Raisin Rodriguez & the Big-Time Smooch Read online

  “Well,” he said, “from working with you on the ’zine.”

  Oh, right.

  “Anyway, my dads are having a commitment ceremony. Like a wedding? And I was hoping you could help me with the speech.”

  “Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooooooooo,” I answered. Not because I didn’t want to help CJ out, but because Countess came barreling into my room, chasing after one of Lola’s Barbie shoes, and almost knocked me right off my feet. Someone really should sit that poor dog down and explain to him that he’s a he once and for all. Then maybe he’ll stop chasing after women’s accessories.

  “Oh, okay. Well, I just thought I’d ask,” CJ said.

  “No, wait, I wasn’t saying no to you. My stepsister’s dumb dog almost threw me to the ground.”

  “So you’ll do it?” CJ said.

  “Sure,” I told him.

  The truth is, I’m pretty disappointed. I mean, it’s nice that he thinks I’m a good writer, but what does that say about his feelings for me? Not much, that’s what! Anyone can write. You don’t have to be pretty to write. You don’t even have to be a girl to write. And writing certainly doesn’t involve kissing.

  I guess it’s over. We’re supposed to figure out a time to meet during the week. But now I’m not even sure I want to. I mean, what’s the point?

  Comments:

  Logged in at 9:42 PM, EST

  PiaBallerina: Did you ever think that maybe he does like you and he’s just using the speech as an excuse to spend time with you?

  Logged in at 9:44 PM, EST

  kweenclaudia: it’s true. when clint had a crush on me, he sat on my corner mailbox all the time as an excuse to see me.

  Logged in at 9:46 PM, EST

  PiaBallerina: That’s not really the same. Speeches need to be written. Mailboxes don’t need to be sat on.

  Logged in at 9:49 PM, EST kweenclaudia: oh ... right. well, i was just trying to be helpful.

  9:51 PM, EST

  Really? You think he was just using the speech as an excuse? That’s so adorable of him.

  I better go get together a nice outfit for tomorrow. Wouldn’t want him changing his mind.

  9:55 PM, EST

  Why is Horse Ass such a horse ass?

  He just passed my bedroom as I was pulling outfits from The Raisin Rodriguez Fall Line for tomorrow.

  “Getting ready for a date?” he asked.

  “No, my friend Lynn needs to borrow an outfit, so I’m bringing a few choices to school tomorrow.”

  I really don’t appreciate him having thoughts about me and boys.

  “Lynn. . . is she the one with the freckles?” he asked.

  “No,” I told him. “That’s Jeremy. He’s a boy.”

  “Jeremy. Hmmm,” he said, thinking for a moment. “Don’t know him.”

  “Yes, you do,” I told him. “He’s your friend Eric’s son.”

  “Oh yes, Jeremy. Nice kid. Well, you two have fun.”

  I mean, for crying out loud, how am I supposed to create under these conditions?

  10:03 PM, EST

  Do you think it’s too late to call in a team of beauty experts?

  10:05 PM, EST

  Or to have my face feng-shuied?

  10:06 PM, EST

  Are false eyelashes too much?

  Thursday, November 18

  6 AM, EST

  Kitties,

  Forget the team of beauty experts; call 911. I’m having a hair emergency.

  I set my alarm for five today, figuring if I paced myself, two hours and eighteen minutes would be just enough time to get ready for CJ. I finally settled on an outfit last night (sassy student from The Raisin Rodriguez Fall Line), so it was just a matter of getting my hair and makeup together. Of course, there are some things in life we can’t prepare for. Friends doing weird things with their tongues, the sudden-onset birth of a sibling, natural disasters . . . I learned about that last one the hard way.

  This morning I woke up to a weather report of 8o percent humidity. Actually, I didn’t even need to hear the weather report. My hair told me everything I needed to know. It said, “We have a code-red situation.”

  My hair was right. Luckily, Samantha has secret hair issues of her own. Turns out she’s not spending all her time contemplating the introduction of iambic pentameter and its influence on the atmosphere of Uranus (your anus! Ha!). Based on my observations regarding her use of the flatiron, I happen to know for a fact that she’s spending at least some of her time like the rest of us girls—worrying about frizz!

  Usually she keeps the flatiron in the cabinet under the sink in our bathroom. But today there was nothing in there but a box of tampons. Now, really, what good are those? If I were curling my hair, maybe. But for straightening?

  I checked everywhere, but the iron was nowhere in that bathroom. By this time I was starting to panic a little. Which made me sweat a lot. Which made my hair frizz even more.

  There was only one thing to do. I had to get inside Samantha’s room and find that iron.

  Luckily Samantha suffers from advanced-stage snoryitis, so I didn’t have to worry that she’d hear me coming in. It amazes me that a perfect Barbie doll nose can manufacture such ugly noises.

  The iron was sitting on her bookshelf, its metal plate shining like a beacon of hairstyle hope. “We’ll fix you up for CJ,” it seemed to be saying.

  Until . . .

  I stepped on her radio alarm clock and set it off. It was so loud and startling, I was afraid she’d hear it over her snoring. So I flipped back the switch as quickly as I could and ran out of the room without even throwing a glance her way.

  I was hoping that the nightmarish experience might have scared my hair straight. But it did no such thing. I had to come up with a new plan.

  What about using a clothes iron? I thought. It can’t be that different from a hair iron. They both use heat to smooth things out.

  I headed straight for the laundry room to check out my theory. Then I plugged in the iron, put my head down on the ironing board, put a paper towel over my hair, and ironed away.

  It worked so well, I was ready to alert the fashion media. I just had to go over my hair one final time.

  And that’s when I found out the hard way why people don’t use household appliances to style their hair. Because most of them are smart enough to know that if they’re not super-careful, they’ll SINGE THEIR BANGS INTO BURNT STRAW ON THE MOST IMPORTANT AND LIFE-CHANGING DAY OF THEIR WHOLE ENTIRE ROMANTIC LIFE.

  Yes, ladies, once again, Raisin Rodriguez has turned her hair into a sideshow attraction.

  Now what am I going to do? I look like the scare-crow from The Wizard of Oz. One look at me and CJ might hop on the Yellow Brick Road and take it as far away from me as he can.

  I better go reevaluate my wardrobe plans for today. Something that hides my head would do nicely.

  PS—I wonder if I can still work in the eyelashes somehow.

  7:03 AM, EST

  What am I going to wear? I don’t own anything that goes with this hair!

  I’ve gone from preppy punk to punky prep, then to all pink, which is the new black, and to all black, which is of course the old black, but nothing looks right. It’s time to face facts. Even the most beautiful designer evening gown, made especially to be worn to the Most Fabulous Human in the Universe Awards (broadcast live from Television City in Hollywood), hand-sewn in purple satin . . . with a ruched bodice . . . and a magenta velvet bow . . . trimmed with Swarovski crystal, could not look good with the industrial-strength Brillo pad that’s growing out of my scalp. (But let’s put it on hold for my next good hair day.)

  I need to cover up that eyesore with a baseball hat, throw on a plain button-down shirt and a pair of jeans, and move on with life.

  PS—Thank goodness I’m not dressing for the Fiona and Haileys anymore. If accidentally revealing their innermost secrets in my blog a couple of weeks ago while uncovering my desperation for their acceptance hadn’t severed ou
r relations, this outfit definitely would have.

  PPS—Unfortunately, I am dressing for CJ, who may still go for the severed-relations option.

  12:45 PM, EST

  Help! I’ve created a Franken-Jeremy.

  Remember when he was my sweet and loyal friend whose biggest problems were a couple of freckles and a simple case of loudyitis? Well, ever since I wrote that article about him for the school newspaper—about how strong and brave and good at prank calling he is—his head has swelled to a million pounds. And who could blame him, really? Everyone’s treating him as if those things I said about him were true.

  Including Lynn!

  I had no idea how widespread it had become until today at lunch.

  It started out as normal and innocent as any other lunch. With a Sparkles fashion-check stop.

  It began with him waving his arm up and down the length of my outfit as if he were an inspector at the airport. “New Girl. A button-down shirt and jeans? With a baseball hat? Is everything okay?” he asked, his perfectly tweezed eyebrows crinkling in concern.

  “I had a rough morning,” I told him, lifting my hat to show him what I had done.

  He covered his mouth in shock.

  “Don’t tell me!” he said, jutting out his hand to give me the stop signal. “You were trying to look good for a certain someone whose initials are C and J and you burned your hair with a clothes iron.”

  It’s incredible. I don’t know how he does it. When I nodded, he took me in his arms and hugged me. Then we swayed back and forth, locked in our heartfelt embrace.

  Suddenly I heard a very loud voice from behind me.

  “Rae. Did you hear the good news? Lynn appointed me guest editor at the zine.”

  I knew I had to be hearing things—the stress from this morning and all.

  “Did you hear what I said, Rae? I’m working on the ’zine.”

  This time it sounded so real, I had to unlock from Sparkles to see if the voice had a body.

  It did. A body with freckles all over it.

  “Isn’t that awesome, Rae?” the freckled body asked. “You and me working on the ’zine, collaborating together? You doing all that funny creative writing that you do, me coming up with assignments for you. . . .”

  “That’s great, Jer . . . really great.”

  “You coming up with all those fantastic zingers, me helping you see what works and what doesn’t. . . .”

  “Really, Jer, I can’t wait.”

  “You pumping out the jokes, me deciding whether they’re funny or not. . . .

  “Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t boss you around too much,” he said, giving me a little wink as he reached for a plate of flounder.

  “Okay, Jeremy, I get the picture.”

  I just can’t believe Lynn invited Jeremy to join CoolerThanYou. It was supposed to be my special thing. I mean, who’s Lynn going to invite next? Galenka Popodakolis? Not that there’s anything wrong with Galenka. It’s just that if she writes anything like the way she talks, people might think her stuff’s funnier than mine.

  Well, I guess the good news is that with Jeremy as guest editor, I can make sure I get to keep working on the cartoon strip with CJ .

  5:55 PM, EST

  Unless of course Jeremy takes it upon himself to make sure that I don’t.

  After school, Jeremy met me at my locker and asked me if I’d show him how to get to Lynn’s house. I was anxious to get there early so I could have a few minutes alone with CJ before the meeting started. The last thing I wanted to do was be slowed down by Jeremy and his Great Pumpkin head. On the other hand, it was as good a time as any to mention that I wanted to stay on the strip.

  Before we even stepped foot out the door, Jeremy had already come down with a horrible case of lecturosis, which is in the same family as talktoomuchitis but much harder to shake. Ideally, the patient should be quarantined.

  He kept using the word vision and saying things like “I want to get people re-excited about reading CoolerThanYou,” and “I’m exploring the possibility of turning this issue into a video game.” I was dying to tell him that he had way too many freckles to be using the word vision and that if he wanted to be taken seriously in the e-zine industry he should probably rethink using made-up words like re-excited. But he wasn’t even taking pauses. Then came this zinger:

  “Hey, would you mind showing me what you did for the last issue?”

  I reached into my bag to find the cartoon strip, but it wasn’t there. Amid all the hair drama of this morning, I’d left it at home. Could bringing an iron too close to your brain be bad for your memory?

  “That’s okay; you can go home and get it. I won’t count it as a lateness. This time,” he said, winking at me. For the second time today.

  “Jeremy, I don’t need to get it. The new issue doesn’t go live until the end of the week. Roman can scan it in for us tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but I’d like to have a look at it today. Just to give me a sense of where we’re at.”

  He was one freckle away from sending me into a conniption. But I chose to look at Jeremy’s request as an opportunity. An opportunity to change out of my ridiculous boy suit and throw together something dazzling enough to call attention away from my fright wig before CJ got to the meeting and had a chance to get a good look at me.

  So I ran home, put on my chocolate brown velour sweatpants—the ones with the word bum embroidered on the bum. (Which would hopefully keep CJ’s eyes away from my hair—at least for as long as it took him to read it.) The matching velour hoodie (I could conveniently slip the hood over my head in the event of unwanted hair gazing). And the turquoise tank, which effortlessly pulls the whole outfit together.

  I slicked my bangs back with some gel and pulled my hair into a short ponytail. Then I let Lola run her hands over the top for added security. (Turns out small traces of fluffernutter and finger paint serve as the perfect elixir for unruly locks.)

  Feeling much better about the way I looked, I grabbed the cartoon strip, pretended not to notice Sam’s boyfriend, Sid, sneaking into the house through the second-floor porch, with his sexy rat’s nest hairstyle and low-slung jeans, and was out the door. I couldn’t wait to see CJ. I knew that the moment he laid eyes on me (or at least on my bum) he’d admit that he’d only used the speech as a cover because he was feeling shy. Then our love affair would finally begin.

  Unfortunately, by the time I made it to the meeting, all my plans had been foiled.

  There before me, at a little card table in a corner of the Weingarten basement, was a tragic sight. If it had been a scene in a movie, a violin would have been playing. If it had been a painting, it would have been dripping with black paint. If it had been an outfit, it would have been a brown polyester jumper with a dark green cardigan a size too big and tube socks.

  It was Dylan Mulroney, seated next to my CJ.

  Dylan Mulroney is a transfer student. She just started Franklin Academy a couple of weeks ago. The reason I’ve never mentioned her is because she’s• Gorgeous

  • Beautiful

  • Stunning

  • Very cool

  • So far above me in greatness I’m afraid if she found out I included her in my thoughts, she’d charge me for guest appearances

  • Rumored to be an underwear model

  • Already been invited to join the Fiona and Haileys. They’re waiting to hear back from her.And as of 4:23 this afternoon,

  • Mrs. CJ Mullen.

  But marriage license or no marriage license, she still was sitting in my seat. So I headed over to the card table and wedged myself into the tiny space in between them, made even smaller by the rolled-up Banana Republic shopping bag underneath the table—the one that makes CJ so irresistible, because he hides his violin in it.

  “Hi, CJ. Hi, Dylan. We haven’t met yet, but I write the captions for the strip,” I said, almost knocking Dylan off the bench.

  “That’s weird,” Dylan said as she regained her balance. “Jeremy to
ld me that I would be writing for the strip this month. Do you want me to double-check with him?”

  I knew that couldn’t be right. Jeremy couldn’t have started changing things around already.

  “That’s okay,” I told her. “I’ll go ask him.” Then Dylan got up to let me out before I sent her tumbling a second time.

  “It’s true,” Jeremy told me when I confronted him. “I’m moving you to the entertainment review.”

  Suddenly I saw my perfect kiss with CJ flashing before my eyes. How were we supposed to spend hours working side by side, finally finishing the last panel of our cartoon at sunrise before collapsing into an exhausted-yet-passionate embrace followed by The Kiss if we weren’t even working on the strip together?!?!

  I swallowed hard.

  “But Jeremy,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I was put on the strip because I’m funny.”

  “Actually, the strip’s not going to be funny in this issue.”

  “But that’s the whole point of a cartoon. It’s supposed to be funny.”

  “Yeah, well, this month we’re trying something new,” he said in full loudyitis mode, so everyone could hear him bossing me around.

  “Well, I can be unfunny,” I pleaded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wish there was something I could do.”

  He had me there. Clearly there was no way he could go back on such an important decision without threatening his reputation, not to mention the state of the ’zine’s and, quite possibly, of magazine publishing as we know it.

  “I was thinking we should have a music review this month. All these local bands have been sending us their CDs and no one’s even bothered to listen to any of them,” Jeremy said, pointing to a ginormous box of CDs on the floor. “So why don’t you have a seat, start listening to some tunes, and pick a band to write about?” He motioned for me to take a seat at this little desk. The kind that has a blackboard top and comes attached to its own little chair. I wondered if he was expecting me to write my review on the board in chalk so that he could read along with me as I wrote.