The Kiss Off (25 page)

“Out, all of you,” Mom said. “Go and get some sun.”

“But Mom-”

“Go!”

They all did the boy shuffle out of the room and soon it was just Mom, me, and a Poo Bum-pinned-down Bex.

“You,” Mom said, shaking her head at me. She let out a sigh and ran her hand through her hair, making strands stand up like they were static. “Are so grounded. And you’re forbidden from dating. Until you’re fifty!”

Chapter Nineteen

Being grounded over Spring Break actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I got to stay home like a hermit and pretend the whole world didn’t exist. Pretend the paparazzos climbing the tree in the front yard were simply cats that got stuck, and I pretended the reporters for the local papers and a couple of producers of TV segments that came to the door were actually Girl Guides selling cookies. They weren’t hounding me and reminding my parents daily of just how disappointed in me they were, no, they were poor little kitties and enterprising Girl Guides. It was scary actually, that first day after I posted the video and the Hollywood Wrap did that segment the doorbell rang and I went and answered it and was immediately blinded by camera guys aiming their cameras with lights on high beam at my face, and reporters shoved microphones practically in my mouth and paparazzos snap-snap-snapped my startled face with yesterday’s make up still on.

I couldn’t understand what they were saying they were all talking at once. I know for a fact I looked like a startled rabbit before Mom wandered out of her office, shoved me out of the way and into the wall and slammed the door in their faces. And then told me I wasn't answering the door anymore and then she called the police. The startled rabbit pictures of me and angry momma-bear shots of Mom turned up on the internet within the hour and were in the papers the next morning. My family tried to hide it all from me but I found a copy in the recycling bin. Guess it proved to the world I wasn’t some Hollywood starlet with a press agent to handle the fallout of her high profile relationship. I was just a girl from the ‘burbs with protective parents. It didn’t take long for the media to get over me since as long as they were around I wasn’t even allowed near the windows. I wasn’t allowed to go into the back yard or help unload groceries from the car. I couldn’t even take the trash out.

The media either decided the story was dead or they turned their attention to Ty’s side of it, since he had no choice but to go out in public. I wouldn’t know what they did or what he said, since I was forbidden from watching live TV. And there was no internet, especially any news sites, email, Facebook and I was lucky they didn’t make me delete my YouTube account entirely. Maybe they just didn’t think of that.

The kids from the middle school took a little longer to lose interest in me than the media. These kids had staying power. Once the reporters were gone I peeked out the windows sometimes and there they were, cruising by on their bikes and some high schoolers did drive bys, slowing to stare at the house. I pretended they were just ordinary traffic in the street. It also freaked me out that suddenly everyone seemed to know my address. I was so accessible.

Being grounded and all, I stayed in, reading old copies of Rolling Stone that did
not
have Academy of Lies in them, and this book,
The Hunger Games
, that Vanya loaned me ages ago and I’d forgotten I had. It was actually really good. I would have played my guitar if Dad hadn’t stolen it when I was in the shower that time and locked it and my amp in the basement. Yeah. He started locking the basement now. A good thing about house arrest, while the world was outside my window trying to catch glimpses of me and my parents were slamming the door in their faces, I was getting pretty good at Gran Turismo and officially kicked Rory’s ass a couple of times. But it didn’t matter. My Spring Break turned out to be insanely boring and I couldn’t help but wonder what everyone else was doing. What was Ty doing? What was he thinking? Was he trying to contact me? Even if I hadn’t blocked his new number, Mom and Dad had confiscated my cell. And they weren’t letting me take calls, not even from Vanya – the good influence. Except that she was really the one that started my whole YouTube channel with me and was my regular camera girl, but whatever. I guessed she was probably back from the relatives’ place by now. And what about Cam? That last time we had spoken, at his house…that had been weird. And he was back together with Nikki…or was he? Who even knew where they were at now? And I was broken up with Ty.

I lay on my bed and placed a cushion over my face and moaned. My stomach sprouted wings that tickled against my insides any time I thought about it, any of it. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Not that I could do anything just now. Nothing but read and sleep and play video games with The Pest and teddy bear tea parties with Bex. And according to Mom and Dad, I could do homework and study and get ahead for after the break. God, I was so bored. Shockingly, I was actually looking forward to getting back to school, there was only so much of the same house and same four people I could take.

Two weeks after I uploaded my video “Academy of Lies: Star Pupil” and the Saturday before school was going back, it was official: I was old news. People had gotten bored of cruising by and skulking outside my house. Because I wasn’t the star in the relationship, Ty was. I was just the scorned lover, he was the dirt bag adulterer. And the chart topping celebrity that made girls scream and faint (Yeah.
Faint.
). Regardless, the Saturday before school went back, the Dewberry Gazette had found a new angle on my story, just to bleed the whole thing dry. I plucked the newspaper out of the recycling bin in the kitchen and felt a chill run through my whole body as I scanned the article. They had found someone who knew me, to comment and speculate. An old workmate of mine. They had talked to Nikki.

“
Yeah, we worked together last summer. She was my best friend for a while there. I’m honestly shocked that she would send out a text message like that, even to her boyfriend,”
Nikki said in the interview.
“It’s stupid, a really stupid thing to do.”
Like she hadn’t sent them before.
“I always thought she was smarter than that.”
So Nikki thought I was a dipshit. Like I cared. I kept reading.
“She used to be smarter than that, anyway. Maybe this whole brush with fame thing is changing her, which is sad.”
They asked her about my personality, if I was embellishing, fictionalizing my experiences in my songs.
“She definitely believes what she writes about, I wouldn’t doubt that, but I would also say she’s quite emotional when she’s writing these songs everyone loves so much. And I learnt the hard way that when she gets sad she gets angry. Enter The Kiss Off, and this Star Pupil thing,”
she said. Typical, she was making this whole article about her. And I didn’t get angry when I was sad. I was sad like normal people. Then I thought about it, about The Kiss Off and my anguish and shame that they put me through. And again, with Star Pupil. Huh. She’d never hear it from me that she might have a point.

As Mom, Dad, Rory and Bex all wandered into the kitchen, I scrunched up the newspaper and stuffed it deep into the recycle bin again, covering it over with empty milk cartons and a dog food tin.

“Okay, well we’re going out,” Dad said, twirling his car keys around his pointer finger.

“Right,” I said. “Family night.” Minus one (who I like to think is a rather important) member of the family.

Mom looked like she felt guilty about it. “I’m sorry you can’t come, honey,” she said. “But rules are rules and it’s probably best, you laying low at the moment, so-”

“It’s fine, Mom,” I said. “Whatever. So what are you guys doing, anyway?”

“We’re going to Ben & Jerry’s!” Bex shouted, jumping on the spot, practically shivering with excitement.

“Yes,” Dad said. “But that’s after ice skating and we’re having dinner at Luigi’s.”

Rory pumped his fists in the air and twirled around, his face screwed up in triumph. Rory was obsessed with the supreme pizza from Luigi’s. He didn’t like anyone else’s supreme – just Luigi’s. I liked their ice cream sodas.

“What am I supposed to eat?” I said.

“There’s a couple of Lean Cuisines in the freezer if you like,” Mom said. “Or there’s chicken you could grill.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ll find something. So how long are you going to be?”

This question got my parents attention. They exchanged glances and both faced me head on. “A couple of hours,” Mom said slowly. “Why do you ask, Poppy?”

I shrugged. “I’m just asking.”

“Hmm,” Dad said, squinting at me suspiciously.

“We can trust you to honor the terms of your grounding while we’re gone, can’t we Poppy Elizabeth?” The second name. He went for the second name. There was a serious lack of trust going on here.

“Wow,” I said sarcastically. “It’s touching how much you trust me, really, it is. Have I left the house this century? No. No I haven’t.”

“Okay Poppy.”

“Any of those times people called for me, did I once ask if I could talk to them? No.”

“Alright alright. We’ll be back by ten,” Mom said, motioning for everyone to head toward the door.

“Ten o’clock,” Bex said. “That’s really late!”

“We’re trusting you, Poppy.” It was weird, the way she said it, with that edge to her voice…they weren’t even remotely trusting me. No way.

“You have
one more night
until freedom. You wouldn’t do anything stupid, would you? To jeopardize it?”

“Just go,” I said, turning Dad around and pushing him toward the door. “I’ll be here reading a book and doing homework and being boring.”

Rory and Bex raced out to the car and Bex started crying when he locked her out and blew raspberries at her on the window. It took forever for Dad to calm Bex down and Mom to supervise Rory’s apology. Come on come on, just leave already.

I blew a sigh of relief when the headlights flashed onto the curtains in the living room, meaning the car was in motion. Soon the room was gloomy again as the sun went down, and they were gone.

The house was mine. I could do whatever I wanted. And I knew exactly what I wanted. I thumped up the stairs and straight into Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I scanned the room and my eyes fell on Mom’s bedside table. Yeah, that was my best bet. I opened the top drawer. Bingo. My cell phone. I grabbed it and switched it on, but the battery was dead. Scurrying to my room I plugged it in and the outside world came rushing back to me. Well. Not as intensely as I would have liked. I had a tonne of voicemail from numbers I didn’t know, who I assumed were reporters, and a couple of texts from Vanya and Mads until they figured out I was off the air entirely. And there was a voicemail from Cam. After the surprise wore off, I played the message.

“Hey…it’s me. I mean it’s Cam. Ron. Cameron. Hey.” He was quiet for a moment. “So um I just, I heard about…I saw your video. You were pretty pissed, huh? Pissed off! Pissed off, not like wasted pissed, I don’t mean, though you might have been…um…” My lips curled up in a smile as he groaned into the phone with frustration. “What I mean is I saw your video. I’m sorry about…I’m sorry that he turned out to be such an ass hat. And that he…that your…that that photo got out. I’m so
mad
at him for you. I swear, I don’t care if he’s surrounded by photographers, if I ever see that punk I will beat him down with my tiny girly fists.” My smile broadened. One time when we were happy together and just lazing about in his room, we’d been lying on his bed and he had his eyes closed, humming along to the music playing from his laptop, and I’d been curling and uncurling my fingers with his. Holding his hand up against mine, I declared that he had tiny girly hands. He had told me I was most decidedly mistaken. They were rugged and masculine hands.

He hadn’t forgotten. “I’ll break his pretty-boy face,” Cam continued. “Actually it would be better if he was surrounded by the paparazzi, so they can record what a weak shit dumbass he is.” I couldn’t believe he was saying this. “Anyway uh, I dunno. I broke up with Nikki. But I don’t know why I’m telling you that. Mads says you’re grounded so I guess I’ll just see you at school.” And he hung up. So he was definitely broken up with Nikki. He wanted me back. He had forgiven me for being such a snuffly-nosed drama queen and dumping his ass, and he…what…did he really want to give it another shot? Did
I
want to give it another shot? What about Ty? I blinked a couple of times. Forget Ty! I didn’t understand it, God, why was I thinking about Ty right now? Way back when I first met him, didn’t I start this whole thing just to get Cam’s attention, anyway? If I was going to be honest with myself, I’d had totally disrespectful intentions toward Ty. I didn’t like him because of who he was, I liked him because he was a guy on the bus. And then he liked me. And he was there.

The video footage of Roxy Washington and Ty being all cutesy in the street flashed into my mind and I cringed. Okay so maybe it had started out as attention-seeking, but if that’s all it ever was for me, I wouldn’t be hurting so much that he turned out to be a jerk wad, would I?

I wandered into Mom’s office and connected to the internet, immediately clicked through to my Facebook page and scrolled down the news feed. I smiled to myself, it had been awhile. Vanya must have been back, I spotted a post from her friend Raquel, inviting her out to the movies tonight. She’d probably even run into my family on their ‘Family Night Out’. What a joke, it can’t seriously be family night out if one of the family members is missing, can it? Whatever. I scrolled through some friends’ pages and found a bunch of comments on Drew’s. He was having people over tonight.