Chapter 8
My classes felt like they were really dragging today. Maybe because I couldn’t wait to get to lunch. Not because I was hungry or anything, but because I could finally see Bridge again and check up on her progress.
And I would also see Mase and Susan and could schedule them in for their grand Gamma Glamma makeovers. And then, after lunch, it would only be three more hours until I would have my crush time with Swen. I couldn’t contain myself. I was both excited and nervous.
Today I had tried to be subtle with my fashion decisions but still dress cute for Swen. I wore a button-down white dress shirt that I found at Target and tried to roll up the sleeves just like he did. I also made sure to wear it untucked. I was going to wear jeans but decided against it, because I didn’t want to look so obviously like Swen’s clonerazzi.
So, I purposely wore a gray utility pleated mini with my silver magnetic boots. I love these boots because I had constructed them from faux Ugg boots, which was a good start since I really don’t like wearing dead things. Yeah, I know, I eat meat, like taco salad, but I’m working on that.
Anyway, back to my boots. They’re silver and I have attached these metal strips to them so I can hang memos, pictures, or whatever on them. The only drawback was that it took me a little longer getting through the metal detector today, but Mr. Sekin, the vice principal, who watches the entrance every day, knows me pretty well by now.
Finally, it was science class and then I was saved by the bell and saved by the fact that Dr. Hamrock was away at some type of workshop. The substitute teacher was nice enough to let us gather our stuff early so we weren’t scrambling so much when the bell rang for lunch, like we normally do.
As I bobbed and weaved my way into the cafeteria, I quickly turned to look at the J+L table. The first thing I noticed was that Adam and Bridge were already sitting down. I giggled when I heard Bridge’s new and improved laugh. I wanted to go over there really bad but decided to wait.
On the menu today was the school’s lame-o version of pizza. And not having any better alternatives, I resigned myself to a slice, added a salad for good measure, and poured myself a purple juice drink that’s just called “Purple.” I wandered to my usual table and sat down with Mase and Susan, who was already almost done with her lunch.
“Hey, guys,” I said.
Mase just nodded and Susan glanced up at me and then kept eating.
“Mase, I have your stuff for you to wear for the week. Do you have time to meet with me tonight?”
Mase shook his head no.
“What about tomorrow night?”
Mase still shook his head no. I wasn’t sure if he was playing with me or not.
“Well, what time are you free today?”
Mase showed me four fingers and then switched modes from chewing to drinking, or in his case, gulping.
“Cool. So, you do have time after school?”
Mase nodded yes.
“Then could we make it at four-thirty?” I asked, almost forgetting my library date with Swen.
Mase shook his head no.
“Por que?” I asked, getting tired of these mime games.
He pulled out his ragged skateboard from under the table and put it on the table. Ew.
“Oh,” I said, realizing he wasn’t about to cut into his skateboard time in the name of science. “Okay, can you meet me outside the library at four o’clock sharp?”
Mase nodded yes and, relieved, I turned to my next victim.
“And Susan, when can we get together? I’m available anytime. How about tonight? Can I come over?” I squeezed in a bite of cold pizza.
“Yeah, I guess so. But I live far away,” she groaned in her usual unwelcoming voice.
“No problema. I can have my mom drop me off.”
“Well, okay. I’ll still need to make you a map, but it won’t be that great.”
Susan scribbled her address along with her map and then went back to eating her lunch, or I should say crumbs, at this point. God, lunch was going to be a total drag with these two. I could already tell it was going to be a long two weeks.
I glanced at my “Watchame”—another of my favorite creations. It’s a watch that I’ve programmed to read out daily encouragements, my social schedule, homework assignments, even a reminder to breathe. Mase had come up with the design—it was me with a tiny body and giant head, kind of a Japanese cartoon character like Hello Kitty, with the display screen in my forehead.
Right now it was showing the time, and I noticed I only had enough of that to boogie past the J+L table to say hi to Bridge and Adam.
As I grabbed my lunch tray and backpack, I said, “Okay, guys, I’ll check you out later. I need to find Bridge and Adam.” Mase shot me a disapproving look at the mention of Adam’s name.
“He swears he didn’t nominate you,” I said. Mase then gave me a small “whatever” face as he went back to adjusting the wheel bearings of his skateboard with a lunchroom fork.
“Hey, Mase, will you take my tray for me?”
Mase nodded quickly, then focused on his skateboard. I set my tray and gathered my bags.
“Susan, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Alright.” Engrossed in her elf drawing, she didn’t look up.
As I started walking to the J+L table and looking at the long rows of beautiful people, I took a deep breath. I could hear my boots clanking around like I had on cowboy spurs or something.
Venus was already holding court and, amazingly, Bridge just fit right in like the perfect puzzle piece. She was so perfecto in her new surroundings that she didn’t even notice her best friend walking and jingling up behind her.
“Hey, Bridge, how’s it going?” I slapped her on the back.
“Shiny,” Bridge chirped back, already nailing the stuck-up tone typical to the J+L tribe.
So then I went, “Oh, shiny is it?” noticing that shiny was such a Venus word. “I’m going to the snack bar. Do you wanna come with?” I asked, hoping she was hearing my undertones of “Girl, we need to talk now!”
Still quite hypnotized in the J+L mode, Bridge cooed, “Nooo, I think I’m good.”
So, I stepped on her foot immediately to remind her that she wasn’t that good. Her eyes widened and the pain brought her back to her senses.
“Well, maybe I’ll just window-shop,” Bridge coughed up. “Hey, Venus, Adam, do y’all want anything?” Bridge flashed a nervous smile.
“Yeah. I’ll take two Choco Drumsticks,” commanded Venus to Bridge as if she were her personal slave.
“Are both of those for you?” Adam asked with great curiosity.
“You know it!” bragged Venus as she flicked back her hair and showed off her Colgate smile.
“Oh, my God, V, how do you stay so skinny?” Tammy Shellhorn, who was sitting next to Venus, and desperate to maintain her welcome in the group, showed off her major suck-up abilities.
“Oh, you know, I just do Luz’s ‘Hollywood trick.’ ” Then Venus pretended to shove her finger down her throat, and suddenly, I felt a stab of anger.
“Oh, you’re just precious,” I hissed back with fake sweetness.
“I’m just kidding, Santos,” Venus said, with wide doe eyes. “I’m just blessed with a very fast metabolism.”
I looked at the worn ceiling tiles. Worn enough to fall, I thought....
“Yeah, Venus, I know. Ever since Jr. High, you’ve been really fast.” I hoped that the last word of my sentence would rip like an arrow into Venus’s self-inflated balloon.
“Ow and meow,” said Adam under his breath, looking a bit uneasy.
With that I leaned over to Adam and said, “Let me know if you need anything, mi vida.” Then I kissed him on the cheek (and caught him off guard) and grabbed Bridge’s arm to join me as I walked away. The showdown was over.
Not only could I feel Venus’s hot stare and glare, but I could also hear the gears in her head spin out sinister plans as she turned to Adam and smiled cutely to begin her sabotage of my fake relationship with him. Now away from the J+L table, I could finally breathe.
“So, how has your day really been, Bridge?” I asked, hoping now that the distance from the J+L table would allow a safe haven for Bridge to freely speak her mind and la verdad—the truth. As we got back in the lunch line, I moved in front of Bridge and grabbed another tray as I checked out the desserts.
“I don’t know where to start! I’m just so excited. I mean, it feels amazing. My day has really been unbelievable. I can’t really explain it. I’m feeling it—the popularity, y’know? Everyone’s been super nice. People say I look really great, even some of the girls. Can you believe it? I want this to last forever.”
I reached in the ice bin and began weighing my options of grabbing a frozen treat now or holding out for the chocolate pudding that was farther down the line.
“You know I’m glad that it’s working out for you and all, but you really have to remember this is just a science experiment, not real life, chica,” I warned.
“I know.”
“Well then do your part and start taking pictures or at least start jotting some notes. You gotta help me out, Bridge, and not fall for the BS—bad science.”
Bridge’s posture sank back to normal. “I know. I’m sorry, Luz. But everything has been happening really, really fast.”
I kind of felt bad for being so stern. So, I turned back to give a reassuring BFF smile, but I noticed something unusual happening. Bridge started doing something that she’s never done before. Twirling her hair. We both despised this behavior in girls so much that we in fact classified it as “dumb girl gymnastics.”
“Bridge, you’re twirling your hair! Cut it out!”
“Was I?” Bridge said in total disbelief as she tried to pull her hand out of her hair, but it got caught. I was still moving down the line.
“Luz, my finger is caught in my hair,” Bridge said.
“Okay, now you’re being a superfreak and it’s really not cute.” I went back to my mean voice, knowing her tendency to overreact, refusing to turn around.
“Luz, look at my hand! Look at both of them!”
Because I couldn’t resist, I flipped back around again and peered down at Miss Joiner’s hands and saw the most amazing thing ever—a set of really long shiny fingernails.
“Oh, wow! Bridge, you did it! Your nail gelatin formula worked! I can’t believe your nails grew in less than twenty-four hours. That’s quicker than our calculations!”
“This is amazing!” She was awestruck by her magical manicure. “Luz, do you know what this means? If this works out, we could sell this at school and become famous.”
“Not just at school but everywhere. And what better coverage than to have a TV documentary note your new discovery!” I was already worrying about what we should wear for our debut on TV.
I grabbed my tray and loaded it up with more Purple and two small cups of chocolate pudding. Bridge, who was too busy admiring her nails, passed on the sweets but made good on her promise to feed a “fast” Venus with two Choco Drumsticks. We were almost about ready to pay the cafeteria woman when from behind me Bridge said, “And, by the way, I can’t believe you kissed Adam. What was that all about?”
And as I turned to her to explain my impulsive actions, Bridge screamed, “Ahhhh! Luz! Your hair is in the pudding! It’s growing!”
And sure enough, as I looked down my hair had indeed grown over a foot since the morning. The strange thing was, I hadn’t really noticed it, but my scalp did feel kind of itchy—like when you put way too much product in your hair.
Bridge was still looking at me with her mouth wide open while the cafeteria lady was looking at me with her lips firmly shut. We were, apparently, backing up the lunch line.
After we paid and left with hair and pudding and all, we ran back to our ole home base, the sci-fi section. Mase and Susan had left, so we sat by ourselves. Bridge, true to her best friend self, scored some napkins and water to help me clean my new locks.
“This is sooo great, isn’t it, Luz?” She stretched out her hands in front of her.
For the first time in our best-friend relationship, Bridge was the certain one and I was feeling a bit like Miss Insecure.
“I’m so glad I didn’t use any of your hair harnesser. Could you see me if I used it? I would be Miss Curls-Gone-Wild by now. How much did you use?”
“I don’t remember,” I said, feeling stupid.
“What! You didn’t calculate how much you used? That’s very sloppy of you, Luz.”
“I know, but I was caught up in trying to figure out what kind of experiment I should propose to Dr. Hamrock when I was creating my special formula, remember? And then when I was trying to get you ready for today, I didn’t go back and double-check. I had a total brain freeze.” I could feel my face getting hot from embarrassment.
“I’m sorry. I know this experiment has been stressing you out. When do you start everyone else’s magical makeover?”
“Well, I start with Mase after school and Jabba tonight.”
Bridge’s eyes grew big. “Girl, you’re gonna be exhausted.”
“I know.”
“Well, you managed to look really cute today, if that helps.”
“Thanks. I’m meeting Swen today after school to talk about this project. So, please do me a favor and take some notes and take some pictures so I don’t come off as a total liar.”
“You got it. I can’t believe you’re actually going to see Swen. I’m so happy for you. But don’t worry; he won’t notice you’re a liar.”
“Oh, really? Why is that?”
“Because of the pudding stains on your boobies,” Bridge said while offering a weak smile.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath—and prayed to every god in the universe that I wasn’t parading a pair of chocolate chichis. Obviously they didn’t hear me—probably because they were laughing so hard. As I looked down, the stains were definitely there and my new locks still had a bit of the pudding on them that had tainted me.
“This is why I don’t wear white,” I said, done with it all.
“You have about five minutes before the bell. Go to the bathroom and see if you can blot it out.”
I gazed down at the table for a moment. I think I was still in shock when I observed another small disaster. This one, however, put a smile on my face.
“Hey, Bridge, your precious drumsticks are melting,” I said, finding a bit of justice in the universe.
“Oh, crap. I need to run these to Venus before she uninvites me to her party.” Bridge was back to her social worrywart self.
“Did she invite Adam?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, walking away.
“Find out for me.”
“Okay. I’ll talk with you later.” She waved her hand and new nails in the air and scurried away, and I did the same to the girls’ baño. As I was running off, my growing hair was getting heavier and starting to give me a headache.
The door closed slowly with the sound of a quiet swoosh and I took a deep breath. The girls’ bathroom was definitely a nice escape from the roar of the cafeteria.
This area of the school hadn’t changed in decades. Still decorated with 1950s pink girly tile, the powder room sparkled softly as the afternoon sun came in and warmed up the color. I always imagined that if I had my own laboratory, I would want it to be bright and kitschy like this. I loved the hardware on all the sinks and light fixtures. It was kind of a Marilyn Monroe meets, well, I guess, Dr. Frankenstein, but not his monster.
But thinking of monsters made me look at the two big chocolate stains on my boobs. As I gazed into the mirror, I started blotting gently with a couple of paper towels and water. Then feeling tense because I knew the lunch bell was about to ring any minute, I scrubbed faster.
“Oh my gawd!” someone yelled.
“I know. It’s bad, right?” Without looking up I continued the damage control of my fashion disaster.
“Not as bad as not letting me in on your melodramatic plan to salivate on me!” bellowed Adam and his vocabulary.
“Adam! What are you doing in here?” I asked, my irritation not directed at him but at my stains, which had only smeared and gotten bigger.
“Saving my rep,” Adam admitted.
I must have looked confused because Adam continued, “It’s not that big of a deal. I usually come in here to the vanity area to get the scoop. In fact, there have been times when I said I was going to the clinic, but instead, I hung out in the handi-able stall and did all my math homework and found out all the goings-on from freshies to the seniors.”
“Adam, you’re unbelievable,” I said as I blotted with the paper towels.
“Not as unbelievable as your hair. Is that a weave?”
“No.” Like I could scrape up weave money on my allowance.
“Those aren’t extensions?” Adam asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“No! I invented a hair growth accelerator potion and I’m the first guinea pig.”
“Well, Miss Piggy, you really caught me off guard with those lips! You know I hate surprises,” Adam said, circling around to the reason why he was here in the girls’ bathroom in the first place.
“Sorry. But Venus was riding my last nerve with her bulimic digs. I just needed to create a diversion or something.”
“Diversion? Excellent word choice!”
I had used up all the paper towels and had to rustle up some TP from one of the stalls. “Thank you,” I said, coming back to the vanity area. “So, what happened after I left?”
“Y’know, it’s really funny, but she actually invited me to her party this Saturday,” Adam said, a little surprised.
“Aha! I knew it! She’s sooo predictable,” I said, feeling proud of my psychic but unscientific prediction.
“Did you predict that she asked Swen to Homecoming?”
And with that, I could feel my lovely acid reflux starting to gush and I really wanted to spew vomit.
“What did he say?” I asked with dread.
“Don’t have that info ... yet,” Adam said, ready to dive into his investigations.
The bell rang. A gaggle of girls ran in while Adam ran out and said he would try to figure out what we should do next. My angry scalp started to itch again.