Catch a Falling Star (13 page)

stretch of still water shaped like a kidney bean. A couple of years

ago, a local conservation company put in a trail and small signs

detailing the history of the pond and the wildlife that made it their

home. We, however, had only made it a few hundred feet down

the trail, Extra Pickles straining against the leash, zigzagging

and doubling back, and once almost yanking me into the pond in

pursuit of a squawking duck he’d flushed out of a low bush.

“Can’t he just walk next to us?” Adam glanced around ner-

vously, most likely for signs of paparazzi (who, frankly, would

most likely welcome taking pictures of me trying to control a

ninety-pound Lab while Adam wandered helplessly beside me).

“He’s not used to the leash. We usually just let him run on the

Liberty Trail.” I gave too hard a yank and Extra Pickles sat sud-

denly, his eyes wide and wounded. “Maybe we should just turn

around. I think this is hurting his feelings.”

Adam crouched down beside him. “Hey, guy.” He gave Extra

Pickles’s head a rub. “You need to chill out so we can get some

good pictures, okay? Stop being such a jerk.”

“Don’t call my dog a jerk!” But Extra Pickles just wagged his

tail in the dust of the trail.

Adam cupped his hands around my dog’s face. “See, you like

it, don’t you, jerkface?”

Before I could defend his honor, Extra Pickles wrested his head

out of Adam’s hands and leaped after a blue jay that had landed several

feet in front of him, dragging me a couple of feet forward. “Whoa.”

“Let me do it.” Adam took the leash.

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“Fine.” I resisted the urge to push Adam into the pond. “Though

I feel I should mention being mean to my dog is not winning you

any points in the public eye.”

“Naw, we’re instant best friends,” Adam said, starting along

the path again. Within seconds it was clear he wouldn’t be faring

any better than I had with the ninety pounds of spaz on the other

end of that leash. Finally, when his arm socket had clearly had

enough, we stopped at a wood bench. Extra Pickles happily took

the chew bone I handed him and settled down next to us.

“See, he loves me.” Adam stretched his arm along the back of

the bench. I leaned against it, feeling it graze against my bare

shoulders. What a nice picture we must be, a new couple relaxing

on a breezy summer day. Even if I couldn’t see them, I could hear

the snapping of cameras. The paparazzi layered the woods around

us like ninjas. This whole outing was, after all, for their benefit,

carefully crafted in Parker’s script.

I felt a stab of guilt. How many pictures showcased this sort of

lie? How many made the viewers imagine a fantasy? Not just for

Hollywood but for regular lives, too. Every year, people mailed

holiday cards, posted on Facebook, pulled pictures from wallets —

millions of faces grinning into a lens. How many of those smiles

were true? Did that family in the smiling Christmas card mostly

scream at one another? Was that couple with the small baby get-

ting any sleep at all? Did that little dancer in the pink tutu really

want to be dancing? I tried to push the watery feeling down, bury

it away in the back shadows of me. Maybe we grinned into cameras

in the hope that we might remember we could be happy.

Maybe it just helped sometimes to have a reason to smile.

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“He seems good now.” Adam nodded at Extra Pickles, who

was absorbed in his bone.

“See, not a jerk.” I leaned down and patted his head. “Well,

most of the time.”

Adam shot me a sheepish smile. “I was mostly kidding.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“You’re right. I wasn’t. He was just so . . . so . . .” He caught

my eye, and we burst out laughing.

“Annoying?” I finished for him. “It’s fine; he is terrible on a

leash.” A small sliver of the strangeness between us melted. “Maybe

your next movie should be about a regular guy who has to train some

sort of clearly untrainable animal. Like a sloth? Or a platypus?”

He grinned, his body relaxing into the bench. “Very nice. You

could do development for studios.”

I made a face. “No, thanks.”

He gave me an odd sideways look, one that made his eyes crin-

kle at their corners. “You don’t like Hollywood very much, do you?”

“Oh, no — I like movies,” I started.

“Not movies,” he interrupted. “Hollywood. Our world.” He

rested his forearms on his legs. “It’s pretty clear you don’t think

too highly of me.”

I watched a duck dive into the center of the lake, gliding into a

bobbing float. “I don’t know you.”

He gave me another lopsided grin. “Look, don’t get me wrong,

it doesn’t bother me. It’s just . . . unusual for me.” He stared out

over the pond. “I’m used to people clamoring to get close and,

well, you’re just really guarded. You haven’t asked me anything

about . . . well, anything. I’m not used to that.”

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I thought about what it was I would ask him given the chance,

given an opening like the one he’d just handed me. My brain

whirled with questions: the drugs, the redhead, the Lakers game

breakup, but I found myself asking, “Where are your parents?” I

knew he was seventeen and that Parker acted as a sort of guardian,

but it seemed strange that his parents weren’t around at all.

He sat back, surprised. “Oh, well, they’re in Hawaii right now.

With my younger sister. At least, I think they are.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“We’re not . . . super close.” There was that look again, the

one from the tabloid pictures, like a stage light dimming to black.

“Were you once?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Yeah.” A distant rumble

sounded. Extra Pickles stood, his tail wagging, his ears alert.

Adam looked to the sky. “What was that?”

Something shifted in the air. “Thunder.” Above us, a swell of

purple cloud covered the sun.

In minutes, the sky opened up, rain pocking the lake, a wind

coming up, carrying the fresh scent of wet air, dampened earth. We

hurried under the cover of a leafy maple, watching the patchwork of

purple cloud cover blue sky, hearing the trees shiver in this unex-

pected shower. The light dimmed but seemed to sharpen in the

rinsed air, like someone had just outlined a watercolor in black ink.

“Where did that come from?” Adam shook water from his hair

and wiped droplets from his sunglasses with his damp shirt.

“We get these sometimes.” Even as I said it, the rain stopped,

the cloud moved on, the sun hit the world, sparking a million glit-

tering shards of light.

99

“That” — Adam shook his head, his face washed with sur-

prise — “was beautiful.” Even wet, his hair stayed perfect.

I watched him take in the sky, the trees, the pond, its surface

smooth again, the ducks tracking ripples through its middle. “It’s a

beautiful place,” I told him.

“I love the sky after a rain.” I reached for another jelly bean from

the candy bag Chloe’d brought to the roof, lying back and letting

the spilled-glitter night wash over me.

“Where’s Romeo?” Alien Drake poked me in the side. “He too

good to hang with us?”

I waved him away, grimacing at the buttered popcorn bean I’d

just eaten. I stuffed a few more in my mouth. “Don’t call him that.

And, no, he’s just working. He has a
job
, you know.”

“At ten o’clock at night?”

I shrugged. Technically, I was off duty right now, but I knew

enough to know he had said he was working. “Actors have weird

schedules.”

“Yeah,” Alien Drake said. “All those yacht parties must keep

him real busy.”

Chloe chewed a handful of jelly beans. “Seriously, though,

when do we get to meet him?”

“You
did
meet him.” I shielded my eyes against a flash of head-

lights coming down the street.

Chloe groaned. “Ugh, don’t remind me. I’d like the chance to

redeem myself, thank you very much.”

Alien Drake shook his mop of hair. “That, I would have paid to see.”

100

She threw a jelly bean at him. “Shut up.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t hear her,” I said, giggling.

Chloe stuck a jelly-bean-blue tongue out at me.

Alien Drake pretended to grab at it. “Nice. Does that also

come in neon green?”

“I was surprised, is all,” she pouted, picking out a licorice bean

and tossing it over the side of the house.

“I would have eaten that,” Alien Drake told her, staring after it.

“I know.” She smiled widely at him.

Down the street, the car that had passed parked in front of our

house. I sat up, watching a dark figure slip from the passenger seat

and quietly shut the door. The driver waited as the shadow made

its way up our walk and into our house.

John.

Chloe and Alien Drake noticed, too. “What’s he doing?” Chloe

asked, her voice low.

I shook my head, the mood spoiled. Whatever it was, it

couldn’t be good.

Our basement always smelled like laundry detergent and rain.

From the steps, I could barely make out John’s shadowy form

moving along one of the back walls. I pulled the string for the

overhead bulb.

He jumped. “Carter!”

“What are you doing?” I watched as he picked through a pile of

boxes and mounds of black plastic garbage sacks. I wondered if one

of those bags held the remains of my dance career, if Mom hadn’t

101

actually donated them like I’d asked her to. As I watched him

heave aside a wooden dollhouse that I used to love and hadn’t

thought about in years, a twinge moved through me at the thought

of my dance stuff still down here, hibernating. Basements could be

sad things, a subterranean limbo.

From behind the boxes of Halloween decorations, he unearthed

a guitar case, dusty and plaited with cobwebs. “Here it is.”

“Your guitar?” He hadn’t played his guitar in years. Mom had

hidden it, actually, so that he wouldn’t try to sell it. Which was

probably what he was doing here. “Why?”

He brushed at the case, frowning, the light of the swinging

bulb barely reaching his face. “Because I thought no one was home

so I wouldn’t be hit with a customs inspection. I’m allowed to get

my guitar, okay?”

“I know.” I watched as he unzipped the case, pul ing the slick

wood guitar from its tomb. “You going to start playing again?” I could

try to be hopeful, could try to imagine him moving forward, this

guitar a sign he was finding bits of that old self to patch back together.

“Yeah, I think so.” His voice held the hollow echo of a lie.

Maybe I could just hand him a few of the pieces, just to get

started. “Remember when we took that trip to Santa Cruz and

you played on the beach next to the fire? I think about that

sometimes.”

He stuffed the guitar back into the case, zipping it up. As he

passed me on the stairs, he mumbled, “You’re a sweet kid,” and then

I could hear the front door and the hum of the car moving away down

the street. Lately, my view of John was always of him leaving.

102

nine

the next morning, the doorbell rang.

I finished filling Extra Pickles’s food bowl with his favorite

kibble, then, wiping my hands on my jean cutoffs, answered the

front door.

Parker stood there with a woman. She had slick dark hair,

olive skin, was barely five feet tall, and seemed covered in cir-

cles — huge white sunglasses, bracelet-sized gold hoops in her

ears, bangled wrists, and a tunic dress covered in multicolored

spheres. Even her heels had a bubble print.

“Hi!” Circles said brightly.

Parker pushed his glasses to the top of his head. “Can we come

in, love?”

I stood back from the door, letting them both into the entry.

“I’m sorry, did we have a meeting?” I closed the door.

Parker gave the house a quick glance, then motioned to the

woman. “This is Jewel.”

“Not short for Julia,” she clarified, spelling it for me. She

plucked off her sunglasses, perching them stylishly in her dark hair.

I blinked. “Okay.” Her circles were making me slightly dizzy.

Parker put a hand on Jewel’s shoulder. “Jewel’s going to help

103

you put some outfits together, teach you some basic makeup stuff,

just sort of ensure you’re prepared.”

“Prepared?” I glanced at the bright orange duffel bag Jewel car-

ried that was big enough to fit a person. Or a dead body.

Parker checked his phone. “Brilliant. I’ll let you ladies take it

from here.”

Jewel patted his hand that was still on her shoulder. “Terrific,

Parky — thanks.”

Parky?

He let himself out.

Jewel dropped the orange duffel on the tile in the entry. “Okay,

so we’re going for small-town girl next door, which you clearly

have down.” Pursing her lips, she let her eyes scan my cutoffs, my

tank top, my face and ponytailed head. “We just need to
polish
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