Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [10]
Hum-V is what I predict will be the last teenybopper trifle to come off the Orlando assembly line, a group put together in a desperately calculated attempt to cash in on TRL’s *NSYNC–Eminem polarization, squeezing every last bit of air out of the barely breathing boy-band genre. Hum-V’s faux-funky jams and toothachey ballads sound as synth-cheesy as their nonthreatening, harmonizing predecessors’, but their lyrics are painstakingly incendiary. Hum-V is the first boy band to earn a Parental Advisory Warning label.
Kayjay was the most vocally challenged member, whose only reason for being in the group was because he had red hair and freckles. The evil geniuses behind Hum-V decided they needed Cute Redhead Freckled Juvie Boy to balance out the delicate yet deviant mix (the other fourfifths of which are Cute Baby-Faced Blond Sex Addict Boy, Cute Olive-Skinned Maybe-Italian, Maybe-Latino Junkie Boy, Cute Black Gangbanger Boy, and Cute Chinese-French-Canadian-Cuban-Swedish Multicultural Gay-Bashing Boy).
Last spring, as the five Hum-V hunks poured over hundreds of eight-by-ten glossies to hand-pick the girls who would portray “bitches” in the video for their straight-to-the-middle single, “Bitch (Y U B Trippin?),” Kayjay instantly recognized the aspiring model Bridge Milhouse as none other than Pineville High’s Bridget Milhokovich, the blond babe who was ranked number one on the Fuckable Freshmen List when he was a senior. Kayjay never got a crack at her before he was bounced out of PHS because Bridget was still with Burke, as he had yet to cheat on her with Manda. So to make his high-school fantasy a reality, Kayjay picked Bridget to portray the bitch who b trippin’ on him. Their portion of the video “plot” involved screaming at each other, then kiss-and-making-up in a torrential downpour, all shot in the slo-mo style that signifies heavy emotional stuff in the music video world.
Neither the wrath of his then-girlfriend, Shy’la, from the girl group Jillbait nor the fire-hose rain could put out the fire of Kayjay’s desire. (Hmm . . . that sounds familiar. Oh, no. I think that’s a line from the Hum-V Song. Christ.) Kayjay was smitten with Bridge Milhouse and was obsessed with winning her over. Bridget is a sucker for glamour and couldn’t resist his offer to be his arm candy for important PR ops like movie premieres, awards shows, and parties thrown by people he’d never met. Incredibly, it only took one such outing for Bridget to discover that fame had only expanded the dimensions of Kayjay’s sphincter.
“He was, like, the biggest asshole I’d ever gone out with,” she reported to a rapt audience at PHS the Monday morning after the big date.
Considering that “Bitch (Y U B Trippin?)” peaked at number 8 on TRL and barely cracked the Billboard chart, Hum-V’s appearance on the covers of teenybopper bibles continues to baffle me. Apparently, Hum-V’s small but intense fan base—the “Hummers,” as they call themselves—guarantees that Kayjay enjoys a cushy existence that has little to do with Hum-V’s overall popularity. They are also responsible for the relentless haterade spewed on message boards toward “the blond ho from the video” who “broke poor Kayjay’s heart” months after their one and only and very insignificant date. Bridget has vowed to never, ever date a celebrity (or quasi-celebrity) again.
“Unless it’s, like, James Dean back from the dead,” she says.
“Well, that’s sensible,” I say.
Though the relationship tanked, this little credit on her résumé has already made Bridget the envy of all the other girls in SPECIAL’s acting program. Still, I realized that her notoriety had spread beyond the world of wanna-be actress-models when my roommate recognized Bridget right away. My roommate just happens to be Hum-V’s biggest fan, or so she shrieks.
You might have noticed my roommate’s conspicuous absence from my journal thus far. Every time I picked up this journal to start writing, she’d hover over my shoulder