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Our fan club membership, plus incredible persistence on four different devices, gets us floor seats! After that, we get every calendar we can find (wall, cell phone, the agenda books they give us at school—the ones with inspirational quotes like, “If you reach for the moon, even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”—which isn’t even accurate) and write countdowns on them. We start a series for Tumblr and Instagram too. One hundred thirteen days exactly. We plan to cross off each day together, to share the anticipation.

We sit at the kitchen table, and while Laurel’s mom makes us eggs, plan the entire day out. “What should we wear?” I ask.

“We could get T-shirts.”

“But then we’ll look like everyone else.”

“I know! I know!” Laurel starts jumping up and down in her
seat. She’s so cute. “We could
make
T-shirts. That would really get his attention.”

I try not to sigh. My fantasy of meeting my future husband does not involve looking like a screaming fangirl in a shirt that says
Waiting for My Handsome Prince
in glitter. I read once that Elvis Presley fell in love with his wife because she didn’t think he was that big a deal. Her parents even threatened not to let her see him anymore when she broke curfew. Talk about hard to get. It’s bad enough my only shot at meeting Jonah is at a concert. I have no idea how I’ll get him to notice me, short of a miracle where his eyes meet mine across a crowded basketball arena, and he just
knows.
Still, I plan on leaving in his private limo. It’s destiny. I believe in destiny, so why not?

“T-shirts are unflattering,” I tell Laurel. “We should be different, rock some really fabulous outfits. We have months to plan and budget.”

“Oh, okay.” She looks sort of surprised. I don’t usually show much interest in fashion. “So you’re going to buy clothes that fit and stuff?”

“Yes. Okay. Hey, we could make signs. You’re great at that artsy stuff.” Signs are part of my master plan to get him to notice me. I had this idea about putting a line from the poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which I read is Jonah’s favorite poem. How cool is it that he has a favorite poem? I thought about putting, “Dare to eat a peach,” which is about taking chances. Or “Dare disturb the universe,” which is about not being afraid to be controversial. No one else would know what it meant, just Jonah. He’d get that I’m more than a fangirl—I’m his soul mate. It would be like secret code. I decided not to tell Laurel that yet in case—you know—she thinks I’m crazy. Maybe I’m a little crazy, but you can’t win if you don’t try.

Over breakfast, while Mrs. Mendez reads the newspaper, we
discuss colors. “Jonah’s favorite color is purple,” Laurel says, “so we should use purple poster board.”

“Won’t everyone use purple because it’s his favorite color?”

“Pink and purple?” Laurel amends.

I guess peach would be a bit much. I’m not even sure if they make peach poster board. Orange isn’t the same. “Dare to eat a peach” is probably too weird anyway.

We decide to make two signs.

“What will yours say?” Laurel asks.

Suddenly embarrassed, I say, “I’m not sure yet. Maybe we shouldn’t make it right away. It might get ruined.”

Laurel nods. “The glitter will fall off.”

“Last time I used glitter for a school project, Violet’s lame-o cat, Grimalkin, rubbed against it, then licked herself. She yakked up glitter all over my bed, and all Violet cared about was whether the cat was okay.”

“Grimalkin?” Laurel’s mom looks up from the paper. “She still has that cat?”

“As long as I’ve known her, I guess.”

“She used to talk about that cat in high school,” Laurel’s mom says. “I remember the weird name.”

I forgot that Laurel’s mom had known Violet in school. But that was a long time ago. I remember Dad had his twenty-year reunion a few years ago. So unless Violet got the cat on the last day of high school, it would be even older than that. “It must be a different cat. Cats don’t live that long, do they?”

“Probably not. It was a white cat, I remember, solid white. She had a picture of it in her locker. We thought that was so . . .” Her voice trails off.

“You can say it. So weird.” Violet’s cat, Grimalkin, is white. It doesn’t seem that old at all, though. “Maybe she just gives all her
cats the same name, like Lisa on
The Simpsons.
” Violet is exactly that weird.

“Let’s make the posters here,” Laurel suggests. “That way, Grimalkin Five won’t eat the glitter.”

I giggle. I know mine will be purple and gold, colors of royalty. But I’ll wear peach to stand out from the throngs of girls wearing purple.

Sunday afternoon, Dad shows up at Laurel’s house, unannounced. I gather my belongings . . . slowly and come to the door when Mrs. Mendez calls my name for the third time.

“Hey,” he says when I’m in the car. “We missed you.”

“Really? I thought you and Violet liked having alone time. It gives you a chance to make out. Constantly.” Since Violet stopped liking me, it seems like my dad and I never do anything together, so this was one of the few chances I had to talk to him alone.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means no one’s parents do that. It’s super-weird and makes me uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” His arm sort of flexes, holding the wheel.

“Did you see how mad she was that I got the lead in the play? She practically burst into flames when I told her. She’s never happy when anything good happens to me.”

“Hey, wait, what’s bringing this on?”

“She hates me. She’s jealous. Or I remind her of Mom.”

“That’s crazy. You look much more like me.”

His answer is so immediate that I know he thought about it before. I decide to ask him the question I’ve been wondering about.

“Why didn’t you marry her in the first place? Why did you choose Mom?”

He brakes to avoid a squirrel that runs in front of our car. I pitch forward. Silence. Or as silent as it can get in our neighborhood with a lawn mower going, a small dog yapping its head off, all the tranquil joys of suburbia.

Finally, he says, “Believe me, that’s a sore spot for Violet.”

“I bet it is.” It’s like I thought. She hated my mother for taking Dad. And that’s why she hates me.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to her. We were friends, always together, and then, one day, I just . . . stopped. I knew Violet had a crush on me, but she was sort of homely and I just wanted Jennifer. There was never a time when I didn’t like your mother. Jen was so pretty, so much more outgoing and confident than I could ever be. And, since she hated Violet’s guts, I had to choose.”

Wait. I want to rewind to the part where he said Violet was homely.

“You’re saying you dumped Violet because she was ugly? Ugly?”

“Well, not dumped her. We weren’t dating.”

“But Violet was
ugly
?”

He shrugs. “I guess she was a late bloomer.”

“So she had acne? Or was overweight?”

“No, not that. A bad nose and stuff. Not much of a chin. I don’t know, she was homely. Everyone made fun of her. Stop asking me about it.”

I feel a twinge of pity for poor Violet, ugly and with one friend, my dad. Then he ditched her for the pretty cheerleader. I push back the feeling that my mom was a mean girl. But I remember what Violet said about the cat being her best friend when she was a teen, what Laurel’s mom said about her even having pictures of the cat in her locker, probably to get her through the day when everyone picked on her. It was sad.

But Violet isn’t sad and pathetic anymore.

“No. What happened? Did she get plastic surgery?” I always knew Violet had work done.

Dad looks surprised. “No. I mean, I don’t think so. She was just pretty in high school. It was sort of weird. Like one day I looked at her, and she wasn’t ugly anymore. I don’t know.”

I shake my head. “You get that Violet is, like, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?”

“I know. Some people are just late bloomers, I guess.”

“You said that before.”

We’re in our driveway. Dad says, “Want to go out with us for pizza?”

I throw open the car door. “Not really. I ate at Laurel’s. And I have homework.” Both are lies. I start toward the house.

Dad follows me. “Hey, I think we should eat one meal together the whole weekend.”

I keep walking. Violet intercepts him, kissing him. I start upstairs.

When I reach the steps, stupid Grimalkin throws herself at my legs, claws out, and rakes them down my calf.

“Ouch!” Reflexively, I kick at the cat to get her off me.

“Don’t do that!” Violet shrieks. “She’s old!”

“She attacked me out of the blue!” I scream back. Like when that monkey went after my mother.

The cat ran—ran like a kitten—toward Violet and rubbed against her legs.

After they leave for dinner, I go to Dad’s closet, to a box where he keeps old yearbooks and stuff. I used to love looking at the photos of Mom and Dad, power couple. Mom was so beautiful in her dance team uniform and her homecoming dress. I never looked for pictures of Violet before.

First, I check the high school ones. Violet’s there, tall and beautiful as expected, star of the school play in a big black-and-white
picture, and on the dance team. The pictures could have been taken yesterday. Nothing has changed except her poufy 1980s hairstyle.

But when I look further back, to eighth grade, the name, Violet Appel, reveals an awkward, hunched girl with a crooked nose, an overbite, and no eyelashes. I only recognize her from the name.

In a group photo, with the middle school choir, she stands in front, one of the shortest.

In the high school dance team photos, tenth grade Violet is in the center of the back row, statuesque and beautiful.

Violet could have gotten a nose job.

She could have gotten a boob job, her eyelashes dyed, braces, makeup.

But you can’t get surgery to grow six inches in two years, which is what she did.

The change is like magic.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I have
Oliver!
rehearsal every day after school. It’s a great Violet-avoidance ploy, but also, I’m admitting to myself that I’m not completely miserable about being Oliver. In fact, I’m glad Laurel got me to try out. I’ve always thought I hated being the center of attention. Now I realize I hate being the center of attention
for my looks.
I’m sick of everyone fawning over my hair, my eyes, liking me because of how I look—or hating me for the same reason. But, as Oliver, with a cap covering my hair, I’m getting attention for my singing and acting. Not that I want to be an actress or anything, but it’s fun for now.

Yesterday, we practiced a scene where Oliver’s locked in the funeral parlor alone, overnight. At tryouts, people sniffled when I sang “Where Is Love?” Now they flat out bawled. It feels great that people care so much.

Today, we’re practicing a scene Laurel’s character is in. It takes place in the funeral home too. In it, a bully named Noah is picking on Oliver. He’s a lot bigger, so Oliver just takes it. But then, Noah insults Oliver’s mother, and Oliver goes nuts on him, pushing Noah into a coffin and kicking him. Charlotte, Noah’s girlfriend, runs in screaming her head off. Laurel had to scream at the audition, and that’s why she got the part. She’s a great screamer. Once, she saw a marine toad eating dog food on her patio, and she screamed so loud the neighbors called 911.

I can so relate to Oliver getting mad at someone insulting his mother. Violet always makes little comments about mine when Dad isn’t around to hear. Like last year, the lady next door commented that I was growing up pretty, just like my mom. Violet said yeah, Dad had been so taken with Mom’s beauty (yes, she’d actually said, “taken with”—she talks like that) that he hadn’t noticed how dumb she was. Mrs. Hernandez acted like maybe she’d heard Violet wrong. I felt like one of those cartoon characters, when they have smoke coming out of their ears. But, of course, blowing Violet up was out of the question.

Now, when Tedder Strasky, the guy who plays Noah, says to Oliver (me), “Your mother was a real bad ’un,” I just picture Violet’s face on Tedder’s body, and I launch myself at him as hard as I can. I figure I can’t really hurt him because Tedder’s at least a foot taller than I am and outweighs me by a hundred pounds. But, to my surprise, he gives a yowl that doesn’t sound like acting and falls on his butt, then slides to the edge of the stage. Goose and Willow are sitting in front, but they clear out real quick when Tedder goes barreling toward them. Tedder just sits there, winded, so I can’t push him into the coffin.

When Mrs. Connors yells, “Cut!” Tedder turns to me.

“Man, you’re strong, girl. I did not see that coming.” He looks annoyed, even though he’s trying to laugh.

“Oh, sorry.” I look down. “Guess I really got into the part.”

“No, it was good. It was kinda hot. I just wasn’t prepared.”

I ignore the “kinda hot,” but say, “Thanks.”

“Try not to maim the other actors, Celine,” Mrs. Connors calls.

“Will do.” I turn away, blushing, but not before I see Goose take his seat again and give me a thumbs-up. He mouths a word:
warrior.
Yeah, that’s me. I roll my eyes.

We try it again, and now Tedder’s ready for me. Connors says, “Remember what it was like when she took you by surprise. That was really good.”

I’m hoping we’re going to finish up with the funeral home scene so Laurel’s mom can drive me home, and I don’t have to bother Dad or, worse, Violet. But after I punch Tedder in the gut (gently) for the fourth time, Mrs. Connors says, “Good work. I think we can move on.” She calls Goose onstage for the scene where Oliver and the Artful Dodger first meet.

“Thank God,” Tedder says. “Do I get padding for the actual show?”

Everyone laughs, but I apologize again. Even though I think he’s being a big baby at this point.

“Don’t worry about it, little girl. I can handle you.” I don’t think he’s totally kidding.

“You’ve got some real anger management problems, huh?” Goose says when he comes onstage.

Well, I do, but I say, “I feel really bad.”

“Don’t. Strasky’s exactly like the character he plays. He was a huge bully in middle school. He actually did steal people’s lunch money. It’s not just a cliché. It would almost be worth playing Oliver to get a chance to beat him up.”

“You could take him,” I say. “He obviously has problems dealing with someone with a low center of gravity.”

“I think he had trouble dealing with a girl—he couldn’t just break your face. But I like that: low center of gravity. I’m not short. I just have a low center of gravity.”

“Go out for wrestling,” I suggest.

“Can’t mess up my pretty face for showbiz.” He poses like one of those guys on the Abercrombie bag—except with a shirt.

Mrs. Connors calls for us to start. She blocks the scene up to the song and runs through it a few times. Then, she glances at her watch. “We’ll start ‘Consider Yourself’ tomorrow.”

I look at my watch too. Five-thirty. Too early for Dad to pick me up, perfect for Violet. I start down the steps.

“What?” Goose was walking toward Willow, who stayed to wait for him. But he stops and looks over his shoulder at me.

“Hmm?” I turn back.

“You sighed.”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just too early for my dad to pick me up, and Laurel just left. It’s okay, I can walk.”

“I was just about to offer you a ride.” He looks at Willow. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, no,” Willow says in a fake Cockney accent. “We can give ’er a lift. You ’av to talk Cockney, though.”

“What? Oh . . . um, I only live a wee bite awie from he-ah.” It sounds more Irish than Cockney, but Willow nods. I remember what Violet said about speaking in a British accent during
My Fair Lady
rehearsals.

“We’re gonna stop at Tawget first,” Goose says. “Ye mind?”

“No, that’s fine.” I have to outline a chapter for chem, but I’d still rather get home closer to when Dad does.

“Why are we goin’ to Tawget awl of a su’in?” Willow asks as we walks out.

“’Member wot I tole you?” Goose says.

Willow grins. “Oh, it’s a prahnk.”

“Not a prahnk,” Goose says. “A sociological experiment.”

“You ’av way too much time on your hands,” Willow says.

I laugh. Goose does seem to have a day with a few more hours in it than everyone else’s. In addition to the timber prank, the other day he got someone to hide a walkie-talkie in the dropped ceiling in the dressing room, then talked into the other one, yelling, “Let me out! Let me out!” Half the cast thought he was stuck up there.

“I’m still cracking up about the ceiling thing,” I say.

“See there,” he says to Willow. “And she is a h’independent observer.”

Willow musses his hair. “I ’eard about this school where these kids released three pigs, labeled one, two, an’ faw. The principal spent the ’ole day, looking fer number three. You should do that.”

“As soon as I find someone to give me three pigs. Do you ’av any pigs, Celine?”

I shake my head.

“Maybe for the experiment, we shouldn’t do the accents,” Goose says. “It kind of makes us seem . . . weird.”

“You think the accents make us seem weird?” Willow says, “not, say, your personality?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” I agree, relieved.

We’re in the school parking lot. Goose holds up his keys, and a blue Civic beeps. I’d assumed Willow would be driving, which was stupid. Still, I wonder how he reaches the pedals.

“Special pedals,” he says, reading my mind.

“What?” I say.

“My car,” he says. “I call her Nelly. She has extended pedals. People always wonder how I can reach. So I’m saving you the trouble of asking or rubbernecking from the backseat.”

“That’s cool,” I say, embarrassed at being so obvious. And average.

We get in the car, a typically messy boy’s car with crumpled assignments and McDonald’s fry wrappers. “Sorry it’s such a mess,” Goose says. “I drive my brothers and sister around sometimes.”

“Sure, and they’re always leaving their chem homework.” Willow uncrumples a paper she almost sat on. “You’d get better grades if you handed this stuff in sometimes. And fasten your seat belt.”

“God, stop being such a harassenger,” Goose whines, but he does the seat belt. “Mrs. McKinney said she’d take the homework late. She loves me. Everyone loves me.”

“Don’t know how you talked her into that,” Willow says. “But remind me to staple it to your forehead tomorrow.” She mimes stapling it.

“So what’s the sociological experiment?” I ask.

“Yes,” Willow says, “what is this grand idea that’s keeping me from studying for my gov test tomorrow?”

“Selfies with strangers!” Goose says. He’s turned toward me, backing up the car, so I guess he sees the blank look on my face as well as I see the grin on his. “You go to a public place, walk up to people, and take a selfie with them. Someone else films their reactions.”

“And you don’t get beat up?” This is so not something I can do.

“Not so far. I only did it once before. A few people got weirded out, but others thought it was funny.”

“I’ll get the person with a can of pepper spray.” Still, I wish I were like him. I’ve spent my whole life hating when people looked at me. Goose seems to love being the center of attention. It must be cool to be so comfortable in his skin. “Can I be the one filming it?” I know I’m a geek, but I suspect Goose wants an audience more than anything else anyway.

“We take turns,” Willow says. “It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

“Besides, you ladies are so hot, people’d probably rather have their picture taken with you than me.”

Willow slaps Goose’s shoulder. “Just for that, you’re going first.
That way, if we get thrown out for harassing people, there won’t be any photographic evidence of me being there.” But she’s laughing.

“Gladly,” Goose says.

We’re near Target now, and I feel a little nervous, but also, sort of anticipating. Goose pulls into the parking lot and parks near where an old lady is loading bags into her car. “How about her?” Willow asks him.

“The old lady?” Goose asks. “Easy.”

Before I can even process what he’s doing, Goose is out of the car and running up to the old lady. “Smile!” he yells.

“What?” the old lady says as he stands next to her. She’s not much taller than he is, and at first she looks a little freaked out. “What are you doing?”

“Just a picture?” he asks. “Please? And I’ll help you with your bags.”

Finally, the old lady smiles, and Goose snaps the picture with his phone. Willow’s filming the whole thing.

“Why do you want my picture?” the old lady says.

“No reason,” Goose says. “You look beautiful. Can I help you with those?” He grabs one of her bags by the handles.

The old lady looks a little confused, but when Goose puts the groceries into her car, she smiles again. “Aren’t you sweet?”

“Yes. Yes, I am. Can we all get a picture with you?”

She notices me and Willow, who is still filming. “Oh, aren’t you pretty girls? Of course. You made my day.”

We gather around. Goose takes a selfie of all of us, and we finish helping the lady with her bags. She tries to give Goose a dollar, but he says, “Free service.”

“Well, bless you,” she says.

We walk away, Willow saying, “It’s easy if you’re going to offer to load their bags.”

“What can I tell you? I’m just a wonderful person,” Goose says. “Now, I’m blessed too.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “It could have gone another way, and she could have kicked him in the face when he touched her groceries.”

“She did seem a little like a ninja,” Willow says.

“I’m nonthreatening,” Goose says. “We shouldn’t approach anyone with kids, though. They’ll think we’re pervs.”

“Good thought,” I say.

Willow goes next, accosting a nerdy-looking guy our age in the entrance. He’s happy when she runs up next to him to take a picture.

“He was looking at your boobs,” Goose says when she comes back. “That’s easy too.”

“He was
not
looking at my boobs. Why can’t you acknowledge my gifts?”

“I see your gifts. And so did he. Show me the picture then.”

Willow gets out her phone and glances at it. “Okay, so he was looking at my boobs. At least I didn’t have to do chores for him.”

Next, we go to accessories and try on knitted hats and scarves. “Ooh, put on that red hat,” Goose says. I put on a red hat and a striped scarf that looks like
Where’s Waldo?
It’s silly, but Goose takes my picture. “Model it, darling!”

Willow takes another photo with a different rando who also looks at her chest, but when Goose tries to take one with a girl our age, her boyfriend shows up and gets mad. We take more pictures of each other too, and a selfie of all three of us. Then, we head for the grocery section.

Goose says, “Your turn, Celine.”

“Hey, I’m just along for the ride.”

“No such thing as a free ride,” Goose says. “You need to come out of your shell. You’re in theatah now.”

“You’d better do it,” Willow says. “Otherwise, I’ll never get home
to study for my test.” Willow looks around for a target. “How about her?”

She points to a woman. I can’t tell how old she is, except she’s older than us. She’s in the frozen food section. She’s wearing sort of a crazy outfit, a long, green, velvet skirt, black boots, and a black turtleneck. Her dark hair comes to her waist and has one purple streak. I’d actually love to get a picture of her to show Laurel. She’d like her style. And she looks nice.

“Okay,” I tell Goose. “I’m going in.”

I ready my phone, then run up to the woman, trying to be as confident as Goose and Willow. “Selfies with strangers! Smile!” And I snap her photo.

“Oh, look at you,” she says. “So pretty. Is this some kind of school project?”

“Yes. Sort of.”

“Okay. Well, glad I can help. What’s your name?”

“Celine.” I am sooo embarrassed. “Celine Columbo.”

“Columbo.” Her eyes narrow in recognition. “Any relation to Greg Columbo?”