Bratfest At Tiffany's

BOCD
THE RADIO BOOTH

Tuesday, September 8th
12:05 P.M.

“Oh five. Oh five. Oh five,” Alicia mumbled while entering the code that unlocked the heavy steel door of the radio booth at the LBR end of the hall. The combination was the birthday of Principal Burns’s fat orange tabby, Carrots—and a sworn secret, shared only with Alicia, the school’s trusted anchorwoman.
Shockingly, she had been able to keep the combo to herself for almost a year now, but only because it had to do with her dream of becoming a TV journalist. Otherwise she would have spread it across BOCD faster than the story of Pee-Pee Perri Dorfman and her soggy sleeping bag.
The door made a kissing noise when it clicked open, and Alicia hurried inside. She craved the booth’s soundproof walls and dim lights with the same intensity that she craved TSE’s cashmere cowl-necks in February. Both made her feel warm and protected from the outside world—a world that was constantly telling her how to act, who to hang out with, and what boots to wear. And now, when to boyfast.
Alicia searched her black Balenciaga motorcycle bag for her ice blue bottle of Angel perfume. After a few sprays, the stale airplane smell was gone and the booth felt like home again.
“Nice boots!” She heard a boy cough.
She quickly covered her chest.
“I said boots, not—”
“Ehmagawd, what are you doing here?” Alicia blushed at the sound of her own excitement. “How did you get in?”
She turned up the dimmer switch on the gray-carpeted wall, adding some, but not much, light to the spray tanning booth-size room.
“Surprise!” Leaning against the knob-filled soundboard, grinning back at her, was Josh Hotz, her olive-skinned crush with the thick black maybe-he’s-born-with-them lashes and red licorice–colored lips. He was wearing the most ah-dorable navy-and-white striped Polo rugby and RL’s machine-torn Vesey jeans. A dark blue New York Yankees cap shaded his face. But Alicia could still see the cute white fangs on the sides of his mouth when he smiled.
She adjusted her brown knit cap and smoothed her gold ruffled Spanish skirt. If only they were famous. The genetically challenged could find inspiration in their beauty. … Computer geeks could design avatars in their likenesses. … They could model in Ralph Lauren’s fall print campaign. …
Suddenly the charm bracelet around Alicia’s wrist felt extra heavy.
After jiggling the silver doorknob to make sure it was locked, she jiggled it again. Then once more, just in case.
“What are you doing here?” She hurried toward him.
“You make the lunchtime announcements, right?”
Alicia grin-shrugged, as if her job as school reporter were no big deal, even though it totally was.
Josh lifted himself up to sit on the wood console. He swung his legs playfully, showing off a pair of lime green flip-flops with mini Polo logos stamped on the rubber beneath his feet. “Well, I wanted to say hey, so I stopped by. I gave the janitor a twenty to let me in.”
Alicia blushed again, thinking of the three messages he had sent her—or rather, the three messages she’d ignored—since the welcome-back breakfast. But what was she supposed to do? Explain the boyfast? How could she? That was against boyfast rules. Besides, it was complicated. And kind of embarrassing. “Oops, sorry. My battery is dead.”
Just then, her phone vibrated inside her bag. Once … twice … three times … four times … five times … Ugh! Did it always ring this much????
Alicia blushed for the third time. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Josh lowered the brim on his cap, lifted his distressed brown leather messenger bag, and hooked it over his slightly defined shoulder. A heap of brightly colored envelopes and glitter-covered cards spilled out.
“What are those?” Alicia felt her upper lip curl in disgust.
“Just a few welcome cards from the girls in our grade.” Josh scooped up the pile and stuffed them back in his bag. “Oh, and a few from the seventh-graders too, I guess.”
Judging from the heap of girly stationery, it might as well have been Valentine’s Day, and Josh the only boy in town.
Alicia’s heart was thumping, her ears were ringing, and her forehead was starting to dampen. Massie was right! The boys were the new alphas. The Pretty Committee was out.
And that made her out.
She fanned her face, then sniffed her Angel-scented wrists to keep from passing out. How could she possibly look Josh in the eye knowing she had expired like fat-free yogurt? Faded like tan lines? Dried up like year-old mascara? Who would hire her to be a TV journalist now? Anchorwomen were smart celebrities. And her celebrity status was waning. At this point she could be a career blogger at best.
“Well, I’ll see you around,” Josh mumbled, reaching for the door like someone hoping to be stopped.
Alicia knew she had to do something. For her love life. Her social life. And her career.
The red digital clock said 12:11:36. Which meant she had exactly three minutes and twenty-four … twenty-three … twenty-two … twenty-one … seconds before her broadcast to make things right.
“Wait!” She turned all the switches and pressed every button she could find. Suddenly staticky white noise filled the booth. Between that and the soundproof walls, no one would hear what she was about to say.
Josh dropped his bag and covered his ears. She motioned for him to come closer. He did, trying his hardest to stay mad. But, like most boys, he was powerless in the presence of Alicia’s exotic beauty.
“Listen I know you like to gossip as much as I do but what i’m about to tell you is classified,” she hurried. “’Kay?”
She held out her pinky.
“What’s the finger for?” He smiled with amusement.
“You have to pinky-swear not to tell anyone.”
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes as if the soccer team were watching, then offered up his baby finger. “I swear.”
They shook.
“Okay.” Alicia inhaled deeply, silently cursing Massie for making her choose between her best friends and the most ah-dorable Ralph Lauren–wearing, gossip-loving hawttie she’d ever met.
“Here’s the deal. The Pretty Committee is now the New Pretty Committee becuase we are on a boy fast. We aren’t allowed to hang out with boys any more because boys make girls do stupid things and we don’t want to act stupid any more. So I’m not allowed to talk to you and if I do I’ll get thrown out of the NPC for good. So what do I do?” Alicia searched Josh’s eyes for a reaction, but they were shaded by his Yankees cap. “Say something!”
He snickered.
“You think I’m lame, don’t you?” Alicia wished she could take it all back. “You think I should stand up for what I want and not agree to such a lame pact, don’t you? You think I should—”
“I don’t think anything.” He lifted his bag again. Alicia fought the urge to throw herself on top of him and beg him not to walk out on her.
“I get it.”
“You do?” she asked as the red digital numbers on the clock informed her she had forty-five seconds to wrap this up.
“Yeah.” He stuffed his hands in his faded pockets and leaned against the console. “My friends told me I couldn’t talk to anyone in the Pretty Committee because you were a bunch of stalkers and spies.”
Alicia gasped. “Puh-lease! If you found out there was a hidden camera in one of our classrooms, wouldn’t you watch it too?”
“Denied. Hypothetical. Leading the witness.”
Alicia’s stomach flipped. Her crush had just busted out courtroom drama lingo. Could he be any more perfect? She wished she had captured that moment on her iPhone so she could send it to her lawyer dad. If she had, he would have sent back his blessing in the form of a big blank check for the wedding.
“Sustained.” She giggled. “So did you tell them you’d never talk to me again?”
“No. I said, too bad.”
Alicia’s heart beat out the Morse code for I ah-dore him. “Then what?”
“Nothing.” Josh grinned, revealing his ah-dorable fang. “We’re guys. It was over in two seconds.”
“Well, it’s so nawt like that for me.”
“Here, maybe this will help.” He lifted a pink New York Yankees cap out of his bag, removed her knit hat, and placed it on her head. It was such a cute gesture she didn’t bother thinking about how goofy she must have looked in pink, or how the polyester blend might suffocate her hair shafts. The only thought running through her mind was, Awwwwwww.
“Think of Jeter when you wear it.”
Alicia nodded like someone who knew who Jeter was.
“The guy is a real team player, but at the same time, he’s not afraid to be the best. And to be the best, sometimes you have to quiet the voices in your head and do what’s right for you.” Shyly, he stuffed his hands back in his pockets. “My soccer coach told me that.”
“Thanks.” She giggled.
Josh Hotz made her feel better than a fresh blowout.
“Ehmagawd, I’m thirty seconds late! Hand me that yellow folder. The one on the top of the stack.” Alicia quickly adjusted the knobs and dials and slipped on the big headphones.
Josh did what he was told, then leaned against the gray-carpeted wall and admired her while she got to work.
“Good morning, BOCD, and welcome to the first day of school. It’s Tuesday, September eighth, and here are your daily announcements. Boys, your locker rooms are the ones with the big sign that says BOYS on the door. So no more barging into the girls’ locker rooms and pretending it was an accident.” Laughter erupted from the New Green Café. “The Tomahawks’ soccer meeting will be held in room sub-C5 at four this afternoon, and this year’s captain is Derek Harrington.” Alicia felt a pang of sympathy for Massie, who had to sit there and listen to everyone applaud ex-Derrington. “And this year’s captain for the Sirens is Kristen Gregory!” More applause. “Auditions for this year’s Christmas show, The Wizard of Claus, will be held next Monday, so drama mamas, start practicing your audition songs. And for those of you sharing lockers, Principal Burns and Dean Don apologize for the inconvenience and promise it will be taken care of by tomorrow. This has been Alicia Rivera for BOCD news. I heart you.”
Josh burst into a round of applause. “You’re a natural.”
Alicia grinned on the outside, and her heart leapt on the inside. Could he be any more ah-dorable? More than anything she wanted to share every detail of their secret rendezvous with the NPC. But the boyfast ruled that out. And if you couldn’t brag about your crush to your friends, what was the point of having a crush?
Or friends?
“What’s this?” Josh asked, leafing through a red folder he had plucked out of the plastic hanging file sorter on the wall.
“It’s confidential.” Alicia snatched it away before he could read another word. “It’s got Principal Burns’s announcements in it.”
“Killer! Hand it over. Let’s read it!”
“We can’t.” Alicia held it behind her back.
“Why not?” Josh tried to grab it. “Don’t you want the gossip?”
Alicia giggled. His hunger for gossip was charming, and no doubt one of his best qualities. But they were in the newsroom. And here, gossip was known as a leak. And leaks were unethical in a big way.
“Come on, lemme take a peek. I swear I won’t tell anyone.” He wiggled his pinky in her face.
She giggled again. He was more irresistible than crème br?lée fro-yo.
“Fine.” She turned her back. “But I’ll read it.”
“Yes!” Josh punched the perfume-soaked air. “What does it say?”
“Ehmagawd.” She scanned the ivory OCD letterhead, her left brow arched in disbelief as the alarming news whizzed by. “Due to the dangerously high capacity …” and “… quaint overflow building …” and “… located in the back parking lot …”
“Ehmagawd.” Alicia slowly lowered the paper. “This is more shocking than the skull ’n’ crossbones clothing trend.”
“What?” Josh reached for the announcement, but she whipped it away.
“Tomorrow at lunch they’re gonna announce that everyone at tables one through ten will be transferred to an overflow facility until BO can find a way to make more space.”
“What kind of facility?” Josh air-quoted “facility.” Awwwww. Luv him!
“Doesn’t say,” she answered.
“But you’re at table eighteen and we’re at three.” His warm brown eyes cooled with fear. “We’ll be separated.”
Alicia paused. Maybe that would be a good thing. If she didn’t see Josh during the day, Massie would never find out they were talking. … But not seeing him every day would mean … well, not seeing him every day. And how depressing would that be?
“I have an idea.” He pulled off his baseball hat and ran his hand through his thick dark hair.
Alicia had no idea what she adored more, his devious mind or the wavy hair that protected it.
“Tell me.” She bobbed up and down on her Matador red toes.
“Swear on the Yankees you won’t tell anyone.” He held out his hat.
“The Yankees?” she screeched. “Who cares about—”
“Just swear!”
Alicia took off her cap and clinked it against his as if they were champagne flutes. “I swear,” she said with a playful eye-roll.
“On what?”
She rolled her eyes again. “The Yankees.”
“Good.” Josh replaced his hat. “I’ll e-mail the plan tonight.”
“You mean you don’t—”
“I will.” He flicked the brim of her cap, then, without another word, opened the door and slipped out.
Alicia kept smiling at him even though he was gone.
Once the coast was clear, she jammed the pink hat to the bottom of her motorcycle bag until it was buried under more makeup than Paula Abdul. Then she turned off the lights and inhaled the darkness, willing her thumping heart to mellow. Something was making it beat furiously. But what?
The thrill of Josh?
Or the fear of Massie?
It was impossible to tell.
Love and terror felt exactly the same.