The Real Real (5 page)

I shrug.

“Little Red Riding Hood, you
dork
. Your inside joke!”

I flush strawberry jam all over again. “Our joke is inside! We have an inside!”

“And I have a date with fame.” She smack-kisses a baby-pants-ed hand and blows it at me before pulling the glass-paned door closed behind her.

REEL 3

I stare into the microwave, waiting for my egg to puff up like a chef’s hat over the edge of the ramekin. It’s the small joys. Suddenly there’s a pounding, followed by an insistent ring of the doorbell.

“Jess?” Mom calls up from the basement. “Can you get it? It might be Fran returning my steamer.”

Six forty-five on a Wednesday morning is awfully early for a steamer return. I pad to the front hall, reluctantly preparing myself to break the heat seal. Pulling my cardigan around my waist with one arm, I open the door, its rubber draft barrier shwooshing against the wood floor.

“
Good morning, Jesse O’Rourke!!
”

Oh, so not Fran. Unless she now brings television 42

cameras with her on routine errands. I blink against the lights, trying to look out through the spots in my eyes.

“Hello?” I say feebly, still unable to see whom I’m addressing.

“Hey, it’s Kara, from XTV.” She steps out in front of the cameras, once again wearing the same outfit as at the Pear last week, plus a thin black scarf circled loosely around her neck, like an afterthought. “Are your parents here?”

“My dad’s still asleep—”

“Jess,” he calls groggily from the top of the steps. “You win the lottery?”

“In a way, yes, she has, Mr. O’Rourke!” Kara shouts past me up the stairs before breaking into a thick cough.

I can hear him slapping down behind me in his slippers, and I pray he’s wearing the new pajamas we got him for Christmas and not his worn-sheer Slippery When Wet T-shirt. Nope, it’s the T-shirt. Mom appears on the opposite end of the spectrum clutching the neck of her grandma zip-up robe. “Jess, what is all this?” she asks, wiping her hair out of her face with the back of her hand.

“Mr. and Mrs. O’Rourke, congratulations!” Kara opens her arms wide, her exhausted eyes watery above dark circles. “We have selected your daughter to be part of the core cast in our new documentary series,
The Real
Hampton Beach,
and we could
not
be more excited!”

Wha-huh?!

“Over the next five weeks, Jesse and a group of her friends will help shape the content of a show offering 43

millions of American high school students an insightful and accurate reflection of the on-the-ground issues they face. It’ll be incredible exposure.” At the word
exposure
a parental hand grabs each of my stunned elbows. “And, as a thank-you, XTV has arranged for Doritos to donate forty thousand dollars toward college tuition for each of the participants.”

At the words
forty thousand
my ears start ringing as I feel Mom and Dad rock me backward and then forward, as if they’re about to fling me into Kara’s arms and slam the door behind me.

“We just need you to sign a simple parental consent form and the money is yours.” She holds out an oversized bright orange check with
Doritos
emblazoned across the top. And my name printed in one-inch letters on the recipient line. Holy. Crap. All three of us lean down and stare at it like it’s about to talk to us. A flash goes off.

“We need some time to look that over,” Dad says, blinking, his recovered voice raspy. He takes the form from Kara, and she slips her camera back into her vest pocket.

“Of course. We just need to know by tomorrow morning.” She presses the check into Mom’s hand atop the dryer sheet she’s clutching. “Please hold on to this. But don’t try to cash it—it won’t be cleared for cashing until everyone’s permission forms are filed with legal. Okay!”

She claps her gloved hands, a big smile breaking over her tired face. “Jesse, there’s a trailer parked behind the school cafeteria and, while your parents take today to sign the 44

form, please join us for a super-fun orientation meeting at seven forty-five.”

“Oh my God! I can’t believe it! And Caitlyn, she’ll be there?” I pull my cardigan sleeves down over my bare hands.

“My contract doesn’t cover telling you that. But there’ll be breakfast! Okay, great, yay!”

She retreats down the steps and hops with her cameramen into the waiting van. As it speeds away to play
Who
Wants to Be a Millionaire?
at someone else’s house, I shut the door and turn to my parents. We stare at one another in the darkened entryway. “Oh my God. Oh my God!” is all I can manage, my mind already racing ahead to whether this means Caitlyn and I can snag two tickets to the XTV

Awards. “What do you guys think?”

Dad sits down heavily on the bottom step, his face breaking into a grin as he laughs in disbelief. Mom leans back against the railing, her eyes welling. “Kelsey Grammer told me about this,” she murmurs, hugging the check to her chest. “Last summer. He said if I concentrated really hard on what I want for you and pray every day, that it would happen.” She throws her arms around me, squeezing me tight. “Now you can go to any college you want!”

Still in shock, I chain my bike up and pull my cell out of my coat pocket. Nothing from Caitlyn. I leave her a sixth voice mail. Probably trying to give herself a five-minute 45

highlight touch-up before she hits the trailer.

I round the school from the freshly salted parking lot and, sure enough, next to the newly cleared pool site there’s a black double-wide with a neon XTV logo painted six feet tall across the side. I knock on the door, but no one answers. I try the cold metal handle and it gives, letting me into what I’m guessing is
The Real Hampton Beach
headquarters. Long, white, tufted benches sit beneath the windows and, just behind, a small kitchen straddles the aisle with what looks to be every single product General Mills makes, from Fruit Roll-Ups to Hamburger Helper.

“Dig in!” Kara cheers from behind me, climbing the stairs, a large Prickly Pear coffee cradled to her sweatshirt chest.

I take two granola bars and sit on the white leather, awaiting my fellow golden-ticket holders. I glance at my cell. Nothing.

The trailer door opens and I look up hopefully.

“Melanie, hey,” I say, deflated. “What a surprise.”

“You too,” she says, but without my sarcastic undertone. She teeters up the three stairs in snow-caked strappy heels and sits across from me to deice her polished toes.

“Granola bar?” I offer.

She recoils. “I don’t—you know—
carbs
.”

“Right,” I say, polishing off the first bar and tucking into the second. God, I hope Caitlyn gets here before everyone else—hate to have to reenact every detail.

The door opens again, and Jase bounds up the steps.

“Howdy, y’all!” he whoops, stopping short when his eyes land on mine and an awkward pause ensues in which I assume we’re both flashing back to Monday night—me holding garbage, Jase holding his split lip. Good times.

“Soup! All right!” Avoiding me, he makes a beeline for the Progresso New England Clam Chowder, takes a can opener to it, pours the contents into a bowl, and zaps it in the microwave.

My nose scrunching as the smell of warming clams fills the trailer, I don’t even notice Nico until she’s standing over me. She kisses Melanie on the cheek and goes to take a seat on Jase’s lap. Jase extends an arm holding the bowl around her lithe frame and eats over her shoulder as she lolls her head to one side, unfazed by his proclivities, breakfast and otherwise.

Meanwhile, Kara is shuffling piles of handouts into purple folders and glancing every other minute at her BlackBerry. Where
the hell
is Caitlyn? For the first time I let the sliver of concern I’ve been ignoring since I left my third voice mail for her grow into a full-blown thought: They wouldn’t cast me and
not
Caitlyn, would they?

The door flies open, and Rick pounds up the steps, tossing off a “Dude” in greeting to each of us. Ah, Rick Sachs. A Hampton High phenomenon, all cheekbones and blue eyes. But two minutes into talking to him, you’re practically asleep. There’s always a sophomore up to bat, but it never lasts. He’s a spud. Someday he will just bud off and there’ll be a little Rick standing beside him.

“Okay!” Kara straightens up. “We’re just waiting for one more.”

Shit.

There’s no way it isn’t Trisha. My stomach dropping, I put down the granola bar on the windowsill. I crook my finger, and Kara takes a step toward me. I crook it again, and she leans her ear down to my mouth. “I just wanted to say I think my friend Caitlyn Duggan would be awesome.

She
really
wants it.”

I stare imploringly at her as she straightens up. “She’d do a
much
better job at this than me.”

“I’m sorry, we’re only casting six. We looked at hours of footage from last week, and Network loved you guys.

It’s out of my hands.” Kara shrugs apologetically.

Why?!
Why
pick me and not her? I mean, you want glamorous? She highlights her own hair! It makes no sense! Oh God, she’ll never forgive me. I flash to my parents beaming at that orange check. But I can always work a few thousand more shifts at the Pear. I’ll just—stand up and—

The door opens, and I turn to see how bad Trisha’s nose looks post-cafeteria crash. But the eyes looking back aren’t black and they aren’t Trisha’s.

They’re Drew’s.

“Sorry I’m late. I had some family stuff to take care of.”

Nico and Melanie exchange a look, because, while hot, Drew doesn’t register in their circle. Until he started dating someone a whole grade up, these guys couldn’t have 48

picked Drew out of a lineup.

“Okay! Gang’s all here!” Kara gives a double thumbs-up. “Drew, help yourself to anything from the kitchen.”

“Soup’s awesome,” Jase says, mouth full.

Drew drops onto the bench opposite, gives me a half-smile, and pulls a PowerBar from his pocket. “I’m good.”

I sit there. Looking from Kara to Drew, flashing from my parents to Caitlyn.

“Great. But you can’t eat that on camera.
Only
General Mills brands.” Kara speaks slowly like Mrs. Gesop. “Anything else will have to be
fuzzed out
and that costs our editors
time
and
money
. Got it?”

We all nod.

“Jesse? You have a question?”

“I . . . I . . . ” I don’t know what to say.

“Okay! Next thing. You’ll need to report to this trailer every morning for a check-in. Five, ten minutes max, no big deal.” She drops her thick glasses from atop her hair to read from her clipboard. “Now, these are the most important things. We want you guys to spend as much time with each other as possible. This show is about you. The six of you. Six friends—”

Nico raises her hand, looking at Drew, then me. “But, no offense—” she says. I nod, none taken. “—we’re not all friends.”

“Right, exactly—” I see my in, but Nico plows on.

“Trisha should be here. My father said—” She stops short. “I mean, it only makes sense. What happened?”

“Well, Trisha’s blond, and you’re blond, and Melanie’s strawberry blond, and we couldn’t have three blond leads.

Network wanted to break it up, give audiences a different type they could relate to—”

“Trisha’s relatable
and
she’s my friend.”

“Drop it, Nic,” Jase says under his breath. Nico’s breath catches, her cheeks flushing in hurt.

Pulling her pen out of her clipboard’s vise, Kara draws herself up. “Okay, any more quibbles with casting?

Because I
can
scrap all of you.” Still straddling Jase’s legs, Nico goes rigid. “As I was saying, there are six of you, and we only have two full-time cameramen, Ben and Sam, and we don’t want to miss anything. . . . So, Nico, if you have a choice of going to Jesse’s after school, or some random’s, go to Jesse’s.” We catch each other’s eye, the idea of her coming over to my house so outrageous we both let out a little laugh. “Laughing together—good, good, that’s great.” Kara makes a check on her clipboard. “We don’t have time to mike you today, so we’ll just throw you in with a camera and a boom. You can ask more questions tomorrow when you’ve gotten the hang of it.” She takes in our tense faces. “Relax, guys, you’re going to have the time of your lives! Everyone who’s done one of our city-based roommate dramas clamors to come back and do a challenge show—they love it; it’s so much fun they want to come on again and again.” Something on Kara buzzes and her hand goes to her vest pocket. “And now, I’ll be right back.” Kara steps down the three stairs 50

to the exit and lets herself out, the trailer door slamming shut behind her.

“This is bullshit. Total bullshit,” Nico says, pushing away from Jase and his soup, taking a seat on Rick’s other side next to Melanie. “How can they do this?”

The door reopens and Kara comes in, trailed by Fletch in an oversized orange Prada parka with fur-trimmed hood. “Jesus fucking Christ, is it cold out there! But gotta hit our air dates, right? My pad’s on Fire Island, which I pushed for,
believe me
, but no cars and Network said, ‘Eh.’

So I’m staying in a hotel the last few nights, and the walls are, like, black—”

“It’s hard to keep on top of the mold with the ocean air,” I say in Phase One of sweet-talking my way into keeping a best friend—

“So Network rents me a house, and last night the boiler conked out. I cast you guys in a plushie show, and I’m living fucking
Survivor: East Hampton
.”

“Fletch,” Nico purrs, unwrapping her legs and re-wrapping them the other way in a twirl of streamlined gray denim.

“My dad has a little bungalow on the beach we rent out in the summers if you ever need a place,” her sweet-talking blowing my sweet-talking out of the water. “It’s top-notch.”

Thank you, Ivanka Trump.

“I’ll file that, Nico, but here’s hoping the next time I see you we’ll be on the other island, the one with tall buildings and my killer office. Okay, so I trust Kara gave you all the skinny on what we’re looking for. Just be yourselves.