Map to the Stars

by Jen Malone

  He paused, then collected his breath deeply and spoke. “Authentic.”

  That did it. My tray clattered to the ground and a number of heads swung in my direction. “Uh, sorry,” I muttered, ducking down to pick up cookies, but mostly to cover my head-to-toe blush. I was on my knees, eye level with a bunch of spray-tanned LA calves and the mom-jean legs of tourists from Wisconsin, so I couldn’t see Graham when he elaborated. Wynn materialized at my side and as Graham talked she helped me slowly rise to a standing position, a forgotten jumble of cookie crumbs in a ring around our feet.

  He was saying, “It’s true. Authentic. And you know why? It’s because a lot of things aren’t. And I’m the biggest phony of them all. I’ve been spending these last few months being careful not to confirm or deny rumors that I am gay. And I want to end that today.”

  The crowd leaned forward like a small forest of trees swaying in the wind. Every person was hanging on his words. The reporter who asked the question in the first place was holding his recording device high over his head to capture Graham’s speech.

  “When you’re famous, people around you go out of their way to tell you what they think you want to hear. They bring you your favorite foods and fetch you what you need, any time day or night. You live in this little bubble until you convince yourself that it’s the real world. Until someone comes along and sees through all of it and sees you for you.”

  He was definitely on a roll, but here he faltered for the first time, seeming to lose his thread. Or his courage. His eyes locked on mine again and once more, I couldn’t break contact. Our connection seemed to make a decision for him. Something in his gaze shifted and he was suddenly fearless.

  His shoulders squared and he took a deep breath before continuing, eyes still on mine. “I found someone who wasn’t afraid to tell me I was wrong. That I was being selfish, that my priorities were—are—totally messed up. Someone who held up a mirror and forced me to look into it, knowing I wouldn’t like what I saw. Someone who stood up to me, and told me what I needed to hear. And I didn’t listen. And I lost her.”

  The woman next to me gasped and grabbed my arm. Her question (“Did he say her?”) echoed on every side of me. I couldn’t move.

  “Yes, I said her,” Graham stated plainly. “A few months ago, a photographer took a picture of me kissing a boy outside of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Except it wasn’t a boy. It was my girlfriend, Annie. You might remember her from a certain video of us kissing on top of the Eiffel Tower. When that video went viral I let the people I hired to run my career convince me it would be a bad business move to have a girlfriend. They thought my fans wouldn’t like the fact that I was off the market.”

  He dropped his chin and fidgeted with the mike. “But we didn’t want anyone telling us we couldn’t be together. So we disguised Annie as a boy in order to sneak out without attracting paparazzi interest. We got a little carried away and that picture happened. What I should have done was confessed right then and there. Admitted I had a girlfriend and dealt with the consequences, whatever they were.”

  A woman was struggling to make her way onto the stage and in spite of everything I was feeling, I almost laughed out loud to see a pint-size Melba waving her hands around like a crazy person. Graham had a tiny smile in the corners of his mouth too as he waved her away. She opened and closed her mouth a few times like a fish, then hung her head and slunk off the stage. Graham turned back to the microphone.

  “Instead, I made it much, much worse. I made a mountain out of a wormhill.”

  Okay, someone really needed to get that boy a dictionary of common expressions.

  He talked on. “Those same handlers were telling me that my being gay would earn me a whole new fanbase and I went against everything I knew I should have done. I was scared of losing the things I thought were important and I was a coward.

  “So the truth is, I’m not gay.”

  His breathing seemed a little shaky. When he began speaking again, he was talking just to me. The rustlings of the crowd faded away and it was like I had tunnel vision straight to the podium.

  “I love a girl,” he said. He blinked slowly, as my eyes widened. He shrugged his shoulders and lowered them in a helpless “forgive me” plea.

  As people became aware this speech was actually being targeted at someone, more heads turned to seek out the recipient. I became dimly aware of murmuring around me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from his.

  He wasn’t done. He addressed the whole crowd now. “But if I’d said I loved a boy, that would have been fine too. These past few months I’ve learned a lot from the LGBT community. I’ve never been embraced as warmly by any other group of people and it will take me a long time to forgive myself for not treating that kindness and acceptance with more respect. I at least owed it to them to not be wishy-washy when asked the question of whether I was gay or straight. I convinced myself that if I kept things vague, I wouldn’t actually be lying to anyone, but I only made things worse. I wouldn’t want any of my fans to ever think it’s not okay to be perfectly comfortable answering a pointed question about their sexuality. It shouldn’t matter and I hope they scream their answers from the rooftops.”

  Graham took a deep breath and looked around, but I doubt even Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address had a crowd more attentive.

  “But really, this isn’t even about my sexuality. It’s a matter of being real. I put my public persona ahead of who I really am as a person and my priorities were completely wrong. I’ve come to learn that I can’t live my life guided by the opinion polls on EW.com. It’s time I started being authentic . . . with myself.”

  When he finished talking, there was perfect silence for a few beats. All to be heard was the faint engine rumble of a plane overhead. And then, slow clapping grew louder and quicker and someone wolf-whistled. Before I knew it there was cheering echoing off the buildings.

  Wynn grabbed ahold of my free hand.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, concern in her eyes.

  “Yeah, but can we just get out of here? I can’t think straight with all this noise.”

  “C’mon.” She took my arm and pulled me through the crowd, which was pressing in the other direction toward Graham. I used my cookie tray as a shield and pushed back until we reached the food truck. Mom was already in the back, sliding empty trays onto rolling carts that would lock in place against the van walls. She looked up with an easy smile that let me know she’d been inside the van and hadn’t heard a thing of what just happened.

  “Hey, girls, we’re totally sold out and you were great! I really think we’re going to get some good PR out of this event.”

  Wynn and I barked a laugh in unison. Mom’s van was going to be in the background of every celebrity newscast in America tonight and she had no clue. I sought out Wynn’s eyes so we could share our inside joke, but as I locked on hers, they widened in surprise at something over my shoulder. Instinctively, I stiffened.

  “Hey, Pickles.” The voice was warm in my ear, but the tone was uncertain.

  When I turned to face him, Roddy and a few of his fellow Transformer-size buddies had already formed a perimeter around Graham, separating him from the curious onlookers. Tiny Melba was stuck a few rows back, looking like she was on a pogo stick as she jumped repeatedly to try to get Graham’s attention. When she finally wove through the bodies, Roddy held her firmly in place.

  Graham kept his focus on me.

  “Um, any chance we could talk in private?” he asked, gesturing to the back of the truck.

  I rolled my eyes to think he would consider the inside of a food truck a haven of privacy, but made a motion for him to follow me around the side. Wynn trailed behind us. As we walked, Graham turned and spoke over his shoulder.

  “You must be Wynn. Annie described you to a tee. You here for the holiday?”

  “I’m still waiting to see how this plays
out before I determine how chatty-chatty we’re going to be here,” Wynn answered him.

  I laughed. Gotta give the girl credit. She was as star-crazed as they came, but even though this was the first actual celebrity ever to speak to her AND it was her forever-and-ever crush, she wasn’t about to give him an inch.

  “She’s got my back,” I told Graham. He looked chagrined and gave up on trying to charm anyone else, including my mom, when we poked our heads into the truck. When she saw Graham standing there, she gave him a surprised once-over and he smiled tightly back at her.

  “Hi, Mrs. Shelton.”

  “Did you forget my name or something? It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

  “Sorry. Hi, Miranda.”

  “Graham.” She nodded, then gestured over her shoulder. “This is Annie’s dad.”

  Graham’s eyebrows shot up, but he nodded in Dad’s direction and said, “Sir.”

  Dad smiled back. “Nice to finally meet you. Heard a lot.”

  Graham gulped. I almost felt bad for him, but during this whole exchange all I could really think was “Go away, go away, go away” about everyone who wasn’t Graham. I’d heard his grandstanding, but I wanted to see what he had to say one-on-one. Finally, they all got the hint and invented excuses to leave us in the back of the truck.

  When we were alone, I leaned against the stacked cart of baking sheets, wiping my hands on my apron. Graham was in a white dress shirt and looked around for something he could prop against while still preserving it from stains. Not finding a safe spot, he stood awkwardly in the center of the truck and stuffed his hands inside his pockets.

  I’d conditioned myself to seeing a lot of Graham: on billboards, on posters in the Cineplex, on magazine covers. But he hadn’t seen me since Barcelona and I could tell it was affecting him.

  For a moment, I took pity and wanted to make it a little easier for him. “Are you okay?” I offered as a starting point.

  “I messed up,” he said immediately. Well, at least he put it plainly. But I wasn’t sure whether he meant just then, outside, where he’d finally jumped off the career high dive, or whether he was referring to everything he’d done before that point. I waited.

  “I never should have hung up on you that night. I should have listened. You were totally right and I’ve been completely miserable. Australia was . . . awful. I missed you like crazy.”

  I exhaled. My thoughts were tumbling on top of one another. “What you said out there—did you mean it?”

  “Of course I meant it! I’ve been wanting to say all of that since Venice.”

  I studied the floor. He’d answered my question about whether he’d planned to blow up his career, but it wasn’t really the part I’d been asking about. I meant the part about the girl. Me.

  Graham took a step toward me and placed his hand under my chin. He tilted my face up so I was looking him in the eye. He said softly, “I’m just glad you were here to hear it.”

  “Well, you have Joe to thank for that.” I jerked my chin out of his hand and Graham’s eyes slid to the floor. I wanted this moment, but I didn’t know if I could handle this moment.

  Graham sighed. “Look, I know I messed everything up. Everything. I know you probably don’t ever want to talk to me again and I totally understand. I’m an asshole. And everything you said to me that night, well . . . I know you have a hard time speaking your mind, so when you lit into me, believe me, I get how upset you had to be to do that. And I know I haven’t done anything since then to earn back any of your trust. I just . . .”

  His shoulders fell. “I just wanted you to know I heard you. That your words meant something. That I’m so, so sorry. And that I miss Grannie like crazy.”

  He ventured a look at me, then sighed again. “Sorry. I shouldn’t try to joke. I miss you, Annie. You.”

  I studied him, anchoring myself against the cookie trays so I wouldn’t do something stupid like fling myself into his arms. He was waiting for me to say something and I had no idea what I wanted that to be. He’d done this horrible and hurtful thing to a lot of people. But he was apologizing and explaining and I was really trying hard to listen. I thought about my dad and where we’d be now if I hadn’t heard him out.

  I settled for the truth. “I liked what you said out there.”

  He ventured a step toward me again, this time taking my hand in his. His shoulders relaxed when I didn’t pull away. “Which part did you like?”

  Oh, hell no. He wasn’t getting me to voice my feelings first again. “I liked the part where you said I was brilliant and completely right about everything.”

  “Funny, I don’t remember using the word brilliant.”

  “I liked some of the other words you used too,” I said, suddenly enthralled with an empty baking sheet on the cart next to me.

  Neither of us moved. Graham waited quietly until I brought my eyes to his. They were warm, familiar. He took a deep breath and held my gaze before saying, “How about these words? I love you, Pickles.”

  And there they were. Such simple ones, but so huge. Here was this boy who had run my emotions through the ringer. He’d made me crazy mad, crazy irritated, and crazy jealous. And crazy happy.

  The crazy happy part was all I could remember at that moment.

  He made me feel things and own those feelings. He’d also messed up, but everything he’d done and said today showed how much he wanted to earn my forgiveness. If there was anything I learned from everything with Dad, it was this: sometimes when you love someone, you find ways to forgive the unforgivable.

  Before I could find the words to answer, there was a knock on the shuttered serving window. I flung one side open and peered down at Wynn.

  “Just checking on things in there,” she said, one eyebrow raised.

  Graham stuffed his hands in his pockets again and looked miserable. He hadn’t gotten a response from me yet and I could tell he was bracing for the worst. I hid my smile by biting my cheek. Everything was crystal clear now.

  “Things are fine in here. More than fine.” I pivoted to Graham and tugged his hands free, holding them tight. He blew out his breath a couple times before bringing his eyes to mine. Giant question marks were in them.

  I grinned and shrugged. His dazzling movie star smile answered me. Wynn looked between the two of us with satisfaction.

  “Thank GOD because I’m getting a little antsy out here with all these cameras aimed at me. Well, at the truck anyway. I am beginning to reconsider all of my feelings on stardom and—HEY!”

  I’d pulled the window shut on Wynn at the mention of cameras.

  “Didn’t take the rest of the paparazzi long to get here, huh?” Graham said.

  “Seriously. It’s like they have tracking devices on you.”

  Graham dropped my hands to turn his pockets inside out, pretending to look for one. “Nope. But it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m done hiding from them. No more disguises.”

  He gave my ponytail a tug and used the straps on my apron to yank me closer to him. I settled into his arms, feeling their longed-for weight slide around me.

  “Well, I don’t know if I’m totally on board with that,” I said.

  He drew back a little, looking at me in surprise. “I thought you, of all people, would be more than on board with that.”

  “In theory, yes. But I’m just saying, we don’t have to let everything hang out for everyone to see, do we? I’m speaking of Godzilla toe, of course.”

  I ducked just in time to avoid his swat. He laughed as he wrapped me again in his arms and I snuggled back into position.

  “So, we’re an open book?” Graham asked.

  I nodded and he winked, then cradled me against him as he used one arm to swing the serving windows wide open.

  “I love you, Graham,” some girl in the crowd screamed upon seeing him. Graham held my gaze while waving wi
th his free arm. He smirked. “See, she loves me.”

  I grinned. “Shut up, you idiot. I love you more.”

  Graham’s eyes got very soft then and he blinked a whole bunch of times, while I smiled up at him. I didn’t take my eyes off his for a single second, though I knew a dozen cameras were now trained on us. After a couple of moments, he swallowed and smiled back.

  His head ducked close to mine and his eyes sparkled. The last thing I saw as his lips settled over mine were his lids sliding closed.

  As flashbulbs exploded like fireworks, I melted into a Hollywood kiss that was a hundred percent . . .

  Authentic.

  Acknowledgments

  Executive producer credit on this production goes to editor extraordinaire Annie Berger (no relation to my Annie of #Grannie, but had I known you first, there might have been). I will never tire of editorial letters that demand more and more kissing scenes, and I’m so excited you brought me along with you to HarperCollins!

  Director credit to my agent, Holly Root, who keeps me sane(ish).

  I’m so lucky to have a supporting cast and crew of treasured CPs: Gail Nall, Alison Cherry, Deanna Romito—a ginormous thank-you for helping this book take shape in so many ways I couldn’t even list them.

  Post-production credits galore to the entire team at Harper, especially production editor Bethany Reis and copy editor Jessica White (whose knowledge of European travel details is bizarrely wonderful), designer Kate Engbring, and the entire Epic Reads team for teaching the world how fandom is done right.

  Research and development credit to my past coworkers at 20th Century Fox, Miramax Films, and Allied IM. I landed my former job as a movie publicist when my predecessor fell for her mega-movie-star client and vacated the position—sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Graham’s fall-from-grace story line came directly from an A-lister I had the privilege of working with, and I’m so cheered to see that the years since then have changed the climate of Hollywood to the point where that kind of cover-up would not be necessary today.