Someone Else's Fairytale

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C
over design © 2011 Tiger Bright Studios

They say every author has to write 10,000 pages of unpublishable garbage before they produce anything worth reading. I think I had more, but you'd have to ask Char.

She's read them all.

Table of Contents

One: That Day

Two: Photograph

Three: Coffee and Vandalism

Four: Danger Fields

Five: Dinner and a Movie

Six: Mom's Issues

Seven: Sandia Peak

Eight: The Vanderholts

Nine: The Drive Home

Ten: Paparazzi

Eleven: Skype Calls

Twelve: Chris

Thirteen: Digging Up the Past

Fourteen: The Hearing

Fifteen: Ten Years Ago

Sixteen: First Kiss

Seventeen: Matthew

Eighteen: Someone Else's Fairytale

Nineteen: Poetic Justice

Twenty: Phone Calls

Twenty-One: Dinner

Twenty-Two: His Question

Twenty-Three: Surprise

Twenty-Four: Love Scenes

Twenty-Five: The Talk

Twenty-Six: Kyra

Twenty-Seven: Lori

Twenty-Eight: New York

Twenty-Nine: My Question

Thirty: His Answer

Thirty-One: Things Fall Apart

Thirty-Two: Back in Albuquerque

Thirty-Three: The Setup

Thirty-Four: My Fairytale

Acknowledgments

I owe a lot of thank yous to the people who helped this novel along, especially my first readers: Char Peery, Kate Seagrave, Sandra Mah Benzie, Samantha Ling, and my husband, Trevor Tippetts. They all read this work in draft form and helped me out with suggestions and reactions and pointed out typos. A big thank you to Mary Mah, for helping chase down still more typos. Details of the film industry were supplied by Laura Mixon and Debra Bellon; all errors are my own entirely. And finally, a thanks to Jenn Reese, of Tiger Bright Studios, for designing a beautiful cover and devising that title block I love so much. Writing is a solitary endeavor, so I'm always grateful for those who walk a part of the journey with me. You guys are the best!

I stepped out our front door into the frigid, Albuquerque night. The crisp air, tinged with the scent of woodsmoke, flushed through my lungs, and the stars winked distantly in the deep cobalt sky. It was three thirty a.m., way too early to be awake.

A truck turned the corner and rumbled its way over to our house. I watched it parallel park, then go silent as the lights switched off. The driver's side door opened, and my best friend, Matthew, stepped down. His cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt, then crunched across the gravel that covered our front yard. “Howdy,” he said.

I stifled a laugh. He was the walking stereotype of a Texan, with his muscular build, tight jeans, and flannel shirt. His hazel eyes were smiling, though. Like me, he was a senior at
UNM
, and he was a source of sanity, something I needed to counterbalance my housemate, Lori, who just then skipped out the front door, jumped down onto the gravel, and struck an action pose, both hands up, ready to karate chop whatever imaginary adversary might be lurking under the giant cottonwood that dominated our front yard. She wasn't wearing any nylons with her skirt.

“Aren't you cold?” Matthew asked.

“Yep, but I don't think this is a cold weather scene we're in.”

“We're extras,” I said, for what felt like the millionth time. “Nobody's going to notice what we're wearing.”

“How did she talk you into this?” Matthew asked me.
The three of us started towards campus, on foot. We'd been told not to drive because there was limited parking.

“I don't know,” I said.

“Come on, just picture it.” Lori waved a hand,
setting the scene “-we're on the set, and Jason Vanderholt walks by.”

I rolled my eyes.

“I tell him how hot he was in the
New Light
movies-”

“Because I'm sure he never hears that,” I said. The
New Light
franchise was a trilogy of gladiator movies that I'd managed to avoid seeing, despite the fact that Jason Vanderholt's long haired, shirtless figure had been plastered on every vertical surface for three years straight while they came out.

“Sarcasm,” chided Matthew.

 
“You should ask him why his character was named 'sword',” I said.

“Gladius,” Lori corrected me.

“Right. That's Latin for, 'sword'.”

“It was his
nick
name. But you're ruining my narrative here."

We stepped off the curb to cross the street. Given the hour, there was no traffic, though in the still night air, we could hear voices of other groups who, like us, were headed towards campus on foot.

"He stops to talk to us,” said Lori.

“Then what?” said Matthew.

 
“That's it. He stops to talk to us.”

 
“That's it?”

 
“A girl can dream.”

 
“Apparently not. That the best you can do?”

“Shut up okay?” Lori stuck her tongue out at him. “I'm a math major.”

 
“At least come up with something to talk to him about.”

 
“Ooooh! You know what? I should totally ask him if he remembers Vicki Baca! Remember, she said she had a locker next to him in high school?”

Aside from being the star of the multi-bazillion dollar
New Light
franchise, Vanderholt was also a local, or he had been before he'd hit it big with a show on the Disney Channel back in his teens. I cleared my throat. “I know about thirty people who claim to have had the locker next to him in high school, which makes me wonder how they do the lockers at La Cueva.”

“I so hope we get to meeeeeet him.” Lori turned a pirouette.

Matthew shook his head. “You're gonna catch a cold.”

I sneaked in a smile the next time he glanced my way. He chuckled, his shoulders moving silently.

The film set was barely controlled chaos. “Just line up here!” a woman was shouting when we walked up. “We're still getting the catering area set up for you. Line up here!” She gestured at the walkway that led up to the
UNM
anthropology building, a wide strip of concrete that bisected the lawn. The pre-dawn light washed the color out of everything, making the world look like a faded photograph. The rounded, stucco walls of the building seemed old and historic.

Matthew, Lori and I found a place in line and stood with our paper cups of hot chocolate that we'd bought from The Frontier on the way. I sidled up to Matthew. “Okay,” I said, “I get why Lori's doing this. Why are you?” I noticed that he'd combed his light brown curls with water, and a couple of them had frozen.