Teen Idol (7 page)

"Shut up, you guys," Cara screamed at the side of the room where the popular kids sat, which was where most—though not all—of the mooing was coming from. "It’s not funny!"

The saddest part of all is that I know Cara would have given anything in the world to be sitting there. You know, at the popular table with the mooers. Cara is one of those girls who worship the jocks and the cheerleaders, the popular people. I don’t know why, because I've taken part in conversations with them, with Courtney Deckard or whoever, and they always go something like this: "Did you check out the sale at Bebe this weekend? Wasn’t it the
best
?" or "I told them I wanted a French pedicure to show off my tan, but they made it way too pink, don’t you think?"

Not, you know, that the conversations at my lunch table are more stimulating. But at least we talk about stuff besides what so-and-so was wearing at whoever’s party, and whether or not the Tasti D-Lite at the Penguin really is fat-free.

But Cara’s convinced she’s missing out on something, so she tries and tries to get the popular people to accept her into their group, buying all the right clothes, wearing her hair the right way. . . .

But right for who? Not for Cara. Sure, she owned the exact same capris as Courtney Deckard. But she didn’t look good in them—at least, not the way Courtney did in hers. Not even close.

And, sure, her hair was the same color as Courtney's, honey blond (courtesy of the same salon, even). But honey blond looks much better on girls like Courtney than it does on a girl like Cara.

Cara looked so bad, in fact, in the clothes and hairstyles that Courtney and her set insisted everyone needed to wear in order to be cool that the very people she was trying to impress could do nothing but smirk at her.

Or moo at her, actually.

It would have been one thing if she just hadn’t cared what other people thought about her. I mean, there are lots of overweight people at Clayton. But the only one who ever gets any grief about it is Cara.

And Cara’s reaction to the mooing just makes the mooing more fun for the mooers. People actually moo harder when Cara begs them to stop. I don’t see why Cara doesn’t see this. I've told her enough times . . . well, Ask Annie has, anyway.

But Cara can never do anything like a normal person. Instead of just taking her tray and going to sit down somewhere, out of the line of fire, Cara whirled around and around, trying to pinpoint exactly where the mooing was coming from.

"Stop it!" she shrieked. "I said, stop it!"

Finally, as inevitably happened most days, someone threw a food item at Cara’s head. This time it was a baked potato. It hit her square in the forehead, causing Cara to drop her tray—sending lettuce leaves and ranch dressing everywhere—and flee for the ladies’ room, sobbing.

"Aw, geez," I said, because I knew this was my cue to get up and go try to comfort her.

"What the hell," Luke said, looking around, an indignant expression on his face, "is wrong with those people?"

"Oh, don’t worry about Cara," Geri Lynn said. "Jen’ll fix her up in time for the bell."

"Jen'll—" Luke looked at me like I was the visitor from the other planet, and not Cara. "This has happened before?"

Trina rolled her eyes. "Before? Every day, more like it."

I gave Luke a polite smile, then got up and headed after Cara.

I found Mr. Steele, the biology teacher who’d had the misfortune to pull lunchroom duty that day, standing just outside the ladies’ room door, calling, "Cara, it’s going to be all right. Why don’t you just come out and tell me why you’re so upset—"

As soon as he saw me, Mr. Steele’s face crumpled with relief.

"Oh, Jenny," he said. "Thank God you’re here. Could you make sure Cara’s all right? I would, but, you know, it’s the girls’ room—"

"Sure thing, Mr. S.," I said.

"Thanks," he said. "You kids are the best."

I was kind of startled by the "you kids." I didn’t realize, until I looked behind me, that I wasn’t the only one from my table who’d exited the cafeteria. Luke was standing right behind me.

Thinking he was taking the whole shadowing me thing kind of seriously, I said, "Uh, I’ll be out in a minute," and started to go inside after Cara.

But to my surprise, Luke took me by the arm and, dragging me out of earshot of Mr. Steele, went, "What
was
that back there?"

"What was what?" I really didn’t know what he was talking about.

"
That
back there. That mooing thing." Luke actually looked a little upset. Well, maybe
upset
is too strong a word for it. What he looked was annoyed. "You know, when I volunteered for this thing, I didn’t exactly expect it to be like the schoolroom on
Little House on the Prairie
. But I didn’t think it would be like a cell block in some prison drama."

I am no fan of Clayton High School—or any high school, really, except maybe that one for the performing arts, the one in
Fame
, where everybody danced on taxicabs in the street—but I still couldn’t understand how Luke could compare it to jail Clayton High is nothing like jail. For one thing, there are no bars on the windows.

And for another, prisoners get reduced sentences for good behavior. The only thing you get in high school for not killing each other is a diploma that is good for exactly nothing, except possibly a managerial position at Rax Roast Beef.

"Um," I said. "I’m sorry." What was he talking about? Why was he so upset? I mean, yeah, it’s mean how they treat Cara, but what am
I
supposed to do about it? "But I sort of have to go—"

"No," Luke said, his blue eyes still burning like pieces of kryptonite behind the lenses of his glasses. "I want to know. I want to know why you didn’t try to stop those people from tormenting that poor girl."

"Look," I said Cara’s wails were getting louder, and I knew the bell was going to ring any minute.

But I don’t know. Something came over me. Maybe it was the stress of having a movie star in disguise following me around all day. Or maybe it was residual tension from being yelled at for an hour by Mr. Hall about my jazz hands.

In any case, I think I sort of snapped. I mean, where did he get off, basically saying nothing at all to me for most of the day, then turning around and yelling at
me
about something Kurt Schraeder and his friends were doing?

"If you disapprove of this place so much," I hissed, "why don’t you just go back to Hollywood? I wouldn’t mind, you know, because I actually have more important things to do than baby-sit prima donnas like you."

Then I turned around and went into the ladies’ room.

I’ll admit that, even though my speech sounded cool and all, I wasn’t feeling very cool. In fact, my heart was beating kind of fast, and I felt a little bit like hurling my pizza. Because really, I don’t yell at people. Ever.

And the fact that I’d yelled at this very famous movie star whom I had been assigned to be nice to by the principal and Juicy Lucy . . . well, I was kind of scared. Scared that Luke would tell Dr. Lewis what I’d said. Scared that I’d consequently get expelled. And scared that I wouldn’t get that diploma after all and have to work as a drill press operator, just like I’d put on my state achievement test.

Only I’d been joking! I don’t want to be a drill press operator! I mean, I’m excellent at solving other people’s problems . . . and you know, layout and all of that. I can see how things fit together and what should go where, which is why I’m not only Ask Annie but I help out a lot with set design for the Drama Club. I want to be a therapist—or a designer or both—when I’m grown-up. Not a drill press operator.

Except that it’s kind of hard to be a therapist
or
a designer on an eleventh grade education.

But I didn’t really have time to worry about Luke just then. Because I still had Cara to deal with.

"Cara," I said, going to lean against the stall door she’d locked herself behind. "Come out. It’s me, Jen."

"Why?" Cara sobbed. "Why do they keep doing that me, Jen?"

"Because they’re idiots. Now come on out."

Cara came out. Her face was blotchy with tears. If she didn’t spend so much time crying, and stopped trying to blow-dry her hair so it was stick straight like Courtney Deckard’s and just let it curl on its own the way it wanted to, and knocked off the capris, which don’t look that good on someone her shape, I suspect she might even have been pretty.

"It’s not fair," Cara said, sniffling. "I try and I try . . . I even told them my parents were going out of town last weekend and that they could use my house to party in. Did anybody show up? No."

I turned on the water in one of the sinks and wet a paper towel to wipe the potato guts out of Cara’s hair.

"I've told you before," I said. "They’re idiots, Cara."

"They aren’t idiots. They rule the school. How can the people who rule the school be idiots?" She looked woefully at her reflection in the glass above the sinks. "It’s me. It’s just me. I’m such a loser."

"You’re not a loser, Cara," I said. "And they don’t rule the school. The student council does, technically."

"But they’re still
popular,"
Cara pointed out.

"There are more important things than being popular, Cara."

"That’s easy for you to say, Jen," Cara said. "I mean, everybody likes you. EVERYBODY. You've never had people mooing at you."

This is true. But I also never went out of my way to try to
get
people to like me the way Cara does.

When I mentioned this, though, Cara just went, "You sound just like Ask Annie.
Be yourself
. That’s what she’s always saying."

"It’s good advice," I said.

"Sure," Cara said sadly. "If you know who yourself even is."

The bell rang, long and loud. A second later, the ladies’ room was filled with girls eager to check their hair before heading off to class. My tête-à-tête with Cara was at an end. For now.

"I’ll see you later," I said to her. She just sniffled in reply and dug around in her purse for some tissue. I wasn’t surprised. Cara never thanked me for coming to check on her after one of her spaz attacks. It was one of the reasons, I was pretty sure, why she has no real friends. She just doesn’t know how to treat people.

I have to admit that, what with the whole Cara thing, I’d kind of forgotten about Luke Striker . . . at least until I came out of the ladies’ room and there he was, waiting for me.

The sick feeling came right back to my stomach. What was he still doing there? I’d really thought that, after my outburst, he’d have stalked off and called his limo to come pick him up. Instead, he came up to me and, hands in his pockets, asked, "So what do we have next?"

Just like that. Like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t told him to go back to Hollywood or anything.

What did this mean? That he wasn’t going running to Dr. Lewis, to tell him what I’d said? Was he just going to pretend my meltdown hadn’t happened? What kind of person
does
that? I am very good at figuring people out. Except, apparently, Luke Striker.

The knot in my stomach loosened a little after this, but I still didn’t feel completely at ease. I didn’t know what had caused Luke to change his mind about me and Clayton High—or even
if
he’d changed his mind—but I did know one thing:

I doubted either of us was going to be able to live up to his expectations.

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,

My girlfriend won’t stop giving me hickeys. It’s embarrassing. I’m glad she love me but . . . ew. Why won’t she stop and what can I do to make her
?

Tired of Wearing Turtlenecks
.

Dear Turtleneck,

Your girlfriend is giving you hickeys because she wants everyone to know you’re taken. Tell her to knock it of or you’ll find a girl who isn’t as insecure
.

Annie

I
should have
known everybody in school was going to fall in love with Luke. I mean, even in his Lucas Smith guise, he’s still totally cute. And, face it, any guy who isn’t completely obsessed with monster trucks or doesn’t wear a mullet can be considered hot at Clayton High.

Luke was neither of those things, AND over six feet tall, AND sensitive enough to think the way everyone treated Cara was lame, AND he looked just like . . . well, Luke Striker.

Hey, it was a wonder
I
hadn’t fallen in love with him. I guess I shouldn’t have blamed Trina for it. Falling for the new guy, I mean.

It’s not like I didn’t suspect it might happen. Trina loves Luke Striker more than she loves her cat, Mr. Momo, and Mr. Momo’s been Trina’s constant companion since the second grade.

Still, I didn’t realize what was going on until I was in Steve’s car on the way home. Neither Trina nor I have our drivers’ licenses yet, because

a) our parents are afraid to teach us and they don’t offer drivers ed. in our school and,
b) even if they did, there’s nowhere worth driving to in Clayton and
c) even if there were, we always have Trina’s boyfriend, Steve, who does have a car, to drive us there.

Fortunately for me, Trina and Steve always stay late at school, rehearsing for whatever play the Drama Club is doing. Right now it’s this major yawn called
Spoon River Anthology
, which happens to be about dead people—but not zombies or anything cool—just dead people sitting around in a graveyard talking about what it had been like to be alive, I guess to make us all appreciate our loved ones more or something. I’d told Trina I’d go to opening night and all, but I fully plan to sit in the back row with the latest Dean Koontz and a book light.

I probably could have gotten a ride home with Scott—he always remembers to ask if I need one.