Chapter Seventeen
“Time to get up, kiddo.” BamBam shook me awake with entirely too much enthusiasm. “We got to move.”
“I…” I pushed up my bonnet, which had slipped down my forehead, and tried to get my bearings.
What was she talking about, and why was she talking to me about it before dawn?
I’d gotten back from my actual-real-not-a-sneaky date with Ethan a sliver before eleven, which meant that I was getting less than eight hours of sleep.
Not that BamBam knew why I was so tired.
“Picking up the rental car in T-minus twenty minutes. BamBam is not sitting in Los Angeles traffic,” BamBam said, looming over me as vague bits and pieces of a college-tour plan came back to me.
“What…time—”
“Chop-chop.” BamBam clapped, the sound echoing against our sparse hotel walls. “LA waits for no one. Your USC campus tour starts at eleven a.m.”
That rattled my sleep-deprived brain into gear.
The only reason my parents had let BamBam pull me out of school was because she had promised them a full day of college tours.
It just so happened that the schools with the best business programs on the West Coast also happened to have good film programs. Sure, I’d be busy pretending I was interested in business all day, but at least I’d be seeing my potential future.
As it stood, my plan was to get into one of these schools, then quietly change majors.
Obviously, my parents much preferred SISU and were not exactly enthusiastic about paying out-of-state or private-school tuition, but I was counting on BamBam’s powers of persuasion to get me across that bridge when the time came.
“…not to mention UCLA at two p.m. I might have us drive around Pepperdine and Loyola if I can pull it off with the traffic. I told your parents we’d try.
Let’s go!” BamBam barked at me, even though I was sitting up.
Looking over at the clock on the bedside table, she said, “I’m calling the car now.
If you aren’t out of those pajamas by the time it comes, then I guess that’s how you’ll be meeting your future classmates. ”
With that, she picked up her phone, and I ran to the bathroom.
I wasn’t sure that I’d ever gotten dressed that fast, but within fifteen minutes, I was in the cab while BamBam happily chatted with our driver about the best slice of German chocolate cake he had ever had. Of course, BamBam got the recipe.
I continued to slowly wake up my brain as BamBam schmoozed with the rental-car-counter person until she’d managed to get us an upgrade to a convertible, because as BamBam put it, we weren’t going to LA out of style.
Before the sun truly came up, we were fully on the road, nursing regular coffees because BamBam refused to wait around for them to make me my specialty drink.
Instead, she told me to chuck an extra sugar in my coffee, before she pulled away from the curb going somewhere between 75 and 87 miles per hour, because, “Baby, the only people in LA going the speed limit are tourists.”
I considered arguing that we were, in fact, tourists, but she’d already put on her Donna Summer and was howling along way too loud for me to argue. So I prayed that Mom wasn’t awake and watching my phone hurtle toward Los Angeles at light speed.
Three hours and fifty minutes later, we were clearing the University of Southern California’s security gates. Turning toward me, BamBam said, “We need to hurry.”
“We’re over an hour early.”
“Not if you want to make an appointment with the film school admissions people, we aren’t.” A slow smile crept across BamBam’s face as she winked at me. “Surprise!”
“I—” My brain stalled as I processed what was happening. BamBam had mentioned that she’d made an appointment with an admissions officer to talk about the school. I’d assumed she meant USC generally or maybe the economics department or something. “How?
“I filled out the form like everyone else. I may be internet famous, but I’m not famous enough to get you special treatment.
” She laughed and reached over to smooth a hand over my hair, tucking it behind my ear as she gave me a once-over—likely searching for ways to make my rush job palatable to the adults I’d be speaking to shortly.
“Why?” I blinked at her, trying to understand why she would risk upsetting my parents.
“Honey.” BamBam arched an eyebrow at me. “You’ve been moping all trip about having to spend another summer working in an office and avoiding that SISU application. I’d have to be the most oblivious human on the face of the planet not to figure out you’re creative like your grandma.”
Excitement and nerves twined themselves together and began racing their way through my bloodstream as I got out of the car. I was here at possibly the best film school. And I was going to talk to someone about attending. “Mom and Dad missed my creativity.”
“Parents are a different thing. They think their kids are excellent at everything. Mostly.” BamBam frowned a little as she pushed herself out of the driver side.
Brushing the thought away, she added, “Plus, I wanted to give you a special surprise to thank you for all your hard work. You’ve done so much for me.
I wouldn’t be traveling, making a little pocket money, and being fabulous without you. ”
I shut the car door and tried to swallow the lump in my throat as the memory of me and Ethan together last night threatened to drown me in guilt. While I’d been out sneaking around, she’d been working on making my dreams come true. “I very much doubt that you wouldn’t have been fabulous.”
“Well, yes. But only locally fabulous. Now I’m globally fabulous, and haters like Buzzy can stay mad.” BamBam cackled and came to stand beside me. “Now let’s go. You and me aren’t gonna miss this one.”
With that, BamBam took off, leaving me to catch up as I tried to contend with the fact that I really didn’t deserve my grandma’s trust and effort right now. Worse, I’d never been more grateful to have her by my side.
“So, here’s the thing.” BamBam paused to take a sip of her cocktail and adjusted her sunglasses.
“Sterling suggested, and I’m inclined to agree with him, that we had such great chemistry during the master class that we should do a series of videos together.
As luck would have it, he used to do a regular segment similar to Cookies and Tea with someone y’all’s age, but that’s not working out right now. ”
“Oh. Really?” I tried to keep my voice neutral even as images of Emmie swam to the front of my mind. Apparently, both BamBam and I were benefiting from her bad judgment now.
“It’s that little blond girl that had that eyeshadow palette in Beauty BB’s last year.
What’s her name…?” BamBam snapped her fingers, trying to force a name I knew all too well to come to her.
My heart sank. If Ethan was right, Emmie’s business was about to take a serious hit after Beauty BB’s stopped carrying her palette.
That meant people would be watching her downfall for longer than I’d anticipated, with Ethan as collateral damage, making it much harder for us to sneak around once we got back to Chicago.
Not that we’d talked about what to do about dating when the convention ended yet.
“Gosh, what is her name? You know, she has that book thing—”
“Emmie Kristoff.”
“That’s her!” BamBam shouted, and pointed at me.
I looked around to make sure no one overheard us talking.
We were on the rooftop patio of a restaurant in Santa Monica that, according to BamBam, was known for its celebrity sightings.
While I was too desperately underdressed and uncool to ever be considered a celebrity, BamBam was absolutely not.
We kept getting looks as people tried to place her from somewhere while doing the time-honored LA ritual of wondering if they’d seen a person famous enough to tell their friends about later.
It made me nervous, but BamBam was loving it.
In another life, she easily would have fit in at any one of the content houses in LA. In fact, part of me wondered why she hadn’t moved here already.
Maybe she didn’t want to move away from our family…
Or maybe she knew we weren’t ready for her to leave us.
The thought that the reason she hadn’t left Chicago might be, at least in part, me, gnawed at my already guilt-ridden insides.
The constant school pickups, the rides to debate team competitions, not to mention the cookie baking and homework help she’d given me and my siblings.
Wasn’t retirement supposed to be fun? I always imagined watching Dateline with my parents was fun for her.
But from this angle, I was starting to think it was the other way around.
“Anyway, then I’m thinking, if people like our videos, you and I can approach some of his sponsors for a lipstick series or something.” BamBam grinned with satisfaction as she got to the root of her plan.
“Hmm.” I nodded along as the memory of me and Ethan at the museum came back to me.
The way it felt to be wrapped in his arms. Snuggled against him.
I really didn’t want to let him go. However, if I wanted to keep him, I’d have to be super careful around BamBam.
The balancing act today alone was stressing me out.
Just to be safe, I’d changed his name to Go Kart in my phone and was literally waiting until she was in the bathroom to answer his texts.
One wrong move and the woman who was giving up so much for me would find out how I was repaying her kindness.
“It’d be a good way to tag onto his work without cutting into his glitter empire. That way everyone continues to play nice.”
“It sounds like you’ve really thought this out.” I swallowed my betrayal and forced a smile onto my face.
“Well, you know how much your grandma loves a goal and a plan.” BamBam squeezed my hand.
“We came here with a plan to reach a younger audience, and look at us getting it done. Maybe you and Sterling will want to work together, too? He is moving to LA soon, and it might be time for you to learn how to work with someone other than me.”
BamBam laughed, and my heart sank further into my chest. I was already learning that skill, and I couldn’t even tell her. Keeping this secret from BamBam was getting less fun even as spending time with Ethan was becoming more wonderful.
“Speaking of a goal.” BamBam checked her watch. “We’ve got options. I know you liked USC and UCLA, but we could try and drive by those other schools like I promised your parents. Or we could blow it off, go to Venice Beach and dip our toes in the Pacific. What do you want to do?”
“I’ve never been to the Pacific before.” I pushed my intrusive thoughts away as visions of muscle-packed people lifting weights on a beach as others Rollerbladed by in spandex like in Barbie, Roller Dreams, and every other movie about California scrolled through my mind.
“Well, in that case, let me get the check.” BamBam waved at a waiter, then added, “If your mama and daddy ask, we couldn’t get to those campuses in time with all this LA traffic.”
BamBam winked at me, then I reassured myself that just because I couldn’t tell her about Ethan yet didn’t mean I wouldn’t ever mention him.
Eventually, she would find out about our video when I won the prize money.
Although, it’d probably be better to wait to tell her I was still seeing Ethan until after she got a product deal from working with Sterling.
By then, she’d be so focused on her new deal and so excited for me that she wouldn’t even dwell on us dating.
That timeline could work out. In fact, it had to if I wanted to keep both of them in my life.
Watching BamBam tap her phone against a portable credit card reader, I put my concerns about lying to my grandma to bed.
I had a plan. This would work out. Until it was time to tell the truth, I’d just have to enjoy a day at the beach. And that, at least, I knew I could do.