Smash It! Page 2

  “You look ridiculous. You know that, right?” He’s got this Freddie Mercury costume on—heavy eyeliner, a yellow leather jacket with buckles, and white pants lined with a red stripe on each side. He puts his arm around me and pulls out his phone for a picture. “You could have pulled off Sexy Hobo. Woulda been bangin’.” Before he snaps, he kisses my cheek, and I’m forever captured on camera rolling my eyes.

  I refuse to answer him. He has this way of picking at my insecurities while making me feel special. But that’s Dré. He’s friendly with everyone; affection rolls off him like hair off a cat. He leaves behind his touches, but get too comfortable and he’ll scratch you for no fucking reason.

  Eli ducks his head around the car as Dré uploads our picture onto his Instagram. Dré has over 50,000 followers, and the number goes up faster with every gig they do. “We need to start doing original songs,” Eli says, and I can hear Dré roll his eyes—not literally, he does this breathing thing that makes him sound tired, and he jerks his leg and scrunches up his shoulders. It’s a whole sound, believe me. He does it when his mom yells and anytime Eli or I say anything remotely close to what if we try something else?

  “Chill, brah. We will, but damn, covers are hot. We give the people what they want, and they’ll make us kings.”

  I can’t help but think Dré doesn’t want to do originals because he sucks at writing songs. I’m just being honest. We’re all in band class, so music is our thing—but just because you like playing concert music doesn’t mean you can write songs. Eli has almost 90,000 followers on Instagram, and it’s because he also posts his poetry. Sometimes it’s a tad angsty, but it’s good.

  Personally, I don’t know what I want to do—I wish I had a thing like them. Something beyond showing up to class and practicing my parts.

  Eli pulls off his fedora and throws it into the back seat. His dark brown hair is curled tightly from sweating. He’s dressed like a 1920s mobster. I don’t know which one; he’s into the details of the past, but that stuff goes right over my head. It suits him though. He has this stoic, classy vibe even when he’s just woken up and answering the door in a white T-shirt and basketball shorts. He’s what my mom calls an old soul, and when you look into those brown eyes, you can feel all the lives he’s lived. “We’re never gonna stand out copying everyone else.”

  Dré looks in the car window, checking his hair. His lips pull back as he inspects his teeth. “Tell him he’s impatient and delusional, Liv.”

  “I’m not in it.” I hate being dragged into the middle. I move from between them and to the trunk to make my point. It’s always Dré who uses me like a shield when Eli starts making sense.

  Eli checks the trunk for the third time. Everything is packed, but he never leaves anything to chance. He would still be hoarding all the poems he shared with me if I hadn’t told him to post them. Ten months later, and I turned out to be the brains of the group—except when it comes to myself.

  I’m looking at my Chucks when Eli pokes my side and whispers, “Sexy hobo isn’t a thing. Takes balls to come as you are.”

  “Hey—quit whispering.” Dré can’t stand to be left out of anything. “Don’t do that. Don’t take his side.” His head pops over the top of the car. “I’ll leave you here and make you walk.”

  “We’re not even talking about you.” I point at the line of cars inching past us like snails, one of them leaving a trail of oil. “And if I have to hitch a ride and my mom sees me coming home with some rando who belongs on a headline, she’ll fuck you up. She’s still pissed about the tire marks on the grass.”

  Dré sucks his teeth. “She’s always pissed.” He waves at two girls as they shout his name from the window of a car. “Wanna picture?” He jogs over to them. Some dudes honk at him and shout song lyrics. Dré eats it up. He was born to be a star.

  “You’re missing it,” I tease Eli.

  Eli looks up from the trunk again and smiles. He’s got big front teeth, and they’re so straight. He never needed braces, and he’s got beautiful full lips to frame them. Elijah Peretz won the genetic lottery. “Everything I need is right here.” He means his keyboard. I know it looks like he means me, because he’s staring at me with Eli eyes—they kind of squint when he smiles, and sometimes he dips his head like he’s embarrassed and his lip catches on his teeth—but that’s just Eli. He makes that face to everyone.

  Regardless, I can’t hold eye contact when he’s like that. My god, it’s like staring at the sun—I am Icarus, or some chick who will get really bad heart cataracts if I keep looking. He can’t help it—it’s the broody thing—but I can help being the idiot girl who falls in love with one of her best friends. Besides, I’m not his type. Eli’s last crush was a redheaded choir chick. She used to sing jingles about the bagels the choir sold in the mornings. I still can’t look at a bagel without remembering her line about spreading cream cheese with ease.

  Also, contrary to me having the balls to come as I am to a Halloween function where everyone and their dog are in costume, I do have lines. Falling for a best friend and doing the unrequited-love thing is one of them. At least—I had that line. I lost track of it somewhere in between Eli’s smiles.

  Eli closes the trunk, and we pile into the car. He’s flipping through a playlist, playing me songs he thinks I’ll like. He knows I have a thing for love songs, and he finds all the best ones.

  Dré is still soaking up attention from passing cars.

  I honk the horn. “Hurry up, Dré.” My mom can be chill about curfew, but it’s late as hell and she’ll beat the black off my ass if I waltz in past one in the morning. I can hear her now, What, you think I raised a ho? As if staying out late is synonymous with sleeping around. And I know girls who do sleep around. If anything, they’re something to look up to. They’ve got this air of independence; like they own something I don’t have but really need. Or maybe it just seems like that because I’ve been a major horn-dog ever since I watched Titanic and saw Leonardo DiCaprio draw Kate Winslet like one of his French girls.

  Anyway, I’m not wrong. We pull into our neighborhood where the houses are all two stories and, as my sister always says, look way too damn much alike. I like the tall arched entryways, the alternating white and beach-sand colored painted houses, and our bright orange Spanish villa roof.

  What I don’t like is that the entryway light is on. By the time I get inside, it’s five minutes after one and my mom is standing in the kitchen with a glass of wine and a face full of attitude. On our white marble counter is another glass with pink lipstick stains and I know Dré’s mom, Gloria, was here, too. They watch the new Housewives of Atlanta episodes together but that had to have been hours ago. Why my mom is still drinking wine at one in the morning is something I’m not allowed to ask—not while she’s being all quiet and looking me up and down.

  “What time is it?”

  Damn, Ma...like you’re not standing next to the oven clock. “One.”

  She sips her wine and then crosses her hands over her body, the wine swirling as she rhythmically circles the glass. “What day is it?” I love my mom, but she’s so annoying. She doesn’t just get to the point. She drags it out like I’m a dog and she’s rubbing my nose in shit.

  “Halloween.”

  “You smart now?” Her eyes cut at me.

  I know not to push her, but I have my limits, too. I’m not a bad kid. I don’t drink—I think alcohol is nasty. Like, who chooses to drink that burn-your-throat-flavor when you could drink a smoothie? I’d rather die fat than from liver problems. I also don’t do drugs—just not my thing. I’m not having sex—not that I don’t want to, it’s just no one has asked me out, and I know I’m in the new age where women are taking their power, but have you met my mother? I don’t have power of my own to take.

  “Wednesday,” I correct. I’m not even going to try to explain myself. That just makes her twist my words. I’m literally five minut
es late. I didn’t kill Jesus.

  Still, I keep my face blank, because one twitch and this bitch will go apeshit. She’s got a job at a fancy event management company downtown planning weddings—the kind of place with big windows, shiny marble floors, and granite reception desks. It pays well; we have a four-bedroom house, and I’ve never had to worry about food in the fridge or asking for new stuff, but it’s long hours and she’s always bringing work home.

  That, plus the fact that she doesn’t turn off the boss bitch attitude, means she’s always in a bad mood and she’ll take away all my privileges until she remembers I’m actually a good kid. I ain’t got time for all that, so... I keep my mouth shut.

  She looks me up and down again and scrunches up her face. “Did you wear that?” She says it like I’m actually in some version of the sexy hobo Dré suggested I wear. She’s staring at me like she can’t compute.

  I swear to god if my mother roasts me for being lame on Halloween, I will burn this house down.

  Her gaze is stuck on my shorts. “First of all—” oh my god, she is doing this “—you’re wearing a hoodie and shorts. Either it’s hot or it’s cold. Pick one. Second—” she waves the hand holding the wineglass at my shorts “—you have way too much booty, and there are nasty men out there who will look at your ass and they don’t care that you’re only seventeen.”

  I groan. This is worse than a roast. My mother is tall and has a willowy figure, and she’s always telling me I’m too curvy and too fat for anything except clothes thirty-year-old women working at less fancy management companies wear.

  These shorts are midthigh. My ass isn’t hanging out. These aren’t shake’em shorts, and I sure as hell ain’t getting any play in these.

  I let my face slip a little, and my mother is all over it.

  “No. You think you know it all until shit happens and mama’s not there to save your ass. You have too much body. You can’t walk around like your little white friends. You’re a black girl, sweetie. People look at you different.”

  I can’t stop myself. “Oh. My. God. Really?” I look at my skin. “When did it happen?” My mom thinks that, because I’m not all Black Panther, I don’t know I’m black. She’s always sent me to schools with a lot of white kids, so, yes, some of my friends are white. I don’t get why that confuses her. And as usual, she conveniently forgets my two best friends are both brown. Every time. I can’t win with her. If I’m not surrounded by black kids all the time, I’m wrong.

  “Fix your attitude. It’s about how you present yourself in public.”

  I really look at my outfit, because, other than it being Halloween and me being the only idiot not in costume, I don’t understand what she’s talking about. I have an ass—nothing short of a tent will cover that up. I have breasts, but you can’t even see them under my hoodie. I don’t even look my age—especially with my hair pulled up in a bun of thick curls. I look like a kid.

  I’m about to burst; I can’t stand to have her pick me apart. For some reason, it hurts more when she does it than when I think other people are doing it. Nothing is good enough. In her eyes, I am flawed.

  She looks at the clock and sighs. “Anyway, I’ll let it slide this time. Let it happen again and it’ll be the last time.” She takes another sip of wine before pouring the rest down the sink. I can’t leave the kitchen soon enough, but she calls me back before I reach the stairway leading to my room.

  I don’t trust myself to speak, because I’m still so pissed, I can’t even look at her.

  “You don’t understand it now, but I love you. You and your sister are my everything, but this world will take you and break you.” She’s wiping the counter and fishing for eye contact. It’s just me and her. My sister’s been doing her own thing for five years now. So, my mom is extra focused on me, like I’m her last egg and she doesn’t want me to hatch. I don’t have the stamina or the patience for it anymore. “Go get some sleep,” she says.

  She’s like the Lifetime movie where it turns out the monster is the lady keeping you locked in the house by telling you the world will kill you if you leave her. Honestly, I can’t take her crazy.

  In my room, I kick off my shoes, scuffing up my purple rag rug. Twinks, my cat, is curled up on my bed and barely cracks an eye to look at me. Just under my Aida poster, a bag of her favorite treats are on my nightstand with teeth marks all over the packaging. I grab the bag and toss a few treats to her as I eye the poster.

  Aida was my first live musical. I can still remember sitting in the Dr. Phillips Center, sinking into the chair as the lights dimmed. My skin chilled during the “Dance of the Robe” and I’ve gone every time they tour in town since—except this year. We get notifications of the shows in the mail and my mom accidently threw it out. By the time I thought to look it up online, the tickets were already sold out.

  It’s fine. Just another reason why my life sucks.

  I put the bag of cat treats back on my nightstand next to that Shonda Rhimes book, Year of Yes.

  I pick it up.

  Shonda Rhimes started out as this weird kid talking to soup cans in her pantry, and now she owns TV. As much as I rag on her rich black lady problems, I want to be like her. I want to be the confident woman she is. She wouldn’t let the shit my mom says bother her—she wouldn’t be so concerned with what others think that she’d end up the only person not dressed up at a party. She would dance at the party to get the guy she likes to notice her.

  I lie back on my bed, feeling too dirty to touch the sheets, but I run my hands over my worn, soft comforter. It’s my favorite shade of blue; the same blue they used for the school musical audition flyers.

  I can’t believe I’m about to let another audition pass by. I’ve loved musicals ever since I was ten and I saw the Phantom of the Opera movie. Every day for a year, I performed a one-woman act as both Phantom and Christine in front of my cat and anyone I could corner—including the checkout lady at Target. I was a kid with gumption.

  Then I got a body. Boobs, butt and birthing hips, as my mother calls them. People started staring at me for all the wrong reasons, and then I stopped calling attention to myself altogether. I wanted to be invisible, and now look at me—I don’t even have the balls to dress up for Halloween. Halloween, the one day you can actually look ridiculous and no one cares. And I know Eli doesn’t care about the flashy stuff, but he looked at Mesh Girl the way I want him to look at me. I’m not saying a supportive friend isn’t a great thing to have, but I want a has-the-hots-for-me boyfriend, too.

  I want to be seen.

  I stare up at my ceiling fan going round and round, and I hear the bartender’s unsolicited advice... You should get over yourself enough to have a little fun while you can. Otherwise, you’ll be a cool adult sitting alone at a bar wondering why your life sucks.

  He’s so right. I want to try out for the school musical—it would be epic: the songs, the late-night rehearsals, getting onstage, and getting a standing ovation. The thing is, how do I become the person who auditions for the school musical?

  Fuck it. I’m not going to let some guy at a bar get me in my feelings. Instead, I’m just going to do it. I’m going to go to school tomorrow and put my name on the sign-up sheet and do the damn thing.

  Chapter 3

  I wake up to Twinks pawing at my face. She does this every morning and it wouldn’t be so bad, but she’s missing a few teeth so she drools while she does it. “Oh my god. Get off me.” I would push her off, but she’s got a bum hip and I’m not a monster.

  So here I am, 6:30 in the morning on three and a half hours of sleep, trapped in my bed with stank cat drool on my face. She’s not fat, but she’s super heavy and she’s squishing my boobs into my neck. “Get off, Twinks.” I can’t ever die like this. The headline on that—“Florida Girl Smothered by Gigantic Twinkie-colored Cat”—that’s not a way any seventeen-year-old girl wants to go out.

 
My phone buzzes, and she plops off with some prodding. I reach for my phone and pull my blanket back over my head. I know who it is before I answer. “I’m awake,” I say.

  Eli sounds groggy. “I’m not ready to wake up yet. Is it sunny? Is it beautiful?” He’s so goddamn weird. I love it though. He’s been my wake-up call since sometime over the summer, and we never stopped. I have no idea why we keep doing this or how we even started. We don’t talk about it—he just calls, and I answer. He sounds different on the phone, his voice low and thoughtful.

  “Open your eyes and look out the window.” His house is next to mine. His bedroom window is literally across from mine. It’s how I met him and Dré when I moved to the neighborhood. Dré was at Eli’s house, and they were watching me with binoculars while I unpacked. It was weird, but back then I was more interested in making friends than talking about why peeping into my window like we were on some made-for-Disney kids movie was extremely creepy and problematic.

  We’ve been the three of us ever since.

  Eli breathes and says my name. I’m used to it now, so I don’t hold my breath and wait for some declaration of love like I did over the summer. The thought makes my face burn. I know I’m not the usual type of girl Eli goes for, but I’m pretty sure we’ve got something going on between us. Maybe—I think.

  “Eli?”

  I imagine him under his covers the same way I’m under mine. His are gray and just as soft, and they smell like his deodorant and cologne. I know this, but I also know what Dré’s sheets and bed smell like, so I mark this as not stalkerish in my book.

  “I need you—to do this for me.” He says that every time, and the pause between I need you and to do this for me is getting longer and longer. I’m making it up in my head, and I really need a shrink or to stop watching so many romance movies with my mom.

  “Liv...” He’s doing that dramatic I’m dying voice and it’s a crime. A crime against hearts; he doesn’t even know he’s committing it. What does this thing we’re doing even mean? It’s so secret and between just us that it makes me feel things I shouldn’t feel—and asking outright could potentially destroy a solid friendship, not to mention our group dynamic. I cannot be that girl. Unless he wants us to be those people, then I’m totally down.