I swallowed. “Did you read all five pages?”
“Yeah. You’ve got some supporters on page three. You okay?”
“I’m good.”
“You should take a break. Want to go to the diner?”
“No, it’s okay.” Now that I’d started, I couldn’t help myself.
dancinggurl101: Umm hello i googled this chick and it says she still lives in the same town where she grew up! Probably with her parents!
loveslifexoxo: LOL really…sounds like a total fame whore to me!
Lovely.
My cell phone rang, making me jump. But it wasn’t Jack. It was my parents. My mother didn’t even wait for me to say hello. “Natalie! What is going on? Why do I have reporters calling me? Your father got stopped at the bank this morning by someone asking for a copy of your yearbook—”
“Seriously? They tracked you down in Iowa?”
“Who tracked us down? What is going on?”
“It’s a long story. Just go on Celebrity Weekly’s website, and you’ll see.”
“Celebrity what? You’re not making any sense.”
I hadn’t even considered my parents in all this. Jack had been worried about his parents having to tell people he was a drop out, but that seemed preferable to a daughter who was apparently a fat fame whore. And a liar. “Just go online. It’s probably on Yahoo! freaking News by now. Oh—and Mom? If anyone calls, don’t answer any questions, okay?”
I hung up and navigated to Yahoo! News. There it was, right on the front page, complete with a little picture of me in my Stonebury Seagulls cheerleading uniform. I couldn’t get away from that godforsaken piece of polyester hell no matter what I did.
Gillian had a noontime interview, and I walked outside with her to be sure Rick Peterson hadn’t stalked us to work. Everything seemed normal out on the street. Tourists still walked dogs and swung shopping bags, townies were headed to the post office and hardware store.
Jack still hadn’t called. I had a sick feeling that my grand idea, a public apology to somehow make up for keeping him a secret for so long, had most likely backfired. He was probably pissed that I made him look like a liar. I’d considered the possibility that coming forward might affect him negatively—after all, he’d spent the last few months insisting there was no me behind his music. But I thought putting it out there for the whole world—literally—might make up for that. Maybe this was just another mistake to add to my long, long list.
“Want to have lunch when I get back?” Gillian asked.
“I think I’m going to take my break now. I need to get out of the office for a while.”
She nodded and we parted ways at the end of Pine Street, where she took a right onto Main and I took a left. The diner was empty except for two white-haired men sitting on the stools, eating from plates loaded with fried meats and flirting with a waitress young enough to be their granddaughter. I ordered a sandwich and coffee and sat by the window. As if to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, I took out my iPad and went to the Celebrity Weekly app. There it was, scrolling at the top of the page: breaking news! stonebury, ma, woman says…
I stuffed the iPad back in my bag. This was all too crazy, honestly unbelievable. Maybe it was stress, lack of sleep, or both, but I started to laugh. I sat in there in the booth and laughed to myself. The waitress gave me the side-eye, because I was laughing or because she recognized me, who knows. If anyone on the street looked in and saw me right now, they’d think I’d gone nuts.
After the food and caffeine, I started to feel a little more human, and I decided to walk the long way back to work. It was a beautiful day outside. I hadn’t been able to appreciate the summer at all, and Stonebury summers were especially lovely. Ocean breezes, the smell of salt in the air. Maybe everything would be okay after—
“Ooof!”
I’d collided with a man wearing a Red Sox cap. His elbow knocked into my mouth, and I thought for sure my days of having two front teeth were over. I kept touching them to make sure they were there.
I’d started to apologize to the man when he lifted a camera to my face. At first, I thought how nice, my camera must’ve fallen out of my bag and this nice man is picking it up for me, until I remembered I didn’t have my camera with me. Then he began to click.
Holy mother of pearl.
I don’t know where they came from or if they’d been there all along, but three or four other photographers were swarming around me, closing in so they could get a good shot. I put my hand up to my face like a visor, hurrying to the public parking lot three blocks away, because of course, I’d been too cheap to use the meters. The photographers moved with me, as if we were all a part of some choreographed dance. The tourists stopped what they were doing to watch, probably thinking I was some actress on location or part of a flash mob.
The paparazzi shouted out questions, just like I’d seen hundreds of times on TV.
“Natalie, is the story true?”
“Why did you wait so long to go public?”
“Why do you think Jack Moreland has lied about his album?”
“How did it feel to come clean about your relationship after all these years?”
“Are you some kind of groupie?”
“A pathological liar?”
“Do you think the rumors are true, that Jack has put out a restraining order against you?”
“What do you have to say to Jack’s fans?”
“Do you have any proof of your relationship?”
The questions kept coming, each photographer shouting over the other. They elbowed one another out of the way, each vying for the better shot. They surrounded me, even as I finally reached my car. I had just made it inside when one voice rang out above all the others. The only female photographer in the bunch, and I made the mistake of making eye contact with her. She was pretty, my age, and I thought for a split second that we had a kinship. Young, female photographers struggling to make it. I could’ve sworn I saw hesitation on her round face. And then the question came, echoing throughout the nearly empty parking lot. “Natalie! Are you in love with Jack Moreland?”
The paparazzi went silent, save for the perpetual clicking of their cameras. I held eye contact with her long enough to see the hopeful glint in her eyes. Then I slammed the car door as hard as I could. The shouting started up again, even as I put my car into reverse. With shaking hands, I attempted to turn the steering wheel—these people were crazy, but surely not crazy enough to stand still in the path of a moving vehicle. I crept out slowly, barely tapping my foot against the gas pedal, the whole time shielding my face with one hand. Eventually, the photographers parted, and it was only out of the kindness of their hearts that I was able to get out of that damned parking lot and onto the road.
My first paparazzi attack. And Gillian wasn’t even around to see it.
I kept going over the story, telling it to Gillian in detail on the ride home from work. Both of our cell phones rang the entire way. Every call was from numbers we didn’t recognize. And then, when we approached our building and the Stonebury Heights sign came into view, Gillian gasped.
There was a cluster of photographers standing around our stoop. They talked and laughed and smoked cigarettes, blatantly ignoring the gigantic no smoking signs buttressing the entrance and attached to nearly every pole in the parking lot.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Gillian craned her neck for a better view. “How are we going to get inside?”
“We’ll just walk,” I said, sounding way more confident than I felt. “What are they going to do, block our way in?”
Apparently, that was exactly what they were going to do.
They shouted more questions at me as Gillian and I attempted to maneuver our way around them. I was doing very well at remaining calm and ignoring them, and we were almost at our stoop, when someone shouted, “Is this all an elaborate attempt to cash in on the success of a classmate?”
I stopped and Gillian clutched my arm. “It’s okay, let’s g
o—”
It was Rick Peterson, smirking at me. He’d come all the way from the city, after all, I owed him something. I gave him my middle finger.
Gillian pushed me forward and we ran up the stoop to the front doors. We didn’t wait around for the elevator. I took the stairs two at a time, and by the time we made it inside our apartment, my legs nearly gave out.
We both headed straight into the living room and collapsed on the couch. I always knew I hated being on the other side of the camera, but this was to the extreme. They were using their cameras as weapons.
Ten minutes later, we were both still lying there when my phone rang. Hilary.
“Did you flip off some photographers today?” she demanded.
“Seriously? It was five seconds ago!” I covered my eyes with my forearm. “I understand if you want to fire me.”
“Fire you?” She laughed. “Are you kidding, this is great. We can make a whole series out of this. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
She hung up. I didn’t move. Wonderful. There was now a photo of me, giving the bird to the world, out there in the interweb to live forever and ever, right alongside Jack’s album.
Apparently, the picture had already made its way to Iowa. “I can’t believe this. What is going on? I didn’t know you’d ever had a boyfriend in high school.” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Your father and I are going to hire you a bodyguard.”
I started to laugh. “Mom, I’m fine. They’ve left already. They don’t bother Z-list celebrities for long.”
That made her sigh. “My daughter, a Z-list celebrity. Exactly what we imagined when we were cutting the checks for tuition to Brown.”
There was a grumbling sound behind her, then it got muffled on her end. A second later, my dad was speaking. “Natalie, she’s just upset. We never minded paying for school, even if you were an English major.”
“Oh, great, Dad. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now be safe, okay?”
“I will.”
I relayed the conversation to Gillian.
“I’m sorry I’m laughing, but I can’t help it.” She kept on laughing, and I joined in after a minute. There was nothing else to be done.
…
That night, I called Sarah.
She sounded hesitant, almost scared, as if we were strangers. “What is going on? Is all this true? Natalie, why didn’t you—”
I closed my eyes. “I know. It’s true. And I’m going to explain it to you, I promise. Can we get together tomorrow?”
“I have a meeting with the judge at the end of the day. I could do seven o’clock, when Derek’s at racquetball.”
“I’ll come over then,” I said.
“All right.” She paused. “I’m kind of freaked out here,” she said.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
My voice was calm, assured, at complete odds with how I felt inside. But Sarah deserved to know the whole truth, and now the time had come to tell it.
Chapter Sixteen
Five Years Earlier
Black and white all over tonight
You’re dancing with him and I can’t stand how you lie
Like you believe it
— Jack Moreland, “Prom Night (Your Lies)”
Everyone at school was obsessed with prom. Even the Kerouacs.
Travis had gotten a date, which was big news in the break room at Nona’s Café. A girl he’d gone to summer camp with. She was from Rhode Island, and her parents were driving her here for the occasion. Travis wasn’t even trying to play off his excitement. He wanted my advice on color coordination, flowers, and how he should do his hair. Jack sat there listening for a while, then walked away to tune his guitar.
Later, when Travis and Jack were setting up, Reid slumped down into the chair across from me, a hopeless look on his face. “Blackjack?” I asked him.
He sullenly dealt the cards, then got pissed when I immediately won the first hand.
“Of course. I can’t even win a stupid card game.”
He was bending all the cards with his angry shuffling. I pulled them out of his hands and kept them in my lap. “What’s going on?”
He pouted for a second before sighing. “I can’t believe Travis got a date for prom before me. I know it’s mean, but come on.” He sighed again. “And worse than that, the girl I want to ask will never in a million years go with me.”
Well, if that person were Amber, he’d be right. But Reid was a nice guy, really smart, and cute when he tried. “I think you might be exaggerating. Who do you want to ask?”
He looked sheepish, and for a horrible second, I thought he was going to say that it was me. He mumbled something I couldn’t make out.
“Who? What? A mummy?”
He rolled his eyes. “Maddie.”
Now that was a shocker. Madeline showed up at the café every now and then to glare at me and to flirt with the band, but I never noticed anything between her and Reid, though now that I thought about it, he always did blush when she teased him. But Madeline was like a black widow spider. She’d devour Reid whole. And not in a good way.
Still. She obviously liked him, at least as a friend. Stranger things had happened, obviously.
Apparently, I’d waited too long to answer, because Reid scowled (not unlike Madeline herself) and said, “Yeah. I told you. No chance in hell.”
“That’s not true. And I just hesitated because I was surprised. She’s not exactly…the most friendly.”
“That’s because you don’t know her. And, well, because she doesn’t like you.”
I grimaced. “True. But she likes you. That much is obvious. You’re nice, you’re smart, and you’re cute. You have nice, floppy blond hair. Girls love floppy blond hair. Plus, you’re a really good guitar player.”
His whole face had gone even more red than usual. “Really?”
“Yes. Really. You have to at least ask her. Otherwise, you’ll regret it. What’s the worst that could happen?”
“She’ll say no and I’ll die a thousand deaths.”
I looked at him. “And then what?”
“Um…I’ll be dead?”
“So it won’t matter. So you have to ask her. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.” He grabbed the cards back from me and dealt another hand. When I looked up, I saw that Jack had been leaning against the doorway, listening.
…
At school on Monday, it was as if there were no other words in the English language except for prom. Adam and Amber were going together, not because they were a couple but because they were the most popular boy and girl and neither of them was attached, so it just made sense. Lori and Kurt wouldn’t confirm that they were going together, but everyone knew it would end up that way. Sarah had declared that she wasn’t going. Mike had already asked Holly McCarthy, a peripheral junior girl, and I used that as proof that Amber and I had done the right thing. How distraught could he be if he already had another date? Sarah had turned down three guys already.
As for me, I didn’t want to go, either. I’d considered staying home with Sarah, ordering a pizza, and hanging out, just the two of us like it used to be. Amber looked horrified we would even consider missing “the biggest night of our lives”. She eyed me. “Do you even like guys?” she asked, and the whole lunchroom table cracking up.
A couple days later, I accepted an invitation from Eddie van Husen. He wasn’t first-tier popular like the boys from the basketball team, but everyone liked him. He skateboarded to school and wore hemp bracelets and was nice to everyone. He was a safe choice.
A couple weeks before prom, we were sitting in the cafeteria at lunch. I was eating a cup of strawberry Jell-O while flipping through a Brown catalog (I’d gotten my acceptance letter in the mail the week before) when Lori waved someone over to our table. I barely looked up until I caught a glimpse of a flannel-clad figure approaching us out of the corner of my eye. My heart pulsed blood through my veins at warp speed. Had Lori somehow found
us out? I wouldn’t put it past her to dramatically out us in front of the entire senior class.
Jack was pulling up a chair. There was space at the far end of the table, on the right of Sarah, but he scooted his chair between Lori and me. He plopped down in it, as if he belonged there. He had a tambourine in his hand.
“Can you get any gayer?” Adam asked. He tried to grab the tambourine, but Jack held it out of his reach.
The tambourine was his new thing. He still had his guitar, of course, which was sitting safely in a chair beside Reid across the cafeteria. When he first told me about the tambourine, I didn’t get it. I hadn’t even realized it was an actual instrument. I’d always lumped it together with things like the triangle and recorder. But then I saw them play at Nona’s and heard the song he used it on and how it came together so perfectly, and I felt stupid for doubting him.
“Last I checked, this isn’t the loser table,” said Amber.
Jack smiled at her. “That’s right, you’re the table police.”
Amber narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I was going to kill him. A few nights ago, we had been hanging out in his room. His mom was an RN who always worked second shift, and now his dad, a construction foreman, was away at a job site near the city. He didn’t get home until close to ten o’clock. On days that I didn’t have a club meeting or cheerleading practice, I went to his house. I took the long way and didn’t turn on any of the streets my friends lived on. We listened to music and made out and talked, and I somehow found myself telling him about an incident at the end of junior year, when Amber got mad at me for some reason—I couldn’t even remember what this particular fight was about—and made everyone get up from the lunch table when I went to sit down. That went on for three days, and that included Sarah, and even though she showed up at my house on the first night in tears, telling me she hadn’t wanted to do it, I wasn’t sure I ever completely trusted her since.
The Mean Girl Apologies Page 19
