Next Door To A Star

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  “What happened?” I asked her.

  She looked over at Nick who said, “You know what? I’ll go over here while ya’ll…talk about…whatever.”

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Simone spilled. “They think I was flirting with Connor. It’s so stupid,” she said “Connor told me Morgan said I didn’t like him anymore, so he asked Pilar out. I told him I never said anything to her about not liking him, and then Pilar accused me of trying to break them up.”

  “Why would Morgan say you didn’t like him anymore?” I asked.

  “I dunno. This summer has totally sucked,” she said. We both stared up at the sky as the fireworks started.

  “Oh, and they’re mad I gave Nick your number, because, even though she won’t admit it, Morgan likes to keep him around in case things don’t work out with her and Connor. Nick’s like, her backup. It’s so dumb,” she said.

  Charlotte ran up holding Simone’s sandals and Nick came back over. The four of us stood and watched the fireworks. Mosquitoes kept landing on Simone’s arms, so Charlotte let her wear her sweatshirt. Simone sat on the curb and tucked her legs under the shirt, and I hoped Charlotte didn’t notice Simone was wiping her nose on the sleeve.

  “This must be the finale,” Charlotte said as the sky lit up.

  Nick touched my arm and moved me away from the girls. Charlotte was staring up at the sky and oblivious to everything around her.

  “I’m really glad you came tonight, Hadley,” he said.

  “Me too. And thanks for coming with us to check on Simone. That was really sweet of you.”

  “Yeah, no problem, but I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not though,” he said.

  “Huh?” I turned to face him.

  “I told you I liked somebody else, and you didn’t even ask me who. Is it because you don’t care or because you already know?”

  I remembered Chandler had been in a similar situation on Charmed Lives and I quoted her word for word. “Well, don’t keep it a mystery. Tell me.”

  He smiled and then leaned over and kissed me. I could smell the smoke from the fireworks mixed in with Nick’s Polo cologne, and I thought I would pass out from happiness.

  Then my inner dorkiness came out. “So it’s me, right?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I thought you’d figure that out, but if you need clarification, that’s cool.”

  I started laughing. “Sorry, I’m…yeah. Whatever.”

  “That’s what I like about you. You’re real. And for the record, I was never into Lauren. She was acting like she was super into me when she was here, but she’s not my type at all. However, if you’d like to send me bathing suit pictures, I would not object at all,” he said. “I’m kidding! Well, sort of.”

  He smiled and kissed me again, and when he pulled back, the fireworks show was ending.

  “That was the best display ever,” Charlotte said. I looked shocked until I realized she meant the fireworks and was oblivious to what had gone on literally behind her back. Even Simone didn’t seem to notice that Nick and I had a major moment, but he was smiling at me, and it was like we shared this intimate secret.

  Deidre came down and asked why we had run off without telling her. Charlotte told her we were walking Simone home and Deidre seemed disappointed.

  “My uncle bought some fireworks and he’s gonna shoot them off from the deck,” Deidre said.

  “I want to go home,” Simone said. “You guys don’t have to go back with me.”

  “Are you still spending the night?” Deidre asked Charlotte.

  Charlotte glanced over at Simone and me. I said I could walk Simone home and I noticed Deidre didn’t seem to care whether or not I left.

  “I’ll walk you guys home,” Nick said.

  “But they’ll get mad at you for leaving,” Simone said.

  He shrugged. “It’s dark, and I want to make sure you guys get home okay.”

  My face got warm. He was so thoughtful. Unlike that jerk Connor who let Simone run out of the party upset and didn’t even bother to check up on her.

  Simone was texting Asia as we walked back and Nick reached over and held my hand. It felt like sparks were going off up my entire arm. We got to our street and I turned to thank Nick for walking us home.

  “It was really sweet of you,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said, glancing over to where Simone was standing. “Uh, well, I’ll text you tomorrow then.”

  We both had stupid grins on our faces like we had some private joke. I wanted him to kiss me goodnight, but I also didn’t want to share that sort of private moment in front of Simone.

  “Will you tell me if they talk about me at the party?” Simone asked him.

  “Oh, I’m going to head home,” he said. “Less drama.”

  As soon as he walked away, Simone grabbed my arm. “Can I come over for a little bit? My mom will wonder why I’m home so early,” she said. “And I don’t want to have to get into it.”

  We walked through my backyard where Charlotte’s grandpa was roasting marshmallows with my family.

  “Hi, girls. Come make s’mores with us,” Aunt Maggie said, handing Simone a stick with a marshmallow. Simone held it over the fire and Grandpa gave me a marshmallow, but I scorched it right away. Aunt Faith showed me how to turn it so the marshmallow was sort of bathed in the blue part of the flame.

  “Simone, I saw you on the Celebrity Snooper site,” Aunt Faith said. “That must have been a fun visit with your friend.”

  She shrugged. “Lauren flew home after the photographers showed up on the beach, and then Pilar got mad because they cut her out of all the shots.”

  I wanted to ask her more about it, but she’d already had a pretty rough night and I didn’t want to make it worse.

  We went into the kitchen and I started to pour her a diet soda when she asked if we had any regular soda. I found a can and she leaned across the counter and balanced herself on her stomach with her nose almost touching the countertop.

  “I can’t believe how those guys acted,” I said. I was still hanging onto the hope this was it—the final fight, and now she’d realize I was her true friend and someone she could count on.

  “They did it all the time at school last year,” she said as she sat down and twisted her hair up. She grabbed a pencil lying near the phone and stuck it through the bun. I’ve tried that a million times and I’ve never been able to get one to stay in my hair. Even with her hair all messed up and her eye makeup smeared, she still was like something out of a magazine. She sighed and spit an ice cube back into her glass.

  “You know, Morgan used to get mad at my best friend, Asia, like, twice a week, so I’m used to it. They kissed my butt when Lauren was here, but now Lauren’s gone so they don’t need me anymore.”

  I shrugged. I wanted to say something about the fact she said she was going to introduce me to Lauren, but I wasn’t brave enough. I guess I was lucky Charlotte hadn’t gotten mad at me for all the times I dumped her to do something with Simone. Charlotte hadn’t even abandoned me when Deidre came back to town. Maybe I’d even been lucky before when I only had Lexi for a friend. It seemed like having a lot of friends was a huge pain in the butt. I mean, I went out of my way to help Simone out, but there were tons of times when she told me we were going to hang out and then she left to do stuff with her popular friends…or her famous friends.

  Simone and I went into the family room to watch TV and eat leftovers from my family’s picnic. She finished off a container of potato salad and we polished off the rest of the raspberry gelatin. We made plans to go to the beach tomorrow when I walked her back to her place.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I went over to Simone’s house at noon the next day. Her mom was rinsing off the dishes from lunch and Simone was on the back porch talking on the phone. She was telling her friend what happened at the party.

  “Asia, they totally ganged up on me,” she said. “And Connor did not say one word in my defense,” she said.
“Listen, I gotta go. Somebody’s here.”

  Simone stood up and I followed her to her bedroom. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put a white shirt on over her aqua bikini top.

  “Do you need sunscreen?” she asked. I nodded and rubbed some on. She even let me borrow a pair of pink flip-flops with big daisies on the front. We walked down to the beach and laid out our towels. She dug through her bag for some magazines.

  “There’s an article about Valeria in this one,” she said, handing me a copy. “I’m going to get a skirt like hers when I get back to school.”

  “Her hair looks so different when it’s long and curly,” I said.

  “Extensions,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, when they sew fake hair in so your hair looks longer.”

  I didn’t even know you could put fake hair in and make it look longer. I wondered how many of the people in the magazine had fake hair as I thumbed through it. I heard someone yelling, “No, Lucas! Stop it.”

  Simone was staring at Pilar, Connor, Lucas, and Morgan playing in the water. Lucas picked Morgan up and pretended he was going to throw her in the surf.

  “I hope she drowns,” Simone said. “Do you have any gum?”

  I shook my head. I saw Charlotte and Deidre walking on the beach and wondered how their sleepover went last night. I felt a little queasy watching them together. Then Charlotte saw me and came over.

  “I have your sweatshirt at home. I can give it to Hadley if you want,” Simone said, squinting up at her.

  Charlotte asked if we wanted to go with them to get sno-cones. I didn’t bring any money with me, but Simone said she’d pay for mine. However, Connor was at the sno-cone stand with Pilar when we got there. Simone ignored them and walked up to the counter. She ordered two cherry sno-cones and then asked me if cherry was okay. I nodded as Pilar started talking to Deidre. Even Deidre was surprised her cousin was being so sweet to her.

  “Did you guys have fun at the party?” Pilar asked us. It was the first time Pilar had ever spoken to me. We nodded and Simone kept her back to us.

  “Hi, Simone,” Connor said.

  Simone stared at him. She said “hi” in a quiet voice and Pilar tugged on Connor’s arm.

  “See ya later, De,” Pilar said over her shoulder as she and Connor walked away.

  “Talk about awkward,” Charlotte said.

  Simone handed me my sno-cone and licked the drips off the side of hers. We stood on the docks and all you could hear were slurping sounds.

  “We’re going to go back to Deidre’s house to watch a movie. Do you guys wanna come?” Charlotte asked.

  “Um, my cousin and her friends are supposed to come over later for a barbeque,” Deidre said.

  She didn’t come right out and say Simone wasn’t invited, but Deidre made it clear Simone wasn’t welcome. Charlotte gave me a pleading look, but Simone was already walking away so I shrugged and followed her.

  “Call me tonight, Char,” I said over my shoulder as I tried to catch up to Simone. I wondered if Nick was going to be at that party.

  “You didn’t have to come with me. You could have gone with them,” Simone said.

  I thought she was going to say she didn’t want me tagging along, but she didn’t say anything else as she smoothed more sunscreen on. She stretched out and put on her sunglasses. I asked if I could borrow some more sunscreen and she didn’t answer. I nudged her with my toe and realized she had fallen asleep. I picked up a magazine and spent the afternoon reading. I went home with a headache from being out in the sun too long and my shoulders had started to peel. Simone and I hadn’t talked much, but at least she wanted me around, and maybe she had planned to introduce me to Lauren but couldn’t because she had to leave early. Maybe we’d end up being best friends yet.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By Saturday, Simone and her friends had made up and Nick still hadn’t texted me. I went over to Simone’s house to pick up Charlotte’s sweatshirt since Simone never brought it over like she said she would. Pilar was painting her nails on Simone’s bed and didn’t even bother to look up, but Morgan stared at me. Simone gave me the sweatshirt and I realized she hadn’t washed it because it still had mascara stains on it. I got out of there fast and took it over to Charlotte’s house. We ended up going on a nature walk and I realized how much I missed spending time with her. Plus, it was nice to do something without Deidre around. Charlotte picked some white flowers and when we got to my grandparents’ house, she asked if she could use my glitter pen to decorate the flowers.

  “I can’t believe school starts in three weeks,” she said, lying across the foot of my bed.

  My stomach rolled over. I had forgotten about school. Now I was going to face another year of torture.

  “At least we still have some time to hang out before we have to go back,” I said.

  She shook her head. “My grandpa signed me up to go to some stupid music camp for a week. I begged to go to science camp, but I don’t want to spend a week playing the violin indoors,” she said.

  “You’re leaving? But we haven’t even seen each other lately,” I said.

  “I know. You’ve been with Simone, but we’ll have to hang out a lot this week,” she said. “Hey, your hair looks lighter. Did you do something to it?”

  “Simone put some stuff in it,” I said. I went to the mirror. My hair did look a little brighter around my face. I was surprised Grandma hadn’t said anything.

  Char picked up her sweatshirt. “Ew, she didn’t even wash it. It smells like cocoa butter and shampoo,” she said.

  I knew it was Paul Mitchell shampoo because I had peeked in Simone’s bathroom cabinet.

  “Nick and I kissed on the Fourth of July,” I said.

  She stared at me. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, I really like him, and I thought he liked me too, but he hadn’t messaged me once since then.”

  She looked away. “Well, that crowd…I dunno. I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about him.”

  “But I—”

  “I gotta get ready to go to Deidre’s. I’ll try to call you later, okay?” she said, getting up.

  I ran into Simone as she was cutting across our lawn. She seemed kind of embarrassed, and I told her Charlotte was leaving tomorrow to go to music camp.

  “Who?” Simone asked.

  “The girl with the dark hair,” I said. “She lent you her sweatshirt,” I said.

  “Oh yeah. Duh. Of course, she was in my math class last year. I gave it back, right?” she asked and I nodded.

  “I’d hate to be stuck at some loser camp,” she said. “Oh, I saw on Celebrity Snooper Jack Brogger is planning a vacation, and it sounds like he’s coming here. The reporter said an unnamed source said Jack spent last summer at a lake resort in Michigan and he was going up there at the end of August. Dude, we’ve got to see him.”

  I asked if she wanted to come in, but she had to get home because she had met some guy at the beach and she thought he might call her when he got home. Aunt Faith asked if I wanted to split a brownie when I came in the house.

  “Did you have fun with Charlotte last night?” she asked.

  “We had a good time.” My eyes started to water and I wiped them with the back of my hand.

  “You’re going to miss her a lot,” she said.

  “Yeah, my best friend moved to Texas a couple of months ago, and now I have to leave Charlotte,” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

  “Charlotte’s going to miss you. It’s been hard for her since her mother passed away.” She passed me a napkin. “Oh, Charisma might come for a visit soon.”

  I sat up. Charisma was coming here? I asked when, but Aunt Faith wasn’t sure. “I don’t know when she’s getting back from her trip. I know she wants to come before she starts college. She probably won’t have time though.”

  With my luck, Charisma would show up on the same day Jack Brogger came to town. They’d meet, and he’d look past the fact she had no
personality and put her in his video, and they’d get engaged, and he’d give her a big sapphire ring like the one Chandler’s character wore. Then they’d be on the cover of InTouch Weekly and there’d be pictures of them sitting at outdoor cafes, holding hands and drinking coffee, kissing on the beach all the time, acting as if they didn’t know a photographer was there taking the picture. I never understood how none of the celebrities ever seemed to know there was a photographer around yet they looked perfect in the pictures.

  “Hadley, do you want to split another brownie? I’m still hungry,” Aunt Faith said. I shook my head. Charisma had a way of taking my appetite away. I went upstairs and curled up under the covers. I realized I hadn’t finished Charlotte’s copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, so I read until I fell asleep.

  Simone called the next morning to tell me Morgan was having a barbecue.

  “It’s this afternoon and her dad’s going to grill. It should be fun. Do you want to go with me?” she asked. “Nick’s going to be there and he told me to invite you.”

  I started to answer when I got a call on the other line.

  “Hey,” Charlotte said. “My grandpa’s making a special lunch for my last day. Can you come over?”

  It was my last chance to see Charlotte, but Simone had never invited me along to a party, and it had been my dream to hang out with Morgan and her friends. Plus, Nick had remembered I still existed.

  “Are you still there?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yeah, sorry I’m out of it,” I said. No, I couldn’t miss out on seeing Charlotte before she left. I asked Charlotte what time I should come over and she told me to come right away. I got on the other line and told Simone I couldn’t go.

  “C’mon. Puh-lease?” she said. “Nick will be there and you can borrow one of my outfits. I don’t want to go by myself. What if they get all weird on me again? Please?”

  “It’s the last time I’ll see Charlotte,” I said. “But maybe we can do something tomorr—”