Free Pride & Princesses by Summer Day Page B

He Doesn’t   Want to Date You and The Unspoken Laws of Romance but I think we’re embracing unknown territory, our own Dating Adventure for Teenage Girls.’
    ‘Because we’re such experts...’ I added sarcastically.
    ‘True,’ Mouche replied, ‘but I’m sure we can teach while we learn – look at Mr Frames.’
     Mr Frames was our student teacher last year and we leaned into the store window to watch him and his new fiancée walking across the road hand in hand. We’d conspired to let Mr Frames know how much our other student teacher, Miss Love, liked him. Now they’re both fully registered teachers and we’ve received invites to their wedding this winter. We are obviously very good matchmakers for other people – why not each other? Why not all the girls in school? The whole town?   The universe even?
    ‘But what is the point of all of this, when, what we really need, is some money for our college funds?’ Mouche said. ‘You’re starting to take this whole Emma fixation a little too far. Forget about school plays and dating new boys, I’m starting to worry I may not get my college scholarship.’
    ‘Of course you will Mouche. You’re one of the smartest girls I know. Besides, money isn’t everything...’
    ‘I just have this feeling,’ Mouche said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘That we’re going to be seriously sidetracked...’
    ‘Well, maybe that’s a good thing, because sometimes the real world lacks excitement...’
    ‘Really Pheebs, you are my best friend, but I’m not so sure...’
    I smiled and pulled out the copy of Wuthering Heights that I was being forced to re-read and review for an English assignment. I’d just finished skimming Emma , another Austen story, but Mouche had preferred the movie version. ‘Life’s kind of like that now,’ she had said one afternoon when we watched it, ‘except faster and with more sex and swearing.’
    We sat in the Sunrise cafe and viewed the world going past our window booth, each of us adding to the Boy Rating Diary as we waited for our food.
     Joel Goodman worked in the diner. He was kind of hot but monosyllabic. I should know. I tutored him in English once a month and in return he helped to fulfil my credit quota. He’d been brought up speaking English as a second language and although he spoke almost without an accent, he sometimes wrote the words around the wrong way.
   ‘Hey,’ he said as he took our orders wearing all black and his usual wife-beater shirt, ‘the usual?’
   ‘Yes please,’ said Mouche, who was unfailingly polite in public. Joel smiled at her then me, in turn. I looked away, because Joel was a huge flirt.
   ‘You know how long we’ll need to work Saturdays just to get enough money for even a year in New York?’ Mouche asked.
    ‘Do not fear...I have a feeling everything will come together in the end. It always does and money worries are no reason to change our plans...’
      We expanded our ideas on napkins after eating the special burger deal, watching the Sunrise world go by. Most of the people we saw through the window we knew or had met at least once. That was one of the things I liked about Sunrise, though Mouche and I mostly wanted to get out. Maybe she wanted out even more than I did.
    Later that evening we continued to plot.
    Mouche dropped her purchases next door at her house, then came over.  
    I was sitting on the porch eating ice-cream having my musical theatre star fantasy and waiting for my agent to call.
     Oh, that’s something else I haven’t told you much about yet. I’ve been acting, or rather auditioning professionally, part-time, since I turned twelve. I try not to spread this about as I was teased mercilessly at HSYL. I got to do a commercial a few years ago for breakfast cereal but since then the money has kind of dried up. It’s so weird how I can be outgoing when I’m