by Amy Finnegan
Jake’s voice is right by my ear. “Back off, Brett.”
“You know, Jake, I thought we were tight.” Brett takes a step forward, and someone shouts for security. “But do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe you dropped Emma’s phone in the back of my truck? Not that I doubt furniture was involved at some point.”
“I’m serious,” Jake says. “Back off!”
“Please, Jake,” I tell him. “Stay out of this.”
“No,” he says, sliding his arm around my back, strong and protective. My breath catches, but only for a second. “This changes everything.”
I step away from him. “Is that what you needed? Proof?”
“Emma, I’m sorry. I—”
“Just leave your apology on my voice mail, all right?” I say, cutting Jake off as I walk backward, off the set. “Maybe when I’m in a better mood, I’ll listen to it.” I shrug. “Then again, maybe not.” I look between Jake and Brett. “Why don’t you two do me a massive favor and beat each other up? I’d hate to break a nail on one of your big heads.”
I walk away, but I hear a slap seconds later and glance over my shoulder to see Brett rubbing his cheek and cursing at Kimmi. She shakes out her hand and says, “I don’t mind breaking a nail for a good cause.”
My only true friend here turned out to be Kimmi. How ironic.
I grab my handbag from my dressing room and race down the hall toward the parking lot, fully aware that McGregor may not let me return. But what is there to come back to, anyway?
Just as I reach the exit, footsteps pound down the hall after me. “Emma! Stop!”
Jake
Security rushes the set with McGregor blasting in with them, demanding that I explain what happened, or I would have already caught up to Emma.
I didn’t stick around for the fallout, but can hear McGregor shouting at Brett halfway across the studio. When I finally hit the hallway with our dressing rooms, Emma has just reached the exit to the parking lot. I beg her to stop, but it isn’t until she’s only a few steps from her car that she even acknowledges me. “Please, Jake … don’t,” she says. “Just let me go.”
“I screwed up, okay? I’m so sorry.”
“Want to know what I’ve done this past week?” Emma asks, reaching the driver’s side just as I jump in front of her door. “I fired my mom, told my best friend to get a life of her own, felt ridiculously guilty over a kiss I was tricked into, and cried my eyes out while I prayed that you would call. What a complete waste of a sunny week in Tucson!”
“Emma …” I reach for her arms, but she takes a step back and then another—almost as if she’s afraid of me. I realize then that this situation is way too similar to the one she’d been in with Troy last spring, so I stuff my hands into my pockets and give her some space. “I just assumed the worst because Brett had already been messing with my head,” I say. “And you didn’t tell me about the kiss, so I figured that you … wanted it. Picked him over me.”
“That’s insane, Jake,” she says. “And when did I get a chance to tell you what Brett did? This wasn’t a one-minute phone call I could sneak in. But I said I needed to talk to you, remember? I just didn’t expect StarTV to get involved before we had some time alone.”
“I get that now. I should’ve listened to your messages.” The setting sun behind her sends me back to the first time we were in this parking lot together … the day that started it all. It can’t end like this. “Look, as today went on,” I say, “I realized I might be wrong and wanted to ask if we could talk after work.”
“I needed you to believe me before today,” Emma replies and steps closer, but only to go around me to open her car door. “I can’t stop the press from broadcasting my mistakes to the world, so you’ll always have reasons to doubt me, no matter what I do.” She sits behind the wheel and fastens her seat belt. “It’s never going to work, Jake. It just isn’t.”
I hold on to the top of the door so she can’t shut it, understanding for the first time how Troy could’ve felt desperate enough to slam his fist through her window to stop her from driving out of his life. But I’m not like Troy. And yeah, I’ve cared about no one but myself this past week, but ultimately, I’m not like my character Justin either, who would also make Emma hear him out. I’m better than that.
After just one tug on the door, Emma looks up with pleading eyes.
I step back and watch her drive away.
The blowup on set happened at about six o’clock Friday night. By Saturday morning, the first day of our two-week hiatus, online gossip sites have already spread the story, and stunned fans everywhere light up the Internet—all taking sides: Bremma vs. Jemma.
By Saturday afternoon, we’re breaking news on StarTV and I’ve been cast as the villain: “Brett Crawford accused fellow castmate, Jake Elliott, of borrowing his truck to romp around with Emma Taylor, who Crawford was seen kissing as recently as last weekend. Can you say scandalicious?”
There’s no telling who leaked the explosion on set. It’s all twisted to sound as juicy as possible, and missing the only details that really matter to me—that Brett is much more of a master manipulator than an actor, and that at some point in the past week, Emma and I broke up.
At least I think we did.
Liz says I have one week to hire a publicist, or she’s forwarding all calls directly to my cell. So now I have to shell out some serious cash to have a publicist say just two words: no comment. I can think of a few short phrases I’d like to tell the press myself. For free.
I’m staying in Phoenix during our hiatus, and when my mom needs groceries on Wednesday, I make the mistake of thinking I’m still an anonymous nobody and head out. But the second I leave her community, I’m chased by a literal motorcade of random cars with their windows rolled down and cameras flashing.
I race into the store, but the freaks follow me. The management does nothing to stop them—I’m not even sure they can—they just get into the excitement like everyone else as photographers throw out questions like, “How did you get Emma to cheat on Brett?” When I don’t respond, they get downright dirty, trying to provoke me into a response—any response. And if that includes me shoving one of them into a shelf full of soup cans, all the better. They’ll have premium pictures, a killer front-page story, and an even better lawsuit.
These scumbags have nothing to lose, and the only choice I have is to ignore them.
What kind of story could they possibly make up from a grocery trip, anyway? Jake Elliott was seen Wednesday morning buying milk and butter, confirming the rumor that he and Emma Taylor are hiding out in Phoenix together, since she’s also known to like dairy products. We expect to catch them buying cheese any day now. Fruit and vegetables are sure to follow.
It’s Thursday night now—nearly a week after I last saw Emma—and I’m on my mom’s couch flipping through channels while I wait for Devin to show up to watch the Suns game. It was his idea. He’s been dishing out nonstop apologies—for not believing Emma, or even telling me that she called him—and a truckload of pity.
But my mom … not so much.
She comes out of her room and notices I’m not studying for a test like I’m supposed to be doing. My economics textbook is on the floor, well within reach, but I’ve already read three hundred pages in the last few days, and I can’t recall a word of it.
“Has lying on the couch all day made you feel any better?” Mom asks.
“Nope,” I reply, ditching my usual front of being fine. “I can’t study. I can’t sleep. I hate being stuck inside, but going out is a death sentence. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yes, actually,” she says, maneuvering her wheelchair right up to the couch. “When do you intend to talk to Emma? I’m sick of watching you mope around.”
“Thanks. That’s just the shot in the arm I needed.”
Mom is quiet for a sec, and then she releases a long sigh. “I knew falling for Emma would have its complications. I just hoped it wouldn’t hurt
so much.”
“Well, it does.” I’ve only told my mom enough to get her to stop bugging me every five minutes. “But I blew it, and she doesn’t want me back. End of story.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
I sit up in a flash. “No, I’m not okay with it!”
“Then what are you still doing here? You’ve been talking up your big life plans for several years now, but it wasn’t until you met Emma that you actually did something about them. So I think a girl who inspires you to go after what really makes you happy, and not just fame and fortune, is well worth fighting for.”
I run a hand through my messy mop of hair. “I’m past debating that. It’s just … I don’t know. It all seemed too perfect, and whenever I feel that way, things fall apart. Always. So I guess I just jumped ship at the first sign that it might be sinking. It was stupid.”
Mom puts a hand on my knee. “Your ships don’t always sink. Yes, you once had a great dad who changed after making some bad choices. But that was his fault, not yours. And it’s time the two of us accept my fate as it is now, bound to this wheelchair. My stroke was rotten luck, that’s all. But I’ve hated how significantly it’s altered your own life. So seeing you get back to doing what you want to do has been very healing—for both of us, I think.”
She’s never let me give up on anything. “Does that mean I have to stop pouting?”
“To be honest,” Mom replies, “your smirk is cute enough to sell suits, but your pout couldn’t sell socks. Groveling, however, might look good on you.”
“Groveling,” I repeat, a word I’ve been thinking about all day. “Right.”
That will take a lot more than a phone call.
Emma
I’ve been lying flat on my bedroom floor in Fayetteville—wearing a bathrobe and a towel wrapped around my head—for over an hour. I was already living in L.A. when my parents bought this house, so without my collection of teddy bears in one corner and my movie memorabilia covering the walls, this bedroom wouldn’t feel any more personal than my whiteout bedroom in Tucson.
The real difference is the Star Wars theme music booming from the main floor below me. Along with all the movies, my dad brought home plastic lightsabers a few nights ago, so Levi and Logan are now Jedi freaks. Mom is probably thrilled, though, since the boys have a few days off from school this week and their new fascination is keeping them busy.
Dad is always at work, so he isn’t much help. And I’m pretty much worthless too.
I had stayed in bed longer than usual this morning, reliving a dream—the kind where you keep closing your eyes again, trying to slip back into it. Jake was there, as usual, but neither of us were actors, and we were perfectly happy together. My first thought when I woke was, See, you just need to leave the industry, and things will be much better. And I was satisfied with that. But then I had this thought: You were happy with Jake. Tabloids and all.
But will I ever be less sensitive to gossip? Can I learn to just shut it out?
Leaving Coyote Hills this way would probably end my career; I’d drop to the D-list overnight. It might make things easier with Jake, but he may not even want me back, so I have to take him out of the equation. What do I want for myself?
Still flat on my back after my shower, I stare at the textured ceiling as if the random shapes might somehow give me crystal-clear answers. And crazy enough, it works.
I grab my phone and call McGregor.
“I don’t want to quit,” I say the instant he picks up. This is our third call since I stormed off set a week ago, in full costume. The first time we talked, I apologized for my behavior but suggested he kill off my character in a chemistry experiment gone bad, because I wasn’t coming back. In our second call a few days later, I agreed to stay through the end of the season. But now, I decide to tell him, “I love acting. So much. I don’t want to give it up just because a bunch of jerks think they own the rights to my life story.”
I hate that the smallest corners of my world can be invaded at any time, but no amount of lies can change who I really am. And not every personal moment is spoiled by the paparazzi.
Jake and I were the only ones at that campground when we kissed for the first time. No one ruined it by twisting the details. And even with all the cameras that were there the night I found the courage to face Troy at Club 99, not a single photo told the actual story of me overcoming my fear of him.
My life, as public as it seems, is still only mine.
“I figured you’d come to your senses,” McGregor says, and I can almost see his crooked grin. “I’d hoped Brett would grow out of his shenanigans, but sometimes—only sometimes—I find my casting theory to be flawed. Not everyone has the hidden qualities I believe they have. I’ve given Brett until the end of the season to restore my faith, or his character will indeed be the victim of a sad accident. In the meantime, I’ve threatened to give him an exceptionally intimate scene with Kimmi if he doesn’t behave. Have you spoken to Jake since last week?”
I swallow hard. “Not yet. But more than anything, Jake and I are good friends, so somehow … we’ll be okay.” His friendship is the biggest loss I feel.
“Then I won’t expect any more problems,” McGregor replies.
This isn’t the only second chance I’m hoping for. I had wanted Jake to let me leave the studio in peace, but it now kills me that he let me go so easily. At the campground, though, he had said he couldn’t give up on me even if I wanted him to, and I believed him.
I still do.
I wonder if he’s seen any of those totally cliché chick flicks where the main character has an epiphany, a massive smile slides across her face, and then she dashes off to the airport to confess her love just in the nick of time. If so, Jake should know exactly what I’m about to do—race to my laptop and buy a ticket to Phoenix. But the next flight isn’t until tomorrow.
Tomorrow? Ugh!
If I hadn’t sulked in my room all day, trying to wish away my problems, I could’ve already been on my way to Arizona. All I can do now is start the twenty-three-hour countdown.
When I open my e-mail inbox to double-check the flight itinerary, I do the usual scan to see if anything is from Jake. Nope. But there are two other e-mails that grab my attention—one from Rachel, and one from Kimmi. There are also the same five e-mails from Brett that have been there for six days—unopened—plus five new ones from him. The subject lines are all identical: READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
Everything? What I already know is enough to make me obsess about prying Brett’s toenails off with pliers. But Kimmi has never e-mailed me before, so I open hers first:
How Not to Be Pathetic, Lesson 305: Smart girls only get hurt once. Don’t take this as a compliment, but it looks like you’ve finally learned something—Brett is a loser. You were stupid to think otherwise. But Jake is more like a wolf in a designer suit, so I’ll cut you some slack this time. Just don’t let him fool you with his apologies. Are you ready for my Lessons in Revenge?
Your best frenemy forever,
Kimmi
Our relationship is so weird. But after her well-placed slap last week, I’ll admit that she’s not a bad gal to have on my side. As for her Lessons in Revenge? I laugh out loud at the idea of Kimmi being my social mentor, then hit my reply button and write: How to Make Your Own Decisions, Lesson 1: Thanks, but no thanks. (Nice slap, though. I owe you a new set of nails.)
After I send that message, I open Rachel’s e-mail. This is the first time I’ve heard from her since we agreed to give each other space. The e-mail says:
Okay, so I HATE Hollywood!!!!! Kidding! I totally LOVE it!! There are four major hotties, and I’m not leaving this competition without at least one of them wrapped around my finger (even if I need to hog-tie him). There are super cool people here and everyone is asking me to take photos of them nonstop, cuz you know, I’ve got mad skillz! And guess what? I’m not the only freak who can name every winner for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress since
the Academy Awards began! But I’m still gonna win this thing—no prob. I’ve found my happily ever after!! Speaking of, I know talking about The Bod is taboo, but if that big fight on set really happened (notice that I said IF!) I hope things are okay now. Anyway, I promise I’ll just e-mail until … whenever. xoxoxoxoxo
I can’t help but smile—an e-mail once in a while won’t be so bad. When I write back, it’s mostly about Stars in Their Eyes, and how to hog-tie a guy without hurting him too badly. I also say I’m not ready to talk about Jake yet, but maybe soon. Once that’s off, I glance at the time … twenty-two hours and forty-five minutes until I land in Phoenix.
I need a new clock; time isn’t going fast enough on this one.
So out of sheer boredom, I consider Brett’s ten identical e-mails in my inbox. He’ll never stop spamming me unless I reply, so I finally open one:
I doubt you’ll even read this but here’s the truth anyway. Yes, I did know something was going on between you and Jake. I just didn’t think it was as serious as it obviously is—you’ve both seemed pretty messed up since the premiere. I’m sorry if things are still bad, but I really do like you, a lot, so this sucks for me too.
The problem is that you didn’t just make me want to BE good, you made me LOOK good. People started thinking of me as a decent guy again. So when I saw the camera outside the atrium, I figured that could be my last chance to tell you how I felt, and at the same time make everyone believe you really liked me. And your friend had just told me you did, so I thought you might actually kiss me back. I know it doesn’t matter now, but I really am tired of being a loser and of people saying I’m a washed-up child star. Acting is the one thing I KNOW I’m good at.
I hope you’ll forgive me one day—maybe in twenty years when I’m fat and bald and flipping burgers at a fast food joint with the rest of the Hollywood has-beens.
