Reel Life Starring Us (4 page)

Sasha Preston piece of advice: If people around
you are grumpy, try to make them laugh. It may seem
annoying at first, but it will work eventually.

I hate when I come home from school
and my dad's still in his workout clothes. He works out, like, four hours a day now, like he's training for the Olympics or something. Most people would be impressed by this, but it makes me nervous. It seems like his day hasn't even started, even though it's almost time for dinner. I don't know if he or my mom cares, but everything about it upsets me because it's a sign that things aren't the way they're supposed to be. My dad's supposed to be wearing fancy pinstriped suits and ironed shirts and colorful ties, and he's supposed to come in just before dinner and take his shoes off and ask Alexa and me how our days were.

He's not supposed to be in workout clothes at dinnertime.

Every time I see him like that, I get even more worried. If this is how bad it is now, how much worse is it going to get? One day he stays in workout clothes and the next day he won't leave his room? I feel like that could totally happen.

My mom just pretends everything is fine, and I guess it could be worse. They could be fighting all the time. I'll take pretending over fighting any day.

“Chelsea,” I hear my mom calling from downstairs. “Dinner.”

My mom doesn't cook and doesn't feel bad about it, either, not a bit. But that's another thing that's changed around here—now she kind of pretends to cook. She'll pick up an already-cooked chicken and make a side dish, or sometimes she'll pick up a side dish, too.

No one complains, though, so I don't either. It's funny how when you don't have anything to complain about, you complain all the time, and when you actually do have stuff to complain about, you just keep quiet.

“So, any news, anyone?” My mom looks around the table, smiling.

I can't tell them how I basically got in trouble and then was forced into working on this dumb video. I can't tell them because they'll be mad and disappointed in me, and it will make them more depressed than they already are. I
want to do the best that I can with everything so they don't have anything extra to worry about.

I'm grateful Alexa speaks and I don't have to. “I got a ninety-seven on my spelling test,” she says. She's in fourth grade, and she doesn't know how easy she has it.

“What happened to the other three points?” my dad asks. That's his thing; he always asks that. I could get a ninety-nine point nine and he'd still ask, “Where's the point one percent?” but he doesn't say it in a mean way. It's just that he finds it funny, and we find it funny, too.

I laugh. Now more than ever, my dad needs to know I still think he's funny.

“Daaaaad,” Alexa groans. “It was the highest grade in my class.”

“And Chels, how was your first day back?” my mom asks me.

“Fine.” I eat a bite of chicken. Maybe they'll leave me alone if they see me eating.

“I bet everyone was psyched to see you,” my dad says. “Did they roll out the red carpet?”

I laugh again.

“Myrna told me that Molly and Kendall are working on some kind of science experiment thing for the fiftieth anniversary. I didn't realize they were really into science. But I assume you're doing that, too?”

“No.” I move my chicken around on my plate. “I missed the first month of school. Remember?”

“Chelsea,” my dad warns. “Lose the attitude.”

“Fine. Sorry.” I roll my eyes. “I have homework to finish. May I be excused?”

My parents nod reluctantly, and I go up to my room. I can't believe I just lied to them that I have homework to finish and they bought it. Since when am I the kind of girl who lies to her parents? Since today, I guess. I also tried to lie to Mr. Valakis about the project, but that didn't work as well as lying to my parents.

I just hate when my mom hears things from Myrna or Gwen and then she talks to me all nonchalantly about it, when what she's really asking is if I'm doing what the other girls are doing. And if I'm not, why not?

I used to think it was great having friends who had moms who were friends with my mom. Like when we needed to go bra shopping, we all did it together, so it wasn't awkward. That kind of stuff.

But now it just feels like a competition that I'm always on the verge of losing, and the losing isn't even the worst part. It's the sadness in my mom's eyes when she realizes I'm losing.

I can't take it.

So I call Molly.

“How come you guys didn't save me a spot in what you're doing for the fiftieth-anniversary thing?” I ask without saying hello first. We're past the point of hello.

“What are you talking about?” she asks back. My nickname for Molly when we were four years old in nursery school was Mean Molly. She used to take the Velcro from her sneakers and scratch it on people's legs, and once she told our first-grade teacher she was fat, right to her face.

She's just mean; I've always thought so, but I stay friends with her anyway. Because the thing is, she's never been mean to me, just other people, and I guess I've always been afraid of what would happen if we stopped being friends. Then she'd be mean to me, obviously, and I couldn't handle that. I'd never admit that to anyone, but it's true.

“You, Kendall, and even Brie—who we're so not friends with—you're all working on the science fair stuff.” I pause, waiting for her to say something. She doesn't. “I was out of school, so I didn't have a chance to sign up. And now I'm stuck doing this stupid video thing with that new girl.”

“You mean that girl Dina?”

“Yeah. What other new girl is there?”

“She's weird. I can tell already. Did you see how she was, like, staring out the window the entire math period? She didn't
take one note. And why does she even have a video camera with her? So weird.”

I don't respond to that because I didn't call Molly to gossip about Dina. “Seriously, Molls. Why didn't you tell me about the project?”

“No offense, Chels.” She pauses. She always starts sentences “no offense,” especially when she's about to say something offensive. “But you're not really into science.”

I snort. “And you are?”

“Well, yeah, kind of. Ever since my parents had that meeting with Mrs. Nodenski and they got me into honors.” Through the phone I can hear her popping her gum. “And it's not like we're doing
science
science, like test tubes and beakers and microscopes. We're doing this study on how weather affects people's actions and moods—like, if they go shopping as much when it's raining as they do when it's sunny, stuff like that. We're spending a lot of time at the mall, taking surveys and counting people.”

“Oh.”

Molly huffs into the receiver. “Anyway, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to leave you out or anything on purpose. We just didn't think of it.”

I sigh. That's almost worse. “I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

“You mad?” she whines. Molly has the worst whine in the world.

“A little. Mainly just annoyed.” As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. I wasn't thinking, saying something like that. I wasn't thinking at all.

“Annoyed about what? We decorated your locker to welcome you back. And we have plans to go to the Cheesecake Factory Saturday night. Some of the guys might even be coming. You can totally sleep over after. And we can get a mani on Sunday. What's there to be annoyed about? Your life is totally great. Who cares about the fiftieth anniversary anyway? I mean, you—”

“Okay, you're right.” I stop her. I can't listen to her babble on anymore. Even her trying to be nice has hints of meanness to it.

“Good. Glad you agree. See you tomorrow.”

It's true that Molly doesn't really know all I have to be annoyed about, like our take-out rotisserie chicken instead of dinner out at Café Spuntino.

It's my fault she doesn't know, because I haven't told her, and I don't plan to.

I wish that if I told her and Kendall, everything would stay the same between us. But that's just not how it is with us, and I've lived here long enough to know that.

I flop back onto my bed, open my backpack, and look at my planner to see what homework I have to do.

I don't have too much. I think the teachers are being nice and helping me ease back into school, plus I kept up with some of the work while I was home.

The handout about the fiftieth-anniversary projects from Mr. Valakis falls out of my planner, and I'm forced to face the fact that I actually have to do this. And it's not going to be done in one day, either.

Maybe I could scheme my way out of this by having my mom and dad go in and talk to Mr. Oliver, the principal, and say that I'm really better suited for another kind of project. Parents around here always get their kids out of stuff; it wouldn't be hard.

But then that would mean my parents would have to go into school, and maybe they'd run into someone they knew and then soon enough everyone would know everything.

And besides, I don't really want to fight to work with Kendall and Molly. I want them to fight to work with me. But I don't think that's going to happen.

Video tip: If you need to make a cut in an interview,
use B-roll footage to cover it. Avoid jump cuts.

Day two is so much harder than day one.
On day one it's okay and acceptable to be a little frazzled and out of it. But day two you're expected to know what's going on. You don't have the excuse anymore. You can't just say, “Oh, it's my first day,” because it's not. And it's lame to go around saying, “Oh, it's my second day.” By the second day, no one cares. You still feel new, and you still
are
new, but no one wants to help you find your way.

Right now I'm in homeroom. I'm in the same exact seat I sat in yesterday. All the rest of the kids are in different seats. Some of them aren't even sitting down, or they're sitting on the tops of the desks chatting with one another. And I'm just sitting quietly staring at my planner because I don't really
know anyone well enough to chat with. And I don't want to do that whole introducing myself thing because, again, it's the second day, not the first.

Besides, I tried to be chatty in homeroom yesterday. It didn't get me anywhere.

Mrs. Welsh comes in. She takes our attendance and then goes on for ten minutes about the fiftieth anniversary and how we need to take our projects seriously.

I am taking it seriously. Even though I only learned about it yesterday.

“What are you doing for the project?” I ask the girl sitting next to me. It's the only thing I can think to say. She's wearing all black and trying to hide the fact that she's playing Tetris on her cell phone.

“I said I'd help with cleanup.”

“You're allowed to do that?”

“No. But I'm already the poorest kid in the school so I might as well be treated like everyone else's housekeeper.”

I gasp. Now I really can't think of anything to say.

She smiles. “I'm kidding. I just wanted to see how you'd react.”

“Oh.” I force a smile.

“I'm on Brainbusters.”

“What's that?”

“The trivia team.” She sits back in her chair and puts one foot up on the side of the desk. “I'm Lee, by the way.”

“Dina.” I feel like we should shake hands or something. Who is Lee friends with? Definitely not Chelsea Stern and those girls. And I don't think she and I have much in common, either.

“I know. I saw you yesterday.” The bell rings finally and Lee grabs her backpack with patches halfheartedly sewn on. “Good luck working with Chelsea Stern, by the way. I feel for you.” She looks down at my bag. “Oh, um, sorry about that.”

It happened again. I was chipped. If it keeps happening, I'm just going to start eating the crumbs. They're too delicious to waste.

Lee walks on ahead of me. I try to figure out exactly what she means about Chelsea. I'm not sure if I really even want to know.

Soon it's social studies again, which means video time.

I get to Mr. Valakis's classroom and take a seat in the middle and wait for class to start. So far there's no sight of Chelsea.

“If you're here early, you can get started,” Mr. Valakis says. He has a much more laid-back tone today, and he's sitting on the desk. He's wearing those ultrathick wool socks people wear for hiking in the middle of the winter, even though it's really not that cold.

So everyone gets started working, and I just sit here
writing down different ideas for the video: a photo montage with voice-over, a skit about Rockwood Hills Middle School, maybe something totally different altogether like a video about the ways kids around here are giving back to their community? There are so many possibilities.

“Dina?” Mr. Valakis asks.