Falling Star

by Laura DeLuca

  “No wait! I’d love an Italian sub.” He stressed the last word. “None of this vegetarian stuff for me.”

  Lainey huffed. “Anything to drink?”

  “Cola is good.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Then I’ll give you my hoagie if you give me a taste of yours.”

  Drew burst out laughing. “Oh, Lainey, that was the corniest line ever. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t be happy to comply.”

  Lainey blushed. “I guess it sounded better in my head. Good thing I write young adult novels. I’d never make it as an erotica writer. Speaking of which, you still owe me that critique.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Drew admitted. “We can go over that when you get here, but I actually have something even better to talk to you about first.”

  “Oooo, sounds interesting.” Lainey pulled open the door of the car. “Make that ten minutes until I arrive.”

  Lainey still smiled as she disconnected the call and shoved her phone back into her handbag. She felt as giddy as a teenager strutting through the doors of the convenience store, wondering what amazing surprise Drew could’ve possibly cooked up next. Even the thought of him leaving for California in a few short days couldn’t dampen her spirits. She was certain Drew was the one she was meant to be with. There might be a few bumpy patches in the road along the way, but it was a road they would travel together.

  Lainey practically skipped up to the deli, where a line of patrons waited to punch in their orders. It was fairly crowded for a weekday in the off season, but it was rush hour, so the people who did work in the town were out in full force. Lainey had to wait in line several minutes before it was finally her turn to place her order.

  “Excuse me, dear.”

  The older gentleman in front of her apologized when he bumped into her. Lainey offered him a huge grin even though he stomped on her toes with his cane. She was in that good of a mood. Once she reached the touchscreen monitor, she punched a few buttons until she found the options for cold sandwiches. When the order was complete, she hit the print button. Her hoagies were sent to the queue, and would be prepared by one of the frantic workers behind the deli station in the order received. Based on the number of people standing around frowning, Lainey had to assume it would be a while.

  Knowing she had to pay for the food before she could pick it up anyway, Lainey scooted to the refrigerated section and grabbed a cola for Drew and bottled water for herself. Then she proceeded to the checkout line. Unfortunately, that line was even longer than the ordering station, but Lainey was too happy to feel impatient. The same couldn’t be said for the other customers or the girl working the counter.

  “Will you hurry up already? Keep the line moving.”

  A man in paint-stained suspenders cursed under his breath while a pair of teenagers counted out pennies to pay for a few bags of chips and a soda. The cashier appeared equally frustrated. She snapped her gum and glared at them with her arms crossed as they fumbled through their pockets.

  “You’re still fifty-two cents short.” She pushed her pink tinted hair out of her eyes, and practically moaned when the pair began rooting through their school bags for additional change.

  Lainey sighed. There was no way she’d make it to Drew’s house in ten minutes. She was fairly certain that amount of time had already lapsed since she stepped through the doors of the convenience store. But they needed food to fuel their activities, and a short wait now was better than having to put their clothes back on later.

  “Is that her?”

  “I—I think it might be.”

  For some reason, Lainey looked up when she heard the whispering voices. Maybe because she was certain she felt someone’s gaze on her, staring with such intensity it physically drew her attention. Sure enough, a few girls, not much older than the pair of teens backing up the line, pointed in her direction in between scanning some newspaper article.

  They aren’t talking about you. You don’t even know them. Don’t be so utterly ridiculous.

  Lainey told herself she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t shake the feeling the girls were making fun of her. It was like she regressed back to her nerdy days as a teenage wallflower, when the kids called her Birdie because she was pigeon toed and she was too shy to string three words together around the popular crowd. It didn’t make any sense. Even if those kids were laughing at her, adult Lainey shouldn’t care. Yet, as the snickering continued, she had trouble convincing herself that was true. She suddenly felt the same way she did when she gave a speech in front of the class her freshman year of college and had to run out of the room and throw up in the middle of it. She’d thought she’d overcome those insecurity issues a long time ago. Apparently not.

  With the line at a standstill, Lainey distracted herself from the girls by glancing at the newspaper rack that was a few paces away, though what lined the shelves were closer to tabloids than newspapers or legitimate magazines. A few of the articles bashed politicians with ridiculous over the top accusations, one had a picture of a musician who’d doubled their weight, but the majority of the headlines were about some guy named Andy Palmer. Without her glasses on, most of the images and words were somewhat blurry, but that name stood out in bright, bold letters on every cover. Normally, Lainey wouldn’t have paid any attention, but a few of those headlines also specifically mentioned the Jersey shore.

  Haven’t seen those words on a magazine since Snooki’s reality show got cancelled.

  Curious and bored out of her mind, Lainey laid the sodas she held on the counter and pulled her glasses from her handbag. It turned out the kids didn’t have enough money and the clerk had to call a manager over to void out part of their order. That meant Lainey would be there at least a little longer. She might as well entertain herself, and it was always interesting to see her hometown, or at least the general area, making international headlines. Once she had her frames perched against her nose, both the words and the images came into clearer view, but Lainey still thought there must be something wrong with her vision. She couldn’t possibly be seeing what she imagined she saw.

  Andy Palmer Rocks the Jersey Shore with Mystery Lady

  Andy Two-Timing Catherine! - Is This the End of Candy?

  Andy Palmer’s Kinky Cult by the Sea

  The headlines were nothing amazing in and of themselves. Lainey was sure she’d seen much more scandalous revelations in the tabloids—poor people whose personal lives were splashed all over the front page just because they were considered a celebrity. Infidelities, messy custody battles, and even the tragic death of loved ones became public knowledge—something for the common man to gawk at so they felt better about their own situations. Lainey had never believed in that type of journalism. She’d never picked a dirty tabloid up off the shelf before, but for the first time, she couldn’t resist.

  “It can’t be.”

  The guy in front of her gave her a funny look when she spoke out loud, but Lainey didn’t care. She mumbled a few much less lady-like words under her breath, and clutched the silver star necklace she always wore. Holding the pendant gave her the strength to use her free hand to yank one of the magazines off the shelf. She wished more than anything that her sisters were there with her. She needed them now more than she ever had before. Lainey’s legs trembled under her own weight as she stared down at the magazine. She couldn’t even grip the counter for support because it required both her hands to hold the pages steady enough to read the words.

  No. No, no, no, no, no. It’s not him.

  She repeated that mantra over and over in her head several times, but it didn’t change the words or the images. Drew’s smiling face stared back at her from the cover of the magazine. It was impossible to mistake that debonair smile and the wavy, brown hair. Even worse, she was certain the woman with him in the photo, whose face was turned from the camera, was her. She recognized her own windblown tresses and her favorite brown sweater. Seeing those images of what she thought wa
s a private moment plastered on a magazine the whole world would see was terrible enough, but not nearly as painful as understanding every moment she’d shared with Drew had been nothing but a lie. The realization ruptured something fragile in Lainey’s heart—something delicate and irreplaceable that might never heal. It left behind a terrible throbbing in her chest that was physically painful, almost unbearable, and yet her body somehow continued to function through that haze of emotional pain.

  “You gonna buy that magazine, lady?” the cashier demanded. “‘Cause I don’t need any more jerks holding up my line.”

  “Oh, y—yes. Sorry about that.”

  Lainey couldn’t believe how calm her voice was. Except for the slight stutter, she sounded completely normal. Not like a woman whose whole world had just been ripped out from under her. She laid the magazine on the counter beside her sodas, and handed the cashier the slip with her hoagie order on it. At the last second, she grabbed the two other tabloids with Drew’s picture on the cover. The clerk scanned each item before scowling at Lainey.

  “That’ll be twenty-one dollars and twenty-two cents.”

  Frustrated, Lainey remembered she didn’t have that much cash in her pocket. The people behind her groaned when she dug through her handbag in search of her debit card. Then she accidently punched the security code in wrong—twice—before she finally got the order to go through. She ranked right up there with the teenagers on the annoyance scale, but she had bigger worries. She wondered if those girls who’d been pointing still gawked at her, but she was too afraid to peek over her shoulder. She prayed they wouldn’t come over and ask her any questions she couldn’t possibly answer.

  “Have a nice day.” A pierced lip raised in a sarcastic smile as the cashier handed Lainey her receipt.

  As soon as her bill was settled, Lainey grabbed her bag and ran straight for the door, completely forgetting about the sandwiches she’d already paid for and was supposed to pick up from the deli. It wasn’t like she had any appetite left anyway. She flew out of the store as fast a she could, sprinted to her car, and tossed everything onto the passenger seat. Then she took a few calming breaths so she could collect her thoughts, but her heart ached so badly it made it difficult to think clearly.

  “There has to be a logical explanation,” Lainey whispered aloud, yanking on the ends of her long hair. “There has to be.”

  She had to be dreaming or maybe having a nightmare. Things like this didn’t happen to small town girls like her. They didn’t wind up on the cover of tabloids. No one cared about her life, and that was exactly how she liked it. Then a memory smacked her so hard, it actually winded her, and she knew this was no nightmare.

  “So, Drew,” Elisa had said. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like that actor guy—what’s his name?”

  That night at Woody’s, when Lainey had introduced Drew to her friends, they’d recognized him—at least on some level. Erin mentioned the name Andy Palmer, and they even joked about Drew being his stunt double. Lainey had no idea how she hadn’t caught on before, but now all the pieces slid together. The escape from the Hollywood job he never wanted to talk about, the unlimited finances and even his initial obsession with baseball caps and sunglasses began to make sense. Heck, even the names should have been a clue. Andy and Drew were both nicknames for Andrew. And Palmer sounded like a more Americanized version of DiPalma. She had to be an idiot not to see this coming. Drew was never a stagehand or a lighting guy—he was an actor—a big time, Emmy-award nominated, super famous actor.

  That fact was overwhelming all on its own, but it carried with it so many more terrible realizations. Worst of all, it meant Drew had lied about more than just his career path. Everyone knew Andy Palmer was romantically entwined with his co-star, Canadian born Hollywood darling, Catherine Beaumont. Even though Lainey didn’t follow the life of celebrities or watch television very often, it was impossible to turn on a radio station without hearing about Candy. She was lucky those teenage girls didn’t rip her to shreds if they really thought she was the one tearing apart America’s favorite super couple. Diehard fans took things like that personally.

  “No.”

  Lainey shook her head, refusing to believe the evidence that stared her in the face. He was a look-a-like, a doppelgänger, a wanna-be stunt double like her friends had suggested. Lainey wanted to believe the fantasy, but in her heart she knew she was only kidding herself—continuing to kid herself—even before she flipped through the pages of the magazine. Then there was no denying the truth, no matter how much she wanted to.

  “Drew ... why? Why?”

  A few tears snuck free as Lainey stared down at the portrait of her own smiling face, hair flying wild, arms free. Beside her, Drew’s mouth was open in a shout of exhilaration. Lainey would’ve recognized that shot anywhere. She had the same one hanging on her bedroom mirror the last few months. There were other pictures too, most of them more recent than the roller coaster ride, and each one was like another knife being driven straight into her heart. No one had a right to share these moments with them. No one!

  Andy Two-Timing Catherine!

  While they never used her name, referring to Lainey only as “the mystery woman” or worse, “Andy’s plain Jane,” it still painted her as the home wrecking other woman, a title Lainey would never have walked into willingly. Had Drew been married with ten kids, she didn’t think they could’ve made her role sound any more heartless. The pictures of a weeping and bereft Catherine actually made her feel guilty. She’d never do anything to hurt another woman. After reading through the first article, Lainey didn’t think things could get any worse. But then she opened up the next magazine, and she learned how much worse it could get.

  “Those ... those bastards!”

  Lainey punched the dashboard of her car, which did nothing but make her knuckles throb. Yet, she still did it again, hoping it would quell some of the rage building inside of her. Sure, the article was written in one of the trashiest tabloids in the country—one everyone with half a brain cell knew was nothing but a crock of exaggeration and lies. At least once a month, they declared Elvis had come back from the dead or someone was impregnated by an alien. But it didn’t matter. It was still an even bigger slap in the face.

  Andy Palmer’s new lover leads him to the dark side...

  The write up went on to describe how Andy Palmer had joined a cult. They even included pictures that were nothing more than snap shots of the drum circle from a few nights ago, with people dancing and the bonfire rising high. She was certain they had been photo shopped to make them look sinister because the faces of the drummers were distorted and menacing.

  A few images showed Drew dancing beside the fire with Lainey and her friends—good gods! Even her poor friends had been dragged into this insane drama—but they turned those innocent scenes into something dirty, claiming that “wild orgies and sacrifices” took place that were so gruesome they couldn’t print the images. Of course, nothing of the sort had happened, but Lainey was certain lots of idiots, even local ones, would be more than happy to believe it. Thank goodness the features of the other people were too blurry to recognize, something she guessed was done on purpose to make Drew—Andy—more prominent. After all, he was the one people were interested in reading about.

  Buzzzzz. Buzzzzz.

  Lainey almost jumped out of her skin when she heard her cellphone vibrate. On instinct alone, she grabbed it out of her purse. But when Drew’s number flashed across the screen, she didn’t have the courage to answer. She couldn’t face him. Not when she was so overwhelmed with emotion. Not when she had no clue what to say or how she could express the hurt and the violation she felt. She wasn’t certain she’d ever be ready to see him again.

  “Who are you?” Lainey asked her ringing phone. “Who did I fall in love with?”

  It was a question Lainey couldn’t answer, but she planned to find out. Willing back the tears—there would be plenty of time for crying when she got home—Laine
y lifted her gaze to the string of shops beside the convenience store. Luckily, Cape May was one of the only cities in the country that still had a movie rental store. Old habits die hard in Victorian Cape May. Setting her lips in a stern frown, Lainey tossed the offensive papers on the passenger seat along with her cell, pulled open the car door, and stomped toward the rental shop.

  It was time to find out exactly who Drew DiPalma, A.K.A. Andy Palmer, really was.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Drew lined up a few cans of paint and set the brushes and rollers in a row next to the pan. Though he had a feeling they wouldn’t be touching the supplies any time soon, he had to at least pretend he intended to work. Lainey was on her way over and all he could think about was getting his hands on her. He didn’t mind helping out with Blanche’s renovations all weekend, but with his return trip to Los Angeles looming over them, Drew needed some private time with Lainey to hold him over until his return. But it wouldn’t be all fun and games. Drew planned, without a doubt, to tell Lainey the truth about his career. That was first and foremost on his agenda. While it would be a tough conversation, his procrastination might’ve paid off. He had an amazing surprise in store for Lainey—something only his position had made possible. Grinning at the thought, Drew lifted the letter from the folding table he’d set up in the empty living room.

  “Dear Mr. Palmer,

  Thank you for submitting the thriller Phantom by Miss Lainey Riccardo for our consideration. We have reviewed the manuscript and are delighted to inform you we have decided to offer our representation.”

  The letter went on with lots of legal jargon best left to an attorney to decipher, but the main point was that Drew had been able to pull a few strings and get Lainey’s book seen by one of the top literary agents in New York. They didn’t normally accept submissions from unpublished authors, but they made an exception with Drew’s recommendation. With this agent backing her up, it was only a matter of time before Lainey got into one of the top publishing houses. They wouldn’t even need to throw his name around. Lainey’s talent spoke for itself. He just held the door open for her so she had a chance to be heard.