A Tale of Two Besties (13 page)

“Hey, Carina, do you want to start filming?” Derek called out, having found his way out of Kendall's clutches. “I was thinking we'd set up the first shot near the water tower.”

“Great,” I said, standing up a little too quickly. “Can you walk me through the story here? It might, um, help with my set up?”

We left the barn together, alone, and I caught Kendall giving me the evil eye as Derek threw his arm around me. God, maybe this would turn into my Cinderella night after all.

The water tower was huge, a towering, dented, rusting giant with a giant Super Mario mushroom tagged on the side. I pulled my camera from my handbag and made sure we had enough light for a video. Then I did a test run of the audio, where I asked Derek to stand in front of the water tower and say a bunch of silly words.

He made a face. “Okay, are we ready now, Scorsese?” Thank god the light was dimming because I could feel even my hair turning red when he said that.

I guess I can get really obsessive about projects. Even though Lily is usually the one who dreams up the ideas, I'm the one who usually puts them in motion. Like with our Memory Box, which has been sitting in the back of my closet since August, despite the promise we'd made over the summer to add to it at least once a week during the school year.

“You know, I don't know anything about this stuff,” Derek said, scuffing his dirty shoes on the ground. “But I've always wanted to be a filmmaker. You know, like a revolutionary badass. Like the dude who made
Spring Breakers
.”

“Harmony Korine,” I said.

“Well, not ‘harmony,' per se,” Derek said thoughtfully, his broody brow wrinkling in thought. “I'd go more for, like,
disruption
. You know, damn the man!
Spring Breakers
forever!”

“No,” I said. “I meant the guy who made
Spring Breakers
. His name is Harmony.”

“For real?” Derek smiled, and shook his head. “Damn, Carina. You know a lot about cinema!”

“Oh, not really. I mean, just the basics,” I said, trying to resist the urge to show off. “I've seen like, all of Sofia Coppola's early work.” I did a cool shrug, like it didn't really matter.

Derek looked suitably impressed, though it was hard to tell because suddenly he was standing so close to me that our arm hairs touched.

“All the Coppolas, though, are good.” Oh god, now I was babbling. Some remote part of my brain was telling me this was a good thing to say, that as long as I kept talking, he'd keep moving closer. “Um, did you know Nicolas Cage is actually a Coppola?”

“Okay, Wikipedia,” Derek said. “Hey. Don't worry too much about getting the video set up just right. You know, I only wanted an excuse to get you out here, anyway.”

My brain was going “Say something sexy! No, make a joke! Say a sexy joke!”

“Yeah?” said my mouth, smartly not listening to my brain.

“Yeah,” Derek smiled. Up close, I could see that one of his bottom front teeth was chipped, and he smelled good, like fresh sweat and burnt leaves. Funny, in fourth grade I would have put “smelling Derek” on the top of my list of “Most Effective Torture Techniques.” I guess I still would have put it there now, but for different reasons.

“Hey, remember how you always wore that same T-shirt every day? And when Mr. Kalinski had to drive you home because you were so smelly?” I said, before I could to stop myself. Derek gave me a crooked grin.

“Yeah? What made you think of that?” He asked, picking up his arm and waving his pit dangerously close to my face. “Are you trying to give me a hint?”

“Dude, gross!” I said giggling as he waggled his arm, thinking with horror that I'd transformed into one of those tweeny-boppers who burst into laughter every time a cute boy burped. What was happening to me?

Suddenly Derek lowered his arm around my shoulder and he was pulling me closer. Everything was moving in slow-mo. I had time to think about how doleful his eyes looked, like they belonged to a heartthrob on the cover of
Tiger Beat
, with some headline like, “Harry Styles Talks About His Secret Love . . . !” only for the article to reveal that the “secret love” is chocolate ice cream. And then time sped up all at once again, and then his mouth was on mine and we were kissing.

My first real kiss was happening . . . and with Derek Wheeler! The most random person I could have possible chosen from the yearbook!

I sent a secret mental message to Lily (“SOS!”). But like all things lately re: Lily, I knew she probably wouldn't respond with any real emotional depth. Plus it was kind of hard to concentrate on Lily, what with me focusing all my energy on making sure I was a good kisser.

After an eternity—okay, five minutes, tops—Derek broke away and stared at me, as if he were looking for some kind of change in my features, or maybe memorizing them.

“We should get back,” he murmured, and I, not trusting my mouth, mutually agreed and followed him as obediently as a puppy.

We walked back to the barn in silence, almost-but-not-quite holding hands. Back with the group, I tried not to notice Kendall staring daggers or Stephanie's look of concern, and instead focused on counting the number of empty beer cans that had been strewn around the room. Derek must have misunderstood why I was staring at that particular scene, because he sauntered over and handed me his half-drunk can. “I wasn't sure if you wanted any,” he said with a shrug. “But you can have the rest of mine.”

“Oh, actually, I don't. . . .” I stammered, trying to find the right way to tell Derek's blue-flecked eyes that the only reason I'd put that can near my mouth was to get another taste of his lips.

But I never had a chance.

“What did I tell you?” Kendall sneered, wobbling over to us in too-tall heels like a demented stork. Outfitted in yet another belly shirt and a shellacked-looking skirt that was short enough to expose a stunningly impressive thigh-gap, Kendall snaked her arm into Derek's and narrowed her eyes at me. “I said, Harper is going to go call her best friend the Super Dork and have him save her from all us bad lil troublemakers!”

“Really?” I replied coolly. “Super Dork, that's the best you could come up with? Did you buy your sense of humor at American Apparel, too? Is that why it's so low quality?” Stephanie made a sound like a strangled laugh, but when Kendall turned around to look at her she pretended to be coughing.

Kendall snapped her attention back to me, which seemed to take more effort for her than it should. Her eyes kept floating upward and I wondered if she was going to faint and save us all some trouble. Her breath smelled like soggy, moldy bread. “Oh, and you have a sense of humor? Obvioush . . . obviously I had you pegged all wrong! Here, let me make it up to you. Want some?” Kendall produced a hot pink flask as if it were a magic trick.

I grabbed the flask from Kendall before she could see my hands shaking.
It's no big deal, it's only alcohol, you baby
, I chided myself as I unscrewed the lid. The wafting, overpowering stench hit my nose like a slap. I wondered if everyone could tell that I'd never taken so much as a sip of wine in my entire life. In fact, Lily and I had absolutely no interest in drinking or drugs. It wasn't about being cool or uncool, it was just who we were, and the concept of “peer pressure” seemed so ludicrous when it was just the two of us that I'd never even imagined how it would be when I was all alone, holding a flask in hostile territory.

“Come on, Dorkgirl.” Kendall was listing so hard she should have fallen over already. “If you're going to wuss out, I'm going to need to ask for my flask back.” I knew I shouldn't have let such a lame insult get under my skin. I had always counseled Lily to ignore the haters if they couldn't even bother to be original. But this was different: I had just had my first kiss, and Lily might as well have been a million miles away. This wasn't peer pressure, I reasoned, as long as I was only doing it to get Kendall to shut up and make Derek like me.

All eyes were on me as I brought the hot pink container of liquid death to my mouth.