," I said. "You guys were practically mauling him!"

"That wasn’t me," Trina said. "That was Karen Sue Walters. Did you see her, trying to get him to sign her chest? Good thing her mother isn’t here—"

I noticed that, behind us, Scott and Geri had fallen into what looked to be another pretty serious conversation. I took Trina by the arm and dragged her a little bit away, so they could have some privacy. Well, relative privacy, anyway.

"Listen, if I wrote Luke a letter, could you get it to him?" Trina asked me. "I mean, the two of you must be pretty tight, if he let you in on his secret and all."

"Trina," I said, shaking my head. The limo was starting to pull away. Good thing, too, because a number of girls had rushed up to it and were plastering themselves against the tinted windows, trying to get one last look at their hero. "I barely know him. I mean, he was just here to observe—"

It was at that moment that the moonroof of the limo opened, and Luke’s head and shoulders popped out. The girls around the limo screamed and leaped for him, as if they wanted to pull out fistfuls of his hair. Which, you know, is always a good way to ingratiate yourself with a guy. Not.

I thought Luke was going to throw out a few parting shots to the population of Clayton, Indiana. I thought he’d yell
See ya, suckers
! or
Thanks for nothing, pinheads
!

But that’s not what he did. Instead, he looked all around the parking lot, like he’d forgotten something. Then he saw me, and yelled, "Jen!"

All heads turned in my direction.

"JEN!" Luke yelled again. And this time he accompanied the shout with an arm gesture. "COME ON!"

I felt myself turning as red as the Chi-Chi’s sign.

Luke wanted me to get into the limo with him. Luke Striker wanted me to ride off into the sunset—well, not quite, since it was only like one thirty in the afternoon—with him. In his limo.

"Oh my God," I heard Trina breathe beside me. "Right. He barely knows you. That’s why he’s screaming your name. You, Jen. He wants
you
."

I shook my head. "No," I said. "No, it’s not like that—"

Because it wasn't. His words, his accusing tone, his blazing blue eyes that day outside the ladies’ room would be forever ingrained in my mind’s eye. No, it wasn’t like that at all.

"
JENNY!
" Luke was starting to sound frantic now.

"He wants you," Trina said again. "Why don’t you go?"

But how could I go? How could I go, with all those girls crowded around his limo, shooting me the evil eye? And more police cars careening down Clayton Mall Road (the policeman had obviously called for backup)?

"For God’s sake," Trina said. "
GO
!"

Then she shoved me, hard, in the back. I probably would have fallen if it hadn’t been for the nice police officer, who caught me by the arm, put me back on my feet, and asked me, "Are you Jenny?"

I gave a quick nod, and the next thing I knew, the officer—still holding on to my arm—had steered me through the shrieking throng around Luke’s limo, then yanked open the door to the backseat and thrust me inside. . . .

And slammed the door behind me.

Luke slithered down from the moonroof and hit the button to close it.

"Go," he yelled at the chauffeur. "Go, go, go!"

And we went.

Ask Annie

Ask Annie your most complex interpersonal relationship questions.

Go on, we dare you!

All letters to Annie are subject to publication in the Clayton High School
Register
.

Names and e-mail addresses of correspondents guaranteed confidential.

Dear Annie,

There’s this boy I like. I’ll call him chuck. Anyway, Chuck says he likes me too. But here’s the thing. Chuck never calls me. I call him, like, five times a day, plus I page him at least that many times, and text message him maybe ten times a day, and e-mail him too. But Chuck NEVER calls, pages, texts or e-mails me. Plus, his mom is starting to sound kind of mad when she picks up the phone. But how else am I supposed to keep in touch with him if he won’t call me? Please help
.