Chapter Thirty-Five
That’s the spirit!” my mom cheers. Then she starts grabbing stuff out of her giant purse like Mary Poppins in high-end loungewear. “Blue is buying us some time as the new arrivals come.” She pulls out a large dry-erase board. How did she even fit that in there?
“What’s that for?”
“Brainstorming,” she says, like it’s obvious. I laugh at how extra she is, but for once it doesn’t annoy me. It kind of warms my soul.
Then Matt makes a FaceTime call, and my dad’s face immediately fills the screen. “Hey, Peanut, who do I need to beat up?”
“Hey, Dad.”
“Jesse is here too.”
Jesse pops his head into the screen, wearing his headphones, and says, “What up?”
“Hi, Jesse,” I say, starting to get emotional because my whole family is here, trying to help me. “Sorry to hear about your breakup.”
“You too,” he says sincerely. And I wonder if it’s even considered a breakup if Andrew and I were never really dating, but I appreciate the sentiment. I give him a grateful nod as my mom claps her hands.
“Okay, enough of the family reunion! Let’s get to work!” she says.
Matt takes his position by the shack door to keep watch, while continuing to hold up his phone so my dad and Jesse can see what’s going on.
My mom writes “To-Do” at the top of the dry-erase board. “What are some ways we can fix this mess?” she asks with her marker poised, ready to write.
I sigh. “Where do we begin? Well, I’d really like it if Ciara didn’t hate me.”
My mom writes “Make amends with Ciara” on the board.
“I should probably try to get her and Javier back together too.”
“Or set her up with me,” Matt adds.
My mom nods in agreement. “She’s really pretty.” She writes: “Get Ciara and Javier back together and/or set her up with Matthew.” She turns back to us. “What else?”
“I wish Andrew would give me another chance,” I confess.
My mom covers her mouth, trying in vain to contain her excitement. “I’ve been trying really hard to respect your boundaries and not pry, but Blue told us all about him.” And then she can’t help herself. “I told you you’d meet someone here!”
I open my mouth to question her taking credit, but my dad calls out, “Which one is he again?”
“The hot lawyer, Howie!” my mom chides.
“Oh yeah. As long as it’s not that cowboy jackass,” my dad says, and I can’t help but laugh at the fact that my power yogi father has been watching Love Shack.
My mom scribbles, “Win Andrew back.” Then she adds below it, in a smaller font as if I won’t see, “Invite Andrew to family dinner.”
“One step at a time, Mom,” I groan. Some things never change.
“Why don’t you just quit the show?” Matt asks from his security post. “Wouldn’t that accomplish most of this?”
I sigh. “I wish I could, but I still have to save the frogs and my lab. And to do that, I need the publicity from the show to raise awareness and money.”
After a moment, Jesse says, “Not necessarily.” I’m surprised he’s even paying attention and not listening to lo-fi hip-hop on his headphones.
From Matt’s phone screen, I see Jesse scratch his chin, deep in thought.
“We all have a shit-ton of followers. You technically don’t need the show for publicity. ”
My mom claps excitedly. “We can all post on our own socials! We’ll help you raise awareness!”
“You should’ve asked us in the first place, Peanut,” my dad says, sounding hurt.
Jesse nods. “I just thought you were going on the show to get Mom off your back.”
“Yeah,” Matt says. “Why didn’t you tell us you needed to save the turtles?”
“They’re frogs.”
He smirks. “I know. I just like fucking with you.”
I look at my family, all eager to help me, and consider why I didn’t tell them what was really at stake with my lab.
I think having to defend my life choices and trying to explain the importance of my work, time and time again, only to see them zone out, made me give up.
But maybe I wrote them off too quickly. Like Madison suggested with the girls in school, maybe I didn’t try hard enough to connect with my family either.
Didn’t I zone out every time Matt talked about his gym routine?
And roll my eyes when Jesse rambled on about video games and his horrible taste in music?
Well, damn. It’s just as much my fault as it is theirs.
As that thought sinks in, I admit, “I didn’t think you guys would care about my frogs. But I didn’t really give you the chance to either.”
“Just because we don’t understand what you’re talking about half the time doesn’t mean we don’t love you and support you,” my mom says.
From Matt’s phone screen, I see my dad nodding. “We might not be as into saving the world as you are, Peanut, but we would do anything to save you.”
I feel that pinch in my face that means I’m seconds away from crying. “Thank you, guys. Seriously.” I sniffle and look at my dad and Jesse on the phone screen. “I’m sorry I underestimated you.” Then I turn to my mom. “And I know when you meddle it’s because you care.”
Now she’s crying too. “I care so much!”
Finally, I turn to Matt. “And I’m sorry that even when you were helping me with the photo shoot I was still horrible to you.”
He waves it off. “Does this mean I can ask out Cassie when we get home?”
“What? No!”
He laughs, and I realize that maybe messing with each other is our sibling love language. Which I can work with, because apologizing to him just felt unnatural. My mom is staring at us with a dopey grin on her face.
I take a deep breath and get back to Project Unfuck My Life. “Okay, Lamberts. Let’s save my lab!”
Matt puffs up. “Now that I know this is for a good cause, I’ll actually try.”
I look at him in disbelief. “You got me over fifty thousand followers and you weren’t even trying?”
He just shrugs as he taps away on his phone. “I’ll create more content that will target our crossover audience. I know lots of chicks who like abs and saving animals.”
“That’s probably true,” I concede. “But followers are just part of the equation, right? We still need to convert the awareness into donations.”
At this, Jesse perks up. “What about a live stream?” Even from the phone he must be able to see my blank expression, so he explains, “One of my gamer buddies has twenty million subscribers on his YouTube channel. You should see this guy tear up GTA and Call of Duty. One time he played live for a charity fundraiser. He raised millions. I bet he would team up with me on something.” Then Jesse takes off his headphones and excitedly says, “Oh shit! You know what would be sick? Everyone loves a retro game pop-up, right?”
“I have no idea what that means,” I admit.
“Remember that old-school arcade game Frogger?” Jesse asks.
I nod, vaguely remembering it from an arcade I was dragged into on a family vacation, but Matt must see where Jesse is going with this because he says in an awed voice, “Oh man! That’s perfect!
” Matt turns to me and explains, “The whole point of the game is to get the frogs safely across the street or the river without getting hit by a car or eaten by an alligator or something.”
“So you’re literally saving frogs!” my mom chimes in.
“Exactly,” Jesse says. “I’ll ask my buddy to play Frogger, I’ll do the commentary, and we’ll live-stream it to raise money for your lab.”
“You’ll reach a whole new audience too,” my dad adds.
I’m floored. Could this actually work? My wheels start turning. “Besides raising money, it could be educational too. You could tell people about the actual dangers these species encounter! Humans and reptiles are only part of the problem—”
Jesse cuts me off. “Nerd!” We all laugh, but then he adds, “Yeah, give me some talking points and I’ll put it in my own words.”
Suddenly I hear a series of knocks on the door. “Quick! Hide!” I say, throwing my pool towel over the dry-erase board.
My mom laughs. “Don’t be silly, sweetie. It’s just Blue.” Matt opens the door, revealing it is in fact everyone’s favorite production assistant.
“Wait, how’d you know that?”
“We have a secret knock,” my mom says as she hugs Blue like they’re long-lost friends.
I shake my head. “Of course you do.”
“Rebecca,” Blue says. “You’re looking lovely.” Then he looks my brother up and down. “Matthew, hot as always.”
Matt winks at him. “I know.”
“I guess you’re all best friends now,” I say, trying to catch up.
Then I hear from Matt’s phone, “Hi, Blue. I’m Howie!”
Blue waves at my dad. “Hey, Howie, I’m a big fan. I used to do Power Yoga all the time!”
“Awesome! I’ll send you a shirt!” my dad replies as I cringe. I don’t know what Blue’s fashion sense is outside of work, but I can guarantee a “Two Pump Guy” T-shirt is not it.
Then Blue gets serious. “Okay, gang, I’ve got half an hour before they come looking for me. What’s the plan?”
“Wait, what about Grace? Is anyone looking for her?” my mom asks.
“Kristina didn’t buy Grace’s second bout of gastrointestinal distress, but I made a deal with the on-set doctor: He confirmed she has a stomach bug and needs to rest, in exchange for a date with me.”
My mom squeals, “Ooh, a doctor! I love that for you!”
Blue waves it off. “Eh, he’s a bore. You know how those serious types are.”
They all turn to look at me at the same time. When they burst out laughing I join in, and damn it feels good being in on the joke. I’m not going to let myself dwell on the fact that it would’ve been helpful to realize this, say, twenty years ago.
Matt paces, looking at the dry-erase board until he finally says, “I think I have an idea on how to win Andrew back.”
“Ooh, you sounded just like the best friend in a Reese Witherspoon movie,” my mom praises him excitedly.
“You really did,” Blue agrees.
“Thank you,” Matt says sincerely, then continues. “Blue, do you think there’s any B-roll of Grace and Andrew talking?”
“What’s B-roll?” I ask, because I’m apparently the only person in Los Angeles County who doesn’t know what that means.
“It’s the footage they get in the background,” Blue explains to me.
“We don’t usually end up using it, but sometimes the editors comb through it for an innocent conversation they can add voice-over to and make it more dramatic.
Or if the camera operator is slacking and misses a big moment, they hope one of the other cameras caught something.
” Then he turns to Matt and says, “I’ll talk to my boy in post. He owes me. I get his weed for him.”
My mom nods like that’s a normal business negotiation, then asks Matt, “Okay, so then what?”
“Well, if you saw my last TikTok, you’ll see I’ve really upped my editing game.” My parents and Blue nod in agreement. Apparently they’re all fans. “I’m going to cut together a Love Shack–esque montage video of you and Andrew falling for each other.”
My mom swoons. “We can play it at their wedding too!”
I shake my head at her as Jesse chimes in from FaceTime: “And Grace can do her own DIY confessional and apologize for misleading people accidentally. Or for a good cause, anyway.”
“How do you know what a ‘confessional’ is?” I ask, slack-jawed.
“I watched your episodes. Those fake glasses make you look smart.” I let that comment slide because I’m so touched that my weird gamer little brother watched Love Shack for me.
My dad snaps his fingers. “That’s great, Jesse. She can apologize to Ciara too. Two birds with one video.”
My mom puts check marks next to the items on her to-do list and says, “Blue, can you try to find some cute friendship footage of Grace and Ciara too?” Then she turns to me. “Did you two happen to share a milkshake or anything?”
I shake my head. “No, but she made me take a lot of shots with her.”
“That works,” my mom says and adds another check mark.
“And then there’s Madison,” I say solemnly. “I haven’t talked to her yet. But I think she’s mad at me.”
“She’s too sweet to be mad at anyone,” Blue says. “You probably just crushed her idealistic Disney princess notion that people are good.”
“That seems worse,” I moan.
“I’ll try to pull footage of her too,” Blue says as he pats my arm.
I nod in appreciation, but I feel my nerves creeping in. “Kristina is going to kill me when this video gets out.”
“She’ll have to get through me first,” my dad says from the phone.
“Me too,” my mom says as my brothers nod in agreement.
“But seriously, won’t I get in trouble for doing this? I’m pretty sure I signed something that said I wouldn’t do any behind-the-scenes content.”
“Since when do you care about breaking your contract?” Blue asks with a smile.
I turn to him. “And what about you? I can’t let another person get fired because of me.”
He shrugs. “I’ve worked in reality TV for a long time, Grace, and no one has ever stuck up for me before like you did. I’m willing to take this risk for you.”
I hug him as I groan half-heartedly. “But everyone will know that I wasn’t here for the right reasons.” Blue and my family laugh.
I break away from Blue and he says, “You’ve already lit the match, Underdog. Might as well burn the whole place down.” He hands me some paper. “Here, script out what you want to say.”
Jesse adds, “I can send you some chill low-fi hip-hop to set it to—”
“No!” my mom and dad, Matt, and I say at the same time. Then we all burst out laughing, even Jesse.
Blue smiles at us. “You Lamberts are cute. This might just work.”