Next Door to a Star (9 page)

Simone and I went into the family room to watch TV and eat leftovers from my family’s picnic. She finished off a container of potato salad and we polished off the rest of the raspberry gelatin. We made plans to go to the beach tomorrow when I walked her back to her place.

Chapter Thirteen

I went over to Simone’s house at noon the next day. Her mom was rinsing off the dishes from lunch and Simone was on the back porch talking on the phone. She was telling her friend what happened at the party.

“Asia, they totally ganged up on me,” she said. “And Connor did not say one word in my defense,” she said. “Listen, I gotta go. Somebody’s here.”

Simone stood up and I followed her to her bedroom. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put a white shirt on over her aqua bikini top.

“Do you need sunscreen?” she asked. I nodded and rubbed some on. She even let me borrow a pair of pink flip-flops with big daisies on the front. We walked down to the beach and laid out our towels. She dug through her bag for some magazines.

“There’s an article about Valeria in this one,” she said, handing me a copy. “I’m going to get a skirt like hers when I get back to school.”

“Her hair looks so different when it’s long and curly,” I said.

“Extensions,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You know, when they sew fake hair in so your hair looks longer.”

I didn’t even know you could put fake hair in and make it look longer. I wondered how many of the people in the magazine had fake hair as I thumbed through it. I heard someone yelling, “No, Lucas! Stop it.”

Simone was staring at Pilar, Connor, Lucas, and Morgan playing in the water. Lucas picked Morgan up and pretended he was going to throw her in the surf.

“I hope she drowns,” Simone said. “Do you have any gum?”

I shook my head. I saw Charlotte and Deidre walking on the beach and wondered how their sleepover went last night. I felt a little queasy watching them together. Then Charlotte saw me and came over.

“I have your sweatshirt at home. I can give it to Hadley if you want,” Simone said, squinting up at her.

Charlotte asked if we wanted to go with them to get sno-cones. I didn’t bring any money with me, but Simone said she’d pay for mine. However, Connor was at the sno-cone stand with Pilar when we got there. Simone ignored them and walked up to the counter. She ordered two cherry sno-cones and then asked me if cherry was okay. I nodded as Pilar started talking to Deidre. Even Deidre was surprised her cousin was being so sweet to her.

“Did you guys have fun at the party?” Pilar asked us. It was the first time Pilar had ever spoken to me. We nodded and Simone kept her back to us.

“Hi, Simone,” Connor said.

Simone stared at him. She said “hi” in a quiet voice and Pilar tugged on Connor’s arm.

“See ya later, De,” Pilar said over her shoulder as she and Connor walked away.

“Talk about awkward,” Charlotte said.

Simone handed me my sno-cone and licked the drips off the side of hers. We stood on the docks and all you could hear were slurping sounds.

“We’re going to go back to Deidre’s house to watch a movie. Do you guys wanna come?” Charlotte asked.

“Um, my cousin and her friends are supposed to come over later for a barbeque,” Deidre said.

She didn’t come right out and say Simone wasn’t invited, but Deidre made it clear Simone wasn’t welcome. Charlotte gave me a pleading look, but Simone was already walking away so I shrugged and followed her.

“Call me tonight, Char,” I said over my shoulder as I tried to catch up to Simone. I wondered if Nick was going to be at that party.

“You didn’t have to come with me. You could have gone with them,” Simone said.

I thought she was going to say she didn’t want me tagging along, but she didn’t say anything else as she smoothed more sunscreen on. She stretched out and put on her sunglasses. I asked if I could borrow some more sunscreen and she didn’t answer. I nudged her with my toe and realized she had fallen asleep. I picked up a magazine and spent the afternoon reading. I went home with a headache from being out in the sun too long and my shoulders had started to peel. Simone and I hadn’t talked much, but at least she wanted me around, and maybe she had planned to introduce me to Lauren but couldn’t because she had to leave early. Maybe we’d end up being best friends yet.

Chapter Fourteen

By Saturday, Simone and her friends had made up and Nick still hadn’t texted me. I went over to Simone’s house to pick up Charlotte’s sweatshirt since Simone never brought it over like she said she would. Pilar was painting her nails on Simone’s bed and didn’t even bother to look up, but Morgan stared at me. Simone gave me the sweatshirt and I realized she hadn’t washed it because it still had mascara stains on it. I got out of there fast and took it over to Charlotte’s house. We ended up going on a nature walk and I realized how much I missed spending time with her. Plus, it was nice to do something without Deidre around. Charlotte picked some white flowers and when we got to my grandparents’ house, she asked if she could use my glitter pen to decorate the flowers.

“I can’t believe school starts in three weeks,” she said, lying across the foot of my bed.

My stomach rolled over. I had forgotten about school. Now I was going to face another year of torture.

“At least we still have some time to hang out before we have to go back,” I said.

She shook her head. “My grandpa signed me up to go to some stupid music camp for a week. I begged to go to science camp, but I don’t want to spend a week playing the violin indoors,” she said.

“You’re leaving? But we haven’t even seen each other lately,” I said.

“I know. You’ve been with Simone, but we’ll have to hang out a lot this week,” she said. “Hey, your hair looks lighter. Did you do something to it?”

“Simone put some stuff in it,” I said. I went to the mirror. My hair did look a little brighter around my face. I was surprised Grandma hadn’t said anything.

Char picked up her sweatshirt. “Ew, she didn’t even wash it. It smells like cocoa butter and shampoo,” she said.

I knew it was Paul Mitchell shampoo because I had peeked in Simone’s bathroom cabinet.

“Nick and I kissed on the Fourth of July,” I said.

She stared at me. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I really like him, and I thought he liked me too, but he hadn’t messaged me once since then.”

She looked away. “Well, that crowd…I dunno. I wouldn’t spend too much time thinking about him.”

“But I—”

“I gotta get ready to go to Deidre’s. I’ll try to call you later, okay?” she said, getting up.

I ran into Simone as she was cutting across our lawn. She seemed kind of embarrassed, and I told her Charlotte was leaving tomorrow to go to music camp.

“Who?” Simone asked.

“The girl with the dark hair,” I said. “She lent you her sweatshirt,” I said.

“Oh yeah. Duh. Of course, she was in my math class last year. I gave it back, right?” she asked and I nodded.

“I’d hate to be stuck at some loser camp,” she said. “Oh, I saw on
Celebrity Snooper
Jack Brogger is planning a vacation, and it sounds like he’s coming here. The reporter said an unnamed source said Jack spent last summer at a lake resort in Michigan and he was going up there at the end of August. Dude, we’ve got to see him.”

I asked if she wanted to come in, but she had to get home because she had met some guy at the beach and she thought he might call her when he got home. Aunt Faith asked if I wanted to split a brownie when I came in the house.

“Did you have fun with Charlotte last night?” she asked.

“We had a good time.” My eyes started to water and I wiped them with the back of my hand.

“You’re going to miss her a lot,” she said.

“Yeah, my best friend moved to Texas a couple of months ago, and now I have to leave Charlotte,” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“Charlotte’s going to miss you. It’s been hard for her since her mother passed away.” She passed me a napkin. “Oh, Charisma might come for a visit soon.”

I sat up. Charisma was coming here? I asked when, but Aunt Faith wasn’t sure. “I don’t know when she’s getting back from her trip. I know she wants to come before she starts college. She probably won’t have time though.”

With my luck, Charisma would show up on the same day Jack Brogger came to town. They’d meet, and he’d look past the fact she had no personality and put her in his video, and they’d get engaged, and he’d give her a big sapphire ring like the one Chandler’s character wore. Then they’d be on the cover of
InTouch Weekly
and there’d be pictures of them sitting at outdoor cafes, holding hands and drinking coffee, kissing on the beach all the time, acting as if they didn’t know a photographer was there taking the picture. I never understood how none of the celebrities ever seemed to know there was a photographer around yet they looked perfect in the pictures.

“Hadley, do you want to split another brownie? I’m still hungry,” Aunt Faith said. I shook my head. Charisma had a way of taking my appetite away. I went upstairs and curled up under the covers. I realized I hadn’t finished Charlotte’s copy of
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
, so I read until I fell asleep.

Simone called the next morning to tell me Morgan was having a barbecue.

“It’s this afternoon and her dad’s going to grill. It should be fun. Do you want to go with me?” she asked. “Nick’s going to be there and he told me to invite you.”

I started to answer when I got a call on the other line.

“Hey,” Charlotte said. “My grandpa’s making a special lunch for my last day. Can you come over?”

It was my last chance to see Charlotte, but Simone had never invited me along to a party, and it had been my dream to hang out with Morgan and her friends. Plus, Nick had remembered I still existed.

“Are you still there?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah, sorry I’m out of it,” I said. No, I couldn’t miss out on seeing Charlotte before she left. I asked Charlotte what time I should come over and she told me to come right away. I got on the other line and told Simone I couldn’t go.

“C’mon. Puh-lease?” she said. “Nick will be there and you can borrow one of my outfits. I don’t want to go by myself. What if they get all weird on me again? Please?”

“It’s the last time I’ll see Charlotte,” I said. “But maybe we can do something tomorr—”

“Whatever,” she said and hung up.

I walked over to Charlotte’s house and Mr. Lidstrom had put flowers from his garden in little glass jars at each of our plates. Deidre wasn’t there yet so we went into Charlotte’s room.

“I made something for you,” she said.

She handed me a notebook that she had filled with stuff we’d done during the summer. There were pressed flowers from the walks we took, a picture of Valeria because we had spent so much time watching
Charmed Lives
, and pictures of book covers on one page. There was even a picture of Jack with question marks around his head saying, “Where are you?” And she had glued an envelope on the last page, and inside it was the necklace we had started to make out of gum wrappers.

“I can’t believe I didn’t finish it after all the gum I chewed,” she said. It was too small to be a necklace, so I wore it as a bracelet.

“This is much better,” I said. “And for once having skinny arms pays off.”

Deidre came over and Mr. Lidstrom dished out lasagna, which was Charlotte’s favorite. He had put vegetables from his garden in the salad, and we had little cheesecakes for dessert. Charlotte’s bus came to pick her up at four o’clock. She gave us all hugs and waved to us from the window. We watched until the bus was out of sight.

“Would you girls like to stay for a while and have a glass of soda pop?” Mr. Lidstrom asked, looking hopeful.

Deidre said she had to leave, but I stayed and he poured me a glass of orange soda and put some cookies on a plate for us. We watched TV for a while, and I helped him in his garden until my grandpa came over.

“I see you’ve put my granddaughter to work,” Grandpa said.

“She’s a big help and good company,” Mr. Lidstrom said.

“We’re going to miss Charlotte around here,” Grandpa said. Mr. Lidstrom made me promise to come back and visit him.

I was hoping Deidre might start calling me since Charlotte was gone. I even thought about calling her until I went to the beach with Aunt Faith and saw her hanging out with Pilar. I said “hi” to Deidre and she answered me, but she didn’t go out of her way to be friendly. I noticed Simone wasn’t with them, so I called her figuring she might want me around if her other friends were mad at her.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked.

“I’m so bored I could die,” Simone said. “Do you want to go to the movies?”

We went to see
Death Comes for the Dress Up Dolly
, but she spent most of the movie sitting low in her seat and texting. I kept looking behind us to see if anyone was going to get up and yell at her for texting during the movie, but there weren’t a lot of people in the theater.

The lights came on and I asked what she thought of the movie.

“Oh, dunno.” She shrugged. “That doll was super creepy though. But guess what? Morgan and I just made up. It was all this huge misunderstanding. I feel so dumb. She is the best. So glad that’s sorted.”

Great, so I was back to hanging around the house and reading until they dumped her again.

That night I sent Nick a text before I went to bed.

Me: Hey, long time, no talk. The Tigers are doing pretty well. How are you doing? Miss ya.

But when I got up the next day, there was no message.