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âIâm sorry, Junie,â Lacey says.
âCan I wear a lab coat?â I ask. Professional makeup people always wear lab coats.
âSure,â Lacey says.
Junie looks like she wants to hit me.
âIâll pull your hair back too,â Amber says. âSo you look older.â
I totally feel like my fairy godmother sprinkled growing-up dust on me. With Amber working on me, Iâll leap all the way to seventeen.
Only one thing can make life better than this. And thatâs time with Josh.
The countdown is on for our movie date!
chapter
twelve
J osh Morton and I have been a romantic item for the serious amount of time of two months, three weeks and five days. I canât tabulate the number of hours or minutes or seconds, because itâs difficult to pinpoint exactly when a relationship begins.
Despite the length of our time together, I still get flutters whenever I see him. Even if weâre only waving to each other across the courtyard between classes. At the moment, itâs like a fly swatterâs in my stomach flapping up a storm. Because weâre actually going on a date. Our first movie date ever. Itâs a defining life moment, like learning to ride a bike or getting braces or passing your driving test.
Mostly Josh and I hang together at my house or athis or we grab something from Jazzed-Up Juice at the mall. We generally donât even eat lunch together at school because we only have the same lunch period on assembly days.
Iâm pacing in front of the movie theater, waiting for Josh and getting more and more annoyed with Junie. Why did she have to start an argument with me. Now thoughts of her are barging into my brain and, like her, theyâre too stubborn to leave.
Things with Junie were humming along, all fine and friendly, until I mentioned my movie date. She jumped in with how she and Nick would love to come along. I hesitated. Which she noticed because she can be very observant in that way. She asked difficult, pointed questions, such as why didnât I like Nick and why wouldnât I give him a real chance?
In vain, I tried to explain the concept of a first movie date and how it isnât an appropriate double date. I described the whining and crying and turned-in homework necessary to wring a yes from The Ruler and my dad. How Iâve been waiting for years for my first movie date. How I just donât want to share.
Junie couldnât get it through her 4.0 skull. Now that Iâm mulling it over, probably she hasnât had a boyfriend long enough to understand. Anyway, she ended up calling me selfish. And I may have said a couple of unkind things about Nick.
Pace. Pace. Pace
.
If only I could concentrate on Josh. Josh with his pool-bleached scruffy hair. Josh with his chlorine + laundry soap scent. Josh with his baggy T-shirts and sagging jeans.
Pace. Pace. Pace
.
But no, thereâs Junie buzzing into my mind again. Sheâs like an irritating redheaded fly.
The more I pace, the more nervous I get. I mean, what do I know about movie-date protocol? Do I sit on Joshâs right or left? Do we share a drink? Do we try to hold hands with a soda towering between us?
Then thereâs the whole kissing question. Will he? What if the people behind us complain? But will he? What if the people behind us know The Ruler or my dad? And what does it mean if he doesnât?
Junie. Josh. Soda. Kissing. Itâs enough stress to ruin a perfectly good date. I shut my eyes and take deep breaths. Whereâs The Rulerâs calming chamomile tea when I need it?
âAh!â I scream. Someone pinched my waist.
Whirling around, I open my eyes.
âSorry, Sherry. I didnât mean to scare you.â Josh smiles. The patch of freckles dotting his nose looks particularly adorable today. âWell, uh, I did mean to scare you, but not that much.â
âJunieâs really mad at me because I didnât want