#scandal (26 page)

About where we’re supposed to go from here.

After school I take the long way home through the woods, and when I get to the house, I find Asher and Tens in front of the television, my sister between them, wildly slashing the air with her arms and legs. Night’s pacing and barking, cheering her on as Asher brags about his high score.

Jayla’s laughing, breathless, beautiful.

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I drop my backpack in the entryway. “WTF?” Three humans and one canine turn to face me, guilty grins across the board.

“Lucy!” Asher waves at me from side to side like I’m standing on a boat dock.
Bon voyage, sanity!
“We came by to go over some final moves for our presentation.”

“Does our presentation involve Fruit Ninja?” I ask.

“Dude.” Tens chops the air with his hand, dreads whipping around his face. “Your sister’s teaching us.”

“On Xbox?” I glare at Jayla. “Jayla! You’re totally corrupting them! They don’t do Xbox! It’s connected to the network and . . . This is messed up on so many levels.”

“Tell me about it.” Jayla drops to the couch, panting. “I just got my ass kicked in Fruit Ninja by a guy in a wheelchair.”

“Tried to warn you.” Asher beams, giving the air a few ninja arm chops. “I got
mad
upper-body skills. Hand-eye coordination skills. Shit, big sis, I got skills you haven’t even
dreamed
about yet.”

Jayla raises an eyebrow, but before she can make an inappropriate cougar joke, I say, “Party’s over, guys. And I’m sorry about . . .” I wave around at Jayla, Xbox, Fruit Ninja, the dog, my whole situation collectively, but they’re all smiling.

I’m the dark cloud, swooping in to kill the buzz for no 321

reason other than the fact that I wasn’t part of it. “I’m just really tired. Talk tomorrow?”

They gather up their stuff and salute, fake chopping each other as they roll out the front door, down the side-walk to Tens’s car. He helps Ash into the front seat and carefully folds up the wheelchair, packs it into the trunk like he’s done it a thousand times before and will keep on doing it for as long as Ash needs him.

Jayla pats the couch cushion next to her, which Night takes as an invitation. “How was your day? Any new scandals to report?”

“Now that you mention it, big sis.” I dig Zeff’s tabloids out of my bag and throw them on the coffee table. They slide across the surface, two fluttering to the floor, knock-ing down an empty wineglass.

“Oh, shit!” She picks up the top rag. “I can’t believe they shot this! It was Saturday night. I went out after
Danger’s
. Remember?”

“This is you going out? A fun Saturday with the boys?”

“I invited you, but you were being little miss mopey pants.”

“These guys go to my school!” I say. “They’re in my class!”

Jay shrugs. “They said they were eighteen.”

“Zeff’s pissed,” I say. “They’re not all eighteen. And even if they were, this is so . . . not appropriate.” 322

“You’re overreacting, Lucy.”

“Don’t you have a publicist or something? I mean, since this is so challenging for you, isn’t it her job to tell you what
not
to do in public?”

Jayla waves me off. “Fired her. She was a helicopter publicist.”

“Maybe because you need, like . . . helicoptering?” Jayla turns a wounded gaze on me, but her eyes go from hurt to hurtful in five seconds flat. “Lighten up,
little
sister.

Maybe if you weren’t so uptight and moody, you’d have more friends and bigger boobs.”

She flips through one of the tabloids, forcing a smile at pictures I
know
she’s embarrassed of. I almost laugh. It’s something I’d text Ellie about, something we’d reenact at a sleepover with the stuffed animals in my bedroom.

Ohmygod, I’m so famous! Look at all my fanboys!

I drop into the chair across from her, head in my hands.

“Why are you
here,
Jayla?”

It’s not even a real question, just a tired, last-ditch insult, but as soon as the words are out, I feel the change between us, a shift and snap in the air like the instant before a lightning strike.

Night’s ears perk, a low growl resonating behind his teeth.

I look up. She’s crying. “Jayla?”

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“They fired me,” she whispers.

“
What
?”

“
Danger’s
producers brought me into corporate for a meeting. When I got there, my agent was already in the room. He had a stack of paperwork in front of him. I knew it was bad news.”

“What happened?”

“It was like
Intervention
. They accused me of partying too hard, missing work. I swear, Luce, they made it sound like I’m one of those crazies who freaks out on Twitter and goes all public meltdown. I don’t even
have
Twitter! And okay, so I missed a few days and had to reschedule a few shoots. And maybe I did party a little too hard. But it’s . . .

Everyone does that stuff. It’s, like, coping.”

“Coping with what?”

Jayla wipes the mascara from beneath her eyes. “It’s hard to explain. But one day you’re normal, okay? Then you wake up with all this money, and you’re famous, and there’s a lot of pressure. . . . Hollywood isn’t what I thought it would be.”

“Poor little rich girl.” I feel bad as soon as I say it, but Jayla’s nodding.

“You have this dream. And you work your ass off, thinking if you can just get this one thing, your life will be perfect. Then you’re lucky enough to get that thing, and 324

your life isn’t perfect, so you figure, well, I need a new dream. Then you get that one, maybe, work awhile for something more. More. More. And at every step, someone is there to stomp you down. To remind you that you’re just a nobody with a nice ass, that you just got lucky.” She kicks the table, scatters the tabloids. “But shit, that’s why they pay us the big bucks, right? Real high rollers. Depressed, drunk high rollers. That’s the Hollywood secret for you, Luce. And now I’m out of work, and I’m broke.”

“Broke? But you’re . . .” It doesn’t make sense. My sister is Jayla Heart. She’s Angelica Darling. She’s famous. She’s rich. She’s the golden girl everyone loves to hate. “What about your credit cards?”

“Maxed,” she says. “The only thing that still works is my debit, and that’s almost done too.”

iPhone, makeup, clothes . . .
Guilt ripples between my shoulders. “What about your rental car?”

“Airline miles.”

My eyes go wide. “The couples retreat?”

“Already paid for. I was supposed to go with . . .” She taps her teeth. “Shoot, I don’t remember his name. We dated for a month, but it didn’t work out. I didn’t want the trip to go to waste, so I told Mom—”

“What about your beach house? The condo?” She shakes her head. “Everything I own is in boxes at 325

Macie’s house. She’s the only person in the entire state of California who’s still speaking to me. Well, not counting my so-called friends, the ones who only call when a new scandal surfaces.” She nods toward the tabloids. “I’m sure I’ll hear from them tonight.”

“But . . . how can they just fire you? You’re the star of the show.” I cross the TV room and take the seat next to her, shooing Night out of the way. I don’t know whether to hurt for her or to be pissed. To hug her or to lecture her.

Is this how Mom and Dad feel? Is this why Mom hides the tabloids, pretends it’s all lies? How much do they know?

How much do they really see?

“They wrote me out of the script,” she says. “Spoiler alert—Angelica dies.” She reaches for me, her eyes wild and desperate. “You can’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”

“Talk to Dad,” I say. “He’ll help—”

“Of course I’ll help, sweetheart.”

My parents breeze through the doorway, happy and relaxed, bright smiles lighting up their tanned faces. Night knocks over a lamp on his mad dash to the door.

Jayla and I shoot up from the couch to hug them.

“You were supposed to call when you landed,” Jay says, her voice all perky-perky again. “I wanted to pick you up.”

“We took a taxi,” Mom says. “Oh, sugar, it is nice to be home. The resort was beautiful, but boy was it 326

hot.” She fans her face, her big red Texas hair billowing around her like a cloud. If she or my dad overheard us, neither of them shows it, and Dad seems to have already forgotten that he offered to help with some unknown problem.

Mom scans the disaster of the TV room, already cata-loging the infractions. “See what happens when I leave you two alone for this long? Good heavens, darlin’, it’s like a tornado came through here.”

Dad laughs. “What did we miss?”

Jayla and I stand in front of the coffee table, smooshing together to hide the space between.

Evidence from our two weeks of bonding rests on the surface behind us, damning and obvious. On one end, dirty dishes, half-finished Coke cans, cake crumbs. Ice cream spoons licked clean by the dog. Earrings, lipsticks, a tampon, a tissue covered in black nail polish. One sock. A hairbrush. A bottle of Aspirin. Two unpaid speeding tick-ets. A corkscrew.

On the other end, there’s a stack of tabloids featuring Jayla car servicing a bunch of Lav-Oaks minors, a folder full of prom party pictures that would shock Mom’s ladylike sensibilities and send her to the hospital, six incomplete PowerPoint printouts highlighting the dangers of cyberbullying, a second copy of Kiara’s 327

Hackalicious report, and a partially dog-licked bowl of crusty brown goop that used to be, in a galaxy far, far away, guacamole.

Jayla squeezes my hand, a silent plea.

I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine. . . .

“You didn’t miss a thing,” I say confidently. “Welcome home.”

Later, when I’m deep under the cool sheets, my phone lights up the dark room. For a groggy instant I’m disappointed it’s not Franklin, or at least an e-mail from Miss Demeanor, but when I see Cole’s name, my heart soars.

“I needed to hear your voice,” he says. “I miss you, Luce. I hate that we’re tiptoeing around. I feel like I saw you more before me and Ellie—before all this.”

“I’m . . . Everything’s so messed up. I know I’ve been acting crazy. I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to do anything. Just be Lucy.”

“Even if I’m cranky and moody and demanding?”

“Wouldn’t love you any other way.”

I smile, the tightness in my chest loosening. “Here’s a demand, then. Sing me a song. You said drummers get all the groupies, but I’m still not convinced.”

“Oh, I can sing, Vacarro. I’m just waiting for the right moment to steal the spotlight from John.” 328

“Think John’s still awake? He did say I was hot, after all. Maybe I’ll ask him to—”

“This is a B-side from Oasis,” he says. “‘Talk Tonight’? I always think of it as our song. At least, since that night.”

“Dude. You gave us a song without consulting me?”

“Shit, girl. You’re about to get a free concert in your ear, for which I’m asking practically almost nothing in return, and you’re criticizing?”

“I thought our song was ‘Reckoner’s Encore’.”

“Well, yeah. And ‘Nothing Compares 2 U.’ The Ste-reophonics version. If I told you I downloaded pretty much
all
those songs from prom and made a Lucy’s Kickass Boots playlist . . . Is that creepy?”

“You’re so concerned with not sounding like a stalker, not sounding creepy . . . why don’t you just, you know, be less creepy?”

“I don’t know how.”

I match his laugh, and when it finally fades, his voice is in my ear, singing the opening verse.

I’ve never heard this song before. I’ve never loved a song more.

I wanna talk tonight . . . until the morning light . . .

And I’m right back in that lavender dawn, the moment full of all possibilities. At the end of the song 329

he whispers good night, a love spell unbroken as I slip into the darkness. . . .

A text buzzes against my cheek, yanking me back. I squint to see the message.

Franklin:
i’m so sorry

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IDENTIT Y THEF T

MISS DEMEANOR

4,991 likes
C

3,195 talking about this

Tuesday, May 13

My dear, loyal pretend friends.

I come to you from the precipice of 5,000 likes, a white whale of a fan base I never dreamed of reaching in all my one year of dreaming about this page. Alas, on our final day of classes at Lavender Oaks High School, I’m writing with a heavy heart (and it’s not because I’ll miss the Jell-O).

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Fangirls and fanboys. Minions and foll owers. Likers and oversharers. There’s something you need to know.

Something, I’m sure, you’re
dying
to know.

Who is Miss Demeanor?

It’s time to remove the mask.

I, the undersigned, do solemnly swear (on the US

Constitution shower curtain and coordinating Bill of Rights liner, which is a real thing that I own, along with a Declaration of Independence bedspread, because my immigrant parents are patriotic and educational that way) that I am the voice, the face, the mind behind your beloved/behated/be-totally-indifferenced Miss Demeanor.

Me.

Senior at Lavender Oaks High School. Valedictorian.

Editor of the
Explorer
. Rogue Brit and secret admirer of American pop culture.

Franklin Margolis.

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I started this column last year as a joint social experiment with Asher Holl owell, acting independently of his club, (e)lectronic Vanities Intervention League.

He’s given me permission to share the details of his involvement here.

Ash is a good friend of mine, something we’ve kept mostly under wraps in an effort to more effectively conduct our experiment. The idea came about one night during a Star Trek marathon that inspired a lively discussion about technology and its role in how we communicate and relate. Our central question was this: Do human relationships and interactions inspire and shape technology, or does technology shape us?

Together we set out to prove that people—specifically, our fellow almost-graduates—are more interested in perpetuating negative drama online than in engaging in important, interesting discourse about the news and events in our community and school and that advances in communications technology—the Internet, texting, smartphones, and social networking—have done more to destroy relationships than to enhance or enable them.