Shrinking Violet (19 page)

I look over at Gavin a few times, who's busy scrawling in his notebook. I never knew he was such a writer. He keeps on writing lines, then scratching them out. I fantasize that it's a love note to me, that he's going to tear the page away from the rest and slide it over. Doesn't happen.

The bell rings just after Shakespeare and John Grisham take their bows. Gavin hardly notices. He's still writing.

"What's that?" I finally ask.

He quickly shuts the notebook. "Some ideas. It's really nothing."

"Oh." I gather my stuff.

"Hey, you were great today." He smiles.

"You, too."

As I'm gathering my stuff, Frank brushes by me, Stacy on his arm. "Tere, that was an incredible wipeout. It looked so real," he says.

"You should be on one of those stunt shows," Tim yells from behind him.

Are they serious?

"She practiced the fall a bunch of times. She's good." Gavin pulls me toward the door.

"I think she's a faker." Stacy leans into Frank. But Frank doesn't answer because he's too busy telling Tim that he has ugly sneakers.

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And Kayla's at the door waiting for us, so Gavin and I make like a brick wall and plow past Stacy and Frank.

"Ohmigod, guys, I think we did really well," Kayla says all in one breath.

"We made a great team." Gavin slings his arms around us both. Then he turns to Kayla.

"And that was a perfect save after Tere's fall. We rock!"

Since I'm now pretty much convinced everyone thought the fall was deliberate, I feel good, too. I'd still like to come up with an idea to trip Stacy up in her performance, but what? Throw something at her? No, that's too immature, and I can't get her to slip on a piece of paper because that would make me a copycat. So
not
cool. As much as I'd like to see her mess up royally, I'm not into plotting revenge. Maybe I'll leave that up to Sweet T.

***

"Hang Tight, Sister." Blast this one as loud as you can!

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I'm exhausted, so I head home for a nap before going to the station. I don't think Derek will even flinch when I stroll in late. He knows he owes me big since he set up this whole prom contest featuring
moi
as the main attraction.

Mom's in the kitchen when I walk in the house. She's attempting food preparation again. It looks like some type of soup. Pieces of vegetables are strewn all over the counter and bottles of spices are everywhere.

I give her a quick nod and pull out the bread and peanut butter. All I need is some sustenance and a nap.

Mom looks so awkward hovered over the big pot, swirling the ladle round and round.

"Did you tell Derek that you'd be late?"

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"Yes, I left a message with Kelly."

"When's the contest deadline?"

"Everything has to be in on Monday by five." Four more days and I'll have to pick my suitor. At least I get to be the one to choose him, not Mom, or even worse, Derek.

Mom tastes the soup, then reaches for the bottle of garlic. "I'm just glad you're not going to the prom with
that
boy."

"What boy?" I dip my knife in the jar to scoop out some more peanut butter.

"The goth one. Definitely someone that's going nowhere."

What's her problem? She sees me with him one time and she already doesn't like him.

Talk about judging a book by its cover.

"Geez, Mom, will you leave Gavin alone. He's not even going to the prom." I tighten the lid and toss the jar back onto the pantry shelf.

"Well, that's good. I just don't think he's your type." She holds up the spoon. "Would you like a sample?"

My type? She has no clue what my type is. She used to be on my case to get to know the boys in my school better. She always told me how by the end of freshman year she had four offers to go to the senior prom. Eventually she realized that her nagging was no use, that I was not going to follow in her queen bee footsteps.

"No," I grumble, then take a seat at the table and dig into my sandwich. "And if you must know, Gavin's a supercool guy."

"You might think that, but a mother knows."

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"Whatever," I say between clenched teeth.

"You don't have to be so ungrateful, Teresa. This opportunity to go to the prom is a one-of-a-kind experience. You really owe Derek for setting all this up."

"Yeah, he's a great guy," I say with my mouth full.

Mom brushes away the hair from her face. "And I don't want you to mess things up and embarrass the station."

"And how would I do that, Mother? Do you really think I'm going to chug ten beers and strip naked?"

"That's not what I'm talking about." Mom stirs the soup. "This is your one chance to find a decent guy."

I roll my eyes and snap at her, "I hardly think entering a radio contest makes someone decent. And I'm eighteen. I'll have plenty of opportunities to meet people."

"Where is this hostility coming from?" Mom whisks the soup into a frenzy.

"I'm sick and tired of you treating me like a loser all the time. Hell, if I could stand up in front of the class and pretend to be a blind and deaf woman, then I can stand up to you." I push my chair away from the table.

"What are you rambling about?"

"You will never even be half the person Helen was."

"Who's Helen?" Mom slams the ladle down onto the granite counter.

"Do you even care?" I rip off a piece of crust from my sandwich and ball it up in my hand.

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"I think you better come to your senses and show me some respect."

"Why should I respect
you
if you don't respect we?"

"I don't respect you?" She points to herself. "I'm the one who's taken care of you all these years. If it wasn't for me, you'd be nothing."

"Then I'd rather be nothing." I storm out of the house, with the ball of crust still in my hand. I speed down the street like a marathon runner on her last lap.

How dare she make me feel like crap? I push her words out of my head. Every time a car whizzes by, I think it might be her, coming to apologize and drive me to the station. I pass the Starbucks, dry cleaners, and nursing home, but still no red Lexus pulls up and opens its doors for me.

I'm soaking with sweat by the time I get to the bus stop. I slump down onto the bench and watch the ants scurry through the cracks in the sidewalk. Normally this would gross me out, but today I'm mesmerized by all their activity.

I wait twenty minutes for the number 11 to finally show. I'm too tired to even care if someone stakes out the station and corners me at the front door. But I figure I'll look too worn out by the time I reach the building for anyone to even suspect that I'm Sweet T. I look more like I'm coming to clean the place up, not broadcast fresh tunes to thousands of people.

Once the bus is in motion, I close my eyes. I picture myself in a black prom dress, dancing to Shrinking Violet with Gavin by my

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side. He looks scrumptious in his black tux and crisp white shirt. He pulls me in tight and wraps his arms around me. The warmth of his chest envelops me like the patchwork security blanket I carried around until I was almost seven.

The bus screeches to a halt. I remove my sticky face from the window. Gross. I wipe my cheek on the sleeve of my tee. Not the best place to doze off. I slide out of my seat and make my way toward the front. Luckily I didn't miss my stop.

I'm only a few minutes late when I flash my station badge to the security guard. I look outside around the corner of the building quickly to make sure no one is following me.

Unless some insane listener is disguised as the man with the bullhorn proclaiming that the end of the world is near, I think I'm safe. Although, the man could be right about the world coming to an end. Or at least my world.

As soon as I walk in, I grab a Diet Coke from the vending machine. It's going to be a long night.

"You okay?" Pop-Tart pulls off her headset.

"Just a little sweaty. Walked part of the way here."

"Good for you. I need to get back to the gym. My tummy is looking pouchy." Pop-Tart pats her surfboard abs. There's something comforting about her. I hope she never changes.

"Know what you mean." I instinctively cross my arms over my stomach.

I don't even bother freshening up. Derek will have to take me as is today.

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He's busy with a caller when I open the studio door. Good, it gives me time to settle. A couple stacks of CDs labeled with different numbers are piled on the console. There's got to be at least forty entries, and we're about four days away from the contest deadline. I didn't know there were so many singing Romeos out there.

When Derek puts down the phone, I ask him if I can go listen to them in the production studio. He gives me the go-ahead, and I set myself up in the next room.

I place the stack of CDs on the table and randomly pluck one. Entrant Number 12, Treehouse Love. Let's hear what he has to say. Will he be good enough?

I slide on a pair of headphones and hit play. A tinny sound fills my ears.
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G,
Sweet T and me, sitting in a tree
. ." I want to like it, I really do, but halfway through the song, I have to pull the earphones off. He's practically screaming. There's a fine line between alternative rock and a guy sounding like he's trying to break windows. Good thing this room is window free.

I move onto Number 8 with a little more hope. His voice is actually decent--it's the content of his song I'm worried about.
"If you don't pick me, I'll slit my wrists into three.

Oh, how I love thee
. ." Eww, I hope he doesn't take it too hard when he doesn't win. This is kind of depressing.

I listen to a bunch more. Some are pretty good. Love is a popular theme, but one guy sings about the environment and another blabs on about his mother. Nice, but missing that sexy

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edge. Hopefully the next few days will bring in some good stuff. Maybe the soup and french fry caller will come up with something good--ha!

I'm back in the studio just in time for Derek to do a live station ID. "Good afternoon, this is Dynamite Derek escorting you home on the afternoon drive. I've got Sweet T in the studio here, and she's waiting for all those love ballads to come in. She likes it down and dirty, boys . ." Derek turns to me and winks.

Pig. I should run a contest on my show for hard-up men. Except the prize will be more of a punishment. They have to clean old ladies' toilets with their toothbrushes--something to teach them to be more respectful.

Derek continues, "Don't forget, Monday at five is the prom contest deadline. Check our Web site for details. Here's PJ Squid on 92.7 WEMD The SLAM.

"So, Tere, what did you think of the love songs?" Derek picks up a couple of CDs and waves them in the air.

"I hope the next batch is better." I sigh.

"Harsh critic."

"Have you listened yet?"

"Nope." He twirls one of the jewel cases round and round. "Promotions is going through all of them. Have a whole number system set up. They'll give you the top ten on Tuesday, then let you pick the winner."

"I didn't mind listening to them."

"Yeah, but I'm sure most of them are crap." He pushes the 220

pile toward the edge of the console, and one CD topples into the garbage. "Whoops, sorry about that, Number 21." Derek waves to the can.

I leap up and fish it out. "That's somebody's dream in there." He laughs. "You have quite an ego."

"I'm not talking about going to the prom with me. I'm talking about the dream of hearing their song played on the radio." I plop back into my chair.

Derek smooths the ends of his mustache. "They can keep on dreaming, baby!"

"You know, the only good thing about this whole
prom
setup is that we're supporting local artists. Somebody in this stack really has a chance of making it." I run my finger over the jewel cases.

"This isn't
American Idol."
He laughs.

"No, but I believe nurturing talent at every level is important. If you can get your song played on one major radio station, then you're already ahead of the game."

Derek picks up the entry that I saved from the garbage, air-kisses it, and says, "Number 21, I'm counting on you to cut me a deal when you're working delivery for Pizza Hut in ten years."

Dream crusher. I so don't want to hear that. If my mom were here, she would've flashed a huge smile across her face. I think some people are just afraid to see others succeed.

Well, I'm not. I'll make sure this winner gets his name out there. He may not be my soul mate, but at least his voice will be heard.

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In a way it kind of bites that the presentation is over, because now the only thing I have to worry about is prom. Those four letters, P-R-O-M, could be the death of me. I wish I was going with Gavin, but I guess we're both locked in. He doesn't want to let down his brother and I don't want to upset the poor contest winner or Rob. I don't care as much about my mom, but I don't need any more grief from her either. My plan is to suck it up until August when I'm off to the University of Miami. Then I'll never have to see her again, even if I'll be less than fifteen miles from home.

I can't wait for English today because I really need a dose of Gavin. He always puts me in a good mood. He's so calm and never

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lets anyone piss him off. I'm so at ease with him, the words just roll off my tongue when we talk. Of course, this does mean I'll get a dose of Stacy, too, and I need that as badly as I need to smell Derek's cheesy cologne every day. They both clog up my pores.