Catch a Falling Star (25 page)

and slacks. When they first joined us, I couldn’t imagine needing four

Miks. Now, I wondered if four would be enough. People pressed in

on all sides of the bubble of space the Miks kept around the car, but

otherwise people shouted, whistled, tried for close-ups. One group

of tween girls all wore red, white, and blue shirts reading:
The United

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States of Adam
. The collective scream they emitted when we passed

caused several of the dogs in the crowd to start howling.

Never more grateful for Chloe’s giant sunglasses, I searched

the crowd for familiar faces. I’d tried for the scarf, too, but Jewel

had vetoed it, saying it didn’t match the car. As we cruised through

the town, waving at the clumps of people in chairs hunched

together in any bit of shade they could find, my stomach sank.

I recognized almost no one.

I’d always loved events like the Fourth of July parade in Little

mostly because it was the same group of faces year after year. You

could go to things like Summer Nights or Victorian Christmas and

basically see the same people you saw at the grocery store or the

post office — only in better moods. More relaxed, enjoying them-

selves. We lived a mellow life in Little, but it was still
life
. Events

like these reminded us all to take a step back, turn off our phones,

smile at each other a bit more. Even if you didn’t know each name,

you knew the faces belonged here.

Today, the parade had record turnout. Maybe double or even

triple its normal size.

As we neared the end of the street, the curve that would take

us to the point where Mik would load us into the Range Rover, I’d

only seen a smattering of familiar faces, and I wondered if every-

one in Little had skipped the parade this year, tired of Hollywood

taking center stage in our normally peaceful world.

The sun hot on my back, I wished I could join them. Wherever

they were.

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After the parade, we quickly ate hamburgers at the fairgrounds

while Adam signed autographs for the kids not taking advantage of

the huge bouncy world they’d set up just inside the main entrance.

I found myself staring out over the periphery of pine trees, my

smile fixed, cement-like. I’d changed into some white shorts and a

tank top so I could try out the bounce house, but mostly I stood by

Adam, smiling like a zombie on Prozac.

Every half hour or so, Adam would chug some sort of electro-

lyte drink that Mik would hand him. He offered me one, but I

shook my head. “Make sure you stay hydrated,” he insisted, tossing

an empty bottle into a nearby recycling bin. He seemed energized

by the constant stream of attention, each signature zapping more

life into his eyes.

Maybe this was why so many celebrities became politi-

cians. They were the ones who could keep up with this sort of

pace, their bodies naturally porous things ready to soak up all the

adoration.

It was fifteen minutes after four when we stopped by Snow Ridge

for the barbecue. It was being held in a sort of atrium by the pool,

and someone had hung festive red, white, and blue bunting on all

the patio tables. I had changed back into the white sundress (a little

worse for its wear from the Mustang ride), but had ditched the

heeled sandals for some blue flip-flops I’d borrowed from Chloe.

After ten minutes, I started to ignore the cameras, angling my

body away from them or making sure I was standing in shadow.

After a half hour, I wandered away from Adam (and the cameras)

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and found myself accepting a cool drink from Mrs. Adler, who

wore a chic chambray tunic and flowing white pants.

She clinked her glass against mine. “You look lovely, dear.”

“Hollywood’s rubbing off on me.” I took a sip of the sparkly

punch.

“Let’s hope not.” She squinted at me. “Though you do look a

bit like a glazed ham.”

“Been a long day already.” I tried to brighten my smile. How

did Adam do this, always be so available to people? At the café,

what they wanted was clear: their food, their coffee, a quick smile.

It was a simple equation. What they wanted from Adam, well, that

was something else entirely.

Mrs. Adler and I watched Adam play a lighthearted game of

Ping-Pong with Mr. Lively, who wasn’t all that lively but had sharp

blue eyes and a crisp left-handed swing that seemed to come out of

his otherwise lifeless body.

“This guy’s got some skills!” Adam called to us. He had his

sunglasses pushed into his hair and wore a linen shirt the color of

blue sea glass. If you didn’t know this was work to him, you’d

guess he was having a pretty good time. Or, maybe he
was
having

a good time and it wasn’t just all for show? It was impossible to tell.

“How’s your movie star?” Mrs. Adler sipped her drink through

a slender straw. No doubt she’d noticed I was wilting like lettuce

left overnight on the counter.

I watched Adam, the combination of the day’s heat and too

much sugar and starch lulling me into a haze. “Not at all what I

thought,” I heard myself telling her.

“None of the good ones are, dear.” She plucked a deviled egg

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from the platter on the snacks table and managed to eat it in three

dainty bites. “Of course,” she paused, dabbing at the corners of her

mouth with a star-spangled napkin, “none of the rotten ones are,

either.” Then, she refilled my punch.

At least people wouldn’t let me dehydrate.

I asked Mik to make an unscheduled stop.

Adam followed me out of the car. “Why’re we stopping here?”

I pushed through the creaky iron gate of the Little Cemetery

and walked him through a row of gravestones. The summer heat

had settled among them like fog, but every few seconds a breeze

ruffled the few flags or flowers people had left, some dry and

withering, others fresh and new.

“One of the places on our tour we never made it to.” I veered

from the main path, through a row where the graves were marked

with flat slabs pressed into the ground. Toward the back of the

cemetery stood a wide stone marker, etched with a crescent moon.

It marked the entrance to my family’s plot. Five generations of

Moons.

I crouched down next to one the color of smooth, creamy

milk, my grandmother’s grave. Dad had been here already. He’d

left a blue bucket dotted with stars and filled with red, white, and

blue flowers.

I touched it briefly, the smell of the red roses ripe in the air. “My

grandmother loved the Fourth. Well, she loved all holidays — any

reason to have people over for enormous amounts of food — but

she especially loved this one. The parade, the picnics, swimming,

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fireworks. When you stood on her deck at night, you could see

the fireworks over the fairgrounds off in the distance.” I pulled

open my bag and extracted some sparklers. I pushed them into the

ground and lit them, their sizzle and spark mostly lost in the bright

daylight. “She loved a day that ended with fireworks.”

Adam stood beside me. “I didn’t know you’d lost your

grandmother.”

“The month after I went to dance camp. She was actually why

I started teaching the dance class at Snow Ridge in the first place.

She’d just started living there my sophomore year. Had felt like her

house was too much.” I felt tears pricking my eyes. “She came to

every dance show I had from the time I was a Bon Bon in
The

Nutcracker
.”

Adam knelt and read the inscription on her headstone.
ALICE

MOON, mother, grandmother, lover of life
. Then he stood and wrapped

an arm around me, and I found myself curving into him. “How

soon after she passed did you stop dancing?”

A bubble of annoyance popped in my belly, and I eased out

from under his arm. “I didn’t quit dancing because she died.” I

glanced at him, trying to un-barb my voice. “You know, Mom

thought that, too.”

Adam shook his head. “Maybe you didn’t quit. Maybe you just

needed a break, time to sort it all out. I mean, between Dance-

Guy-the-Dream-Killer and your grandmother dying, you might

still be sorting it all out.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, the

sparklers reflecting in his sunglasses, almost brighter in reflection.

A hot wind came across the cemetery, and the sky held the

lazy drone of an airplane. Why hadn’t I ever considered that I was

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just taking a rest? “I guess I always just thought of it as quitting.”

When you stop doing things, people have a way of assigning a sort

of finality to them.

Adam tucked his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “I’m not

sure we ever truly quit the things we love. We might not be prac-

ticing them, but that doesn’t mean we’ve quit them. I think,

sometimes, things we love need to go dormant or come out in a

different form for a while.”

The thoughtful Adam was back. Not the one who’d dashed out

of the car. Here was the attentive, bring-some-pie-to-my-tree-

house Adam. And he had a point. I tried to put up a wall, to shrug

off his words, but the truth was, until now, I’d never thought about

my dancing as anything other than something I just stopped doing.

Even the classes I taught at Snow Ridge felt like something totally

separate from dancing, something secondary or lesser, like I’d

failed myself in some way, failed the expectations people had set

up for me.

I studied my reflections in Adam’s glasses. Then I reached out

and pushed his sunglasses up onto his head, wanting to see his

eyes. “Did you need a break from acting? When you went . . .

wherever you went?” He hadn’t talked much about his rehab, about

his months dealing with his drug charges, the reckless driving, the

smashed-up car, only hinted at them. It was hard to believe the guy

standing here surrounded by pines and headstones was
that
guy.

The tabloid guy.

Will the real Adam Jakes please stand up?
I wanted to scream.

He stretched his arms up over his head and turned a slow cir-

cle, taking in the green-and-stone sweep of the cemetery. “Yeah,”

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he finally said, lowering his sunglasses back down. “I did.” His

phone buzzed. Looking at it, he groaned. “That’s Parker. He wants

our ETA. But we can stay here as long as you need to.”

The spell was broken, Adam already scrolling through his

phone, disappearing, fading to blank.

I made sure the sparklers had gone out and dribbled a bit of my

water bottle on them just to be sure. “It’s fine. We can go.”

I’d only been to Gemstone Winery once before, for a wedding. It

had been a small wedding, sleek white linen and sage green, the

endless lawns stretching out to a view of Little far below and pine

forests beyond.

Today, hundreds of people packed the lawns and dozens of

red, white, and blue striped tents gave the grounds the look of a

circus. As we drove up the winding graveled road to a private

parking spot, I could hear a band playing even through the closed

windows of the car.

The main house of the winery was stone, wide and tall, ivy

snaking its sides. We parked in a smaller version of the stone house

next to a few classic cars and what looked like a white horse car-

riage. I had a vague memory of the bride and groom arriving in it.

Parker met us at the car. “We need you to go around the back

through the vineyard. We have photographers there.” He seemed a

bit less tense than he had this morning, his face bronzed from his

day at the river.

“Did you find that spot I told you about?” I took his offered

hand as he helped me out of the Range Rover.

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“I did. It was aces.” He shut my door.

Adam and I took a stroll through the vineyards, the photogra-

phers a harmless distance away, though I could hear the cameras

snapping. I pointed out the view of Little. He chatted about base-

ball. Parker had reminded us to only talk about safe things in case

any of the reporters overheard us. From a distance, I’m sure we

looked casual, happy, but I was aware of how detached I was from

myself as we meandered along, like viewing my own life through

a crack in a fence.

At a small turn of the path, we came to a fountain under a trel-

lis flowering with fuchsia blooms. Adam laced his fingers with

mine, sending a warm jolt through me. I tried to listen to what he

was saying, something about a trip he took to Indonesia for a futur-

istic film he’d shot last summer. The sweet smell of the vineyards

wafted around us; the trellis bloomed brightly; I could hear the

band playing on the other side of the stone house; and suddenly I

felt soaked in sadness.

Adam noticed, leaned into me a bit, and whispered, “You

okay?” I could hear cameras behind us, like tiny dogs nipping at