“We’re
so psyched
to be in this movie,” I said. “We’ve both waited so long. It’s our dream, you know. We can’t wait to start. Right, Delia?”
Delia nodded. “Can’t wait.”
It’s true. I couldn’t wait for rehearsals to start. My first movie. What could be more exciting?
Now if only I could get those three kids to stop screaming in my ears.
PART TWO
5
STRANGE IMPULSES
A WEEK AFTER DELIA AND I watched the footage of the old film, I went to Ross Harper’s party hoping to find Jake Castellano. Like the song says,
I had lovin’ on my mind
.
Ross lives in an enormous mansion with a swimming pool the size of Lake Tahoe, on Loma Vista in Beverly Hills, which is a short drive from my house. Of course, my dad had to drive Delia and me to the party because of the screwed-up California driving laws.
Delia and I are almost seventeen, which means we can drive anywhere we want to—until curfew time at eleven at night. Which makes no sense. How are we supposed to get home if we can’t drive after eleven? I mean, a lot of my friends don’t go
out
till eleven.
Hey, but no complaints from me. Any pool party at Ross’s house is worth
walking
to, especially if his parents are away.
Delia sat in the backseat of Dad’s BMW. She had her phone in one hand and drummed her fingers on the seat with the other. I could hear the tinny beats of music escaping from the earbuds in her ears.
Did I mention that Delia and I are like
this
(two fingers close together)? I don’t think you could call her my BFF, but she’s definitely my Best Friend For Now.
That’s because her mother keeps talking about leaving L.A., getting away from the lunatics, she says. Mrs. Jacobs and her new boyfriend aren’t in the movie business, and if you don’t work in movies in L.A., where are you?
Delia doesn’t get along with either of them. The new boyfriend grooms dogs at home, and Delia hates dogs because she is allergic to all the fur. So she sleeps at my house whenever she can. Actually, she
lives
at my house and just goes home to change her clothes.
Dad seemed preoccupied as he drove. He kept his eyes on the twisting road and crinkled his face, as if he had unpleasant thoughts running through his mind. I guessed he was thinking about going back to work tomorrow.
I didn’t want to think about movies tonight. I wanted to think about Ross Harper’s party. His parties can be way wild.
When Ross’s parents are away, some kids get pretty messed up, mostly on beer and wine and smoking things. And we all know why couples slink off to the pool house across the terrace. You don’t need to guess. I mean, it’s a
three-bedroom
pool house!
Well, tonight I wanted to find Jake Castellano and get him alone somehow, away from Shawn O’Reilly, his hulking shadow, and just spill my guts. Tell him how I feel about him. The whole sweaty hands, heart-fluttering thing.
Oh, wow. I don’t want to be living some douchy kind of teen romance. But I wouldn’t mind
some
romance. With Jake, that is. We’ve been bumping up against each other most of our lives, so he thinks of me as—wait for it—a
friend
. Is that the
worst
word in the English language?
Delia didn’t want to come along. She doesn’t like Ross Harper. Delia says she hates rich people like Ross.
Delia’s father made piles of money in real estate in the Valley. But I guess that doesn’t count to her since he ran off with some kind of countess and left her and her mother in their house on Melrose.
When I told Delia that Shawn would probably be at the party, her dark eyes flashed and her whole expression changed. She’s been crushing on Shawn for weeks now. She says he hasn’t noticed. Which means Shawn is basically plant life, because Delia is the hottest girl at Beverly Hills Academy. Ask anyone.
I don’t really understand what she sees in Shawn. He’s a big goofy teddy bear. And my idea of a good time isn’t hanging out at the beach, watching Shawn draped over a board in his wet suit, waiting for the next good wave.
Anyway, my dad dropped us off at the gate in front of Ross’s house. Yes, there’s a tall iron fence around the property. Through the bars of the gate, I gazed up at the house, bathed in white light.
I pressed the button on the intercom. The gate buzzed and started to swing open. As Delia and I walked up the wide driveway, we could hear music and kids talking and laughing around the pool on the other side of the house.
It was a perfect L.A. night. The air was soft and warm and smelled sweet from the hibiscus beds along the drive. The huge house glowed. Like a movie set, I thought.
As a maid showed us through the house to the terrace in back, I felt kind of tingly. You know. Like this could be an important party.
Was I tense much? You think?
Well, I’d had Jake on my mind all day. Crazy. He was like furniture. I mean, he’d been in my life forever. Our families are so close. Our parents are business partners—they run the WoodCast movie studio together—and we live next door to each other.
I’m not sure when I started to think about Jake differently. But I was
definitely
thinking about him. And tonight …
Who knew what tonight would bring?
Do I have to describe the party scene to you? You’ve seen parties, right? Maybe not on a terrace as big as the Burbank airport. I saw at least two dozen kids around the pool, mostly from our school, but a few I didn’t recognize.
They were standing in small groups or sprawled on the white wicker pool chairs, beer bottles in their hands, so I figured Ross’s parents weren’t home. Kids were talking loudly over the dance music that boomed from the speakers on poles around the pool.
Some kids were in the blue sparkly water, mostly standing in the shallow end with their drinks on the edge of the deck. I waved to Ross, who had his arm around a tall redheaded girl I’d never seen before. I didn’t see Jake or Shawn.
Delia had a short blue-and-white camisole shift over her swimsuit. She just pulled it off and tossed it over a chair. She kicked off her sandals and slid them under the chair. She has a great body, and I actually saw heads turn to stare at her as she made her way to the others, rocking her blue bikini.
I wore white tennis shorts and a tank top. I didn’t plan to swim tonight. Hey, I’m all right in a bikini. I’m not a total knockout like Delia, but I’m okay in a cute way. Some people say I look like Cameron Diaz. But, you know, younger. Not so slutty.
Couples were dancing on the side of the deck. They had green and blue lightsticks raised above their heads and they were jumping to the throbbing beats, like a crazy rave.
I stepped close to the pool and actually gasped when I saw Annalee Franklin doing slow laps in the clear water. I gasped because I thought she was
totally naked
.
That would be bold, even for Annalee. But as she swam closer, I saw her bikini. It was two strings. Literally. Two strings.
She gazed up at me with her green cat-eyes. She probably saw my mouth hanging open. “Hey, Claire,” she called, paddling gently, water running off her smooth black hair. “Shooting starts tomorrow. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other.”
“I’m seeing a
lot
of you now!” I replied. I knew she couldn’t hear me over the music and the splash of the water. Annalee’s mother was some kind of beauty queen in China before the family moved here. And Annalee has the same perfect skin, cheekbones to die for, and fabulous smile.
“I’ll be seeing you on the set,” she said. She ducked under the surface, then resumed her slow swim. Were kids along the deck staring at her? Duh.
“Don’t judge her,” a voice said. I turned to see Delia grinning at me.
“Don’t judge her?”
“She’s needy,” Delia said.
“For sure. She
needs
a swimsuit,” I said.
Delia gave me a shove. “Prude.”
That kind of stunned me. “Huh? Really? Am I a prude?”
But Delia took off without answering. I raised my eyes and saw where she was hurrying. Shawn and Jake had just stepped out from the house.
My mouth suddenly felt dry. I watched Delia run up to the two guys as I crossed to the wet bar at the other end of the pool. Ross turned to greet me with a glass in his hand. “Hey.” We slapped knuckles. “Claire, what are you drinking?”
“Nothing yet,” I said. I nodded at the glass in his hand. “What’s that?”
“Red Bull and Stoli.”
I blinked. “Any good?”
He handed it to me. I took a sip. Awful.
I grabbed a Diet Coke and tapped the can against his glass, like we were toasting. I took a long drink.
Ross and I were kind of a couple for about an hour in tenth grade. But he decided it was more fun to play
World of Warcraft
with his buddies and get wrecked from his parents’ liquor cabinet than hang with me.
No big whoop.
“When is your birthday party?” Ross asked. “Some kids were talking about it.”
“June twenty-first,” I said. “That’s the summer solstice. Midsummer night. It’s going to be crazy huge. At the movie studio. That’s the longest night of the year, and the party’s going to rock all night. Are you going to be in town?”
He shrugged. “Hope so.” He took a long drink. Some of it spilled down his chin. “I hear you’re in that … that horror movie.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Delia, too. And Annalee. And Jake is working as a PA or something. I’m so excited. My parents finally gave in and said I could be in a movie. We’ve been rehearsing. We start filming this week.”
He raised his eyes to me. “Aren’t you scared? Filming in that haunted house?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but he waved to someone and took off toward the pool. I took another long drink from the Coke can.
Claire, you came to this party to talk to Jake, and you’re going to do it.
I turned to go find him. The billowing light from the pool made the whole terrace shimmer blue and white. Kind of magical. Like we were all underwater.
“Think fast!”
The cry made me duck, and a red Nerf football sailed over my head. It bounced once on the deck, then splashed into the pool.
Jake ran up, laughing, and grabbed me by the shoulders.
Is he going to kiss me?
Of course not. What was I thinking?
“Nice catch,” he said.
I grinned back at him. “Were you trying to knock me into the pool?”
He nodded. “Maybe.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
This was a thrilling conversation.
Jake is tall and good-looking, with a slender, serious face, unbrushed brown hair, blue eyes, and a knockout smile. He’s one of these guys—you know the type—who breeze through life and never seem to be trying too hard.
I swallowed hard.
Courage time, Claire
. We were standing right under a music speaker. I took his arm and led him past the jumping couples with their flashing lightsticks, toward the pool house. “I … wanted to talk to you.”
That wasn’t the swimming pool pump pounding like that. That was my heart beating.
“Hey, I wanted to talk to you, too,” he said.
Wow.
“You go first,” I said.
“No. You.”
“No. You.” I shoved him. “Go ahead. What do you want to talk about?”
“Well…” We stood in the shadow of the pool house wall. He glanced back toward the crowd. “You see … I just wondered…”
This was definitely weird. Jake and I never had trouble talking to each other. We were like brother and sister, right?
“Yes? Spit it out, Jake.”
“I wondered if Delia ever mentions me. I mean—”
“You
what
?” I kind of lost it there. I squeaked the words.
“I think Delia likes me,” Jake said. “But I don’t really catch any signals. Know what I mean? I mean, she’s so totally
smoking
. You and she are like best friends. So I just wondered … Does she talk about me at all?”
Whoa. I replied through clenched teeth. “Why don’t you ask Delia yourself?”
His eyes went wide. He saw that I was pissed off. “Is … is there a problem here?”
“No,” I insisted. “How could there be a problem?”
He gazed at me for a long moment. Then he shrugged, as if dismissing the whole conversation. “What did
you
want to tell
me,
Claire?”
“Uh … nothing. Just … I’ll see you at the studio. You’re a PA on the set, right?”
“I’m supposed to be an intern. For Zack Fox, the film editor.” His sandy brown hair fell over his forehead. I wanted to brush it back with my hand. Suddenly, his expression changed. “But I’m thinking maybe I’ll quit.”
“Huh? Why?” I could feel my heart sink into my stomach. I was really looking forward to seeing him there every day.
“Because … you know. What happened back then. I … I can’t believe your father let you and Delia audition,” he said.
I stared hard at him. I’d never seen him like this before. Jake literally moonwalked through life. He never stressed over anything. But now he seemed genuinely frightened. “Jake, you mean—”
“That old house. Where they’re filming. You don’t want to be in that house, Claire. It isn’t a joke. It’s … dangerous.”
He suddenly looked ten years old. His intense expression made me laugh.
“Seriously. Don’t laugh. I think you should quit, too.”
“Jake, we’ve been rehearsing in the house for a week. No dead people. No ghosts. It’s all good.”
“Three kids died in that house.”
“Stop, Jake. Delia and I have been waiting for an opportunity like this forever. And we get to work with Lana deLurean and Jeremy Dane.”
He shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat.”
My fantasy night with Jake wasn’t working out. He’d spoiled everything.
I turned and started to jog toward the pool house. “Later, Jake,” I called to him. “Thanks for the advice. Glad you care so much.”
I wanted to find Delia and go home. I searched for her around the pool, but she wasn’t there. Did she wander down to the tennis courts with Shawn?