Catch a Falling Star (10 page)

just kept prepping for tomorrow. Adam, though, gave a small jolt

when he saw Jones, probably because Jones had more tattoos than

half the NBA and a face that looked like it had been used as an

ashtray. In truth, he was a huge softy and taught yoga at Juvenile

Hall every Thursday, but Adam wouldn’t know that. On our way

out, I gave Jones’s arm a little squeeze, and his smile softened the

rough edges of his unshaven face.

Outside, small crowds were forming — on the patio, in the

two parking spots just outside the back door — mostly familiar

faces, but also some clones of Stan and George. Raggedy guys,

cameras dangling over stained T-shirts. My heart felt tight. How

had it all happened so quickly?

The black Range Rover zipped into one of our two parking

spots, nearly missing a squat photographer. In the driver’s side sat

an enormous wrecking ball of a man who could only be described

as some sort of Nordic god. He hopped out, surprisingly agile, to

open the doors for Parker, Adam, and me.

As Adam slipped into the backseat with me, he gave me a

nudge. “You ready for this?”

Something told me, suddenly, I was not.

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The Nordic god dropped me off at home a few moments later,

jumping out to open my door for me. Adam leaned over. “We’ll

pick you up in the morning. Parker will text you the time.” The

door slammed, and the Range Rover pulled away as quickly as it

had arrived.

Dazed, I looked around my neighborhood. My neighbor

trimmed his roses in the warm evening light, a lawn mower buzzed

somewhere in the distance, the smell of barbecue tinged the air.

Nothing had changed.

And everything had changed.

For the next few weeks, I would be a self-absorbed movie star’s

girlfriend. I sat down on the front steps of my house, my head spin-

ning. A few minutes passed before I became aware of footsteps

padding up the hill, the huffing sound of someone walking quickly

in my direction.

Chloe.

“See, this is what I’m talking about,” she gasped before even

reaching me, her short brown hair sticking out in tufts. She must

have closed the café in record time. Either that, or Dad had let her

go. Probably the latter. She stood in front of me, her hands on her

hips. “One of those times a text is in order? Oh, guess what, Chloe?

I’M DATING ADAM JAKES!!! All CAPS!”

I smiled weakly up at her. “Nothing so far real y cal s for all caps.”

“Not the point.”

“It happened sort of fast.” From the angle where I was sitting,

Chloe’s whole head was highlighted by sky, the sun just starting to

color the stretch of clouds pink behind her.

“
How
did it happen? is what I want to know.” She blinked at me,

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waiting. “How did you go from
It’s just ice, Chloe
to, oh, um —
I’m

going out with Adam Jakes
?!”

“Now I can get you Adam ice whenever you want,” I tried

brightly.

“Spill it.”

“The ice?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re stalling.”

“Okay.” I practiced what Parker had told me to say. “After we

made those salads for the crew, he asked to meet me.”

She shook her head, confused. “Salads? He wanted to meet you

because of salads? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You asked!”

Her eyes were now slits. “And . . . ,” she prompted.

“And so we hung out and got to talking.” The stain of clouds

deepened behind her. I took a long breath, trying to steady the

dizzy spin of my head, the jolt of guilt at lying to her.

Chloe tapped her foot, impatient with me. “What did you
talk

about?”

“Um.” I licked my lips. I couldn’t tell her that we talked about

the script that would be dictating the next few weeks of my life.

“Just stuff. Movies. My dog.”

She crossed her arms. “Extra Pickles?”

I improvised. “He likes dogs. He wondered about his name,

and I told him our first dog was named Pickles so this one was

Extra Pickles.”

“That,” she sniffed, “doesn’t sound interesting at all.”

I shrugged, knowing Chloe didn’t mean it how it sounded.

“It’s the truth.”

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Only it wasn’t.

Sighing, she plopped down beside me, deflating like a balloon.

“I can’t believe it. He asked to meet you?
You?!
”

“Now you’re just hurting my feelings.”

She gave me a withering look. “You know that’s not what I

mean.” But it kind of was what she meant. And in her defense, it

was basically true. I’m not the type of girl guys notice. In my entire

high school career, I’d had one date junior year with Tad Ballard,

a lunch at Subway and a matinee of a superhero movie. He was nice

enough, told me he liked my eyes, but he never called me again. A

week later, I saw him making out with Stacy Merchant next to the

girls’ locker room. Subway Tad and that lame kiss with Alien

Drake in eighth grade. Not exactly the ideal setup for dating Adam

Jakes. It was like asking a fourth-grade swimmer to suddenly take

a shot at the hundred-meter freestyle at the Olympics.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

Chloe’s eyes widened. “Is that
him
?!”

I showed her the screen:
8:30.

“What’s that mean?”

“That’s what time he’s picking me up tomorrow morning. We’re,

uh, hanging out again. Before he starts shooting.” I couldn’t actual y

remember what we were doing and didn’t have the script to tell me.

Sighing as if I’d told her we were flying to Hawaii in a private

jet, she sank down onto the steps next to me, her chin falling into

her hands. “You are the luckiest girl in the world.”

She was right. It was luck. Only not at all how she meant it.

74

Later that night, someone tapped on the door to my room. I looked

up from the book I was reading. “Yeah?”

Chloe poked her head in. “It’s me.”

“You knocked?” Chloe never knocked.

“Well, you might be making out with Adam Jakes,” she told

me, coming into the room with a red shoe box and, after pushing

Extra Pickles out of the way, sitting next to me on the bed.

“I’m not.” I smiled, tossing the book aside.

“So I was kind of a spaz earlier and I’m sorry. You know I adore

you for a billion reasons and Adam Jakes will, too. So, to show you

I’m sorry times infinity, I brought you something.” She set the box

in front of me.

“A present?”

“Sort of.” She opened the lid. “It’s a Celebrity Survival Pack.”

She pulled out a pair of Audrey Hepburn
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
–style

black sunglasses. “You’ll need these, trust me.”

I tried them on; they felt like wearing a couple of salad plates

on my face. “They’re huge.”

She studied me. “They look awesome.”

I slipped them off, setting them on my nightstand.

She pulled other items out of the box: a flowered cell phone

case for my Adam iPhone, a bottle of “smoothing” conditioner for

my hair, some lipstick, a picture frame — deep blue and spotted

with stars (“for a picture of you two!”) — and a pale pink silk scarf.

I held up the scarf, my face questioning. A breeze came through

the open window of my room, carrying the smell of night —

barbecue, wet grass — and fluttering the scarf, just slightly, in

my hand.

75

She grinned. “In case you ride in a convertible, so you won’t

mess up your hair.”

Guilt welled up in me, finding small channels I didn’t know I

had. But I couldn’t tell her, I couldn’t. I’d promised Parker that

only my parents would know. Too many potential leaks, he’d said.

It couldn’t get out or it would ruin everything. I reached over and

hugged her. “Thanks, Chloe. You’re amazing.”

“It’s nothing, really,” she said, pulling away and fiddling with

the items, packing them back into the box, before letting her eyes

rest on me. “I’m so excited for you, Carter. This is huge.” She

pushed the box toward me on the bed, half the scarf lolling like a

tongue out the side.

I picked carefully through it again, examining each item

closely, mostly so I didn’t have to meet her gaze, hoping she

couldn’t sense my apprehension. Folding the scarf neatly into the

box, I tried to sound light and hopeful when I said, “We’ll see.”

76

seven

the next morning, the Range Rover pulled up to my house at 8:35.

I slipped into the backseat with Adam, who was once again lost in

his phone. Seriously, if any girl in this world wanted to trade places

with me, she should really wish to be Adam’s iPhone. That would

be a deep, meaningful relationship. Parker sat in the passenger seat,

also in iPhoneLand. “Morning,” Parker mumbled, not looking up.

Adam said nothing.

I decided to go for cheerful. “Good morning, Adam. Good

morning, various iPhones.” No reaction. I eyed the Nordic God in

the front seat who’d driven me home yesterday. “Good morning,

um, guy driving us.”

“That’s Mik.” Adam typed away. “My bodyguard.”

“Good morning, Mik.” I smoothed my skirt over my knees.

Mik nodded but didn’t take his eyes from the road. We headed

toward town in silence, and I snuck a glance at the movie star sit-

ting next to me.

Adam Jakes had been a childhood sitcom star since he was

five on a successful family ensemble show called
All of Us
that ran

for eight years. Sitting next to him in the plush backseat of the

Range Rover, it struck me that he’d been raised a bit like a goldfish,

77

swimming through his childhood in the same bowl, alongside a tank

of bigger, flashier fish. I’d only seen some of the show, but it streamed

on Netflix, so I’d tried to watch a few episodes last night. Adam’s

role was the typical cute but pesky little brother who said precocious

things and fell into sticky situations the older characters were forced

to get him out of. (In one, he spent the entire episode locked in a

toolshed talking to an initial y scary but ultimately epiphany-inducing

spider.) Overall, he was good at his part, sweet and convincing,

had won some awards, and was noticed for small roles in movies by

the time he was ten. In the last couple of years, he’d ditched the

goldfish bowl and now swam freely in the ocean of stardom.

Until recently.

Over the last year or so, he’d had a stormy relationship with the

Disney star Ashayla Wimm that ended in an ugly public breakup. In

most of the recent candid photos I’d found online, he’d either been

scowling or staring sadly away from the camera much like in some

of the photos on Chloe’s wall. Watching him now, I had to push back

the impulse to ask him how he was feeling, to put my hand on his

designer denim–clad leg and just say,
How are you?
It seemed like he

might need someone to ask him that and actually listen, not just fish

for a sound bite. As if reading my thoughts, he glanced at me, barely

disguised a sigh, and returned to his staring out the window.

My throat started to close up and, blinking into the morning

sun, I tried to imagine myself through Adam’s eyes. Small-town

girl in an old thrift-store skirt and a messy ponytail. He must be

wondering how he got stuck with some hick barista. I liked who I

was, liked where I was from, but it was incredible how suddenly

dull I felt being flung into Adam’s sparkly waters.

78

Mik turned the Range Rover onto Old Greenway, the road that

snaked away from downtown, but twisted abruptly into the empty,

fenced McKenzie property. A two-minute drive from downtown,

the McKenzie property felt a million miles away. Rumor was, Mr.

McKenzie was former CIA. He’d been kind of a sight around town,

in his dark glasses and vests with too many pockets. The people

who didn’t believe the CIA story thought he must be some sort of

journalist or adventure photographer, always leaving town for

months at a time, never really talking to anyone. Whatever he was,

he’d been a total security nut. His five-acre property was com-

pletely fenced with sleek boards topped with barbed wire. Prison

chic. Over the years, many a teenager had been busted for trying to

sneak over that fence and past Mr. McKenzie’s cameras. He didn’t

even have a house, just a gleaming Airstream and five dogs that

looked bred to eat people. When he left town last year, pulling that

gleaming trailer behind his massive truck, most people assumed

he’d been sent on some sort of government assignment. Dad said

that was way more fun than admitting he’d probably just decided to

live out the remainder of his years on a golf course in Florida.

After punching in the code for the main gate and passing

through it, Mik bumped the car along a dirt road secluded by thick

pines on either side. Finally, he pulled into a clearing where a

series of trailers sat in filtered sunlight.

“What is this?” I gazed through the windows. The trailers were