Pop Kids (38 page)

This isn’t good.
She can get vindictive when she’s pissed off. Freshman year, after Mia copied her hairstyle, Stella got her wasted then shaved her BFF’s head.

“We’re fucking Filmgreats.” I proclaim, eschewing the snack cake. “How could she possibly care what I do with Holly?”

With a sneer, Lynch shrugs. “I guess cuz she’s your girlfriend.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. The status.” I rise to take action. “I guess I’d better go clear up this BF thing.”

I avoid Stella for the rest of the day. After final period, I text Holly to ask her for a ride home and meet her at the less congested hillside end of the parking lot.

Fully reclined in her passenger seat, I watch my platinum chauffeur pull into exit traffic. She waves at someone who I can’t see and as “How Soon Is Now” eases through the speakers so begins the best twenty-four minutes that I’ve spent since last Friday.

Holly lightly sings along to Moz, soothing me with her contralto. Heat from the VW vents warms my feet. Rain batters the windshield.

I’d tell her everything about Saturday—Mr. Snow, the blood, the pit-stop confession. I’d worry over MK’s procreation and Ash’s imminent defection, but I don’t have the strength. I’d rather just listen to her.

“So…” Sighing, I reach up to touch her hair. “What do you know about cat sharks?”

“A lot, they’re ground sharks, dogfish…” Keeping her perfect posture, she glances down at me, and smiles. “What do you know about Spanish teachers having sex with high school girls?”

“You heard about that huh?” I drop my hand and fall back into my seat.

Waffle-sole footprints are pressed against the roof’s lining. I turn to watch the rain.

“Sarah filled me in on most of it. It sounds like Saturday was pretty sketchy.” Holly pokes my side. “Looks like you should have just hung out with me.”

“Yeah, seriously.” Jolting, I face her smirk.

Outside her window, pacing us and biting a soggy joint, Sparky’s stretching his bloody smile behind an orange and silver Flip cam.

“I absolutely should have.” I turn away and stare up at the girl-sized footprints.

“It’s really too bad. Mom was out all night. No parents anywhere … no teachers—”

The mohawked mess jumps onto the hood, flipping me off while he films.

“Hey, c’mon you don’t need to be evil.” Popping up, I point toward the muddy clearing alongside Iman’s winding driveway. “Pull over here, I’ll make it up to you.”

“Sounds romantic.” Caressing my cheek with the back of her ravishing right index finger, Holly speeds past the shoulder. “But damn—”

Sparky tumbles off the hood.

“We’re already at your house.”

“Okay.” I GO SMiLE. “But can I at least have a kiss goodbye? Just so I can remember what I missed out on?”

Parking in front of the garage, Holly accepts my bargain. She cranks the e-brake and climbs on top of me. We kiss. I taste orange cream. I begin sliding my hand up her sweatshirt.

“Mike.” She giggles, grabbing my wrist. “I think I can see your dad in the backyard … and I think he’s … painting?”

Silently, I curse Gina’s new work schedule as my Southern California shelter rolls off, sending me into the storm.

“So Stella told you about Saturday?” Raising my seat, I step out of the car, open my umbrella, and obscure Frank from her sight. “She was acting kinda weird today. She hasn’t been a bitch to you has she?”

“No, not at all. She even brought me some of my favorite cocoa. It’s Mexican. I think she got it at a chocolate bar in the Mission.”

“Oh. Cool. She probably went there to try and get drunk after she realized what she did to her hair.”

“Ugh, I love it! Don’t you?”

“Really?” My laugh mists through the cold. “It looks like a failed attempt at yours.”

“You think so?” Holly twists her a-line. “Thanks!”

As she plays with her snowy locks, her aqua eyes alight with virginal glow. She’s beaming. She is adorable.

I don’t want her to go. I want her to come in and tell me about the second season of
El Fin
. I want her to lie down on my red sheets and hand over her golden bullet while Frank paints naked beneath a golf umbrella. I want her to assure me that The Twin’s parents are as much in the dark about The Premieres as they are about the advent of man. I want her to tell me that Sparky is dead or forgetful. I want her to insist that I run lines with her. I want her to eat her banana bread.

“Hey, you still haven’t met my cat. Do you wanna come in for a minute?” I smile, as big as my yellow umbrella.

“Oh…I’d better get home. I’m gonna make some of Mom’s wine disappear before she gets back from the derm.” Rain blows through door onto her red Naked & Famous denim. She doesn’t care. “I can get away with it if the bottle’s already open.”

With admiration for her genius plan to subvert her mother’s drinking, I thank Holly for the ride, watch her roll down the hill, and then I slosh up our front steps.

“Well, Eddie … ”

Tapping on my window, I wave. With a start, Frank drops his joint.

“It may not be tonight, but you’ll meet her soon. And you’re gonna love her.”

Following me to my bed and padding onto my chest, my furry confidant reminds me that I still need to make the birthday invitations.

“I know, I know.” I scratch behind her ear. “Let’s take a quick nap first. Eddie, my pet, I am exhausted.”

Chapter 59

Along with my lunch and freshly drained thermos, I stuff my umbrella into my locker. This cloudy Tuesday morning snuck up and attacked me during my nap. I’ve yet to make the ‘Birthday Blow-off’ invites. But my procrastination is paying off. As Bickle escorts me to first period, Holly detaches herself from a female Filmgreat trifecta and trots up.

“I hear it’s your birthday soon!” Wearing a faded Cat’s shirt under her hoodie, she squeezes my arm.

Stella, whispering to Mia, watches us from the quad. I still haven’t discussed the specific terms of our BF/GF agreement with the moody Great, nor have I gotten Blake’s real info from her. I need to do both. But in reverse order.

“Yep! Friday.” With a glance, I relieve Bickle from his guard. “I’ll be eighteen!”

“You know what
else
happens on Friday?” She flicks my tie.

“I reach my sexual peak?”

Stella glances over. Bickle is holding hands with Mia.

“Maybe.” Half smiling, Holly gives her lively anime hair a quick, rigid, heart-melting toss. “But I was talking about wine tasting in Marin.”

I’m sure I look perplexed.

“Mike, my mom will be gone all night. You should come over.”

“Yes I should!” I mentally edit Friday out of the unmade invitations for the three-in-row. “What time?”

“Seven. She should be long gone by then. Can you get a ride?”

“Totally, I’ll be there.” As I text the date into my calendar, Bobby, with some old time crooner blaring through his Dre Beats, pats my back on his way to the gym.

“Yeah? You sure?” Twisting her shark pin, Holly considerately asks, “You’re not going to have a birthday Premiere? Won’t your fans be disappointed?”

The sinister yellow eyes on her shirt peer out at me.

“Oh well, yeah.”
I flit a moth away from her hair.
“I was thinking about throwing one but, you know, I’d really rather just stay in with you. That sounds way more fun.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Kissing my cheek, she leaves me and glides toward the History building.

Rather than admiring the curvature of her new pink jeans, I watch more black informants fly from my mouth into the grey morning sky. They settle over Stella, wreathing her blonde hair, and she blows me a kiss.

On this side of campus, there’s no cell reception indoors. As I stand in front of the gym, the rain mists under the overhang. It blurs my touch screen and compromises my blow dry. After accepting twenty-seven new friends, I am about to make the dash to the Science building when I hear heel clicks. They sound pink. Exposed, I await unchecked verbal punishment, but when Stella
tiks
around the corner, she gives me shelter. Squeezing me beneath her Hello Kitty umbrella, she takes my arm and strolls me to Biology.

Notably sober and magnanimously refraining from bringing up my D-hole Date, Stella seems to be back in a good mood. And she’s looking fabulous. Her cleavage is spilling out of her pea coat. Her upsetting hair is starting to become her and though she won’t shut up about being the next extreme teen reality queen, her sex hum is turned up high enough to sweeten her incessant bragging. Sharing the thick, moist air of our vinyl dome, I’m finding myself as attracted to her as I was before we started touching.

“So, Babe…” After reconfirming Blake’s email and her promise to put in a good word for me, she purses her phone. “You gonna have a totally insane birthday Premiere or what?”

Her Betsy bag jangles as she shakes out her umbrella in the breezeway outside the lab room.

“Obviously! But it’s gonna be on Saturday … ” I mouth ‘hey’ at Grey and Crimson as they pass. Their umbrellas match their sweaters. “I still need to make the invitations…”

“Perfect.” Nuzzling me, Stella purrs in my ear. “That means you’re coming over on Friday. I’ve got a surprise for you, and you won’t have to get all cute and nervous because Mom’s gonna be mushrooming all weekend.”

On 452 Reisling, Katy Perry frosts herself in The Pink Room.

Inhaling October rain and watermelon with my back against a stucco wall, I struggle to find a way to make this double-booking work.
There’s no way I’m canceling on Holly
.

“Rockin!’” I agree.

Stella presses me against the Science building and licks me. I can feel her cool satisfaction glistening on my cheek as she hums, “Tell your folks that you’re gaming at Lynch’s. You’re not gonna want to leave.”

“I can totally do that … but I’ll have to come pretty late. If I don’t celebrate with them that night they’ll be really bummed,” I appeal.

Stella’s mood palpably drops.

“You know, it’s a whole big thing.” Attempting to reason away the unexpected tension, I further detail, “Mom makes homemade pasta, Dad make’s fresh pesto with his basil … we watch the Godfather Trilogy. … Pinky’s gonna be there—”

“Oh yeah. I know…” With a touch of resentment, she snaps her gum. “Pinky.”

The red headed grave cutter mutters ‘pink sucks’ before ducking through the door next to us.

“That’s actually perfect, Babe.” Shaking off her fleeting sour, Stella reactivates her sugary hum and adjusts my bangs. “Later is better. It may take me a while to get your present ready anyway.”

Standing in front of a very underwhelming chalkboard illustration of the Prefrontal Cortex, my teacher is droning on about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Ignoring him, practicing my autograph on a Safeway-bag-book-cover, I’m feeling like things are getting back to normal. This weekend is going to be the best.
I’ll see Holly. Then Stella. Then, on Saturday, along with a huge cast of Extras, I’ll have a late birthday celebration with them both. I wonder if I should invite Blake
.

“
Aren’t you going to invite us, love?” Each holding a puffy kitten, three Sweater Girls wearing angora union jack bra-and-panty sets to accompany their new British accents have walked in the back door.

“Oh, yeah, thanks for reminding me” I whisper back. “You ladies are definitely invited. I still haven’t made the invi—”

“You know,” The crimson Himalayan advises, “You should really have your bee bring some of his wrestling teammates in case any vengeful Sparks boys show up … or at least this time make sure that none of the Extras are violent homophobes.”

“Or teachers,” the canary yellow cat demands before Cream’s creamy feline finalizes, “Or fertile Christians. The Christians are so frightening.”

“That’s a good idea.” As a torch bearing, mohawked mob in bloody tall-tees crusades across The Palace stage to detain my guests and try them for heresy, I shove my hand in my pocket. “I’ll do that.”

Stepping in time with the muffled meter of my clicking Zippo, the cats walk their sweaters out of the classroom.