The One and Only Zoe Lama (9 page)

“Listen to this,”
says Laurel, stepping onto my elevator Monday after school. Her nose is deep inside a very shiny, very pink, lousy excuse for a rule book. “Grooming someone to be your Major Best Friend spells LOVE!” she reads. “
L
is for Learner. If you tell your MBF what you want from her, she’ll be a quick Learner!”

“A quick learner?” I snort. I pound on the button for the eighth floor. Nothing happens.

Susannah peers over Laurel’s shoulder. “
O
is for Open,” she reads. “Open yourself up to your MBF’s fears and concerns and you’ll spend many happy years together.
V
is for Voice. Always speak to a new MBF in a calm, soothing voice so she learns she can trust you.” In a calm, soothing voice, Susannah says to me, “Hit that stupid button harder or we’ll miss
The Garage Girls.
”

I blow on the heel of my hand—for luck—and hit it hard. Still nothing.

I have something of a love-hate thing going with elevators.
On the one hand, with an elevator, I don’t have to walk eight flights of stairs several times each day.

On the other hand, there’s the creepy, panicky feeling I get when I’m stuck in small spaces and can’t get out. I once Googled
scared of small places
and learned it’s called claustrophobia and probably comes from a “traumatic childhood event.” Well, I know exactly what childhood event caused it. It was when I was five and my gorilla-size and gorillashaped cousins, Liza and Lance, came to visit from Oregon. I stashed myself in Liza’s pink suitcase during hide-and-seek and Lance found me and zipped the suitcase shut. He carried me around the apartment until his mother heard my muffled screams and made him open up. I fell out onto the floor.

Lance got half a day without video games. I got a lifetime fear of being packed.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” says Susannah, checking her watch. “My audition is in an hour and a half and I should probably go home and get ready.”

Laurel looks up. “Is this for the fresh-face commercial? Just you, a bathroom mirror, and a sinkful of icy-cold water?”

“Yes. This is the job of a lifetime.”

“I thought the TV show and major motion picture are going to be the jobs of a lifetime,” Laurel says.

“This one’s a stepping-stone!” Susannah snaps.

Just as I’m getting ready to whack the stuffing out of the button, I see my mother waving to me from the lobby.

“Zoë, honey! I need your help with some groceries,” she sings before disappearing into the parking garage.

I look at Laurel and Susannah, who are looking at Susannah’s watch and bugging their eyes. “We have to go upstairs or we’ll miss the
entire
beginning,” says Susannah.

“We’ll do it all in one trip,” I say, hurrying down the hall toward the garage stairwell. The girls don’t move. “Come on!”

Susannah pokes her perfect nose in the air. “That doesn’t sound like a calm, soothing MBF voice to me…”

“If we don’t hurry, my mom will make us unpack the groceries, too!”

Laurel and Susannah chase after me.

Down in the garage, Mom is complaining to Mr. Kingsley that the garage door takes too long to open, so we grab the bags out of the trunk.

Halfway to the elevator—which still hasn’t budged—we
start to run. Dropping onto the elevator floor, groaning from the cruelty of child labor, we pull the bags off our arms and Susannah and I lie back on them, exhausted.

Laurel goes for total button control. She hits all the top-floor buttons and drums her fists against the other knobs. The elevator isn’t impressed with Laurel’s sudden burst of energy. When she finally does her big solo finale on the “door close” button, the elevator walls shiver, then close, and the elevator car starts to climb up, up, up.

“That was brutal grocery-bag abuse,” says Laurel, reaching for Devon’s folder in her backpack. “We never found out what the
E
in LOVE stands for.”

“I think I can live without knowing,” I say, shifting my position so a bag of apples can act as my pillow. I close my eyes and pretend I’m on a sunny beach. “What about you, Susannah?”

“Totally. Put it away.”

Laurel ignores us. “
E
is for Emotion,” she reads. “Keep your emotions steady. Emotional highs and lows can be unnerving for your MBF. Nothing will enrich your life experience like a good MBF.” She drops the book.
“Major Best Friend. It sounds so…G.I. Joe or something.”

“Being Devon’s best friend probably isn’t much different from being in the military,” says Susannah.
“Drab.”

Just after we pass the third floor, the elevator jerks to a screechy stop. We look at one another. I crawl over to the control panel and whack the eight button. Nothing happens. I whack again, this time blowing on my fist first. Still, nothing.

My heart starts to pound.

“What’s wrong?” says Susannah in a tinny voice. “Are we stuck? We can’t be stuck! My agent and my mother are picking me up out front soon. In his Hummer.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “
Stupid
Hummer.”

“Shut up, Laurel! You’re just jealous!”

“Am not!” She reaches up to rub her throat as she swallows hard. Her voice changes. “But I am getting thirsty…”

“Everybody stop talking!” I shout. “I need to…to think. And breathe.” I pull open the steel door to the emergency phone and peer inside. I decide that phoning for help is ridiculous, so I press the alarm button. It buzzes like a metal pipe full of mad beetles. I use the Morse code for SOS—three short buzzes, three long, three short—which means Save Our Souls.

“I don’t believe it,” says Susannah. “I’m going to miss
the audition. My entire career is over.” Then Susannah does something unprecedented. She takes her sunglasses and hurls them against the back wall of the elevator.
It’s such a shock to see her entire face, I can’t speak right away.

“We need to distract ourselves,” says Laurel, pulling my mother’s shea-butter lotion from a bag. She squirts some on her hand and rubs it all over her face like a mud mask.
“We’ll pretend it’s a day at the spa.”
Laurel lies back like she’s poolside and passes the lotion to Susannah. “I’m not sure if dehydration is blurring my vision, Susannah, but I think I’m seeing a…”

“What?” Susannah’s hands fly up to her face. “I need a mirror. Someone get me a mirror!”

Laurel closes her eyes like she’s getting a massage. “Maybe we can call your agent in his Hummer.”

“This is no time for jokes!”
Susannah screeches like a crazy lady. “Here!” she says, pulling out the aluminum foil and tearing into the box. She pulls a corner sheet from the roll and peers at her reflection. She gasps in horror, then looks at us with bugged-out eyes. “I don’t believe it…it’s my first pimple.”

Laurel jumps up and knocks a few bags over onto the dirty floor.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I’m rationing,” she says. “Splitting up the food into thirds. Everyone needs protein, grains and cereals, fruits and vegetables, and dairy.” She stops. “Except…”

“What?” Susannah and I say together.

“We have absolutely no liquids. So even if we eat tiny amounts and huddle together for warmth, we’ll be dead in two days. Three if we drink our own urine.”

“That’s disgusting!” says Susannah. “Anyway, I can’t die. When they find my body, it’ll be scarred by
acne
!”

“Nobody’s dying!” I say. “Let’s not panic. We haven’t even tried the phone.” Opening the tiny metal door again, I reach for the red phone and pick it up. Right away, I hear it ringing, then a miniature voice says, “Nine-one-one operator. Police, fire, or ambulance?”

Before I can explain that what we actually need is an elevator repairman, Laurel and Susannah grab the phone, both wailing at once—Susannah about her mother waiting in a black Hummer, and Laurel about dehydration setting in. By the time I grab the receiver, the line’s dead. I hang up slowly.

“This,” I say, “would be the
perfect time to panic.” As I suck in a deep breath I can practically hear the sound of a pink suitcase being zipped up tight.

T
he second the firefighters open the elevator doors, three things happen. Susannah scrambles over them like the stepping-stones to stardom they’ve become, I shoot under their legs and kiss the filthy ground they walk on, and Laurel returns to her poolside position and demands that someone massage her shoulders, all thoughts of dehydration forgotten.

In all the commotion, my mother’s voice is the only thing I hear. She’s lecturing Mr. Kingsley as she scoops up grocery bags. “Honestly, it’s no longer safe to live in this building!”

“Safe?” I snort, guiding my mother toward the stairwell. “Where’s the adventure in that?”

I guess Mom figures
almost getting swallowed whole by the elevator is enough torture for one day, so instead of forcing me to put away the groceries and set the table for dinner, she tells me to go take some much-needed “me” time in my room. Armed with a handful of chocolate chip cookies, I plop myself in front of my computer and send an instant message to Riley. (The Number One Unwritten Rule when it comes to cheating death-by-elevator-suffocation is to make sure to tell your boyfriend how lucky he is that you survived.)

zoelama: riley? u there?

riledup: zozyrgrrl!

zoelama: u know it

riledup: Bad timing z. g2g to class

zoelama: sumo wrestling?

Riley isn’t your average guy. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s disappeared every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school. When I asked if I could come and where he went, he always said no and to sumo wrestling class. Which I wasn’t nearly dumb enough to fall for.

Then last month when I refused to go into the school dance because of my utterly humiliating fear of balloons, Riley tried to make me feel better by telling me something equally embarrassing about himself—that he was not, in fact, training to be a sumo wrestler. But that he was training to be a ballet dancer. Which I think is cuter than cute and braver than brave. Then he made me swear not to tell a single solitary soul.

To his adoring public—and mine—Riley Sinclair is knee-deep in ancient Japanese martial arts.

riledup: yep. lzl

zoelama: ?lzl?

riledup: later, zoe lama

zoelama: wait, did u hear wat happened to me today?

I wait for him to answer. I wait some more.

zoelama: ri?

He’s gone. And not only is he gone, but he has no idea how close he came to losing me. And I have no idea how upset he would have been. Which means my perilous adventure was one big waste.

My IM jingles again.

g-ma: yo zo?

zoelama: hi g-ma, did mom tell u about wat happened to me?

g-ma: no time 4 that. Nursie’ll be right back. I got caught.

zoelama: ?caught?

g-ma: cigars in the boys room w/ fritz

zoelama: i knew it! he’s a bad influence on u

g-ma: o he’s bad alright. heehee. They threatened 2 kck me up to 7th floor 4 total lockdown

zoelama: but then I’d have 2 take the elevator!

g-ma: 7th floor is ladies only

zoelama: but they must know it’s fritz’s fault!

g-ma: they nvr saw him. and I’ll nvr tell. don’t tell ur mom, she’ll make me stop seeing him

zoelama: u should stop seeing him!

g-ma: i’ve told u 2 much. delete this IM! Bye!

I don’t know where this Fritz came from, but he must be stopped. He’s turning g-ma into a teenager!