Catch a Falling Star

by Culbertson, Kim

  I surveyed the street for gawkers, one of those funny long cameras looped around their necks, sitting in a tree or watching me from across the street in a car. At least here, I couldn’t see anyone. How did Adam live under constant surveillance? I hadn’t even gone three weeks and my nerves felt shredded. I had taken to wearing my huge sunglasses even when I didn’t need them just to have an extra layer between the gawkers and me.

  No matter, in a few days, this would all be over.

  The last couple of days — the Little Club, that stupid photo of Adam and Beckett, John’s breakdown in the café — had let the fatigue I’d been fighting settle firmly into my limbs. When Dad came home from practicing with Glory Daze last night, he’d narrowed his eyes at me. “You okay?” I didn’t tell him about John; instead, I’d shown him the magazine. As he studied it, I’d told him it was part of their scene and the tabloids were making it up, but my stomach flickered with doubt. “Shocking,” he’d said, pulling a cold beer from the fridge. “The tabloids got something wrong.” I’d tried to laugh along with him, but it came out flat.

  And this morning, it was still bugging me. Even though I knew I didn’t have any grounds to be feeling this way (I was essentially an employee), it felt like Adam had broken my trust somehow, like he’d lied to me. Chloe was right. It was unacceptable boyfriend behavior, even from a fake boyfriend. I needed this whole thing to be over. It was too much, and I was sick of feeling like every moment of my life was one lie patched to another. I just wanted to go back to being me, my life before Adam came to town.

  I made a terrible liar.

  Because, honestly, the whole thing had stopped feeling like a job sometime around our river kiss. At that point, my heart had become a murky, foreign thing in my chest. And it was Adam’s fault. He was supposed to be a jerk, a reckless Hollywood creep, and he had been, he was at first, but then he wasn’t. At some point he’d become funny and smart and I liked being with him. Now this stupid magazine picture said, Nope, in fact he is a huge jerk. This was the problem; it was right there on the page grabbing Beckett’s butt.

  The Range Rover pulled up to the curb, engine purring. Adam scrambled out of the passenger seat. “You ready?” He held the door open for me. He had bed head and no shirt, just a pair of jeans, and the sight of him, his bare skin, sent shock waves through me. He was doing it again, breaking my movie-stars-going-shirtless-around-regular-people rule. I should be allowed to ticket him. I thought of the magazine picture, tried to push it from my mind, but I imagined having to sit there on the set today and watch Beckett flipping her lovely dark hair.

  I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head, fingering the skin beneath my eyes. “I think I’ll skip the shoot today, if that’s okay.”

  “What’s wrong? You sick?” He frowned, reaching into the backseat and pulling out a T-shirt. He slipped it on as if he just hadn’t had time to get dressed before picking me up. He reached out to feel my forehead. Even if it was cool before, I was sure it went hot at his touch.

  That stupid picture.

  Even though I’d sworn to Chloe I didn’t care, I’d grabbed the magazine out of the café recycle bin before heading home. Last night, curled on the familiar pale pink quilt in my room, I’d stared at the offending picture for much longer than I cared to admit.

  Why was his hand there?

  “I’m just tired.” I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and tried to look casual.

  He shifted uncomfortably. “I’d like you to be there today. You should be there. You left early the other day, and I didn’t see you yesterday. The script says you’re at the shoot today. It’ll look like we’re having problems if you skip.”

  Was he going to get contractual on me? “I think it already looks like that, don’t you? I mean, according to Entertainment Now! you’ve been ‘Caught’ — exclamation point!” Even whispering, my voice was razor-edged.

  His brow furrowed with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m referencing a little move I like to call the Beckett Butt Grab!”

  “The what? Who’s Beckett?” He shot a nervous look around the neighborhood. This particular fight was not in the script, but he didn’t need to worry; the construction guy wasn’t sitting on his tailgate anymore, and miraculously there was no one around.

  “Beckett Ray!”

  His face clouded even more. “I’m going to need more than that.”

  “How about a visual aid?” I dug into my bag and pulled out the inky magazine, folded to the article. I held it up for him to see. “Look, here’s you — grabbing Beckett on what can only be described as her rear region. And me, sad local girl, licking my wounds — only I think they caught me having just cleaned the espresso machine. It’s not an easy job. I can’t really help clean up your image if you’re going to run around messing it up.”

  Adam gave the photo a once-over, his brow furrowing again, then relaxing. “We’re not worried about that one. Last week, they reported on Steven Spielberg’s alien alliances. No one believes Entertainment Now! It’s garbage.”

  I didn’t get angry very often. In fact, I prided myself on being a calm person who could really hold it together, but at that exact moment, I wanted to punch Adam Jakes in his movie-star face. That would be just what Hunter Fisch needed — protesters and a leading man with a black eye.

  I shook the magazine at him. “I don’t think you should be blowing this off. No matter what magazine it is, it looks bad. Robin Hamilton warned me about the kissing scene with you and Beckett and then this?”

  “Robin Hamilton warned you? Because you two are BFFs now?” He tossed the magazine onto the sidewalk. “Don’t look at that.” His somber expression stilled my anger. His voice came out quiet but clear. “She played a waitress in a scene we shot. She had one line. I believe it was, ‘More water?’ There was definitely not any kissing happening. Robin Hamilton was just trying to get a reaction out of you. And obviously it worked.”

  It didn’t match up. Why did so many things with this guy not match up? “You invited her to the shoot at the club. You said, ‘How are Little’s two most beautiful women?’ or something gross and fake like that.” Hot tears welled behind my eyes. I was embarrassed to be acting like this, falling apart in front of him again, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Adam’s look could only be described as confused pity. “She asked if she could come. And the whole beautiful women thing, that’s just something to say. It doesn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean to be gross or fake.” He thought about it for a second. “Okay, no — yes, I did mean it to be fake. It’s just like ‘How’s the wife?’”

  “No one says, ‘How’s the wife?’” I mumbled, my anger ebbing. I couldn’t help adding, “Unless they’re in an episode of Leave It to Beaver.”

  Sensing a thaw, he cupped my face in his hands. “Why are you so mad about this?” His expression shifted to amusement. “Wait, are you jealous?”

  I flared again. “No. I’m embarrassed. It makes me look bad. It makes you look like a bad boyfriend — again. It ruins what we’re trying to do here.”

  “Seriously, we’re doing great.” He dropped his hands from my face, but my cheeks felt branded with them. He studied me, probably noticing the dark circles beneath my eyes. “Did something else happen?”

  I pulled my sunglasses back down, not telling him about John, about the spray of dragon tears he’d left on the café table. “No.”

  “You can’t read this stuff, okay? I never do.” His voice softened. “Even the legitimate magazines. They use stuff out of context. Like you’d just cleaned the espresso machine, it’s the same thing with that shot of me and that girl. It was probably in passing, during a scene or a botched take, and the angle worked out. It’s nothing. I don’t have any interest in her rear region or any other region of her, okay?”

  “Okay.” I felt silly. “I’m sorry. I’m not jealous.”

  It was hard to hear him over the mower that started up again in the neighbor’s yard, b
ut I could have sworn he said, “It’d be okay if you were.”

  I joined Adam for his shoot at the graveyard. The crew worked carefully around the graves, creating snowdrifts, hanging pine wreaths with red velvet bows. It seemed to me, they made an extra effort to be cautious and respectful as they winterized the slim strip of cemetery they’d been permitted to use for shooting the Ghost of Christmas Present scene.

  “Hunter?” Adam stood in a green path, out of the scene, frowning, dressed in winter running gear. Kelly, the makeup artist, worked on his face.

  Hunter stopped talking with one of the A.D.s and raised his eyebrows at Adam. “Yeah?”

  “I’m not too clear about why I follow my teacher into the graveyard.” He motioned at the actress standing by a grave, holding a fake poinsettia Tiny Tom had given her. Kelly waited, a makeup sponge poised by Adam’s face.

  Hunter rubbed his head. “You see her go in and you wonder about her. She’s your teacher, you’re on a run to clear your head, you see her go into a graveyard, and you follow her in.”

  “Why?”

  Hunter’s mouth twitched. “Curiosity. It’s been a weird day for you so far, and you feel drawn to her.” He turned back to the A.D.

  Adam sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. “Okay.”

  He seemed distracted, his eyes moving over the assembled crew, over the graves, until his gaze landed on me, sitting on the stone bench just outside Video Village.

  He trotted over. “Does it make sense to you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not an actor. I don’t really know why your character does things.” Flashes of his conversation with Beckett crept, like smoke, into my brain. Maybe I should mention something about brilliant pickle metaphors.

  Adam didn’t notice. “But you’re a dancer. You understand motivation.” He plopped down on the bench next to me. “This is the Ghost of Christmas Present. I have this history teacher who, without meaning to, actually teaches me something — not about history, but about the present.” He was doing it again. That whole referring to himself as the character, saying “me” when he really meant Scott.

  I thought about his scene. “Okay, she’s visiting her mother who died, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, death makes us think of life, makes us think about what’s happening right now. It forces Scott, er, you — to see your teacher as vulnerable. She forces you to actually see another person in pain. It makes you think of Cheryl, that she might die. It’s” — I struggled to find the right word — “it’s immediate. That’s the whole point of this particular ghost in the story. To force you to look at what’s happening right now.”

  He nodded, fiddling with the zipper on his tracksuit. “Yeah, right. That’s good.”

  He squeezed my knee before hurrying over to the actress with the poinsettia. She nodded, the poinsettia bobbing up and down. I hadn’t told Adam, but I’d read A Christmas Carol over the last week. I’d actually never read Dickens’s novella, only seen it at Christmastime as a play. I didn’t usually go for Victorian novels, so bleak and dreary. But this one got to me. And the Ghost of Christmas Present was my favorite of the spirits, how he could change his shape to fit any space, how he could only live in that one present moment.

  The now.

  Living in the now was a popular sort of notion in Northern California, especially around here. Live for now. Carpe diem. Over the years, our customers at the café had worn T-shirts bearing versions of this particular concept. Live Now. Present Moment Only, Please. Goddess of the Now. I’d often wondered about people’s need to constantly remind themselves to be aware of living right now. It seemed sort of obvious to me. Of course we lived right now. When else would we be living?

  Watching Adam work through his scene, though, I started to think I’d missed a bit of what that whole living now really meant to other people. Probably because I lived far too much in the now. I’d never had to wrestle with it the way some of our customers clearly had.

  My trouble wasn’t with now. My trouble was with the future.

  I did now really well.

  Dad always told me I was good at noticing moments, at appreciating the little things in life. It struck me as an odd thing, being good at noticing moments. Moments, in and of themselves, were actually pretty boring little bits of time. For most people, they were like confetti or snowflakes; they didn’t amount to much until they were in groups. I think I was the opposite. I avoided the groups, the mounds of confetti or snow that had built up in my life, because I was more frightened of what those mounds might tell me to do.

  I lived in the now so I didn’t have to move forward.

  Sitting on the bench, the warm wind blowing across the graveyard, I wondered if I’d been choosing the now so I didn’t have to think about the point when the ghost of my future came along and poked me with his crooked, bossy stick.

  But like it or not, like Scrooge, I would have to think about it. When I got home that evening, my Ghost of Christmas Future was sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper.

  Two of them.

  “Hi, parents.” I leaned down to kiss Mom. “When did you get home?”

  She reached up to give me a hug. “About an hour ago.” Her dark hair had lightened in the summer sun, and her face looked tan in the yellow light of the overhead lamp. “Join us.” Something in her voice told me this wasn’t a casual invitation.

  I pulled a pitcher of herbal iced tea from the fridge. “Want some?” I offered, pouring myself a glass over some ice.

  “We’re good,” Dad answered, taking off his reading glasses and resting them on the folded newspaper in front of him. He pushed out the chair next to him with his foot.

  I settled into it. “What’s up?”

  They exchanged a look across the table. Uh-oh. That look was usually reserved for conversations about my brother. I sat up straighter. “Is everything okay? Is John okay?” Had they seen the dragon tears I’d scattered by the maple tree in the yard?

  “Actually …” Dad cleared his throat. “This isn’t about John.”

  “Oh.”

  Mom folded her hands in front of her on the table. I could see her working something over in her mind; it moved across her face like cloud cover. “We have something we’d like to talk about with you.”

  I waited, my eyes darting between them. “Okay.”

  Dad cleared his throat again. “We’re, here’s the thing … we’re concerned about you.”

  “About me?” I’d never had a conversation like this with my parents. I wasn’t the sort of kid who caused concerns for parents. “Is this about Adam?”

  “Not really.” Mom folded and unfolded the nearest corner edge of the newspaper. “We’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a while.”

  “It’s about graduation.” Dad toyed with his glasses. “About what’s going to happen after you graduate next year.” He glanced again at Mom.

  At least now I knew which conversation we were having. We’d all been having it for years with our parents. Of course, now it was becoming less theoretical and more — tell us exactly what will happen next. Next. The Future. Chloe’s and Alien Drake’s parents had already asked for the lists. College lists. Life-after-high-school lists. Life lists. The Future with its crooked stick was big on lists.

  So much for living in the now.

  I breathed out a sigh. “Right, okay.” I launched into my plan. I’d stay here after graduation and work at the café. Teach at Snow Ridge. Life as usual. “Only, I’ll be able to pick up more shifts once school’s off my plate.”

  My parents exchanged another look. Mom nodded slowly, her eyes on her folded hands. “Yeah, that’s sort of what we thought you might say.”

  Outside, the evening darkened, yellowing the lamplight even more. Dad picked up the pen lying next to his glasses, clicked and unclicked the top. “Thing is,” Dad said, taking a breath, “we’re not okay with that plan.”

  My neck cooled. What did he mean they weren�
�t okay with my plan? “You don’t want me to work at Eats?”

  Mom reached for my hand. “Honey, we’re worried you’re not thinking broadly enough. We’d love for you to work with us at the café. But we were hoping you’d go get an education first. Then, come back to us if you want, after college, in the summers, after having another life out in the bigger world. Some experiences that will be your own, that aren’t tied to Little.”

  Not them, too. The hum of the fridge, the clicking of Dad’s pen, filled my ears with a buzzing. Mom’s hand smothered mine and I made a fist. “Dad didn’t go to college. He’s always had the café.”

  Letting go, she glanced at Dad, who sighed. “Yes, but we always thought you’d go off to dance somewhere. And now …” His voice trailed off. Click. Click.

  “It’s been a year,” Mom finished.

  “I know how long it’s been,” I snapped, slumping in my chair, aware that I’d just pulled a classic teenager pose. I sat up a bit. No need to give them any ammunition.

  “Please don’t get defensive, Carter.” Dad tilted his head, studying me. “We’re allowed to have this conversation with you. We’re your parents.” Dad wasn’t one to discipline me, didn’t need to use a dad voice very often, and he hadn’t used it at all for quite some time. It sounded heavy-edged in the small space of the kitchen. His big shoulders sighed with him. “We want you to know that we’re honored you would choose this life, this town, our family business. It makes us feel like we’ve done a pretty bang-up job.”

  Tears bit at the edges of my eyes. “But I’m fired.”

  Mom laughed in surprise, sitting back in her chair. “Oh, Carter. You’re not one to be dramatic.”

  She was right. I hated drama, opted for peace and ease. Which is why I didn’t want any grand plans. I just wanted my life, the life I already liked. “I think I should stay.” I looked straight at Mom. “Don’t you always say that life should be about serving those not as fortunate? I want to stay here and do that.”