Royally Crushed (49 page)
Authors: Niki Burnham
Oooh, now that’s got my interest. “All right. I never told a guy I loved him before. But I do love you.”
He starts to lean in to kiss me, but stops with his mouth about an inch from mine. “Wait a minute,” he says. “Do we kiss if it’s an ‘I never’ or kiss if it’s something we have done?”
“Does it matter?”
He doesn’t answer. He just gives me what probably rates as the best kiss of my life. The kind that lets me know exactly what he’s thinking.
From: [email protected]
Subject: THE PARTY!
Hey Val,
OMG. You missed a KILLER Oscar party at my house last night.
First, you know it’s always a girl thing. Just the four of us. Well, not half an hour into the preshow, when Angelina Jolie’s strutting along the red carpet showing off her numerous assets, Jeremy shows up. He has flowers in hand (no, really), and he tells Christie how sorry he is for bailing on her the last few weeks while he’s been marathon training. She, of course, loves the whole sappy flowers-with-apology routine, so she invites him to stay. And they are beyond mushy now, lemme tell you. It’s blinding to see it.
Jeremy comes up for air (from kissing Christie) long enough to ask if he can call David Anderson. Just ’cause we’re all having so much fun watching the Oscars and it’s Saturday night and all. So about fifteen minutes after Jeremy gets there, David shows up.
Then Natalie—being her late self—finally arrives. Her parents let her come, since she swore to them she wouldn’t go anywhere else except straight to my house and back, yadda yadda yadda. Apparently, they had some dinner party with Dr. and Mrs. Petrie last night and Natalie actually behaved herself just so she could come. (I know, I know, I found it very hard to believe.)
Well—guess what? There was another reason she was on her best behavior for her parents.
SHE BROUGHT JOHN!!!
No warning. She didn’t ask me beforehand or even give me a hint she might bring a guest. She just brought him. (Not that this was a problem . . . it was just a shock.)
And you know what? John’s actually pretty cool. Very much a chilled-out type and not someone who’ll take Nat’s snarky comments seriously (which is key).
That’s not even the best part of the night.
Sit down. This is huge.
Okay . . . you sitting?
After I get my fill of tuxedos and gowns, I go to the kitchen for more Diet Coke. I turn around to walk back to the family room and realize that David has followed me to the kitchen.
Get this: He was trying to get me alone because he wanted to know if maybe we could go out sometime.
I actually laughed in his face. I didn’t mean to, I swear.
He’s a nice enough guy and all But CAN YOU IMAGINE? After all these years of him going for the big-boob cheerleader types. Then him finally going after you (after waking up to the fact that you are COOL). Now he comes clawing at my door.
Needless to say, once I managed to stop laughing, I told him no.
He was really cool about it, though. (Surprise, surprise.) In fact, we hung out in the kitchen for a while, making fun of the two lovebird couples in the family room. (And man, were they lovey-dovey. I swear, I’ve never seen Christie or Nat so happy. Go figure.)
I’m sure you’ll get the scoop from Christie and Nat once they wake up and can get on e-mail, but since they’re going to be all gushy when they write and will probably go on and on with their whole I-had-this-GUY-thing-happen-to-me crap, I figured you ought to hear my totally unbiased perspective on it all. And I figured you’d want to know that all is right with the world.
Love,
Jules, single girl extraordinaire and proud of it
PS—So tell me about your night with Georg. Yeah, we knew all about it. How else do you think a total Oscar virgin like him would know how to find a network over there carrying
the preshow in English? Or how you can’t watch without popcorn? Or who might’ve tipped him off on how to ditch that Steffi chick you whined to us about when you were home for vacation?
PPS—Blame your dad. He gave Christie’s e-mail address to Georg so he could get some coaching from those of us who love you best.
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: THE PARTY!
Dear Coolest Jules,
Thanks for the inside scoop on the Oscar party. Of course you know I trust your version of events as the One True Story. (Ha. I’m SO gonna e-mail Christie . . .)
I’m very happy for Christie and for Nat. You’re gonna love this, though: I literally fell out of my chair laughing reading about David, so your warning to sit down before I read about it didn’t do much good. I was leaning back in the chair, tears running down my face, and somehow my chair fell over backward. I stuck out an arm to save myself, but still ended up whacking my head on the wall.
Even worse, Dad came running into my room to see what
happened and I was just sprawled on the floor, laughing so hard I thought I might actually throw up. Now he thinks I’m insane because I’m laughing-slash-crying while alone in my room.
Anyway—I’m about to head out with Dad to run errands. He’s taking me to the Schwerinborg Walmart. No kidding . . . they have Walmart here. It’s like they’re going for world domination. (Even worse than McDonald’s, which I will confess I am having total cravings for.) But as soon as I get home, I’ll send a longer e-mail and tell you everything about my completely romantic, perfect night. (Though since apparently you guys were planning this with Georg ahead of time, you know a lot of it already. This is why you, Nat, and Christie are my absolute A-list and I will love you forever.)
In the meantime, I’ll sum it up this way: I totally agree with you. I needed to tell Georg about David, so I did. And now all is right with the world. Well, other than the large purple lump that’s bound to show up on my noggin, but since I have Georg to kiss it and make it all better, it’s not a major concern. More info later, post-Walmart.
TTYS,
Val, not a single girl extraordinaire . . . but very much happy with that
About the Author
Niki Burnham
is the RITA Award–winning author of several novels for teens, including
Sticky Fingers
,
Goddess Games
, and
Scary Beautiful
. She attended high school in Germany, but unlike her character Valerie Winslow, Niki never lived in a palace or met a prince.
After high school Niki received her BA from Colorado State University and both a law degree and a master’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan. She currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts. You can visit her website, post to her message boards, or sign up for her e-newsletter at
www.nikiburnham.com
.
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Super Freak
Olivia Phillips’s first-ever celebrity sighting
was going all wrong.
She had just landed flat on her butt, her long legs splayed at awkward angles across a busy sidewalk in the middle of central London. She had a discarded cigarette butt stuck to her jeans, her face was splotchy, and her curly brown hair was stuck to her lip gloss. Though she didn’t want to look, she was pretty sure the bottom of one leg of her jeans had crept up above the cuff of her athletic sock and gotten stuck there.
Liv—as her friends called her—couldn’t remember a time in recent history she had looked
less
fabulous.
Tragically, it was at this very moment that Josh Cameron,
International Pop Star and
Celeb
magazine’s Hottest Guy, was staring straight at her.
The
Josh Cameron, whom Liv had fantasized about a million and three times, was standing less than two feet away, casting a shadow from his perfect body onto Liv’s disheveled figure on the sidewalk.
Why,
Liv wondered,
do things like this always happen to me?
She had arrived in London from Ann Arbor, Michigan, less than two hours earlier . . . and she had already made a complete fool of herself in front of the world’s biggest celebrity.
How is this even possible?!
Because Liv was Liv. And she had a tendency to turn ordinary embarrassing moments into extraordinarily embarrassing ones—which meant this moment could get a whole lot worse. And it did.
Looking up at Josh Cameron, Liv was unable to stop a goofy, uncomfortable sort of smile from spreading across her face. She lifted her hand in a little wave and—very much against her will—blurted out, “Cheerio!”
Three hours earlier . . .
Gazing out the airplane window at London’s sprawling suburbs miles below her, Liv couldn’t believe she was actually here. In her sleep-deprived state, it still didn’t feel real that
she had been selected as one of Music Mix Europe’s summer interns. But now that she was settled into a cramped window seat and minutes away from landing on the other side of the Atlantic, she finally let it sink in: She would be living in London!
Liv had spent every waking minute since she had gotten her acceptance letter daydreaming about days surrounded by rock stars and nights out tra-la-la-ing from club to club. Of course, deep down, she knew the Music Mix internship would be a lot of work, too. But she had somehow managed to avoid thinking about that part. Why not focus on the good stuff?
When the plane landed, Liv grabbed her black wheelie from baggage claim and followed airport signs to the Gatwick Express. Hustling through the terminal with her suitcase and overstuffed carry-on tote, Liv’s excitement bubbled into giddiness. She heaved her stuff onto the train into the city, and a chirpy English voice wished her a good day and a pleasant journey. She just loved the British accent. It always sounded so civilized and kind.
The train began to roll toward downtown London as Liv flipped through the on-board magazine, reading about London’s neighborhoods. Music Mix was setting her up with an apartment as part of the internship—she couldn’t wait to find out where her roommates would be from,
and where they would be living. Notting Hill, Chelsea, Greenwich . . . they all sounded fantastic.
Since she had never been anywhere more exotic than Ely, Minnesota, they all sounded a little intimidating and foreign, too. She had only lived away from home once before (Liv always gagged when she thought about that terrible summer her dad had decided to send her to an all-girls camp on Lake Michigan), so this was definitely going to be an adventure.
Paging through the magazine, Liv quickly studied British lingo and discovered that if she wanted to fit in, her roommates would actually be flatmates, the subway is the tube, and she absolutely must eat something called bangers and mash.
Eventually the train heaved out one final puff, and the doors sighed open to let Liv out into central London. She had arrived!
Making her way into Victoria train station, Liv scanned the signs overhead, looking for the London Underground. Dodging through the crowd, she found an open ticket booth and bought a monthly travel card. Studying the tube map in her guidebook, Liv found the route to Oxford Street, home of Music Mix Europe’s central office. She had been told to “pop by” the studio to pick up keys to her flat.
Hustling through the corridor toward the tube, Liv eyed the advertisements pasted on the walls. Next to an ad for Cadbury chocolates (
Yum
. . . must
get some of that
), Liv spotted a poster of Josh Cameron. She slowed her walk slightly, scanning the advertisement for details.
JOSH CAMERON: SPECIAL APPEARANCE, LIVE IN LONDON!
Liv stopped briefly—her eye had been drawn to a small detail in the lower corner of the ad: “Sponsored by Music Mix Europe.” Liv wondered if she would get to help with the concert. . . . That certainly wouldn’t be a bad way to spend the summer. She was just the tiniest bit obsessed with Josh Cameron, and would give pretty much anything to meet him in person. There weren’t a lot of celebrities floating around Ann Arbor.
Liv could hear the subway train rolling into the station just ahead of her, and she hustled to catch it. She pulled her suitcase and carry-on clear of the doors just before they swooshed closed and the train roared out of the station. Two stops later the train’s doors slid open and she stepped onto the platform as a freakishly polite mechanical voice reminded her to “mind the gap.” Liv passed through one of the arches leading her away from the platform and rode the long escalator up and out onto the street. Red double-decker buses breezed past, stuffed with passengers out for a day of shopping. People packed the sidewalk, hustling
past Liv, who stood rooted to her spot just outside the Underground exit.
The noise and speed of the crowd was overwhelming. The time difference had started to catch up with her, and Liv realized that it was the middle of the night back in Michigan. Hit with a wave of sleepiness, Liv glanced down Oxford Street and spotted the glowing Music Mix sign.
She applied a coat of gloss to her lips and hastily made her way toward the sign. She lifted her suitcase, slinging her carry-on tote over a shoulder, and pushed into the office’s revolving entrance doors.
Liv’s reflexes had slowed from lack of sleep, and she realized too late that she had forgotten to get out of the revolving door on the inside and was back out on Oxford Street. Blushing, she made another turn around in the door and stepped out into the large, open lobby, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She looked around quickly to make sure no one had seen her mistake. Coast clear.
Liv smiled widely as she approached the security desk. “Excuse me . . . I’m one of Music Mix’s summer interns. Can you tell me where should I go?”
The security guard looked up briefly, then returned to the tabloid he was reading. “Third floor, miss.” Liv muttered a quick thanks, resisting the urge to curtsy, and took the escalator up. She stepped into a round, colorful sitting
area whose walls were filled with floor-to-ceiling television screens playing a variety of music videos.
