We were in the process of finalizing this week’s post for the blog. There was only room for one more picture, and we’d narrowed it down to the last two potentials.
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” I said and clicked on the image.
It was a picture of JJ with his hand propped on his hip. He looked like a total diva, but that wasn’t why the picture was priceless.
A couple weeks had passed without any of Oliver’s usual pranks, so JJ received quite the surprise yesterday morning when he got dressed. Every one of his shirts had been cut so that there were two circular holes, one over each side of his chest, Mean Girls style. I had to give credit to Oliver—it was impressive that he’d found enough time in a single night to cut up all the tops JJ owned. JJ took the joke surprisingly well—I, for one, would have been pissed if someone purposely ruined any of my clothes—but for the entire morning, JJ pranced around the hotel room in one of his new designs, nipples on full display as he quoted Regina George. That’s when I’d managed to get the picture.
“Perfect,” Paul said, dropping his pen and sitting back in his chair. “You can finish off the rest of this stuff, right?”
“Yup. As soon as all these pictures finish loading, I’ll add some captions and we’ll be all set to upload.”
“Wonderful,” he said, “because there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. It’s about your contract.”
I stopped what I was doing and turned to face Paul. Because of Cara’s cancer, I didn’t work a high-school job, which meant I’d never had a boss before Paul. In terms of good bosses, I was fairly positive that he was as cool as they came, regardless of my lack of past employers to compare him to. Most of the time he gave me free range over the blog, and when we did work on things together, I felt like I was hanging out with a friend. But now his tone took on a more serious note, and I was reminded of my position as his employee.
“My contract,” I repeated, as I sat up in my seat. Was something wrong?
Paul nodded. “The fans’ reaction to the blog has been phenomenal, Stella. You’ve done such a great job so far.”
“Oh,” I said, my shoulders relaxing. “Thank you.”
“Of course, darling. I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it. The reason I wanted to talk to you is because I can’t imagine what I’m going to do without you.”
“I—what?”
“I want to extend your contract. Well—actually, I want to make you my full-time employee.”
I don’t know what I was expecting Paul to say, but a new job offer wasn’t it. It was so left field that I couldn’t even figure out if what I was feeling was excitement or joy or pride. Probably all three.
Reaching up, I touched my nose out of habit, running my finger over the diamond stud, and I had a sudden flash of the girl from my English class freshman year—her intimidating bull ring and the wild purple hair that reminded me of octopus tentacles—and I wondered: If she saw me now, would she still remember me as one of the Samuel triplets? My appearance hadn’t changed much, but I suddenly felt so different from the girl I was then, even the girl I was two months ago.
By joining the Heartbreakers on tour, I’d finally taken back some of the time—my moments of independence—that I thought I’d lost in high school. Here I was, running my own photography website and applying to SVA. When I’d decided to accept Paul’s first offer, I thought I’d be returning home in two months. But so much had happened in such a short time. Did I want to go home or did I want to stay on with the band? What if there was something else out there for me?
“I don’t want to pressure you, Stella,” Paul said when I didn’t answer. “I’ll leave you alone to think things over, and you can get back to me when you’re ready.”
Paul quietly collected his things, and when he was gone, I was left wondering: What do I do next?
• • •
I felt Oliver’s eyes on me. “Have you made up your mind yet?” he asked.
I sighed and hit “pause.” For this particular leg of the boys’ tour, we were traveling via tour bus, and Oliver and I were crammed onto the small lounge couch watching another James Bond movie.
“Oliver,” I said. I kept my voice low as I glanced at Alec and Xander. They were busy playing a video game across from us, and JJ was in one of the back bunks sleeping. “It hasn’t even been two days yet. Give me a break.”
He was the first and only person I’d told about Paul’s new job offer. It wasn’t that I didn’t want the rest of the band to know, but I needed some time to think through my options before all the boys ganged up on me, urging me to stay.
Oliver did a good job of downplaying his excitement when he heard the news, but I still sensed that he was eager for me to accept. He made a point of talking about it as much as possible, and when he started fidgeting thirty minutes into Casino Royal, I’d known it wouldn’t take long until he brought it back up.
My answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Yeah, I know,” he said sheepishly. “I’m just excited you’ll get to spend more time with us.”
He said “us” as in the band, but I knew he really meant him. And that was my main dilemma. Things with Oliver were going so well, but what would happen if I was back home or at school while he was traveling the world? Would a relationship even be possible? I was afraid that turning down Paul’s offer would mean giving up Oliver.
In addition, since sending in my application, I’d spent more and more time researching SVA, reading about campus and the different courses I could take. I could gain invaluable experience in New York that I would never get if I continued to work for the band. On the other hand, what if turning down Paul’s job meant letting go of the best opportunity I’d ever have in my life? If I chose Paul and the Heartbreakers, did that mean I was playing it safe?
Completely lost in thought, I didn’t realize that I’d forgotten to respond to Oliver. Or listen to him for that matter, because apparently he was still talking to me.
“Stella, you in there?” he asked, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Huh?”
“I said I have something for you.” He leaned back into the couch, trying to give himself enough room to dig something out of his pocket. Whatever it was, it was big and bulky, so he ended up having to stand to free it. Finally he produced a tiny box with a gold ribbon tied around it. The wrapping paper was the same color as the aqua strand in my hair, and it looked suspiciously like a jewelry box.
“Oliver, you didn’t need to get me anything,” I said, suddenly forgetting my problems. Smiling, I turned the box over in my hands. “What is it? Give me a clue.”
He bumped his shoulder into mine as he grinned back at me. “Just open it.”
“You’re no fun,” I said, but I looked down at the box and slipped off the ribbon. When I tore away the paper and lifted the cover, there was a tiny, silver music note resting between the cushions.
“It’s a charm from my mother’s bracelet,” he explained before I could even ask. “I thought you could put it on your camera. You know, for good luck. Otherwise you can just wear it on a necklace.” He shoved his hands in his pockets as if he expected me to think the idea was stupid.
“Wow, Oliver.” I pulled it out and held it up in the light. “It’s beautiful.”
The charm was stunning, but I was blown away by the fact that it was his mother’s. Oliver had only mentioned her once before, and now he was giving me something that belonged to her?
“So you like it?” he asked, and I could tell he was holding his breath.
“I think it’s perfect,” I told him. “I’m just curious—is your mom okay with it? This bracelet of hers sounds like something special.”
Oliver paused, his eyes flickering away from me for a moment. “She hasn’t worn the bracelet in a long time.”
“So…she’s okay with you giving me the charm???
?
“Yeah, totally,” he said and waved me off.
I watched him for a moment. As soon as I’d started asking questions about his mother, he’d tensed up and I just wanted to know why. Did they have a bad relationship? If that was the case, I doubt she’d give him a charm off her bracelet so willingly. “Well, your mom sounds cool,” I said after a few seconds of consideration. Oliver took his bottom lip into his mouth and didn’t say anything so I added, “I’d like to meet her sometime.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding his head absentmindedly. “I bet she’d like that too.”
I could already see him folding in on himself, no longer wanting to talk, so I was quick to change the subject. “So is there a specific occasion?” I asked. It occurred to me that Oliver might be trying to bribe me into accepting Paul’s new contract. “For the gift, I mean.”
His shoulders relaxed, and he looked down at me, a slow half-grin pulling at his lips. “Kind of,” he said. “There’s this movie premiere in LA the band has to attend. Would you like to go?”
“Movie premiere,” I repeated.
“Yeah, with me,” he added.
It sounded like Oliver had just asked me on an actual public date, but all my brain could process was movie premiere. “As in, the red carpet?”
“Um, yeah,” Oliver said. “Is that a problem?”
“You want me,” I said to clarify, “with you, like, on the red carpet?”
This made Oliver smirk. “Like no,” he joked, trying not to laugh. “I was actually hoping you’d turn me down so I could go with JJ instead.”
“Wow,” was all I could say.
Oliver asking me to the movie premiere was huge! Just thinking about it made me feel giddy, and at the same time it was a relief. That he wanted to be seen in public with me was a step forward. I’d been thinking about our relationship a lot lately, especially considering the choices I had to make in the near future, and I realized that keeping the whole thing a secret didn’t sit well with me. So I’d confessed to Cara that the only reason I feared going public with Oliver was the media digging into our private lives.
“What kind of dirt could they possibly find on us?” Cara had asked as she laughed into the phone. “We were homeschooled. It’s not like we had many opportunities to rob a bank or get arrested.”
“But what if they write about your cancer?” I asked.
Cara scoffed. “So what? Like that’s something we don’t already know.”
Our conversation cheered me up. If Cara didn’t care, then we didn’t need to date in secret for her sake. I’d been meaning to talk to Oliver about it for days, but there hadn’t been any good chances and now he’d beaten me to it.
“I take that as a yes?” Oliver asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. Unable to respond, I nodded my head. “Good,” he said with a crisp nod. The corners of his mouth rose in a crooked grin, and then he gently pressed his lips to my forehead, still smiling.
After a minute or two of grinning to myself, I grabbed my camera off the table in front of us and hooked the charm onto its strap. “I still don’t know why you needed to get me a gift,” I said. “I’m not complaining or anything, but were you trying to butter me up?”
“Well,” Oliver said, smirking at me, “I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”
• • •
“You got a letter,” Drew told me over the phone. “I think it might be some kind of junk mail.”
I heard the sound of shuffling paper on his end of the line, and I wondered if he was checking the mail pile as we spoke. Mom always dumped it by the fruit bowl, and there was a clear vision in my head of him leaning against the counter, phone wedged between his shoulder and ear as he went through it all.
“Oh yeah?” I said. I was lying in a bunk on the tour bus, picking at my nail polish. Being away from home was becoming much less painful the more time I spent with the Heartbreakers, but thinking about my brother standing in our kitchen doing something as ordinary as sorting the mail sent a pang through my heart. “Who’s it from?”
We’d been talking for the past hour, catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives. Besides finishing the last book on his summer reading list, Drew was spending as much time as possible with Cara before he left for school. The final round of her chemo had finished, and soon she’d have the high-dose treatment before her transplant.
“The School of Visual Arts? Looks like some mass recruitment letter. Want me to toss it?”
I shot straight up in bed and nearly slammed my head on the bunk above. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “Open it, Drew!”
“What is it?” he asked, and I heard the tearing of paper. “It’s a pretty thick letter.”
“What does it say?” I was too eager to answer his question.
“Dear Ms. Samuel,” he said, reading it off to me. “On behalf of the Admission Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you acceptance to SVA—wait, Stella. Did you apply to another college?”
“Holy crap, are you shitting me?” Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to keep from squealing as I danced in place. Prior to this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I was anticipating my potential acceptance.
“What’s going on?”
“Drew,” I said, after I calmed down enough to explain. “I just got accepted into a school with one of the top photography programs in the country.”
“Really, Rocket? That’s awesome! Does Cara know about this?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “Honestly, I just applied for kicks. It was all Xander’s idea.” From there, I brought Drew up to speed on Paul’s new job offer and how I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Sounds like you have a tough choice to make,” he said. “But aren’t you glad you decided to go in the first place?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding and smiling. “Yeah, I am.”
Chapter 21
On the morning of the movie premiere, I still didn’t have an outfit to wear. Oliver was planning on taking me shopping, but then his phone rang.
“Hello?” He started to pace around the room, answering whoever was on the other end with a series of “yeses.” Finally he told the caller that he would be there shortly and hung up.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Have to run downtown and stop by Mongo headquarters,” he explained. “You don’t mind going shopping without me, do you?”
“No, but is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, shoving his phone into his pocket. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Have fun, okay? See you tonight.”
Five dresses, three pairs of heels, and two necklaces later, I managed to make it back to the hotel without spending all the money I had earned over the past month. JJ was on the couch playing a video game when I stepped in, so I dropped my shopping bags and plopped down next to him.
“I’m wiped,” I told him. Maybe I’d have time for a nap before we needed to get ready.
“I can see that,” he said. “Looks like you bought an entire mall.”
“I couldn’t make up my mind,” I told him sheepishly.
“On what?”
“Which dress to wear tonight, so I just got them all.”
JJ set down the controller and turned to me. “Well, let’s see them. I’ll help you pick.”
So I pulled each dress out of the bag. First was the flowing, purple A-line with a sparkly bodice.
“Nope. Too prommy,” JJ said as I held it up against my chest. Next I pulled out a long, red mermaid gown, which had probably been my most expensive purchase of the day. “Hmm,” JJ said, stroking his chin as he considered. “That has potential. Next.”
Then there was the light-blue high-low dress, which JJ nixed because he thought it was too little-girlish, and a halter that he didn’t like because it was overwhelmingly pink. There was only one dress left, and I was worr
ied that my shopping trip had been a complete failure.
“Last one,” I said, pulling the dress out. I’d spotted it in the window of a boutique on my way back to the hotel, so I’d stopped to try it on. It was the definition of a little black dress—vintage cocktail, but with edgy lace and tarnished golden studs—one that could only be described as Marilyn Monroe meets modern day.
“That one, definitely,” JJ said without hesitation as the tissue paper fell away.
“You really think so?”
“No contest.”
“Okay.” I smiled to myself, happy that one of my choices would work. “But don’t tell Oliver. I want it to be a surprise. Is he back yet?”
JJ shrugged, so I left my bags on the coffee table and went in search of him. After knocking on his door, I poked my head inside. On the bed was his suitcase. It was flung open and a few clothing items had spilled out onto the comforter. A pair of shoes had been kicked off next to the armchair, but there were no other signs of him.
The reading lamp had been left on, so I went over to the table to turn it off. Only then did I notice the book resting on the cushion of the armchair. Scooping it up, I sat down and opened the cover. When I saw the first page, I realized that it wasn’t a book. It was a photo album. Smiling up at me was a picture of us together, the first day we’d met in Chicago. God, that felt so long ago.
As I flipped through the plastic pages, I realized that Oliver had been printing out photographs I posted on my blog and adding them to his personal collection. The pictures were mainly the ones just of us, but there were a few with the other guys as well. By the time I reached the last page, a huge grin spread across my face. Knowing that I was important enough to Oliver for him to make a photo album of us made me feel loopy in a happy-go-lucky way.
“Stella?” Xander asked, pushing open the door. “Is Oliver here?”
“No,” I said, smiling like a crazy person. “I have no clue where he is.”
“Why do you look so happy?”
“Oh nothing,” I said, biting back my grin.