Better You Than Me

by Jessica Brody

  I’m trapped in here with a crazy hiccupping girl.

  Just then, as if reading my mind, she opens her mouth and says,

  HUUUGHHUUP!

  STOP HICCUPPING!

  Oh gosh. I’m so humiliated, I’m going to die. I finally meet my favorite celebrity of all time, and not only am I incapable of saying a single word to her, I can’t open my mouth without sounding like a squirrel choking on an oversize acorn.

  HUUUGHHUUP!

  Ruby Rivera, who’s already made it very clear she wants to get as far away from me as possible, turns back toward the door and starts banging on it with her fists, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Help! I’m locked in here! Russ! Jericho! Mom! Anyone!”

  I feel another sob rising, and I drop my head in my hands and start crying again. This tour was supposed to cheer me up after the whole humiliating video. I came all the way here to try to make myself feel better, and what do I end up doing? Crying and hiccupping myself to even more embarrassment.

  I’m hopeless! I’m a lost cause. I may as well just ask Mom to homeschool me so I can lock myself in my room and never see another living person again.

  “Excuse me,” comes a small, timid voice, and I glance up to see that Ruby Rivera is looking at me now, her head bent at a slight angle, her expression cautious, like she’s afraid I might leap forward and bite her. “Yes, hi. Um…so we seem to be…um, locked inside here and I was…um, wondering if I could…borrow your phone.”

  My heart literally stops beating.

  Ruby Rivera is talking to me! She’s asking to borrow my phone! MY phone!

  I leap to my feet, a sudden movement that causes Ruby to jump backward, her hand clutching the door handle. She looks so small standing there. Smaller than I thought she’d be, actually. I mean, I know we’re the exact same height (four eleven), but for some reason I thought she’d look…I don’t know…bigger somehow. I’m surprised to see she looks like a normal twelve-year-old girl. Well, apart from the totally awesome hair and makeup, of course.

  Keeping my movements small and slow so I don’t scare her again, I reach behind my back, searching for my backpack before remembering that it’s in a locker in the visitor center. Along with my phone.

  “Uh…,” I say nervously, commanding myself not to hiccup. “I—I don’t have it.”

  Ruby slumps, looking disappointed. She glances around the room and I wonder if she’s searching for something to pick the lock with. I do the same, my gaze soon landing on a silver falcon-shaped hair comb. My eyes light up as I scurry over to grab it from the shelf.

  “Here!” I say excitedly, extending my arm to hand her the comb. She takes a tentative step away from me and stares at the object in my hand as though I’m brandishing a weapon.

  “To pick the lock,” I explain, but she doesn’t seem to understand. “Remember?” I prompt, my confidence building with each word. “You used this in season two, episode seven, when you and Miles got locked inside Headmistress Mancha’s office. You were wearing this comb in your hair and you used the teeth to—”

  “That wasn’t a real lock,” Ruby says, as though this is the most obvious statement in the world.

  I suddenly feel incredibly stupid. Of course she doesn’t really know how to pick locks. That was just a story line in a show. And she’s not a real genie. She’s an actress. Otherwise, she could just poof us out of here.

  I drop the falcon comb back on the shelf. The clank sound it makes against the metal echoes in the endless silence between us.

  Say something, I urge myself. Talk to her.

  After all, when will I ever get the chance to talk to Ruby Rivera again? It’s not every day you get locked inside a prop room with your all-time favorite celebrity! Maybe if I strike up a conversation and act normal, she’ll see I’m not just some strange hiccupping/crying crazy girl and we’ll become friends! Maybe even best friends! We’ll hang out in her mansion in Hollywood and she’ll invite me to come to all the big movie premieres and awards shows with her and we’ll pose on the red carpet together in gorgeous evening gowns. She won’t need that annoying Carey Divine once she has me!

  I peer over at her. She’s still pressed against the door, her gaze narrowed distrustfully at me. I need to break the ice. I need to find something to talk about that won’t send me into a nervous, stammering tailspin.

  “I’m Skylar,” I say, hoping if she knows my name she won’t look so terrified. But she doesn’t even respond.

  Well, duh. Of course she wouldn’t respond. What would she say? Hi, I’m Ruby? Obviously I know her name. I know the name of her mom, her grandmother, and even the pet fish she got for her fifth birthday. It was called Murray. It died a week later.

  I glance around the room again, searching frantically for a conversation starter. Then I spot a gold genie lamp with a jewel-encrusted handle and my mind sparks with an idea.

  Of course! I should talk about her show! It’s the one topic I can always rely on. I walk over to the shelf and pick up the gold lamp. “Hey!” I say, trying to sound upbeat. “This is the lamp you used for that April Fool’s episode when you tricked Miles into believing he’d lost all his genie powers.”

  Ruby Rivera just stares at me like she has no idea what I’m talking about. Maybe she doesn’t remember the episode. I mean, it was a few seasons back. Maybe she just needs a little reminder.

  “You know,” I say, trying to jog her memory. “You found it in Rogue Raymond’s Junkyard and Bazaar and he told you it had no magic left in it. But then you swapped it out for Miles’s lamp in Wish Granting class and…” My voice trails off because Ruby Rivera is no longer staring at me like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. She’s now staring at me like I’m certifiably insane.

  Did I mess up the story line?

  Maybe I should try something else. I set the lamp back down and pick up a masquerade-style mask. “Oh! This is the mask you wore when you and Miles snuck into the neighboring wizard school to crash their dance!” I snort out a laugh, remembering how Miles drank all that punch, not knowing one of the wizards had spiked it with truth serum. “Remember you had to drag Miles home because he nearly got beat up for telling that one wizard he thought his face looked like a donkey? That was so funny!” Then, suddenly, the rest of the episode comes flooding back to me. “Oh my gosh!” I exclaim. “That was the episode when Miles admitted he had a crush on you! Because of the truth serum in the punch! But you had already put your headphones on and you couldn’t hear it! I felt so bad for him.”

  I watch Ruby Rivera’s reaction carefully. Her eyes are darting around the room and her grip on the door handle seems to tighten.

  She thinks I’m crazy. She thinks I’m a stalker.

  “Sorry,” I say, although I doubt she can hear me because it comes out like a mumble. I set the mask back on the shelf. “I’m not very good at talking to people. I get nervous. And when I get nervous I get the hiccups. The only thing I can really talk about is your show, but I guess you don’t want to hear about that. I get it. No one at my school wants to hear about it, either. They all think I’m a giant loser for watching it. Actually, they just think I’m a giant loser, period. I don’t think my TV preferences have anything to do with it. That’s probably why I have no friends.”

  I wring my hands together, wishing I had my phone to play with. I grab a random object from a nearby shelf, just to have something to do with my hands. It’s another beautiful gold genie lamp, this one with a pattern of swirling sapphires around the base. It looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t remember what episode it’s from. I clutch it in my hands, tears welling up in my eyes again. I can’t do anything right. I stink at everything: Middle school. Life. And let’s face it, they’re pretty much the same thing.

  And now Ruby Rivera thinks I’m a psycho.

  I walk back to the wall and sit down again. “I just…,” I say,
sniffling. “Have you ever felt like you don’t belong anywhere?” I let out a dark laugh and wipe my cheeks with the back of my hand. “That was a stupid question. Sorry. Of course you’ve never felt that way. You’re famous. Everyone loves you. You probably fit in everywhere you go.”

  I stare down at the lamp in my hand. The gold band looks worn and aged, but the sapphires are dazzling. Such a deep shade of shimmering blue. And the handle is curved up like a cat’s tail.

  Where have I seen this lamp before?

  I rack my brain, trying to place it in the show. But the memory is just out of reach. I lift my head to ask Ruby what episode this is from, but the words evaporate when I see that she’s no longer standing next to the door.

  She’s standing right in front of me, seemingly towering over me. Then, before I can utter—or, rather, stammer—a single word, she sits down next to me. She leans against the same wall. She’s so close, the sleeve of her T-shirt brushes against my arm.

  I could reach out and touch her right now. But obviously I won’t. I don’t. I stay statue-still, staring straight in front of me, careful not to make any sudden movements in fear that she might go scuttling back to the door.

  Then she tips her head back against the wall with a heavy sigh and says, “Every. Single. Day.”

  I flinch, startled by her response. And so confused. What is she talking about? Is she speaking in some kind of secret celebrity code?

  Then, just as I’m about to ask her what she means, she closes her eyes and whispers, “Every single day I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.”

  So it turns out the strange hiccupping girl—Skylar—is not a crazy stalker fan. I mean, she does seem to know a frightening amount of information about the show, and she did manage to sneak into our soundstage, but all in all, she seems pretty harmless. I think she’s just sad. And a little pathetic.

  Kind of like me.

  Which is why I somehow feel the need to sit next to her. Seeing as neither of us is going anywhere anytime soon. The set is already dressed for the day. It could be hours before Jericho needs anything from the prop room. Eventually, they’ll be ready for me on set, and when they don’t find me in my trailer, they’ll come looking for me. But who knows how long it’ll take for them to figure out I’m stuck in here.

  Plus, there’s something about this girl. The way her sadness kind of weighs her down. The way she talks about not fitting in. About not having any friends. I feel like she and I are not so different. Both lonely. Both trapped.

  And I don’t just mean in a prop room.

  “Every single day I feel like I don’t belong anywhere,” I tell her, and out of the corner of my eye I see her gaze slide to me. I can tell by the way she’s gawking right now that she doesn’t believe me. I’m not surprised. I’m sure she follows me on all my social media sites. She sees the way my life is presented to the world. All the glamorous clothes and red-carpet premieres and autograph sessions. But that’s not my life. I’m not even sure whose life that is. Some fake, made-up person invented by Barry Barkowitz.

  Just once, I want to tell someone that the girl in the pictures and the videos and the interviews is not me.

  And just once, I want someone to believe that.

  But by the way this girl is still staring at me with her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes looking like they’re going to pop right out of her head, I don’t think she’s going to be that someone.

  “B-b-but,” she stammers, and then hiccups again. “But you’re Ruby Rivera.”

  I have to laugh at this. At the fact that she thinks this is a valid argument, when in reality it’s the problem.

  I scoff. “Yeah, and I’ll tell you, it’s no picnic. Everyone telling you what to say, what to wear, what to eat. It’s like your own life doesn’t even belong to you. It belongs to the Xoom! Channel. You’re just a…a…” I gesture to the shelves full of fake objects made to look real. “A prop. A product on the shelf.”

  I’m honestly not sure why I’m telling her all this, when I’ve never really told anyone this. But after what happened earlier with my mom, I feel like I have to tell someone. If I don’t, I think I might burst.

  Skylar snorts. “Yeah, well, I’ll take that over being in middle school any day.”

  I turn to her, shock on my face. “Are you kidding? I would love to go to middle school. I would love to go to a regular school with regular kids and have a regular life.”

  “No,” she says adamantly, and hiccups again. “No, you wouldn’t. Regular kids are mean. And middle school is the worst.”

  “This place is the worst,” I say, starting to get frustrated. I’m so tired of everyone making fame out to be this giant amusement park. I’m sick of being told I’m lucky and I should be grateful for my life. I don’t have a life!

  She sputters. “But your life is so amazing!”

  “Trust me, it’s not,” I tell her.

  “Of course it is! You have everything!”

  “No I don’t. I have no freedom. I have no friends. No fun.”

  She shakes her head, like she refuses to believe me. “But you’re famous and pretty and talented and you live in a mansion with a closet full of designer clothes.”

  “That my mom picked out.”

  Skylar lets out a noise that sounds like pushah. “At least your mother cares about clothes. All my mom cares about is her stupid books.”

  “That sounds like a dream.”

  She stares at the ceiling. “Well, it’s not.”

  I’m about to argue with her more, but then I notice something in her eyes that stops me short. Hurt. Pain. I’ve hit a sore spot.

  She strokes the gold lamp she still has clutched in her hands. “Maybe if my mom cared less about those stupid books, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  I scrunch my forehead. She’s not making any sense. But I don’t want to press the issue because there are tears welling up in her eyes again.

  “Sorry,” she says, sniffling. “My parents are getting a divorce. And it’s all my mom’s fault. If she had just stayed around and tried to work things out, they probably could have. I know they could have. But instead, she decided to move us all the way across the country for some lame job. I mean, she couldn’t have picked a place farther away from Massachusetts.” She sighs. “And now I only get to see my father during holidays.”

  I glance at my feet. “At least you get to see him at all.”

  Skylar’s hand flies to her mouth, like she’s trying to shove her words back in. “Oh my gosh. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know your dad left when you were little.”

  “Before I was born,” I correct her. “He left the minute my mom told him she was pregnant. That’s how excited he was about having a kid.”

  “But your Wikipedia page says he left when—”

  “The publicity people at Xoom! Channel thought it would make a better story if he left when I was a kid. More tragic, I guess. Most of what you read about me isn’t true. It’s a string of lies carefully woven together to tell a good story. Just like an episode of a hit TV show.”

  There’s a heavy silence next to me, and I know Skylar is processing everything I’ve just said. Although it’s probably unfair of me to burst her bubble like this, I feel surprisingly good. Weightless. Like a heavy burden has been lifted from my shoulders.

  “I’m sorry about your dad,” she says after a long moment.

  I bite my lip. I’ve never cried over my father. Probably because I never knew him. But right now, right here, being stuck in this prop room with this stranger, I feel a stirring of tears.

  Or maybe that’s just all the other things that are wrong with my life piling on top of each other. The contracts. The upcoming kiss scene. My mother.

  “Thanks,” I manage to say, blinking away the moisture. “And I’m sorry about your parents.”

&n
bsp; “Thanks.” She’s quiet, like she’s thinking really hard about something. Then she says, “So your entire Wikipedia page is fake?”

  I chuckle. “Pretty much.”

  “What about the part that says that you and Carey Divine are best friends?”

  I bark out a laugh. “Ha! Yeah, no. That’s not true. I can’t stand that girl.”

  “I knew it!” she says excitedly. “I knew you wouldn’t be friends with her. She’s so…”

  “Annoying,” we both say at once, and then giggle.

  “So annoying,” Skylar confirms.

  I wrinkle my nose. “And I hate how she pronounces her name. De-veeeeen. So pretentious.”

  She snorts. “Totally! And she has no talent.”

  “Thank you!” I say appreciatively. “Finally, someone with taste.”

  Skylar grins, tucking her knees under her and turning to face me. “So why does she keep winning Best Actress every single year?”

  I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

  She opens her mouth to say something, but then a thought seems to strike her. “Wait. If you don’t like her, why are you always acting like you’re friends?”

  I roll my eyes. “That was the Channel’s idea, too. They invented the friendship to help promote the TV movie Carey and I did together.”

  “Lemonade Stand-Off,” Skylar says, jumping in like she’s a contestant on a trivia game show.

  Wow. This girl really does know everything about me. I’m actually a tiny bit impressed.

  “Yeah. That one. And then the media seemed to love the whole BFF thing so much, the Channel decided they wanted to keep it up.”

  “So you have no say in it?”

  “Nope.”

  “That’s lame.” Skylar continues to fidget with the genie lamp in her lap, and for the first time, I notice which one she’s holding. It seems like such a bizarre coincidence that of all the lamps in this room, she’d pick up that one.

  My mother’s lamp.