Chapter 1
“WHAT ABOUT THE SECRET Life of the Teenage Amphibian?”
I lift a hand to block the sun from my eyes. “No offense, but that may be the worst potential title I’ve ever heard,” I say.
Suzy sips very loudly on her iced latte. Her video camera sits abandoned on the picnic table between us. “You haven’t given me any better ideas, Jackie.”
“I’m not the filmmaker in this friendship. You are,” I remind her. “Plus, I’m the talent. And the talent doesn’t get paid to think.”
“Technically, you’re not getting paid at all,” she says. Right. I’m doing this out of the goodness of my heart.
This day is teetering on a billion degrees, so taking my lunch break outside of Monte’s Magic Castle during the dead of July may not have been the best idea. “I’m sweating through this costume,” I say. The pepperoni pizza on my plate is beginning to look more like soup.
“Welcome to summer in New York,” Suzy says, her gold S necklace catching the sunlight. It’s a conversation we’ve had every summer for the past ten years: I complain about the heat, Suzy reminds me that we’ve lived here our entire life and, well, what else did I expect?
And by New York, I don’t mean glamourous New York City, with Broadway and Michelin star restaurants, where every corner is stuffed to the brim with people’s hopes and dreams. No, no, no. We mean New York State, baby. Ridgewood, New York, to be exact, where our equivalent to Broadway is a run-down community theater and our top-rated restaurant is—you guessed it—a McDonald’s off the interstate.
“But seriously,” Suzy continues, “my school project needs a name. We can’t keep referring to it as ‘that documentary you’re making.’”
“I think that has a nice ring to it,” I say, staring bleakly at the mess on my paper plate. On one hand, I’m starving, and pizza soup sounds better than no food. On the other hand— Ugh, yeah. I can’t do it.
Suzy continues. “What about The Untold Story of Jackie Myers?”
It sounds like an episode of the crime podcast my older sister Jillian loves. “That makes my life sound like a cold case,” I say, shuddering.
Fresh out of ideas, Suzy collapses on the table. You know what they say about art students—the dramatics. Sheesh. “This title is haunting me, Jackie.” She sits up abruptly, her eyes wide with a new idea. “Maybe I can talk to Jillian? She always comes up with the coolest titles.”
It’s true, she does. Jill is a journalist at The Rundown, a local magazine owned and run by women. And Suzy is one of the rare people she actually likes. “You can try,” I say. “She’s pretty swamped with work.”
Suzy tries again. “Frog Fun and Freshman Frights?”
I make a face. “Can we stop with frog-related titles?” Not to mention that everyone is starting college in September and I have yet to send in a single application. It was the result of great procrastination, living a life with no direction, and trying one too many clubs during high school and coming to the slightly disturbing realization that nothing seems to pique my interest. Not even the Culinary Club, which Suzy was certain I’d enjoy. Turns out eating food is a lot better than making it.
Suzy hides her laugh behind her drink. “How can I not resort to frog-related titles when you look like that?”
“Don’t come see me at work if you’re not prepared to handle all of this.” By this, I mean the fact that from neck to toe I am literally stuffed into a frog costume. My frog head sits next to me on the bench, taunting. Haunting. I see it in my nightmares.
Looming behind us is Monte’s Magic Castle, where I work and host kids’ birthday parties. My official job title is entertainer. My unofficial title is Frog—one of the woodland crew. Is it my dream job? No. Is the pay good? No. Do I enjoy working there? No. Did I forget where I was going with this? Yes.
Suzy reaches for her camera and begins recording. “Stooooooooooop,” I groan, shielding my face with my hand.
“Just a quick clip of you in costume!”
“Ughhhhhhhhh.” I shrug off the embarrassment and let her do her thing. Who am I to question her creative vision? Not that I know what that vision is.
For the past month, Suzy’s been carrying that camera around every single day, recording snippets of me here and there. When I ask what it’s for, she says she’s getting a head start on a school project. When I ask what the plot is, she responds that it’s a study of the teenage American girl. As if there aren’t billions of books, movies, and television shows about that very unique experience. But she is my best friend, immensely talented, and I would quite literally do anything to help execute her creative vision. So.
“You know you already got into one of the most prestigious film schools in the country,” I remind her. Cornelia Film Academy has been all Suzy has talked about since she took a film class sophomore year. In a split second she found her calling: a director. When the acceptance letter from CFA came in the mail, we both cried for different reasons. Suzy cried because she got in; I cried because the school is in California, on the opposite side of the country.
Even now, when Suzy talks about leaving and starting a new life at CFA, it’s like my emotions are split in two. Part of me is so unbelievably happy and excited for her, while the other feels like one gigantic bruise.
I am hyperaware that this summer is our final countdown. The last few grains of sand are draining through our friendship hourglass. Anything beyond August feels like uncharted territory.
Suzy brightens, in a very specific way that only happens when discussing film. “I may have already been accepted at CFA, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a head start and be at the top of my class,” she says.
“Well, save some storage space for our end-of-summer road trip,” I remind her.
Suzy snaps the cap on the camera lens and snorts. “We have the idea of an end-of-summer road trip.”
We’ve been planning it since we were kids—one summer, we’d drive straight to California. We’d have a yellow Jeep Wrangler, drive down the Pacific Coast Highway, and blast Katy Perry’s “California Girls” because . . . duh. It was a dream we put off every single year—until now. This is kind of our last shot. And with Suzy heading there for college, it’s the perfect excuse to make one final core memory as I drive her there instead of crying in the airport as her flight boards.
Not to mention that I’ve never left the state of New York. A very large part of me has the sneaking suspicion that life may become infinitely better once I leave Ridgewood in the rearview.
“But we don’t have a car,” Suzy points out, “which is kind of crucial when plan
planning a road trip. We’re already using the little cash I have saved up for gas, but we still need, you know, a vehicle.”
I wave my hand in the air, dismissing her concerns. “I told you what happened with my parents. I’m working on it.” Initially I asked my family if I could borrow one of their cars, and it was a hard no. But my parents promised that if I could save up twenty-five hundred dollars by the end of summer, they would chip in the other half so I could buy a used Nissan that’s for sale at a dealership in town.
Plus, diving headfirst into planning this road trip helps take my mind off the gigantic question mark that is my future.
Suzy clears her throat. I stare down at the table, suddenly very interested in the grains on the wood. Is this oak? Maple? Cedar? Maybe I should Google it.
“And how much money have you already saved up?”
“What was that?” I ask. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”
I yelp when her foot collides with my shin. “Answer the question, woman. How much money?”
“That’s confidential.”
“More than a thousand?”
“Suz, I get paid to dress up as a frog. What do you think?” Whoever said money can’t buy happiness was insane. Like, I’m pretty positive I’d be quite happy with a few million dollars lying around. Or even just twenty-five hundred dollars, to be exact.
“I can’t believe our dream of a yellow Jeep is turning into a beat-up Nissan.” She groans.
Picking my phone off the table, I pull up the iDiary app. My blog loads, and I type out a quick text post: anyone know any good get-rich-quick schemes? I post it to my two hundred followers. I pretty much use my blog to shitpost whatever thoughts come to my head. I mean, my account name is @shitjackiesays, so it can’t be taken too seriously.
“What are you doing?” Suzy leans across the table to peek at my phone. She shakes her head like a disappointed mother. You’re way too obsessed with that app.” She undoes her long black braids and begins retying them as I watch with envy. My wild brown curls could never do that.
“Am not,” I say, attention back on iDiary. I refresh my activity section, checking if there are any new notifications—comments, followers, messages, that kind of stuff. There’s nothing. Typical.
“I got a notification last night when you posted at three a.m.,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yes, because you’re on your phone all night.”
“I have two older sisters and parents who regularly enjoy shoving their noses in my business. I don’t need any additional judgment, thank you very much,” I say. As I’m about to close the app, the alarm I set goes off, signaling that my lunch break is over.
“That extra-long break went by oddly fast,” Suzy says, slurping the
final dregs of her latte through the straw.
Technically, my lunch breaks are a short fifteen minutes. But my manager, Monte Jr., is so laid-back he’s practically a beach chair. Well, that, and he’s carrying the weight of running his family’s business on his shoulders. The man is so perpetually stressed, I swear he develops a new wrinkle every week. On the bright side, he’s so busy running around that he barely has time to actually, you know, manage his employees. It’s been said that we may take advantage of it.
Which is why tomorrow being his last day is soul crushing. (And why I need to make the most out of my extra-long breaks while I still can. For example, today’s fifteen has turned into a forty-five.)
“You know how Monte Jr. is,” I say. “He won’t even notice I was gone.”
“I wasn’t talking about Monte Jr. I’m talking about Wil—”
I cut her off before she can so much as speak his cursed name. “We don’t talk about him on break. Remember?”
Suzy smirks. “How could I forget. Sorry.”
Ignoring that, I stand up, dust the crumbs off my costume, and tuck the frog head under my arm.
Suzy pops the lens off the camera. “Let me get one last shot of you walking inside.”
I’ve been embarrassed enough today. “Not a chance. Stop profiting off my misery.”
“But it’s so fun,” she whines.
I make it halfway to the door when she calls, “Jackie—put the frog head on!”
With nothing else to lose, I do. ...
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