“Willa like?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Willa like very much.”
“That’s vintage, too,” she said. “It was my great-grandma’s, in the forties.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
She gave me an approving smile. “It beats overalls, anyway.”
Marnie had an array of powders, creams, and blushes that she kept in a case like a professional makeup artist. I was surprised to realize that I remembered how to apply it all — two years of not caring what I looked like hadn’t erased the muscle memory of blending eye shadow and making the fish-mouth mascara face.
After we both finished our makeup, Marnie ran her hands through my hair and made an unhappy chirping sound. “What about your hair? How retro are you willing to go? I’m thinking maybe an updo. Keep the ’40s vibe going.”
“I don’t know how to do anything like that,” I said, feeling embarrassed.
“Oh, I do,” she said, dragging her desk chair into the bathroom. “Sit and prepare to be beautified.”
I was a little surprised, to be honest. Marnie seemed so low-maintenance. Only when I saw her vast array of hair-styling implements did I realize how much effort she must have put into looking low-maintenance. Twenty minutes later, after a lot of tugging and twisting and stabbing me in the scalp with bobby pins, she gave me permission to turn around.
“You,” she said, “look legit. I should get an award for this. Maybe I should be a stylist for a living. Dad produced a movie last summer about a model who’s also a spy — Runway, did you see it? Never mind, nobody saw it, it was a huge bomb — and the stylists gave me lessons.”
Her chatter melted into a hum in my ears while I stared at myself.
Marnie had made me into something … someone … from another era. My hair was pulled back to the nape of my neck in a low, thick bun that shined like it was made of pure silk. With the cat-eye makeup and the red lips, I looked like … a movie star.
“Stare much?” Marnie teased. “Okay, go get dressed. I have to transform my own raven locks, such as they are.”
She curled the ends of her hair in a perfect gravity-defying flip. Her lips were frosty pink and her eye makeup behind her glasses was thick and black, with tons of mascara. Then she slipped into the sequined dress while I put on my red dress, and we stood looking at the full-length mirror. Suddenly, I was enthusiastic, for real. The world of psychics and visions and ghosts and murders seemed far away — and getting further every minute.
Marnie went into the closet and reappeared carrying a pair of white knee-high boots for herself and bronze-colored thick-heeled pumps for me. “Ready, Willa? Let’s go gift the world a little awesome.”
A whole block of Hollywood Boulevard was closed off for the premiere. The traffic nearby was basically standing still. So the driver of our hired sedan had to drop us off three blocks away.
It was hard to feel fancy walking down a normal sidewalk, passing tourists and ice cream stores and falafel restaurants and souvenir shops. But after a few minutes, we heard smatterings of applause and cheering, and a booming voice on a loudspeaker. And when we rounded the corner, we were greeted by an overwhelming circus of people and cameras and signs.
The red carpet stretched before us. It was bordered on one side by a wall that had the Paramount Pictures logo printed on it over and over, and on the other side by hundreds of reporters and photographers.
Behind the photographers, held back by metal barricades, were throngs of fans. Because there were no movie stars present at the moment, the crowd was relatively subdued, chattering excitedly instead of screaming. A lot of them held signs saying things like KURT I LOVE YOU! or MARRY ME, EMMA! One guy held up a sign that said READ MY SCREENPLAY, OSCAR GUARANTEED!
There were balloons, banners, and movie posters set up all over. Groups of people wearing suits and fancy dresses stood on the red carpet, talking and laughing. They weren’t famous, but they looked like they belonged there.
We showed our IDs at the check-in table, and they handed us little passes with our names and seat numbers on them. We flashed those to a pair of ginormous security guys wearing ginormous suits, and they opened a velvet rope and let us through …
Onto the red carpet.
I paused for a moment, taking it all in.
“Do we have to walk in front of all the photographers?” I asked Marnie.
“Of course,” she said. “What, you want to skulk around in the shadows?”
I shrugged, and she looped her elbow through mine. “No,” she said. “We’re here, and we’re going to work it. Even if we’re not famous … they don’t know that.”
Then she started walking down the carpet. I expected to be ignored, but the photographers noticed us. Some of them took a few pictures. One shouted “Who are you?” as though we might actually be somebodies, which was pretty flattering.
Then we heard a commotion behind us, and screams rose up from the crowd. We turned to see a wave of people making their way onto the carpet.
“Those are studio publicists,” Marnie said, squeezing my arm so hard it went numb. “See? They all have earpieces. Someone huge just arrived. Oh my God — it’s him. It’s Kurt. He’s here. Hand me my smelling salts.”
The crowd of publicists parted, and a man walked through … a man you could only describe as a movie star. You could tell from forty feet away that he had a magnetic, unforgettable quality.
He’s still not as cute as Reed, I thought.
The fans began to shriek like a bunch of teenage girls, even though a lot of them were my mom’s age or even older. And the photographers went crazy, shouting “KURT! KURT! LOOK HERE! OVER HERE!”
“They want eye contact in their pictures,” Marnie said. “See how he’s moving his head a little? He’s trying to give all of them at least one good smile. God, I have to marry him.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. We stayed in our spot, trying to look nonchalant, as Kurt and his entourage slowly made their way toward us and then through the lobby doors.
“Should we go in now?” I asked. It was getting cold, and my shoes were a smidge too small. Standing in one place made my feet ache.
Marnie shook her head. “Just a few more minutes. I don’t want people to think we’re stalking him.”
One of the reporters looked at me and cocked his head to the side.
“Are you from that new Disney Channel show?” he asked, raising his camera.
I opened my mouth to say no, but Marnie cut me off.
“Yes, she is!” she said, smiling brightly. “This is Bernadette Middleton. She’s also Kate Middleton’s cousin!”
Before I could say a word, three dozen flashbulbs exploded in my face. And the air was filled with photographers shouting, “Bernadette! Bernadette, over here! Look right here!”
“Put your hand on your hip,” Marnie whispered in my ear. “Turn your body at an angle … and smile!”
We finally went inside. Marnie giggled maniacally as we got in line for our free popcorn and sodas, on the lookout for more celebrities. “Bernadette, I can’t wait to watch your show on Disney Channel. When is it on again? Oh, WAIT.”
Part of me was a little embarrassed, but I had to admit that I was enjoying myself. Finally, I was feeling the glitter. I could see what all the fuss was about — why people worshipped Hollywood and wanted to be movie stars (or be their friends). It was exciting.
“Can you imagine actually being one of those people?” I asked. “Having the paparazzi go crazy over the fact that you, like, got out of a car?”
“Ugh.” Marnie stuck her tongue out. “No. I hate actors. They’re so needy. Look at me! Admire me! Some of the people my dad deals with are positively dismal…. No, thank you.”
We wandered around, munching popcorn and trying to eavesdrop on Kurt Conrath and his publicists.
“So who’s my celebrity alter ego going to be?” Marnie asked, patting the flip in her hair. “How about … Ramona Claiborne? That’
s a good name, right? I was born in Australia, but I disguise my accent flawlessly. I just landed a new show on HBO. You do realize it’s not cool for someone as edgy as myself to be seen with a Disney Channel starlet, don’t you?”
“You’re so generous.” I grinned.
“I know. I’m a genuinely awesome human being. Or Ramona Claiborne is, anyway. Let’s go back to the red carpet,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “You can tell the photographers you talked me into admitting my true identity as Ramona.”
I laughed.
Then I realized she was serious.
“Marnie,” I said, “the movie’s about to start.”
It was true. Everyone was beginning to file into the theater.
“These things always start late,” she said. “Come on, it’ll be fun. We can say we met through our acting coaches, and —”
“Marn,” I said. “I think we should go in.”
For a brief moment, there was something in her eyes that made me wish I’d gone along with it. We might have looked ridiculous, but it would have kept me from wondering if she resented me for having my own moment in the spotlight.
But I hadn’t asked her to lie to the paparazzi for me — she’d just done it.
I was being paranoid. Oversensitive. Marnie was only playing around. We were practically wearing costumes, for heaven’s sake. So she wanted to pretend to be famous for a couple of minutes — what was the harm in that? Wasn’t it weird and selfish of me to refuse?
But we’d missed our chance. We were already being swept toward the theater doors, and then we were ushered to our seats. The director of the movie got up and thanked us all for coming, and then the movie started.
It was a mindless romantic comedy, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and even Marnie was too lovestruck by Kurt to mock the happy ending.
Afterward, as we were leaving the theater, a lone photographer called out to us.
“Who are you lovely ladies?” he asked
I waited for Marnie to tell him we were none other than Ramona Claiborne, edgy actress extraordinaire, and Bernadette Middleton, teen celebrity darling and cousin of genuine royalty.
But she gave him her bored smile and said, “Just a couple of fans.”
Have you ever noticed that nothing in the entire universe is more comfortable than putting on pajamas after you’ve been wearing fancy clothes? The soft cotton felt like heaven on my skin, and my feet floated on clouds of happiness after being released from the too-small pumps.
Marnie and I brushed out our hair and flopped down on her king-size bed. We were still too pumped up from the premiere to sleep, so we stayed up and talked, rehashing the details of the evening and laughing. I realized it had been two years since I’d spent time like this with a friend.
“So Kurt didn’t propose,” Marnie sighed. “He must not have seen me.”
“Totally,” I said.
“That’s okay,” she said, leaning back against her pillow. “Love is for suckers.”
I didn’t answer.
“Did you have a boyfriend?” she asked. “Back in Connecticut?”
I hesitated for a moment, and then told her about Aiden. How we’d met the first day of freshman year, when he beaned me with a kickball in gym class. How we’d spent practically every waking moment together after that.
“Did your parents like him?” Marnie asked.
“Mom did,” I said, staring down at the bedspread. “But … we grew apart. And eventually we broke up.”
“It’s never ‘we,’ ” she said. “Who did the actual dumping?”
“He did,” I said, remembering the crestfallen look on his face as he told me how he couldn’t bear being shut out any longer. “He did it on the anniversary of my dad’s death.”
“No,” Marnie said, sitting up. “Are you kidding? What a horrible person!”
I felt a guilty little pang, because I knew it wasn’t that black-and-white. Aiden hadn’t meant to hurt me. He just couldn’t stand how much our dysfunctional relationship was hurting him. He was losing weight, losing sleep, losing control. It was so hard, for both of us. And in the end, he was the one who was strong enough to do something about it.
But I have to confess, it was kind of nice to have Marnie take my side.
“What about you?” I asked. “Have you had a boyfriend?”
Marnie pulled a pillow into her lap. She sighed and looked down at her hands. “Kind of. I wouldn’t call it a boyfriend, per se. It’s complicated.”
Marnie was the queen of taking simple situations — like being at a movie premiere — and turning them into complex puzzles — like pretending to be a pair of TV stars. For her to call something complicated was saying a lot. I was definitely intrigued. “What do you mean?”
She looked up at me, her cat-eye liner and dark mascara making her eyes seem giant and mysterious. “Remember how I told you to stay away from Wyatt Sheppard?”
My heart began to beat faster. Wyatt … and Marnie? Was that why Wyatt had warned me about her? Had they gone out? I assumed that Wyatt was too low on the social scale for her. Though when I thought about him now, with his dark eyes and square jaw, I admitted to myself that he was definitely sort of cute, in a hunky nerd way. And he was super smart. I could see how he could be Marnie’s type.
I nodded, dying to hear more.
Marnie leaned in closer. “Wyatt and I actually used to get along. We were … friends. Our parents knew each other, and they would hang out most weekends, so it seemed natural. We did your basic friend stuff — movies, going out to eat, wandering around. I don’t even know what we did, honestly. How do people not die of boredom before they can drive?”
I waited for her to get to the part where they dated.
“But as the year went on, I started to feel awkward about it. Like maybe he was a little more into the whole thing than I was. He started getting annoyed if I wanted to hang out with other people. Once he even accused me of flirting with someone else, and he was angry about it! I mean, how messed up is that? I can flirt with whoever I want.”
I held my breath.
“So finally, it sort of … imploded. He was supposed to come over and watch a movie, and I had a really busy day, and I tried to cancel but it was too late, and he showed up and he had brought a bunch of balloons. And he came in and was like, ‘Happy anniversary.’ And I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ And he was like, ‘It’s been six months since we started going out.’ And I was like, ‘Hold up, cowboy, I think you have the wrong idea.’ ”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Right? It was so weird. I guess I … went along with it, in a way? I mean, I tried to downplay it and laugh, like it was a joke. We watched the movie and hung out, and then he left, and I was relieved that he was gone. After that, I decided to spend less time around him. But he had this way of … showing up, you know? It was kind of odd.”
I nodded. “Kind of odd” was a fair way to describe Wyatt. Maybe even a little generous.
“So whatever, fine. I’m like, I can be nice to this guy, we’re friends, our parents are friends, yada yada. But then the next week, he comes over totally raging. Going on about how selfish I am and how I only think of myself …”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Seriously. I was pretty freaked out. And at the end of it all, he broke up with me.” She let out a helpless laugh. “I mean, we’d never even been of a status where we could break up. But he dumped me. And I was like, okay, at least now he’ll leave me alone. But then …” She plucked at the pillowcase and shook her head. “He started texting me, and calling me, and stopping by my locker. There was this blog thing with pictures of me, with, like, our names…. And then I realized he had my email password.”
My heart had begun to thud like a drum. I felt sweat beading around my hairline, but this time I knew it wasn’t because of any ghost.
“I thought about it and realized that every time he’d shown up someplace unexpectedly, it was a meeting I’d talked about in a
n email. Went to lunch with my aunt at Spago? He was there. Went to a secret sale at Nordstrom? He was there. It started to feel like he was … everywhere.”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
Her huge owl eyes blinked at me. “I told him straight out that he was a stalker and I was going to call the police if he didn’t stop.”
“And he stopped?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I stopped noticing it as much, anyway. And then he found his murder mystery to obsess over and I got out of jail free … so far.”
I didn’t know what to say. Yes, Wyatt could be argumentative and inconsistent. But something about Marnie’s story didn’t totally jibe with the guy I’d been spending time with. Almost like there are two Wyatts, I thought.
I certainly wasn’t going to tell Marnie that Wyatt and I had been hanging out, visiting local psychics, or that we regularly held perfectly pleasant conversations during chemistry class. So I said, “Wow. I’m sorry you went through all that.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal. I mean, I wasn’t a trembling victim in a corner. I started to get weirded out, that’s all. My instincts told me it was time to put a stop to it. And I have excellent instincts.” She smiled at me. “I picked you out of the crowd, didn’t I?”
The next night, I was home, asleep in my own bed, when a sudden noise woke me up.
I lay there, adrenaline zapping through me like lightning bolts, unsure if the sound had been real or if I’d dreamed it.
Then I heard it again….
Knock. Knock. Knock.
My whole body tensed.
In a moment of desperate, naive hope, I thought, Who would be knocking at the front door in the middle of the night?
Reed? With some urgent middle-of-the-night news?
But it wasn’t the sound of a person knocking on a door. Not a normal person, anyway. It was more like someone was sending a coded message, each knock separate and deliberate.