Never Say Never (3 page)

Chapter
2

           
I
t was good to be home again. As much as I
hated to admit it, living in a Beverly Hills mansion with thirteen bedrooms and
a swimming pool
was
a lot nicer than sharing a filthy USC dorm room with
a girl who had a habit of vomiting in the wastepaper basket after a night out
and covering up her nightly cigarettes with sickeningly sweet patchouli
incense. Plus, Kyle was right – Mrs. Jostens was a lot better at doing laundry
than I was; I'd already managed to turn my white dress a pale shade of dirty pink.

            But
I didn't want to admit it. I'd told my dad I wanted to be independent, and I
meant it. I resolved to ask Mrs. Jostens to teach me how to iron my clothes
properly without my dad finding out – he'd just mock me in that good-natured
way of his.

           
It's
just two weeks into freshman year
, I told myself.
You're not meant to
figure all this stuff out right away.
Still, the ruined pink dress was like
a badge of shame.
You might think you're self-sufficient, Neve Knight, but
you're still a spoiled baby at heart.

           
Never
mind, I told myself. I'd learn. I headed down to the laundry room, finding Kyle
sitting at the kitchen counter, wolfing down an enormous fried breakfast of
bacon, eggs and sausages.

            “Careful
there, fatty,” I said, stealing a slice of bacon off his plate. “You won't be
able to fit through the door soon.”

            Kyle
laughed and rolled his eyes. If there was anything Kyle wasn't, it was fat. He
was as lean and fit as a fitness model – his metabolism converting every
calorie of bacon into firm, taut muscle. He'd even done a few modeling shoots
to pay for college – my mother had managed to talk her agent into giving him a
shot in the latest swimsuit edition – and with his preppy blond hair, hard abs,
and sleek golden boy looks, I figured I'd see him on the cover of
GQ
sooner
or later.

            I
sat down next to him, and he scooped some of his breakfast onto my plate.

            “Better
than dorm swill, huh?” I said. “Your aunt's got to be the best cook on the
planet.”

            “Amen...”
Kyle pushed a glass of orange juice towards me.

            “Maybe
we should get some Tupperware,” I said, “bring her food back with us to the
dorms.”

            “Let's
not,” Kyle said. “Or your fat-jokes will turn into a reality before you know
it. I can't eat like this every day or my agent will put me on one of those
juice fasts.”

            “To
be fair – if it's a juice fast or dorm food, I'd pick the fast.” I laughed.
“Careful, though. If you want to compete with Steve as the most ripped guy in
the band, you'll have your work cut out for you!”

            We
both burst out laughing. Steve's overnight metamorphosis from scrawny
stick-figure, the victim of several bully attempts in middle school, to
bulked-up athlete had taken us all by surprise.

            “Oh,
please,” said Kyle. “Everyone knows Steve gets up at six to “work out.”
“Delayed puberty” my ass – that guy I'm too lazy. Once I turn forty or fifty and my
metabolism slows down, I'll look like Santa Claus. And you know what? By then I
won't mind. I'll be a famous rock star and nobody will be able to say
anything.”
works
for his body. Me,

            “Come
on!” I said. “Unfortunately, I can't say the same.” I'd grown up around the
tabloids – and I knew exactly how cruel they could be to women who didn't fit
the mold. My mother, Jessica Botano – a former swimsuit model – had gained a
bit of weight when I was around twelve – barely noticeable to me, of course –
and the tabloids had savaged her for weeks with vicious puns and photos taken
of her in our pool. Not that anyone – tabloid or otherwise – had dared to
criticize my father's paunch.

            I
had secretly resolved to, when I was as famous as my dad, dump the diet – eat
as much as I wanted – and give the proverbial finger to any tabloid that dared
to criticize me for it. Unfortunately, to get there, as much as I hated it, I
had to play the looks game for a while.

            “When
we're forty we can stop working out,” I said. “Unfortunately, we're not forty
yet. Let's head to the gym, okay?”

            Working
out was always much more fun with Kyle present. Normally I got bored on the
machines, but with Kyle we could take turns on the boxing bag, gossiping about whom
we wished the bag was this week, taking out our aggressions. When I performed,
I wore stage makeup – I think there's a law in LA about going out without at
least a bottle of mascara on each eye – but only Kyle and Steve had seen me in
my natural state: a sweaty, red-cheeked, barely out-of-pimpliness mess. They
didn't seem to mind.

            “So,
whom should we punch this week?” Kyle grinned his cheeky grin as he wiped off
the sweat with a towel.

            “Geoff,”
I said without missing a beat. “Between his womanizing and his stupidity in the
bar last Friday...I don't know what I'm more annoyed about, that he got himself
injured or that he was dumb enough to make a woman push him away in the first
place.” I sighed, giving the bag a solid punch. “I feel bad for him and all –
but he's really been unreliable lately. Slayton says we need more performances
if we want to get signed – and our booker's got a ton of gigs lined up for us.
None of which we can play without a lead guitarist.”

            “How
long do you think Geoff will be out of commission?” Kyle asked.

            “Long
enough,” I rolled my eyes. “He had a piece of glass sticking out of his arm –
it was disgusting! I doubt he's going to be picking up a guitar anytime soon.”

            “Then
who's going to play lead?” Kyle sighed. “Can't you...”

            “I'm
nowhere near good enough. I can hold a melody on the guitar in a pinch but I've
got fingers like sausages when it comes to the solos. You know that.”

            “Then
who...?”

            “Beats
me.”

            “We'll
have to ask around.”

            “Geoff
may be a sleaze, but he's a sleaze who can
play.
”

            “We
could ask if your dad knows...”

            “No!”
I said.

            “Don't
stress.” Kyle put up his hands in mock self-defense. “We'll find someone. It'll
be okay.”

            “If
only we all had your sunny attitude, Kyle.” I smiled reluctantly at his
inveterate cheeriness. Kyle knew just how to keep me confident.

            “Got
it from you, Neve.” He smiled shyly. “Family resemblance?” He laughed. “You're
basically family, after all. I can't remember a time before I lived here.”

           
Can't,
I couldn't help wondering, or
don't want to?
Kyle didn't talk much
about the time before he'd come to live with his aunt, when he was six. But my
dad had told me what had happened. His dad – a drunk who liked to rough him up
– had shot his mother in front of him, and had gotten life in jail. His mom got
a funeral that wasn't covered by her life insurance. Mrs. Jostens – and us –
were all that he had in the world.

            “I
can't either,” I said, slipping my hand in his. “What would I do without you
around to boost my ego when I'm down?”

            “I'm
just flattering you to get into your pants, clearly!” Kyle laughed. It was a
joke we'd made a hundred times before – the sort of fake flirting that felt
safe precisely because we knew it would never go anywhere. Normally I'd have
just laughed it off. But somehow we both fell into an awkward, strange silence.
He hadn't meant it – at least, he hadn't
meant
to mean it. But for the
first time, the joke didn't seem so funny.

            I
forced myself to laugh. “Don't you pull a Geoff on me, Kyle. Or I'll have to
put
you
through a glass table and then where would we be?”

            He
seemed relieved by the laughter, and started laughing too. “Please, I wouldn't
even
have
to flatter you. According to the girls at USC, I'm apparently
fresh meat – I've never had so many girls interested in me at once! Or
ever.
You'd be
lucky
to get with me, Neve!”

            “Sure
I would,” I said, forcing the joke. “I've just been pining for you my whole
life. Wishing you'd notice me...”

            “I
thought you were like Queen Elizabeth,”

            “What?”
            “You know. The Virgin Queen of England. Refused to ever get married
so she could focus on ruling her country.”

            “It's
not that I'm not interested in dating,” I said. “I'd just never date anyone in
the band...I've seen the VH1 specials. I know that's the surest way to break up
the group.”

            “So
why not date someone outside the band?”

            “I
don't
know
anyone outside the band!” It was true. My band – Kyle, Luc,
Steve, and even Geoff, no matter how much he annoyed me lately – were the only
friends I was really close to. We spent all our time together; I didn't have a
second free to date anyone I might see as a potential.

            “Well,
don't feel sorry for me,” said Kyle. “Because I'm doing just fine outside the
band.” He seemed a little on edge – almost defensive. I looked up at him in
surprise. Was there something
there
between us? I laughed it off. I used
to dress Kyle in my life-size Barbie clothes when I was seven – I'd definitely
seen him naked a couple of times when we were changing our swimming clothes. We
knew each other too well to feel sexual tension.

            Then
why did things feel so weird all of a sudden?

            “Neve?”
A female voice interrupted our conversation, followed by the appearance of my
mother – which, as it had done consistently for the past ten years, made Kyle's
jaw drop. Whatever feelings Kyle might have for me – feelings I refused to
acknowledge, they paled beside his long-standing crush on my mother. In her
early forties, my mother managed to look barely older than I was. I knew a lot
of former models resorted to plastic surgery and punishing pilates to look
gorgeous, disguising their age, but none had maintained quite the youthful
vitality of my mother.

            “I
missed you!” My mother ran to embrace me. “Two weeks was too long! Are you
sure
you don't want to commute to and from class – I'm sure Paul could drive you
there and back every day...”

            “I
don't need a chauffeur, mom,” I smiled. “I need a tiny dorm full of messy
clothes and empty pizza boxes. The real college experience. You know that.”

            “Can't
you have the real college experience from the pool house? It's got its own
kitchen, you know – you could put the pizza in your fridge...”

            “I
don't think that fits the definition of ‘real adult’.  Living in mom and dad's
pool house.”

            “A
lot of girls here do...Barry Monroe's daughter...” Dad's former band mate lived
just down the road.

            “Barry
Monroe's daughter never goes to class and has her dad call up her professor and
exchange autographs for A's. I don't want that.”

My
mother sighed. “But we worked
hard
,” she said. “So you wouldn't have
to.”

            I
flushed red. I loved my mother, but she could be a bit oblivious sometimes –
and right now, talking about money in front of Kyle, whose aunt probably worked
a lot harder (although, to be honest, Kyle was too busy staring at my mom’s
stunning swimsuit curves than listening to the words coming out of her mouth),
she was being especially oblivious. She'd been discovered at sixteen in a
shopping mall in Texas, catapulted to the top of her field in a matter of
months – like my dad, she'd never really known what it was like to live without
the easy world of fame and money. And as much as I loved her, I knew that that
sort of a life wasn't for me. I wanted to find my own way as much as possible.

            “I
want to work hard,” I said. “I want to
learn
stuff – I've got this great
History of Classical Music class at 8 a.m. I'd
never
make it to if I had
to drive from here...I want to earn my grades. I don't want to just be the
daughter of Keith Knight and Jessica Botano.”

            “I
guess,” my mother looked unconvinced. “I just want you to be safe out there,
you know.” She finally noticed Kyle. “Well, if Kyle's with you, I'll feel more
confident that you're safe.”

            “I'll
keep an eye on her, ma'am,” said Kyle, only stuttering slightly.

            “Most
students grew up without a private security detail,” I said, “and they do okay.”

            “But
most students don't have paparazzi who can capture them in a moment of
indiscretion...” my mother sighed.

            “I’ll
keep the paps away,” said Kyle.

            “Well,
I feel better knowing Kyle's with you,” my mother admitted. “He's at least
sensible, as opposed to my stubborn, hot-headed little girl...”

            “I
prefer the term ‘passionate’,” I smiled.

            Kyle
did too. He knew I'd become a skilled pro at negotiating these waters with my
parents.

            “Anyway,”
my mother changed the subject airily. “Can't we turn up the A/C? It's like a
furnace down here. And Kyle – Stacey's been asking for you. The guy we booked
for the Ralph Lauren shoot turned out to be a junior member of the Russian mob
and now she's desperate for a replacement...”

            “I'll
call her,” Kyle said. “Thanks, Mrs. Knight...” He tiptoed out, leaving me alone
with my mother.