Katie Friedman Gives Up Texting! (7 page)

“Sounds familiar,” Jane said, smiling.

“Yeah,” I said. “We fight about it a lot. I always told them they were crazy. But then something really bad happened.”

I stopped for a second and looked up at the screen again.

How do you

Look someone in the eye

When you're not sure what you want to see?

How do you

Say the words

There is no more you and me?

“Mr. Ramdal's son, Nareem, has been my boyfriend for almost a year,” I continued, “even though I'd been thinking about breaking up with him for a while. But I was never able to do it. Then I thought about doing it on text. Because you can say a lot of things on text that you're too scared to say in person.”

“That's for dang sure,” Jane said.

“So I had decided to do it, but then he invited me to your concert, and to meet you and everything, and so of course I couldn't do it. But the night after the concert, I was texting with a bunch of people, my friend Becca who's in my band, and my friend Charlie Joe, and Nareem. And Charlie Joe knew I didn't really like Nareem anymore, and we were joking around about it on text. And I sent a text that said something like ‘Well, yeah, I don't like Nareem anymore, but of course I can't break up with him now that he helped me meet Jane,' or something like that.”

I paused to take a deep breath. The only sound in the room was the buzzing of all the equipment.

“Only, I sent it to Nareem instead of Charlie Joe.”

Jane whistled. “Holy—.” Thankfully she remembered she was with a girl and her mother, and she stopped.

Nigel popped his head in.

“Can I get anyone a juice or a coffee?”

“Mango soy juice all around,” Jane said.
Ew
, I thought to myself. Nigel nodded and disappeared.

Jane got up and went to the piano. She casually played a few of the most beautiful chords I'd ever heard. Then she stopped and looked at me.

“Your mom asked why I'm being so nice to you,” Jane said. “It's because you're me. You're me! Don't you get it?”

“Not really,” I said.

“I was just like you!” Jane said. “I wanted to write, but I was too shy, too insecure, too nervous. But I made myself do it! I made myself!” Then she pointed at the guitar in my hands. “I want you to finish the song.”

“Now?”

Jane hooted. “No, not now, silly.”

I stared down at the guitar. “You mean write the music?”

Jane nodded. “I mean, write the song. Make it a complete thing. Finish what you started.”

I tried to imagine coming up with chords and a melody to the words I'd written.

“I don't know if I can.”

“Of course you can,” Jane said.

For some reason, her being so confident in me made me way less confident in myself. “I'm really busy,” I said, lamely.

“Oh, please. Doing what? Sending texts and photos to your friends? That's another reason why that stuff is so dangerous—it's killing creativity! If I had Facebook and Twitter and texting and all that stuff to distract me, I don't know if I ever would have written even one song.”

Nigel knocked and brought in a big tray of snacks and drinks.

“I would love to give up all that stuff,” I heard myself say. “It would make life so much easier.”

Jane directed her blazing eyes right at me. “So why don't you?”

I wasn't sure I understood what she meant. “Why don't I what?”

“Give up your phone,” Jane said. She got up and started pacing around the room. She looked like she was getting more and more excited about the possibility. “Just try it! See how it feels!”

Yikes. Was she serious?

“Um, I don't know,” I mumbled. “That's kind of impossible. I need my phone just to deal with everyday life, with everything going on.”

“You don't! Trust me, you don't.”

I looked up at her. “I don't?”

“I don't text,” Jane said. “I don't IM. I don't do Facebook or Twitter. Now it's true, I do have an online profile, which Kit keeps up for me, but it's just business. But personally, I refuse to be defined by that stuff, because it's no way to live. It makes us mean, and it wastes our time, and it prevents us from being real people.” She pointed at the screen. “It stops us from doing the writing that really matters.”

I tried to process everything Jane was saying.
No texting? No Facebook?

Holy moly.

“You can do this,” she continued, really getting into the idea. “Give up your phone, texting, all that stuff. It would be so awesome. Your friends could to it, too.” Suddenly she clapped her hands together. “How about this? I'll make a deal with you!”

“What kind of deal?”

“You and ten of your friends give up your phones for one week.”

I sighed and laughed at the same time. “That will never happen.”

“Why not?”

“You haven't met my friends.”

Jane picked up a different guitar and started tuning it. “Okay, I'll sweeten the pot,” she said. “If you give up your phone for a week, and get ten friends to give up theirs, too, I will get all of you backstage passes to a show.
And
I'll bring you guys up on stage.”

Then she pointed up at my lyrics.

“And we'll play your song,” Jane said.

My eyes bugged out of my head.
Play my song?!

“In front of everybody?” I asked.

Jane's eyes twinkled. “In front of everybody. If you finish it, that is.”

I felt my jaw drop open. For about the fiftieth time in the last couple of days, I was too shocked to speak.

“But here's the thing,” Jane added. “You can't tell your friends that you came here today. They can't know about our deal, or anything about my playing your song or inviting them on stage. I don't want them eating the Cracker Jacks just because there's a prize in the box.”

I didn't know what that meant, but I was too hyped up to care. Instead I asked, “So how am I going to get them to give up their phones?”

“That's for you to figure out,” Jane said.

I looked over at my mom. She was talking to Nigel and had missed this whole part of the conversation, which was fine by me.

“How are you going to know that we really did it?” I asked Jane. “I could just tell you we did, even if we don't.”

“I trust you,” Jane said.

“Why would you trust me?”

Jane laughed. “I have keen powers of observation. I guess that's what makes me a decent songwriter.”

And that was it. I was all out of questions.

Jane stuck out her hand. “What do you say?” she said. “Do we have a deal?

We had a deal.

After we shook hands on it, Jane turned around and grabbed another guitar and handed it to me. “Now let's make some music.”

For the next half hour, we jammed. That's right,
I jammed with Jane Plantero
. We played three Beatles songs, a Stones song, a Joan Jett song, and a Patti Smith song. No Plain Jane songs, though: “That's the last thing I want to hear right now,” Jane said.

We didn't stop until Nigel stuck his head in and said two words: “Satellite interview.” Jane put down her guitar, hugged me, and said, “One week. No phones. You can do it. Can't wait to hear the song.”

Then she was gone.

As my mom and I drove back out through the gates and headed home, I stared at the huge statue of the guitar-playing pelicans.

Jane was right, I thought—they really are amazing-looking creatures.

 

Part 2

THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT

 

17

A NOT-SO-BUSY MORNING

Here's what happened
before
breakfast on Monday, April 30:

I woke up, showered, brushed my teeth, and got dressed.

*   *   *

Here's what happened
during
breakfast on Monday, April 30:

I ate cereal and talked with my parents.

In the middle of our conversation, my mom suddenly realized something. “Where's your phone?” she asked. “Why aren't you texting your friends?”

“Don't feel like it,” I answered, shrugging.

*   *   *

Here's what happened on the bus ride to school on Monday, April 30:

I read a book.

 

18

CHARLIE JOE JACKSON'S GUIDE TO WHY TEXTING IS AWESOME

Charlie Joe was the first
one to notice. He cornered me at school, just before lunch.

“Why aren't you returning any of my texts?”

“I don't know, just haven't gotten around to it, I guess.”

“Nobody doesn't get around to texting,” he said. I wasn't sure that was proper English, but I knew what he meant.

“Well, I didn't,” I said. “I'm giving up texting for a while, and Instagram, and all that stuff because it was starting to control my life and dominate my thoughts.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” Charlie Joe said.

I smacked him on the arm. “It
is
a bad thing. You just have your nose buried too far into your phone to notice.”

“This thing changed my life,” Charlie Joe said, holding up his cell phone. “Now I can send seven-word texts instead of getting into long, boring conversations with people. Get in, get out, that's what I say.” Right on cue, his phone beeped. He checked it and laughed. “See that? Timmy, texting me that Sheila's hairnet is on backward today.”

I glared at him. Sheila is one of our lunch ladies and one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet.

“See, that's what I mean,” I said. “Who cares about Sheila's hairnet? It's just another opportunity for you to make fun of someone behind their back.”

Charlie Joe looked annoyed. “Hold on a second. Come with me.” He took my hand and dragged me over to the lunch line, where Sheila was slicing pizza. “Hey, Sheila,” Charlie Joe called. “Do you know your hairnet is on backward? It looks kind of goofy.”

Sheila laughed. “Yeah, well, that's pretty funny coming from a kid who never manages to wear matching socks.”

“That's not true,” Charlie Joe protested. “I wore matching socks two Thursdays ago.”

“Well, I'll be sure to alert the newspapers,” Sheila said, still chuckling.

Charlie Joe pretended to be confused. “What's a newspaper? Oh yeah, those weird things with writing on them, for old people like you.”

“HA!” Sheila gave Charlie Joe a little pat on the cheek. “Thanks for giving me a laugh every day, you little rascal.”

As Sheila went back to her pizza, Charlie Joe and I walked back to our table. “See?” he said. “We make fun of each other all the time. That's what people do. You're overreacting. Having a phone is an essential part of the middle school experience.”