Just Like Me Read online

  “Thanks, Harry.” Harry bleeped out of the picture. “So that’s right folks, for official rules tune in to Thursday’s show of Star Gaze. That’s tomorrow, folks. We will also reveal who the star is right here on our show around this time. Remember, tune in tomorrow for the celebrity of this national competition to be revealed. On Friday we will be broadcasting how the competition is progressing and will announce the winner that finds the star. In other news, Bailey Arrows was found leaving her children at a local park in Los Angeles…”

  Lisa was still staring at the screen, open-mouthed.

  “Yea, that girl leaving her kid in the park? What was she thinking?”

  “I have to win that competition.”

  “Don’t even try it.” I said, waving a fry at her. “Ben would flip.”

  “A date with a celebrity? Or a girl’s night?” She finally recognized she had fries halfway to her mouth and started eating them. “If it’s a girls’ night I can swing it. That’s what I can hope for.” She crossed her fingers, mouth full of crunched of starches. “Margaritas in Vegas! Shoe shopping in New York! Star gazing in Hollywood! Can you imagine?”

  “No, I can’t. This whole thing is stupid. And you’re not old enough to drink margaritas.”

  “Oh come on, Kale! It’s brilliant! You can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to spend a night with a celebrity.”

  “I wouldn’t.” She gave me a look. “Seriously. They’re obnoxious, arrogant, and it’s all publicity. They don’t give a crap about you or what you do. They’ll probably make you look awful on T.V. They’ll say what you can and can’t do; they’ll probably just take you to some place local. Why would a celebrity waste money on you?”

  “Because it’s publicity! You just said it!”

  “But that’s not good enough. If a celebrity signed up for some junk like that, there’s got to be more to it.”

  Lisa pouted while chasing more fries around her plate into ketchup.

  “Maybe it’ll be Bailey Arrows.”

  “Maybe she’ll leave you in a park.”

  We both grinned.

  Picking up our trash we headed over to the garbage can and started making our way back to the dorm.

  “What if it’s a boy? You gonna convince Ben that it’ll just be a night out?”

  “Well, if he’s on my To Do list. Maybe he’d let me try to find him.” We passed a few giggling girls, looking at a flyer promoting the Just Like Me competition.

  “To Do list?” I made a face. “Do I even want to know?”

  “We each have a list of three people in the world…if we ever got the chance, we wouldn’t mind if they strayed to do them.”

  “That’s gross, Lisa.”

  “It’s not! It’s not like it would ever happen.”

  “It’s not like they’re going to be on this campus. It’s the whole world and this is the smallest college ever. They’ll choose like…a law school or something. They did say they were promoting education. They’re not going to pick North Carolina out of every freaking place in the world.”

  “Yea…I wonder if Ben will ask to look. Maybe we could make a truce…we both could look. Double team, ya know?”

  “What if you have to skip class?”

  “Well then I skip, or maybe I can get up extra early. They did say the competition started at like 5:30.”

  I snorted. She glared at me.

  “What? I could get up early if I had to. I’m just not motivated. A hot guy or a free night in Hollywood? That’s motivation.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  We crossed the street, darting in front of a car. I gave them a glare because we were in a crosswalk. The car wasn’t happy, but let us pass by without beeping at us.

  “You mean you’re not even going to look?”

  “I have tests to study for. I don’t have time to go looking for someone who isn’t even going to be on this campus. I’ve gotta finish this speech thing.”

  “I wonder where he’ll hide?” She glanced around the campus as we continued along the sidewalk to the dorm. “You think he’ll be in the cafeteria or something?”

  “I dunno, Lisa. He?”

  “The building of education?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or the library.”

  “Lisa…”

  “Maybe it’ll be a boy. And he’ll be on my To Do List.” She winked. I winced.

  “Do I want to know who’s on there?” She grinned.

  “Paul Rico, Jude Harrolds, and Lucas Poles.”

  “So…three guys that are all about 40 years apart and can’t act their way out of a paper bag?”

  “Well, that may be the case, but they’re all extremely attractive.”

  “Do you know who’s on Ben’s?”

  “Yea.”

  “Well?”

  “Stacy Helmes, Gianna Renaldi, and Veronica Stouza.”

  “All roughly our age, and same about the acting.”

  “Yea.” She scratched the back of her head as we yanked on the door and entered our dorm building. “Maybe we could watch the movies that my three are in to celebrate and hope they’re doing the competition.”

  “Maybe we should watch Ben’s and get you prepared.”

  “Wouldn’t it suck if it was Gianna Renaldi and I ended up finding her?”

  “Suck for you or suck for Ben?” We pushed the elevator button and the doors opened. We got on and Lisa pressed three.

  “I guess I didn’t think about it that way…”

  “Stuck all night with a girl your boyfriend would want to screw? That seems kind of like hell on earth.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  We got off the elevator and made our way down the aisles and finally made it to our door. I shoved the key in the lock and opened up to our room. Lisa’s side was a little messy. Clothes were on her chair and floor, a few strewn over her unmade bed. My side was pretty clean. I had left a water bottle on the desk, but at least my bed was made.

  Lisa flopped down among the stuff on her bed and flipped her computer on. I settled into my desk and looked at the drawing I had cast aside yesterday.

  “I want to watch a movie.” She clucked.

  I picked up the remote on my desk and threw it at her.

  “Turn the T.V. on. There’s bound to be something worth watching.”

  I heard the click and fuzz as the T.V. started turning on. When the screen finally popped up I heard Lisa whirl through different stations, all carrying different voices. She finally stopped on a movie that had an actress portraying a bad scream. I turned back and Lisa’s face was excited.

  “Lemme guess, this has that Jude dude in it?” I laughed at my rhyme, and pushed the power button on my laptop. I thought about unplugging the power cord, because I read somewhere that it was bad to keep your laptop plugged in all the time.

  “No! Kale! This is that new zombie movie. They’ve got two movies out; the third one comes out in November I think.”

  “Since when are you into zombies?”

  “Since the main actor is a total hottie.”

  I looked back up to the screen to see an army of zombies, making their way toward the screaming actress. I unplugged my laptop.

  “Yeapp, total hotties, Lisa.” I replied as one zombie in particular let out a stream of bloody drool.

  “No! No! Look!”

  I looked back up to see another zombie step into the screaming girl’s path. He had a lot of make up on, but from what I could tell he had dark hair, dark eyes, and not a lot of acting lessons.

  “He’s the hottie?” Disbelief colored my tone. I heard Lisa pecking furiously at her keyboard.

  “Look at him!”

  She whirled her computer around to reveal the actor without the zombie makeup on. He was good looking, I guess. Dark hair and dark eyes, and tan skin. He had that tall, dark, and handsome thing going for him. He also had an arrogant smile, the type of smile that knows it can get whatever it wants. I turned back to my computer.

/>   “I’m surprised he’s not on your To Do list.” I remarked. Lisa laughed.

  “Well, if we expanded our lists to include five people he’d probably be number four.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Maybe I should switch him to number three…”

  “Why do you think he’s so great?” I picked up a pen and began filling in more lines on my mermaid drawing.

  “Well, I think he’s a big player. Apparently he’s always bringing different girls to his place when he’s not dating someone.”

  “So he just screws girls for fun? Is that the trashy gossip station saying that?”

  “Yea. Hot, right?” I shook my head at her, deciding to change the subject. Lisa and I would never agree on this particular subject.

  “What’s this movie about anyway?”

  “The first one is entitled Zombie Romance. This one is called Zombiefied. The last one coming out in November is going to be called Zombie Grave.” She shook her hands with excitement. “Well, it sounds bad, but you’ve gotta watch the whole thing.” I turned around and gave her a doubtful look.

  “Lisa…”

  “It’s about this girl.”

  “The bad actress.”

  “Right, she’s the Veronica on Ben’s list.” I looked back up at the scene. The girl was pretty, I guess. She looked pretty gross with her lips locked with a zombie.

  “Ew! Lisa! What is this??” I quickly turned back to my drawing, attempting to draw her mouth on again.

  `“She’s in love with him.”

  “A zombie?!”

  “Yea. He’s just trying to be a normal kid. And they fall in love. But the other zombies won’t accept her until she’s a zombie. But he doesn’t want her to become a zombie. So he has to protect her. This is the second movie I think.”

  “Why the hell would you fall in love with a zombie?”

  “Well, this gnome cast a spell on him and made him look normal.” She stopped, giving me a glance that said for me to just give her a chance to explain. I was highly doubtful. “They fell in love and the spell wore off. Now the zombie has to find the gnome and get the spell reversed so they can live happily ever after.”

  “There are so many holes in that plot you’d think it was Swiss cheese.”

  “It’s really great.”

  “Sure, I believe you.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it till you watch it. The effects are really great.”

  “Yea, I guess if they think they can put enough effects in there it can cover for the horrific acting.”

  “Say what you will, Taylor Jett is a sexy beast.”

  Taylor Jett. What a stupid name. Obviously fake. I shook my head and started to focus on my drawing, smiling when I finally got the mouth right.

  Chapter Five

  I tuned out for the majority of the movie. I heard Lisa sniffling and glanced up to the credits.

  “Lisa, really?”

  “I just hate cliff hangers!” She cried, looking at the screen. “It ends when they reach gnome hollow with an army of magical gnomes at their door ready to kill Lewis!”

  My phone lit up and I see my Mom’s number pop up on the screen. Lisa hops off her bed and grabs her robe and bathroom supplies.

  “I’m going to take a shower.” She announces, wiping her eyes. She yanks the door open and then closes it. The bathroom is down the hall, unfortunately. Several shower stalls and toilets in the same room, we share with the whole floor. I take a deep breath and answer the phone.

  “Hey.”

  “Kale?”

  No, it’s the Easter Bunny.

  “Yea, it’s me.”

  “Hey. How are you?”

  “Good.”

  A silence broke out across the line. I heard someone coughing in the background, probably Abe.

  My Mom and Dad got divorced when I was ten. I haven’t spoken to my father since then. It’s not like he skipped out and didn’t want to talk. He wanted to, but I didn’t want to see him. He got bad into drugs and hurt my Mom on multiple occasions, but really bad one particular night when she flushed the rest of his stash down the toilet. I guess he turned on me one night. Mom stopped him. We left him there in that rotting trailer and didn’t turn back. We never talked about it much. I think more went down than Mom was willing to talk about.

  When I was thirteen my Mom married Abe. Named from Abraham in the Bible, and he really is a good Christian guy. He took me in as his own, treated me like a real dad should. After a few years of convincing, and before my Mom’s biological clock ran out (yuck?), they had Nori, my little sister. She’s two now.

  “Mommy!” I heard her yell in the background.

  “Beth! Nori’s trying to get into your cabinets again.”

  “Hold on, Kale.”

  I heard some rumbling in the background, Mom’s quiet voice cut through and the noise stopped. I heard some clicks as she picked the phone back up.

  “Kale? You still there?”

  “Yea, I’m here.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem.”

  “Nori’s trying to get into everything. She wants pots and pans and if I let her have access to her crayons our living room walls would be rainbow colored.”

  I heard her huff as she probably shifted Nori to her other hip. I heard her tell Nori softly that I was on the phone and she squalled. I heard more fumbling and heavy breathing into the phone.

  “Kay?’ She couldn’t say my whole name yet. Even if it was one syllable.

  “Hey, Nori.” Mom was probably holding the phone up to her ear because I heard her chubby little hands beat together.

  “Kay! Kay! Ho?”

  “I’ll be home soon.”

  “Kay! Bye-bye Kay!”

  More shuffling as Mom was put back on the phone.

  “She misses you.”

  “Yea, I miss her too.”

  I could just imagine her wobbling through the hallways, trying to draw pink scribbles on the white living room walls. Her light brown hair was Abe’s, but she had my green eyes. Her chubby fingers were often wrapped around a teddy bear Abe had given her when she was born. She loved that bear. Most likely her light brown curls were in pigtails and she was probably in that pink jump suit my Mom loves her in. I was jealous of her curls; they were Abe’s curls of course. I had stick-straight, dark, dull brown hair like my Mom. I guess some girls are jealous that I don’t have to use a flat iron to get it this straight. It’d be nice to have a wave every once in a while, though.

  “How are classes?”

  “Fine.”

  “How’s Lisa?”

  I paused. “Lisa is Lisa.”

  “Is she still…” I heard her fumbling with something, probably sweeping up the kitchen. “Dating that um…Brad person?”

  “Ben, and yea. I think it’s been ten months.”

  “Good for them. Tell her I said hello, if you don’t mind.”

  “I will.”

  Another pause. This is who I got my quietness from. She was quiet and intelligent, not the life of the party by any means. She kept a desk job at a local hospital, a type of secretary. I guess that’s why she had settled for my dad, she didn’t think she could get any better. But then she met Abe, and he’s a lot better.

  I could hear her struggling for conversation. To be honest, I couldn’t think of anything really to talk about anyway.

  “So, I saw that college competition thing on the television. That must be exciting.” She was trying.

  “Yea, everyone’s talking about it.”

  I messed with the light on my desk, bending the neck of the lamp this way and that.

  “You think it’ll be there?’

  “No, they’re trying to support education so it’ll probably be at a bigger named school.”

  Silence.

  “I suppose.” She finally agreed.

  I heard Nori in the back, running and screaming through the halls. I heard Abe in the background teasing her. I could see him sitting on the
couch watching the history channel, his brown curls cropped short, and a flannel shirt on. Mom probably had her holey jeans on and her favorite red t-shirt.

  “Hey, Mom? Have you ever heard anything from my dad?” I tensed, biting my lip.

  Awkwardness felt like a blanket as Mom quickly cleared her throat. “Oh, well, I better get Nori in the bath before bed time. I hope you have a good night.” I sighed, picking at an invisible speck on my desk.

  “You too. Night, Mom.”

  I stabbed a button, ending the call. She was obviously uncomfortable with that entire subject. I could try and try to ask her about it, but she’d never talk about it.

  I wish Mom would pay more attention to the stuff Abe has on his computer. Abe has web calls he can make to me, and I get to see Nori on them sometimes. Home is two hours away, and it sucks not being able to see them all the time. Nori doesn’t quite understand about the computer, and Mom doesn’t go near it. She won’t go on any social networking sites or put her personal information out there. I think I understand though, she thinks my dad will find us. I tried to explain that just doing a video chat between us wouldn’t hurt anything, but she refuses to take that kind of chance. Not that I think my dad even owns a computer.

  Lisa came back in the room then, her hair was dripping and her fuzzy pink robe wrapped tightly around her.

  “Burrr. It’s getting cold.” She shut the door behind her and went to grab her pajamas. “How’s your Mom?”

  “She’s good. Cleaning, I guess.”

  “How’s Nori?”

  “Same, can’t say my name yet.”

  “Aww, that’s cute.”

  I woke my computer up and it buzzed, not wanting to turn the screen on. I glanced back up at the T.V. and there was a rerun of that stupid zombie movie.

  “Throw me the remote.”

  “Come on, you don’t want to watch the whole movie? You’d really like it.”

  “No.”

  She sighed and tossed me the remote. I flipped through channel after channel until I reached the Star Gaze show.

  “Whoa!” Lisa yelled. “Hold up!”

  That Joe dude was back up on the screen, talking about the competition again.

  “-reveal the celebrity Thursday! Today’s Wednesday so you better keep on your toes until then!”