Reel Life Starring Us (28 page)

I look at my watch and realize it's already after seven.

“Where are Alexa and Dad?”

“They'll be there. Don't worry.”

I run upstairs, and as I'm getting my shoes on I notice that the first flakes of snow are falling. It's December and we haven't had snow yet.

There's something about a fresh coat of snow that makes everything feel fresh and clean, like a brand-new start, like everything that's under the snow is done and buried and forgotten and by the time the snow melts, spring will be here and it really will be a new beginning.

I wonder why dinner is a surprise, but dinner surprises in my family are rarely bad things, so I'm not worried. And we're going out to eat on a weeknight like we used to, which feels good and exciting and reassuring.

I decide to text Dina:

She writes back a few seconds later:

I waited so long to have people over this year, but now I feel like I can. Or maybe I just feel like I can have Dina over because she's not going to judge me, because even if my parents
get into a fight, so what? I bet she'll have some insightful thing to say about it. Maybe her parents fight, too. Who knows?

I'm in the car with my mom, and she has the oldies station on and she's singing along, and I realize it's the first time I've heard her sing in a while.

I don't know where we're going, but I don't ask. It's kind of nice not knowing for once, and it's not the bad kind of not knowing, where you're all nervous and tense. It's the good kind, where you know something good is about to happen.

We pull into the parking lot, and of course I know where I am now—Riverbay—my family's favorite restaurant. I'm going to get the salmon scampi pasta, and Alexa will get the filet of sole sandwich, and maybe my parents will share two dishes. But the rolls are the best part. They're always warm and freshly baked, and the butter always melts on them perfectly.

Alexa and my dad are already sitting at a table when we walk in, and there are two bouquets of flowers on the table. One of yellow roses and one of pink roses.

“I have some good news,” my dad says, smiling like he hasn't smiled in a year. Maybe more. “Ready?”

Alexa finishes buttering her roll, takes a bite, and then says, “Ready.”

We all laugh.

“Well, as you may have guessed by the fact that we're out
at Riverbay …” He pauses, smiling. “I got a new job. And not just any job. I'll be structuring deals and solving complicated tax issues—all the stuff I really love.”

He goes on for a few more minutes, using words and expressions that only my mom understands, but right now I don't even care about understanding what he's saying. I'm just enjoying how happy he looks.

My mom raises her glass of red wine, and Alexa raises her Sprite, and I raise my lemonade, and we all clink glasses.

We eat a delicious meal and even get ice cream sundaes for dessert. And we drive home and there's no fighting, and there's no fighting when we get home, either, and for the first time in months and months, I fall asleep without my headphones.

There's no noise that I need to drown out.

The world is calm and peaceful and happy. At least, my world is, and I'm so grateful. Money doesn't fix everything, but it does mean you can pay bills and buy groceries, so it's pretty important.

The thing is, the other stuff—the fancy jeans and the cars and all of that—it isn't important. It's just stuff, extra stuff, that makes people competitive and mean and angry when they don't have it.

I'm glad my dad has a job now and that he'll be busy and working and out of his workout clothes. But it doesn't mean I'm going to jump right back to insisting on having limited-edition jeans.

Video tip: If you're ending something
on a music cue, bring the music up,
and then fade it out.

We finish our last round of interviews
, and it's more of the same stuff—students who feel like outsiders, students who want to be recognized for their talents, lots of people who want the whole being-chipped thing to be abolished.

We're at Chelsea's house, and we're looking through all the footage, and I'm editing it together on her dad's Mac. We got an interview with every kid in our grade, and each one said an interesting fact about himself or herself.

The facts range from “I can eat a whole pizza in fifteen minutes” to “I play the flute” to “I'm part Native American.”

“Isn't it funny how this is so not what we planned to do for this?” I ask Chelsea.

She nods. “Yeah, and it's not cheesy. It's like we're making our point, but not hitting people over the head with it. You know what I mean?”

“And it's almost unanimous,” I add, looking down at the piece of paper with the tally. “People hate chipping.”

“It's called ‘being chipped'!” Chelsea yells, and laughs. “But yeah, only three people said they liked it, and I think they were being sarcastic.”

As I'm editing, I see the clips of the Favorables. Maura saying how she can make the best cheesecake in all of New York State. Katherine saying how she can type faster with one hand than most people can with two. And Trisha saying how she can peel a clementine all in one piece.

They're not boring like I thought they were. They're just regular girls who have unique things to say but never really felt like they could.

“I figured out how we can include Sasha!” Chelsea says, looking over all the footage on the computer. “We can have her do a little introduction.”

Chelsea grabs a piece of paper and a pen and quickly writes something down. She hands it to me to read.

Some people felt like outsiders looking in. Some people were seen as insiders but didn't
feel that way. Some felt angry. Others felt sad. But what we really learned was that everyone had something to offer. Here are the faces and voices of Rockwood Hills Middle School's eighth graders.

    
All different. All accepted. All cool.

“That is so good!” I high-five her. “You're such a good writer. I didn't know that!”

She smiles. “Maybe that's my thing?”

“Yeah!
You
should be the one saying that. You can introduce the video,” I tell her. “It'll mean so much coming from you.”

Chelsea gives me a look. “Come on.”

“No, I mean it.”

“Fine, but we have to incorporate Sasha in another way then,” she says.

“She'll be the last student! The last one, at the end.” I jump up onto Chelsea's leather couch. “It'll be perfect.”

So I take a break from the editing and e-mail Sasha.

Hi Sasha,

Can you believe it? Our video is almost done. We just need one more thing from you—if you can. Would you video yourself just saying your
name and an interesting fact about yourself? We want to put you at the end. We literally taped every single kid in our grade saying their name and an interesting fact. They're all different—some are funny—some are serious. We think it's going to be great.

Thanks!

Dina & Chelsea

“We're waiting for one finishing touch,” I tell Mr. Valakis at school on Monday. We just showed him the video, and he seems perplexed but pleased. “But we still have a few days so once I get it, I can finish it, and then bring the final thing to the gala.”

“It's very interesting, girls,” he says. “I have to be honest, if you had told me you were going to go in this direction, I wouldn't have thought it would work. But it does. And everyone wants to see themselves on screen. And being recognized for something they're proud of—even better.” He pauses. “Even if Colby Flarrety is proud of being able to burp the alphabet.”

We laugh.

“Good job, girls. Really and truly, a job well done.” He shakes our hands. “And I'm excited to see what the finishing touch is.”

Chelsea and I look at each other like we're debating if we should tell him or not.

“We want you to be surprised,” Chelsea says.

He agrees.

Chelsea and I walk to the cafeteria together. “We did it,” I say. “Mr. Valakis likes it. We finished the video! And we even have a few days until the event.”

She smiles and stops walking. “You did it, Dina.” She nibbles the corner of her mouth. “You were the one who cared about it, who thought about it, who found Sasha. You were the one who continued to work on it even after I was a total you-know-what.”

I don't know what to say, because what she's saying is true. Yes, it was what I had to do. But it's also what I wanted to do. “I felt like we could say something with this video, make things better,” I add. “And I knew I couldn't be the only one who hated being chipped and didn't feel accepted. I felt like we could make the video mean something to people. And so we did.”

We get to the cafeteria and part ways. It's not like I'm just going to sit at Chelsea's table. I don't even want to. That's a big thing that's changed, I guess. I like the people I'm friends with.

I get to the Favorables table and tell them about Mr. Valakis. “He likes the video,” I say. “He's actually happy with it. Can you believe it?”

“Yeah.” Katherine laughs. “You're good at that stuff. That's, like, your interesting thing.”

I smile. “Yeah. You're right.”

We eat our sandwiches and talk about tests coming up. No one brings up Chelsea. After that day when everyone was waiting to be interviewed and Chelsea declared that her life wasn't perfect, the Favorables stopped talking about her.

“Hey, girls,” we hear someone say, and obviously everyone knows who it is without even looking. My back is to him, so I turn around and smile. He pulls up a chair.

“So, what's going on?” he asks the table, not only me. I think that's nice. A boy should care about a girl's friends, not just the girl he likes.

“Just bugging out about the math test, as per use,” Trisha says.

“As per use?” Ross makes fun of Trisha's crazy abbreviation, and we all crack up.

“I'm tempted to do that thing where people store formulas in their calculators,” Trisha adds.

Ross makes a face at her and then looks over at me. “She'd never cheat.”

“I know.”

So we sit there talking, and it feels totally calm and normal. The Favorables haven't fainted because Ross is at
their table or anything. I didn't really expect them to, but given the way they acted at the beginning of the year, it could have happened.

Ross stays at our table for the rest of lunch, and we walk out of the cafeteria together like a real couple.

You'd think the whole Ross thing would be what I'm most excited about. But for some reason it's not. It's like a piece of a puzzle—a very, very important piece. But not the only piece.