Teen Idol (18 page)

And the fuzzy dice hanging from his rearview mirror with see ruby falls printed on them.

And Scott’s hand on the gearshift, just inches from my thigh Scott’s big strong hand, the one that had lifted me up, up, up toward that stupid log. . . .

I think I would have been all right. I think I would have been able to handle the weirdness of being alone with Scott in the front seat of his car if—
wham
—the memory of all those times Trina had said I should have asked Scott out hadn’t came flooding back.
You’re perfect for each other
, Trina’s voice was suddenly saying, over and over, in my head.
Why don’t you ask him out
?

Shut up, Trina
, I said right back at her. But, you know, inside ray head.
Shut up!

It was amazing to me how my ex-best friend could ruin even a perfectly innocent thing like a car ride . . . and without even being there!

I don’t know if Scott noticed how I’d suddenly fallen silent. I don’t see how he couldn't. I mean, normally we talk a mile a minute to each other.

But, I swear, once I heard Trina’s voice in my head, telling me I should have asked Scott out, I couldn’t think of a single other thing.

Except for maybe all of those hearts in Geri Lynn’s date book. Those I couldn’t get out of my mind, for some reason.

Scott didn’t seem to mind my sudden muteness. In fact, he took advantage of it to say, as we turned down my street, "Can I ask you a question, Jen?"

What could be less threatening? He wanted to ask me a question. That was all. Just a question.

So why did my heart start to pound so hard inside my chest? Why did my palms suddenly feel all sweaty? So why was I having trouble breathing?

"Shoot," I managed to wheeze at him.

Only I never did get to find out what Scott wanted to ask me, because we had pulled up in front of my house . . .

. . . and seven or eight reporters rushed at the car, each of them shouting questions of their own at me.

"Jen, Jen," one of them was crying. "What color will you be wearing to the prom? Can you just give us a hint?"

"Miss Greenley," another one shouted. "Hair up? Or hair down? Teens want to know!"

"Jen," shrieked a third. "Will you be going with Luke to Toronto, where he’ll be filming his next project?"

"God," Scott said, about the reporters. "They’re still hounding you?"

"Pretty much," I said. And took a deep breath, trying to slow down my still wildly beating heart. "What was it you wanted to ask me, Scott?"

"Oh," Scott said. "Nothing." Then he grinned and, pretending he was holding a microphone, pointed it into my face "What does it feel like to be the envy of millions of girls across the country, Miss Greenley?"

"No comment," I said, with a relieved smile. Joking He was joking around with me. So it was all right . . .

. . . whatever
it
was.

Then I jumped out of the car and into the cluster of reporters.

"See you tomorrow!" I called to Scott.

"See you," Scott said.

But even then—even though the two of us had separated and weren’t alone with each other anymore—things were still weird. Because I noticed that Scott waited until I got past the reporters—"Jenny, Jenny, what’s it like knowing you’re going to the spring formal with the winner of the People’s Choice Award for Sexiest New Star?"—and had the door open and everything before he pulled away. He wanted to make sure I got in all right, even though it was, you know, broad daylight and all.

What did that mean? I mean, seriously?

And it occurred to me that, now that Scott and Geri were broken up, I could have gotten online and written to Trina about it. You know, have been all,
Ohmygod, just now when Scott dropped me off, he waited to make sure I got in all right before he pulled away. What do you think that means
? Because, you know, Scott wasn’t taken anymore.

Only I couldn’t write that to Trina. Because we still weren’t speaking.

And also because it would have just been too weird. Because I don’t think of Scott that way.

Do I?

Should
I?

Only I didn’t really have time to think about it, because the minute I walked through the door, the phone started ringing.

At first I’d been almost sure it was her. Trina, I mean. Calling to say how sorry she was about what had happened in choir that day, and asking me to forgive her.

Except that it wasn’t Trina. It turned out to be Karen Sue Walters.

I couldn’t imagine what Karen Sue wanted—she’d never called me at home before.

What Karen Sue wanted, it turned out, was to make sure I was all right. She joked about Mr. Hall’s temper, saying, "We theater types. We just can’t help it." Then she said she hoped she’d see me tomorrow in rehearsal.

"I don’t think so," I said slowly, wondering what was going on. I mean, it was kind of weird that Karen Sue was wondering if I was all right
now
, hours after the fact. I hadn’t noticed that she’d been so concerned earlier in the day, when it had all actually happened.

"I don’t think I’m cut out for the whole show choir thing," I told her. "You said it yourself . . . theater types. I’m just not one of them."

Karen Sue’s voice got different then. She asked me if I realized how much I was letting everyone down. Not just her and the choir but the whole school. The whole school was depending on the Troubadours to win for them at Bishop Luers.

That’s when I realized why Karen Sue had really called. Not because she cared about my mental health or anything. Obviously, since she hadn’t run after me when I’d left the choir room that day.

But because they hadn’t found anybody else to give Trina her hat.

So I told Karen Sue that the only way she’d see me at rehearsal the next day was if someone dragged my cold lifeless carcass onto the risers and left it there.

Then I hung up before I could apologize for saying it.

Karen Sue wasn’t the only person from Troubadours who called that evening. I heard from a bunch of other sopranos. Not Trina, of course. Not the person who should have called me, whose fault the whole thing was. But a few of the others.

But I told them all the same thing I’d told Karen Sue: No, I was not coming back to show choir.

When the phone rang at eleven that night, my dad—who, like my mom, had no idea what was going on . . . and I preferred to keep it that way—grumbled, "And I thought it was bad back when you and Trina were still speaking. . . ."

But when I picked up the phone, it wasn’t another Troubadour, begging me to come back to the fold.

It was Luke Striker.

"Jen," he said. "Hey. Hope I didn’t wake you up. It’s only nine out here in L.A. I forgot about the time difference. Are your parents mad?"

They were, of course, but not at Luke. I assured him it was all right. And then I wondered why he was calling. Was he, I asked myself, calling to cancel on me? About the Spring Fling, I mean.

I know it sounds crazy. I know any other girl in America would have been dreading a call like this. You know, Luke Striker canceling a date with them.

But me. I was trying to ignore my leaping pulse. Because if Luke canceled on me, I’d be free . . . free to go to Kwang’s anti-Spring Fling party. Free to hang out there.

I didn’t ask myself why this thought should be so appealing. I didn’t ask myself who it was I wanted to hang out
with
at Kwang’s party.

And I didn’t ask myself if maybe this had something to do with the question a certain person had wanted to ask me earlier in the evening. . . .

OhpleasecancelSpringFling. PleasepleasecancelSpringFling. ComeonLukecancelSpringFlingwithme. . . .

But that wasn’t why Luke was calling me. That wasn’t why he was calling me at all.

"I heard what happened today," he said. "In choir."

I nearly dropped the phone.

"You
did
? How did
you
hear about it? Who told you? Was it Ms. Kellogg? My God, she doesn’t know, does she?"

"It wasn’t Ms. Kellogg," Luke said with a chuckle. "Let’s just say I have my sources."

Sources? What sources? What was he talking about?

"Oh my God," I said, feeling cold hard fear grip me. "Was it on the news? About my quitting show choir?" Who had told? Who could have told? And how dead was I going to be when my parents found out?

"Relax," Luke said. Now he was outright laughing. "It wasn’t on the news. I wish it had been, though. I wish I could have been there to see that hat fly into the tuba. . . ."

"It’s not funny," I said, even though just a few hours before I’d been cracking up laughing over it. "Well, not
that
funny, anyway. Everybody’s mad at me. Luke, I've never had so many people mad at me before."

"Good," Luke said. "That means it’s working."

"What’s working?"

"What we talked about," he said. "You can’t effect social change, Jen, without ruffling a few feathers."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I wouldn’t exactly call my quitting choir effecting social change."

"Oh, it is," Luke said. "Maybe not as much as what you did for Cara, but—"

"Wait," I said. "How do
you
know what happened with Cara?"

"I told you," Luke said with a laugh. "I have my sources."

I wondered who on earth Luke could have been talking to. Since his "outing" in Clayton, he’d fled back to his Hollywood Hills mansion, where Pat O'Brien and people like that said he was "in seclusion," still refusing to speak to the press about Angelique’s dumping him and his subsequent—one reporter called it "zany"—decision to attend high school undercover in a small, rural Midwestern town. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to know what was going on with Luke Striker and what they called his "bizarre" behavior.

But really, I didn’t think Luke’s wanting to be alone—or even to go to high school—was so bizarre. It wasn’t as if he were climbing up trees and declaring himself to be Peter Pan, like
some
celebrities.

"Listen, Jen," he said, in that soft deep voice that had made him such a convincing Lancelot. You could so totally see why Guinevere would go for him instead of the other guy, the one who’d played King Arthur "I just wanted to call and say how proud I am of you. You’re doing great. How are things going on the Betty Ann front?"

Betty Ann! Oh, Lord, I’d completely forgotten about Betty Ann.

"I'm, uh, working on it," I lied.

"Great," Luke said. "So I’ll see you Saturday, all right? And Jen?"

"Yeah?"

"I knew you could do it."

I thanked him and hung up But I didn’t exactly share his enthusiasm. I mean, what, exactly, had I done? I’d alienated my best friend. I’d quit show choir right before their big crucial performance—a real team player, that’s me. I’d have to skip fourth period choir tomorrow, which meant I’d probably get caught and consequently suspended.

And now I was going to have to go up against the most popular guy in school to get my favorite teacher’s Cabbage Patch doll back.

Oh, yeah. Things were going great.

O
peration return of
Betty Ann went into action the very next morning. And not a minute too soon, either: Kurt and his friends had sent Mrs. Mulvaney another ransom note. This one was even lamer than the last one. This one said,
If U don’t give EVERY 1 in your classes an A for the semester, Betty Ann’s head goes in the disposal
.

Mrs. Mulvaney actually went pale as she read the note—which she’d found folded on her desk where Betty Ann used to sit—aloud to us. Her fingers shook as she held it.

She didn’t say anything more about it after that—just crumpled it up and threw it away.

But I knew. I knew they’d gone too far. The abduction of Betty Ann had gone from a kind of funny prank to an outright act of cruelty.

And I wasn’t going to let it go on a second longer.

My plan went into action during fourth period, when I should have been in show choir. Only when the bell rang, instead of going to class, I ducked into the guidance office and went up to Mrs. Templeton, Ms. Kellogg’s administrative assistant.

"Well, hello, Jenny," Mrs. Templeton said. "Do you have an appointment with Ms. Kellogg right now? Because I didn’t see your name on her calendar."

"I don’t have an appointment," I said. "Actually, you’re the one I need to talk to."

Mrs. Templeton looked pleasantly surprised. "
Me
? Well, I can’t imagine what
I
could do for you, Jenny. . . ."

"It’s kind of embarrassing, actually," I said, lowering my voice, as if I were afraid other people in the office might overhear. "I’m hoping we could just keep it between ourselves. Can you—Can I trust you to keep a secret, Mrs.T?"

Mrs. Templeton—who loves gossip more than any other human being I know, and has probably never kept a secret in her life, which is why Ms. Kellogg asked me to never reveal to Mrs. T. that I’m Ask Annie—leaned forward.

"Of course you can," she whispered.

So then I told her.

Oh, not the truth, of course . . . I mean, that I was skipping show choir because I’d walked out and had no intention of returning. Or that I’m Ask Annie. Or that I had a bad feeling I might be attracted to Scott Bennett.

What I told her instead was how, due to the stress of being Luke Striker’s date for the Spring Fling and having
Entertainment Tonight
trailing me around and all, I had forgotten my locker combination.

Just flat out forgotten it.

"Is that all?" Mrs. T. looked disappointed. "Well, we can take care of that in a jiffy, hon, don’t you worry."

And then, as I’d known she would, Mrs. Templeton lugged out this huge binder in which was recorded the combination of every locker in the school.

"What’s your locker number again, hon?" Mrs. Templeton asked me.

"Three forty-five," I told her, blithely giving her not my own locker number but Kurt Schraeder's.

Mrs. Templeton didn’t know what locker number I had. She had no way of knowing I was outright lying to her. She said, "Well, isn’t your combo twenty-one, thirty-five, twenty-eight?"