19
They were five minutes into their shopping spree, and Sarabeth could safely say she’d never had more fun in her life. Teena’s competitive spirit meant they were reaching never-before-felt speeds on the Barbie Corvette. Teena and Sarabeth each wore several princess crowns, and pink flowing capes streamed out behind them. They had one of every Barbie Doll, a Hello Kitty karaoke set, Rapunzel hair extensions, and—just to indulge herself—Sarabeth had picked up an Easy-Bake Oven, even though electricity wasn’t exactly available. Her mom had never approved of the Easy-Bake Oven when she was little. “Wouldn’t that be like giving you a weight problem on top of everything else?” What “everything else” was had never been explained.
The soundtrack for their spree came from a battery-operated Kidz Dance radio that played the same three tinny tween songs on a loop. As a twelve-year-old sang about being awesome, it occurred to Sarabeth that they needed to be practical. She hated her inner killjoy, but hadn’t getting supplies been part of Leo’s plan? “Shouldn’t we be looking for stuff that’s useful?”
Teena shook her head and smiled, her perfect white teeth glimmering under the fluorescent lights. “This is useful,” she said. “In its own way.” She reached out and adjusted one of the crowns decorating Sarabeth’s head.
Just like that, Sarabeth got it. They were bonding. She and Teena, who’d barely thought of each other in the last five years, suddenly needed each other. And Leo had helped her realize it.
Leo. What was it about him? It was like he knew just what she needed, and made it happen. All those times in string ensemble, telling her to loosen up and just play—now here she was, just playing, not caring that she might be reduced to alien garnish, and she was really, truly herself. If she made it out alive, maybe her new life rule would be “Be Sarabeth.”
Teena grabbed and uncapped some tacky blue body glitter for little girls. “Oh, smells good, though.” She rubbed some on her collarbone and did the same for Sarabeth. It did smell good, in a cheap, lavender-vanilla sort of way.
“Wow, Mommy, don’t let your baby grow up to be a pole dancer,” Sarabeth said cattily, putting a little more in her hair.
Teena laughed in happy bells. Sarabeth blushed, pleasantly surprised by the effectiveness of her mean comment. Teena swabbed some more on, rendering herself more glittery than was probably fashionable, so Sarabeth did the same, not even concerned they would probably lose to the boys. She and Teena were cracking up laughing, like two old friends, instead of two old friends who were no longer friends.
“Is it just me, or is this stuff making your skin feel really dry?” Teena said.
Sarabeth did notice; the glitter was sucking the life out of her pores. “It’s just like the Otherworldly,” she said to Teena.
“You’re right! And look at this!” She held up another item from the ShimmerGirlz product line, scarily called Gleaminizer Body Glitter Sleepover Spray Shooter, a sparkly gun so friends could presumably have glitter-party wars. “It comes with its own gun!”
Between the ShimmerGirlz glitter and the Otherworldly cologne, their chances against the Purple Perimeter were improving. Sarabeth couldn’t wait to tell Leo. If he hadn’t led them here, they’d have never found this stuff.
She could tell Teena was excited, too. “How much time do we have left?” she asked.
Sarabeth checked her watch. “One minute.”
“I could use one more tiara. You?” Teena was already driving toward the princess gear.
“Yes, please!” Sarabeth was in total agreement with her new best friend.
A minute later, laughing, breathless, and beyond crazy-looking in their royal wigs, multiple crowns, and fairy wings, Teena and Sarabeth spun out into the birthday-party section at the front of the store, where Leo and Evan were waiting, their cart loaded with toy guns and shields and sports equipment.
Sarabeth dropped her bags on the ground, grinning un-self-consciously. She felt shiny, and not because of ShimmerGirlz. “You won’t believe what we found.”
Leo grinned back, looking joyful, and her heart flashed inside her. Even though Evan and Teena were in her peripheral vision, she felt like they were alone as Leo took a step closer to her, his hands behind his back. Every part of her, from her throat to the pit of her stomach, felt like nagging spaces she wanted to fill by pulling Leo to her and kissing him for all she was worth. Be Sarabeth, she thought. But there was being Sarabeth and there was giving in to her more cavewoman-esque urges, which wasn’t the best option at a time like this.
“No matter what it is, I have something even better. For you,” Leo said softly, like they were indeed the last two people on Earth. Sarabeth half expected some heavily synthesized, dreamy-vocaled music to kick in, like in one of the eighties movies her mom forced her to watch in hopes of unleashing Sarabeth’s inner swoony teenager.
Now her inner teenager was all outer, and she had to fight the oncoming swoon that made her want to sigh loudly. “What is it?” she asked Leo, realizing as she said it that her tone was all bedroom eyes, and not because she was tired.
From behind his back, he pulled a very cheesy, very big-eyed, very pink teddy bear holding a heart that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY. He held it out to her, and she stepped closer, taking the plush bear from him.
“But it’s not my birthday,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the bear’s soft fur. “My birthday’s not for a month.”
“Well, I thought we should celebrate while we still can.” Leo smiled. A loop of hair fell over his left eye, and Sarabeth reached out to push it away without even thinking. Her fingertips brushed the warm skin of his cheek, and her heart shot up another roller-coaster crest.
Yup, he knew just what she needed. The only sad part was having her first romantic feelings for a guy arrive at the same time the world was probably ending.
Sarabeth’s fingers were still near Leo’s ear. Her eyes were locked on his as she clutched the bear, which she’d already named Pinkie. She realized Teena and Evan were standing there. Evan was blushing, leaning awkwardly against the guys’ cart full of toys, pretending to be interested in a set of Pokémon cards. Teena was untangling cheap plastic tiaras from her Rapunzel wig, looking tense and … mad? She wasn’t meeting Sarabeth’s eyes. Maybe I’m imagining things, Sarabeth thought. She suddenly felt weird standing there wearing her Belle wig, the brunette swirls cascading down her back. Sarabeth pulled the wig off her own non-swirling, non-cascading hair and hung it neatly on an empty hook.
Teena tossed her wig to the floor and kicked it away like a piece of toilet paper that had stuck to her shoe. Definitely mad. She turned to Evan. “Evan, did you pull that cart around with your pitching arm?” She grinned like a cat who’d found a mouse with a broken leg. Teena sauntered up to him, and with a glance toward Leo and Sarabeth, said, “Let me massage it. We so need your arm.”
She dug into Evan’s arm, kneading like a professional. Teena kept looking at Leo like she wanted him to take notice. “You’re so much more cut than Leo,” Teena said. So there it was. There must have been a time when Teena massaged Leo’s arm. Sarabeth no longer felt like she was in a meet-cute-romantic-teen movie. Instead, she felt about as interesting and attractive as Skipper probably felt next to Barbie.
Sarabeth clutched her new pink bear by the arm a little more tightly and gave Leo a halfhearted smile. What was it about girls? Why did they always fight when it came to guys? She turned as far as she could away from Teena, literally—if insincerely—sinking her clutches into Evan. Was it wrong that Leo’s return smile made her feel a little bit better? She’d lost Teena as a friend before, so she could manage again. Right?