“I don’t know,” he said. He stared at my hand on his arm. “Just can’t, I guess. I’ve tried but then—” He stopped. “Anyway, it’s not your fault. I’ve thought a lot about some of the stuff you said to me at Jason’s party and then later, when I asked you to the semiformal—”
“Oh God!” I said, with real distress. “Don’t think about that! I acted like a total jerk.”
“No.” He lowered his voice even more. “You were right about a lot of it.” He shifted toward me. His knees settled against mine. “You’ve made me think about this stuff. About how I act around people sometimes.”
“But now I understand it better,” I said. “I get why you’re careful.”
“I was brought up to be. . . . Did you know my house is actually two houses? There’s a smaller one close to the street and a bigger one in back. I was six when my parents bought the property, and I said to my mother, ‘Why are there two houses? Which one will we live in?’ and she said, ‘The big one is our real house—it’s where you and Dad and Georgie and Jackie and I will all sleep and eat and be together. But when other people come over, we’ll play with them in the little house.’ And when I asked her why we couldn’t have one house like everyone else I knew—like we’d had up until then—she said, ‘We need to keep our family safe and private.’” He opened his hands. “That’s how she thinks. That’s how I was taught to think. We have to keep ourselves separate or it’s just not safe.”
“Do you think she’s right about that?”
He shook his head. “Not when keeping yourself safe turns into pathologically shutting other people out.”
I was silent for a moment, thinking about that, and then the lights dimmed, so I had to take my hand away from his arm and sit back in my chair. But I could feel his leg against mine and the silence between us wasn’t empty—it was filled with thoughts and hopes and a feeling that made me so overwhelmed, I didn’t really feel like talking anymore anyway.
Once everyone else was seated, Melinda Anton was escorted down the aisle by her husband. They sat in the row in front of us. She blew Derek a kiss as she made her way to her seat.
Then the theater lights went out completely, and the screen lit up.
I meant to watch the movie carefully so I could talk about it intelligently afterward, but I was too distracted by my thoughts, and the images flickering on the screen never merged into anything coherent.
We were about ten minutes into it when I felt Derek shift next to me. I flashed him a tentative smile, and he reached out—
And took my hand in his.
You wouldn’t think the touch of someone’s hand could blow your mind. It’s nothing, right? People don’t write songs and poems about holding hands—they write them about kisses and sex and eternal love. I mean, when you’re a little kid, you hold hands with your parents to cross the street. Who’s going to write an ode to that?
But when Derek Edwards took my fingers in his and gently pressed them, first all together and then one by one, I felt that touch set off a wave of firing nerves that flowed up my arm and across my body.
We were alone in the dark, even though the enormous theater was filled with probably a thousand people. We were a tiny island in a sea of other people who didn’t matter, who had no meaning, who were so stupid, so oblivious, so stuck in their own boring lives that they didn’t even notice the huge, momentous, life-shattering event that was taking place right there in row L, between seats 102 and 104.
Derek Edwards was holding my hand.
The world exploded into billions of atoms, and when it rearranged itself, it may have looked the same, but really, it was a Whole New World. I sat there, catching my breath, trying to gauge the enormity of what had just happened to me, wondering if it was bliss or terror I was feeling—
And that’s when my cell phone rang.
Chapter Eighteen
People have suffered worse embarrassments, I guess, but at that moment it didn’t seem possible.
Because I have the worst luck in the world, it rang right in the middle of a quiet, conversational scene. I had no idea what was going on plot-wise, since I hadn’t been paying attention to anything but the feel of Derek’s fingers playing lightly with mine, but Melinda’s character was saying good night to a small boy in pajamas. The music behind them was gentle and slow.
And then suddenly there was this blast of a Green Day song. As I snatched my hand from Derek’s and dived frantically on the purse sitting at my feet, I cursed myself not only for forgetting to turn my phone off but for ever thinking that having a rock music ringtone was cool.
Faces turned toward us. Someone made a shushing sound, and several woman tsk-tsked at me.
I fished my phone out of my purse and got to the ignore button halfway through the second ring.
I looked up, my heart pounding, to see Melinda Anton staring over her shoulder at me. She gave me one level, unreadable look and then turned back to the screen.
I swallowed hard. Why oh why hadn’t I remembered to turn my phone off before the movie started?
And now a text came in, making that bonging/clicking sound—not as bad as a ring but still audible—and I shrank even further into my seat, praying Melinda Anton hadn’t heard that, too. It was from Layla, and the subject line was: Help! 911! Do NOT ignore this!
I quickly turned the phone off.
Of course it was Layla. The call must have been from her, too. Who else could manage to publicly embarrass me without even being there?
I was sure she was fine. She was always being melodramatic.
I fidgeted in my seat uneasily, still unable to concentrate on the movie.
Layla knew you should put 911 in a text only if it was truly serious. Odds were good she just wanted me to run some money to her for a movie or something like that, but what if it really was some kind of emergency?
Worst-case scenarios flooded my mind.
I whispered to Derek, “I’m so sorry, but I’d better go check this out.”
It’s never good to walk out of a movie theater in the middle of a scene. But walking out on a movie that the entire audience worked on . . . I got the sense I might as well just keep on walking and forget about coming back.
Out in the lobby, I dialed Layla’s number, not knowing whether I wanted her to be okay or have a broken leg.
No, now that I’d completely embarrassed myself for her, I definitely wanted her to have a broken leg. Maybe two of them.
She answered instantly. “Elise? Thank God! Juliana’s not answering her phone.” She didn’t sound like she was in pain.
“That’s because we’re at the movie premiere. Which is why—”
“You’ve got to help me, Elise. I’m locked in a bathroom in Campbell’s house.”
That didn’t sound good. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Webster—he’s being so weird.”
“Webster? Did you just say Webster? As in Webster Grant?”
“Yeah. He and this stoner friend of his—some rando named Nick—and some emo girl he knows. They’re all doing stuff, Lee-Lee, like pills and alcohol. And Webster wanted me and Campbell to take stuff, too, and she did but I didn’t want to and they were all acting so friggin’ weird that I locked myself in here and I don’t know what to do now!” Her voice rose into a wail.
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Slow down. What about Campbell’s parents? Where are they?”
“They’re not here, that’s the whole point,” she said. “That’s why Webster wanted to come here. He said he wanted to see what Campbell’s house was like and then he invited those friends and they all like started going through her parents’ medicine cabinets and liquor cabinet and stuff. I told them we shouldn’t be doing that, but they did anyway.”
“Did you know you were meeting these other kids tonight when you went to Starbucks?”
“Webster and Campbell are sort of going out,” she said, not exactly answering the question. “At least she thinks they are. She’s, like, tota
lly into him—she’ll do whatever he says—but I don’t think he really likes her. He talks to me more than he does to her.” Her voice got very small. “Elise, I can’t tell Mom and Dad about any of this. They’ll ground me forever. Will you come and get me? Please?”
Good-bye, exciting Hollywood premiere. “I’ll try,” I said, and headed up the lobby stairs. “Chase drove us here, but maybe he’ll let me borrow his car. What’s Campbell’s address?”
“No idea. Can’t you, like, track my phone or something?”
“I’m not the FBI. Look, hold on—I need to get Juliana.” I put her on hold and opened the door to the balcony. People nearby stared at me, but at least I knew that Melinda Anton was safely downstairs.
The movie was on a night scene, so it was almost pitch-black at first, but then it switched to daytime, which gave off more light, and I was able to locate Juliana and Chase. I crept down the aisle. Fortunately, Chase was right on the end. I tapped him on the shoulder, and they both turned. Juliana looked surprised and then concerned. I gestured silently toward the door, and they followed me back into the hallway just as Derek appeared at the top of the stairs.
I filled them all in as briefly as I could—no details, just that Layla was locked in Campbell’s bathroom because she was nervous about how Webster Grant and his friends were behaving.
When I said “Webster Grant,” Derek started and made a small sound at the back of his throat.
The other three insisted on leaving with me. I didn’t think Derek should walk out on his mother’s movie premiere, but he said he’d have plenty of other opportunities to see it and wouldn’t let me talk him out of it.
He and I sat together in the backseat of Chase’s car.
“This girl—Campbell McGill—it’s her bad luck to have a famous dad,” he said to me quietly, while the other two were plugging Campbell’s address into the GPS system. Chase had used his phone to look it up on the school directory.
“It’s my fault,” I said morosely. “I introduced them.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “I bet he was just waiting for a chance to meet her, and if you hadn’t provided one, he would have found some other way to get to her.”
“Maybe. But why did he hang out with me? My parents aren’t famous.”
“I’m guessing he just liked you,” Derek said. “Can’t blame him. For that.”
The toneless female GPS voice guided us along Sunset and then north up a narrow windy canyon road to a monstrously large house. There were no outdoor lights on, but there were a couple of cars parked on a big concrete slab in front of the house, and a few of the windows were lit behind closed shades.
I called Layla as we were getting out of the car. “We’re here. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Upstairs. You go up and then left and it’s on the right.”
“Stay in there. We’ll come get you.”
Chase was already ringing the doorbell.
“Wait,” Juliana said. “Let them just see me at first. Go stand down there.” Chase ducked down below her, into the shadows, and Derek and I lingered several yards behind.
The door opened. “Hi!” Juliana said brightly to the teenage girl who was peering blearily out at her.
“Who’re you?” the girl asked, her speech slurred. Her heavily lidded eyes were so smeared with black eyeliner that she looked more like a raccoon than the goth vampiress she was probably trying to channel, given her long black dress and dyed black hair.
“This is Campbell’s house, right?”
“Um . . . yeah, I guess.”
“Great.” As Juliana pushed past her, the rest of us sprang up onto the steps and slipped into the house with her.
The girl was so wasted that she just kind of blinked at us slowly and then let the door close. When I was on the other side of her, I could see that her dress was undone in the back, the zipper open and gaping. Classy.
The foyer was huge, with an entirely white marble floor, a soaring high ceiling, and a wide grand staircase spread out in front of us. The whole effect was spectacularly ugly, like a Barbie Dream House minus the pink.
A guy appeared from behind the stairway. He looked vaguely familiar—I was pretty sure I’d seen him around school. He moved slowly, planting his feet with excessive caution like he couldn’t trust them to work right. Which he probably couldn’t.
“Who’re they?” he asked the girl, whose head was slowly bobbing up and down like she was finding it hard not to fall asleep right there on her feet. She managed an uneven shrug.
Juliana said, “We’ll get Layla,” and she and Chase headed up the stairs.
“Where’s Campbell?” I asked the couple. I could feel Derek behind me, solid and big. I liked knowing he was back there.
“Who?” the boy said.
The girl seemed a little more aware that something was wrong—or maybe whatever drugs they’d taken had more of a paranoia-inducing effect on her than on the guy. “We should go,” she said to him. “Come on—let’s get outta here.”
I could hear Juliana and Chase knocking on a door upstairs and the faint sound of Layla’s voice in response.
“Neither of you should be driving right now,” Derek said to the girl.
She just tugged the boy closer to the front door.
There were voices coming from one of the hallways, one giggling and high, one low and barely audible. Derek and I exchanged a glance, then moved quickly in that direction, passing several dark and empty rooms on the way, each one more enormous than the next. Toward the end of the hallway, light shone from under a closed door and the voices were clearer.
The guy was saying, “Pretend it’s like a screen test for a movie.” The girl said something in response that I couldn’t catch.
“In here,” Derek said, and put his hand on the bright brass knob.
When we opened the door, Campbell, who was on the sofa, squealed and grabbed for a nearby throw, which she quickly pulled over herself, but not before I’d gotten a glimpse of her bra-only-covered chest.
Her companion had been crouching a couple of feet away, aiming a small Flip digital camera in her direction, but he rose to his feet as soon as I entered. “Oh, hey, Layla,” he said in a mildly slurred voice. “There you are.” Then he shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. “Not Layla,” he said. “You guys look a lot alike. Don’t they look a lot alike?” he asked Campbell, who was clutching the throw and pushing herself deep into the sofa cushions.
She looked a little like a trapped animal cowering there, her small eyes darting back and forth between us. She didn’t answer.
“Elise!” Webster hit on my name with relief. “Your sister’s upstairs. But you didn’t need to come pick her up—I was planning on driving her home.” As he came closer, I could see that his pupils were dilated and the hair on his temples was matted with sweat. I felt a wave of repulsion so strong, I wanted to throw up. Had I really thought he was cute? There was something ferrety and shrewd about his face. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?
Webster gave a low whistle when he noticed Derek. “Is this your ride, Elise?” he said. “Nice work! You’ve done very well for yourself. Congratulations, my love.”
Suddenly, from right next to me, Derek sprang—so fast, I didn’t see it coming. He grabbed Webster by the shoulders and hauled him in one swift movement up against the wall where he shoved his forearm hard against Webster’s throat. Webster struggled to push his arm away, but Derek was too strong and too angry. Webster’s feeble flailing at him—hampered by the small video camera he was gripping in his fist—barely even seemed to register.
“Don’t you ever call her your love,” Derek growled. “You got that?”
“Whoa.” Webster’s voice was hoarse from the pressure at his throat. He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender and rasped out, “Whatever you say, big guy. I never argue with anyone who’s got fifty pounds on me.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Derek said. “I should tear you apart a
nd make the world a better place.”
“Go ahead.” Webster freed his hand enough to toss the Flip in Campbell’s direction. It landed on the sofa a few inches from her. “Record this, will you, Campby? Melinda Anton’s son flies into murderous rage. You know how much money I could get for video of that? Oh, shit.” The swear was because I had darted forward and grabbed the Flip before Campbell had even registered that he expected her to pick it up.
Derek removed his forearm from Webster’s throat—but only so he could use both hands to slam him against the wall again. “You don’t know when to shut up, do you?”
“Just keep going,” Webster gasped, his body flopping in Derek’s grip. “The worse I look, the more valuable the after photos will be.”
But Chase was suddenly in the room, hauling Derek off of Webster, Juliana and Layla close behind him. “Come on, D,” Chase said. “Don’t.”
Derek let Chase pull him back, but he didn’t take his eyes off Webster, who crouched warily against the wall, catching his breath.
“You okay?” I peered at Layla, concerned.
“I’m fine,” she said impatiently. “Really. You guys are making way too big a deal of this. Sorry about all this,” she added to Webster.
“‘Sorry’?” I repeated. “You’re sorry? Two minutes ago he had you so terrified, you were locked in the bathroom!”
“I don’t know why,” Webster said, his voice still hoarse. “I would never hurt you, Layla.” He caught her gaze and held it. Her eyes softened.
Campbell said, “What’s going on? Were you really locked in the bathroom, Layla? Which one?”
Layla said plaintively, “You guys were acting so weird. You were taking pills.”
“My mom takes them all the time,” Campbell said. “And she’s fine.” She was still curled up on the sofa, the blanket clutched carefully to her upper body, her pretty layered hair fanning out on the cushions all around her. “Anyway, I only took one little Vicodin. You’re such a baby.” She looked up at Derek hopefully. “Everything’s okay here, but you can stay if you want to. We have beer.”