“Oh, great,” he said with an ominous look at Webster. “Weren’t you leaving, Grant?”
“Yeah,” Chase said. “He was.”
“We were having fun,” Campbell said. “Layla, tell them to let him stay.”
“Yeah, guys, let him stay,” Layla said. “It’s her house, you know. I shouldn’t have called you. I had no idea you were going to embarrass me like this.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, shut up!” Juliana turned on her with more rage than I’d ever seen before from my gentle sister. “Embarrass you? You’re acting like a five-year-old!”
“Poor Layla,” Webster said sympathetically. “That’s the thing about big sisters—you’ll always be a baby to them.”
“I know!” she said. I saw how she was already opening up to him again, and it made me sick. She and Campbell were defenseless against Webster’s charm. I was two years older than them, and I’d fallen for it.
“We’ll walk you to your car,” Chase said to Webster.
“I can get there by myself.”
“Then do it.”
“May I have my camera back first?” He held out his hand toward me. I hesitated. He said pleadingly, “It cost me two hundred bucks, Elise. I can’t afford to lose it.”
“Fine.” I turned it on, and a picture of a coyly draped Campbell popped up on the screen.
“Hold on,” Webster said. “Don’t delete anything—”
“Oops,” I said as I punched the buttons that deleted everything. “Too late.” I handed the Flip back to him.
“My grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary was on there,” he said sadly. He shoved it in his pocket. “Those memories are gone forever.”
“Take more at the sixtieth,” I suggested.
“I didn’t expect you to act like this, Elise.” He stepped toward me, his keen blue eyes searching my face for something—maybe some trace of sympathy. “I thought we were friends.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “I thought you were decent.”
Chapter Nineteen
That was totally humiliating,” Layla complained as we drove away. She was crammed in the back between me and Derek. “All I wanted was a ride home, but you had to turn it into this whole big scene. I’ll never be able to face my friends again.”
No one responded.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad about the pills, okay?” Layla said after a moment, in a more conciliatory tone. “They’ll ground me, you know they will, even though I didn’t take anything. And it’s not like anything bad actually happened.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Derek growled from his side of the car.
“No offense,” Chase said to Juliana, “but your little sister is a moron.”
“I know,” she said sadly. “So’s yours.” There was a pause, and then suddenly the two of them were giggling. And then I was, too. And finally, even Derek’s face relaxed into a smile.
It was still surprisingly early when Chase dropped the three of us off at home, only about nine thirty. So much had happened that it felt like it should have been closer to midnight.
I tried to catch Derek’s eye as we all got out of the car, but Mom was opening the front door and heading toward us, so I couldn’t blame them when he and Chase murmured hasty good-byes and jumped back in the car.
I walked slowly up the walkway after my sisters, feeling depressed. The evening that had started out so happily had turned totally awkward. Story of my life.
We met Mom halfway to the house. “Why did they take off so quickly?” she asked as Chase’s car disappeared around the corner. “And how did you end up picking up Layla? Your father was staying awake just so he could get her.”
“She called us,” Juliana said like that explained everything.
“I thought the premiere would go later,” Mom said to me. “Did you meet Melinda Anton?”
“Briefly.”
“What was she like?”
“She seemed nice.”
She followed us inside. “Why didn’t the boys come in with you? It’s dark out and I don’t like you girls walking up to the house alone.” She closed the door and turned around, seeing us in the light for the first time. “Especially dressed like that!” She crossed her arms. “I have underwear that covers me more than that dress, Elise.”
That’s when I realized I’d left my jacket in the trunk of Chase’s car.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you left the house with more clothing than you had on when you returned?” Mom shook her head crossly. “No wonder the boys dropped you off so early.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, stepping out of my shoes right there in the hallway. My feet were killing me.
“Maybe they’re wondering if you’re who they thought you were.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “We had to pick up Layla, that’s all.”
“At least she looks decent.” She turned to Layla. “You should give your older sister a lesson in what’s appropriate.”
“Any time,” Layla said. She eyed me contemptuously. “She could definitely use my help.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I want to be guided by you because you are so wise.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Mom said.
“Isn’t there?” I said sarcastically.
A little while later, I was lying on my bed, staring miserably up at the ceiling. “Nothing ever goes right for me.”
“Poor Lee-Lee.” Juliana sat down next to me and patted my arm. We were alone in our room. “It’s not that bad. I know we had to leave the movie, but at least you and Derek—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“What? You like him a little now, don’t you?”
“That’s the problem.” I rolled off the bed and went over to my dresser. I found a sweatshirt and pulled it on over my dress. I hadn’t realized how cold I was until now, when all the excitement had died down. But the fact that I had spent the last few hours in fifty-degree weather wearing nothing more than a slip had caught up to me, and I was suddenly freezing. “I do like him now. But tonight ruined everything. Being dragged into Layla’s mess like that and then to have her act like such an ingrate . . .” I wished I could tell Juliana why Webster’s involvement made it so bad for Derek, but I couldn’t.
“That doesn’t matter,” Jules said. “Layla isn’t you. I mean, I hate Chelsea, but I like Chase.”
“He barely said good night, Jules. He just wanted to leave as quickly as possible.”
“Because it was awkward with all of us there. And you can’t blame him for wanting to avoid talking to Mom. Chase left just as fast, you know.”
“Why can’t our family be normal?” I moaned. “Other than you, I mean?”
“No one’s family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.” She yawned. “I’m exhausted. I don’t have the energy to do anything useful—want to watch some TV?”
Down in the family room, Layla was already deep into some show about girls in a private prep school who were so rich, they could change into a different designer outfit every ten minutes—which I would have thought was total fiction a year earlier but now, after a couple of months at Coral Tree, practically played like a documentary.
Juliana and I squeezed onto the sofa next to Layla. It was cramped, but I’ll give my sisters this: they’re warm and cozy on a cool night.
“What’s that?” Layla said a little while later, lunging for the remote. She paused the TV and cocked her head, listening. “Is that a knock?” She threw down the remote and jumped off the sofa and was out the door in a flash. We followed close behind, curious: we never got guests at that hour.
My mother appeared on the stairs, my father close behind her, just as we all reached the front door. “What on earth—?” Mom said. She was wearing a pink nightgown with a blue flannel bathrobe. My father was wearing plaid pajamas. They both looked ridiculous.
Layla opened the door. “Oh, it’s you
again,” she said. “Why’d you come back?”
Derek Edwards stood on the front step, his head thrust forward awkwardly. His eyes connected with mine over Layla’s shoulder. “You left this in the car,” he said, holding out my jacket. “I thought you might need it.”
I reached past Layla. “Thank you,” I said. “Sorry you always have to return my clothes. Okay, that sounded really wrong.”
“That’s very nice of you, Derek,” my mother said. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, so she must have already gone to bed, but she didn’t seem annoyed about being woken up. She tied her bathrobe a little tighter and took a step down. “Why don’t you come on in and we’ll make some tea?”
“Thanks, but I was wondering . . . my mom’s premiere party is still going on. Maybe—if it’s okay with you—Elise could run over there with me for a few minutes?” His eyes darted up toward my parents, then back toward me, questioningly. “We don’t have to stay long.”
“I’d love to,” I said, just as my father said gruffly, “It’s a little late to be heading out, Elise.”
“It’s not that late,” I said quickly. “I’ll be home before one, I promise. And it’s Saturday night, so no worries about getting my homework done—I can work all day tomorrow. And I’ll be really quiet when I come home so I don’t wake anyone up. Bye!” I crammed my feet back into the Shoes of Pain, glad I left them right there, slipped out the door, and closed it before my father had a chance to tell me I couldn’t go.
Derek looked a little stunned. “Come on!” I said, dragging him down the walkway.
As we got into his car, he said, “Why do I feel like the getaway driver for a crime?”
“Sorry, but they might not have let me go if they’d had more time to think about it.”
He nodded and started the car. “I feel bad,” he said after a moment. “I meant to invite your sister to come with us, but we left so quickly. . . .”
“It’s okay. I mean, I love Juliana—”
“I’ve noticed.”
“—but it’s nice to have some time with just us.”
“I know,” he said. “We haven’t had much of that.”
I cautiously checked his face and, to my huge relief, didn’t see any lingering anger or resentment there. “What if we get really bored now that we’re alone together?” I said lightly. “Wouldn’t that be sad?”
“I’m bored already.” He grinned sideways at me.
“Where’s Chelsea Baldwin when you need her?”
“She takes me to my happy place,” he agreed.
I laughed. But something still worried me. “Do you think your mother will be mad at me? For leaving the movie and making you leave, too?”
“I texted her that you had a family emergency. She’ll understand—she’s very rah-rah about family sticking together.”
“Really? That doesn’t fit with my image of a big movie star.”
“My parents aren’t always around,” he said. “But in some ways I think that makes the idea of family even more important to them. They can go out and do the whole industry thing knowing that when they go home, they get to be a mom and dad again.”
“But they sent Georgia to boarding school.”
“They didn’t want to. It was just . . . the right choice.”
We were both quiet then. “We should do something about him,” I said after a moment. “Get him kicked out of school at least. If I told my mother—”
He shook his head. “It’s complicated, Elise. His grades are decent, he hasn’t been caught doing anything, and Georgia won’t talk about what happened to her. And Campbell McGill is a moron.”
“If he actually sold some photos and they could trace it back to him—”
“Then you’d have something to throw him out over.” He sighed. “But whoever’s in the photo would be publicly humiliated first, so let’s hope he doesn’t.”
“You know what?” I said abruptly. “I don’t want to talk about Webster Grant anymore. Or about your mother. Or about my mother. Or about any sisters, fathers, dogs, uncles, aunts—”
Derek said, “We can always talk about the weather.”
“We live in L.A.,” I said. “We don’t have weather. Nothing to talk about.”
“That works out nicely,” he said, glancing at the GPS. “Since we’re almost there.”
Chapter Twenty
The party was at a restaurant in Beverly Hills that had a nondescript exterior and no sign. The windows were shuttered. The only way to tell we were in the right place was the small notice on the valet parking stand that had the restaurant’s name next to the seven-dollar (!) parking fee.
Derek was coming around the front of the car to join me on the sidewalk when he did a double take. “I didn’t really get a good look at you before. What exactly are you wearing, Elise?”
I looked down and realized I was still wearing a maroon UMASS Amherst athletic hoodie over my slip dress and high heels. “You don’t like my outfit?” I said like I was hurt.
“It’s fine,” he said uncertainly.
“I’m teasing,” I said. “I totally look like a crazy woman.”
“I kind of like it.”
“Yeah, right.” I told the valet who was getting in the car to hold on a sec and opened the passenger door again, pulled off the sweatshirt, and tossed it inside.
I closed the door and smoothed out my dress. “Come on,” I said, and, without even thinking about it, reached my hand out to Derek.
He instantly took it, and the touch of his large, warm hand made me take a sudden sharp breath. “You okay?” he said, misunderstanding. “Too cold? You want your crazy-lady sweatshirt back?”
“No. I’m fine.”
The restaurant was bigger inside than I’d expected and filled with people, noise, and vibrating lights. We stopped to get our bearings, but I can’t say I succeeded at that.
“You hungry?” Derek asked.
“A little.”
“I’m starving.” We were on our way over to the food tables when Derek suddenly stopped and reached into his pocket. He squinted down at his phone. “It’s my mom. She said she’s at a booth near the kitchen. . . .” He scanned the room. “Come on. We’ll just say hi. We don’t have to stay long.”
As we approached, Melinda stood up and Derek gave her a casual peck on the cheek.
It still amazed me to see them together. How could he live with Melinda Anton, have breakfast with her, ask her for allowance, and tell her he had banged up the car?
She held her hand out to me and I took it. “Thanks for letting me come to this.”
“My pleasure.” She pressed my fingers but didn’t let go. “Derek told me you had some sort of family emergency. I hope everything’s all right?”
“I’m so sorry we had to leave early.” My palm was growing sweaty in her grasp. I wanted to wipe it off on my dress, but she wouldn’t release it. “I—it was my sister. My younger sister. She . . .We just had to go get her really suddenly. The movie was great. I wouldn’t have left except . . . you know . . . she said it was an emergency.” Could I have sounded any more idiotic?
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She really just needed a ride, but she made it sound urgent.”
“Ah.” She seemed genuinely relieved. “Well, we’ll have to arrange for you to see the rest of the movie sometime.”
“I’d like that.”
“Melinda!” A thin woman with enormous breasts that were struggling to escape her halter dress leaned forward to grasp Melinda’s forearms. “You were brilliant!” she sang out. She stretched over the table to kiss Melinda on the cheek, putting her boobs in serious danger of popping out all the way. “I cried and cried. It took me half an hour to redo my mascara.” She twisted to look at me and Derek. “Wasn’t it wonderful? Have you ever seen anything so moving?” Since I hadn’t seen most of the movie, I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately she didn’t wait for an answer, just turned back to Melinda. “I’d love to see you revisit thi
s character one day—she’s so strong, so brilliant, so you. There’ll be an Oscar campaign, no?”
“Don’t even,” Melinda said, laughing and extricating her hands.
The pudgy middle-aged man sitting down next to Melinda said, “She’s right. It’s your time, sweetie. We all know it.” He was wearing a blue beret. Really. A beret.
“Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want to jinx anything. I’m very superstitious,” Melinda added to me with a charmingly self-deprecating shrug.
“We’re going to look for some food,” Derek said abruptly.
“There’s not much here for us to eat, sweetie. Want me to ask them to make up a fruit plate for you?” With a quick glance around, she skillfully made everyone feel included in the conversation. “Derek’s doing the raw food thing with me. We both have so much more energy!” She put her hand to the side of her mouth and said in a stage whisper, “But I suspect he cheats! Sometimes he has pizza breath!”
“Teenagers,” said the woman in the halter dress with a smile.
“I know.” Melinda reached for Derek’s hand. “He leaves me next year,” she informed her companions as she cradled it against her cheek. “Can you believe it? He’s going to college. ‘Somewhere far away from you,’ he says whenever we talk about it. He can’t wait to leave me.”
Derek shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not true. I just said I was interested in the East Coast.”
“Because it’s far from me.” She kissed the back of his hand. “Ah, well. Part of being a mother is knowing when to let go.”
“He’ll come back for vacations,” the woman said. “They always do.”
“Yeah,” the beret said. “They lie around the house, watching TV, making dirty laundry, and eating you out of house and home. You’ll be dying for him to leave again.”
“And on that note . . .” Derek retrieved his hand. “Excuse us.” We said good-bye and headed across the room. It was a relief to walk away.
Melinda Anton was famous and glamorous, but she still had that universal mom ability to embarrass her own child.
As we studied the unappealing platters of half-eaten cheese cubes and curling vegetables, Derek gestured back in the direction of his mother and said in a low voice, “Sometimes I just—” But he was interrupted by a very small man with thinning hair who swooped down on us. “Derek Edwards!” he cried out. “How’s it going, my friend?” He held his hand up for a high five, but Derek put his own out at shaking height so the guy dropped his hand and they shook. “You know who I am, right? John Montero? I work at your dad’s production company. We’ve met a whole bunch of times. It is so good to see you again! It’s been a while. You used to drop by the office a lot more.”