Theodora Twist (9 page)

Keeping it real would mean leaving Sophie’s spit-up stains and half-chewed toys everywhere, but my mom hired a cleaning service and bought new throw pillows and fresh flowers and candles. Our house was already nice, but now it looks “TV ready” (my mom’s new favorite expression).

Very weird: When I come home from school today, my room will be completely changed. There will be another bed and another desk; two drawers of my dresser will be cleaned out, and so will half my closet. I doubt two drawers and half of a small closet will be enough for Theodora Twist’s wardrobe. Jen thinks the change will help me get over Zach, since he dumped me in my bedroom. Then again, my bedroom is the last place we were when he was still my boyfriend. I’m not so sure I want that messed with yet—even if Zach is a jerk.

On Saturday and Sunday we’re supposed to do what we normally do, but I have a feeling all we’ll do is sit around like nervous idiots, waiting for the doorbell to ring. When it does, it’ll be the camerapeople. They’ll precede Theodora by an hour. That’s all the notice we’ll have.

“Can I come over after school on Monday?” six people ask as I’m trying to head out.

Do I know you? Have you said two words to me before
this moment? No.

“The producers want to keep it really simple,” I say, and then flee to the girls’ bathroom, dodging “That’s her!” the entire way. Head down, books practically covering my face, I slip into the bathroom and dash into the first open stall.

Everyone in the bathroom, in the stalls, by the mirror, is talking about the show. About Theodora. About me. I hear my name at least twenty times.

I wait until the warning bell rings, then slip out and head for my history classroom. On the way, I run into Belle. “I’m the same person I was before homeroom!” I mutter at her.

“No, you’re not,” she says. “You’re about to be Twisted.”

Theodora

“Stop the car,” I tell Ashley. She’s driving a Ford or Buick, some normal, ugly rental car. “Stop the car!” I scream at her.

“Are you trying to get us into an accident?” she screeches back at me. “You almost made me spill my soy latte all over myself. And we’re not near a Starbucks.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m going to be sick.

“Theodora?” Ashley says, pulling over. She turns to me and rubs my shoulder. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

I glance out the window. We’re around the corner from Raspberry Road. I see the exact spot where I wiped out on the skateboard my dad bought me for my eleventh birthday. I see Mrs. Fingerman, the old bat who lives on the corner, walking her French poodle, Madeleine. I see people I haven’t seen in forever, planting in their yards, coming and going, washing their cars. Life has gone on here. Out of nowhere I burst into tears.

Ashley pulls me against her, and I cry all over the collar of her Prada shirt. “I forgot how emotional this might be for you. I’m sorry, hon. This is probably the first time you’re seeing this house since you moved to L.A.

“You okay?” she asks. I don’t answer. I’m not okay. “You know,” she says, “Maybe we should go with this angle. The emotion. Originally I thought you should be all happy and excited to be back in your old neighborhood. But perhaps this reaction is more poignant.”

“I think the word you’re looking for is
honest,
” I snap. “And thanks for giving a shit.”

“Sweetie, listen to me,” she says, taking my hand. “I
do
care. I
adore
you. You know that. But you pay me a fortune to look out for your
career.
You know I won’t do anything that’ll compromise you. But if I need you to
act
to keep you okay with the American public, then I’m going to make you act. You
are
an actor. You’re playing a role.”

“Right, of a regular teen,” I say. “I know how to be one. I
am
one.”

She puts the car in drive and starts heading up the hill. “Save it for the cameras. Just be a good girl for me, okay?”

“Whatever, Ashley,” I say, trying not to look out the window. I reach into the backseat for my disguise bag and start pinning up my hair. We have no doubt the paparazzi are lying in wait. Probably in some kid’s tree house.

“I need you to remember something, Theodora,” Ashley says. “While you’re here, you’re going to have to behave yourself twenty-four/seven. You can’t screw up. I’m not going to be around to police you or clean up. And trust me, when Blair and her team edit the tape and create the episodes, they’re going to use everything they’ve got of you acting like a bad girl. They’re not interested in saving your career; they’re interested in hot promos and hot episodes of Theodora Twist acting like a wild child. You have to remember the cameras will follow you
everywhere,
even when you’re supposedly on break. That means no sneaking out at night to go clubbing in Manhattan. No going on dates with the entire football team. No shopping at Chanel.”

“What
am
I allowed to do?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“You’re allowed to
rest,
” she says. “You’re allowed to be a regular kid. Go to high school, get a crush on a boy who doesn’t make ten million dollars a year. Make friends with a girl whose biggest thrill in life is being asked to the prom. Write an essay using topic sentences for English. Do some math problems. Care about what kids care about—whatever that is.”

I laugh. “I don’t know either.”

“There are a few too many vans parked on Blueberry Road,” she says, passing the street. “Let me turn around and drop you off up there to throw off the paparazzi.”

“It’s
Raspberry
Road,” I correct her.

“Raspberry, Strawberry, Whateverberry,” she says, sliding her sunglasses on top of her head. “It couldn’t be a cuter-named street for the show.” She stops the car, and I want to grab her stupid soy latte and pour it down her shirt, but I have the same one and I know how much it cost.

Whateverberry. Not to me. I grew up on Raspberry Road. I lived here all my life—until I moved to L.A. three years ago. While Ashley stabs at her favorite berry—her CrackBerry—I glance behind me. I can just make out the yellow Victorian through the trees.

Ashley pulls my sunglasses off my face. “You can’t wear these in Oak City. Dita Supa Dupa?” She tsk-tsks, then takes hers off her head and slips my gorgeous oversized pearly white frames on her pointy face. They’d look good on anyone. “You can have them back in a month.” I sulk, and she rolls her eyes, then reaches for my disguise bag. As I pull on my wig and plain-Jane glasses and gather my props—a loose-leaf binder and a textbook— she says, “Sweetie, it’s going to be all right. I promise that this will help your career. You’ll go from teen movie star to
icon.
And being here will be good for you. It’s gotta be, Theodora.”

“We’ll see.” With that, I take one last look at my sunglasses and get out of the car.

There are two vans and three cars lining Raspberry Road. All with New York license plates, which means paparazzi. I walk right past them, and they don’t move a muscle. Losers. I’m just an ordinary friend of Emily’s, coming over on a Sunday afternoon to hang out and study.

As I walk up the stone path to the house, I realize everything is the same. The pink and red flowers lining the walk. The white stone chair on the porch. I see my dad on the hammock between the two trees on the side of the house, napping. I see a kid version of me snuggled beside him, my little hand in his big hand. “Dad?” I say, looking up at the cloudless sky, my eyes stinging.

I see the curtains moving in the living room window and a face dart out of view. I glance at the hammock. My father’s gone. I’m gone.

I walk up the steps to the porch, my legs rubbery.
Showtime,
I say to myself as I ring the buzzer, which is my cue to forget. My cue to
become.

The entire family answers the door. No one speaks— or blinks, for that matter. “Hi, it’s me, Theodora,” I say. “In disguise, to ward off the paparazzi,” I add, tilting my head toward the line of cars. Three sets of eyes shift toward the street. They look confused.

“Come in, come in,” says a woman holding a baby. Is this Emily’s mom? She looks totally different. She used to be a hot-shot attorney in the city. But now she looks like . . . a mom. Behind her is a man I’ve never seen before. Oh, that’s right. Ashley told me Emily’s mom remarried, Stew something. Emily is standing—hiding— behind Stew. I can barely see her. They’re all so nervous they don’t move. Then they all jump back at once. Three people—two men and a woman—are filming from various angles with tiny handheld TV cameras.

I close the door and take off the glasses and my wig and unpin my hair. “See? It’s me.”

They all just stare for a second. I’m used to it. You’ve gotta always give people a few minutes to realize you’re flesh and blood; then they calm down.

“We’ll film a perfect arrival at another time,” I explain. “I’ll have an empty suitcase and everything. It’ll be more natural anyway, since we’ll all be used to each other, and you’ll be more used to the cameras.”

They smile their frozen smiles. God, they’re stiff.

“Welcome to Oak City!” Emily’s mom says, five beats too late. “We’re so happy to have you.”

“Yes, delighted,” Stew Something says.

I glance at Emily. I’m going to have to give her a minute; she looks like she’s going to faint. She also looks exactly the same as she did the last time I saw her. Thin, not too tall, hair of nondescript length and texture and color. She’s cute, though. She has really pretty hazel eyes.

“And who’s this adorable sweetie?” I ask, shaking the baby’s tiny hand.

Emily’s mom visibly relaxes. Her shoulders actually drop. “This is Sophie,” she says. “She’s almost a year old. And this is Sophie’s dad, Stew Stewarts,” she adds.

Good thing I’m an actress and know how to hold back a laugh. Stew Stewarts? Cackle-worthy. “Thanks for hosting me,” I tell them. “I know it must feel really weird, having all these camerapeople around. If you ever need to take a break or want some privacy, just say the word and I’ll scare them out of the room.”

Emily laughs, and I smile at her.

From the foyer, where we’re all crowded together for no good reason, you can see the big kitchen and the living room and the dining room and the huge screened porch that leads to the backyard. Everything is the same from three years ago except for the furniture, of course, and the color of the kitchen walls. Now the kitchen is yellow. Before it was some hideous flowery wallpaper.

“I really loved this house,” I say, looking around. “There are no houses like this in L.A.—big old Victorians with nooks and crannies.” They’re all still staring. If they don’t move out of my way soon, I’m going to get a cramp in my leg. “Yum, something smells delicious,” I lie, sniffing the air. “I’m starving.”

“Wonderful!” Emily’s mom says, then looks nervous.

She leans over to me and whispers, “I had an amazing menu planned for your first night, but the producers said I should stick to good old American home cooking.” She steps back and stares into one of the cameras and breaks into a pasted-on smile. “Theodora, I hope you like roast beef and baked potatoes.”

As if I eat meat or white food? “Nothing like meat and potatoes!” I say.

Emily’s stepfather beams. “Emily, why don’t you show Theodora to your room. That’s the collective
your,”
he adds, laughing. “If you need anything that’s not there, you just let us know.”

Mrs. Stewarts nods. “Dinner’s in a half hour. Why don’t you two go off and get reacquainted, and then come on down.”

Emily doesn’t move.

Deep endless sigh. “I’ll lead the way,” I tell her. My suitcases were sent days ago, so there’s nothing to lug up the steep flight of stairs. There are photographs lining the stairwell. I almost expect to see myself and my mom and dad in the frames. But the pictures are of Emily, and a couple of the baby. Emily trails behind me, silent. God, am I going to have to do all the talking for an entire month? A cameraman is ahead of us and a camerawoman is behind us, so I guess I could cut her some slack. The first time I looked into a camera, I froze.

I pass the master bedroom, then the guest bedroom, which is probably now the nursery. At the end of the hall is my old room. I wonder if it’s still orange. My dad painted a rainbow mural on the big wall a few years before he died, and afterward, I couldn’t bear to look at it, so I bought the loudest paint I could find and painted over it. My mom freaked. I hated it too, but at least I could be in my own room without crying.

The door is open. The room is painted a very pale pink. There are two full-size beds with matching white iron headboards separated by a bedside table. A mural of pastel fairies is on the wall where the rainbow was. There are two white desks, one large, one small, which I suppose is the one they bought for me. A fluffy pink throw rug with fluffy pink and white pillows lines the floor under the window. It’s a really girlie room. I’m surprised I like it. It reminds me of my bedroom on the set of
Family.

“Which is your bed?” I ask Emily, who’s standing in the doorway of her own room as though she’s not entitled to come in.

She points, but I have no idea which one she’s pointing to. I assume it’s the one with the half-dead Winnie-the -Pooh on the pillow. “And the one by the window is your desk. My dad recently upgraded my computer because he got a free one from work, so my old one is all yours. It has Internet access and everything.” Her cheeks turn red. “From mute to rambling. Sorry. I’m just really, really nervous.”

I smile at her. “You’ll get used to me. I’m just a regular teen, remember?”

She laughs, then clamps her hand over her mouth. “Not that that’s funny,” she says. “Funny ha-ha, I mean. Oh God. Shut up, Emily.” She turns bright red.

I’d better give her something to do before she passes out. “Why don’t you put on some music?”

“Bellini Brothers?” she asks; then the hand clamps over her mouth again and she stares at the two camerapeople in the room.

“It’s okay,” I tell Emily. “I’m a
big
fan of theirs.” I suddenly feel a camera in my face. “Can you back off a little?” I ask the guy. “I’m not about to launch into a story about threesomes.”