I LOVED BEING A BURRITO.
Not the actual costume, a stinky ankle-length tube of compressed foam with scratchy shoulder straps. No, I loved the physical act of being a burrito-more precisely, of getting people to notice me-and I was good at it.
On the final Sunday of winter break I stood in full burrito glamour on the corner of Palo Brea and Seventh. The gorgeous winter sun, the kind created by the gods lucky enough to preside over Southern California, shone down on me. I waved at cars. Sometimes I blew kisses. Sometimes I handed out buy-one-get-one-free coupons for Dos Hermanas Mexican Cantina. And sometimes I performed my burrito shuffle dance in my way-hot peep-toe swing heels.
A woman on a Vespa puttered up beside me. "Nice shoes. Are they legit?"
I handed her a BOGOF coupon and flashed my ankle. "True-blue 1942."
"eBay?"
"Nope. Got them at a vintage shop off Calle Bonita near Minnie's Place Retirement Community. A real gold mine."
"Yum." The light changed and Vespa Girl drove off with a wave and serious shoe envy.
The sun glinted off my silver buckles. There was something deliciously romantic about slipping into shoes that had walked another time and place, something powerful about bits of leather that had survived more than a half century. What stories these shoes could tell if only they had a different sort of tongue.
When I aimed my swing heels toward the corner to hand out my last two BOGOF coupons, I spotted a car that sent me spinning in a happy burrito pirouette. A pearl-white convertible BMW stopped in the turn lane, my BF Brie Sonderby in the driver's seat. I hadn't seen Brie or my other BF, Mercedes, for almost three weeks, not since the night of the Mistletoe Ball, the most amazing night of my life. Unfortunately, it had been followed by the worst day of my life when World War III broke out in my living room.
It was a universal truth: When life turned hellacious, you needed BFs. To my extreme dismay, I'd spent all of winter break without mine because Brie had been on a ski trip in Chamonix with the parental unit, and Merce had been on the East Coast touring campuses with lots of ivy. Now Brie was reaching over the Beemer's passenger seat and gathering papers scattered on the floor.
"Looks like you could use a little help from a burrito with hot shoes," I said.
When she lifted her head, a gasp hitched in my throat. In addition to being one of my best friends on planet earth, Brie was one of the most beautiful human beings on planet earth, but not today. "What happened?" I asked.
Her fingers curled around the papers like dead, bleached coral. "Nothing."
Yeah, right. Her lips were the texture and color of ground beef, as if she'd been gnawing them for three weeks. She looked almost as bad as Mercedes did last year after her mother died.
I grabbed Brie's hand, which felt like a chunk of ice. "What is it? Did something happen in France? With you? Your mom?" I squeezed her fingers, sending warmth. "Hey, Cheese Girl, talk. It's me, Chloe."
Brie yanked her hand from mine. "You're the last person I want to talk to."
I steadied my hands on the car door. "Okay. Fine. You need some quiet. Pull into Dos Hermanas and let me drive. We'll pick up Merce, buy some Twizzlers, and-"
"Shut up, Chloe. Just! Shut! Up!" She pounded the steering wheel with each word.
I took a step back, my heel sinking into a divot in the asphalt.
Brie rested her forehead against her fisted hands, her usual gold and glorious hair falling around her face in a dull, tangled mess. "Go away. I can't deal with you right now."
I had no idea what was going on, but the heavens were seriously misaligned. Confusion softened my voice. "Is it something I did?"
"You?" A strange sound-part sob, part laugh-fell from my BF's ground-beef lips. "Have you ever thought the world doesn't revolve around you, Queen Chloe?"
"I…" I had no idea what to say, other than who are you and what have you done with my best friend?
The light turned green, and Brie jerked upright, her eyes glinting with frost. "Sometimes you're so self-centered, I can't stand it." She punched the gas, and a blast of exhaust enveloped my peep-toe swing heels.
The BOGOF coupons fell from my hand as her BMW squealed around the corner and disappeared. What was that? Who was that? And why was she being so…so mean?
"Hey, Burrito Babe, move it!" A guy in a blue truck stuck his head out the window and waved a fist at me.
A wicked heat swelled beneath my burrito shell. On shaky feet I headed to Dos Hermanas. Something strange was going on in my world, and I needed an explanation, because of course there had to be an explanation as to why one of my BFs had gone mad-cow.
I drew in a deep breath as I entered the Mexican restaurant, which smelled of roasted chilies and a dash of lime. The smells soothed me, as did Larry, Moe, and Rizado, the three giant papier-maché parrots hanging above the salsa bar. Everything about the tiny restaurant was in-your-face loud and bright, spicy, and bold. I loved it, and I loved the two sisters who ran it. Twenty years ago Ana and Josie left a dirt-poor village in Sonora, Mexico, and walked across the desert on bare feet in search of shoes and a better life. They found it here.
"Hey, Rojita, someone called for you." Josie handed me a piece of jagged brown paper, the kind that crackled out of paper towel dispensers. "She sounded-how you say-agitated."
The paper towel read: Call A. Lungren pronto. School guidance center. ?Emergencia!
"You have problems with school?" Josie asked.
I shoved the note in my burrito pocket. "No." I had no idea who A. Lungren was, and frankly, I didn't care about her emergency. I had my own emergency.
Shut up, Chloe. Just! Shut! Up!
My BF had thrust a flaming arrow into the middle of my chest.
I was a lover, not a fighter.
When words collided and emotions exploded, my friends and fam could count on me for a pithy redirect or well-timed joke. But not today, not after my encounter with the angry zombie girl masquerading as one of my best friends. I quietly turned the handle of my front door and slipped into the entryway, ducking to avoid incoming missiles.
"You're not listening to me!" Grams yelled from the adjacent living room.
"I can't hear you when you're shouting at the top of your lungs!" Mom fired back.
The fiery ache in my chest expanded. This is how things had been between Grams and Mom since the day after the Mistletoe Ball. There was no way I could attempt to broker peace between them. I slipped off my swing heels and tiptoed across the marble entryway, up the spiral staircase, and into the black hole. The massive second floor of my home was cold, dark, and as of five months ago, void of living matter. Except for me.
I beelined to my room to call Mercedes, the third member of our best-friend triumvirate. Mercedes and I met the first week of sixth grade at Del Rey Middle School when she rescued me from the dangerous white-water rapids of pre-algebra with daily tutoring. At the time I didn't know Merce was a social zero. All I knew was she was smart enough to help me get through math with a B, and she laughed at my jokes. While I had a million friends from elementary school, I hooked up with Merce in a fierce way. She was the kind of girl who spent lunch periods with her math book, alone and in need of a friend. A year later Brie moved to Tierra del Rey and rounded out our trio. I'm not sure why the überpopular Brie gravitated toward us. Maybe it was the whole balance thing. Brie was the beauty, Mercedes was the brains, and I was all personality. Together we were whole.
When I called Merce, I got her voice mail. "It's me," I said. "Give me a call as soon as possible. Emergency." I'm bleeding to death.
With the hope that Mercedes might be online, I logged on to OurWorld. When I tried to access Mercedes's page, DENIED! flashed on my screen. Was this some kind of site error? I clicked on the smiling avatar of Gabe, the founder of OurWorld, whose face always showed up in the top-right corner, and he reported no problems. I clicked on Brie's page. DENIED!
The single word stared at me, glowing red, pulsing, grotesquely alive.
A chat bubble above Gabe's avatar popped onto the screen. Want to try another friend? Gabe wrote.
"No, Gabe," I said. "I want my two best friends. I need my two best friends." I flicked off Gabe and ran downstairs to check the phone in the kitchen. Woot! Four messages.
"Beeeeep. Good morning, Chloe, this is Ms. A. Lungren from the Del Rey Guidance Center. There's a serious problem with your JISP. You need to call me ASAP."
I needed Ms. A. Lungren, whoever she was, to zip it.
I played the other three messages, all from A. Lungren. When her annoying voice finally tapered off, I noticed the quiet, so sudden and unexpected, it sent the hair along the back of my neck upright. What happened to Grams and Mom? Had they called a truce? I jammed the phone in the cradle. More likely they retreated to gather more things that went boom.
That's when I heard a soft creaking coming from the backyard. It was a low, steady squeak, familiar and comforting. I followed the sound beyond the fountain, pool, and terraced flower beds to the side of the house, where I found Grams. She sat on a swing of my old play gym, her orange Converse dragging along the pea gravel as she swayed.
The play gym groaned as I sunk onto the faded plastic seat next to her and started to pump. Brie had morphed into a zombie and was furious with me, Merce was MIA, and Gabe was directing me to other friends. I pumped harder, faster, the swing's chains creaking and spitting off bits of rust.
Grams's swing synched with mine, but she didn't say a word. Usually she knew when my world was falling apart and said and did appropriate Grams-y things. I watched her, noticing for the first time her slumped shoulders. She looked like she, too, had been bayoneted by her best friend. Pushing aside the image of Brie's frosty eyes, I asked, "What happened?"
Grams stayed tight-lipped for the longest time. Then she said, "I borrowed my neighbor's car."
I made a hmmmmm sound. Now I understood why Mom went ballistic.
"Why the hell won't everyone leave me alone?" Grams asked. "Damn it, I'm tired of everyone getting in my business. It's my business. Mine!"
Grams wasn't yelling at me. I knew that. Lately she'd been mad at the world. I stopped pumping. Was that Brie's problem? My BF's voice hissed inside my head. Sometimes you are so self-centered, I can't stand it. Was Brie mad at someone else and taking it out on me?
As we slowed, Grams kicked at the gravel, sending gray-blue pellets raining around us.
My parents and five older brothers always dealt with problems using their brilliant scientific minds. The family rebel, I traveled a different route. "What kind of car?" I asked with a tick of my eyebrow.
Grams booted another pile of pea gravel. "Miata."
"Red or white?"
"Red."
"With or without a spoiler?"
The corners of her lips twitched. "With."
I waited. This line begged for a dramatic pause. "At least it's better than the Dodge Duster you jacked last month."
Her face creased in a million lines, and she laughed, just like I knew she would, although the whole thing wasn't funny. The fine state of California had suspended her driver's license two months ago, after she plowed into an ATM.
"How about a ride to the Tuna Can?" I asked. Before she could argue, I added, "We can make twice-baked potatoes and pop in Legends of the Fall."
Grams stared at the pea gravel, but the faraway look on her face told me she saw something beyond little gray and blue stones. Where was she? I reached for her hand. Papery skin over old bones. "Grams?"
She blinked. "Huh?"
My eyebrows bounced. "You, me, potatoes, and Brad Pitt. How's it sound?"
Grams patted my hand, and she was the old Grams. Crooked grin. Eyes that had seen eighty-plus years but were ready for more. "You're the best, Chloe."
"Brie doesn't think I'm so hot," I said, more to myself than to Grams. And who knew what Mercedes thought?
DENIED!
"What's wrong, Poppy?" Grams tucked a curl behind my ear. At birth she nicknamed me Poppy because of my orange-red hair. As bright and soft and wavy as a handful of poppy petals. Still had the hair. Still had the name. Grams was my babysitter for the first six years of my life because my doctor parents worked a crap-ton of hours. There was little she didn't know about me. Even now.
I fiddled with the curl along my cheek. "Do you think I'm self-centered?"
"You? Of course not. You rescued me from her evil clutches, and you're serving me twice-baked potatoes with a side of Brad Pitt. Why would you ask?"
"Brie said I acted like the world revolved around me."
Grams patted my cheek. "You certainly spend your time in the spotlight, but in a good way. You're warm, kind, and funny. If Brie thinks otherwise, that's her problem."
My toes dug into the gravel. "No, it's, uh, kind of my problem."
"How's that?"
"We're friends. Best friends."
"And your point?"
"People need best friends." I waved my arms in the air. "Like oxygen. Without friends I'd die. I'd be all alone."
Grams snorted. "Since when is being alone a bad thing?"
SUBJ: URGENT: Your JISP-Villainous Vixens
FROM: [email protected]
Ms. Chloe Camden:
I have tried repeatedly to reach you via phone over winter break. However, I've been unsuccessful. Your former guidance counselor (Mr. Hersbacher) has opted to take an early retirement, and I have been assigned to take over his roster of students.
In reviewing the Junior Independent Study Project (JISP) proposal you submitted on September 15 (Villainous Vixens: The Not-So-Squeaky-Clean Women of Daytime Soap Operas), I've determined this project does NOT meet the criteria outlined in sections 2, 5, and 6 of the JISP guidelines. As you are aware, unless you complete a successful JISP, you will receive a "FAIL" mark on your permanent record. DEADLINE for JISP approval is tomorrow at 7 p.m. PST.
Please come to my office (room 107) first thing in the morning to select your new JISP. I look forward to assisting you with this challenging yet ultimately rewarding project meant to change your life and those of others.
Anne Lungren
Guidance Counselor
The Del Rey School
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You must be the change you want to see in the world-Gandhi
