There was a cute puppy being walked by a little girl with pigtails. Would that work? She snuck a glance at Brendan, but he was busy rubbing a thumb over his filed fangs. Olivia wrinkled her nose. Yeah, Brendan didn’t care about puppies – cute or not.
Olivia sighed. Parked alongside the curb was a flashy red Mustang with white racing stripes painted down the hood. Cars . . . Boys liked cars. Ugh, but I don’t know an engine from an exhaust pipe, thought Olivia. Besides, she wasn’t sure Brendan liked cars anyway. He was more a music guru than a car buff. It was just too bad they didn’t like any of the same bands!
A waitress in a grease-spattered white apron stopped by the table with an open notebook, pulling a pencil out from behind her ear. ‘Can I get you anything else?’ she asked. Then a grin stretched across her lips and she began pointing at Brendan and Olivia with the rubber on the end of her pencil. ‘Hey, are you two on a date? I could get you one milkshake with two straws!’
‘No!’ Olivia and Brendan burst out in unison. Olivia could feel her cheeks burning. This was so embarrassing, being mistaken for her sister’s boyfriend’s hot date. I’d never do that to Ivy!
‘No, no, not at all,’ Brendan said, shaking his head emphatically. ‘You’re totally wrong there.’ He gave Olivia a desperate glance, as though to say: How did we get ourselves into this? She gave him a smile back. This had seemed like such a good idea, and now it was all going wrong.
The waitress flipped her notepad shut. ‘Woah! Just asking,’ she said and scurried away with a backward glance at their table.
Brendan sank back in his booth. ‘What chemistry could the waitress possibly think she’d seen?’ he asked, frowning in confusion.
‘I don’t know,’ Olivia said, crossing her arms across her body. ‘She must be having a bad day or something. I think we probably need to find a way of getting out of here.’
‘Past her?’ Brendan asked, chuckling and nodding to the waitress. She was telling off another customer for something. ‘Our glasses are still full – she’ll never let us leave.’ He jerked a thumb at the glasses of juice. He was right.
Olivia began to tap her fingers on her glass, but froze mid-tap. She had an idea. Looking out the window, she swished her hand across the table, knocking the glass off. ‘Oops!’ she said, trying to sound surprised and staring at Brendan hard. ‘I’m such a klutz . . .’
But Brendan had used his vampire reflexes and caught the fruit juice before it had even fallen from the table. Olivia’s heart sank. He didn’t get it at all! Ivy would have understood the escape plan straight away.
Brendan offered a wry smile, setting the glass back on the table. Then he pointed out of the window. ‘I can see Camilla outside.’ Olivia turned. How did I miss that?
Olivia’s best friend, Camilla, was squatting down in the bushes with a video camera and a French beret, filming one of her crazy scenes. Her lens was pointed at a boy in a snazzy pinstripe suit wearing full zombie make-up and lumbering down the pavement with his arms stretched out in front of him.
‘Yeah! I guess I’d better go say hi. Do you want to come? That waitress can’t make me finish my drink!’ Olivia slid out of the booth and waited.
‘No, you go ahead.’ He smiled at her as if to say: It’s probably best if we leave it here. She knew he wasn’t being mean; it was just that there was a big Ivy-shaped space between them.
‘See you later then,’ Olivia said, and walked quickly past the waitress who was scowling at a receipt.
At the door of the Meat and Greet, Olivia looked back to see Brendan breathing a big sigh of relief and resting his head back on the cushioned booth behind him. Any other day she would have been offended, but today, she knew how he felt.
Outside, Olivia hurried down the street, but she couldn’t see Camilla. Where did she go? There was another girl from Franklin Grove Middle, though – Aurora. She was leaning against a wall doing absolutely nothing, wearing a fabulous sequinned gown more fit for a dance or the Oscars than a normal weekday afternoon. Now that’s what I call style, thought Olivia, marching over to her.
‘Hey, Aurora! I totally love your outfit. Did you see where Camilla –?’
‘Cut!’
Olivia jumped as Camilla popped out from behind a postbox across the street, holding her camera.
‘Olivia! You ruined the take!’ Camilla crossed the street wearing black skinny jeans, ballet flats and a scarf tied around her neck. Ever since she had written and directed the school play, Romezog and Julietron, she had become quite the passionate film-maker. She’d even been on a trip to film in Paris.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Olivia clasped her hand over her mouth. ‘I didn’t see you there. I mean, I saw you before, and I wanted to know where you were, and . . .’ She was gesturing this way and that trying to explain herself. ‘I wandered into your scene, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.’ Olivia had prided herself on her film-making expertise ever since starring in a movie with Jackson. How could she have been such a fool?
‘It’s OK.’ Camilla smiled, picking up her black-and-white clipboard. She erased ‘Take Two’ and wrote in ‘Take Three’. ‘I’m experimenting with a new documentary, hidden-camera style, blending it with the classical forties film-noir look.’ Olivia had no idea what that meant, but she nodded anyway.
‘That’s why I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go,’ grumbled Aurora, picking up the train of her gown.