I knew there wouldn’t really be anything in the mTalk store for under $150. Even with the 50 bucks Mom offered to chip in, there was nothing I could afford. Didn’t stop me from looking. Or from feeling let down. Guess we’d have to try the used phone place my BFF Stacy told me about.
“Don’t worry, Lauren. I’ll buy you the best phone ever,” my dad had said when he called last month. Then he sent me a check for $100. That wouldn’t even buy me a decent mom phone. Happy birthday to me.
“Stacy said it was just across from the yogurt place,” I told my mom.
I tried to cheer myself up. At least Dad sent cash, instead of having his new wife, Twila pick out something for me. At Christmas, she sent me some earrings from the dollar store and the most hideous sweater in the history of mankind. Seriously. The cat wouldn’t even sleep on it, and I left it in her basket for two weeks before I used it to wash the car. But Dad thinks she’s an expert because she’s only three years older than me.
At least summer break was coming up and I could work more hours at Grocer-Ama. If this place, Allbrands Refurbished Phones, didn’t have what I wanted, at least I had a $150 head start. Might have that mTalk by July. Bye-bye prepaid cheapo. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a sleek new phone in my hand. Purple skin like Kaia’s or rhinestones like London’s?
The smell of freshly made waffle cones made my stomach growl.
“Want to get a yogurt first?” Mom asked.
“Okay.”
I ordered cheesecake and strawberry swirl. With sprinkles, of course.
“What are you getting?” I asked Mom.
“Oh, I’m just not really in the mood for something sweet right now.”
I knew she was lying. She’s always in the mood for something sweet. She was only working four days a week now, and money was tight.
I picked up an extra spoon from the basket on the counter. I put it in her hand on when we found a place to sit and I pushed the cup of yogurt to the middle of the table.
“Thanks, ba-Lauren.”
I prepared myself for disappointment as we walked across the corridor to the used phone store.
The man behind the counter looked kind of old, but he had blue-black hair and very dark eyes. Dying your hair after a certain age is just wrong.
“Is there something I can help you find?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Mom cleared her throat.
“Yes, sir. Do you have any mTalks?”
“But of course.” He pointed to a display at the end of the counter.
There it was. The newest model – the mTalk MultiFinity. Stacy was always going on about how great her mTalk was. It has the best apps, and blah, blah, blah. And she didn’t even have a MultiFinity. This one was only $75.
“What’s wrong with it?” It seemed way too good to be true.
“Ah. The MultiFinity. Scratch and dent.” He slid open the glass door and picked up the phone. When he flipped it over to show me the back, I could see what he meant. Two deep scratches ran from top to bottom and a little dimple slumped between them.
“The damage is only cosmetic,” the man said as he slipped in a battery. The phone vibrated and lit up.
“This is how you connect to the internet.” He pushed a button with a cube on it. Then he put it in my hands and went to talk to my mom.
I heard them talking about contracts and service plans, but I didn’t pay much attention. A news page flashed onto the screen. I navigated to my favorite band’s site. Steve, Justin and Zack, The Mercury Fish, appeared. Then I went to Stacy’s blog and left a comment.
No way I was leaving this thing in the store. With a skin, nobody would ever see the scratches. I started picking through the mTalk covers on the pegboard.
“I guess that means you want the phone, Lauren?” Mom asked, right behind me.
“Yes!” I hoped I hadn’t sounded too much like a kid.
“Thought so. They have a basic plan I think you can afford.”
“Kewl.” I went back to the skins. By the time Mom had finished all the paperwork, I found a blue metallic leopard print one that I liked.
My mother handed me a brochure when we got in the car. “This is what your plan covers. I do expect you to pay for this. No pay, no phone, understand?”
“Sure, Mom.” I was too busy putting the skin on and personalizing the phone to read the brochure. It would still be there later.
I went over to Stacy’s almost as soon as we got home.
“Hey, Stace! Look what I’ve got.”
“An mTalk? ‘Bout time.” She touched the screen. “How’d you score a MultiFinity?”
“Birthday fundage.”
Stacy cocked her head and looked at me. “From your dad? Did he sneak out while Twila wasn’t looking?”
“Don’t know. He sent a check. I cashed it.”
Just then, we heard the front door open and close. I looked up as Stacy’s brother came in.
“Hey, Jeff.” I said, trying to sound very casual.
Stacy rolled her eyes. I’d been crushing on him for years now. He was in college and so much more mature than high school boys.
“Lauren’s snagged a MultiFinity. Check it out.” Stacy said. “She’s one of us now.”
“Cool. Let’s see.”
I had trouble breathing when he sat down next to me on the couch. When he brushed my hand to pick up the phone, my skin tingled and shivered. I could feel the heat of his body next to me, and I could just about pretend it was me he was interested in instead of my phone. Too soon, he got up, reminding me that I was nothing more than his little sister’s friend. Sometimes, reality sucks. I held in the sigh.
When he had gone, Stacy elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re so pathetic. Just an FYI, he has a girlfriend now.”
“Why should I care if he has a girlfriend?”
I almost dropped my phone when it rang a few seconds later. It was Mom, telling me to come home for dinner.
* * * *
Bzzzzt. Bzzzzt. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock. What was that noise and why was it happening at 12:01 AM? On the nightstand, my phone was glowing. I closed one eye to cut down the glare and looked at the screen. 1 New Message. Why is someone texting me at midnight?
I looked at the message. The sender was an unfamiliar jumble of numbers. Welcome to dNet. Thanks for activating with us. A whole new world awaits you!
They woke me up to tell me that? I turned the phone off and went back to sleep.
The next four days were the last short week of school. Awards ceremonies, report cards, turn in textbooks, yearbook autographs and all the usual stuff.
I had Friday completely off, no Grocer-Ama until Saturday. Stacy and I spent the day bumming around at the mall, then hanging out by her pool. Jeff didn’t show while I was there. Bummer. I had the hottest bikini ever. Mom would have died if she saw it.
“Hey, Lauren? Let me hook you up with some killer apps.”
“Sure.”
I handed Stacy my phone while I went in the bathroom to change clothes.
“You ready for Driver’s Ed on Monday?” Stacy asked when I came out.
Mom had let me drive her car a little bit in the empty parking lot of the bank on Saturday afternoons. It had a clutch and I had to remember which pedals to step on and how to shift gears. It was hard and I was looking forward to having an automatic to learn on.
“Yeah, I guess. Wonder who’ll be in our group?”
“Don’t know. As long as it’s not Perry. I can’t stand to be in the same room with him. He smells.”
“I don’t think it’s all his fault. I think his mom feeds him lots of garlic to keep girls away.”
Stacy laughed. “Girls? Maybe. Anyway, it works.”
I was tired when I got home, and I went to bed early. I fell asleep playing with my MultiFinity, trying to figure out some of the new stuff Stacy loaded for me.
Bzzzzt. Bzzzzt.
I sat up so hard I almost fell out of bed. I had been dreaming that something with claws was holding me down, trying to push all the air out of my lungs. I was glad the phone woke me up. I looked at the clock. It was 12:01 AM.
What useless message does dNet have for me tonight?
It wasn’t dNet. It said ‘Jeff.’ No last name. Odd. The message read, ‘Cum outside & meat me undr tree.’
Meat me?
I looked out the window. I could just make out a figure darker than the shadows under the live oak tree. That totally creeped me out. That couldn’t be any Jeff I knew. I texted back, “No thx”
I left the phone on my nightstand, went in Mom’s room and got in bed with her.
“What’s wrong, baby?” she muttered, half asleep.
“I thought I saw someone outside.”
“What?!” She was suddenly awake.
Putting on her bathrobe, she called the police and picked up the golf club she kept in her closet. Dad always wondered what had happened to his 9 iron. Cordless phone in one hand, club in the other, she walked around the house, turning on all the lights, indoors and out.
The police cruiser showed up about ten minutes after Mom called. He asked me about what I saw. I was afraid to mention the text. Mom would take my phone away for sure if she knew. The officer looked around, but didn’t find anything.
“Could be a transient,” he hold my mother. “There’s been more of ’em lately, you know.”
“I see,” Mom answered.
“I’ll make sure I come back by a few times during the night. You probably scared him off. I don’t expect he’ll be back.”
“You don’t expect? That isn’t really good enough. I have a teenage daughter to look out for,” my mother snapped at him.
“Easy, ma’am. If he was just under the tree and not trying to get in the house, he was probably just passing through. I would recommend you leave your outside lights on, though.”
We sat up watching old reruns, the ones you find on network TV after midnight. We didn’t have cable anymore. My mom cannot just sit and watch television. She has to DO something. Usually, she knits. By the time I fell asleep around three, she had most of a scarf done.