“Good,” she murmurs, more to herself than to me, and checks her phone again. “So Lonny’ll be here to pick you up at the front gate. Don’t stand him up.”
“Yeah yeah, roger that—wait, pick me up? What about you?”
Gail squirms, blushing. “Well, I…I’m going, ah, out, and—”
“You’ve got a date!” I accuse. “You’ve got a date and you’re ditching me!”
“Shhhhh!” She slaps a hand over my mouth to muffle the rest of my words. If Mark found out that she was dating while I was on a job, he would flip. Not to say that she can’t, but she shouldn’t during principal photography. “Don’t say it so loud!”
I pull her hand away, grinning. “It’s that gaffer, isn’t it?” When she turns beet red, I laugh. “It’s the gaffer! You traitor!”
“Shush you! Not a word or I’ll—”
“How about this,” I fish my phone out of my jacket pocket and hold it up. “I won’t tell Mark if you won’t?”
I wiggle my eyebrows encouragingly and Gail chews her lip, clearly caught between her loyalties. But apparently whoever this gaffer guy is must be worth it, because eventually she wilts. “This is a bad idea.” She sighs. “But okay.”
After making sure that I’ve got my marching orders for the night, Gail takes off, informing Nicky that I’m in the trailer. Gail, you traitor.
Before I know it, Nicky has zipped over to grab the shirt out of my hands. “You don’t just hang these up!” he screeches—guy’s got a really high voice considering how burly he is. “And where’s your coat? You didn’t get it dirty, did you?”
He snatches the coat out of my hands and holds it at arm’s length. The loose button catches his eye and his mustache twitches. “Putting on weight, are you?”
“No,” I say, stepping out of my pants as defensively as I can. “I mean, if I was, could you blame me? All that protein’s adding up.”
“Hmph.” He sniffs, eyeing me one more time—the muscular slab of meat that I am—and turns promptly on his heels, presumably back to his sewing desk where he’ll fix my busted coat. I pull on my civilian uniform—gym shorts, a LOOK. AIM. IGNITE. T-shirt, hoodie—and leave before he notices the muddied hem at the bottom of my pants leg.
Outside, the girls call my name again, but I flip up my hoodie and head toward the front gate, where a small gathering of fans still loiters with posters and T-shirts with I HEART DARIEN on their boobs.
As I wait for Lonny to pick me up, I take my phone out of my gym shorts pocket. Elle’s messages illuminate the night around me. Her last message was sent three hours ago. She must be absolutely mortified. I pull up the keyboard and try to come up with something witty to say.
Think of me in the shower a lot, do you?
No, can’t say that. I hit backspace.
I assure you, Carmindor would be jealous of ME in the shower.
Ugh, definitely not. My thumb jabs on the backspace button as I head to the edge of the lot. A few other responses flit through my head—some of them involving her in the shower. Which is silly because I don’t have the slightest clue what she looks like, or how old she is, or where she’s from. I don’t even know how to picture her. I guess I’ve always just thought of Princess Amara.
Finally, by the time I reach the gate, my brain throws together some words and I manage to type something that I won’t regret in the morning.
11:13 PM
—I’m flattered that you think of me.
It’s lame and boring, but it’s something. And perfect timing too, because as soon as I look up, Lonny’s tank-sized SUV is looming outside the gates.
“Boss,” he says with a nod as I slide in.
“Hey,” I reply. It’s quiet except for the soft murmuring of an NPR show. No sooner have I shoved my phone into my gym shorts than the soft sound of Elle’s reply dings above the murmur of the radio. She’s still awake?
“Girlfriend?”
I look up, surprised. Lonny’s face is unreadable as always, like he’s been specifically trained to avoid emoting. I don’t really know what to say, so I pull my phone out, its screen illuminating my face.
Elle 11:13 PM
—I think of you a lot, actually
I click the phone locked again. I must look embarrassed or flustered or something, because in the rearview mirror Lonny’s eyebrow raises.
“Thought so.” He straightens in the driver’s seat. “She the real deal?”
For some reason I can’t lie to him. “Yeah. She is.”
He nods. “Don’t worry, boss. Secret’s safe.”
We lumber off into the night and I read Elle’s text a second time. A cold shower might not be such a bad idea.
OVER THE PAST SEVEN DAYS, I’VE gotten extremely good at sneaking back into the house. Tonight, it’s close to nine—cutting it close to curfew, but sewing the shoulder seams is tricky, and Sage kept making me try on the jacket so she could pin and repin and get the curves to lie right. Plus, okay, we might have gotten a little distracted watching Starfield. But we still have a week—if I don’t get in any more trouble, anyway.
Catherine shoots me a look from the couch as soon as I slip in the door, and her dark eyes follow me the length of the hallway as I head for the stairs. Vogue Weddings is splayed out on her lap, a glass of wine in her hand.
“Where have you been?” comes her cool voice, just as I’m almost across the hall. “I had the girls clean the attic because you were gone.”
“I was washing out the truck, like yesterday.” I glance up the stairs. Just get to my room. That’s all I have to do.
“Still?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re going to need to do more tomorrow.” I pile on lies like a buffet. “You know, to keep everything sanitary.”
She sips her wine. “I told you the truck was a horrible place to work. At the country club, you wouldn’t have to do those nasty things.”
I pull a fake smile across my lips. “I don’t mind.” I hurry up the stairs.
As I pass the twins’ closed door, it opens.
“Hey, weirdo, can we use your help for a minute?”
It’s Chloe, smiling ever so pleasantly. Like how a cat would smile at a canary.
“No, we’re fine!” Cal shouts from somewhere in their room. She sounds strange. “We don’t need help!”
“Shut it,” Chloe snaps at her sister, then turns back to me. “Because you didn’t do it, I thought we’d never get done cleaning the attic, but it turned out to be so worth it. And now we finally have something for that stupid contest.”
My eyebrows crinkle. “You’re going to enter?” I try not to laugh, I really do. “Come on, Chloe. You don’t even watch Starfield!”
She smirks. “Which is why we want your opinion on our costume.”
Oh this should be good. Catherine couldn’t have given them the money for a well-made costume from Etsy—she hates Starfield, there’s no way she would. So I have to see what nylon-spandex hybrid monstrosity they bought. The sooner I do this, the sooner I can write about that idiot Darien Freeman getting himself trapped on a roof.
“All right,” I say. “What are you cosplaying—”
But the moment I step into their room, the words die in my throat.
Cal can’t even turn to me as she frantically braids her hair down her shoulder, standing in front of their full-length mirror in a beautiful silk dress.
My mother’s cosplay costume.
“What do you think?” Chloe asks, smirking.
What do I think? I think my heart is breaking. I remember the way the dress looked when Mom twirled, like the galaxy was spinning, stars sparkling across the living room. Now a ghost, twirling, twirling, dancing around the living room, the heels of her starshine shoes clipping across the hardwood like a heartbeat.
Chloe waves her hand dismissively toward Cal’s feet. “I couldn’t fit into the stupid shoes—who makes glass shoes?—but Cal looks nice in them, doesn’t she?”
“Where did you…” My heart th
umps in my throat, swelling, making it harder to breathe. “Where did you find this?”
“In a trunk full of a lot of trash,” Chloe replies.
Her words cut a searing pain through me, snapping me to my senses. “That’s my mom’s cosplay!” I cry. “It’s not trash!”
That must’ve been what she was looking for me to say, because her face brightens and she smiles. “So it is one of those stupid costumes from the show! I told you, Cal.”
“We just need it for a week,” Cal adds, as if that makes things better. “Then we’ll give it back.”
“But it’s not yours!” I protest.
Cal winces, but Chloe scoffs. “Like it’s yours either. I don’t see your name on it.”
“It was my mom’s!”
“Yeah, well.” Chloe shrugs. “So was the house.”
My mouth falls open as though she physically slapped me. “But…but Catherine’ll never let you go to the con.”
Chloe clicks her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “See, we might’ve lied and said we had a tennis tournament that weekend. Cal here will enter the contest and we’ll win and record ourselves meeting Darien Freeman, which’ll skyrocket our vlog to fame. We’ll be famous. And you never know,” she adds, her grin growing, “Darien might fall in love with me.”
My hands clench into fists. “I won’t let you go. I’ll tell Catherine—”
“And we’ll tell her why you’ve been coming home so late. You’ve been smoking weed or doing whatever nasty things that girl—what’s her name?—Sage does.”
“How do you—”
“James saw you going into her house today. So, what, did you just give up on men entirely?” She smirks, knowing the words dig under my skin. They do, like briars. “Because it’s pathetic that you went with her.”
“Chloe, stop it,” Cal says, looking down at the floor.
“No,” Chloe says simply. “She threatened to snitch on us, so if she snitches—we snitch. We’re going to that contest, and we’re going to win and meet Darien, even if we have to play along with this ridiculous Star Wars thing—”
“Starfield,” Cal corrects.
“Whatever. We’ll win and meet Darien and it’ll be perfect—and I won’t let a nobody like you ruin it for us.”
Then she slams the door, trapping my mom’s dress in a room of nightmares.
“Danielle!” Catherine calls from downstairs. “Dishes!”
If I tell Catherine, then I don’t know what they’ll do to Mom’s cosplay, but if I don’t…then what? Then they win. Maybe not the competition—because cosplay is more than putting on a costume—but they’ll enter. With my mom’s cosplay.
Clenching my fists, I hurry downstairs to do the dishes and put away the food, my hands shaking. If I don’t finish fixing Dad’s costume, if I don’t prove that there’s more to cosplaying than just putting on the right clothes, then they’ll win. Maybe not the competition, but they’ll win against me. And I can’t let that happen—not with Mom’s cosplay.
Not at Dad’s convention.
Not in this universe.
“DARIEN, MARK’S ON THE LINE,” GAIL says, extending her phone to me. “He says he’s been trying to call for the last few days.”
I turn the page in Batman: Year One. “Oh, is that who’s been calling me? I thought it was a telemarketer or—”
“Darien,” she says my name flatly, with the no-bull-right-now kind of inflection.
I close my book with a sigh and take the phone. “Hi there, M—”
“Who are you dating, again?” Mark interrupts.
My mouth falls open. “Um, I…” Is this a trick question? “Jess?”
“Oh good, so you remember.”
“Of course I remem—”
“Then why is TMZ reporting that you’re cheating on her?” he asks tersely.
I shoot a look at Gail, who’s sitting on the side of my bed, nibbling on her thumbnail, knees bopping up and down from nerves. She couldn’t have told. She wouldn’t have. I pull myself up in my chair.
What is it? she mouths.
We’re in my hotel room, spacious and beautiful thing that it is. But the walls are paper thin and Jess is in the room next door. We have a shoot in an hour with a star-chase scene, and I don’t want it to be awkward.
I mouth, Mark knows about the texts.
Paling, Gail shakes her head. Wasn’t me, she says. I know it wasn’t. I have dirt on her now too, thanks Gaffer Dude. Lonny, then? No, he strikes me as a man of his word.
“There’s no one,” I say. “It’s just rumors, you know?”
“Rumors,” Mark echoes. “Then why are multiple sources saying you can’t get your nose out of your phone?”
I brace for impact, like he’s going to order Gail to take away my phone; the thought of not texting Elle leaves me with a panicky hollowness.
But then he laughs, as if trying to diffuse the situation. “You have to be careful, kiddo. You’re the face of Starfield. It’ll look bad if you’re dating your costar and getting a little something on the side. You know what you should do?” He’s going to tell me anyway, even though I don’t want to know. “You should put whoever’s on the other end of that phone on hold. Have some good times with Jess. I just talked with her manager and we’re setting up a nice date for you two, okay? Tonight after the shoot. You can do that, yeah?”
I’m quiet for a moment, looking down at my phone in my lap. Not talk to Elle? For, what, the week left until we wrap up? Until ExcelsiCon? A week doesn’t seem that long, and the moment after wrap-up Jess and I will end our “relationship” and go our separate ways but…
As if Elle knows we’re talking about her, my phone blips with a message. Her name.
8:47 AM
—Oh no, Car.
—Oh no.
—There’s a dog next door and I went out to feed him because he barks and
—Car, it’s so bad. I hate my stepmom.
—I hate her so much.
—The neighbor’s taking him to the pound.
—THE POUND.
I tap out of my call with Mark to answer her.
8:49 AM
—O, shit. I’m so sorry.
Elle 8:49 AM
—I just don’t know what to do Car
—This isn’t Frank the Tank’s fault
—She always wins. She ALWAYS does.
—I’m powerless. I’m always so powerless.
Powerless. I know a thing or two about that. I feel useless, half-thinking that I’m actually going to sit here and let Mark tell me whom I can and can’t talk to. But he’s my dad, and shouldn’t dads know best? Don’t they know best?
“Darien? Are you still there?” My phone speaker crackles with Mark’s voice. “Did I drop you? Did you hear me? Stupid phone…”
“I get it, Mark,” I reply, picking up my phone again.
“I knew you’d come around!” He cheers as though this is some breakthrough in our relationship. “Now don’t forget that date tonight. Be on your best. Shine like you always do, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I grind out, and hang up with a look at Gail. “Next time he calls, I’m busy.”
Gail frowns. “Darien, maybe he’s right. It’s just a week…” She looks down at her phone hesitantly. “I mean, just listen to him for a week—”
My phone vibrates again.
Elle 8:52 AM
—I don’t know what to do.
I glance back to Gail, who simply puts up her hands and returns to the couch to watch the morning news. “I don’t see anything.”
8:52 AM
—It’s okay. Let’s think.
—Do you have anywhere to put him? Take care of him for a while?
Elle 8:52 AM
—Nowhere.
—I can’t do anything.
8:52 AM
—How about your friend? The one you’re showing Starfield to?
Elle 8:53 AM
—Are you saying that I STEAL Frank??
8:53 AM
—I’m saying let’s stop being powerless.
—Sometimes we shouldn’t be Carmindor.
—Sometimes we should be Amara.
AT LEAST FRANK LIKES THE FOOD truck. He’s tucked in the one cool place by the refrigerator, which we lovingly (okay, well lovingly on my part; Sage was very begrudging) gave up for him. On hot summer days, Charleston is a cesspool of sweat and gnats, and being locked in a tin can is downright stifling. Not only stifling—it’s hot as balls.
I fan myself with a spatula, pressing a cheek against the cool countertop, and I’m literally about to pass out from the heat when I remember something. I snap to attention and check my phone for the date, but I have it right. With expedited shipping, today’s the day.
“Frank the Tank is getting more attention than our food,” Sage mutters, glaring at the dog as another heart-eyed tourist walks away, cooing about Frank’s pudginess.
He looks at her with big brown eyes, tongue lolling out of his mouth. She scowls.
I pet Franco on the head. “Sorry boy, but your charms won’t work on her.”
“I can’t believe you stole him right out of his yard. We’re probably violating a billion health codes right now.”
“A billion and one,” I add, snagging a hot sweet-potato fry from the fryer. I pop it into my mouth and quickly realize my mistake, fanning my tongue. “Hot, hot, hot!”
“Serves you right,” Sage crows. Her bright hair is pulled back into a bandana, her mouth working a Dubble Bubble she’s been chewing on for the better part of the afternoon.
“So he convinced you to steal it, that mystery boy of yours?” she asks, turning the page in her latest issue of Vogue.
“He didn’t convince me. I was already thinking about it. But he said something weird—that we should stop being so powerless. I wonder what that means? Does he have an evil stepmonster too? Or something else?”
She shrugs. “Why don’t you ask him?”
I scoff. “I wish.”
“Why?”
“Because he barely talks about himself. I should be lucky to have gotten even that from him. I mean, if we’re not talking about Starfield or the integrity of the solar flux capacitor, then we just…I don’t know. We talk about me. Not really him. I think he’s just very private.”
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