A Girl Called Shameless. Laura Steven

drunk toddler. I mean, I could probably stretch to painting the assorted poo variations, but when it comes to the actual animals and their environments I might be a little challenged.”

      Again he shakes his head, and he actually looks a little emotional. He wraps me up in one of his trademark bear hugs, and squeezes me real tight, and all the painstaking hours of dreaming up different voices [and poos] for fictional animals are suddenly worth it.

      “I love it,” he whispers in my ear, and for a second my heart flips, because I think he said something else, but then he adds, “And my mom’ll love it too.” Pulling away slightly, he kisses me tenderly on the cheek and says, “You’re the best. How am I supposed to match that?”

      He takes a deep breath almost exactly like the one I took before presenting him with the book, and hands over his own tinfoil-wrapped efforts. A wave of excitement hits, but also confusion. This gift isn’t just similar in size and shape to mine – it’s identical.

      Frowning in confusion, I peel away the foil to reveal the back of the exact same notebook I bought Carson, except this one is portrait instead of landscape. I flip it over to see the front, and gasp.

      Carson has painted over the original plain cover with his own artwork, and OH. MY. GOD.

      It’s like a collage, except every single component has been hand-painted by him. There’s the Hollywood hills in the background, an old school movie theater, palm trees, a bucket of popcorn, a ticket stub with the title of my movie on it, a film reel, a director’s chair . . . and me.

      I’m right in the center of the painting, clutching a script to my chest. I have huge movie star sunglasses on, but my hair is still the same unruly blonde mess it is right now. The stompy dark red Doc Martens are on my feet, but I’m wearing a sundress in the LA heat. In the drawing I’m smiling from ear to ear, like I am right now, and he’s even matched my slightly wonky front teeth to perfection. But I don’t look as terrifying as I often think I do; I look beautiful. The wild hair and crooked teeth just make me look even more so.

      “I don’t know what to say,” I murmur, completely blown away by the effort he’s gone to.

      “Do you like it?” he asks, looking shy for probably the first time in his life. “It’s for all your screenwriting notes. For when you inevitably fly to LA to meet a ton of hotshot Hollywood producers about your script.” A funny kind of smile. “Hopefully it’ll make it harder for you to forget me, right?”

      “Like I could ever forget you!” I say, with enough force that he knows I mean it despite the jesting tone. I look back down at the notebook, at the broad, colorful brushstrokes and vivid detail. “I love it, Carson. Really.”

      And then a nice little silence ensues in which we just . . . look at each other and smile. Then he leans in for a real kiss, and the clamor of the hallway dims. I’m painfully aware of the fact I smell like hours-old coffee, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. His lips are soft and minty, and his warm body presses against mine, and oh. Oh. I desperately want to not be in a public place right now.

      Yeah. Being back in school definitely has its perks.

       2.36 p.m.

      I forgot about the whole inconvenient learning thing you have do. There I am, quite happily daydreaming in math class about what it’s going to be like when I win my Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, when I am rudely interrupted.

      “Miss O’Neill, are you listening to me?” Mr Wong seems to be saying from very far away, except he’s not far away, he’s right in front of me, wiggling his wooden ruler two feet in front of my face. [Fortunately, in this instance, wooden ruler is not a euphemism.]

      It transpires that I am not, in fact, listening to him. And yet somehow I get the impression that’s not the answer he’s looking for. So I lie. “Yessir, absolutely I am.”

      “Right. So you do know how to calculate the circumference of a trapezoid?”

      I mean, really. If they’re going to pretend we’ll need all of this shit in the real world, they could at least try and make it believable.

       6.01 p.m.

      We’re sitting in Martha’s Diner, which still has all its holiday decor up, but please don’t go picturing a charming Santa’s grotto. Giant frosted wreaths hang in the windows, which are all steamed up with sweat and condensation, and an obnoxious tinsel tree stands in the center of the room. Almost every available surface has been assaulted with a spray can of fake snow in a dogged attempt at festive cheer, yet it just makes it look like the ceiling fans have dandruff.

      Martha’s is famously shameless in how long it drags out the holidays. I’m pretty sure it’ll all still be here come summer solstice. The staff are still wearing Rudolph ears too. Well, all except Betty, who put hers in the waffle iron in protest, burned them to a fuzzy felt crisp, then played the Forgetful Old Person card. God love her.

      Anyway, the diner is still a good place to host a highly feminist business meeting. [Milkshakes and matriarchy, the classic combination.] You just have to look past the slightly unprofessional three-foot-high elf in the doorway, who greets diner patrons with an aggressive and insistent “Happy Holidays!” Only I think its batteries are running low because it sounds more like “herpy her-ler-derrs”. It’s literally a real-life meme at this point. Ajita put him in the meeting minutes under Any Other Business last time, just for the laughs.

      I dunk my forefinger into the whipped cream on top of my strawberry shortcake shake, ignoring the relentless drone of “Jingle Bell Rock” playing from the speakers behind our booth. Since she’s the designated minute-taker for this meeting, Meg pulls a pretty floral notebook out of her satchel, which she has completely covered in New Orleans Saints patches. Seriously, the girl is NFL obsessed. She’s promised to teach Ajita and I the rules of football sometime, and while Sportsball™ is not generally my cup of tea, I’m happy to invest in it a little if Meg wants to be able to share her passion with us. We got her hooked on SNL, so I guess it’s only fair.

      I watch as she notes down who’s present for the meeting: Izzy O’Neill, Ajita Dutta, Meg Martin, Derp Elf. Meg’s handwriting is all swirly and loopy and makes everything look awesome, except it takes her a million years to do. I want to crack a calligraphy joke at her, but I just don’t know if we’re at the ruthless piss-taking stage of our friendship yet. Even though it’s my way of showing affection, I don’t want her to think I hate her or anything. Cos I don’t. She raises the cool level of our group by a factor of seven, with her sportsball knowledge and all.

      “Okay, without further ado, let us begin!” I announce. “Meg, what’s our first order of business?”

      She clears her throat theatrically. “At the end of the last meeting we decided the first topic on our agenda this week would be –”

      There’s an ungodly clatter from the kitchen, as though Thor has dropped his hammer from a great height, and the swinging double doors burst open. The hostess who’s been serving us all night storms out, tossing her apron over her shoulder dramatically. I mean, aprons don’t weigh very much, and it just kind of wafts to the ground like a poorly made paper airplane, so it’s a bit anticlimactic. But still, I appreciate her penchant for histrionics.

      The chef comes yelling after her. “And if you don’t like it, don’t come back!”

      “Wasn’t planning on it,” the hostess hisses, practically in Parseltongue, before slamming out the main entrance and huffing down the street. The derp elf bids her farewell completely unironically.

      With the exception of our friend Derp there’s utter silence across the entire diner. Like, total quiet. You could hear a centipede fart. [Do centipedes fart? I doth not know.]

      The chef, a beady-eyed Bostonian fellow with an igloo of a gut, addresses the rest of us with a healthy dose of both derision and desperation. “Any of you on the market for a part-time hostess gig?”

      Silence creeps over