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  “Give it back,” he warned, stepping closer.

  I stepped back and continued to read, but he caught me, tickling my belly until I released the notebook from my grasp.

  “Is this for class?” I asked, following him back.

  “No—I just jot down my thoughts, like you jot down jokes.”

  “You can write! You should submit it to the Mason Mag.”

  “It’s crap,” he said. He ripped the page from the notebook, crumbled it up, and threw it over the school fence.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “You could be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

  “I’ll be more like the next W. Robert Baldwin, my father. Apparently Baldwins are more practical than you theatrical dream–chasing Shapiros,” he teased, poking me in the side. “I’m going to be an architect, just like my dad.”

  “Really?” I asked, impressed. I was pleased Gavin was sharing his dreams with me. Or were they his dreams?

  “But is that what you want to do?”

  “Does it matter?” he asked. “Let’s quit talking,” he said, and kissed me long, taking my mind off anything but his lips.

  I made greeting cards with silly poems, hung candy on his locker, and brought him cupcakes for lunch.

  One afternoon we were sitting on Mason’s back steps. He was reading a note I’d written to him during first bell—a sprinkle-filled note with heart stickers surrounding a cartoonish drawing of him that read: “World’s Hottest Hipster.”

  “So why do you like me?” I asked. “Is it because of the stickers? Or the sprinkles?”

  He shook his head at me and looked away.

  “Because I leave cute phone messages on your voice mail? Because you want to be an architect and I buy you Frank Lloyd Wright cards? And leave stuffed animals in your locker?”

  He folded the note and put it in his pocket.

  “Really, tell me why,” I begged.

  “Because there’s more to you than a pretty face, Starbaby.”

  “There is?” I leaned against Gavin’s shoulder and whispered my new name—Starbaby Shapiro!

  “Hi, honey, I’m home,” Gavin said, entering the heart-shaped mansion he had designed especially for us. “I missed you all day, sweetie!” He kissed me with love-filled lips. “I’ll pick you up from Chaplin’s when you’re finished tonight. I know you don’t like me to watch you perform.”

  “But you don’t have to show up in the limo with roses—”

  “Tonight I’ll do more. I’ve bought Chaplin’s for you, and I’m calling it Trixie’s!”

  “I can’t wait to see you perform soon,” Gavin said, bringing me back to reality.

  “But you can’t!” I exclaimed.

  “Of course I can. You’ll need a cameraman to videotape you. And you’ll need a bodyguard to protect you from all your new fans.”

  “You mean hecklers! No, you can’t come, really.”

  “I’ve seen you perform already, remember?”

  “But I didn’t know you were there!”

  “I’ll be as quiet as a librarian.”

  Gavin at Chaplin’s? Sitting in the front row? His gorgeous baby-blue eyes watching me as I drew a comic blank? What if I didn’t live up to his expectations? What if I bombed?

  The bell rang.

  “See you later, Starbaby,” he said, kissing me on the cheek and hurrying away to class.

  Starbaby!

  I glowed from the sound of my new nickname—a vast improvement on “Shrimp.”

  DIVA DOCUMENTARY

  “Make love to the camera!” Jazzy instructed, squinting through the video camera on the southbound el. “Next stop the Douglas Douglas Show!” she yelled to bewildered travelers. “Trix, you’ll be a household name. We can share a mansion in L.A. with gardeners and personal trainers and have facials and body massages anytime we want. And our very own houseboy!”

  “What about Ricky?” I asked, looking into the camera.

  “He can live in the guesthouse,” Jazzy said. “I don’t want him getting in the way of the action.”

  I hid my face behind Teen People, embarrassed by the sudden attention.

  “You know, the famous are often very shy. It may take me days to reveal her real personality,” Jazzy said to a shopaholic grandmother sitting across from us.

  “Who is she?” the woman inquired, clutching her Neiman Marcus bag.

  “Trixie Shapiro—Teenage Comedienne!”

  I pulled down my hat in disgust. “I’m not famous,” I mumbled.

  “Can I have your autograph?” the woman asked eagerly.

  I felt guilty as I signed her copy of the Tribune.

  After a trip to the Water Tower shops, Jazzy and I took a cab to Navy Pier and sat on a bench, bundled up in our L.L. Bean coats. “Ricky and I are coming to watch you this Saturday,” Jazzy confessed.

  “I told you not to come,” I replied.

  “But I discovered you!”

  “And look what happened on Talent Night.”

  “Forget about that. You’ll be styling!”

  “I can’t risk it. I’m doing this for more than a grade now, Jazz—they’re paying me.”

  “Okay, I won’t come this week. But you have to let me come next time.”

  “There won’t be a next time.”

  “Don’t be so grim. You’ll be performing on Broadway soon, and I’m going to get tired of watching the video.”

  “Me on Broadway?” I said sarcastically. “If that happens, you can sit onstage.”

  “So what’s it really like to perform?” Jazzy asked a few minutes later. She was filming me in front of the pier’s massive Ferris wheel.

  “You know. You’ve performed.”

  “I was onstage for two minutes. And I spent most of that time trying to get out from under my cardboard Romeo. Besides, this is your documentary, not mine. So shut up and talk!”

  I gazed up at the Ferris wheel.

  “Is it like sex?” Jazzy hinted.

  “How should I know?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot. Is it like getting wasted?”

  I glared at her through the lens.

  “Is it like being thrown into a bush by a gang of testosterone-driven seniors?”

  “Sometimes!”

  “Is it like flipping through Cosmo and stuffing your face with Twizzlers?”

  “No! No! No! It’s the biggest rush!” I declared as Jazzy zoomed in. “It’s like being electrified. For those five minutes I’m not alone. I belong, I have a purpose. I connect—I don’t worry about anything—my future, my past, anything. I feel euphoric.”

  “And if they don’t laugh?”

  “I’ll stay in bed and hide under the covers!”

  “That’s a wrap,” Jazzy shouted, turning off the camera. “I don’t care what you say. It sounds like sex to me.” We giggled as we gathered our belongings and headed for the train.

  LIVE FROM CHAPLIN’S

  Wednesday night I began my gig at Chaplin’s. The show started at 8:30 with a second show on Friday and Saturday.

  “Break a leg, sweetheart,” my dad said, giving me a kiss on the cheek when he pulled into Chaplin’s parking lot. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  “Dad, I’m freaking as it is! You’ll be with me here,” I said, pointing to my heart.

  I plunked myself down at my home away from home—a little table at the back of the club.

  “Last time you were late—now you’re early,” Ben remarked.

  “I was afraid there might be traffic.”

  “You live two blocks away!”

  “There could have been a parade for all I knew,” I said, biting my fingernails.

  “Can I get you a pop?” he offered.

  “I’ll be running to the bathroom every two minutes.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to veg out or Zen out or whatever you do.”

  “Freak out. That’s what I do!”

  I had brought my comedy notebook to review my material. For diversion I�
��d also brought a Walkman with a Celestial Seas tape and a stack of magazines. But they failed to distract me. All too soon the audience would be filling the empty tables and expecting nonstop laughs. And I was supposed to remain calm and read about abstinence in Seventeen? Instead I fervently stared at my comedy notebook and bit my nails.

  “Does performing get any easier?” I asked Ben when he came back to check on me.

  “How should I know? I just—”

  “Maybe I need a straitjacket to calm me down. Or an injection of Valium.”

  “Maybe you need some more nails,” he said.

  “Tell me again what I do tonight,” I said nervously.

  “You have to announce Cam, the feature, and Tucker Jones, the headliner. When they arrive, ask them how they want to be introduced. At the end of the show thank our sponsor, the Amber Hills Hotel, remind the audience to fill out the comment card on the table, and announce that Martin Evans and Eli Rosenthal are appearing next week. Mention that Eli’s been on Showtime.”

  “I’ll be lucky if I remember my own name,” I said, horrified.

  The club was starting to fill up when a guy in a baseball cap walked up to me.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Cam said, surprised.

  “I’m hosting the show. Can you believe it? I won the contest!”

  “Next week I’ll be opening for you,” he said. “Nervous?”

  “You kidding? I do this all the time. Just like plucking my eyebrows.”

  “Remember you have the microphone, not them,” he comforted me.

  “Thanks. I’ll try to remember that. Oh yeah, how do you want to be introduced?”

  “How about ‘Voted People’s Sexiest Man Alive!’”

  I glared at him.

  “Okay, how about ‘Performed on Comedy Central and opened for Steven Wright’?”

  I quickly scribbled the intro on a Chaplin’s napkin when a shaggy-haired grunger guy walked in with two buddies.

  “That’s Tucker.” Cam pointed.

  I took a breath and approached him like a mouse. “I’m opening the show,” I said meekly. “How should I introduce you?”

  “I’ve been on the Douglas Douglas Show.”

  “You have?” I asked in awe.

  Ben tapped me on the shoulder. “Ready, girl?”

  I looked at Cam as I bit my lip.

  “She’s ready!” he announced.

  My stomach sank to the floor. My heart raced as if I had just finished a marathon. I had a lump in my throat the size of the Sears Tower!

  “And here’s…Trixie Shapiro,” Ben announced from offstage.

  I walked in slow motion, like I was in a thick soup, trying to keep my noodle legs and carrot arms from floating away. Finally I reached the stage and stepped behind the microphone, which towered over me.

  I paused, looked up at the microphone and down at myself. The audience snickered at the height difference. I tilted the microphone stand down to my level and looked out.

  “I need a microphone to use the microphone!”

  They laughed. Exhilaration surged through my whole being.

  I was well into my set, bantering with a group of dentists at the table to my right, when I glimpsed the theater door opening. A delivery boy entered with a pizza. It was Eddie.

  I was stunned. Why was he delivering now? Was he going to stay and watch me?

  Eddie didn’t even notice me as he handed the pizza to Ben. Then Ben pointed at the stage. I couldn’t say anything as Eddie sat down. I glared at Ben, who must have seen me struggling. I could see him trying to shoo Eddie away, but Eddie didn’t move.

  He looked straight at me and smiled. All I could think of was Eddie watching me. I couldn’t remember my next joke.

  I wanted to stop the show. “Give me some privacy!” I wanted to scream. I felt like I was in Mason’s bathroom stall and Eddie had accidentally opened the door.

  I glared back at Eddie, hoping he’d get the hint.

  Finally Ben picked up the pizza and grabbed Eddie’s arm, and they slipped into the kitchen.

  “Hey, we’re over here!” a drunken dentist called. “Don’t forget about us!”

  “Believe me, a shot of Novocain wouldn’t save me from your painful heckling!” I improvised. The dentists laughed and my heart beat once again.

  After the show I was glowing from my comedy high and relaxing alone at my table when Eddie pulled up a chair and set down a piping hot, small cheeseless pizza with extra sauce.

  “You’ll have to pick another route,” I demanded. “You can’t deliver here anymore.”

  “Get a grip, baby, you totally rocked!”

  “We’re going over to Hailey’s Pub,” Cam said to me, approaching the table. “You comin’?”

  “No thanks,” I answered. “I have plans.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Cam asked, glancing at Eddie.

  “He’s just the delivery boy.”

  “Don’t insult me like that,” Eddie scolded. “I’m the delivery man!”

  I was still flying. Cam, Eddie, and I were buzzing through Chaplin’s parking lot when Gavin got out of his Volvo. I was elated to see my dream boy picking me up after my dream job.

  “Your dad looks really good in combat boots,” Eddie teased me. “You’re a little late for the show,” he called to Gavin.

  “He’s right on time!” I said, running over and giving him a squeeze. But Gavin’s body was stiff. He didn’t kiss me and reluctantly opened my door.

  I could feel a chill in the car, and it wasn’t from the air-conditioning. “So you let Eddie watch?” Gavin asked accusingly.

  “No, he sat in the kitchen. He said the cook was hilarious!”

  Gavin gave me an icy look and buckled his seat belt.

  “I can prove it. I’ve got the videotape! Seriously, Gavin. You have to understand. I’m just a beginner. But after Sunday this’ll all be over. The only giggling I’ll be doing is from your tickling.”

  “Friday night a bunch of us are going to see the original Rocky.”

  “A bunch?”

  “Sam, me, Jenny, and Kitty.”

  “Jenny and Kitty? That’s not a bunch! That’s a double date!”

  “It would be a double date if you were coming.”

  “You, Sam, and two cheerleaders?”

  “I’m not going to sit home on a Friday night, Trixie.”

  “Of course, I’m not asking you to. I’ll cancel the show. I’ll call in sick.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “I’ll tell them my heart broke,” I said, tears filling my eyes.

  “Chill out, Starbaby,” he said.

  I hugged him hard, ashamed of my oozing vulnerability.

  Gavin and I sat at my usual table at the back of the club, watching a budding female teenage comic rule the room with her jokes about high school. Everyone in the club was laughing, except me.

  She ended her routine to a Godzilla-sized laugh, replaced the mike, and smiled a cutesy smile. The audience rose and applauded wildly. Gavin turned to me and said, “She was hilarious. That girl’s going to be a star!”

  “Too bad we can’t stay to get her autograph,” I said, without passion. “I have to get back to my dorm and finish my thesis on the history of stage fright.”

  I stared out the window as we pulled out of the parking lot. This was the first time my fantasy had turned into a nightmare.

  Chaplin’s bright neon sign blinked several times before it finally turned off for the night.

  I wasn’t ready for my light to be turned off.

  “I’m outa here,” Cam said to me Sunday night after his set.

  “But Tucker’s still performing.”

  “Yeah, but I’ve been paid. There aren’t curtain calls in comedy, little lady.”

  “You can’t leave!”

  “Miss me already?”

  The truth was I did. I had sat with Cam every night during Tucker’s set at my hidden table, and now my comic mate was going to be
on a plane to San Francisco.

  “I’m next door at the lovely Amber Hills Hotel. Room two thirteen,” he offered.

  I was afraid I’d never see him again, and I was desperate to keep my professional comedy connections. I wanted to find out more about the business, what life was like on the road, how to get booked at other clubs, how to improve my act. But what if I found out more than I wanted to know?

  Suddenly I remembered my promise to Sergeant. She had agreed to let Ben drive me home, so I could hang out for my last hurrah. According to my watch, I wouldn’t turn into a pumpkin for one more hour.

  Vic counted out ten twenty-dollar bills in his backstage office. “I just need your autograph on the receipt.”

  I caressed the money.

  “And I need an emcee in two weeks. Can I put you down?”

  In my hand I held more money than I’d received at my Bat Mitzvah! And I was paid for doing the one thing I loved the most—making people laugh.

  But what about the wrath of Sarge? Would this mean the final straw for Gavin?

  Vic tapped his pen restlessly. “Well, I can get someone else.”

  What would a real comedienne do?

  “If you let me be emcee, you can put me down as much as you want. Just don’t call me Shrimp.”

  My smiley-face watch read 11:30 as I knocked on room 213. If I only stayed fifteen minutes I’d be home on time—no grounding, no cops, no fuming Sergeant.

  But why was I here, really? It wasn’t like hanging out with Cam at the club. I was meeting him in a hotel room. Maybe I was overreacting—Cam knew I had a boyfriend. But Sergeant would have a major fit if she found out. Gavin would dump me. Of course, Jazzy would be envious and tell the whole school.

  “I need some ID,” Cam said as he opened the door, drinking beer from a straw.

  “I’m older than I look,” I said as I stepped past him.

  The bedspread was folded and lying neatly in the corner, replaced by a pale yellow blanket. Pens and notebooks were neatly lined up in a row on the desk. Disposable plastic cups surrounded the ice bucket where the hotel glasses should have been. His closet door was left open, revealing perfectly placed clothes on white hangers all facing the same direction.