Lemonade Mouth Puckers Up (3 page)

“Stella Penn again,” I said. “Uh, just in case you didn’t know—which you probably don’t—I’m part of Lemonade Mouth. Call back, okay?”

I hung up once more and buried my face in my hands. Ugh.
Call back, okay?

Could I have said anything more pathetic?

A lot of people say Lemonade Mouth made some mistakes around that time. I can’t deny it, but you have to remember what our lives were like in the early part of that summer. Sure, we were working on some new recordings,
but we were also living our regular lives just like any other normal teenagers, and it wasn’t always easy.

Take my life, for example.

My dad had just gotten married to his much-younger girlfriend, Sydney, and suddenly his whole outlook was changing. Sydney had a new business selling antiques, and my dad got it into his head that it was time for him to start a new business too. Almost without warning he quit his job as an insurance claims adjuster—a position he’d had for twenty years—and started working on a new business idea: selling hot dogs to people on the street. No joke. In a junkyard he had found an oversized passenger van that somebody had converted into an ice cream truck, and he bought it for practically nothing. In one crazy weekend he painted it yellow, replaced the engine and fitted a gigantic plastic frankfurter onto the roof. His new business was called Wieners on Wheels.

It was clear to me that my father’s midlife crisis was getting way out of hand.

George, my ten-year-old brother, loved the idea of a wiener business, but I wanted nothing to do with it. Even Sydney was skeptical at first. As the three of us stood gaping at the jalopy he’d just unveiled for us, she started to pull at a lock of her shiny black hair like she was struggling with what to say.

“Look, I’ve been in a rut in my old job,” my dad said, adjusting his glasses and smiling proudly at his creation, “and you guys all know I’ve always wanted to start my own business. Well, this is it! I did the math and I really think it can work. Everybody loves hot dogs in the summer, right? And it’s not like there’s much overhead to worry about—mostly
just the cost of gas and the food. I’m planning to offer a choice of quality toppings.”

Sydney was still staring. Apart from the bright new paint, the thing looked ancient, with actual patches of rust visible here and there. It was
huge
too, which was part of what made it so impressive. People would see this monster coming from miles away.

“Yes, Norm,” she said at last, glancing sideways at him. “I know we agreed to this, but now that I actually
see
the van I can’t help but wonder … are you sure you’re not taking on more than you can handle?”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll be fine. I’ve got this all worked out. You’re the artistic one, so you can help me figure out how to advertise. George can ride with me sometimes. I’ll hire somebody part-time to drive around when I can’t do it myself, and for everything else, well, Wendel isn’t doing much this summer. He can help out too.”

That took a moment to sink in. What?
Me?

Before I could object, my dad reached across my shoulder and pulled me in close. He held Sydney’s hand. He looked so happy. “Think of this as a family project.”

I could only blink at him.

And that’s how I ended up with a summer job that included standing on busy street corners wearing a giant wiener suit and waving to passing traffic. Adding insult to injury, I wasn’t even going to get paid. It gave new meaning to the word
humiliation
.

Worse still, my father had hired my nemesis, Scott Pickett, of all people, to be his part-time driver. I guess Scott was looking for work, and being two years older than me, he already had his license. I was livid. Scott had been a creep to me and my band during the school year. He and his friend
Ray Beech and their arrogant crowd, the Mudslide Crushers, had tried to stop Lemonade Mouth from playing at our school’s Halloween Bash and had even tried to ruin our shows. Those kids acted like they owned the world. Worst of all was the way Scott had treated Mo. He’d dated her briefly and then dumped her like yesterday’s garbage, only to end up crawling back to her like the slime ball he was. By then Mo saw him for what he was and rejected him—thank goodness—but still, it seemed unfair to force me to be with Scott in the summertime too.

My dad was unsympathetic. “Listen, Wen, Scott has a good driving record, he told me he can be flexible with his hours, and I need the help. Whatever you have against him, you’ll just have to get over it. Besides, he seems like a nice, polite kid to me. People do change, you know.”

I almost laughed. I didn’t believe Scott Pickett had changed. Not for a second.

So the morning after we met the Decker and Smythe lady, there I was in front of the Wampanoag Road shopping center dressed as an enormous frankfurter, doing my best to look cheerful as I held up a
WIENERS ON WHEELS
sign. I could see my reflection in the storefront window across the street. Most of me was hidden under stiff plastic, but unfortunately my face was visible—including my rectangular glasses and even a few wisps of my blond hair. Occasionally people I knew would pass by and I’d feel myself turn red when they honked and waved from their cars, sometimes howling with laughter.

Miserable as I felt, it was only natural that a part of me hoped my life was about to change for the better. Stella had left her message for the Decker and Smythe people a while ago, so now I kept checking my messages to see if she’d
heard back. I looked again. Nothing. I wondered what was taking them so long.

“Hello, tall and handsome. Nice bun.”

I had to spin my entire costumed body around just to see who it was. Olivia. She’d come to visit me. Her pale brown hair was pulled back from her face, and it hung behind her in a ponytail. Her hand was covering her smile, barely concealing the laughter as she took in my ridiculous outfit.

“So you like the look, huh?” I said. “It’s not often you see huge white rubber gloves like these babies anymore. Very retro-chic.”

“Yes, but it’s the accessories that are doing it for me.” She nodded toward the red and yellow globs that were supposed to look like ketchup and mustard. “I like a man with good condiments.”

Ha ha. Oh, the comedy potential was endless.

If the situation wasn’t so real I might have enjoyed it for the jokes alone.

Thing was, I had a hard time complaining about my dad or Sydney when I was around Olivia, who had much more serious family issues than I did. Her mother abandoned her and disappeared when Olivia was barely a toddler, and her dad was in prison for accidentally killing someone during a robbery when Olivia was still a little kid, leaving Olivia to be raised by her grandmother. So no matter how bad things sometimes seemed for me, having Olivia around kept it all in perspective.

But not everything was clear when it came to Olivia.

“So, are you and her, like, a
couple
now, or what?” Charlie had recently asked me over pizza. And the funny thing was, I didn’t know the answer. I knew that I really, really liked being with her, but even though she and I spent a lot of time together, we’d never really labeled our thing—whatever
it was—that way. Not being sure exactly where we stood was frustrating sometimes, but what could I do? With Olivia there was always a chance that if I pressed her on this subject it might make her back off. I was just taking things a day at a time.

Now, as we stood on the sidewalk together at the corner of Wampanoag and Rumstick Roads, she grinned at me. The good news was that she’d brought her accordion, like we’d planned, and my trumpet case was waiting at my feet. Olivia and I had talked about this. Just because I had to spend my mornings dressed as a processed meat product didn’t mean we couldn’t also use the time to write a new song or two.

I yanked off the gloves and soon the two of us had made up a new riff, a bouncy accordion progression that sounded fantastic under a series of descending trumpet notes. We played it over and over again, with Olivia humming all kinds of different melodies over the music. There were no words yet, but we could already tell the song was going to be great. A few passing pedestrians stopped to listen, and even a couple of cars slowed down. We must have looked ridiculous, but we were having such a good time, what did it matter?

After a while Olivia asked me to check and see if we’d heard from Stella. It was no secret that Olivia had mixed feelings about the whole Decker and Smythe thing. She’d never wanted to be famous. But even though the spotlight had always made her uncomfortable, she also knew that more exposure for the band meant a lot to the rest of us.

Just looking at her face, I could see she was trying her best to be enthusiastic.

There were no new messages on my phone so I sent a text to Stella: ANYTHNG? The response came a few seconds later. NOT YT. KEEP YR FINGRS CRSSD. When Olivia
read it she raised an eyebrow. I knew what she was thinking. She and I both looked down at the bulky, three-fingered rubber gloves I’d tossed on the pavement.

If I had to keep those things on, following Stella’s advice wouldn’t be an easy task.

“Monu, will you come back here, please? Your mother and I have some news we want to share with you.”

My dad is standing in the doorway of the storage room at the back of our family’s store, Banerjee Grocery. I hear the voice but my mind is elsewhere. I’m unloading a case of Nirav ghee jars onto the shelves and I’m thinking about Stella and the return call she’s expecting from the talent agency. It’s early afternoon and we still haven’t heard anything.

“I’ll be there in just a moment, Baba. Just as soon as I finish with this box.”

There’s a tap on the front window. I look up just in time to catch a flash of cat’s-eye glasses and poofy brown hair before the bell on the door jingles. It’s Naomi Fishmeier, my best friend since forever, and she looks like she’s in a hurry. “I’m not staying,” she says, breathless. “Just checking in. Any news from Stella?”

I shake my head, and my eyes linger on her outfit. Naomi’s wearing one of her best concert tees, the pink one she got during the recent Zombie Blasters tour, and matching pink low-tops with her new black jean miniskirt. Not over-the-top, but very cute. Knowing her as I do, I’m sure she must have spent some time on this.