Puddin'(77)

I nod and laugh, tilting my head back like that might somehow keep the tears inside. “I’m great. I don’t know. Or maybe I’m not.” Dabbing my eyes, I look to her. “You were amazing, though. Like, if they don’t accept you, they have shit for brains. I mean, how are you so good at that? I feel like I’d be a total mess on camera.”

“Well,” she says. “I don’t know that I’m all that great, but I want to be better, which is why I need to get into this journalism camp. Because I want to be unstoppable. I want there to be no reason for people to say no to me. I want to be so perfect that if they’re going to say no to me because of this”—she motions down to her body—“then they’ll have to say so out loud to my face.”

“Wow.” I gasp. When did the tables turn? My life is in shambles, and Millie Michalchuk has her shit together. Like, really together. Or maybe I was always a wreck. “And your lipstick!”

“Revlon Certainly Red 740. Thanks to your mom.”

“I swear that lipstick is magic.”

“Something about it just made me feel . . . powerful. I didn’t know something as silly as red lips could make me feel like that.”

“That’s what it was,” I say. “You looked like you were in charge. Like you were calling the shots.”

“You wanna know what being friends with all those girls has taught me?” She motions with her chin back to the tents.

“What?” I ask.

“Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it. If I want to call the shots, I have to start acting like it. And when that camera turns on, it’s like someone flips a switch inside me and gives me permission to be the version of myself I only dream of.”

We both lie back again.

“So,” I say, “according to you, if I want people to treat me like a lobster, I have to act like a lobster?”

“No.” She laughs. “But yeah, in a way. Yeah.”

I think about that for a while. Acting like a queen bee definitely bumped me up the social ladder, but now it’s more obvious than ever to me that I was a total sham.

So maybe after all this time faking it, I should think carefully about the person I want to be. Maybe between that and my 0.10 percent wish, there’s hope for the future of Callie Reyes yet.





Millie


Twenty-Seven


After school on Tuesday, Callie and I make a brief stop at the post office before heading to Sonic and work.

I slide the gear into park just outside the front door and fish my large manila envelope from my backpack. I’ve addressed the envelope with my teal glitter marker and decided to use the limited-edition Harry Potter stamps I was saving for a special occasion.

“Nice stamps,” says Callie.

“You don’t have to make fun of me.”

She laughs. “No, really, I mean it. I especially like the Luna Lovegood one. In fact, if Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood had a baby, it’d be you.”

I squint. “I’m not sure you mean that as a compliment, but I’m going to take that as one, because Luna and Neville forever.”

“Totally a compliment,” she assures me.

“Maybe if I just pretend this letter is going to Hogwarts, I’ll be able to muster up the courage to walk inside and mail the dang thing.” Something about mailing this in real life feels irreversible.

Callie grips my leg. “Hey,” she says, her voice no louder than a whisper. “You’ve already done the hard part. You wrote the essay. You did the video. Shit, Millie, you’ve even submitted it online. All you have to do is walk in there and mail the damn thing.” She quickly adds, “And then break it to your mom.”

I glance over to her. “Well, suddenly this isn’t the hardest thing I have to do today.”

“Didn’t you need her signature for the application?” she asks.

“You could say I have a habit of forging my mother’s signature. It’s more of a vice, really.”

“Millicent Michalchuk!” she howls. “That is the most badass thing to come out of your mouth ever.”

“We’ve all got a rotten streak,” I say as I open the door with the envelope held tight to my chest.

I march inside and hand the envelope to Lucius, who’s worked behind the counter here since my mother was a little girl. “I’d like a receipt upon arrival, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he tells me.

He rings me up for the cost of certified mail and then he takes it away from me and that’s pretty much it. Good-bye, Daisy Ranch. Hello, University of Texas Broadcast Journalism Boot Camp.

Callie and I rush into work, and Inga squints at the two of us, preparing to scold, but then I say, “I’m so, so sorry. It’s my fault we’re late.”

Inga nods. “Your check is in the office.”

“Getting paid?” mumbles Callie. “What does that feel like?”

I nudge her with my elbow. “Thanks, Inga. Kiss Luka and Nikolai for me.”

“They’re monsters,” she says as she gathers her keys and things. “Little hairless monsters who just eat and poop. Eat and poop. I tell your uncle every day that if men could have babies, we’d be making people in labs instead of bellies.”