Fan Girl (6 page)

Chapter
10

Summer has always
wanted to star in her very own airport scene.

You
know the drill: a girl is about to leave for a foreign land. The outfit is
crucial—she will be dressed in a sweater and jeans, a beige trench coat,
a red scarf, and brown boots. When she steps out of the yellow cab, she will be
wearing shades and pouting her glossy lips. Her luggage will all be matching,
and posh—no
balikbayan
boxes
hastily sealed with packaging tape and scribbled on with a black marker. Before
the glass doors slide open, she will look back, but only for a split-second.
You will not see her eyes through the dark frames of her sunglasses, but you
will predict that she is tearing up a bit.

The audience will be given the impression that she has
already gone through security, although she will not be shown struggling to
remove her boots and flashing other travelers her butt crack during the tedious
process of bending down to put them back on. She will strut across the airport
towards the check-in counter, passport in hand and head held high.

And
then, a boy—tall, dark, handsome, and the love of her life—will
come out of nowhere (presumably having gotten through security without a
glitch, too), grab her, and kiss her so hard her world starts spinning in slow
motion. She will not say it outright, but you will know that she’s decided to
stay. For him. They will walk out of the airport together, hand in hand.

Today,
Summer’s very own airport scene isn’t exactly turning out like she imagined it
would. To begin with, it is thirty-six degrees at high noon, and she is
sweating buckets through her gray shirt. She isn’t wearing sunglasses or lip
gloss, let alone boots or a trench coat. And she isn’t riding a yellow cab
alone. Instead, she is lurching forward as Ken sends the car screeching to a halt,
while in the passenger seat, Ellie bawls into an old face towel and makes it
sound like someone just died, telling Summer how she couldn’t believe she was
leaving them so soon and how she hoped her sister would be happy wherever she
ended up. Summer didn’t exactly have it all planned out—she had nothing
but a tourist visa and enough cash for the airfare and a few months’ worth of
living expenses—but she was almost sure she didn’t want to come back. “I
don’t belong here anymore,” Summer attempted to explain. “You and Ken and Nick
have your own life, and when I look at the three of you, I want what you have
too. Badly. But I want it to be my own.”

“But
we
are
your family,” Ellie
told her, and Summer said, “I know. But that doesn’t change the fact that I have
to go.”

As
Summer watches Ellie and Ken drive away (they left Nick at their house, where
she kissed him goodbye this morning—he thinks she’ll be back next month),
she is flooded with loneliness. Nobody understands why she has to do this;
nobody even bothered to try. Summer wants to be bouncing up and down over the
prospect of flying to the place where Scott is, over the prospect of reuniting
with him, but right now, all she can feel is a cold, sick sense of dread.

Her phone beeps with a text message from Zac. “Please
don’t go,” he tells her. Summer feels a bit cheated—if he really wanted
to stop her, shouldn’t he be bursting through the glass doors instead of
half-heartedly punching a few measly words into his phone?

“You’re ruining my airport scene,” she texts him, and he
texts back, “I just don’t think he’s worth it.”

“But
what if he is?” she asks.

When she receives Zac’s reply, she has already gone
through security, already checked in her luggage, already lined up for
immigration. When she finally gets to read his message, she is sitting on a
cold metal bench inside the airport terminal, looking out the window at a
couple of airplanes lined up like schoolchildren on a Monday morning. There is
a cup of overpriced coffee beside her, and she notices her hands are trembling
as she grips the Styrofoam container.

“Then
maybe you have to go and find out for yourself,” he says. She thinks about this
until it is time to get up and board the plane, and when she enters the
aircraft and makes her way toward her seat, she almost texts him, “I’ll miss
you.” But her phone is already in her bag, sandwiched between her camera and
the stack of magazines she brought for the long flight, switched off like it
should be.

It goes without
saying that Summer is
scared out of her mind. She has never traveled alone before, much less gone out
of the country on her own. Her last trip was in December, when Ken drove them
all to Fort Ilocandia, where he and Ellie spent hours holed up in their hotel
room while she chased Nick around the enormous lawn, tickling him until they
both collapsed onto the grass, wheezing with laughter. And the last time she
was on a plane was the summer before her high school junior year, when Ellie
took her shopping in Bangkok; it was there, over a lunch of chicken satay and
shrimp pad thai, that she learned Ken had proposed. After college graduation,
she could have gone to Hong Kong or Singapore with all the cash she got from
her relatives (they have been showering her and Ellie with gifts for years, and
sometimes all the pity presents made her sick—she knew they wouldn’t be
getting anything if they weren’t orphans) but she was too depressed over Scott
and Roxanne to summon the energy to travel, so she saved the money and figured
she’d find some other way to enjoy it in the future.

She
has surprisingly vivid memories of the last time she went to the US. She was
either five or six, and her parents were still alive. She remembers giggling
over the fact that she fit into the suitcase that held her clothes and Ellie’s,
remembers asking her parents countless questions about how airplanes worked.
For most of the flight, Summer clasped her mom’s hand, closing her eyes when
the plane bobbed up and down, gaping at the sight of clouds passing by outside
her window. They landed just before sunrise in Los Angeles, where her mother’s
sister, Tita Elizabeth, was waiting; she had driven all the way from Sacramento
to meet them. They had a huge breakfast of pancakes and sausages and hash
browns and toast—Summer knows this because there is a photo of her
peeking from behind a tall stack of pancakes, her eyes open wide in awe. In
Disneyland, her dad hoisted her up onto his shoulders so she could watch the
parade, and she remembers looking around smugly at the other little girls who had
to stand on tiptoe to see the lights and costumes, the street dancers and
acrobats and princes and princesses and Mickey and Minnie Mouse; she remembers
the feel of her dad’s hair as her hands rested safely on top of his head.

The
middle-aged man sitting beside her on the plane wants to talk and talk and talk
about his wife and kids and in-laws and neighbors, and at some point she has to
fake falling asleep just so she can have some peace and quiet. He is wearing a
black v-neck shirt and ripped jeans, and she develops a deep, immediate dislike
for his nauseating perfume, his pretentious goatee, and his tacky, heavy gold
chain. When she barely touches her food, he leans over and tells her, “Are you
on a diet? You don’t have to be.” She says, “I’m not hungry.” He shakes his
head at her and says, “Then you should have just sent the tray back.” He
reminds her of one of her professors in college—he asked a lot of
unnecessary questions and made a habit out of judging everyone.

She
tries to ignore him for the rest of the flight, keeping her nose buried in a
magazine, furrowing her brows so she’d look like she was concentrating and must
not be disturbed. She catches him leering at her more than once, and she
shudders and prays he’d transfer to another seat soon. When she puts on her
headphones to drown out his voice, he asks, “What are you listening to? You
know, I used to be a musician. All the ladies loved me.” She turns the volume
up and doesn’t say anything.

An
hour before the plane lands in Los Angeles, Summer goes into the cramped
bathroom and inspects her reflection in the mirror. She looks exhausted and
frightened—her hair is greasy, her skin is dry and flaky, and there are
dark circles under her eyes—and no amount of powder or moisturizer or
concealer is going to fix it. She remembers looking into the mirror in Scott’s
place the first time he invited her in, back in junior year; she looked just as
exhausted and frightened then too, nervous at the thought of Scott on the other
side of the door.

Summer
goes back to her seat, and before she knows it, she is stepping out of the
arrivals gate in
LAX
, craning her neck to
see over the heads of the tall teenaged guys standing in front of her. She
walks slowly, unsure of where to go, her feet numb and her back aching and her
luggage in tow. She
recognizes the girl smiling at her from near the taxi bay, and she smiles back
and waves.
Here goes nothing
, she
thinks, as she grips her suitcase’s handle, takes a deep breath, and crosses
the street.

Chapter
11

Ashley Crosby is
delighted to meet
Summer.

“I
can’t believe you’re finally here,” Ashley shrieks, throwing her skinny arms
around Summer. “We are going to have so,
so
much
fun!”

As
they push the loaded cart into the
LAX
parking
lot, Ashley fills Summer in on her home situation. “It’s super messy,” she
tells her. “Just warning you.” She appraises Summer from head to toe and back
again, like she is measuring just how much space she’ll be taking up. “But you
and your stuff will definitely fit,” she says. “It’ll be like an extended
sleepover! I’m so,
so
excited!”

When
they get to Ashley’s apartment after a twenty-minute drive, Summer realizes she
wasn’t exaggerating: It
was
super
messy. There were clothes and accessories strewn all over the floor, dirty
dishes piled high in the sink, a pizza box containing discarded bell peppers
and a single uneaten slice on the coffee table, empty juice bottles on top of
the
TV
, a soiled towel thrown
over the couch, and something that looked suspiciously like mold growing from a
half-full bag of Cheetos lying next to the shoe rack.

But
cheap housing was cheap housing, so Summer turns to her and says, “I love your
place! It’s so… full of life.” She meant this literally, because she can almost
swear she saw a striped sock inch its way towards the door.

“I
know, right?” Ashley says. “Make yourself comfortable. You want something to
drink?” She walks to the refrigerator and shoves her head in. She gives Summer
a muffled inventory: “I have orange juice, apple juice, chocolate
milk—but I’ve had this in here for two weeks, so maybe not that. There’s
beer, there’s iced coffee, and there’s Diet Dr. Pepper. Oh, and a cucumber
smoothie. And water.”

“Just
water, please,” Summer says. “Thanks.” Ashley is being so nice to her, and
Summer knows she should be grateful but all she feels is a definite unease; it
was the kind of niceness she wasn’t used to, the kind of niceness that made her
nervous. It was the same kind of niceness she heard in Meg’s voice last week.

“I
know you miss Scott,” Meg said over the phone. “And I might have the solution.”

Summer was suspicious. What was the solution, and why
would Meg, of all people, have it? “I don’t want you to do anything that
involves Roxanne,” she said.

“Don’t
be silly,” Meg said. “Roxanne is totally out of the picture. This is just about
you and Scott.” It felt good hearing someone say that last sentence out loud.
“Listen,” Meg told her, “I have a friend in
LA
who
needs a roommate. Her name is Ashley and she’s a musician. And get
this—she just signed with Scott’s label. She knows where Scott is,
Summer. And she’s more than willing to help. I think you’ll get along really
well.”

“But
I can’t…” Summer started.

“You can’t what?” Meg interrupted. “Can’t quit your
mediocre job, can’t leave your lousy apartment, can’t pack your bags and go
after the love of your life?”

“I
don’t even know how Scott feels about me, exactly,” Summer said.

“Then
you’ll go there and ask him face-to-face,” Meg said. “Don’t give up. You know
you want to go. You know you don’t belong here.”

Summer found it strange that Meg could tell exactly what
she had been thinking, exactly which options she had been considering. But
maybe Meg knew her better than she gave her credit for, after all.

“Okay,”
Summer said. “Give me her number. I’ll get in touch with her.”

And now here she is, catching the water bottle Ashley
has pitched from across the room, right before it smacks her on the nose. That
night, they sit on Ashley’s bed in their pajamas, munching on cheddar caramel
popcorn and chocolate-covered almonds and looking at Scott’s blog. When they
finally hatch a game plan for the following day, Summer raises her Coke glass
and clinks it with Ashley’s. As the cold, sweet liquid touches her lips and
tongue, she actually feels like there is something in her life worth looking
forward to. For the first time in months, Summer feels like there is something
in her life worth celebrating.

Summer and Ashley
are camped out in front
of the building housing Scott’s recording studio on a cloudy Sunday morning, armed
with a box of assorted jelly donuts, a pot of Turkish roast coffee, and “Eye of
the Tiger” on the car radio. Their windows are half-open, and the air smells
like a mixture of rain and urine and chicken noodle soup. Summer gobbles up a
donut in two bites, feeling like she and Ashley are two potbellied, balding
cops on a stakeout. Every five minutes, Ashley asks her if she’s ready; every
time, she tells her, “No, not yet, give me five more minutes.” They’ve been
parked in this spot since six
AM
. It
is almost nine-thirty.

Summer
asks Ashley for the twenty-seventh time, “Are you sure he’s coming?” She chews
on her fingernails, which she had painted a bright blue the night before in the
hopes that she’d find them so pretty it’d be a shame to chew on them. “Maybe
he’s not. Maybe he’s not even thinking about coming. Maybe he woke up today and
went, ‘Oh, I feel like skipping my recording session today.’ Maybe he decided
to go back to bed and stay there for the rest of the week.”

Ashley
pauses mid-bite. “You saw him come in, Summer.”

Summer
giggles nervously. “Yeah, but I don’t know, it didn’t really look like him,”
she says. “I mean, I haven’t seen him in so long, so maybe I’ve forgotten what
he looks like, you know?”

“Will
you cut it out?” Ashley snaps, finally losing her patience after more than
three hours of keeping her cool. She hurls the box of donuts into the backseat,
slams the pot of coffee down on the dashboard, and puts her hand firmly on the
door. “We are going in there, and we are doing it now.”

“Now?”
Summer asks, licking powdered sugar off her lips. “But I’m not ready.”

“I don’t care,” Ashley says. “Out of the car. Now.”

So
Summer finishes her donut, wipes her mouth, and gets out of the car.
“Satisfied?” she asks Ashley as they walk up the stairs towards the building
lobby.

“Very,”
Ashley says, smiling good-naturedly now. They pull open the heavy glass door
and step inside.

“I
have an appointment with Scott Carlton,” Ashley tells the receptionist,
sounding confident and credible and mature. “This is Summer and she’s my
guest.” The receptionist (an artsy-type chick with red hair, blunt bangs, a
slim frame, and black plastic-rimmed glasses that look quirky without being
geeky) yawns, takes Summer’s
ID
,
hands her a visitor’s card, and points at the elevators on the other end of the
lobby.

“Fifteenth
floor,” she says, sounding bored.

“Okay,
thank you,” Summer and Ashley chorus.

Inside
the elevator, Summer cannot stop fidgeting. “You’ll be fine,” Ashley tells her.
“Relax,” she adds, making Summer wonder if people actually expected other
people to relax on cue—whip out a pair of board shorts and sunglasses in
five seconds flat, conjure a straw hat, a hammock, and a fresh mango shake out
of thin air, and snap their fingers and magically transport themselves to a
deserted white beach where Jason Mraz plays on repeat all day long.

“Relax,”
Ashley says again. “It’s not going to be the creepy kind of awkward. It’s going
to be the cute kind.” Summer didn’t even think it was going to be any kind of
awkward, but now Ashley was telling her that it
will
be
awkward and expecting her to feel better because at least it won’t be the
creepy kind. Summer doesn’t want it to be awkward—she wants Scott to take
her in his arms right away and ask her why it took her so long to come. The
elevator doors open on the fifteenth floor with a game show ding, and Summer
finds herself face to face with Scott, clad in a black leather jacket, sporting
a disheveled ‘do, and looking like he was having the worst day of his life.

“Hey,
Scott!” she says brightly, casually, as if he has just walked into a fast food
joint for his daily grease fix and she is the girl beaming a fluorescent beam
behind the cash register, about to serve up a Happy Meal and a wind-up toy of
his choice.

He
blinks. “What are you doing here, Summer?”

“Surprise!”
Ashley says, throwing her hands festively in the air. Then, catching herself,
“We haven’t officially met. I’m Ashley.”

“Hi,”
Scott says distractedly, shaking her hand. He finally recovers enough to give
Summer a hug and ask her how she’s been, and Summer notices how he pulls away
from her just as soon as her chin touches his shoulder.

“I’m
good,” Summer says. “And I’m here.”

“I can see that,” he says, the shock still evident in
his face. “I’m sorry I’ve been
MIA
, I’ve been really…”

“Busy,”
Summer finishes for him. “Of course. I’m sure you are.” She doesn’t mean to
sound sarcastic and bitter, but she knows that’s precisely how she sounds.

“What
are you doing here?” Scott asks again.

“She’s
visiting me,” Ashley says. “We’re old friends. We go, like, way back.”

“Oh,”
Scott says. “Right. Yes. Okay.” He runs out of one-word sentences and starts
inspecting the zipper on his jacket. He looks slightly younger now than the
last time she saw him—the unkempt beard has disappeared, and his hair is
now shorter and a lighter shade of brown.

Ashley
clears her throat and makes some excuse about meeting up with her boyfriend
Colin. “He’s super-duper needy,” she says, rolling her eyes like she was so
tired of being wanted. “Text me and I’ll pick you up from wherever,” she tells
Summer, just before the elevator doors close.

“We
have to talk,” Summer says, and she is aware that this is exactly what she told
him on graduation day when she confronted him about Roxanne, in the exact same
manner. She expects him to protest or to brush her off or to tell her to get on
the next plane back to Manila. Instead, he just nods and says, “We do.
Absolutely.” He takes her hand as they wait for the elevator and Summer can
feel her strength—her determination to keep herself at a manageable
distance—dissolving. She promised herself she’d keep it together, but now
everything is rushing back and she feels light-headed and unstable and all she
really wants to do is grab Scott and kiss him and tell him that she is here
only for him—not for Ashley or for anyone else. He is staring straight
ahead like he is deathly afraid to look her in the eye, but with his hand
wrapped around hers in that familiar, comforting way, it almost feels like they
are back in college, back when it was much simpler, back when their story was
just beginning.