Hope so. But I don’t want to ruin the surprise.
For Christ’s sake. Is there anything more maddening than people telling you you’ll be surprised by something that won’t happen for ages? It’s like dangling a piece of salami over a dog’s head, exactly two inches higher than the poor thing can jump.
Obviously I wasn’t going to tell Kyle that.
All right, you have me intrigued. I’ll be watching.
Good. BTW, what’s your #? Txts wld be easier.
Statement retracted. Kyle could dangle all the “surprise!” salamis he wanted if he was going to throw requests like that in there. Pathetic, I know, but I was too anxious to care. Thumbs shaking, I typed the number into the message window. About a minute later, a text arrived from a number I didn’t recognize.
(From 763 . . . ): Hey, it’s Kyle. Now we can talk easier! Gotta go. Make sure to watch and txt me after it’s over. Later!
Hands fully seizuring now, I carefully clicked to save the number. Kyle Bonham, also saved to SIM.
I collapsed onto the carpet, my cheek pressing hard into the rough beige divots. I’d probably wind up with a topographical map there too, part of a matching set with my elbows.
I closed my eyes and breathed in as deeply as I could, trying to calm the fluttery feeling taking over my stomach and lungs.
How was I ever going to get through the next twenty-four hours knowing there was something on the show Kyle wanted me, in particular, to see?
And what could it possibly be?
chapter eighteen
KYLE
THURSDAY, 11:45 A.M.
The dressing rooms at the Laura Show had no windows. Had: huge overstuffed couches, bright-white walls, fresh flowers, and baskets filled with, like, every kind of junk food ever, plus some hippie ones I’d never even heard of. Didn’t have: windows.
It made it even harder to sit still. The room felt claustrophobic, like a well-decorated prison cell. But with an attached bathroom instead of a can in the corner.
We’d been waiting for three hours, but no one had come by since the thin, prim woman manning reception when we showed up dropped us here. She’d offered to show us around first, which seemed cool. But she’d locked her smile in place right away, walking down the long, narrow hallway with all the dressing rooms (currently next door: the band Five-Step Boogie), and she was smiling just as hard for the camera storage room.
It made me wonder if she ever didn’t smile.
I walked the length of the room again. The light: too bright, like an operating room. I thought all the time between when we were supposed to arrive and when we started taping would help me calm down, but I was getting crazy nervous. I shook my hands out and bounced up and down on my toes like I did before lacrosse games, trying to release the energy.
Someone knocked softly at the door. Mom’s head whipped around so fast I thought she might do damage. I froze midway through a bounce, heels not touching the ground.
The door opened, and a man’s head appeared around the crack.
“Knock, knock!” he said cheerily. He had dark-brown hair, slicked back in a perfect pompadour, and the barest hint of black stubble on his narrow chin. He was smiling just as hard as the tour lady, but it didn’t seem fake.
Neither Mom nor I said anything. For the split second before the man’s head appeared I had this weird hope that one of the Five-Step Boogie guys had come by to say hey. Which was pretty embarrassing; all but two of them were younger than me and their fan base was entirely tweeny-boppers.
Still, they were, like, massively famous.
“Can I come in?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Sure, yeah,” I sputtered. “Please.” I leaned back on my heels and spread my arm in the universal “enter” gesture.
“Great.” He stepped inside. He was wearing a multicolored tank top with armholes that went all the way down to the waistband of his jeans, which were tucked into snakeskin boots. He looked cool. In an L.A. way.
“I’m José. I’m gonna be helping you with your hair and makeup.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“Don’t worry, it’s just so the stage lights won’t wash you out. Though you could definitely pull off that five-year-old beauty queen thing.”
I frowned. The corner of José’s mouth twitched. Jeez, and that was an obvious joke. Me: way too tense right now.
I forced out a laugh.
“How’d you know my going-out look?”
José smiled and pointed me to sit at the counter running along one wall, in front of a light-bulb-studded mirror. He pushed the snacks aside to make room for a massive black box filled with dozens of bottles and brushes and tubes of makeup.
“Should I change first?” I asked as he started pulling out colors and holding them to the light.
“That would be good. Pulling on a T-shirt might mess up your hair.”