Kiss & Sell (10 page)

My mom was silent for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she smiled and resumed eating.

“Then I’m behind you one hundred percent,” she said, with a firm nod. “Would you like me to come with you? I have had a bit of experience in this arena myself.”

“I think I can handle Sylvia on my own,” I answered. Seeing my mom’s slightly hurt expression, I added, “But if anything comes up, you’re my first call.”

Happy to hear this, Mom began to clear the remnants of our dinner from the table. As soon as she was distracted, I took the note with Sylvia’s phone number on it and snuck up to my room to give the reporter a call.

I agreed to meet Sylvia longood for coffee at
The Roast
the following morning before school. It was 6:30 am and I was running late. It was hard enough for me to get up on time for the ungodly hour that school required of us, but to have to be coherent before the sun had barely begun to shine, was practically torture.

Wishing I was more awake, I stumbled into the coffee house and looked around for my interviewer. I’d studied her picture in the paper the night before, but as I searched the place, I didn’t find anyone that resembled the journalist.

Finally, I noticed a woman wearing black-rimmed glasses, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, waving at me enthusiastically from the corner. Turning around and finding no one else behind me, I realized the enthusiastic greeting was, indeed, intended for me.

I smiled nervously before shuffling over to the table where the woman had set up shop.

“Arielle, right?” she asked. “Hi. I’m Sylvia longood. Well, aren’t you just the cutest thing!”

She looked me up and down, nodding her head in approval, but it just made me feel self-conscious. So I hurried to sit down, landing awkwardly on my butt before settling into my seat.

Great first impression, Arielle. Really stellar.

As Sylvia flipped through the pages of her little notebook, I snuck a glance at her. Take away the glasses, shake out the hair, apply some serious makeup, and she’d
almost
look like the woman I’d seen in the newspaper. My guess was that photoshop was her friend.

I was still studying her when a waitress came by to ask if I wanted to order. Sylvia insisted that our breakfast was “On the newspaper,” so I ordered a chocolate chip muffin and a coffee.

I’d never actually had coffee before, but I didn’t want this big-time journalist to think of me as a kid. Even if I technically was. I wanted Sylvia to see me as a young lady on the verge of womanhood. Someone worthy of the attention of her readers. Not that drinking coffee would do all that, but hey, it didn’t hurt. When the steaming mug arrived in front of me, I took a small sip and instantly resisted the urge to spit it back into the cup.

Who would drink this foul-tasting stuff willingly?

All too aware of Sylvia’s eyes on me, I forced myself to gulp down another mouthful, thus proving my adult-ness. Then, as nonchalantly as I could, I reached across the table and began dumping bag after bag of sugar into my cup in an attempt to make it taste better. As I did this, Sylvia gave me a Cheshire Cat grin.

“So?” I fished, trying to take the focus away from my coffee-flavored sugar water.

“Soooo,” Sylvia purred. When neither of us said anything else, Sylviaand then letting it trail off at the end cleared her throat and fiddled with her pad of paper. “Well, I guess you know why I asked you here, right, Arielle?”

She pronounced my name oddly, putting a lot of emphasis on the “L,” and then letting it trail off at the end. I hadn’t even been there for five minutes and the woman was already irking me.

“I’m guessing you want to ask me about the whole eBay thing, right?” I asked, stirring my coffee methodically. I figured if I was stirring it, I wouldn’t be expected to drink it.

“Exactly,” Sylvia said, pen poised above her paper.

There was another uncomfortable silence.

“Well, what do you want to know?” I asked finally.

Geez. Was I supposed to do her job for her or what?

“Why don’t we start off at the beginning,” Sylvia said, her smile practically taking up her whole face. “How did you get the idea to sell your first kiss on eBay?”

“Um, well, I’m a freshman this year, and haven’t, you know, kissed anyone yet, or anything,” I said, staring into my mug and feeling my cheeks turn red despite myself. I wasn’t sure why I was still embarrassed to talk about it—it wasn’t like everyone didn’t already know the deal. Pressing forward, I told Sylvia about how McCartney and Phin had gotten the idea to solve my “problem,” and how things had developed since then.

“I think the bid’s up to two hundred bucks or something,” I finished, shrugging.

Sylvia nodded as I spoke. “That’s
fascinating
. People sell stuff on eBay all the time—why not a kiss?” she said almost to herself as she scribbled something furiously on her paper. I picked up my mug of coffee to give myself something to do while I waited for her to finish.

“Is there someone you hope wins?” Sylvia asked finally.

No one had bothered to ask me that before, and to be honest, I hadn’t given it too much thought. Until right now. Was there someone at ronald Henry that I wanted to kiss? Had I already met him or would my first kiss be from the person I least expected? I had no idea how to answer Sylvia’s question. Eventually I spit out the first thing that came to my mind.

“Really, at this point, I just want to get it over with,” I answered.

Sylvia grinned as if I’d just said exactly what she’d been hoping I’d say. This, of course, made me nervous. Had I done something wrong? Should I have not answered at all? Before I could ask to take it back and start all over again, Sylvia reached across the table to shake my hand and then placed a few bills on the table and stood up.

“That’s it?” I asked, surprised. We’d been talking for less than twenty minutes.

“I think I’ve used up enough of your time, Arielle,” Sylvia said, letting the “L” linger even after she’d started walking away. “The piece will probably be in tomorrow’s paper, so be sure to keep your eyes peeled. Ta, ta.”

Then she left me to sit at the table by myself, staring after her and wondering exactly what the heck had just happened.

“IT’S OUT! IT’S
out!” McCartney screamed at the top of her lungs.

I turned to see her running after me as I navigated my way through the school parking lot, and cringed as everyone near us shifted their focuses our way. It was way too early for this kind of enthusiasm. Especially from McCartney, who was typically the morning crank. But when I saw how excited she was about Sylvia’s article, I couldn’t exactly burst her bubble.

The only problem was: I didn’t know how
I
felt about it. In fact, I still wasn’t sure whether the feature even portrayed me in a positive light. Until I figured that out, I didn’t exactly want to publicize it to everyone I knew.

Clearly, McCartney had found no problem with it though. So, I put a smile on my face and joined in my friends’ enthusiasm. “Do you really think it’s good?” I asked her.

“Duh! you’re mentioned in our favorite column ever!” she exclaimed. “How much better can things get?”

“What’s going on, ladies?” Phin asked as he slipped in beside us.

“Sylvia longood wrote her
whole article
about Arielle!” McCartney practically screamed and then waved the paper around for Phin to see.

“Awesome!” Phin said, and paused. “Who’s Sylvia longood?”

“You’re dead to me, you know that?” McCartney said, her face serious.

“She’s this reporter at
The Kennedy Daily,
” I explained to Phin. “She’s got her own column about people living in Kennedy and stuff.”

“Sounds
fascinating
,” Phin answered sarcastically. “So, why did she write about
you
?

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I snapped, before explaining, “She wanted to know about the whole eBay thing.”

“Here, listen to this,” McCartney said, opening up the paper to Sylvia’s article as dramatically as one could.

“Dating isn’t just tough for single adults in Kennedy—teenagers are even feeling the stress of finding a partner. More than a few times, I’ve vented about how difficult it is to meet people in this town, let alone find someone that you want to see past the first date.

But after talking to Arielle Sawyer, a freshman at Ronald Henry HS, I realized that we’re all in the same boat—no matter what age we are. This 14-year-old is so bothered at the fact that she hasn’t kissed a boy yet, that she’s resorted to putting her first kiss up for sale on eBay! “I really just want to get it over with,” Sawyer said about the posting.

With bids well over $200, it’s starting to look like this young lady had the right idea. Which leads me to wonder—Are we so starved for love that our only choice to find it is to sell it online?”

McCartney shut the paper and turned to hug me tightly around the neck, cutting off my air supply in the process. “Girl, you have officially arrived!” she squealed.

“Whoa, calm down, Cart,” I said, dislodging myself from my friend’s embrace. “Being mentioned in a local newspaper is definitely not a sign that I’ve
arrived.”

I felt my cell vibrate in my pocket just as McCartney began to argue with me. Looking down at the screen, I saw that it was my mom. Uh-oh. She rarely called me at school, so of course my imagination immediately went to worst-case scenerios. There’d been an accident and she was lying in a ditch somewhere. She’d been kidnapped and was being held by a crazed lunatic in some out-of-the-way cabin in the woods. Gramps had died. All these thoughts flashed through my head as I flipped the phone open.

“Hey, Mom. Everything okay?” I asked, plugging my other ear with my finger so I could hear.

after a few minutes of just listening to her, I closed the phone, and gently placed it back in my pocket. The silence grew around us, but I barely noticed it.

“Hello?! Who was that?” McCartney asked finally, searching my face for some kind of answer.

“My mom just got a phone call,” I said, slowly. “A news station in new york wants me to be on their morning show. Tomorrow.”

“Shut
up
!” McCartney screamed, and started dancing around in a circle.

Phin whistled loudly and patted me on the back.

“Now,” Phin said. “I think it’s officially safe to say that you have
arrived
.”

I could barely concentrate throughout the rest of the day, settling for walking around, my head in a fog, oblivious to the hustle and bustle that was happening around me. And classes? Forget about it. I know I went, but I have no idea what we learned.

When my miserable math teacher, Mr. Haan made a comment on my paper, calling my handwriting, “worse than chicken scratches,” I muttered, “Thank you,” and slunk back to my seat without putting up a fight. It was only later when my classmates began snickering, that I even looked up and acknowledged that he was there.

“Huh?” I asked, forcing my attention back to the subject I was supposed to be working on.

“If you spent as much time studying as you do daydreaming, Miss sawyer, you might be passing my class,” Mr. Haan said, clucking his tongue as he walked back up to the front of the classroom.