Something Real (24 page)

I stare at the tray of food on my desk. Cold Thanksgiving dinner that I’d told Mom I didn’t want.

Ding!

I sit up, shivering in the thin bathrobe I’d thrown on before tumbling into bed.

Ding!

I move my finger along the mouse pad on my laptop, the bright light painful after the hours of miserable semiconsciousness.

Sheldon1015:
Hey … you awake?

Sheldon1015:
Your phone is off. I think you have enough evidence if you want to tell the police you have a stalker—I left way too many anxious boyfriend texts.

Sheldon1015:
Crap. MetaReel can’t read your texts can they? I don’t know how them tapping your phone actually works.

Sheldon 1015:
Chloe.

Sheldon 1015:
Chloe.

Sheldon 1015:
Chloe.

Sheldon 1015:
This is my cyber version of throwing pebbles at your window. Is it working?

YoSoyChloe:
Hey

Sheldon1015:
Hey! (I’m still working on the right term of endearment for you, so know that I’m saying more than “hey.”)

Despite everything, I smile. Some warmth floods back into me, cracking the ice around my heart. My fingers hover over the keyboard. Patrick Sheldon makes me want to be clever even during a personal crisis.

YoSoyChloe:
Okay, _______ (insert term of endearment).

Sheldon 1015:
I want to call you. Can I? Because I think there have been clinical studies about it being really bad for your health if you don’t hear the voice of the person you can’t stop thinking about.

YoSoyChloe:
Bugged phone, remember?

Sheldon 1015:
You can pretend it’s a wrong number. We’ll pull one over on whoever listens in to your phone calls.

YoSoyChloe:
Honestly, I …

YoSoyChloe:
I’m sort of afraid I’ll start crying. And then I’ll just feel like an idiot, you know? God, you probably think I’m already a total spaz. I wish I’d told you not to watch.

Sheldon1015:
You’re not a spaz.

Sheldon1015:
Chloe … Argh! Everything I want to say is going to look dumb as hell in writing. How do you feel about sneaking out of the house?

Great. Except that I’m practically on suicide watch.

YoSoyChloe:
Normally, I would love the opportunity to put my ninja skills to good use, but I’m actually exhausted. Rain check?

Sheldon1015:
I suppose I will put away my shining armor and save my (ninja) damsel in distress tomorrow. Are you up for a rescue around 5? 6? Movie/dinner/a shoulder to cry on?

YoSoyChloe:
I’m always up for rescuing, but … I don’t think my mom will let me out. You might be dealing with a Rapunzel situation. I’m not sure what the fallout from tonight will be.

Sheldon1015:
Throw in a dragon and swordfights and I’m sold.

YoSoyChloe:

Sheldon1015:
Can I say one totally embarrassingly boyfriend thing? Er, type it, rather.

YoSoyChloe:
I like totally embarrassingly boyfriend things.

Sheldon1015:
I miss you.

Sheldon1015:
Honestly, I feel … I just really miss you. I’m verging on pathetic here—it’s been less than twenty-four hours since I’ve seen your face.

YoSoyChloe:
Except on TV.

Sheldon1015:
Right. That magnified the missing. And it made me want to hurt some people.

YoSoyChloe:
Ha. Yeah, that makes two of us.

YoSoyChloe:
Can I say one totally embarrassingly girlfriend thing?

Sheldon1015:
Please do.

YoSoyChloe:
I missed you so much last night that I chewed a whole pack of spearmint gum.

Sheldon1015:
Okay, you better go before I drive over there and climb up to your balcony.

YoSoyChloe:
Night.

Sheldon1015:
This sucks.

YoSoyChloe:
Yeah.

Sheldon1015:
I am way too tempted to start quoting Shakespeare to you in proper Mopey Emo Dude fashion. I need to step away from this computer before I lose all of my dignity. Shall I compare thee—no! Stepping away …

Patrick signs off, but I don’t close my laptop. Instead, I grab a DVD I keep in the drawer beside my bed and slide it into the disk drive. My eyes tear up again as the
Baker’s Dozen
theme song plays.

Baker’s Dozen: Season 10, Episode 9

INT—BAKER HOME—EVENING:
Mariachi music plays in the background. [ANDREW stands in front of the stove in the kitchen, stirring something in a pot. BONNIE™ stands beside him, holding a corn tortilla.]

ANDREW:
Okay, Bon-Bon, you ready to make some enchiladas?

BONNIE
™
:
[looks into the pot, doubtful] It’s still boiling.

ANDREW:
[reaches for the tortilla] We’ll do it together. Ready? One, two …

BONNIE
™
:
Three! [they dunk the tortilla into the pot]

ANDREW:
¡Ai ai ai! ¡Caliente!

BONNIE
™
:
[laughing] Hurry, it’s gonna break!

[They set the tortilla in a glass baking dish. ANDREW crosses to the sink and rinses his hands while BONNIE™ sticks her hand in a big bowl of shredded cheese.]

ANDREW:
[Sneaking up behind BONNIE™. He now has a sombrero on his head.]
¡Hola, señorita!

BONNIE
™
:
[Turns around. Her face is shocked, then she breaks out into hysterical laughter.] Daddy, you’re crazy!

[ANDREW turns up the music and begins twirling her around the kitchen.]

ANDREW AND BONNIE
™
:
[singing together]
La cucaracha, la cucaracha, la la la la la la la …

SEASON 17, EPISODE 16

(The One at the Mall)

When I wake up, someone is snoring in my bed. I turn over, only mildly alarmed—this is not such a strange thing when you have a dozen siblings.

“Benny.” I shake my brother’s shoulder.

“Hmph.” He turns onto his side, throwing an arm against his eyes to block out the sunlight.

I kick off the covers and crawl over him.

“You’re awake,” he mumbles.

I look at the clock. “It’s lunchtime. I thought it might be a good idea to get up.”

“Whereyago?” His words are muffled against the pillow, but I get the gist.

“Bathroom. Be right back.”

I open my door as quietly as possible and tiptoe across the hall. I try the knob, but the door’s locked. I don’t want to alert everyone that I’m awake—it could result in footage of my bedhead and ratty PJs that I don’t want people to see on next week’s episode. I can feel how bad I look.

But I really have to pee.

I tap on the door. “Can I get in there?”

“Almost done,” Lexie™ says.

This is Lex-speak for twenty more minutes.

“Dude. I just need, like, two minutes.”

The door immediately swings open, and waves of steam envelop me as Lex pulls me inside and shuts the door behind her. The room reeks of her expensive shampoo.

“Er, good morning?” I say, blinking in the mist.

“Oh my God, we have to talk.”

Lex is wearing a towel around her middle and another wrapped around her hair. An assortment of creams and girl-torture devices sit on the cluttered counter. This is the official girls’ bathroom, so there are about ten bottles of lotion, piles of hair accessories, five hairbrushes … any time of the day or night you walk in here, it looks like we robbed a Walgreens.

“Um. I really have to pee.”

“Go ahead, I won’t look.”

I sigh and turn on the faucet.

“Hello? Hate the environment much?” she says.

“It’s bad enough no one can pee in private in this family. The least you can do is let me harbor the illusion that you can’t hear me.”

“You are so bizarre.” Lex plucks at her eyebrows and studies her face in the mirror with an intensity better suited to nuclear physicists.

“Just because I’m not comfortable running around backstage naked between act one and act two doesn’t qualify as weird.”

“It’s a theater thing—you wouldn’t understand.” She closes her eyes as she dabs cream on her eyelids, and I take this opportunity to sit on the toilet.

After a few seconds, I flush and she opens her eyes.

“You obviously have some quality gossip to share, so out with it,” I say, resigning myself to a lengthy Lex-a-thon. I sit on the edge of the bathtub and run my hands through my rat’s-nest hair.