Teen Idol (4 page)

Feeling Unloved

Dear Unloved,

Your friend may have nothing to confide. Not everyone find their dreams as gripping as you evidently find yours. Maybe she’s just trying not to bore everyone. Why don’t you return the favor
?

Annie

M
r. Mitchell said
I had to tell my parents. Because of my being a minor and all. Which I didn’t really get, since it wasn’t like Luke and I would be
dating
or anything. I mean, I was just going to be showing him where the gym was and not to take the glazed carrots in the caf. But whatever.

Mr. Mitchell offered to do it himself—talk to my parents—but I told him I’d do it. I knew if he did it, my parents would blow the whole thing out of proportion. Like the Ask Annie thing.

I waited until after dinner to do it, when my brothers went off to do their homework. I have two little brothers—Cal and Rick, in eighth and sixth grade. Cal’s a jock—he plays every sport except football, which my mom won’t let him play, because she thinks it’s too dangerous. Because of this, of course, Cal’s goal is to pursue a career in law enforcement, preferably the SWAT team. Rick, in contrast, hates sports. He wants to be a child star like Luke Striker used to be. He doesn’t understand why our parents won’t get him an agent. They've tried explaining to him that there are no agents in Clayton, Indiana, but Rick doesn’t care. He says his time is running out and pretty soon he won’t be cute anymore so somebody better discover him, quick.

Like me, my brothers get along with pretty much everybody . . . even with me and with each other, except for the occasional burst of acrimony over possession of the remote or the last chocolate fudge Pop-Tart or whatever.

Still, I decided it was probably best to keep them in the dark about the Luke Striker thing, because they might not be able to keep it to themselves. Cal’s got an old Luke Striker—aka Tarzan—action figure, after all. And Rick would probably try to get his agent’s phone number.

Because I was so casual about it—"There’s this actor and he’s coming to town to research a role and they want me to show him around school"—my parents both just sort of shrugged when they heard the news. Only my dad looked alarmed, and that was just for a minute—and not even, as I initially thought, because he’d heard about the Angelique-tattoo thing.

"He’s not staying with us, is he?" he asked, looking over the top of the paper he was reading—the
Clayton Gazette
, which comes in the afternoon, not morning, so the reporters don’t have to go to work too early. My town’s really small. Did I mention that already?

"No, Dad," I said. "He’s renting a condo at the lake."

"Thank God," my dad said, and disappeared back behind the paper. My dad can’t stand houseguests.

"Who is this boy again?" my mom wanted to know.

"Luke Striker," I said. "He used to be on
Heaven Help Us
. He played the oldest son."

My mom smiled. "Oh, that sweet blond one?"

I wondered if my mom would still think Luke was sweet if she’d seen him in the lagoon scene in
Tarzan
. The one where his loin pelt had kind of floated away, thrilling Jane—and Trina—very much.

"That’s the one," I said.

"Well," my mom said, as she turned back to her sketch pad. "I hope you don’t get a crush on him. Because you know, he lives all the way out in Hollywood. I doubt you two will see all that much of each other after he leaves."

"No worries, Mom," I said, thinking about the commitment ceremony tattoos. "Luke Striker really isn’t my type."

"Well, Trina, then," my mom said. "You know how Trina is."

"Yeah," I said. I knew exactly how Trina was. "But he’s supposed to be wearing glasses the whole time or something. Nobody’s supposed to be able to recognize him."

"That’s ridiculous," Mom said.

"I don’t see why." My dad turned to the homes section of the paper. He’s an architect and likes to see what kind of houses are selling every week. "It worked for Clark Kent."

My obligations to my family met, I went upstairs to my room to start my own homework. I turned on my computer and found a slew of e-mails, most of them from Trina. Even though she lives right next door, we still e-mail each other more than we talk on the phone . . . more than we talk in person, even. I don’t know why. Maybe because we don’t leave our houses all that much. There aren’t a whole lot of places to go in Clayton. Besides school, that is. And I’m always reading, and Trina’s always practicing for whatever role she’s going out for in drama.

In fact, you can usually hear her practicing in her room, because our houses are like a hundred feet away. Trina has what Mr. Hall calls a very strong diaphragm. It allows for a lot of vocal projection. She’s gotten the lead in just about every play that’s ever been put on in the Clayton school system, so I guess she’s got a good shot at a career. Her plan is to go to Yale Drama School, like her idol, Meryl Streep. Then she says she’s going to take Broadway by storm. Trina has no interest in film work. She says the interaction between an artist and the audience during a live performance is an opiate to which she’s become addicted.

Hey, where’d you disappear to during choir
? Trina wrote. Her online name is—no surprise—Dramaqueen.
La Hall about had a fit, you were gone so long
.

I have gotten pretty used to lying to Trina about the whole Ask Annie thing—she flat out accused me of being Annie once, when the
Register
printed a letter from a kid who claimed he couldn’t stay awake without drinking a six-pack of Diet Coke, and then had to swallow like four Sominex at night to go to sleep. My response, "So quit drinking so much soda," was apparently so "classically Jen"—at least according to Trina—that I nearly blew my cover.

So it wasn’t really any skin off my teeth to reply,

J E N N Y G: Oh, Cara had another cow. What’d I miss?
DRAMAQUEEN: That girl must be starved for attention at home. Why else does she try so hard to get it at school? Anyway, you fully missed it. La Hall showed us the dress we’re supposed to order to wear at Luers. Get ready: It’s red with a sequined lightning holt down the front.

This was appalling. I mean, considering it was going on my body.

J E N N Y G: You lie.
DRAMAQUEEN :
Au contraire, mon frère
. AND it contains not a single fiber naturally occurring in nature. AND it costs a hundred and eighty bucks.
J E N N Y G:
lierberat nos et lacerat fortuna!
DRAMAQUEEN: You’re not kidding. The guys have it easy. They just have to get red cummerbunds and bow ties to go with their tuxes. We’re having a car wash Saturday to raise fundage for those girls whom
fortuna
has forsaken. I signed you up for the twelve to two shift I figured at least we could work on our tans while we wash. Provided it doesn’t rain.
J E N N Y G: You know, you neglected to mention when I signed up for this class that it was going to begin eating away at my social calendar, bit by excruciating bit.
DRAMAQUEEN: Oh. like you have something better to do.

Sadly, this is true. I don’t have anything better to do. Still.

J E N N Y G: A HUNDRED AND EIGHTY BUCKS? For a dress I’m never going to wear again? That is RIDICULOUS.
D R A M A Q U E E N: That’s showbiz.
J E N N Y G: And I thought the padded bras were bad . . .
DRAMAQUEEN: Seriously. Hey, so guess what? Steve asked me to the Spring Fling.

Steve McKnight is Trina’s boy toy. He sings baritone in the Troubadours and played Henry II to Trina’s Eleanor of Aquitaine in the Drama Club’s version of
The Lion in Winter
Steve’s also been Beauregard to Trina’s Auntie Mame, Romeo to her Juliet, and so on. Trina isn’t in love with him—she is saving herself for Luke Striker—but since he’s taller than she is, and head over heels for her, she lets him take her out. That way she gets to see all the new movies in town. For free.

Trina is fairly morally bankrupt, but I can’t help liking her anyway. It bugs me, though, when she dumps Steve—which she does almost every time she gets a date with someone else—because I’m always the one he comes running to, wanting to know what he did to make her mad.

I was happy to hear they were going to the spring formal—also known as the Spring Fling—together. It would mean a lot to Steve. And then Trina could tell me all about it. Since I’ll never find out on my own, no one having asked me and all.

J E N N Y G: Lucky.
DRAMAQUEEN: Why don’t you find some guy to take you, and we can, you know, double?
J E N N Y G: Oh, okay. Let me just check-on, yeah, sorry, nobody’s in love with me this week.
DRAMAQUEEN: That’s because you’re too nice to everyone.
J E N N Y G: Yeah. Because most guys look for emotionally abusive girls to go out with.
DRAMAQUEEN: I mean it. You’re like nice to
everyone
You treat all guys the same. So how are they supposed to know if you think of them as just a friend or as a potential
armor
. That has to be why no one’s ever asked you out I mean, it’s not like you’re ugly.
J E N N Y G: Hey. Thanks. That means so much.

Actually, I know I’m not ugly. I’m no Catrina Larssen, but I do have this wholesome girl-next-door thing going for me. You know the drill: brown hair, hazel eyes, freckles—the whole bit. It’s kind of sickening, actually. I've been trying to grow my bangs out, though, to make up for it.

DRAMAQUEEN: I’m serious. I mean, you could have had Scott Bennett but you blew it.

Trina has this weird idea that Scott Bennett is the perfect guy for me. That’s because when I got back from the
Register
retreat, I guess I sort of talked about him a lot. But just because we’d had so much fun. Like a lot of nights, he and I ended up sitting next to each other at the campfire, arguing about whether or not the film
Total Recall
did justice to the Philip K. Dick short story it was based on, or if H. G. Wells or Isaac Asimov was the true father of science fiction.

And I might have mentioned to her how, on the way home from camp, the bus stopped for lunch at an Outback Steakhouse, Scott kept calling the waitress by her name. You know, the one printed on her name tag. Like he’d go, "What would you recommend, Rhonda?" and "We've decided on the onion blossom, Rhonda," and "Thanks for the refill, Rhonda." I don’t know why, but I couldn’t stop laughing. At one point I laughed so hard I almost choked, and Kwang had to pound me on the back.

But I guess what really made Trina think Scott was perfect for me was when I told her about the log. The one between the two trees that we all had to get across, before the wall of peanut butter killed us. Not the part about Scott’s joke—"It’s nutty, actually"—but the part about how Scott and I were the last two people on the one side of the log, and how he’d picked me up so that I could grab it—the log, I mean—and swing over the top.

I must have mentioned to Trina how effortlessly Scott had seemed to lift me—like I didn’t weigh a thing—and how I’d kind of noticed his arm muscles bulging under the sleeves of his T-shirt. And how he’d smelled sort of nice. And how his hands were . . . you know. Kind of big. And strong.

Which was a mistake—to tell Trina, I mean—because then she kept thinking I liked Scott—you know,
that
way—and bugging me to ask him out. To the movies or something. She said it was obvious we were destined for each other and that if I didn’t ask him out we’d never get together, since he’d just go on thinking that I liked him as a friend, because that’s how I treat all boys, not being a flirt like her.

Which is ridiculous—about Scott and I being destined for each other—because it’s totally obvious that Scott and Geri Lynn are perfect together I mean, look how fast they hooked up. The first day of school, practically. At least according to the hearts in Geri’s date book.

It’s a good thing Trina is planning on a career in the theater, because as a matchmaker she’s got a lot to learn.

I've mentioned this to her numerous times, but that doesn’t seem to stop her from trying.

DRAMAQUEEN: Okay, maybe things didn’t work out with Scott, but that’s no reason to give up on men. You’re very cute. I’m sure Steve could get one of the other baritones to take you out. Or maybe one of the tenors . . .
J E N N Y G: STOP. WAIT. DON’T.
DRAMAQUEEN: Okay. okay. But there has to be SOMEONE you like.
J E N N Y G: Hey there’s nobody YOU like Why do *I* have to like someone and you don’t?
DRAMAQUEEN: Because
pulchera
, I’m saving myself for Luke Striker.

Oooh For the first time, it occurred to me if word about Luke’s true identity got out, it could affect me in a highly personal manner. You know, in the form of my best friend losing her virginity before me. Providing Luke turned out to like her back, I mean.

I have to admit, I felt a twinge of guilt. Over the whole keeping-Luke-Striker's-impending-visit-to-our-fair-city thing from Trina. She was going to be plenty mad when she found out the truth.

But then again, Trina has never really managed to stay mad at me long.

Trina and I were e-mailing the answers to our Latin homework back and forth—which isn’t cheating, exactly. We were just confirming that we’d gotten the same thing, when I got a message from someone who wasn’t Trina or Geri Lynn or any of the people who normally e-mail me. This person’s screen name was Otempora, which we learned in Latin is a phrase meaning, "What an age we live in!" as if they had to worry about stuff like al-Qaeda and J. Lo back in the year 9.

Otempora happens to be Scott Bennett’s screen name.

I clicked on the message right away, figuring it was probably something related to the newspaper.

It wasn't.

O T E M P O R A: Hey, Jen. You aren’t mad that I gave your story idea to Kwang, were you? The one about Betty Ann’s kidnapping?

I could tell Geri Lynn had been harping at him about it. Lately, it seems, Geri’s been harping at Scott more than ever I personally think it’s because Geri is graduating and going off to college. In California. To major in broadcast journalism. Talk about a big change I've noticed that sometimes, when people are going away, they pick fights with you for no reason. It’s like it’s easier for them to say good-bye if they’re mad at you than if they still like you. Trina does this to me every time she and her parents leave for their summer house on Lake Wawasee. It’s kind of funny.