The Real Real (4 page)

Lunch is my first opportunity to witness the stars of our class adjusting to their expanded stage. Caitlyn and I wait for a clean tray as the cameras follow the swarm of merging students. Nico walks in first in her skinny cords and wrap sweater, looking exactly like she does every day. So that makes two of us. For opposite reasons. I know there’s no way I’ll get cast, and she knows there’s no way she won’t.

As she does every day at this time, Nico twists her amazing golden mane up in a topknot and secures it with one of her many decorative chopsticks. She collects them.

It’s on her MySpace page. What’s not on her page is that the reason she twists her hair up at lunch is that she’s a surprisingly messy eater. Taco Day is a good time. Of course, she still looks gorgeous with ground meat all over her face—she has that Cameron Diaz unembarrassable thing going. Which at this moment seems to have spread over to her friends. Which is unfortunate. Because they should be feeling embarrassed. A lot.

Melanie walks in first, looking like a Real Housewife.

She is in some middle-aged leopard-print puffed-sleeve something. And it is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. But 31

better than what walks in behind her.

“Are we doing
Rock of Love, the Musical
this year?”

Caitlyn asks, tilting her head to the side and squinting to take in the almost-naked platform-shoed glory that is Trisha cutting in at the front of the lunch line. “Oh, baby.

Where was Momma this morning?”

“She probably dressed her in it.”

“You mean licked it and stuck it to her like a stamp.”

We open our tuna-salad-filled pita pockets and start the painstaking process of potato chip integration, to get the tuna and chips to live as one inside our pita world. I am engrossed in fitting as many little chip pieces as possible in the sandwich when I hear the crash, then the sudden silence, and feel Caitlyn grab my arm. “Oh. My. God.”

I whip my head up as all eyes (and cameras) converge on two spindly U.V.-tanned legs perpendicular to the floor, one remaining platform shoe dangling precariously off a toe. Suddenly it slips and falls. “AAAAAHHHH!”

An agonized scream goes up from the floor, and Nico and Melanie rush from their bench to help Trisha up. Nico gets there first since she’s in motion-favorable ballet flats.

But Melanie can only shuffle over as fast as her leopard-print mules will allow.

I stand from our bench, now able to see that Trisha is covered in the mayonnaise-based contents of her lunch tray, and blood is gushing out her nose from the assaulting shoe. The lunch lady rushes forward, but Nico staves her off. “We’ve got it. Come on, Trish. Little steps.” She picks Trisha’s shoes off the linoleum before wrapping a 32

protective arm around her to escort her out of the riveted tuna-breathed hordes and tracking cameras.

“Oh. My. God,” Caitlyn repeats. “She can never come back here. It’s over. After the world’s biggest wipeout, she just conked herself with her own platform heel. It was like a public service announcement against high fashion.”

“Is that what she was wearing?”

When I push open the girls’ room door a few minutes later to wash the fishy aroma off my fingers, I’m met with audible sobbing. I almost back out, but if I try to make it to the one on the second floor I’ll be late for next period.

As if they’d even notice me in the midst of a PR crisis of this magnitude. I dart to the sink.

Trisha is sitting on the tiled windowsill at the end of the stalls, her head tilted back as Nico swaps the bloodied paper towel for a fresh one, unwittingly tending to the person who was in a sleeping bag with her boyfriend not twelve hours ago. “Mel went to grab you a clean T-shirt from my gym locker. And some sneakers. As soon as she gets back we’re gonna take you to the nurse.”

“I think i-it’s buh-roken,” Trisha chokes out in sobs. “I’m s-so em-barrassed. I w-want to k-kill myself. I’ll never,” she pauses, trying to catch her breath, “make the sh-show now.”

“Shhhh.” In the mirror over the sink I see Trisha allowing her bare back to be rubbed reassuringly. “Of course we’re in the show,” Nico says with quiet certainty. “Who else would they pick? We are the glamour. We are
it
.”

She coaxes an entitled smile out of Trisha, and I wipe my wet hands across my jeans and jog to Spanish.

REEL 2

The brown pumpkin glop
sliiiiiides
off the ice-cream scoop to puddle in the muffin tin as another minute at the Prickly Pear
craaawwwwwls
by. I’ll have been scooping from this tub for twenty-four months this June, and the bottom is still nowhere in sight. If only the bejeweled fools paying five bucks a muffin knew this crap was older than the bills they were handing over. God knows it’s ruined me. No matter how cute the case or how yummy the aroma, I can’t lay eyes on a baked good without flashing to the industrial tubs congealing in the Prickly Pear’s freezer.

My job’s only perk—to make up for my lost pastry ardor—is the occasional glimpse of Drew corralling 34

emptied shopping carts in the Stop & Shop parking lot across the street. Which helps. A lot.

“Uh . . . Jesse?”

“Yeah?” I push up the rim of my mesh Prickly Pear baseball cap to see Jamie Beth slouching on the bottom basement stair, staring in her vacant, bloodshot Jamie Beth way. “Yes, Jamie Beth?”

“There’s, like, a chick up there who wants to know where you are.”

I drop the scoop in a bowl of warm water and pick up the huge tray, the muffin glop tilting in each container.

“A chick?”

“Yeahhhhhh.” She dips her head in a slow nod.

“Okay, well, can you tell her I’ll be up in a sec?”

“She wants to see you doing what you”—she stretches her tongue out through her bubble gum—“do naturally.”

I hand her the tray, and her eyes widen in surprise as they always do when she finds herself working here at work. “Put these in the oven for me, and don’t forget to turn the timer on again, okay?” I wipe my hands on my green apron and jog up the stairs into the little bakery where the Starbucks
Coffee Tunes
CD and dangling baskets competently mask the gross kitchen of frozen crap downstairs. I walk around to the cash register, clearing the stocked display cases, to see a brunette with both elbows on the counter, her head dropped as she rubs her temples.

“Can I help you?”

The woman who interviewed me yesterday looks up, smiling, in the same jeans, same style of loose white blouse, its sleeves exposed beneath a green down vest.

“Jesse O’Rourke, right? No ‘i.’ ”

“Yes.”

“You look different in that hat. I’m Kara.” She sticks out her hand and I shake it.

“Yes, I remember. Sorry, I’m a little sticky. I’ve been spooning muffins.” She raises an eyebrow. “Baking—not sleeping next to them. Sorry, you asked for me?”

“Yes! We want to film a little of the after-school stuff, but just wanted to make sure you were here.”

“Yeah, Jamie Beth is a little on the slow-delivery side.

She’s ten years older than me, so you’d think—”

“I’ll take a double espresso, Jesse, actually, that’d be great.”

“Sure!” I turn to pull a paper cup from the stack, and when I go to place it under the machine I realize there’s a camera about two inches from my face.

“Jesse?”

“Yes?” I follow the voice, leaning around the guy holding the camera, straining to see past a second guy filming the hanging baskets.

“Oh, don’t look at me!” Kara waves her hands.

“Sorry!” I whip back to the filling cup.

“Yeah, just try to pretend I’m not here, okay?”

“Sure. Sorry I didn’t—”

“And you can’t talk to me, either. I’m not here. I don’t 36

exist. Sam—the one filming you—and Ben aren’t here, either.”

I nod and then realize I’m not supposed to nod to people who aren’t here, so I do the first thing I can think of, which is pretend that this wretched Norah Jones song that haunts my dreams is undeniably dance inspiring.

“Great, you’re a natural, Jesse. Can you just take off the hat?” I shake my head from side to side in time with the music. “The dancing’s great, Jesse. Just let’s lose the hat.”

I grab a napkin and a pen and scribble,
On probation for
taking off hat. Owner drive-by spot checks
. I slide the paper onto the counter and tap it with the pen in time with the beat, which is ve-ry slow. I step to the side and see out of the corner of my eye Kara grab the napkin.

“Okay, all right. So . . . just, can you turn it around and pull your hair down around your face?” I do. And then I stand there like a loser. “And my coffee would be great.”

I pivot to the cup as the second espresso shot comes pouring out of the machine. I slap on a lid and walk it over to where I left the napkin, wondering what this’ll look like on camera. Like I am writing notes and making coffee for my imaginary friend. And that Norah Jones sets me free.

I hear a big slurp. “Ugh, I needed that. Okay, Jesse, so just do whatever you would normally do.”

I open the cabinet under the register and take out the gallon of Smucker’s, sliding it onto the counter. I squeeze myself past the garbage can and over to the four tables to collect the fake crystal jam jars that were emptied in the 37

morning rush. I carry them back behind the counter. I scrape out the dregs of congealed jelly into the sink. I wash them out. I dry them out. I open the vat. I spoon in new jelly one glob at a time. I rinse off the spoon. I dry it. I put the vat under the counter. I take out the tub of butter—

“For the love of Christ,” Sam groans, rubbing his mustache. “It’s more tedious than my grad school ant farm doc.”

Kara sighs. “Turn ’em off.” Ben taps a cigarette from the pack in his quilted flannel’s breast pocket and slips it behind his ear.

“Sorry, this is what I do.” I bite my lip and look over at her. “It’s really slow in the afternoon, so it’s mostly getting the place ready for the morning—”

The front doorbells jingle, and we all look over to see Drew pulling off his ski hat as he steps in from the dark street. I am suddenly redder than the Smucker’s.

“Go, go, go!” Kara barks excitedly, and two cameras whip up. Startled, Drew steps backward into a hanging basket. Sam squeezes past the garbage can to train his lens on Drew as Kara jumps up on a chair to clear the way.

Drew looks up at Kara and opens his mouth.

“Don’t!” she and I say at the same time. “We’re not supposed to look at her or talk to her,” I add.

“Just act natural. Do what you were going to do,” Kara whispers.

This seems to kick Drew back into gear. He walks to the register, Ben and his camera trailing after his 38

snow-damp sneakers. “Hey . . . ”

“Hi,” I say as Kara exaggeratedly swirls her arms from atop her chair. “
Drew
. Hi, Drew.”

“Hi, Jesse.” He’s paralyzed.

“I bet you wanted something to eat.”

“Yes.” His eyes thank me. “Yeah, I’m here for some, um . . . ”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Sure!”

“Riveting,” Ben mutters.

“Enough,” Kara snipes.

I turn and mechanically pour the Swiss Miss into a paper cup before filling it with steaming water. “Whipped cream?”

“Sure. I mean, yes, thanks.”

I spray a circle of foam and then hand it to him. He takes it and we stare at each other, sweating. “Um, that’ll be three twenty-five.”

“Right.” Drew puts down the cup to fish in the pocket of his navy North Face. He hands me a five. “I was going to get muffins.”

“Do you want some? I can totally add them to this.” I freeze with the bill over the drawer.

“No, I just—I had a joke about . . . packing a basket of goodies.”

“Oh.” I nod, utterly lost. I hand him his change, my fingertip grazing his palm.

“Thanks.” He stuffs it into his pocket and in seconds is 39

out the door in a clattering of sleigh bells, his hot chocolate left steaming on the counter.

The second Kara and her crew clear the bakery window, I dive for my cell and text Caitlyn. “I’m taking my break!” I yell down to Jamie Beth as I pull on my coat. I wait for an impatient minute during which I hear nothing.

“Jamie Beth, that means you have to come upstairs!” She appears at the base of the steps.

“Whatever, I’m coming.” She trudges heavily up in her unlaced work boots, and I jog out the door into the little lantern-lit courtyard that abuts the back of the Maiden Lane shops. I climb through the crusted ice to where the snow-filled fountain sits dormant as one of the French doors to Bambette opens. Caitlyn steps out, a blue infant’s sweater on her head and what looks to be pairs of matching cashmere pants on each hand.

“Doubling as outerwear,” she greets me. “Four hundred dollars an item makes total sense.”

“Drew just came into the Pear!” I hop in the snow.

“Drew-Drew?” She hops with me.

“Drew-Drew?” I grab her forearms to steady us as I think for a moment. “Yes. Yes, he is now officially Drew-Drew. He wanted muffins, but then left his hot chocolate and ran off—”

“Aw, did ya scare him with your b-girl do? Thought you were going to get gangsta on his ass?”

“What?”

She points at my turned-around hat and splayed hair.

“Crap.” I grab it off my head. “That’s the XTV people.

Totally embarrassing. They came in to film, and you can’t acknowledge that they’re there—”

“
XTV
came into the
Prickly Pear
to film
you
?”

“I guess. Unless they’re also shooting
The Real Hampton Cosmetology School
starring Jamie Beth.”

“They came in to film
you
.” Her shoulders drop.

“They’re just shooting after-school stuff! They’re probably going down the block store by store. I’m sure they’ll be in Bambette any minute.”

Caitlyn whips the sweater off her head. “Really?”

“Yes!”

“I have to go. Have to lip-gloss.” She leaps back through the snow, and I turn to the Prickly Pear. “Jess,” she calls after me. “He paid, but he left his hot chocolate?”

“Yeah.” I pivot my head to see her silhouetted in the peach light spilling through the French doors. “He said he was going to make a joke about a basket of goodies.”