Theodora Twist (10 page)

Emily whirls around, Bo and Brandon’s new CD in hand, her cheeks bright red.

This is either going to be a really amusing month or a really, really boring one. So far, it’s a fifty-fifty split.

Emily

Theodora Twist is sitting at the dinner table, chatting away about how one of her costars in
Family
stayed in character during the entire shoot—when he took smoking breaks, when he got his makeup done, when he pigged out at the craft service table. Every few minutes I do forget about the camera pointing at me, but then one of the camerapeople sneezes or something and we all freeze. And then Theodora tells a funny story about fame or the paparazzi and we go back to forgetting anything except that a movie star is at our table, eating our food, drinking out of our glasses . . . talking to us.

“More roast beef, Theodora?” my mom asks, holding up the platter.

Right after my mom signed on the dotted line to do the show, she bought celebrity cookbooks and
Gourmet
magazine, only to receive an e-mail from Ashley with the subject line
TV-Friendly Meals to Serve Theodora.
On the list: Meat and potatoes. Hot dogs and baked beans. Family barbeques. Milk.
Please make sure to serve Coke often.
And apple pie.
The suggestions were completely at odds with every article my mom found about Theodora’s diets and eating habits (which were at odds with themselves: Theodora is apparently a vegan and a carnivore, a craver of Cheetos and a shunner of all junk food).

Theodora grins and rubs her belly. “I am
so
full. But one more little piece—it’s scrumptious!”

My mother beams. Stew beams. Neither of them seems surprised by her healthy appetite, despite how incredibly thin she is.

“Oooh, someone needs changing,” my moms says, eyeing Sophie and standing up.

Stew stands up too. “Sweetheart, you enjoy your dinner. You cooked, I’ll clean!” he says, laughing, scooping up Sophie and making a comical face at how stinky she is.

My mom and I eye each other and smile. Well, well. Stew is stepping up. Maybe things
will
start changing around here. Things have already changed. My mom is wearing a nice outfit, very Banana Republic—a sleeveless V-neck sweater in a shimmery lavender, and khaki boot-leg pants. She looks like she used to look every weekend.

And Theodora looks . . . normal. Actually, she doesn’t look normal; she’s too unbelievably gorgeous for normal. She’s not even wearing makeup, except for a little mascara, maybe. Her skin is poreless and glowing. Her eyes are so blue. And her hair is long and silky and light blond, with bangs. She looks like a movie star who has come over for dinner on a Sunday night. She’s wearing a cute multicolored cropped blazer that I remember admiring at the mall a few weeks ago, a scoop-neck pink T-shirt, dark cargo jeans, and Skechers. No jewelry, except for a brown leather bracelet that every girl at school has, including me.

Stew returns to the table. “Good thing I know how to change a diaper,” he says. “Tom filmed me the entire time and had me talk directly to the camera about taking care of Sophie.”

“Stew,” my mom says, shooting him a look and nodding at the cameras.

Theodora takes a sip of her iced tea. “Don’t worry about stuff you say. They’ll edit out all the conversations that don’t further the plot of the episode.”

“So we don’t have to censor ourselves?” I ask her.

“Well, you need to be careful,” Theodora backtracks. “Because if it’s mean, argumentative, sarcastic, funny, or anything besides dull, the producers will find a way to use it. They’ll even take conversations and actions out of context.”

We all freeze, forks halfway to our mouths.

Theodora laughs. “I’m used to having everything I say and do being taken out of context. If I go to the doctor for a checkup, I’m in the tabloids the next day for being rushed to my private physician because I fainted from anorexia or something. It’s ridiculous. You just have to be careful. That’s the point of my being here.”

We all look at her. “It must be really hard,” Stew says. “All the glamour and fame and money aside, it can’t be easy to live that way.”

“For a month I don’t have to,” she says, grinning.

Huh. She’s so
nice.
Normal. Likeable. And she doesn’t hate me. So far, so great.

I think she’s throwing up. I knock on the bathroom door connected to our room. After dinner, the moment Stew suggested that Theodora and I “go have fun doing what teenagers do” (gag), Theodora beelined for the bathroom. “Theodora? Are you okay?”

No answer. Then a faint and garbled “Fine.” Then more sounds of vomiting. Then, “Did the camerapeople leave for their dinner break?”

“Yes,” I tell her.

More vomiting.

“Theodora, I’m gonna go get my mom, okay? I’ll be right back.”

The door opens. “No. I’m fine.” Her eyes are glazed and she looks green. She’s clutching her stomach.

I take her arm and lead her to her bed. She flops down and makes a strange sound. “I’m getting my mom. Maybe you have food poisoning.”

She shoots up. “Emily, chill out. I don’t have food poisoning. I hurled, that’s all.”

“That’s what you
do
when you have food poisoning,” I say. “I know—I got really sick one day last summer when I ate bad—”

“Emily, I barfed on purpose. Can you just be quiet for a second so I can catch my breath?”

“You threw up on
purpose?
You’re bulimic?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not
bulimic
. I just can’t go around eating red meat and baked potatoes and corn. My glycemic index is probably shot to shit.”

I shove my hands in my pockets. “What’s a glycemic index?”

“Do you have any idea what eating sugar and processed white flour does to your body and sugar levels? I’m not a macrobiotic freak or anything, but I don’t eat crap.”

Hey, my mother spent hours making that
crap! “Since when is roast beef and a baked potato and corn
crap?”
I ask. “That’s a healthy meal.”

She shakes her head. “Not in my world. I couldn’t look like this if I ate like that every day—or even once in a while.”

“I’m thin and I eat like that every day,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow. “Are you saying your body is as good as mine?”

I eye her body. Yeah right. “I’m saying that minus the chest, we probably weigh the same.”

She laughs. “I don’t think your flat chest is the only difference between us, hon. Anyway, you can’t eat hormones and sugar and fat and look like me.”

“So how do you plan on surviving here for a month?” I ask her, feeling smug. “Your
manager
is the one who sent my mom an e-mail telling her to cook hot dogs and green bean casseroles. And apple pie,” I add, irritated.

Theodora smiles sweetly back. “And Ashley is also the one who has arranged with VegeFood, a healthy gourmet food company, to deliver three meals and two snacks to me here at your house every day.”

“But—” I start to say, confused.

“Here. Let me spell it out for you. On camera, you’ll see me digging in to pepperoni pizza and cheeseburgers and Sloppy Joes—whatever yummy all-American meals your mom comes up with. Then, off camera, I’ll come to our room and barf it up. And then I’ll sit down at my desk to my healthy, nutritionally balanced VegeFood meal.” She points to a blue vinyl cooler that’s sitting on the dresser. “See? It’s here already.”

I watch, speechless, as she walks over and unzips the cooler. She holds up individually wrapped food items that would fit on a small salad plate. “Salmon with peach salsa, a lentil salad, and lemon carrot cake bars.” She pats her stomach. “Dee-lish.”

Fuming, I go into the bathroom and grab the scale and step on. “Okay, I weigh one twelve. I’m five six. How tall are you, five nine, right?”

She nods and steps on. The red glowing light says 115.

“So we’re practically the same weight,” I say. “And I don’t barf up my guts after eating an
all-American
dinner.” I can’t believe I’m saying all this to Theodora Twist, but I’m furious! She makes herself barf!

She stares at me. “Emily, let me say this right now. If we’re going to survive this month, you’d better not bug me. I’m not here to be judged. Got it?”

“I have homework to do,” I tell her, and sit down at my desk. Jen started making herself throw up last summer in camp when a few girls in her bunk became obsessed with losing weight. She swore she only did it a few times, then stopped. But one of the girls, Jen said, became a total bulimic and
can’t
stop. And obviously she didn’t have VegeFood delivering backup.

There’s a knock at the door. Our camerapeople—Vic and Nicole—are back. They come in and take their seats on either side of the room.

“So can you show me last year’s yearbook?” Theodora asks, flopping on her bed. “I’m dying to check out the guys before I go to school tomorrow. I’ll bet there are so many cuties. There were so many in middle school—and they weren’t even really guys then!”

I stare at her for a second. Now she’s my best buddy? Suddenly we’re talking cute guys? My camerawoman, Nicole, moves from one corner to another. Ah. Duh. Theodora is acting for the cameras. Mental eyeroll. I hand her the yearbook and she flips to the first page.

“Why does Zach Archer’s photo have horns on his head?” she asks, shooting me an “oooh, what’s up between you two” evil grin. “And why are three of his teeth colored in?”

Nooooo! I grab the yearbook and run into the bathroom and shut the door. I hear Theodora laugh.

“Sweetie,” she calls out. “FYI,
that’s
the kind of thing the producers will use.” She laughs again. “Are you ever coming out?”

No.

“Emily,” she singsongs. I hear her coming to the door. “I’ll drop it, okay? If something supposedly juicy goes nowhere, they won’t even include it, okay?”

I open the door. “I would be so mortified.”

“Stop giving them stuff,” she whispers, nodding at Vic and Nicole. She takes the yearbook and sticks it under her mattress, then pats her bed. “Sit. Tell me about school. What’s your favorite subject. No—let me guess. Lunch.”

I laugh and sit down. “Actually, yeah. Well, English, really. I think I want to major in English in college.”

“English?”
she asks, leaning back against her pillow, her arms crossed under her head. “Four years of reading
Moby Dick
and
Great Expectations
and writing essays. Are you kidding?”

I smile. “I like to read.”

“I don’t,” she says. “The last book I read was . . . I can’t even remember. I think it was an unauthorized biography about me.”

I smile. “Was it accurate?”

She rolls her eyes. “The only accurate part was that I grew up in Oak City. They even got the year I was discovered wrong. I was thirteen. Not twelve.”

“Is everything written about you wrong?” I ask. “I mean, is it really all just rumors and lies? You’re not seeing the Bellini Brothers?”

She glances at me. “Nope.”

“You’re really just good friends?”

“Have you guys got enough?” she asks Nicole and Vic. “I’m wiped. And tomorrow’s a big day, okay?”

“Gotcha,” Vic says. “Blair told us to be back at six tomorrow morning to film breakfast and leaving for school, and then arrival. We have permission to shoot the special meet-and-greet assembly and then ten minutes each of two different classes.”

“Fine,” she says. When they leave, she pulls her blanket over her head. I wait a few minutes, but she’s either sleeping or pretending.

“Theodora? You okay?”

“Those assholes aren’t answering their phone,” she says. “Why aren’t they answering?”

“What assholes?”

She yanks the blanket off her head. “Bo and Brandon. I haven’t heard from them in two weeks.” Her expression changes from angry to hurt to just plain sad. “Are they dumping me? They can’t be dumping me. They
love
me.”

Did Theodora Twist just confide in me? “So it
is
true,” I say like an idiot.

“Was
true,” she corrects. “Two weeks is a long time to go without getting back to your girlfriend who you’re supposed to miss.”

I immediately think of the picture of Zach in my desk drawer. “Two weeks was my longest relationship. My friend Belle drew the horns, by the way.”

She glances at me. “Ah. So you and—what was his name?”

“Zach.”

“Zach,” she repeats. “Were you serious?”

“It was only two weeks. Not even—thirteen days. I don’t know.”

“Why’d you break up?” she asks. “And I assume from the horns that
he
dumped
you?”

I nod. “I . . . wouldn’t sleep with him.” Am I really telling Theodora Twist the most personal details of my life? Crazy.

“No one’s ever broken up with me for that reason,” she says, laughing. “I mean because I’ve never
not
slept with someone.”

I stare at her for a moment. “How’d you know you were ready?”

“I wasn’t. I just did it.”

“But if you weren’t ready, why did you?” I ask.

She shrugs. “To get what I wanted at the time. Like, if you wanted to keep Zach, you would have slept with him.”

“I did want to keep him, though,” I point out.

“Not bad enough,” she says.

“Not bad enough to have sex when I’m not ready.”

“Then either you didn’t really like him that much or you’re just a prude.”

“Then I guess I’m just a prude,” I mutter, getting up and flopping onto my own bed.

“You were madly in love, huh?” she asks.

My eyes are filled with tears and I can’t even speak. I hear her come off the bed and around the side of mine.

She sits down on the floor and leans against the wall, facing me. “Sorry, okay? Do you want to give each other pedicures? Do regular teens do that?”

I laugh. “Yeah.”

We spend the next half hour painting each other’s toes ridiculous colors. My big toes are both sparkly green. Hers are blue with yellow dots.

“Well, we can’t go to sleep with wet nails,” she says. “So you’re gonna have to tell me all about Zach until they dry.”