Katie Cox Goes Viral Read online

  I smiled, turned around, and froze.

  Lacey was standing with her mom outside the supermarket. When she saw us, she turned away, but her mom waved to me.

  Which was bizarre, because Lacey’s mom? I don’t know why, but she’s never been my biggest fan.

  I guess it might have had something to do with the time I gave Lacey mega eyebrows with a black Magic Marker. Which turned out to be permanent. The day before her brother’s wedding.

  Or maybe it was from when Lace and I were pogoing to Rihanna, and Lacey fell through a glass table and had to get eight stitches in her wrist at the emergency room.

  Or it could have been from when I was showing Lacey how to turn pants into pedal pushers, and I accidentally cut up her mom’s work suit. The designer one. From Chanel.

  If she did disapprove of me, it was probably fair enough.

  Only, today at least, it seemed that hostilities had been suspended.

  “Katie! Sweetheart! You’re sort of a celebrity at the moment! Love the video. It’s just a shame that Lacey couldn’t have looked a little more cheerful, isn’t it?”

  Lacey kind of growled.

  Hmm. Maybe not all hostilities.

  “Are you out shopping? Lacey, you don’t need to be hanging with me. Go. Go!”

  Lacey did not look especially pleased to be joining us, but she stepped into place behind Paige.

  “Enjoy yourselves, girls!” said Lacey’s mom, heading toward the shopping carts.

  “This is fun,” said Sofie. “Where should we go, Savannah?”

  “Cindy’s,” said Savannah.

  Cindy’s is the one good shop in Harltree, and by that, I mean it is expensive. They stock Miss Sixty and DKNY and Michael Kors.

  People like me don’t go to Cindy’s.

  “We are so going to Cindy’s,” I said.

  “Fabbo,” said Savannah. “I’m searching for party dresses. I need to find something that really honors what it’s like to be me at my party.”

  “But of course.”

  “And you need to be thinking more about your look, Katie. Like, don’t take this the wrong way, but right now you are so icky.”

  “A million people like my look!” I said, feeling a little bit offended.

  “A million people have seen your look,” said Savannah. “That does not mean they like it. And I am saying that as your biggest fan.”

  There were two pieces of information there. I decided to concentrate on the second.

  And yes, I was absolutely aware that Savannah was probably not my biggest fan, seeing as how she had only begun to notice me at the point where the video had happened. Still though. You have to take your kicks where you can, and right then I was out shopping with a Harltree A-lister, going into Cindy’s, and being greeted by a woman who was very probably actually Cindy herself and being offered a free glass of Perrier.

  What wasn’t to like?

  “Darling Savannah,” said Cindy, whose face was as tanned as it is possible to be before becoming an orange. Then, “Oh my goodness! You’re her!”

  “She is,” agreed Savannah.

  “I am,” I said. “Sorry, just to check, ‘her’ being…?”

  “In today’s paper,” said Cindy, spreading out the Harltree Gazette on her wooden counter. And there was a picture of me, right on the front page, with my crazy Jaz eyeliner and the headline:

  HARLTREE GIRL HITS ONE MILLION

  I showed the article to Lacey, who skimmed down and said, “Why are you talking so much about our school music program?”

  And when I read it myself, it did seem to be mainly about that. There was a nice part about me and my influences though, and actually, even the eyeliner looked okay, sort of rock and roll.

  Savannah had gone off with Cindy to see some important new jeans, and Lacey said, “Look, are you sure you want me here?”

  “We’re getting a taste of the high life,” I said.

  Lacey looked a little worried.

  “It’s just for now,” I said. “Then we can go back to being the lowest of the low.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Lacey.

  “Katie,” said Paige. “What do you think?” She was holding up a black dress so small that for a second I thought it was a top.

  “Wow,” I said. “Well, you could try it on, I guess…”

  “It’s not for me!” said Paige. “It’s for you! I’m trying this on.” She held up something gold and sparkly and about a sixteenth the size of the black minidress.

  “That is gorgeous,” said Savannah.

  “So nice,” said Sofie.

  “It’s very Paige,” said Lacey, which made me giggle, which made her giggle.

  This was going to be fun.

  And it was. Even when I got stuck in the minidress and Cindy had to come and cut me out of it, which we all blamed on a faulty zip and not the fact that Paige had clearly picked out something that was two sizes too small.

  “You’re so humble,” said Cindy. “I’d have expected you to be this little diva, but you’re not.”

  “Mppppphhhhhhhh,” I said, still inside the dress.

  “A million people,” said Cindy.

  “Mmmmmmphhhh.”

  “And here you are in my little shop.”

  “Mphhhh—oh, that’s better, thank you,” I said, crawling out onto the floor and sucking in lungfuls of delicious, delicious air. “I thought I was going to die in there.”

  Lacey, meanwhile, wasn’t taking any of this even slightly seriously and had used the time while I’d been in a Lycra prison to pick out a selection of things for me to try on that were completely absurd like a green Lurex jumpsuit and a leopard-print cape.

  “Er, really?”

  “Really,” said Lacey, looking longingly at a particularly bizarre ensemble. “At least try it on.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Normally, I would have done it. Lacey and I were very good at wearing silly outfits. But not here, not in Cindy’s.

  “But—” Lacey began.

  “Katie,” said Savannah. “Listen to someone with taste for one second, please. Like, I know you have this whole floppy, baggy thing going on, but you are not actually that fat.”

  “Er, thanks.”

  “That’s okay,” said Savannah. “I mean, you could be way thinner if you just stopped with all the junk and found your inner model. She’s completely in there somewhere. But in the meantime, you should find your not-terrible parts and emphasize them.”

  “My not-terrible parts.”

  “Yes. Respect your waist, Katie.”

  “Let me get this straight, Savannah. You are telling me to respect my waist?”

  “Yes, babes.” She took a dress off the rack. “With this.”

  This being a floor-length navy-blue dress with clever straps that twirled around the shoulders and across the bodice in a way that I could already see would give me what Grandma would call “a proper bust.”

  “That is so my party,” said Savannah. “Go try it on.”

  I checked the label. “It costs a fortune,” I said.

  “So?”

  She looked at me, head cocked to one side, and I realized she wasn’t quite seeing straight. I mean, she was seeing the me that had a million hits. The me that deserved nice things. The me that was going to her party.

  What she wasn’t seeing was the other me. The me that didn’t have the money for this dress. The me who lived in a falling-down house and had been known to eat pizza for breakfast.

  “I can’t afford it,” I said.

  “Ew,” said Savannah. “That is so upsetting.”

  “Sorry, Savannah.” And I found myself feeling the tiniest sliver of sadness. I don’t know why. I mean, I’d never spent that much money on a dress before. I’d never
considered that I might. I’d never even considered considering it.

  People who spend lots of money on clothes are idiots. Lacey and I have always been extremely clear on that. It’s way more fun to go to secondhand store on a Saturday morning and find something weirdly wonderful and take it home and cut the sleeves off and take the hem up and wear it loud and proud.

  Except that standing there in the shop with Savannah looking at me all pityingly and the dress resting in my arms, all shimmery and clean smelling, I was starting to think that maybe it wasn’t more fun to go to a secondhand shop. That perhaps it was more fun to be Savannah.

  I knew I had to get out of there.

  “Oh, is that the time? I need to be back for dinner,” I said.

  “Call me, yeah, babes?” said Savannah, who surely hadn’t seen my phone recently because otherwise there is no way she’d have allowed anything so hideous to know her number.

  “Will do.” Before anyone could say anything else, I bolted from the shop with Lacey just behind me.

  “What the—”

  “Wait!” I told her, holding my hand up until we were around the corner. “It cost a small fortune!”

  “Where does she think you’d get that kind of money?” asked Lacey. “Seriously, she is so on Planet Savannah. She forgets the rest of us exist. Want to get a Dove Bar?”

  We went and got a Dove Bar. I let Lace have most of it. I was feeling kind of unsettled.

  “Ooh, look! This charity shop is still open!”

  “Is it?” I said. “Actually, I do sort of need to go home. I should send Savannah that track list before I forget it all.”

  “Great,” said Lacey. “Just me in there then. Whatever I find, I keep!”

  “Okay.”

  “Even if it’s really amazing.”

  “Fine.”

  “Even if it would actually look better on you.”

  “All right.”

  “Katie! Can you honestly believe I’d do that to you?”

  Which brought me back down to earth, and I smiled. “You wouldn’t dare. And I’ll come with you next week once I’ve got my allowance. Got to get a party outfit, don’t I?”

  “It’s a date.”

  But still. I couldn’t help but think that once you’ve been to Planet Savannah, even though it’s weird and scary and incredibly expensive, you wouldn’t mind going back.

  • • •

  So I was walking home toward the main road through a particularly sad part of town. Once upon a time, it must have been all right, since the road had cobblestones in places, and some of the buildings had beams and those nice windows you push up with both hands that sometimes drop and try to snap your fingers off.

  Anyway, because it was also Harltree, there were fried chicken containers and beer cans lying around, and the shops were the kind I wouldn’t even consider going into: a rundown newsstand, something to do with secondhand computers, and—

  Oh no.

  Amanda was just closing the door to Vox Vinyl. Adrian’s place. Which was not where I’d planned on ending up. Not now or ever.

  I turned around, but then I heard, “Katie! Over here!”

  “Hey, Mands.”

  Her shoulders had been slumped, but now she was hopping around like a kite in a hurricane. “You came!” she said. “I’m sorry. You should’ve texted or something. Another five minutes, and I’d have been gone.”

  “I didn’t know I was going to be here until now. Mands, the video! It’s had a million hits! One million! And I’m in the paper!”

  “Great,” said Amanda, clearly not listening at all. “Are you coming in, then? There’s lots to show you. I’ve got this bulletin board going—local bands can advertise gigs, look for new players. I’ve set up some cool lighting, and—”

  “Maybe another time,” I told her.

  “We’re not in any rush.”

  “Actually, now that I’ve run into you, I wouldn’t mind a ride back. I want to tell Mom about the hits. All one million of them. A million, Mands! A million people watching me! Us!”

  Amanda slowly digested the news that I hadn’t, in fact, come for a magical mystery tour of Adrian World and set off toward the parking lot. “That’s crazy,” she said.

  “Are you saying I don’t deserve it?”

  She shot me a sharp look. “Calm down, Miss Sensitive. I didn’t say that. Did I?”

  I scurried along, trying to keep up. “You’re leaving early,” I said.

  “I guess so,” said Amanda.

  “How come?”

  “Adrian just told me I could go home, okay? God, Katie, why are you making such a big deal about it?”

  I hadn’t been making a big deal of it. But I would now.

  “Did you do something wrong? Hey, you didn’t steal anything, did you?”

  “What? No! Of course not!”

  “Were you rude to a customer?”

  She looked at her hands. “I didn’t exactly get the chance.”

  This was not right. “I can’t believe he doesn’t let you talk to customers! You know everything about everything. Seriously, there’s not a band in the world you can’t go on and on about, and you’re really nice. He can’t stick you in the stockroom like you don’t exist. Do you want me to talk to him? I’m going to talk to him.” She unlocked the car, and I slid into the passenger seat. “You left a perfectly good job to go and work there. The least he can do is let you wait on the customers.”

  “You are not going to talk to him, all right?”

  “Oh, and you’re just going to roll over and take it?”

  There was a short pause while Amanda swallowed an imaginary something. “The reason I didn’t get to speak to a customer isn’t because Adrian wouldn’t let me. It’s because there aren’t any customers.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he did sort of say not to give up the café—” I stopped when I saw her eyes begin to glisten.

  “You can’t say anything. Not a word. Mom’s got enough to worry about.”

  “We’ll talk about my million hits instead, okay?”

  “Good plan.”

  Then she turned on the radio, and we sang along to Adele all the way home.

  In Honor

  You said you were the one with taste

  You said I should respect my waist

  But I think taste is a thing you eat

  And my waist says I need a treat

  Gonna honor my hips

  And honor my thighs

  With ice cream, chips,

  And cakes and pies

  Cakes and pies

  You said being thin’s a doddle

  You said to channel my inner model

  How did that model end up in here?

  I guess I ate her for my dinner.

  Gonna honor my hips

  And honor my thighs

  With ice cream, chips,

  And cakes and pies

  Cakes and pies

  And come next week

  I’ll have a stew

  With extra mash

  In honor of you

  “Mom!” I was out the car and running up the road, my feet smacking the sidewalk, smack thump smack. I felt simultaneously as old as I’d ever been and also about six. “Mom! Moooom!”

  She was still in her uniform. “Yes?”

  “It’s had a million hits! I’m in the paper! How cool is that?”

  “It is very cool,” said Mom, reminding me that Mom shouldn’t really use words like “cool.” It sounded almost as bad as the one time she said the word “sexy,” which still haunts me to this day. “We should celebrate. Let’s celebrate!”

  “Yes! How?” I thought of a Savannah-style festivity with champagne and toasts and probably a firework displ
ay.

  “Chinese?” said Mom.

  “Takeout?”

  “No, ready meal. Adrian got them on sale at the store.”

  I told her about the press conference and being invited to Savannah’s party and how we’d been shopping and I’d seen a dress I liked, because you never know.

  “That is a disgusting amount of money,” said Mom.

  Okay, sometimes you do know.

  It was still pretty nice though, especially with the smell of the black bean sauce leaking out of the oven and Amanda humming “Just Me” to herself as she got out the knives and forks.

  “And let’s have real Coke,” said Mom.

  We sat down at the table, the three of us, and smiled at one another.

  “They played parts on the radio,” said Amanda. “The announcer was telling people to go find you online.”

  “The director’s daughter says to say hello,” said Mom. “Apparently they’re all big fans.”

  Maybe fireworks are overrated.

  “Evening, all.” Adrian came in and looked at the table. “Enough for one more?”

  There wasn’t, but he sat down anyway and started digging into Mom’s portion.

  “Ade! We’re celebrating. Katie’s had a million hits!”

  “Probably more by now,” I said giddily. “Probably quite a lot more.”

  “Let’s see then,” said Mom.

  Amanda looked down at her phone. “One million two hundred thirty-seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-six,” she said.

  “I can’t even slightly picture it,” I said.

  “I think there are about a hundred thousand people living in Harltree,” said Mom. “So I bet everyone in Harltree’s seen it. I mean, everyone.”

  I imagined the guy in the cell phone store and all the other guys who worked in the cell phone store. And all the customers in the cell phone store. And everyone in all the other stores up and down Main Street. The women with the strollers and the babies in the strollers and every single person going in and out of the parking lot. All the streets, all the houses between there and here, the ones I’d driven down, the house with the funny turret thing and the apartments they’d built in that old primary school and the fancy houses with the great big gardens. And all the roads I’d never even gone down, probably never would go down, and the roads that led off those roads and the roads that led off those roads and each of them lined with houses and in each house, people—all those people, every single one of them, watching me.