Fangirl (18 page)

An hour passed, then another hour, and just when she was thinking another iced sugar-free caramel soy latte would be a bad idea for her heart, her phone vibrated to life on the table.

Your dad called and you are NOT here.

Josie smiled devilishly because, maybe, now she made someone who hurt her also feel hurt. And, while she was smart and compassionate and mature enough to know that this was not a very healthy thought, she couldn't help but feel good about the very bad thing she had just done.

If I pick up the phone it will be to remind you

Of the mess you left when you got locked away

Your burden, I give back to you

But then on her walk of shame back home Josie started feeling like a jerk, like she was only making things worse. She didn't want to be the kind of cynical kid that moped around
Lawndale High, drinking her Haterade, wearing her cynicism as an armor protecting herself from the reality that she wasn't quite as smart or cool as she wished.

In fact, being the anticynic was Josie's religion, and the resulting songs comprised her personal Bible, especially ever since she read that quote from her TV hero Conan O'Brien after NBC fired him: “I hate cynicism—it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.”

Josie had taped that quote to her bedroom wall for inspiration and had read it almost every day since. She had read it aloud so many times that it seemed like due karma when, finally, something truly amazing happened. For the first time in her life, she felt like she was living a dream, and it began with a vibration in the back pocket of her shorts.

She stopped on the sidewalk along the busy boulevard and pulled out the phone and, suddenly, the emotional roller coaster that had been her life for the last few days shot back up to the top, where the view seemed to go on forever.

Peter's text was not just a mere message, not just another flirty little zap across the digital grid. It was an apology for being “so busy,” and then an explanation of why he took a day to get back—that he was just busy being a global pop superstar.

And then came the part that is so
Cinderella,
so beyond anything that she expected, that Josie would spend the next two days just rereading it over and over again: An invite, a request
of her presence in Las Vegas in just three days.

I've been thinking a lot about you. I want to write songs with you, talk about life. . . . I want u to c my concert and just hang out.

She never felt so wanted, so attractive, so loved as the moment after she texted back, “Yes!” and, then again, when he immediately replied, “See u then!
.”

Suddenly, the biggest drama in her life was not wondering if her dad was going to prison for life, or if the entire city of Bakersfield would shun her, but rather it was figuring out how a fourteen-year-old girl best informs her mom she's off to Vegas.

After much thought, the answer was obvious: A fourteen-year-old girl never in a million years tells her mom such a thing. No mom in her right mind would allow their teen daughter to go off to Sin City to meet up with an older boy.

So Josie began to scheme and plot and figure out how she could get what she wanted, and, like a lot of things in her life lately, it started with a text.

J—hey, Delilah. Ive got an idea to run by ya.

D—if it involves that cheerleader bitch again, Im SO not down.

J—it doesnt. Dont worry, D.

D—so . . .

J—ever been to Vegas? Wanna come with?

D—meet me at the hot tub at six.

When Josie stepped
through the front door of her apartment, her mom stood ready for battle.

Her nose red apparently from blowing it, Josie's mom announced, “Your dad was really disappointed you weren't home when he called.”

Not even slipped out of her shoes, Josie shot back, “Okay, well, I'm really disappointed he's ruined my life.”

“Everyone makes mistakes. You need to learn how to forgive. You only have one father.”

“And he has one daughter,” Josie snapped, stomping down the hallway.

“You're not running away this time!”

Her mom's firm occupational therapist–strong grip grabbed her bicep. Tears were now streaming down both their cheeks.

“Look, Josie. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. But forgiving will at least help you let go of the pain. You don't think I've forgotten all the drunk nights I spent with your dad, do you? Wondering if he would come home, and if he did whether it would be happy Kyle or angry Kyle. Of course, I remember those nights. Every single one of them. But, you know what, Josie? I have forgiven him. That's called moving
on. That's called healing. You? You're just running away.”

Josie exploded into a crumble of sobbing, burying her face in the soft shoulder of her mom, who rubbed her back and softly said, “I don't want to see you in so much pain. It hurts me and it hurts you.”

“I don't know if I can forgive him,” Josie said. “I just don't know.”

Josie released from her mom's squishy, loving embrace, wiped her tears with her sleeve and continued walking toward her bedroom and shut the door.

When she sat down in her desk chair her eyes found that favorite Conan O'Brien quote and she realized that Conan was right. Yet he also wasn't about to turn fifteen in less than a week. She sat there thinking that she had never left the state of California, never done anything that could remotely fit the definition of being independent, of being an adult. That quote spoke to her in a way that it had never done before. It read like something a parent tells a kid when they want you to just settle for what they want—not what you want.

It came to her like a news flash: she was turning fifteen and had never had a real boyfriend! Another news flash: she'd been on a few dates, had a crush on one boy, shared a short kiss on the lips at her last middle-school dance, but she had never even, officially, made out!

It was time. Time to grow up, and away, from her mom—her constant questioning, trying to control her, snooping through her phone, cuddling her like she was a kindergartner.
As sweet as her intentions were, Josie concluded that her mom was never going to let her leave the nest long enough to leap into life on her own. Suddenly, just thinking this way, she didn't feel like a little girl anymore.

Josie had long ago
concluded that the hot tub was the only cool thing about living at the Mountainview Apartments, a collection of '80s-era, two-story stucco buildings. The rectangular buildings had the color of oatmeal and, frankly, the place could use a fresh coat of paint.

Josie slipped into her favorite two-piece black bikini; she imagined Peter seeing her in it at the pool in Vegas. She smeared on some bright-red lipstick and flat-ironed her hair into wavy curls that cascaded down onto her chest like a celebrity. She pictured the paparazzi taking pictures of her as she put her big feet into a pair of heels and looked at herself in the mirror.

“Ugh, stripper,” Josie observed aloud, putting on sandals instead.

When she walked down to the hot tub, she found Delilah already sitting on the edge, waiting for her. Delilah was eighteen and looked like it, filling in her neon-yellow bikini like a woman that Josie was not quite yet.

“You said Vegas, Brant?” D kicked her feet in the water. “Vegas? Really?”

“Yes,” Josie replied. “Vegas.”

“What makes you think a girl like me would ever want to
go to Vegas?”

“Because you're the only person I know who is always up for an adventure.”

Delilah nodded. “True, Brant. Very true.”

“And you're the only person I know who might be willing to drive us there.”

“True. But, like, have you ever heard of a bus? I'm not running a limo service.”

Josie settled slowly into the bubbling tub across from D. “Ever since those college kids were stabbed on the bus last year, I'm not allowed to ride a bus.”

D threw her head back and laughed. “So you're telling me that you aren't allowed to take a bus, but your mom wouldn't care that you're hitching a ride with your shady neighbor?”

“You're not shady.”

“I didn't say I was. I'm saying your mom thinks I'm shady.”

“Well, yeah, she does. But, honestly, it's not her. To me, the bus is gross and for real sketch. As long as you don't drive like a nut, then I feel safer with you. Plus I need a partner in crime.”

Delilah slid her womanly body down so the water came up to just below her chin.

“Why Vegas?” D asked.

“If I tell you, you can't tell anyone,” Josie whispered. Josie scanned the hot tub area with paranoid eyes. “It is, like, beyond a secret.”

“Okay fine. Secret. Just tell me.”

“To see a boy.”

“Well, obviously. It always is. And you're right. This so needs to be a secret. Especially because your mom thinks you're a little Goody Two-shoes.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Are you kidding me?” D said. “Like, seriously, Brant, your mom thinks you've got Barbie private parts!”

“Huh?” Josie asked, confused.

“I mean, she thinks you don't have a sexual bone in your body. And, no offense, neither did I until just now. Not that I'm complaining. I kinda like it.”

Josie's cheeks turned red, and not just because of the 102-degree water.

“So when is this sketch rendezvous of yours supposed to happen?”

“Well, the boy says I should come on Friday afternoon. We'd have to drive back Sunday morning.”

“Interesting.” Delilah dipped her long black hair back into the steaming tub. Squeezing it dry with both her hands, she added, “What's gonna be your cover?”

“My what?”

“You know, like your cover story. Like, what is the fake story you're telling your mom to explain where you will be for like forty-eight hours?”

“Oh, right.” Josie hesitated. “Well, I was gonna tell her that, um, I was having a sleepover at a friend's house or something.”

“You better come up with something better than that, kid!”

Slumping into the tub, Josie blew bubbles in deep thought for a moment.

“Wait!” She bolted upright. “This coming weekend is Ashley's Sweet Sixteen camping birthday at Lake Isabella.”

“And . . .”

“And, well, I will just tell my mom that's where I'm going.”

“Genius,” D said approvingly. “Just one problem: I'm flat broke, Brant. I've got like zero money for gas. It will be like a hundred bucks for gas. Plus I have to work at the restaurant on Saturday. I'd probably make a hundred bucks, so I'd be losing that. Then there's the hotel . . .”

“The hotel is totes gonna be free,” Josie assured her.

“Who is this dude? Some sort of sugar daddy?”

“No!”

“Okay. Tell me who.”

“I can't. I promised him I wouldn't.”

“Here's the deal.” Delilah got up out of the hot tub and adjusted her top. “You don't tell me, then I don't take you.”

“Okay, okay,” Josie said in a hushed voice. “It's Peter Maxx.”

“Get out. Get the F out.”

Josie got out of the tub and grabbed her phone. She showed the text from Peter:

I'll put you up in a suite at the Palazzo. Everything will be taken care of. Will be funnnnn. Come. Friday.

Delilah's eyes popped open wider than the Gulf of Mexico.

“I always knew there was a bad girl lurking inside that good girl exterior just wanting to get out.”

“Totes,” Josie said with a smile, settling back into the tub.

“Brant. If you can come up with a hundred bucks for gas, I'm in. I think it could be epic. Sexy. So just lemme know.”