Next Door To A Star

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  Nick: Gotta go, Dad’s yelling at me for not paying attention. ;) Talk to ya soon. Night.

  “So…a boy?” Grandpa asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “You get that same look on your face that Faith does when a guy messages her.” He laughed.

  “I don’t know if he’s interested or not though. He might have wanted someone to talk to about the game. I mean, it seems like he’s into me.”

  “If he was willing to take time away from the game to focus on you…my guess is that he’s interested, and my advice is to not tell your grandmother,” he said with a wink.

  Chapter Eleven

  I called Charlotte the next morning to see if she wanted to come over, but she was going out on Deidre’s dad’s boat.

  “I guess I can ask if you can come along,” she said.

  “It’s okay. I might do something with my grandparents,” I said. I didn’t want to beg for an invitation.

  “Oh, okay. Well, have fun,” she said.

  I spent all morning reading and hoping Simone would call me to do something and bring up Nick. I wondered if Lauren was in town yet.

  Aunt Maggie came into my room. “I’m going to get my hair done downtown. You want to go with me? You could get a trim if you want and afterward we can get ice cream.”

  Grandma had been reading in the family room all morning, so it wasn’t like I’d be able to watch Charmed Lives anyway. At least at the salon I’d be able to read magazines.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  Aunt Maggie was getting her hair washed when Simone came in with her mom. They both had appointments, but her mom went first so Simone sat down with me.

  “I’m getting a trim and maybe some layers,” Simone said. “I want to get highlights, but my mom won’t let me because they fry my hair. I used to have them all the time though.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what all went into getting highlights other than using some kind of bleach and tinfoil, but I nodded. One of the magazines had said Valeria had buttery highlights near her face, so they had to be a good thing. Maggie came out with a towel on her head and asked if I wanted to get my hair cut. My hair was in a messy ponytail and needed a trim, but I’d only ever had one person cut my hair for me—my mom’s hairstylist, Ramona. She had been doing my hair since I was little, and I was a bit nervous about the idea of someone else touching my hair.

  “You should do it,” said Simone. “You would look good with some layers around your face.”

  Valeria had layers around her face, so I agreed. Simone and I had our hair washed, and I felt dumb having her see me with wet hair. I always made sure never to get it wet at the beach when I was with her. However, Simone was even pretty with her wet hair plastered against her head.

  “Okay, so we’re doing layers?” the stylist asked me.

  “Yeah, like this,” I said, pulling up a picture of Valeria on my phone.

  “Do you want a bit of bangs with it like in the picture?”

  I looked over at Simone.

  “Do it,” she said. “If you hate it, they will grow out by the time school starts.”

  “Bangs like these are easy to blend in with the rest of the hair if you don’t like them,” the stylist said.

  I nodded and she said she was going to use a razor on my hair. I didn’t know what she meant and about had a stroke when she started using it around my face. I thought my hair would end up looking all choppy since the stylist kept cutting it away from the rest of my hair, but it fell right into place when she finished.

  I looked at all the hair on the floor around my chair. She cut a ton off, but it was still sorta long, and now it had shorter pieces in front like Simone’s. Simone’s hairstylist told her to use a deep conditioner since she was bleaching her hair.

  “Don’t tell my mom, okay?” Simone said to me. “I use this stuff you spray in your hair to make it blonder. She won’t let me highlight it anymore, and my hair’s gotten darker in the last two years. I had to do something while the highlights grew out.”

  Her stylist told her she shouldn’t use the bleaching stuff and said your hormones made your hair darker as you get older. Simone made a face when she said, “hormones.” Adults always blamed everything on hormones. You could steal a car and back over a dog and they’d shake their heads and blame it on hormones.

  “Where do you get that bleaching stuff?” I asked after the hairstylist left to get some styling pomade.

  “They took it off the market, but I stockpiled right before they did, so I have a ton left. It’s super easy to use. I can do it for you,” she said. “You have to use a hairdryer or sit in the sun to activate it. It looks pretty natural. Come over tonight and I’ll show you.”

  I went over to her house after dinner and she sprayed something called “Sunglazing” in my hair. It smelled like rotten eggs and Windex, but I didn’t complain. She used her hairdryer and my head felt tight and itchy from the heat. It didn’t look much different when she was finished, but she said it would be more noticeable if I sat out in the sun.

  “I use it a lot and my hair’s naturally dishwater blonde. It’s even darker than yours,” she said.

  I was surprised since my hair seemed a lot darker than Simone’s. Her hair was super blonde now.

  “Make sure you put more conditioner on your hair so it doesn’t dry out,” she said.

  I didn’t own any, but Lily had a bottle of Baby Tangles-Be-Gone which said, “extra conditioning” on the label so I figured I could use it.

  “So what’s going on with Connor and Pilar?” I asked.

  “They’re still going out, but I think Pilar told him not to talk to me anymore. He, like, won’t make eye contact with me or anything. It’s so weird.”

  “When’s Lauren coming to town?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” she said as she pulled down the side of her waistband to check out her tan. “My color is getting gross.” She pulled up the bottom of her pink tank top. “I need to put more on.”

  “Put more of what on?”

  “I use this self-tanning cream, but sometimes it wears off kinda splotchy,” she said.

  Now it made sense why she was so tan. I always wondered how she got so much color when she was always putting on sunscreen. Simone put her hair up in a bun with a headband to pull back the little hairs around her face. Then she rolled up the bottom of her shorts and covered herself in tanning cream, which made her look greasy. She padded over to her bed on her heels so her oily feet wouldn’t stain the carpet.

  “Now I have to sit without touching anything for two hours so it can dry. Can you turn on the radio?” she asked.

  Simone’s mom asked if I wanted to stay for dinner. They were having tuna casserole, which I hated, but I called and asked if I could stay anyway.

  “Simone, don’t get the tanning stuff on my furniture,” her mother said.

  “I won’t, Ma.”

  “Well, you left a brown ring on my white couch last week,” she said. “That stuff stinks.”

  Simone rolled her eyes and passed me a plate of casserole. I tried to eat as much of it as I could.

  “Ma, did you use fat-free soup in this?” Simone asked.

  Her mother shook her head. After dinner, we ate leftover birthday cake that had been in the freezer. I never realized how awesome frozen frosting tasted—it was like biting into chewy ice cream. Simone didn’t seem to mind the cake wasn’t fat-free. We went over to my grandparents’ yard after dinner. Simone was still oily from her fake tan and didn’t want to go inside and have anybody see her. The backyard smelled fresh and moist from the sprinklers watering the grass.

  I turned to look at her. “So when is Lauren coming—”

  “Oh man, I got some tanning stuff on my shorts. I gotta throw these in the wash,” she said, tugging at the hem. “Be right back.”

  I took a couple pics of my new hair while I was waiting, and, in a moment of rare bravery, sent one to Nick, asking what he thought of my new look. The second I sent it, I
felt stupid and wanted to take it back. Ugh, now I would look so shallow and desperate for his approval. How could I be so dumb?

  Nick: Looks really pretty, but you did before too. Was watching the Tigers last night and thought of you.

  My face got warm as I wrote back that was I thinking about him too when I watched the last game. Simone walked up then.

  “What are you doing for the Fourth of July?” I asked when she sat down with her new shorts on. I was hoping she’d ask me to watch the fireworks with her, spend the night, and then we’d go get, well, not best friend necklaces, but something matching that showed we were friends like all the girls at my school in Goodacre had. It seemed everyone had matching something or other. Lexi and I had the same school bags, but that was it. I always wanted to have matching jewelry with someone—that feeling of belonging. I really hoped we would hang out on the Fourth. Maybe Lauren would be in town then and we could all hang out. Instead, Simone said she had plans.

  “Pilar’s parents are having everybody over to watch the fireworks from their place,” she said. “They have people over each year because you get a better view from up on the hill.”

  I would have died for an invitation to Pilar’s party, but I knew it wouldn’t happen. Pilar had never even spoken to me. I wished Simone would offer to ask if I could come, but she didn’t say anything. After all, Nick had mentioned it to her that she should bring me along, right? As I was getting up the nerve to ask her if she would, she said the mosquitoes were bothering her and she was going to go inside. I had the same sick feeling I always got when I missed my chance to do something. The feeling only got worse when I went inside.

  “Hadley, did you see the new Celebrity Snooper blog today?” Aunt Faith asked. “Simone is in it with Lauren Gere.”

  “What? She didn’t say anything about that. Were these super old pictures?”

  “Here,” she said. “I’ll pull it up on my phone. It’s Simone and Lauren walking along the boardwalk with some blonde girl and a boy.”

  “Does it say when that happened?” I asked. I couldn’t believe Simone wouldn’t have mentioned Lauren had already been here.

  Faith found the site on her phone and stared at it. “I’m not sure, but I guess it was pretty recent. Here, look.”

  Simone was on the phone in the picture and the blonde girl with them was Morgan. But what was worse was that the boy was Nick and Lauren had her hand on his arm. Great, it was probably the same night I called Simone and she was too busy to talk. Maybe I was the one on the other end of the phone in the stupid picture. I had missed my chance to meet Lauren, and Simone never even told me when she was in town. I guess I wasn’t cool enough for her to admit she was friends with me to somebody like Lauren. Who was I kidding? A TV star wanting to hang out with me? We weren’t friends at all. I was somebody she ran to when she needed something. And Nick was probably humoring me until his new celebrity girlfriend called him back. I wanted to throw up all over the table.

  “Didn’t Simone mention it to you?” Aunt Faith asked.

  “Maybe she did and I wasn’t paying attention. I’m super tired, so I’m gonna go to bed. Night.”

  I went up to my room and cleared my clothes off my bed. The gratitude journal fell on the floor and I kicked at it with my foot. Here I thought I had finally made some new friends and it turned out one was using me and neither one of them cared enough to invite me to the Fourth of July party. I don’t know why I thought I would fit in somewhere or that some great guy would like me. I guess I got lucky with Lexi, but now even she had forgotten about me. All her posts online were with new people, and she never tagged me or messaged me back. I guess I wasn’t important enough to be anyone’s priority.

  Chapter Twelve

  While Simone got ready for the party everyone but me was invited to, I went to the grocery store with my grandmother. Grandma went to buy stuff for our little family BBQ, and I went to check out the fake tanning creams. I stuck a bottle of self-tanning cream in the cart. I planned to tell Grandma it was sunscreen if she asked. It did have an SPF of 4 in it, after all. Charlotte’s grandpa was talking to Grandma in the meat aisle when I came back to the cart with some ice cream.

  “Judd Lidstrom’s coming over tomorrow to watch the fireworks,” she said. I was excited until she told me Charlotte was going to a party with her friend instead. Great, so the whole world would be at Pilar’s house, and I’d be stuck home. Even Clark was going to the Ito’s because he had become friends with Pilar’s brother, Jeremy. Grandpa had bought sparklers for us. and Uncle Stu was going to grill hot dogs, but I wasn’t exactly in the party mood…if you could call sparklers and hot dogs a party.

  Charlotte called later and asked if I wanted to go with her to Deidre’s aunt and uncle’s party tomorrow. I went to put on my fake tan and imagined myself walking into the party looking all tan and gorgeous, and everyone would be wondering who I was and why they hadn’t asked me to hang out with them before. Connor and Lucas would want my phone number, Nick would be begging me to go out with him, Simone would realize I was cool, and Morgan would want to be my friend.

  Then reality set in. First, the fake tan squirted out of the bottle all gooey. I rubbed the cold cream all over my arms and legs and put a little on my face. Simone had said you had to wash your hands well or it would stain your palms. I wasn’t sure how to put the tanning stuff on the back of my hands without getting it on my palms and drying, so I decided not to put any on my hands at all. I sat on some paper towels so I wouldn’t get any brown stuff on my bed, but it seemed to dry fast.

  I woke up the next morning and I was definitely darker. My face was kind of orange, but my arms and legs had streaks on them. It was like somebody had burned me with a curling iron. Plus, my hands looked like I had white gloves on compared to the rest of me. I couldn’t go to the party all streaky. People would make fun of me. I thought about putting the tanning stuff on all the lighter places on my body, but then it might look like I had a disease. I ended up wearing a long sleeved shirt and jeans to the party. Charlotte had on a t-shirt and shorts when she came to pick me up.

  “Aren’t you hot wearing all that?” she asked.

  “I want to be covered for the mosquitoes,” I said. “Malaria is nothing to mess around with.”

  “I have some bug spray,” she said. “But maybe I better bring a sweatshirt too. You got your hair chopped. It’s cute.”

  I wasn’t the only one wearing jeans at the party, but I felt like I was dressed for a winter carnival when I saw Morgan and Pilar. Pilar had a deep pink halter top on with tiny jean shorts, and she had put some shimmery stuff all over her arms and legs. Morgan was wearing a blue crocheted tank top, and she would have passed for at least seventeen. She had her curly blonde hair down for a change, and all the guys were sitting around her.

  “She’s so fake-looking,” Charlotte said as we watched Morgan and Lucas dance.

  Morgan seemed so confident as she moved her hips. I wouldn’t be able to dance so free even if I was alone in my own bedroom. I was glad I had worn jeans because I would have seemed like a skinny kid next to Morgan’s muscular legs. Simone was sitting next to Pilar and Connor, eating potato chips. Simone was wearing a black and white off the shoulder striped t-shirt and a jeans skirt. Nick was sitting off to the side drinking a glass of lemonade and watching the rest of the group dance. He didn’t look my way at all.

  Charlotte and I shared a lawn chair while Deidre sat on the porch rail. I ate hot dogs while I watched everyone else dancing and having fun. Deidre’s uncle made cupcakes with red, white, and blue frosting, and Charlotte had eaten two cupcakes when I noticed her lips were purple from the frosting. I gave her my napkin to wipe her mouth, but she didn’t seem to care.

  “Hey, you going to ignore me all night?”

  I looked up and Nick was standing there.

  “Oh, hey.”

  “Can I sit?” he asked. I nodded. “So what’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hadley,
did I weird you out when I said I was thinking about you the other night?” he asked.

  “No, why?” I said staring at my hands.

  “I dunno, you seem a little distant that’s all. I didn’t mean to come on too strong. I like you, that’s all,” he said. He looked a little sad, but how was I supposed to feel knowing he was only paying attention to me now that the TV star was back in L.A.?

  “How’s Lauren?”

  He scrunched up his face. “Huh? Who?”

  “Lauren Gere. I wouldn’t think you could forget someone like her so easily.”

  “Oh, her. I dunno. Okay, I guess. She sent me a couple crazy texts.”

  “Define ‘crazy texts,’” I said.

  He laughed. “Um, well, in two of them she was wearing a bikini. I don’t get texts like those every day.”

  Great. Very subtle, Lauren. “Are you guys going out now?”

  “Nah,” he said, looking out on the water. “I mean, she lives in L.A.”

  Lovely, so if it weren’t for the distance factor, he’d be sending her love poems now.

  “Besides, I like somebody else,” he said.

  I started to ask who when Pilar came over.

  “We’re getting ready for the fireworks display,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Nick. I wondered if he wasn’t supposed to be sitting with me. Nick turned to me when Simone rushed past us out of the house. She ran down the steps and Connor watched her, but he didn’t go after her. Nick and I exchanged a look.

  “It’s kind of late for her to walk back by herself,” I said. He nodded. I went to get Charlotte and we went after Simone.

  “Leave me alone,” Simone said when we caught up with her. Her mascara was smeared under her eyes and she moved away from us.

  “Where are your shoes?” Charlotte asked.

  Simone glanced down at her feet and said she left her sandals in Pilar’s room. Charlotte offered to get them while Nick and I waited with Simone.