Your Simple Guide to Using Your New Phone.
Ha! Whoever came up with that title had one twisted sense of humor.
I’d been sprawled on my bed for what seemed like days now, reading the owner’s manual for my new phone, trying to get my only three contacts—my mom’s, my dad’s, our landline—into my Contacts Manager.
Easy, right? Three lousy numbers.
Not.
Easier would be learning to fly with my hands duck-taped to my butt.
As you may have guessed, this was my first mobile device. An early birthday present from my mom for my trip. I know, sounds weird—almost thirteen, first phone, twenty-first century. Well, you’d probably understand if you knew me better. For now, though, I needed to get this add-to-contacts function working.
I re-read the page for the millionth time, then carefully tapped each phone number before clicking Save.
Please wait...
The little circle spun, and spun, then...
Sorry, invalid command. Please try again.
Arrgh!
I tossed the stupid manual over by my suitcase. I’d take it with me on my trip. Maybe by some miracle it’d make more sense later. I fell back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what was more pathetic: spending half the night trying to add three contacts to my phone, or only having three to add.
But more about my phone later...
I was all packed and ready for my big end-of-summer trip. With school starting in nine days, this was my last chance for some real action in the otherwise boring life of Jeffrey James. And this time I had high hopes because my lifelong dream was finally coming true. I was going to California!
Me, who’d never been west of the Iowa state line.
Me, who’d never seen the ocean before (I kid you not).
Though considering where I lived—Des Moines, Iowa, practically the bullseye of America—never seeing the ocean shouldn’t be all that surprising. The nearest one was a thousand miles east, and the next nearest almost twice that far west.
Even the nearest “non-ocean” with anything close to a beach, Lake Michigan, was five hours away. And I’d been there once, to Lake Michigan, and, yes, it was pretty big, for a lake. But even if you couldn’t see all the way across it, you still knew Michigan was on the other side. Not exactly my fantasy destination—no offense, Michigan.
Soon though, I’d be splashing around in the biggest of them all: The Glorious Pacific! Thousands of miles wide, with all kinds of exotic places on the other side.
Jeopardy! Alert: The Pacific Ocean is the largest body of water in the world, covering nearly one-third of the Earth’s surface and holding more than half its total water supply.
Sorry about that. The Jeopardy!-Jedi strikes again. Sometimes it’s hard to control.
Anyway, I was on my way to visit my cousin in LA. Yep, Los Angeles, California. The City of Angels. Home to all the calendar photos hanging in my room. Surfers surfing, bodies baking, sunsets blazing. For the past two months that’s all I could think about. White sand, pounding waves, palm trees galore.
Well, except for last night when I dreamed I was sitting in the front row of Jeopardy!, filmed (of course) in Los Angeles, California.
In case you missed it, I’m Jeffrey James. Yeah, the boy with two first names—as if I hadn’t been teased about that since forever, even though that’s totally my parents’ fault.
Also as mentioned, I’m almost thirteen—three weeks shy of entering the Wonderful World of Teendom.
So why was this Jeopardy!-crazed, phone-challenged kid from Middle America so pumped about turning the big One-Three, visiting a cousin he’d never met, and traveling to a far-off state to dip his toes in saltwater?
Well, let’s just say these first twelve-point-nine years of pre-teen life hadn’t exactly been a fun-fest. True, there was that trip to Lake Michigan. Also, the day my dad taught me to ride a bike and we rode around for hours. But other than that, fun for me has basically come from books.
Pathetic, I know. But true.
Oh, and while on the subject of reading, I read somewhere that the Pacific Ocean was so big you could fit two-thousand-eight-hundred Lake Michigans inside it. You heard right. Twenty-eight hundred giant lakes, each about the size of West Virginia (I checked), into one humongous ocean.
Now that’s big. And a perfect example of the things you learn from reading.
Also, a great way to prep for the “Lakes and Oceans” category on Jeopardy!
Hey Alex, let’s make it a true Daily Double!
Boy, I really needed this vacation.
Margaret watched the lighted numbers on her nightstand clock click to 10:31 p.m.—the earliest she’d been to bed all summer.
Usually, when school was out she never hit the pillow before midnight. But tomorrow she and her mom were picking up her cousin at the airport, and though they were close in age (she was six months older), they’d never actually met, just exchanged a few birthday greetings by phone. Which meant it was going to be weird, and Margaret figured the best way to prep for weird was at least getting a decent night’s sleep.
Jeffrey’s parents—Uncle Eddie and Aunt Karen (her mom’s sister)—were getting divorced and shipping him out for this last week of summer vacation. They were calling it his early birthday present but Margaret knew better. Nothing says “birthday present” like getting shoved off for a week in Burbank with distant relatives so you’ll forget your parents are splitting up and throwing you to the wolves.
Making matters worse, Margaret wasn’t what you’d call a people person. More of a no-people person. Something she totally blamed on her first name which she’d hated since birth. Because when you start life hating what everyone calls you, it’s only a matter of time before you start hating everyone who calls you that.
In fact, until she was six she couldn’t even say her own name, at least not so you’d recognize it. It always came out more like Naagit, which actually sounded a whole lot better than Margaret anyway.
And the “standard” nicknames weren’t any better. Margie? Maggie? Margo? Seriously? Picking one of those was like having to pick which eye to poke out.
Then right before school ended, some idiot in her algebra class started calling her Maggots. Great. Another one to flush down the toilet. Her best hope was that, with high school starting soon, the name-calling might stop. Though probably not. As a lifelong Margaret, she knew firsthand classmates rarely stopped being mean because they got older. They just got sneakier—less in your face, more behind your back.
All of which summed up why Margaret was a loner, always had been, always would be, and proud of it. Ever since her dad died when she was four it had been just her and her mom. Which was fine, mostly, though sometimes a tad boring, adding yet another reason she hoped Jeffrey wasn’t too weird.
Quirky, she could handle.
Freakishly creepy, not so much.
Unfortunately, he already had three strikes against him—a tweener, she’d never met, from Iowa—so she wasn’t holding her breath.
Though at least she’d have company for a while.
Sometimes even loners needed that.
The girl sitting next to me was hot.
Not sweaty hot. Wow hot. If anyone was sweating, it was me—because of the Dream Girl sitting next to me.
She was already on the plane when I boarded, and I could tell she was from California. Probably on her way home from somewhere. Nothing specific, she just had that breezy California look. Reminded me a little of that actress who played Storm in the X-Men movies—Halle something. A younger, softer version. Caramel skin, perfect cheekbones, electric eyes, killer smile. You get the picture.
I had the window seat, so when she leaned in to watch us taxi down the runway, she was so close I could feel her breath on my left ear. Of course I pretended not to notice, kept staring out my window. Not that I minded, staring out my window, since this was my first plane ride and there was plenty to see (though the best view was sitting right next to me).
I figured she was slightly older than me, not by much, and definitely not a big deal. I was also pretty sure she was alone because when the older guy in the aisle seat next to her tried to make conversation, she shushed him and he shut right up. I didn’t think a friend or relative would take attitude like that without saying something.
When we stopped taxiing, I leaned back against my seat to cleverly watch her out of the corner of my eye. She was playing with her phone.
“You’ll have to turn that off now, young lady,” the flight attendant warned, hovering over our row. I decided that was a good thing. If she couldn’t use her phone maybe she’d give me a shot. Could happen.
Once we were airborne, I grabbed the travel magazine from the front seat pouch and began flipping through it—too fast to look real but I couldn’t help it. I also leaned back again, hoping to repeat my little corner-of-the-eye trick. Only this time it didn’t work because she was leaning back too.
So I kept page-flipping.
It happened on page fifty-four, a colorful double-page ad for Hawaii.
“Speed-reader, uh?”
Omigod. She was talking to me.
Naturally I froze, afraid to look up, eyes riveted to the happy luau scene in my magazine. Until I heard a vaguely familiar voice mutter, “Not really.”
Very slick, Jeffrey.
I closed my magazine, tucking it slowly back in the pouch to buy myself time to think of something more clever to say. Luckily, she came to the rescue before I bombed out again.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to intrude. You just seemed a little… tense.” She nodded to the magazine in the pouch. “You were really workin’ those pages, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was the take-off… or me?”
Whoa. Did not see that coming.
“Truthfully?” I asked, again buying time.
“No lie to me,” she grinned. “What, you think I missed that corner-of-the-eye thing?”
So much for clever.
I shrugged. “Then I guess maybe a little of both.”
I’d read somewhere that honesty was a good way to connect with girls—that and puppies—so this was me doing my best honesty.
“A little of both?” she repeated.
“Well, this is my first plane ride.”
Her eyebrows shot up, which was fun to watch.
“Wow,” she whispered. She chewed on her lower lip. “So what about the ‘both’ part?”
Uh oh. Too Much Honesty.
“Okay, well yeah, probably a little bit you, too... but in a good way.” I felt my face flush. “Sorry. I’m not exactly Mr. Smooth, in case you couldn’t tell.”
She giggled at that. But not a mean giggle. A cute little adorable giggle.
“Not Mr. Smooth, eh? Well, I’ll take that as a good thing.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Diana.”
I looked down like I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Don’t worry, I won’t bite.”
Ouch. I reached out and shook it, then immediately launched into my default babble mode.
“Nice-to-meet-you-I’m-Jeffrey-James-and-you’re-the-first-Diana-I’ve-ever-known-I-mean-met-in-person-are-you-from-California?”
All that blasted out in one garbled, cringy breath—while still pumping her hand, which I instantly stopped doing as soon as I realized I was still doing it, before adding, “I’m from Iowa.”
Yeah, I really said that.
But, again, she just smiled. Adorably.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you too, ‘Jeffrey James from Iowa.’ And, yes, I am from California, born and raised. By the way, I love your name. Cute and catchy, unlike mine.”
I gave her a look. “What’s wrong with Diana?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mom was a big Diana Ross fan. You know, The Supremes? Back in the Ice Age?” She chuckled. “She apparently got that from her mother. Anyway, who wants to be named after an ancient pop star? How’d you like walking around as Elvis?”
I shrugged. “No worse than two first names with the same first letter.”
She snickered. “That’s what makes it so cute.”
“Yeah, me and Billy Bob,” I mumbled, prompting another little giggle.
“Plus, Diana’s too boring.”
My eyes widened. “Boring? Are you kidding? What about Princess Di? Or that Roman Moon Goddess?” I paused. “Or Wonder Woman?”
She gawked at me like I’d popped a second head.
“Wonder Woman?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Guess what her real name was, or is? I’m not sure whether superheroes are past or present. Anyway, when she’s not Wonder Woman-ing?”
“I’m gonna take a wild stab and say Diana?”
“Bingo! Diana of Themyscira.”
She wrinkled her forehead so I repeated it in syllables.
“Thuh-MEZ-ki-ra—where Wonder Woman and her sister Amazons are from. Also called Paradise Island.”
She jerked back. “Whoa, moon goddesses and superheroes? You must read a lot.” She thought for a moment. “But wasn’t Wonder Woman white?”
“Hey, superheroes can be any color they want. Think Black Panther, Storm, Lion Man.”
“Lion Man?”
I nodded again. “Pretty sure he was around even before your prehistoric Supremes.” I paused to let my vast comic book knowledge sink in. “Surely you don’t think all caped crusaders come in one flavor?”
Which earned me an actual Laugh-Out-Loud. The Nerd from Iowa made Wonder Woman laugh.
The Love Gods were smiling down on me.
My fantasy flight ended way too soon. Still, by the time we landed I’d learned a lot about the new love of my life.
She was fourteen and returning to California from New York where her mom lived. Her parents were divorced (the one thing we almost had in common), and she and her dad lived in Brentwood (a ritzy town by Beverly Hills I’d read about during my pre-trip research). I think she also mentioned her father was a lawyer, but I’m not sure. Once those heart-stopping eyes lasered in on me, my concentration kinda crumbled.
When she told me all this stuff, she never seemed to be bragging. More like it was all silly and boring. But it was while we were taxiing to the terminal that things really got wacky, because that’s when she suggested we trade phone numbers.
I swear.
And while still recovering from that, I think she said something about calling if I needed a tour guide, though—between those laser eyes and the plane’s air pressure—I may have hallucinated that last part.
But I nodded anyway, like I got such offers all the time. Why not play along, right? Even though I knew she was either joking or being polite and that as soon as we got off the plane, that would be it. Bye, have a nice life.
I mean, come on. The Moon Goddess from Brentwood offering the Babbling Idiot from Nowhere a tour of LA? What could possibly be wrong with that picture?
We walked off the plane together. I’d never experienced anything like that, walking off the plane—walking anywhere—with someone like Diana by my side. Now I know how Thor feels when he blasts through enemy walls. Jeffrey James, Master of the Universe.
As we entered the main terminal, she started waving to a man obviously waiting for her. About my mom’s age and very California-Cool. Dark wavy hair, movie-star tan, faded jeans, untucked cream-colored shirt, loafers with no socks—and the whitest teeth ever. Piano-keys white.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Ty. My driver. Actually, kinda my substitute dad, since my real one—bless his little heart—travels on business a lot.” Waving to Mr. Cool, she added, “He lives on the property.”
Her driver. Substitute dad. Lives on the property.
Welcome to California.
As she walked toward him, she glanced back and gave me one of those California half-smiles. So I fired one back, my best Midwestern hey-I-do-this-all-the-time-and-you’re-not-breaking-my-heart smirk, though I don’t think it worked.
Scanning the terminal for my own driver, I spotted a girl about my age standing next to, I was pretty sure, my Aunt Susan. At least they were both looking at me and the woman was waving and smiling. Not so much the girl who looked like she might’ve eaten something bad and was trying not to puke.
Offering a small wave back, I took one last look at my Dream Girl as she and her Crest-whitened substitute dad faded into the sunset (actually, down the escalator), then walked over to my new substitute family.
And the strangest/best week of my life.
