Perfect You (26 page)

"Hello?" he said, and the minute I heard his voice I knew what I had to say, and it wasn't hard at all.

"Hey, it's Kate."

"I know," he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

THE END

Okay, so that wasn't exactly the end. In fact, it was more of a beginning, and you know what? It was a good one.

Other things did end, though. I stopped looking for Anna first thing when I got to school. I stopped looking for her in the halls. I still see her, though. She's still dating Sam. Diane is still her best friend. She seems happy, but I don't know if she is. We never speak.

Mom and Dad are officially separated. Dad lost his space at the mall when he couldn't pay next quarter's rent, and moved out to Faron, where the big mall is. There's a woman, Gloria, who runs a Perfect You store there, in a booth just like Dad used to own, and he works for her. Every time I go out there, we sit in his tiny apartment and he tells me about the displays he wants to do and the new products he's sure will sell. Sometimes we go over to his boss's house and Gloria and her husband give me free samples to take home.

I never do.

Mom still won't let me drive by myself. I refuse to let her forget that she promised I could the moment I turn seventeen. I only have a few weeks to go now. Me and her and Grandma live in an apartment together, and it's not too bad. I have my own room, which is nice, but I still have to share a bathroom with Grandma. That's the same as it always was.

Todd wants to be a photographer now, and probably bores his coworkers at the coffee place to death talking about it. I know he bores me whenever he comes over, which is usually to mooch food. He's living with the girl he met at the movie theater back when we both worked at the mall. Her name is Wendy, and she wants to be a director.

Sometimes she invites all of us over to watch her films, which usually star Todd sitting around trying to look pensive. I think they're perfect for each other.

Will and I have been dating for six months. He's still the kind of guy who will come up to me after class and say, "So, what happened in there? I lost interest as soon as the teacher started talking," but he's also the kind of guy who will decide that since it's a Wednesday, we need to go eat tacos and then drive out to the park and watch the sun set.

He's also still a really good kisser.

He makes me happy.

I still miss Anna. I still miss my old house; the front hallway, the kitchen, my room. I still miss my parents being together, and Grandma still drives me crazy just about all the time. I even sort of miss Todd being around, though of course I'd never actually tell him that.

But things change. Stuff happens. And you know what? Life goes on. In fact, that's what life is. Who'd have thought Grandma would be right about anything, much less something so important?

I guess vitamins didn't ruin my life after all. They just changed it. Changed me.

So I can't say this is the end or even an ending because it isn't. It's just life, and you know what? I'm going to do my best to try and really live it.

BEGIN Like what you just read?

Here's a sneak peek at Elizabeth Scott's next novel:

Something, Maybe

Everyone's seen my mother naked.

Well, mostly naked. Remember that ad that ran during the Super Bowl, the one where a guy calls and orders a pizza, then opens the door to see a naked lady with an open pizza box ("The pizza that's so hot, it can't be contained!") covering the bits you still aren't allowed to see on network television?

That was her. Candy Madison, once one of Jackson James's girlfriends and star of the short-lived sitcom Cowboy Dad. Now she's reduced to the (rare) acting job or ad, but she was relatively famous (or infamous) for a few days after a football game with a pregame show that lasts longer than the actual game.

Whoo.

I'd love to say the ad caused me nothing but grief at school, but aside from a few snide comments from the sparkly girls (you know the type--unnaturally white teeth, shining hair, personalities of rabid dogs) and some of the jock apes (who, of course, were watching the game, and like both pizza and naked women. Not a stretch to figure they'd be interested), nobody said anything to me.

But then, nobody really talks to me. That's good, though. I've worked long and hard to be an invisible presence at Slaterville High, an anonymous student in the almost two thousand who attend, and I want it to stay that way. (The school website actually boasts that we're larger than some colleges. I guess overcrowding is a good thing now.) However, the ad has caused me nothing but grief at home. When it aired, traffic to Mom's site, www.candymadison.net , tripled, and she worked long and hard to keep it coming back, giving free "chats" (where she sits around in lingerie and answers questions about her so-called career and Jackson) and pushing her self-published autobiography, Candy Madison: Taking It All Off. We actually sold ten of the twenty-five cases of the book still stacked in our garage.

And the press coverage? Mom loved it. The ad only ran once, because some senator's kid saw it and . . . you know where I'm going, right?

Of course you do, and naturally the ad became extremely popular online. Celeb Weekly magazine did five questions with her, and Mom pushed her website and book and then talked about how she was always looking for "interesting, quirky character roles."

The week the story ran, Mom bought ten copies of the magazine at the grocery store and wandered around the house grinning and flapping the interview at me. The phone rang almost hourly, her brand-new agent calling with other offers (mostly for work involving less clothing, which Mom turned down) and an invitation to appear on a talk show.

Not a classy talk show, mind you, but still, it was a talk show. She said yes until she found out they show was about "Moms Who Get Naked: Live! Nude! Moms!" and backed out. Not because she objected to being called a mom. Or because she knew--

because I'd told her so--that I'd die if she did it. It was the nude thing.

"I've never done any nude work!" she said to her agent. "I'm an artist, an actress--all right, yes, the ad. But I was wearing a pizza box! I want to be taken seriously. What about getting me on the talk show with the woman who says Wow!' all the time and gives her audience members free cars? I could talk to her."

The "Wow!" lady wasn't interested, Mom's new agent stopped calling, and today, when we go to the supermarket, Celeb Weekly doesn't have her picture.

"I don't understand," she tells me. "I got so much e-mail from my fans after that interview, and they all said they'd write to the magazine and ask for more. Do you think I wasn't memorable enough?"

I look at her, dressed in a tight, bright pink T-shirt with candymadison.net in sequins along the front, and a white skirt that barely skims the top of her thighs. Her shoes have heels that could probably be used to pierce things.

"You're very memorable, Mom. Did you get the bread?"

"I don't eat bread." Is she pouting? It's hard to tell. She's had a lot of chemicals injected into her face.

"I know, but I do," I tell her, taking the Celeb Weekly she thrusts at me.

"Sorry," she says. "I'm just in a bad mood. They could have at least run one picture!"

"I know, but they . . . ," I say, and trail off because there's Mom, in the back of the magazine under "Fashion Disasters!" The picture they're running was taken at the premiere of a play she did way (way) off Broadway a week ago. The play ran for exactly one night. She played a nun (now you see why the play lasted one night) and wore a dress with what she called strategic cut-outs to a party afterward.

The caption under the picture reads, "Note to Candy Madison: Sometimes pizza boxes ARE more flattering!"

"What?" Mom says, trying to look at the magazine again. "Did I miss something? Is there a picture of me? Or, wait--is Jackson in there?"

"Urn . . . Jackson," I tell her, and she looks at me, then pulls the magazine out of my hands and sees the picture.

And then she starts jumping up and down. Never mind that everyone in the grocery store is watching her even more than they usually do, most with resigned "Oh, why must she live here?" expressions on their faces, and a few "Oh, I hope she jumps higher because that skirt is covering less and less" grins.

"I'll go get the bread," I tell her, and walk away. Shell be done jumping when I get back, because she'll have seen the caption. At least this means we won't have to buy ten copies of the magazine. I would rather have food than look at pictures of celebrities.

(Call me crazy, but I just think it's a better choice.)

And I would much rather look at pictures of Mom than of Jackson James, founder of www.jacksonjamesonline.com , the home of JJ's Girls, and current star of JJ: Dreamworld.

He just turned seventy-two, acts like he's twenty-two, and once upon a time Mom had a child with him. Check out any online encyclopedia (or gossip site) if you don't believe me. The photo you see-- and it's always the same photo--is of me and Jackson. It was taken when I was a baby, but still. It's out there.

When I get back, Mom has seen what they said about her, but she still wants a copy of the magazine. "I don't think that many people look at the captions, do you?" she says as we're heading out to the parking lot, stroking the glossy cover of Celeb Weekly. "I can't believe I'm in here again." Her smile is so beautiful, so glowing. So happy.

Mom almost never looks happy. Not really.

"I bet plenty of people will see the picture," I say, which isn't a lie. I'm sure plenty of people will. But I bet they'll read what's under it too. She doesn't need to hear that, though. Not now.

"I'll see you after work, okay?" I say, putting the last of the groceries in her car.

She nods, and when she hugs me, I tug her shirt down.

When you're a seventeen-year-old girl living in a town famous for nothing but its proximity to the interstate and an enormous collection of strip malls and subdivisions, there aren't a lot of high-powered job opportunities.

There are, however, many, many jobs in the fast-food industry, and one of them is mine.

I work for BurgerTown USA (a division of PhenRen Co., which makes fertilizer--tell me that doesn't make you think twice about your BurgerTown Big Bite) as a drive-thru order specialist.

In other words, people tell me what they want to eat; I type in the appropriate code, then read them their automated total. The catch is, I don't actually do it at the restaurant.

When you go to a BurgerTown in New York or California or Massachusetts or Wyoming or Georgia (really, anywhere except Hawaii and Alaska), your drive-thru order comes to a call center like mine, and I'm the one who takes your request for extra-large fries.

Well, me or one of my moronic co-workers (this doesn't include Josh).

BurgerTown has these call centers because of "cost efficiency," which seems to mean they want on-site BurgerTown employees--the ones stuck in the actual restaurants--to have more time to wipe off tables. Or mop floors. Or clean bathrooms. Management is very proud of the fact that they no longer need to hire outside cleaning crews for any reason.

Needless to say, on-site BurgerTown employees don't like us call-center employees much. Mom once mentioned I worked for BurgerTown when she was cheating on her diet of the moment by eating fries, but reported that "the girl who took my order made a face when I said you worked in the call center."

"Did your food taste funny?" I asked.

"Funny how?" Mom said. "Hey, have you seen my red white and blue thong?"

"Never mind," I said, but if I ever go to BurgerTown--which I won't, because I'm so sick of asking people if they want fries or pies or Big Bite combos that the thought of eating there makes me not hungry, which usually takes some serious effort--I wouldn't say I worked at the drive-thru center. Ever.

Why?

Well, you see, saying something like that is a surefire way to get the BurgerTown special--the spit meal.

We even have a secret code for it at the center. When someone's a real ass, the kind of person who says, "Now, what kind of meat do you use in your hamburgers? Will my tomato be fresh? Oh, and I want two pieces of lettuce, not one. And make it fast, 'cause I'm in a hurry!" we put in their order and then hit **.

It's one of those things you just find out after you've worked at BurgerTown for a while (all right, a day) and everyone does it.

Well, not everyone.

Josh, my co-worker and soul mate (though he doesn't know it yet), says that eating at BurgerTown is punishment enough.

"All that meat and grease and saturated fat destroys your body," he says, and I totally agree with him, really, but sometimes after I've dealt with a total ass who thinks ordering four dollars' worth of food means I owe them an ingredient reading or whatever--well, sometimes they still get the special.

Finn gives them too, which really does mean I should stop, because Finn is so--well, he's your average seventeen-year-old Slaterville male, and they can be described in one word: Blech. His interests don't include plans to help others, and as far as I can tell, his favorite thing to do is be annoying, especially to me. I'm pretty good at ignoring him.

Mostly.

"Anyone seen Polly today?" he asks. "Josh? Hannah?"

Josh and I shake our heads, and Finn grins at me. "She must be on break."

I laugh. Josh doesn't, and I sigh, wishing I could be serious like him. But the Polly thing is funny. She's always "on break" because even though she supposedly works here, she's never here. I think she's come in maybe twice the entire time I've worked here. I can understand why she doesn't come in, though. She's twenty-two, her claim to fame is that she was once homecoming queen, and now she works (well, "works") here. Some life.

She gets away with never being here because her father, Greg, is our boss, and I think he's afraid to call her out on how she doesn't work because it would mean discussing Polly's favorite activity, which is hanging out with her forty-seven-year-old married boyfriend, whose wife happens to be Greg's wife's younger sister.