The Pearl Inside of Anything

6:50 p.m., Odeon multiplex, downtown

6:50 p.m., Odeon multiplex, downtown

Yammy and I are waiting with the Rumberger twins outside the Odeon when a red Cooper mini pulls up and two crumpled boys get out. Dirt and Bran. "Thanks man, see you in a sec!" Dirt calls over his shoulder to the driver, who looks a lot like Ben Taylor. Why am I imagining Ben Taylor in a car? That's crazy. He can't drive, can he?

In one go, the mini whips into a spot further down the street. Somebody knows what he's doing behind the wheel. Ben gets out of the car. Huh. He probably stole it. Like if Moll Flanders' highwayman husband, the one she really loved, were this century, and swiping cars instead of horses. Why am I thinking like this? Half of me is thinking: Ben Taylor, juvenile delinquent car thief, and the other half of me is thinking, Ben Taylor drives?

"Ladies," says Bran, shoving his hands in his pockets and trying to look cool. "Bran," says Linda. "Dirt," says Lizzie. Somehow we all seem to fall in together, even though we are so not together, when Ben walks up, towering over everybody, and joins the line with the guys.

"Borwyn," he says to me.

"Walvis," I smile a little but still turn away from him. Lizzie and Linda exchange a what-the-heck look, and everyone shuffles forward. "What are you guys here to see?" asks Yammy.

"Stripes!" says Dirt and Bran makes a half-nod and punches him in the arm. This fits; they're a walking Bill Murray/Harold Ramis sketch, those two. Ben studies the poster for Chariots of Fire.

Yammy tells them we're here for Taps. Really, we're here to see Timothy Hutton in anything, which, at the present moment, is a movie about guys holing up in their military academy to save their school from condo developers. Pretty freaky plot, when you write it down. At this moment, Chariots of Fire is looking very appealing.

"Cool," says Dirt. "Saw it last week. The Tom Cruise guy loses it and the Sean Penn guy can't stop him and Hutton gets it through the heart at the end and, well, that's pretty much it ..." Sean Penn? Tom Cruise? Never heard of them. Timothy Hutton dies in the end? They let him die? I so do not want to see Taps anymore.

"Thanks for the spoiler, Dirt," says Linda, and sighs.

Somehow we all wind up in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ben, too. So what if I'm not at the Hair Expo finals right now, the movie is great. Yammy is thrilled, it's the Harrison Ford thing, for sure. I remember her wheedling a Han Solo holding Princess Leia trading card from Patrick last year. She cut Carrie Fisher's face out of the Leia picture, replaced it with her own (and stuck it in the frame of the mirror on her vanity table). Her face is about twice the size of Harrison Ford's so she looks like a bit of a bobble-head next to him, but it still works.

***

"Hey, can't you MOVE your big hair!?!"

Oh no. Why Whitney? Why now? Why? And Brenda and Jennifer are with her, snickering right behind me. I look around, there are lots of empty seats, maybe we should move?

"Oh excuse me! It's the famous hair model Wendy Riley! Oh, SORRY, Wendy."

I shrink down in my seat, please let the trailers start now, please, please, please...

"How's the fabulous world of hair modeling, Wendy? Landed a magazine cover yet?"

"Put a sock in it, Avery," growls Yammy.

Lizzie rolls her eyes sympathetically at me, and Linda whispers just loud enough for everyone to hear: "Whitney Avery is such a bag!"

I know Linda is right, but my throat gets tight anyway. I shouldn't have tried to copy Sonia Rykiel's look from the profile in this month's VOGUE. I slept in about 50 tiny braids last night, just to see what would happen. You would think I put my finger in a light socket. I didn't have any velvet ribbon, so I used a leftover piece of rickrack from my sundress, which looks—what can I say— exactly like a leftover piece of rickrack from The-Sundress-I-Made-in-Grade-10.

Whitney's not done. "It's just that I've never known a FAMOUS HAIR MODEL before. It just sounds so glamourous! A star in the making, a ..." Whitney doesn't finish. I push back a puff of my hair far enough to see that Ben is the reason why. He reaches his long arm around and over the seat between us and taps a finger on her shoulder.

"There are lots of seats in here," he says coolly, in his drawling accent. "Perhaps you and your friends would be more comfortable over there?" he turns and points to the corner of the theatre, as far away as you can get, right under the EXIT sign. Ben raises his eyebrows and waits for a reply, his arm dangling over the back of his chair. Whitney just huffs and sits back in her seat. "This is fine, thank you," she says to Ben, in sort of a shut-up-you-loser tone that doesn't quite work on Ben.

I can't see what Brenda and Jennifer are doing, but all of a sudden this trio of furious popcorn munching starts behind me and then the lights dim. Ben slowly swings his arm back over the seat. I could swear his hand brushes my hair as it goes by. I blush and for a second I can't breathe. I could not have made that up. But maybe I made it up? That's it, I made it up. Made it up, made it up.

"Oh, sorry, Wendy," says Ben, looking straight into my eyes in a way that is not sorry at all.

Did not make it up.

***

As we are leaving the theatre, Yammy starts frantically brushing the back of my hair with her hand. "What are you doing? Cut it out!" I hiss at her. "Avery ambushed you," she hisses back. "It's full of popcorn! You look like you took a snowball to the head!"

Maybe we should've gone to Stripes after all.

Friday still, late, sleeping over at Yammy's

"He likes you," says Yammy, yawning.

I may not be tall enough for the runway, but I'm almost too big for Yammy's trundle bed. My feet hang out over the end, which is not so bad tonight since we have just painted our toenails with "Cherries in the Snow" and I can let mine dry and sleep at the same time.

"Who likes me?"

"Ben Taylor. One seat between you at Raiders? Pleeeeease, he so likes you!"

"He probably thought there'd be subtitles, and needed somebody to read them to him." I wiggle my scarlet toes. I'm feeling happy, but then, fresh, shiny toes always do that to me, it has nothing to do with Ben Taylor.

"Sometimes you are such a dope. He LIKES you!"

"He just doesn't want to be left alone trying to fight his way out of a dungeon with Dirt and Bran."

"Oh, and how's that going?" says Yammy.

"Maybe not so good," I say guiltily. "I wasn't much help this week and pretty soon, Dirt and Bran will be on their own. They'll probably have to repeat History 9." I feel sad when I say this. Not that I mind that I won't sit beside Ben in the library anymore. I mean, that's a relief, right?

"Don't worry so much. 'History never repeats'," says Yammy.

"Split Enz?"

"Mmm hmm. Never mind, school's almost out. You know Ben made Honour Roll this term, right? And he's only been at Templeton since March!"

Actually, I do know that.

"Total fluke," I snort.

"Okay," says Yammy, "If you can't take it from me...It's the heart, afraid of breaking, that never, learns to dance..." Yammy warbles a line from The Rose.

"Yuck! That is such a sappy song!"

"Sorry" says Yammy laughing and throws up her arms dramatically because she's not done yet, and she's not one to back down: "It's the DREEEEEAM afraid of WAYAYAKING..."

I close my eyes, roll over, and stuff my head under my pillow to drown out Yammy's very bad Bette Midlering and the Air Supply that's bound to follow. I've cracked though, I know it, because it's not Timothy Hutton I see when I close my eyes. I try to conjure up Timothy from Taps, TV Almanzo, or even Harrison Ford. But Ben Taylor is the only one I see.