Fangirl (4 page)

There was just something irresistible about Peter. He was more than a sixteen-year-old guy with a perfectly messy thatch
of dark hair strumming a guitar and singing about his deepest feelings. He was the only guy in the History of Guys that made her straight-A-achieving brain seemingly contain all the intellectual power of a fried-egg sandwich.

The sold-out crowd was now chanting, “Peter, Peter, Peter . . .”

Josie, meanwhile, was a far less obvious worshiper at the Church of Peter.

The sight: lots of ponytails and bright lipstick.

The sound: screaming.

The smell: perfume and sweaty fangirls.

Josie looked at three girls across the aisle also standing in front of their floor seats. They had to be around college age, and were wearing black sports bras that showed off their flat bellies, on which each had painted red letters that, when lined up, showed the message: WE LUV U. Their tight denim shorts and shimmering microminis left little to the imagination.

“Embarrassing,” Josie mumbled to Ashley, shaking her head. “So embarrassing. Don't these girls have any shame?”

Ashley was too busy screaming to hear.

Josie refused to chant his name. Instead, she scanned the crowd, grinding her teeth in anticipation of what she secretly hoped would be one of the coolest concerts of her life.

“Loosen up, old lady,” Ashley insisted, before going back to yelping like a lapdog.

What Ashley sometimes lacked in demure maturity, she made up for with a ripped-from-a-fashion-blog personal style.
Ashley wore a tight denim miniskirt (even shorter than the one Josie had tried on—and promptly taken off—back home), a black cap-sleeve T-shirt with silver sequins stitched on the shoulders, and black heeled knee-high boots that made her seem five years older than she was. “When the lights go up, I'll sparkle,” Ashley explained. “Seriously, besterz. Peter's so gonna see me!”

Unlike Josie, Ashley definitely wasn't afraid to fly her freaky fangirl flag. Fitted loosely on Ashley's wrist was a black rubber bracelet on which was printed in block white letters: PETER PERFECT. Josie was jealous that Ashley's parents spoiled her—Exhibit A being Ashley's $350 outfit and Exhibit B being the $200 VIP postshow meet-and-greet pass. Josie wished her parents could afford such luxury, but parental cash flow was not at all what it was before the divorce.

Josie kept her arms crossed and clutched her elbows, rolling her eyes and staring down the hormonal teen mob.

“C'mon, Miss Granny Panties!” Ashley shouted over the now ear-splitting screams. “This was supposed to be about having fun, remember?”

Ashley was a year older than Josie and was already planning her Sweet Sixteen party, which in just eight days she would host up at Camp Beaverbrook at Lake Isabella. She had invited ten of her best girlfriends for a two-day campout. Just about all of them were cheerleaders like her, except for Josie.

Josie's fifteenth birthday, however, wasn't for another eleven days, yet sometimes it seemed like she was the older of
the two girls. Not so much because of the way Ashley looked, dressed, or even acted. Most guys, in fact, assumed that Ashley—more physically mature and always way more makeup-splashed—was older than Josie . . . until, that is, she began talking.
Like . . . ya know . . . ohmygod . . . totesy . . . duhhh.

To her credit, though, Ashley was a fun girl. She was the one who infected Josie with the habit of making up playful news words for just about everything. It started as their BFF-speak shorthand to fit words into 140-character Tweets, but now it had taken over their real life vocab. Like, for example, Josie's name. To Ashley, Josie was “Jo.” Precious was now “presh,” delicious became “delish,” super was “supes,” and totally was now always said as “totes.” Lately, the next step in the evolution of their BFF-speak was to add the suffix “-ski” to select words, meaning “totally” was now “toteski.” It was annoying to pretty much everyone but them, which made them like it even more.

Normally, Josie loved Ashley for her goofiness. It was comic relief from her own life, which she, admittedly, sometimes took way too seriously. But, on nights like this, when Josie would rather just chill and enjoy a concert rather than gesticulate herself like a yakking bobble head, Ashley—with her perfect posture and detachment from reality—could get under her skin.

Josie had been friends with Ashley since the fourth grade, when they both were in swim club together. In fact, they began calling each other “BFF” before it became cool.

Over the years, both had changed a lot. Ashley got into cheerleading, while Josie became passionate about music and writing. Ashley got boy crazy and needed to be talking to at least five boys at any given time, while Josie had good guy friends and, while she had her crushes, she never had what she would even come close to calling someone a “boyfriend.”

The only real mutual friends the girls shared anymore were Christopher and Eddie, a punk skater boy who had a crush on Ashley since seventh grade (still, they'd never kissed). None of Ashley's cheerleader girlfriends were very nice to Josie. But they had been “Best Friends Forever,” and loyalty was something that meant a lot Josie, so the friendship remained.

One thing they enjoyed together: Peter Maxx.

Part of Josie (the rational part that thought the whole Petermania was a seriously colossal generational embarrassment) was already mortified enough just to be standing in front of her tenth row seat, waiting anxiously to start singing every line with every other biochemically overexcited girl from Bakersfield. But every girl has her guilty pleasures. And, for Josie, it just so happened to be Peter Maxx.

Josie liked to think of herself as an aberration from the norm, not some teen cliché queen. So, she just kept thinking, if she could at least wait to be so obviously into Peter until the arena fell dark, she'd consider the night a smashing success. Such was her state of being. As Britney Spears once sang: not a girl, not yet a woman.

Josie knew full well that every fangirl wants to think she has a special relationship with a singer, that she has thoughts and feelings that no one in the world could possibly understand, a connection so deep it's cosmic! But, when it came to her connection to music, and especially Peter Maxx's songs, she just believed that their connection was uniquely special. Josie felt dorky even thinking something so cheesy, let alone telling anyone—even Ashley—this crazy fantasy that she hid in her brain.

You couldn't tell by looking at Josie at that very moment—she on her tippy toes so as not to miss the moment Peter came onstage—but she really did have a valid claim at being a unique chick:

 She was one of the few girls at Lawndale High who didn't belong to a catty clique. Just Josie Brant: A+ student, D+ dater, and A+ free spirit.

 She was the only freshman taking an AP English class.

 With no boyfriend and no catfights on her record, for someone who technically was a drama club nerd, she lived a relatively drama-free life.

Yet here Josie stood on the floor of the arena with her expectant eyes glued to the strobe light–splashed stage.

Most boys her age were too busy popping ollies on their skateboard or trying to get to the next level in
Rock Band
or
Call of Duty.
Boys. Peter was a
guy.

Josie's mom was okay with Josie's “little obsession.” Her daughter didn't drink or do drugs, didn't obsess over boys
to the point it hurt her grades, and she had never even puffed on a cigarette—not to mention done anything remotely illegal. Josie had kissed only two boys in her life. Not as prolific a record as Ashley (nine boys and counting), but who needs boys when your addiction is Peter Maxx, the greatest singer-songwriter of your generation, the best thing since God created Twitter?

But now Josie stood on the arena floor, wishing Christopher had come. Even Peter haters were converted to lovers after seeing him live. But Christopher stubbornly refused.

Even so, that didn't stop Josie from hyperactively texting Christopher a blow-by-blow account of everything from the arena floor as they waited for Peter to take the stage. Ashley noticed Josie's fingers texting furiously and told her, “You guys should totally be boyfriend-girlfriend. You guys are obsessed.”

“Never,” Josie replied. “Why ruin a perfect friendship by complicating everything?”

“Um, because you
love
him?”

“I do love him, but I am not
in love
with him.”

“C'mon, Jo-Jo. You guys are like ten times more in love than any couple at school.”

“Well, A, we're just friends, and B, Christopher doesn't like me like that anyway.”

“Okaay,” Ashley teased. “Denial isn't just a river in Africa. I'm just sayin' . . .”

“Sayin' what?”

“That you guys would be an awesome couple. That's all.”

Ashley snatched Josie's phone from her hands and began scrolling through her most recent text chat with Christopher.

“Oh my god, Josie. You guys have texted each other like fifty messages in the last hour! You guys are ridic.”

“And your point is . . .”

“If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.”

Ashley handed the phone back to Josie and glanced at her sideways. “Are you sure you guys aren't doing it?” She giggled.

“Stop!!!” Josie begged, as she typed out another text to him. “I'm not ‘doing it' with anyone!”

Ashley raised her left eyebrow in a skeptical arc.

“Ash, I'm not kidding. There's zero chemistry. I'm so not attracted to him like that. He's just a sweet guy. Don't worry. We're not sexually active. Just textually active.”

Still, Ashley wouldn't let up. “Well, FYI: you're totally marrying him.”

Josie, however, was attracted to Christopher's brain, not to him physically. First of all, she was an inch taller than him, and the fact that Christopher's dad was a tiny man of five-foot-eight meant he didn't have much upside potential in the height department. And when they hugged, she could feel the bones of his shoulders pressing against her. He didn't have the muscles or height of someone like, say, Peter Maxx.

She wasn't proud of herself for being so superficial, but this was just how she felt, though she would never tell Christopher this.

Who's always there when no one cares