Faking Reality Read online

  I am three doughnuts in when I hear a high-pitched whistle. I look up from the cat videos on my phone.

  “Oi! Dakota-chan!” Ojiichan yells out the open passenger window of the Matsudas’ minivan.

  There has been no parking available in front of the theater for the last thirty minutes. But because the universe particularly hates me today, a parking spot directly in front of me suddenly opens up. Of course it does. Ojiichan slides the van into it and waves me over to him.

  “The movie is finished? Am I late?” Ojiichan says.

  “No. I wasn’t feeling well, so I came outside. The movie is still playing for another ten minutes or so.”

  Ojiichan unlocks the van door. “Come inside. It is cold.”

  When I start to make excuses, Ojiichan leans over and opens the door for me. I reluctantly climb in.

  “Ahhhh,” I say when my frozen butt cheeks hit the heated seat.

  “I know. It makes my back happy.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes before Ojiichan says, “You don’t come to the restaurant after school anymore. Why?”

  “I’ve been busy.” To make that not be a complete lie, I add, “I’ve been filming some short web videos recently. Basic home improvement skills for teens. Easy things that I forget not everybody knows how to do. Like how to paint your room.” I pick at some of the turquoise paint stuck in my cuticles from repainting my bedroom this past weekend.

  “I remember when you taught Aurora how to paint her room.” Ojiichan chuckles.

  “Yeah, I added a part in my video about securing the area from pets during the job.” I laugh too. “Maru still heads in the opposite direction every time she sees me.”

  Sort of like me with Leo.

  Ojiichan takes off his cap and runs his hand through his thinning, gray hair. “Dakota-chan, did you and Leo-kun have a fight?”

  “No.” He bodychecked me into the Friend Zone. I have to know, “Why? Does Leo seem sad?”

  “No. He seems happy,” Ojiichan says, and my heart drops. “But he seems different.”

  “Yeah. I agree.”

  “You seem different too, but not so happy.”

  “I think we are becoming too different to be best friends anymore.”

  “Oh no. That makes me sad.” Ojiichan puts a hand on top of mine and pats it.

  Ojiichan is not the touchy-feely type. That’s more of an American thing. So his hand-patting releases the sob that has been stuck in my chest for the last three weeks.

  “Dōshita?” What happened? Ojiichan asks in alarm.

  “I miss Old Leo. I want my best friend back.” I wipe my watery eyes with my sleeve and sniff. “Hazukashii. Gomennasai.”

  “Hai, hai.” Ojiichan waves away my apology for being so embarrassing.

  A sudden knock on my window makes Ojiichan and I both jump. Nevaeh waves from the other side. I lower the window.

  “You okay, Dakota? Konban wa, Matsuda-san.” Nevaeh does a head dip at Ojiichan.

  Ojiichan dips his head back.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I wasn’t feeling well all of a sudden. I needed some fresh air.” I point at the box on my lap. “And doughnuts.”

  “And maybe some personal space from the show going on beside us?” Nevaeh cuts their kohl-rimmed eyes to the side.

  “That too.”

  “Where is my grandson?” Ojiichan looks around as the last of our classmates tell Iwate-sensei goodbye and head to the parking lot behind the movie theater.

  Leo suddenly strolls around the corner, his hands tucked in his front pockets and a dreamy look on his face.

  “Any chance you could catch a ride home with the Matsudas tonight, Dakota?” Nevaeh says. “I promised to drive Jax home, but he has to be back before ten.”

  “I don’t mind being late.” I catch Leo’s eye through the windshield. It bursts whatever Lindsay-inspired bubble he was in.

  “Hai, hai. I will do it.” Ojiichan decides for me. He taps the horn and yells out my window, “Oi, Leo-kun!”

  Leo’s love-induced stroll turns into a sprint before Ojiichan embarrasses him even more. Leo climbs into the middle row of the van out of breath as Nevaeh says their good-nights.

  As we pull away, Leo says, “Hey, Dakota. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been busy working on some new projects.” I tap my middle finger on top of the box of doughnuts to discharge the awkward energy pulsing through my body.

  “Oh, good. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me or something,” Leo jokes, but there is an edge to his voice.

  “I wasn’t avoiding you.” I continue to tap.

  “I know I said I needed some personal space, but you didn’t need to ghost me.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been busy.” My frantic tapping causes the corner of the doughnut box to cave in.

  Ojiichan glances over at me with concern. He says something to Leo in Japanese, but all I understand is “she.”

  “Why don’t you come over sometime,” Leo says with semi-sincerity. “We’ll hang and catch up on Kitsune Mask.”

  “I know you’re … busy.”

  “I’m not that busy.” Leo’s look via the rearview mirror pierces me. “Seriously, come to the restaurant with me on Thursday after school. We’ll talk. Catch up.”

  “Please come, Dakota-chan,” Ojiichan says. “I will even make your favorite, karaage.”

  “Karaage isn’t her favorite, Ojiichan,” Leo says. “Miso-katsu is.”

  “That’s right. You know Dakota-chan the best.”

  My frozen heart begins to thaw a little. “Okay. Maybe for a little while.”

  I open up my slightly crushed box of doughnuts and hold them out to Leo.

  “No cinnamon rolls tonight?” Leo takes a maple bar. “I thought they were your favorite.”

  “They are.” Both the literal pastry version and the too-pure-for-this-world anime hero version of the word. “But I’m trying to branch out more.”

  We ride in silence, which is a foreign concept for Leo and me. Ojiichan routinely chastises us with a gruff “Urusai!” because Leo and I usually talk too much, too fast, and too loud. As we enter my neighborhood, I want to bring back some of our old life.

  “If I threw a ridiculous party for my sixteenth birthday in April, would you come?” I hold my breath as I wait for Leo’s answer, which is no longer a given anymore.

  “Ridiculous like everybody has to come wearing a Venetian mask ridiculous, or you’re going to ride into the party on an elephant kind of ridiculous?”

  “If Phil has his way, both of those suggestions would be considered tame.”

  Leo’s laugh thaws my heart.

  “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” Leo says. “But only if you promise I get to ride the elephant too at some point.”

  “Duh, of course.”

  “I’m holding you to that.”

  Leo keeps looking at my box of doughnuts, so I offer him another one. “So, did you see that Ava Takahashi is going to be on a panel at San Diego Comic Con this year?”

  “She is? I wanna go.” Leo begins to thaw too as I fill him in on all the latest industry gossip.

  I know things are going to be awkward for a while, but maybe we’ve turned the page to a new chapter of our friendship.

  Chapter

  10

  Thanks to Phil’s boss, executive producer Tamara Weatherbee, I get to film whatever I want now for my weekly DIY with Dakota digital exclusives on HGTV’s website. Because according to her, my style is “authentic and engaging, and will bring in a younger demographic.”

  Take that, Phil! Since I’m not allowed to monetize my videos like Jax does with his gaming videos on YouTube, Stephanie talked HGTV into giving me a different kind of payout. Viewers can see their clicks and views adding to the fundraiser thermometer at the top of my channel’s landing page. Once I hit the goal, HGTV Gives Back donates $10,000 to a charity of my choice.

  “Do you need me for anything else?” I ask Phil after
Dad and I finish filming the segment with the large stained-glass window in the staircase area, between the first and second floor of the build. Not only did I help install it, but I also helped local stained-glass artist Mr. Tang create it to Mom’s historically accurate specifications.

  “No, you’re good. Enjoy your Thanksgiving break.” Phil gives instructions to our field producer about our next shoot. “You need to talk to Stephanie about the party before she leaves.”

  “I will.” I pick up the shoebox filled with the other stained-glass designs I made in one hand, and my video camera in the other. I think my fans are going to enjoy the webisode I filmed with Mr. Tang about how to make a mini stained-glass creation for your bedroom window. I can’t post it until March when the corresponding episode airs, but I plan to give away my Spoiler Alert pieces as Christmas presents to Iwate-sensei and a few of my friends.

  Well, except for Leo. His nine-tailed fox design will be a New Year’s present because the Matsudas are culturally Buddhist and don’t celebrate Christmas.

  “I’m not so sure about this, Stephanie. She might not be ready for it yet.” Mom’s voice comes out the cracked door of her home office as I head up the stairs to edit my new footage.

  “Give her a chance, Tamlyn,” Stephanie says. “Now that the whole Leo thing seems to be behind her, maybe Dakota is ready to try something new. No strings attached.”

  “There are always strings attached.”

  “It’s a boy in a tux. A boy who can stay squarely in the Friend Zone before, during, and long after the event.”

  “I wish things would have worked out with Leo.”

  I stop halfway up the stairs.

  “I know.” Stephanie sighs. “They are so cute together, but I guess it’s not meant to be.”

  I still haven’t given up hope that one day Leo will change his mind, but we’ve only watched Kitsune Mask together once at the restaurant since the JCC movie night. With Thanksgiving next week and finals around the corner, I doubt that’s going to change. I keep declining Leo’s invitation to sit with him and Lindsay at lunch. Maybe it’s time to rip off the Band-Aid and move on with my life.

  I come back down the few stairs and knock on Mom’s door. “I’m done filming for the day. It’s my turn to make dinner. Would you like fish sticks and tater tots, or the Dakota McDonald Special: Tomato soup out of a can with a grilled cheese sandwich?”

  “Soup and sandwich.” Mom slides off her bifocals, which Phil hates her wearing on camera. So she does anyway and every time she can, because Phil doesn’t complain when Dad wears his bifocals on camera. “Koty, can you come in here, please?”

  “Stephanie, Phil said you needed to talk to me, before you leave for Thanksgiving vacation.”

  “I do.” Stephanie moves the wallpaper sample book off a chair for me. “A Class Act Tuxedo Company wants to be one of the sponsors for your sixteenth birthday extravaganza, but they want prominent product placement.”

  Mom rolls her desk chair over to join us at Stephanie’s circular worktable. Stephanie puts a large envelope in front of me. I pour out the contents of the already-opened envelope. Along with a letter addressed to my parents, a thin catalog falls out that says PROM SPECIALS.

  “But prom is the week before my party.” Not that I’m going, but the last time I spent time with Aurora almost a month ago, she was already talking about it.

  “At your high school, because Arizona schools go back to school so early in August. Most East Coast and Midwest schools don’t go back to school until after Labor Day, so their proms are usually in mid-May or later.”

  I tip my head from side to side. “I’m open-minded. I’m happy to wear a tux to my party. Maybe Nevaeh and I could have matching black tuxes with sparkly pink cummerbunds and bow ties?”

  “No, sweetie—though that is an intriguing idea—no, they want to put your dad in a tux instead of a nice suit.” Mom looks at Stephanie for support. “And they want you to have a date to the party who could wear one of the tuxes from their prom line. Someone who would allow the cameras to film him trying on a couple different designs from their latest prom collection.”

  “I’m sure Nevaeh would love it.”

  “No, honey. They want you to have a real date for the party.”

  Fire runs through my veins. “Then tell them Nevaeh is my ‘real date.’”

  Mom looks at Stephanie, who is suddenly interested in the pile of papers in front of her. Mom puts her hands over mine.

  “I think that Nevaeh would be an awesome date. But Phil wants to bring someone else in.”

  “What kind of archaic, heteronormative garbage is this?”

  “Hold on, Dakota. Phil wants to bring in a boy who is already in the business. Somebody who isn’t afraid to be on camera. Somebody who knows how to handle the notoriety that comes with this life and is okay with possibly being in the tabloids.”

  “I’m not going to have a repeat of last year’s Homecoming.” I sit back in my chair and cross my arms.

  “Dakota, listen,” Stephanie says as I continue to burn. “They just want to give you some arm candy for the event. You don’t need to have any kind of relationship with this boy before or after the event. He would be a special guest. A special special guest that you would have a dance or two with. Really, no different than working with Mr. Tang last week.”

  “Yes, it is. I wasn’t required to hold hands with Mr. Tang.”

  “For the record, I wouldn’t mind holding hands with Mr. Tang. Alas, he is married, so…” Stephanie makes an explosion sound. “My current love-life situation summed up.”

  “What do you think, Dakota?” Mom presses. “I always want you to push yourself outside your comfort zone, but only you know where the line is between uncomfortable and damaging. Whatever you decide, I will support one hundred percent.”

  “It might help you get over Leo,” Stephanie says, and I cringe. I hate that I am such an open book to her. “Hey, it’s okay. Your secret is safe with me, Dakota. I am unfortunately quite familiar with life in the Friend Zone. But you have to move on eventually, instead of pining away for years about it. Trust me on this.”

  “Okay, but I want to pick the guy. And I want to do a test date before the actual event. I want to at least have something in common with him before going into the event.”

  “That’s my girl,” Mom says. “Now back to reality. I’ll make dinner tonight so you can put in more time on your homework. I’ve seen your grades slipping since you started doing the digital series on top of our usual shooting schedule.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.”

  “No, it’s not. Getting a good education is important too, Dakota.” Mom might have a Ph.D., but Dad never went to college.

  I will probably fall somewhere in between. “I know.”

  I smirk, remembering Drivers Ed today when Coach Klein busted on Jax for aspiring to be a famous YouTuber one day.

  “How you gonna make a living doing that, son?” Coach Klein said, looking down his nose at Jax.

  “Same way as Dakota, I guess,” Jax said with a completely straight face while pointing at me. “How much money did you make from your DIY with Dakota videos last week, Dakota?”

  “Depends. Do you mean from the advertising revenue, merchandise sales, or fan donations?” I said seriously, even though I’m limited to just my clicks-for-charity right now. Even after our show ends, my contract with The Network won’t allow me to do anything for another year to eighteen months. But after that … hmmm.

  Jax got detention for his “Oh, snap!” comment, and I picked up twelve new subscribers. Not a bad day of work, really.

  “You work on homework, and I will work on finding you the perfect date, okay?” Stephanie says.

  I nod. Time to pull that Band-Aid off.

  Chapter

  11

  By the Monday after Thanksgiving break, the Band-Aid is officially off. Not only do I accept Leo’s invitation to sit with him and Lindsay at lunch, but I even agree to come t
o the restaurant to watch Kitsune Mask on Wednesday. Granted, it’s because Lindsay’s violin lessons have suddenly moved to Wednesday afternoons, but I’ll take it. I want to find a new normal with my best friend.

  “Are you working this afternoon?” I ask Aurora when we run into each other after the final bell on Wednesday.

  “Wellllll…” Aurora says.

  “Yes, you are,” Leo comes up behind us. “Mom and Dad know that marching band is over. Has been over.”

  “I can’t wait for winter drumline to start,” Aurora grumbles. “Why, Koty? What’s up?”

  “I need help picking a date.”

  “You’re kidding?” Aurora’s double-take mirrors Leo’s.

  “Nope. I’m trying to find the perfect date for my Sweet Sixteen extravaganza.” I do the jazz hands too because “party” no longer accurately describes the ridiculousness that this event has snowballed into. “I was planning to get Nevaeh’s opinion during lunch today, but they have a stomach bug.”

  “You don’t want my opinion?” Leo says, though I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

  Aurora lets out a derisive snort and hooks her elbow through mine. “No, this job requires an expert. Now, tell me more.”

  I look over my shoulder as Aurora leads me away. Leo continues to stand in the middle of the hallway, his head cocked to one side as he filters my news.

  * * *

  “I thought we were going to watch Kitsune Mask today,” Leo says after we all greet Ojiichan.

  “We will. I just need to do this with Aurora first because Stephanie wants my list before five.” I slide into my favorite booth and dig the file folder from Stephanie out of my backpack.

  Aurora delivers two glasses of melon soda and a plate of cookie-sized black sesame sembei to my table before sliding in next to me. As I crunch away on the rice crackers, Aurora pulls the file to her side of the table. Inside, forty young actors from across the US compete to be my date to the most ridiculous party of the decade.

  “This is so wrong.” My stomach clenches in shame.

  “No, it’s not. It’s awesome.” Aurora pulls the top picture off the pile. “This one is going in the Awww Yeah pile.”