From
So Not the Drama
Prologue
“They wanna know. Who's that girl?”
âEve, “Who's That Girl?”
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P
opularity is a drug. You get a taste of it and suddenly the looks you get from people, the way you get treated, the things you get away with ... you need it.You honest to God need it. People make pretend that being popular is no big deal. Either those people aren't popular and know they'll never have a chance at tasting its sweet addicting juices, or they're lying.
I got my first taste of popularity when I was four. No, seriously. My boy, Michael, and I attended Sunny Faces, a day care run out of his grandmom's house. The day care was downstairs in her basement, a kiddie wonderland of toys in every corner and hugantic paintings and colorful decals on the walls. There was also a big playground out back.
Now the basement is Michael's, remade over into a bedroom/ gameroom/den of boyness.
But back then, when it was our playpen, even with all the dazzling odds and ends and kidgets, the one place we all wanted to go was upstairs.We never got to see the rest of the house. It was off-limits. So naturally, that's where we wanted to go. The stairs went up forever, gobbled up in the darkness near the top, with only a sliver of light coming from beneath the door.
With me leading the pack, we'd make up adventures about conquering the fantasy land beyond that door. Like, maybe it opened up into a lake of ice cream and trees of chocolateâsince that's where Ms. Mae Bell came from with snacks. That became our favorite fantasy and eventually, the truth, as far as a bunch of four-year-olds were concerned.
If only we could get beyond the dreaded baby gate, we could take a dip in a big creamy vat of vanilla and take a bite out of one of the choco trees.
You know, to his credit, Michael never said a word to dispel any of our myths about the rest of his house being a candy land. Then again, why would he? How cool would that be to live in a land of candy?
Since his grandmother ran the joint, Michael was always allowed to go upstairs. Sometimes he'd toddle after her and she'd let him help bring down the snacks. If anyone else tried, Ms. Mae Bell would scoop them up, plop them down at the bottom of the stairs, and secure the gate with a firm, “You're gonna break your neck on these steps. Stay here. I'll be right back.”
Man, but that gate made it irresistible. Some days we'd park right next to it and play because it was as close as we could get.
So, yeah, anyway, popularity and how it found me.
I became popular thanks to workaholic parents climbing the corporate ladder. Thank you, Fifty-hour work weeks! My mom had just started her own PR firm and my dad was a techie at a big company based out of Northern Virginia. They were mad busy scrambling to the top.
One day my mom called. She was running late and she couldn't reach my dad. Could Ms. Mae Bell please keep me a little later than normal? Of course, she'd pay whatever penalty was required for having Ms. Mae Bell work beyond her usual grueling twelve-hour day of screaming toddlers and crying babies.
So as everyone else was leaving, Ms. Mae Bell announces, to no one in particular, I'm guessingâwe were a bunch of four-year-oldsâthat I'd be having dinner with her and Michael. She lifted the latch on the baby gate and ushered us upstairs to watch television, while she waited for the parents of the three other kids still left.
My stomach sang and danced as my chubby, four-year-old legs carried me out of the dark coolness of the stairway into heaven. I was so excited walking up those stairs, so caught up in what I'd do when I got to candy land, that it took me a few seconds to realize that the plush brown carpet wasn't, in fact, a river of chocolate.
Michael's house was just like mine.
Where were the gummy rocks? The Reese's Cup benches? The clouds of cotton candy (don't ask why he'd have clouds in his house)?
I'm not sure, but I think I cried. I really only remember Michael showing me his room and watching
Teletubbies
. I was too shocked to ask him where the candy stuff was hiding.
The next day, I was all set to report that candy land did not exist. But when everyone crowded around me, anxious to know what it was like, giving up their snack if I sat by them to share my adventures, wanting to team up with me for play circle ... well, I discovered something better than candy land.
I had something everyone wantedâa glimpse into the other sideâand it made me the It girl of Sunny Faces day care. It put me on the pop side or at least as popular as you can be with a crowd with very short attention spans. I think Shelly Mason was popular two days later for bringing a puppy in for Show-'n'-Tell.
No matter, my taste for popularity was born and my quest to remain ever the It girl sprouted roots.
I remember making up some story about not being able to talk about what was upstairs because it was top secret. Which was cool with them; they just wanted to be near someone who had crossed over.
I've never looked back.
Why would I? Being popular rocks!
When my rule of middle school came to a close, naturally, I had to hatch a plan to remain on top at Del Rio High School. Del Rio High is full of cliques.What high school isn't? But it's more full than most and the fate of your existence depends on where you get stuck, labeled, categorized, and otherwise boxed in by the governing cliqueâthe Uppers.
So you see my dilemma?
Me and my crew have always been popularâbut that transition from middle to high school is inevitableâand we're about to go from Middle School Royalty to High School Ambiguity. So, you know, I'm thinking I've gotta handle that.
It's not the same as starting over. Popularity carries over. So it's not that I'll be totally unknown. The Class of 2009 will know what's up and some of the sophs knew me before they left middle school. It's the junior class I'm worried about. I'll have to scrabble my way to the middle of the packâwhich is to be the most popular in your class and more popular than some sophs and juniors. But, of course, never more pop than the reigning senior class. Lesson #10 from Pop 101.
All of this and classes too!
I'm an old pro at the tricks of becoming and staying popular and I could pretend that there's a true formula, or I can be real and let you know, it's a lot of work. Work that started the minute my pink Nellie Timberlands left Del Rio Middle School and strutted a few blocks down to the one and only high school, in the 'burbs of the DRB. Samuel-Wellesly, Del Rio Bay's only other high school, is another story. And we'll get to that later. But the best laid plans of popularity can and are disrupted by real life. So let me back it on up and let you peep how plans go right, left, back and forth before they land you at your destination ... or at least somewhere really close.
From
Don't Get It Twisted
The Frenzy
“Shorty, I want you to be my entourage.”
âOmarion, “Entourage”
R
U
down?
Mina Mooney stood, hunched over the back of the chair at her desk, staring at the three words on her monitor. Her stomach rumbled. From hunger or anxiety, Mina wasn't sure.
Two seconds ago, it was definitely hunger.
Sick of leftover turkey, mashed potatoes and all the other food they'd eaten on Thanksgiving and all yesterday, she'd been ravenous at the thought of sinking her teeth into something that wasn't stuffed or covered in gravy. When her mom burst into the room and plopped down on the bed, rousing Mina from a sound sleep with a tickle to the neck and a proposal that they cook a very un-Thanksgiving family breakfast, Mina had eagerly shaken off the earlyâif you could call ten-thirty
A.M.
earlyâmorning haze fogging her head.
That was five minutes ago. Now ...
She wanted to be sure that she understood Craig Simpson's words correctly. He
was
asking her out. Wasn't he?
Mina swiveled the chair with her knee and let her butt hover over the seat in a half-sitting, half-standing stance. She scrolled the screen and read the short exchange again.
Bluedevils33: Ay what up?
BubbliMi: Nuthin' ready to go eat
Bluedevils33: O. U knowâbout the Frenzy?
Mina knew. It was all JZ had talked about the last two weeks since football season had ended. It was the big bash Coach Banner held for the varsity football team at his McMansion in Folger's Way, Del Rio Bay's ritziest neighborhood, to celebrate the season.
BubbliMi: yeah. heard they had strippers last year
Bluedevils33: LOL. whatever. people b x-ageratin! It's not that bad
BubbliMi: I figured ... but u never know! Y'all ballers can get out of controlâha ha
Bluedevils33: tru dat. But naw it ain't nothin' like that. BubbliMi: I'll have 2 take ur word 4 it
Bluedevils33: No u can see 4 urself. u want 2 go w/me to the party?
And that was when Mina had shut down, unable to move, type, blink or breathe. It was while she was trying to come back to her senses that the last message came in ...
Â
Bluedevils33: R U down?
Â
Mina stared at the screen, letting the words sink in. She wanted to type “seriously?” but figured that sounded stupid.
She rested a knee on the chair, a big grin on her brown sugar face. Craig was finally asking her out. Exactly four weeks ago they had spent the night bumping, grinding and getting their dance on at a party Mina had given for her best friend, Lizzie. Since then she and Craig talked more at school than they had before and IM'ed when they were on-line at the same time, but nothing drastic had changed between them.
Now,
he was asking her out. And not just any dateâno movies or grabbing a slice at Rio's 'Ria, the hot hangout spot in Del Rio Bay. Craig was asking her to go with him to the annual Blue Devils' Football Frenzy. She ignored the images the word “frenzy” brought to mind and instead tried to picture the forty-member football team playing rowdy rounds of spades, Madden football or checkers.
Yeah, right.
JZ had already given her and the clique an earful about the Frenzy. Board games and Playstation were never mentioned.
JZ and a few other select junior varsity football players, those who were definitely making varsity next year, were invited to the Frenzy. JZ was the main reason the JV football team had gone on to win the county championship. The invite to the Frenzy was a not so subtle acknowledgment that next year's tryouts were only a formality. JZ's future place on the varsity food chain was set.
The only reason JZ wasn't on varsity football this season, as a freshman, was because of his father. He wanted sports second on JZ's priority list. But JZ was a die-hard athleteâfootball in the fall, basketball in the winter and track in spring to stay in shape. He trained like a pro, running several miles a day and lifting weights several times a week. Even if sports were second on JZ's schedule because Mr. Zimms said so, football and basketball were first in his every thought.
And being on JV had actually brightened JZ's star, not dulled it. The minute he'd stepped on the field in September, it was obvious to the coaches he was varsity material. They'd been drooling over the thought of having him move up ever since.
Now the varsity basketball coaches were going to get the chance the football team hadn't had, because when football season ended, JZ's dad had relented and agreed to let him try out for varsity. JZ made the team easily. The only “catch,” if JZ's grades suffered even a little, his father was going hardcore and making JZ cut out the sports until next season. So all JZ talked about, lately, were basketball and the Frenzy.
According to JZ, the Frenzy was wild. Coach Banner basically let his “boys” have the run of the house for the night, no chaperons. JZ also mentioned nude foolishness in the hot tub and drinking,
Real World
high school edition.
Other than pointing out to JZ that she thought the details of the party were probably rumors or overexaggerated, Mina hadn't given the Frenzy much thought. Until now. Now she had an invitation from a varsity football hottie.
Was she down?
Mina wanted to type YES, all caps just so Craig would know how down she was.
She couldn't believe that only three letters stood between her and her first date with the guy she'd crushed on for months. Her first date, period.
It wasn't even eleven
A.M.
and this day was quickly moving toward best-day-ever status.
And to think, in her haste to throw down on some pancakes and bacon, she'd almost walked right by her computer without as much as a glance.
Thank goodness she'd logged on to see if Kelly had sent a message confirming whether she could come over later and hang over at JZ's with the rest of the clique. Mina was anxious for the six of them to get together. They'd squeezed in only a few IMs and phone calls over the weeklong break. Mina didn't mind family time, but five straight days of it was enough. She was ready to kick it with her friends, especially now that she had something more interesting to share than an account of her family's insanely competitive game of Trivial Pursuit on Thanksgiving night.
Mina's head turned toward the loud clanging of pots and pans coming from downstairs, her attention slipping, just for a second, from the three words on the screen. She tipped over to her bedroom door, leaned her head out of the room and waited on her mother's call asking for (requiring) help cooking breakfast. When it didn't come, Mina scurried back over to the desk and sat down, her heart pounding and her hunger completely forgotten.
The loud tinkle of another IM from Craig rang out.
Bluedevils33: Yo, Mina u there?
BubbliMi: Sorry! Listening out 4 my mom ... I'm supposed to be downstairs cooking
Bluedevils33: Word. I let u go if u answer me. U down w/the Frenzy?
This time Mina didn't think. She typed, quickly.
BubbliMi: Mos' def!!
Bluedevils33: Cool. U be @ the Ria tonite?
BubbliMi: Trying to be. Not sure tho' Bluedevils33: I can give u a ride if u want
The thought of being in the car with Craig made Mina's heart race. Everything was moving so fast.
BubbliMi: Naw I'm cool. If I go it'll be w/my girls. I see u there if we go.
Bluedevils33: Aight. Later
BubbliMi: CU
Mina stared at the conversation on the screen, reading over it quickly again and again. It felt like a dream. If her heart wasn't practically beating out of her chest, she would swear she was still sleeping.
“Mi-naaa!” her mother called from downstairs. “What's taking you so long?”
“Coming, Ma!”
Smiling like an idiot, Mina closed out the IM box and signed off. She stood up and jogged down the hall to the bathroom. If Craig could see her now, bed head and stank morning breath, he'd run screaming in the other direction. She laughed out loud at her fuzzy-headed image in the bathroom mirror.
Stank breath and all, she had a date!
She
had a DATE ... and one problem. Her parents didn't allow her to date yet.