A Little Less than Famous

A Little Less than Famous

Sara E. Santana

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Acknowledgements

I don’t think some people realize how hard it is to write a novel. I enjoy it more than anything but boy, is it difficult. A Little Less than Famous would not have even become what it is without many people and many factors. If it weren’t for these people and these things, I probably would have either gone crazy or given up. I wish I could name everything and everyone who contributed in even the smallest way but I’ll tha
nk a few.

First off for
my Dad,
n
o one else believes that I’m
a great writer more than he does
.
He supports me through everything and spoils me rotten
, even though sometimes I don’t deserve it. Thanks for letting your twenty-five year old daughter still live with you.

Secondly to
my mom,
I have to say thanks
for instilling a ridiculous amount of love of books a
nd writing into me. Without her
teaching me to read at an insanely young age and showing me how much books could do, I would
not write as I do.

Thirdly, to the greatest siblings in the entire world,
Robby, Jessica, Dink, Joey and Stevey.
They
are the five most
important people in my life and they should never
ever, ever, ever forget it. I love you guys more than anything and everything that you do inspires me to be a better sister for you.

There i
s no greater lady in this world than my
Nana.
She can
drive me bonkers and
she
make
s
me laugh and
she literally
inspire
s everyone who is around her
. T
here is no one better than her

I also have to thank all the amazing fantastic authors that I have the privilege of reading every single day. Writers from
J.K. Rowling
to
Tamora Pierce
and
Meg Cabot
and
Sarah Dessen, Cassandra Clare
and
Cinda Williams Chima
and so many, many more. Big thanks to
Jen Calonita
and
Tammara Webber,
without your fictional celebrities Kaitlin Burke and Reid Alexander, I have no idea what I would have done when talking about Jake’s celebrity life. My knowledge of celebrity life is basically nonexistent so much, much thanks.
Ditto to all the celebrity magazines and entertainment shows out there. That was the easiest research I was able to do.

To the music and TV shows that kept me sane while writing this novel: Something Corporate, Fall Out Boy,
Panic
! At the Disco, The Cab, The Band, The Beatles, Grizzly Bear, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Sherlock.

A million and one thanks to my best girls,
Allison and Sydney,
for reading this novel as it was written, when it was in its crappiest stage and both loving and hating it. Thanks for telling me what was good and telling me what was bad and helping me to see that it wasn’t ALL bad.

For those of you who donated to this amazing novel, please enjoy it and please take a look at the very last page where I have named every single one of you because without each and every one of you, my dream would not feel so possible.

And last, but certainly not least, to Jon:
I love you so incredibly much and the amount of belief and faith that you have in me in my abilities is essential to the fact that this novel was even written. A Little Less than Famous would not BE if it weren’t for you. You are my biggest inspiration. Always.

Chapter One

I was five years old the day my mom left me and never came back. She dropped me off at the diner where her boyfriend, Luke, worked as assistant manager for his
dad
,
also named
Luke. It was her version of daycare. Luke, the wait staff and the cooks were responsible for me, whether they liked it or not. But I loved it there. I love the smell of coffee, and food hot off the grill. I loved all the pictures of famous old movies stars on the walls. I loved that they would sit me at the end of the counter, with a coloring book and crayons and I loved that all the regulars loved me and spoiled me rotten. I loved that diner.

M
y mom dropped me off at the
diner,
as
was her routine
. I vaguely remember Luke being really pissed; what twenty-three old guy wanted to always be in charge of his girlfriend's kid? Somehow my mom smoothed it all over, in the way she always did. She was manipulative in the worst way and you usually wouldn't notice until later. She kissed me on the head and left.

She never came back.

I stayed the night with Luke, who lived in the u
pstairs apartment with his dad
. This was not unusual. My mom was twenty-one, still ready to have fun and sometimes wouldn't return until the next morning. After three days, we knew she was gone.

Luke and his dad
filed a missing report but there wasn't much to do. There was no sign of foul play and her entire checking account had been emptied.
All signs pointed to the fact that she just wasn’t coming back.

So they started to make arrangements for me. I had no family that I knew of. My dad had died two years after I was born and my mom had run away from home at sixteen, when she was pregnant with me. It seemed likely that I would go to a foster home.

I started to scream the second that they tried to take me out of the diner
. I wrapped myself around Luke's leg and refused to let go. I didn't want to leave the diner. If I left, my mother couldn't come back to me.

So Luke did the unthinkable, the unbelievable-he took me in. At twenty-three years old, he took full and complete responsibility of me. The upstairs office was cleaned out and it became my bedroom. Two years later, when it was so obviously clear that my mom was not coming back, Luke adopted me. I loved Luke. He took care of me when my mom got tired of me, protected me from her raging temp
er and took me in when I had no
where
else
to go.

Nearly eighteen
years
later, I still live in that diner. I am now the assistant manager and Luke owns the place.
Luke’s dad,
or ju
st "Uncle" as I
used to call him, was killed in a car accident just days before my 18th birthday. Together, Luke and I took it o
ver and made it ours. It’s home.

Luke's Diner is settled on one of the busier streets of Brea, a
suburban city at the near northern
tip of Orange County in California. It was the city I grew up in and loved. It was about 40 minutes away fr
om Los Angeles and Hollywood,
less than 30 from the beach and even less driving time to Disneyland. The community college I attended was only ten minutes away. And I loved the diner just as
much as I did when I was five years old.

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"Honestly, Amanda, I really don't feel like going to Disneyland," I sighed, wiping down the front counter tops. Dave, one of the morning regulars, had brought by hi
s daughter to the diner that
morning and she had gotten more grape jam on the counter than in her actual mouth. "It’s August and it’s going to be so packed. I do not want to deal with it."

Luke’s Diner had
changed
hardly
at all in the past twenty-something years. Though people had urged Luke to remodel the diner, he had kept it just as it was. Uncle Luke had been obsessed with movies and movie trivia and had put up famous movie po
sters all over the diner.
Luke and I had added some since his death
, of more modern movie stars, since Uncle just couldn’t stand anything recent
. There were old, beat up movie trivia cards tucked in front of the napkins and each of the tables were named after a famous movie star, though only the people who actually wo
rked there knew the names
. The regulars had caught onto the names and sometimes an occasional customer caught us yelling out “Fries to James Dean!” or something of the sort but for the most part, it was a staff secret.

"Oh, come on, McKinley, it
’
s the last weekend of summer before we start school on Monday. Can we at least enjoy it before we're sucked into the endless abyss of homework?" Amanda rolled her eyes at me. Sometimes I thought Amanda treated me
more like I was her mother and less like
her best friend. 

I sighed, throwing down the towel on the counter. "How about, I just don't want to go. That's a simple enough statement."

Amanda dragged her eyes away from her
People
magazine for a moment and put on a pouty face, her lower lip protruding so low it was near her chin. "Oh, please, McKinley, please, please."

Amanda James was my best friend and even though we had been friends for years, it still amazed me how different we were. Amanda was sweet, a little naïve sometimes and
she
always seemed to have a smile on her face. She was incredibly gullible; you could usually fool her without even trying to. She was obsessed with anything celebrity: the culture, the fashion, the hook-ups and the break-ups, every
thing. She was always the life of the party.

I, on the other hand, tended to be more serious. I liked to read, and spent most of time listening to jazz instead of the top 40 hits. I was quick and sarcastic and tended to have a wry sense of humor on things. Some people liked to call me cynical and pessimist
ic
but I felt like I was more realistic than anything else. Of course, I was able to have fun and when I wanted something, I could turn on my charm quickly enough. And while Amanda had the good grades, I wasn’t dumb. I tended to think I was more people smart than book smart. And if there was one person who could turn me around in an instant, it was Amanda.

I found myself
caving in. "All right, fine. But
I'm just going to wear this," I said, indicating my Luke's Diner work t-shirt and denim shorts.

"As long as you don't wear the dirty apron, I don't care," Amanda said, waving her hand in an offhand way. She flipped a page of the magazine and sighed happily. "Jake Kennedy is so adorable, don't you think?"

I rolled my eyes, sliding two plates off the counter behind me and, balancing them in my hands, hit the swinging door between the back counter and the dining room and delivered the plates to the couple sitting in the Cary Grant booth, a smile on my face. I left napkins at the table and returned to the counter.

This conversation concerning Jake Kennedy was nothing new; I had heard it a million times before.
"Jake Kennedy, while admittedly
fairly attractive, especially with his shirt off, has absolutely no brain and no acting skills whatsoever.
Crime Scene
is a horrible show."