I So Don't Do Famous (19 page)

While I'm texting my dad to let him know we're back, I say to her, “Before I tell you, answer this: Do I look different?”

She gazes at my face. “Yes, you do.”

“I knew it.” Some paths you choose in life mark you. Not like a big black smudge. More like a light bruise that doesn't even show in all lights. But it's there. You don't feel it happening, but you're
changed forever. I just chose a very scary, very illegal path. “Hardened? Mature? Overwrought?”

Junie frowns. “You're sunburned across the nose, and there's dirt on your chin.”

With the back of my hand, I wipe my chin. “Not superficial stuff like that. I'm talking deep, character-building changes.” I pause dramatically. “Junie, I'm infiltrating the Beverly Hills Bandits.”

“What?”

I fill her in. “So, if all goes according to plan, I'll be at tomorrow's meeting with the thieves. And I'll be in on the next heist.”

“How did I miss it? You do look different.” Junie leans across the table and grabs my shoulders. “Your eyes are totally crazed. Your left pupil's dilated more than the right one. Did you fall on your head? Hard?” She drops my shoulders. “You're out of your mind!

“You think your mom and Mrs. Howard are mad at you now? Wait'll they find out you're going illegal and hooking up with a burglary ring to solve a mystery they told you to ignore. The World Wide Web for the Dead will go wild with this.” Junie's shaking her head so fast, it's fuzzy and fat, like I'm looking at her in a mirror at the fair's haunted house.

“Junie, chill.” I make a time-out sign with my hands. “I have not lost my mind. I'm not really a thief. I went undercover to get information about the next operation,” I say slowly, to make sure she understands,
and there's no reason for this big freak-out. “Next, I'm going to spill all to Detective Garcia. Together, we'll catch David and the bandits in action.”

“Sherry, you watch too many crime shows. Just hand everything over to the detective. Before you are
t-o-a-s-t.
”

I'm about to explain patiently that I'm seeing this case through to the very end, when our booth fills with the scent of Lippy's Root Beer Gloss.

“Sherry!” Leah squeals. “I've been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been?”

“It's Leah,” I say to Junie. “Long story,” I say to Leah.

“The longer the better,” Leah says. “I'm so bored.”

Junie stands. “I'm going to take some random photos around the hotel.” She looks at me long and hard. “Think about what I said, Sherry.”

Shoulders straight, Junie strides out. She's so sure of herself, so sure her way is the best way to wrap up this mystery. I sigh. Junie is a scholar and a mathematician and a potential astronaut. She is not a detective.

“What's her problem?” Leah asks. “She's the draggiest friend.”

“No, no, she's a good friend. We just don't see eye to eye on this thing.” Every time I turn around today, I'm defending Junie. Because that's the kind of good friend I am.

“What thing?” Leah asks.

I tip the pitcher, topping up my glass. Then I fill her in.

“You're joining a burglary ring?” Leah squeals. “You are so brave. No wonder you don't miss Josh. You stay so busy. And your life is so exciting.”

“I
might
be joining a burglary ring. Depends if I get invited to tomorrow's meeting.”

“Oh, you will. They so want you.”

Leah's much easier to listen to than Junie. Even with her squealy pitch and overuse of the word “so.”

“I want to be just like you,” Leah says.

Definitely easier to listen to.

“Sherry, I just made a decision. I'm coming to the meeting.”

“No!” It's like someone punched me in the gut. “This is one of those situations I need to handle on my own.”

“Absolutely not,” Leah says. “We're partners. No way I'm letting you go into such a scary, dangerous situation on your own.”

“I might not even be going.”

“Oh no, you're going,” Leah says. “You're so persuasive. Look how you even talked me out of my depression. My
yearlong
depression.”

Obviously, I'll be sneaking out of the hotel. I'm not taking Leah. No ifs, ands or buts.

My cell phone pings with a text.

“Is it Lorraine and Stef?” Leah asks. “With details about tomorrow? I knew they'd want you in. You need to trust my judgment more, partner.”

That ghost is überenthusiastic about everything. Hard to believe she was a depressed head case just a few short days ago.

“It's Brianna,” I say. “A friend back in Phoenix.”

“Another friend?” Leah asks sharply, a little jealousy tingeing her words. “How many friends do you have?”

“You'd like Brianna,” I say. “She's crazy in a good way. Boy crazy, makeup crazy, clothes crazy.”

“Uh-huh,” Leah says, not sounding convinced. “She sounds a little out of control.”

I click on Messages.

I go oatmeal mushy inside. “Brianna's at the mall. She spotted Josh, and she's following him! Josh and I have so many memories at the mall. I bet he's super down and visiting all our old places, thinking about me.”

“You guys are so getting back together,” Leah says.

I catch a strong whiff of Lippy's Root Beer Gloss as Leah hovers by my shoulder. “Did you two play a lot of video games together?”

“Tons. We almost entered a competition at Video World as a team,” I say. “I bet his heart is heavy with memories right now.”

“Probably the memories are too severe,” Leah says. “He can't bear to even set foot in the place.”

“Now, this will be very painful for him,” I say. “I solved a mystery where someone was sabotaging the makeup at that booth. And Josh helped. Walking by that kiosk must be like an arrow stabbing his heart.”

“Makes sense to me,” Leah says.

“He's a really nice guy. Probably he doesn't want to burden Amber with his pain.” But the oatmeal mush inside me is starting to bubble.

“I bet he's working hard to hold back the tears,” Leah says.

“It almost sounds as though he's meeting someone,” Leah says. “I mean, who goes to the food court and doesn't buy food? Unless it's a meeting place. Does he have a buddy who works at the mall?”

I shake my head slowly.

The oatmeal mush is boiling up a storm in my stomach.

“Maybe they're cousins,” Leah says.

“I've met all his cousins,” I say.

“She could be a long-lost cousin. They could've connected through Facebook,” Leah says. “Ask if they're holding hands. No one holds hands with their cousin.”

“Ask if their arms are swinging,” Leah says. “Or if they're doing the static handhold, where their arms are basically hanging because they don't really like
each other and don't really want to hold hands, but feel like they have to.”

I type in the question, crossing my fingers that the reply will have the word “static” in it.

I think I'm going to be sick.

“Jazzed-Up Juice? Never heard of it,” Leah says. “Sounds very unromantic. Sounds like the kind of place you take your long-lost Facebook cousin who forced you to hold hands with her.”

“It's ‘our' place. Mine and Josh's. We shared enough smoothies there to last a lifetime,” I say in a choked-up, on-the-verge-of-tears voice. “We had ‘our' table and ‘our' plastic chairs in the corner. Jazzed-Up Juice is romantic with a capital
R
for me.”

“Turn off your cell,” Leah says. “This is like sticking a curling iron in your eye.”

“No, you do not,” Leah says firmly. “Tell her to go shopping.”

Brianna, Sara and Margo? That trio is the opposite of subtle and quiet. Those girls are more along the lines of obvious and giggly. I lay my weary head on my arms. Josh is sharing a romantic smoothie with a sophisticated high school girl in an expensive skirt while his eighth-grader ex-girlfriend's friends are trailing after him through the mall. Acting like Disney Channel detectives.

I text Brianna.

Leah turns off my cell.

This is the worst vacation of my life.

D
ad, Junie and I exit the hotel and saunter down Hollywood Boulevard to number 6667. It's the home of Musso and Frank Grill.

“Musso and Frank is Hollywood's first restaurant,” Junie says. “It's been around since 1919.”

Junie's knowledge of trivia often gets on my nerves. But this evening, her voice nattering on about the unimportant soothes me. Like lotion on raw skin.

“Lots of famous people used to eat here. Such as the writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald,” Junie continues. “Even now, movie stars come to this restaurant.”

My dad is still a little pale from his hot-dog
overindulgence. He hasn't told a joke, good or bad, for hours.

“You okay?” I ask him.

“
Comme ci, comme ça.
I'll live.” It's Céline's influence.

“Il ne faut pas nous accompagner,”
Junie spouts off.

“Pardon,”
my dad says in a bad French accent.

“Enough.” I am not filled with patience right now. First, my mom and the bus driver were all over me about stepping on Kira Cornish's property. Then, I learn that Josh is seeing an older girl and my love life is a train wreck.

“You don't have to come with us,” Junie says.

“I needed to get out of that hotel room,” my dad says. “Especially with those walls the color of hot-dog buns. Bad memories.”

He opens the door to the restaurant, and we take a major step back in time. It reminds me of the restaurants you see in old Hollywood movies. The lighting is dim. The furniture is dark and heavy. The tables are covered with white tablecloths. It's comforting, like mashed potatoes.

A short maitre d' glides over to us. “Table for three?” he asks in a hushed tone.

He leads us to a corner booth. The seats are dark red leather. I open my long menu.

“Sherry, guess what I see?” Junie says in a singsong
voice, like I'm two years old and she's trying to convince me to eat my smushed peas. “They have ravioli.”

She's aware of my love of ravioli and is trying to be really nice. Back at the room, we had a long powwow about the texts from Brianna. Junie promised to talk to Nick about Josh, to see if Nick has any idea what's going on. But the bottom line is, Josh is moving on. It doesn't matter what Nick knows or doesn't know.

My dad orders a chef's salad with dressing on the side.

“Smart thinking, Dad,” I say. “Take it easy on the old stomach.”

“That tasty, unhealthy rich food.” Dad smacks his lips. “It was good while it lasted.”