Star Minds Chasing Stardom

by Barbara G. Tarn

  My jaw dropped, and a tear ran down my cheek. What had I done? Although Rashaun's character seemed well off on his own, had I broken Rashaun's heart? I couldn't sleep that night and the next morning I had to see him. I went to ring his bell, still mulling over the story.

  Aryan opened the door and let me in with a sigh. So he'd moved in with Rashaun. Bastard. Rashaun was standing in the small living room and seemed at a loss for words. I saw Aryan grab a duffel bag and leave.

  "What was that?" I asked, puzzled. "I mean, I didn't want to intrude, but I wanted to talk to you about Kilig and Hakeem..."

  Rashaun averted his eyes and slumped seated on the couch. "What about that story?" he asked, sounding weary.

  "I mean, you killed me off! Is that how you felt? You wanted to see me dead?"

  "No, Zafar, that was just a story. I had to cope with the loss. I killed you on the page to get you out of my heart." He shook his head, staring at his hands in his lap. "It's fiction, Zafar, not a metaphor for our lives."

  "Oh." I sighed in relief. "So you don't hate me."

  "No, I don't hate you."

  "And Aryan?"

  "Aryan what?"

  "What is he doing here?"

  "Well, he's gone, isn't he?"

  "Yes, but... he had moved in with you, hadn't he?"

  "Yes, but he never wanted to be a surrogate. And yesterday when we met you, he immediately knew that's exactly what he was."

  "Meaning?" My heart opened up to hope, but I had to hear it from him.

  He glared at me. "Don't be daft, Zafar, you're smarter than that."

  I chuckled and cleared my throat. I walked to the couch and sat next to him, nestling against him like I used to do fifteen years ago.

  "So, can I come back?" I asked. "Do you still love me?"

  "Obviously." His Adam's apple went up and down. He couldn't even look at me, and I so wanted to kiss him...

  "Why do I always have to take the initiative?" I complained. "You're older, you should take charge!"

  "Have you really come back?" he replied a little bluntly. "Are you free from all your contracts?"

  "Yes, I'm free from Dahumada. Zaphadin is dead. I still love you. I missed you a lot, but didn't dare call you."

  He took my face in his hands. "You stubborn sexy man," he said. And then he kissed me.

  *

  For years, I had hoped that Zafar would come back to his senses. Then I'd surrendered to Aryan. I wasn't as strong as my character, Kilig, and my loneliness was killing me. Aryan had shared my bed for almost three years when Zafar came back.

  While we were still together, I had started writing a story set in the past, with no technology, in which I was an assassin and he was my apprentice, and he enjoyed reading it as I wrote it.

  When I had finished it, he'd asked me if there was anything autobiographical in the story, but no, it was just my way of seeing us both in another time with other clothes and other occupations and falling in love and getting in trouble. I had made my character stern and grumpy – he tried to resist his younger partner in vain.

  Zafar had loved it. "Did I really seduce you?" he'd asked, delighted. Indeed he had, with his glorious smile and bedroom eyes. And then he'd moved on.

  I really thought I had managed to forget him, but simply seeing his face brought back the memories of our passion and the stories and lyrics it had inspired. Not that I had stopped writing after I'd gone home. Quite the opposite. I had started writing fiction like crazy, since I had lost my post as a professor.

  And then I'd started putting my stories out there, and those stories started selling. Even the ones with tragic endings like Kilig & Hakeem. After a few years I finally managed to write happy endings, but for some reason my greatest success had been written when I'd broken up with my one and only love, Zafar. Although at the time Zafar was dead, replaced by Zaphadin the King of Music...

  Now Zaphadin was dead and Zafar was back. It was as if those fifteen years had never happened. We were sitting on my couch discussing his future as if he'd just dropped out of university and still didn't know what to do with himself.

  And then one day he got a message from someone who gave him back his dreams. Kay-low Meraini, who had tasted some success as Stardust Kay-low for about six months, invited him to Marc'harid to take part in a joint music project.

  *

  Zaphadin is dead, but I'm not. I'm slowly regaining my confidence and my love for dance. I have the most wonderful man in the universe by my side. And a telepathic young man from another planet just offered me a second chance, as long as I don't use the name Zaphadin anymore.

  So here I am, at Mansion Shermac, a place much smaller than Zaphadin's castle, but still big and luxurious and filled with other creative people, each working on something – a song, a melody, a line, a chorus. The energy is so positive, it's invigorating. I want to sing every morning when I wake up in Rashaun's arms.

  Kay-low and his boyfriend are very sweet. They're so young and so... one! They have a telepathic bond that I wish I could have with Rashaun. Unfortunately we're not telepaths, so we're considering marriage instead. A gay couple getting married with a heterosexual Ypsilantian wedding ceremony... I wonder if we can find an Ypsilantian priestess to perform it for us.

  It really feels like the beginning of a new life for me. As if the past ten hellish years are quickly fading away. I won't make the same mistake twice. This time I will keep the people who truly love me by my side. My creative partner and soon-to-be husband and I are on the road to a different kind of stardom.

  Here's to my second life as an artist. It won't be as glamorous as the first, but I don't care. I've had enough of fame. I look forward to recording my first album under my real name. I know my mother will be proud.

  (Star Minds Next Generation)

  Astrid

  1. Eighteen years old

  Astrid opened the French-windows and stepped onto the balcony, closing her eyes and inhaling the scent of leaves – earthy and fresh and changing color for the winter. In the palace gardens, the breeze was cooling and the apples were ripe for the picking. If she stood on her tiptoes, she could see far ahead, to the little stream that ran through the open meadow beyond the trees.

  After inhaling the smell of nature, she went back inside her room. She'd miss those gardens for the next few years. She doubted that where she was headed she would have what she had on Marc'harid.

  Her room was small and spartan, but it was enough for her. It was a small apartment in the palace, above the guards' quarters on the first floor. The more luxurious apartments were on the second floor, where Sire aristocrats and council members lived.

  If she thought about Shantel's cramped condo apartment, she felt happy she had her own room, next to her parents' and opening onto a living room with kitchenette. She lay on her bed and looked around at the moving posters on the walls, her laptop on the desk, the tablet and videophone next to it, and the big screen to watch her favorite movies from the bed.

  One day she'd be on that screen herself. She loved acting, and since secondary school was over, she had chosen what she wanted to do. She'd be an actress – with her caramel skin, frizzy hair and sky-blue eyes that made her so uncommon. Perks of having parents of two different Humanoid planets.

  Shantel called to ask her if she was ready. They had spent their last long summer with their friends, performing at the local theater, but they would jump on an interstellar flight the next morning and they looked forward to reaching the School of Performing Arts of Vilas Lok. They were eighteen, and full of hopes and dreams.

  Astrid's mother knocked on her door as she checked her luggage one last time. It was bundled in a corner by the wardrobe door – a big suitcase and a smaller bag.

  "Are you ready?" N'ell'onera had the same caramel skin and frizzy hair as her daughter, and the same dazzling smile. "Did you take everything?"

  "I feel like I'm forgetting something!" Astrid tugged at her hair, frustrated, staring at the locked suitcas
e.

  "Well, you're not going to the desert, if you need something, you can always buy it on Vilas Lok," her mother replied. "Do you want to eat, or just go straight to bed?"

  "I'm not hungry," Astrid grumbled. As usual, when she was nervous her stomach was in such a knot she couldn't swallow a thing. That was probably why she was so thin, according to plump Natalia. Actually, Natalia called her skinny and anorexic, which she wasn't. Astrid was happy to get rid of that mean and envious classmate who couldn't stand the fact that Astrid was prettier.

  N'ell'onera sat next to her on the bed and took her hand. "You'll be fine, Astrid," she said tenderly. "You were one of the best actresses in the school, I'm sure you'll do wonders on Vilas Lok. You'll be able to join the Galactic Theatrical Company and become as famous as your idols."

  Her chin pointed at the moving posters of theater plays, muted, playing on her walls.

  Astrid sighed. "At the moment I feel like an ugly duckling..."

  "You listen too much to David's tales." N'ell'onera squeezed her shoulder. "Will you miss your boyfriend?"

  "Probably... it will be the first time in four years that we won't be able to see each other for months..."

  "You grew up with Shantel's brother. He's a nice guy, but maybe you need to explore a little."

  She glared at her mother. "Didn't you end up with the first man who courted you?"

  "I was a bodyguard," N'ell'onera reminded her with a chuckle. "I didn't have free time to go on dates. I was assigned to Shan-leo as soon as I finished school – and even in school, I did extra training with my father and didn't have time to go on dates."

  Astrid nestled against her with a sigh. "I do love Tyrell..." she said, thoughtful. "But maybe we don't have the same ideas on life and family? I mean, I know he loves me and he respects me and he's a gentleman and everything, but sometimes I wonder..."

  "You're curious about sex?"

  "Yeah. I mean, Shantel said it's not such a big deal, but still..."

  "You behave yourself, young lady," N'ell'onera said with mock threat. "Don't become the School of Performing Arts whore, all right?"

  "No, Mom, don't worry." Astrid giggled and squeezed her. "I'll probably be too intimidated by the new place to do anything! I'll wait for Tyrell – when I come back and we decide what to do with ourselves!"

  "Good." N'ell'onera squeezed back. "So, no food and just bed?"

  "Mm... maybe I'll try to eat something... Don't want to wake up hungry before the alarm clock rings!"

  ***

  David retired to his room after the family dinner, checking his bags one last time. Unlike Laura, he was going to the School of Performing Arts on Vilas Lok with his best friend Norris to see if he could have a career in the written entertainment field. He and Norris had started a moving comic during secondary school, and he loved writing more and more. Norris did the art and he wrote the story – they were the perfect team.

  His father, Daniele, knocked on his door as he straightened and sighed.

  If Laura had taken after Daniele, David was more like his mother, Chantal. He was quiet and introverted, unlike his elder sister and his father, the sci-fi geek from Planet Earth who at almost sixty sometimes still behaved like a teenager. Daniele was also David's first reader, and seemed to really enjoy his son's imagination.

  "Ready?"

  "Yes, Dad." David sat at his desk, gathering his writing stuff – tablet, laptop. "I wonder if Rashaun will teach creative writing at the school."

  "As far as I know, at the moment only Zafar has a teaching post," Daniele said, looking everywhere but at his son. Sometimes David suspected his father was his first reader because he didn't want him to ask Rashaun Khanna, who was moving to Vilas Lok with his husband and would travel with David and Astrid and their friends the morning after.

  "Yeah, well, you never know." David shrugged. "Is that all you wanted to talk about? I'll be all right, there's Astrid, Shantel, Norris – and Zafar... so it's not like I'm going out in the big unknown all alone, you know."

  "Yes, yes, I know, that's not what I worry about."

  David waited, amused by his father's embarrassment. He was about to prod for more when Daniele finally looked at him.

  "I've been wondering... since you and Norris seemed so busy with your comic... Did you two ever go out with anyone?"

  "Norris did. I didn't. Couldn't care less."

  "Don't you like girls?" Daniele, asked, worried. "Or... um... boys?"

  David knew how uncomfortable his father was with the topic. On his home planet, Daniele had received a certain education that had been completely shattered when he'd left Earth and followed Gaurishankar to the stars. In spite of having spent twenty years away from Earth, he still couldn't accept same-sex love as natural.

  "It's not that, Dad," David said, snorting in frustration. "I just don't get it! What's the fuss? What's the hurry? We have our whole life to find that perfect someone... when did you find Mom?"

  "I was close to thirty," Daniele admitted. "But I had my first girlfriend at thirteen. It was a summer thing... I was with my parents at our house in Circeo, with the usual friends, beach parties, ice creams, and then there was this girl who was seventeen and she took me aside one night on the beach and..." He brightened. "Would you like to go on vacation during the next school break? That usually helps..."

  "Parties and celebrations help too." David rolled his eyes. "Didn't you know that Laura nailed Kay-low, under a starry sky and stupid balloons? And D'oji'mon kissed her under the Eiffel Tower during our trip to Earth..."

  "Ah, yes, well, your sister is... uh... normal. Besides, she's your mother's business." Daniele cleared his throat, frowning in concentration. "David, I'm worried for you, because you're becoming a loner."

  "Maybe I'm an introvert. Maybe I can't be bothered. Maybe I'll catch up. Maybe you don't need to worry for me, Dad, I'm fine. I'm an eighteen-year-old virgin, so? Big deal! I'm not the only one!"

  "Who else is?"

  "Astrid. Tyrell isn't doing anything nasty. So, she has a boyfriend and she's still a virgin."

  "Oh. Your generation is weird." Daniele sighed. "I thought I had Peter Pan syndrome, but I don't really get youngsters anymore."

  "You're my dad, not my best friend," David said with a smile. "And you're just fine. Don't worry, Dad, I'll be all right."

  "Don't let Zafar and Rashaun corrupt you."

  "Please. Do you want me to tell Dadina what you just said?"

  "No! All right, just go! A School of Performing Arts! Jesus! My mother would have killed me!"

  David chuckled. "Love you, Dad!" he said, hugging his father, who grumpily squeezed him back.

  ***

  Astrid and Shantel had shared classrooms since primary school and were inseparable by now. Astrid's caramel skin contrasted with Shantel's pale tone. They couldn't be more different physically, but they loved each other and were best of friends.

  Shantel Malandra was from Alahairo, a planet of traders, although her mother had joined palace administration when the Emperor was still alive – a steady job that meant that Shantel was born on Marc'harid like Astrid.

  Astrid and Shantel had decided they both wanted to be actresses, therefore they had both applied to the School of Performing Arts on Vilas Lok – the pleasure planet, but also the base of most of the entertainment industry.

  "It feels like a fairy tale," Shantel said, excited. She had dark blond hair and hazel eyes, and she loved to make funny voices. "I mean, from there we could join the Galactic Theatrical Company and shoot to fame, can you believe it? Two non-Sire born on the Sire planet could acquire galactic stardom!"

  "But Tyrell won't be with us," Astrid said, a little sad. Astrid's boyfriend, who was also Shantel's older brother, wasn't interested in an acting career. He was twenty-four and a natural born trader like his father. He traveled a lot and whenever he came back, Astrid and Shantel both listened to his tales with eyes wide in wonder. Often David came to listen too, but when Tyrell was done, he
shooed away his sister or any other listener to turn to Astrid, whom he loved tenderly.

  "Hey, I might write your next movie," David said cheerfully. He had enrolled in the creative writing course at the school with his artist and best friend Norris. "When I'm done writing our moving comic or Norris gets sick of drawing it!"

  "I think we could reach some kind of conclusion," Norris said. He had short, frizzy bronze hair and freckles, and he was taller than David, but stooped forward, since he spent most of his time at the drawing table. He'd been born on Serenaide and had moved to Marc'harid during childhood, becoming David's best friend during secondary school, when they'd started their project together. "I wonder if I'll find other writers at the school..."

  "See, my teammate is already sick of me!" David complained. "I doubt the Galactic Company would want to perform my silly plays, but I could try to write a screenplay. Or a screen series, from my episodic novels..."

  "David, you're a doll!" Shantel planted a kiss on his cheek. Both she and Astrid considered him like a brother, not boyfriend material, and he didn't mind.

  The four of them had met at the spaceport, since they had the same flight booked to take them to Vilas Lok. Their parents were a little worried, but they told them, "We're eighteen, we can take care of ourselves!"

  Besides, they weren't really traveling alone. Zafar Nagarkar, the artist formerly known as Zaphadin, had completed his music project with Kay-low and Laura and their bands, and had been offered the chance to teach dancing classes at the School of Performing Arts. Thus he and his husband, Rashaun Khanna, were also headed for Vilas Lok with the four youngsters.

  Shantel and Astrid knew they'd have at least one dance class with Zafar during the three years course, but David and Norris wouldn't, since they'd chosen another branch of entertainment.

  "Astrid, are you leaving without saying good-bye?" Tyrell chided, meeting her at the spaceport.

  "I left you for last because I love you the most," she replied, rising on tiptoes to put her arms around his neck. "I'll miss you. But as soon as I finish this course, I'll come back. Will you wait for me?"