Secrets of My Hollywood Life: There’s No Place Like Home (20 page)

Nadine.

NADINE!

OF COURSE!

If anyone could get me out of here, it would be alter-Nadine.

I hike my sparkly red bag onto my shoulder and push through the crowd of onlookers. Liz tries to pull me back.

“Can’t we talk? Please? Where are you going?”

“Harvard.” I squeeze toward the doors and head to valet, hoping they can call me a cab. As angry as I was a few minutes ago,
I’m smiling now. I know what I want, and I know how to get it back. Nadine can fix this. She can fix anything. I just have
to track her down, and I think I know exactly where to look.

I find a pink duffel bag in the back of alter-Kaitlin’s closet, and I stuff it with a bunch of clothes, some one-hundred-calorie
snacks, and the eighty dollars I found in the badly painted piggy bank on my dresser. I lug it down to Matty’s room and knock
on the door.

I hear two locks turn—who needs double locks on their bedroom door?—before Matty appears in the doorway looking rumpled. His
blond hair stands up on end, he’s wearing a baggy LEGO
Star Wars
tee and wind pants, and he has on wire-rim glasses. “What do you want?” he huffs. “I’m in the middle of a crucial battle
scene in
Hero War Battle of the Titans
, and if I step away from the computer for more than fifteen seconds, Daryl from Cleveland might win.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Matty. I need your help.”

“I told you—it’s
Matthew
,” he corrects me. “Since when does anyone call me Matty? I’m not two.”

He has a point. The real Matty thinks the nickname sounds “hip.” “I’m sorry,
Matthew
. I’ll be quick.” My eyes dart around the dark, messy room. The shades are drawn, his bed is unmade, and there are constellation
maps on the walls and a picture of Albert Einstein. This kid should have “desperately seeking friends” stamped on his forehead.
“Can I borrow some money?”

He views me skeptically. “So you and Liz can hit some party and not invite me? No way.” He starts to shut his door.

I put my hand up to keep the door from closing. “I’m not going out with Liz. This is something for me.”

“What are you buying?” he asks suspiciously.

“I can’t say.” If I tell Matty where I’m going, he’ll probably crack under pressure when Mom and Dad come looking, and then
he’ll be in trouble right along with me. I can’t have that.

He scratches his head. His blond hair is in serious need of some styling. It’s way too long on the sides and too short on
top. “I’ll bite. How much do you need?”

Umm…how do I say this without sounding suspicious? “Eight hundred dollars.”

I checked the flights going out of LAX to Boston, and a last-minute ticket to Boston is around six hundred dollars. Then I
need cab and T (subway) fare, and some money to crash at a bad hotel. Even eight hundred is going to be stretching it, but
how much can I ask for?

Matty laughs at me. Even his laugh is different. He sounds like a hyena. “Sure, let me just get that money out of my vault.”
He gives me a withering look with our similar green eyes. “What do you need all that money for anyway?”

“I told you. I can’t say.”

“Then I can’t help you.” He starts to close the door again, but I stick my hand up to stop him. The door bounces against my
flat palm, flies backward, and almost hits him in the face.

“It’s an emergency!” I sound desperate, I know. “This money could be life-changing for all of us.”

“Are you going to Vegas?” Matty asks, horrified. “You’re underage!”

“I’m not going to Vegas.” I cross my arms and try to keep my good foot from tapping nervously. “It’s nothing illegal.”

He mulls the proposition over. “Changing my life sounds good to me, but I don’t have that much cash. I can give you something,
though. Close your eyes.” I start to protest. “Just do it. No peeking!”

I hear him poke around the room, a key turn, something slam shut, and then I feel money in my hand. I look down and see he’s
handed me a hundred-dollar bill. It’s a start.

I grab his thin frame (no muscles on this Matty) and hug him. “Thanks,
Matthew
. You have no idea how important this trip is. Wish me luck, okay?” I pause. “And stall Mom and Dad, for at least the next
several hours. Just say I’m out with Liz or at a study group.” He starts to laugh. “Okay, say I’m at a pep rally.”

Matty grins. “That will work.” Then his face clouds over with worry. “Are you coming back?”

Er… sort of ? “Yes. I just might be gone overnight. Or two.” Matty’s eyes widen. “You have to trust me.”

“I do trust you. This you, not the one before the accident,” he clarifies and fiddles with the key still in his hand.

I put the money in my red bag and look at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re nicer, that’s all. And a little wacky.” He shrugs and scuffs his foot on the brown carpeting. “That’s okay, though.
It’s fun to watch. I’ll cover for you today, if you cover for me sometimes.” His computer screen IM pings madly. He stares
back at the laptop. “If I ever have someplace decent to go in the real world.”

Aww…I grab his chin and stare into his eyes. “You’ll have plenty of places to go in the real world, I promise. You just don’t
realize it yet, but you’re going to be fine, Matthew Burke. And more popular than you can ever imagine. I love you for it,
even if you do drive me crazy sometimes.” Matt blushes. “Can you do me one more favor?”

“Another one?” he asks incredulously.

“This one is easy. Tell Mom and Dad I love them.”

Because I do. I really do. This Mom and Dad are so… what’s the word I’m looking for?

Happy.

They’re happy to be with us and be part of our lives, and they worship each other rather than the scene around them. Maybe
it’s living in Toluca Lake, or the fact that neither work in the industry, but they’re not consumed by Hollywood, and that’s
a good thing. Dad needs to go back to working with cars. And Mom, well, I want a
mom
back. And when I get home, I have to figure out a way to make that happen.

Matt’s quiet. “You’re not coming back, are you?”

I mess up his hair some more. “You’ll see me again. I promise.”

“Do you want to see the flowers that just came for you before you go?” Matty asks and skirts past me into the hallway. Sitting
on our black hall table is the most beautiful arrangement overflowing with peonies and sunflowers.

“They’re gorgeous!” I thumb one of the sunflowers carefully. “Who are they from?”

“Who do you think?” Matty says wryly. “Mom’s bestie, Victoria Beckham.”

I turn around so fast that I pull a sunflower out of the vase. “What did you just say?”

Matty looks at me strangely. “I said look at the card.”

“No you didn’t, you said
Victoria Beckham
,” I insist and start fingering through the arrangement, looking for the card.

“You’re getting weird again,” Matty warns just as I find what I’m looking for. The card is from Liz, not Victoria.

“I must be hearing things.”

“Doesn’t seem that unusual these days,” Matty tells me.

I hug him one more time, pick up my bag, and walk downstairs, taking a last look around before I go. Then I walk outside to
a waiting cab and get in. I look back at the pretty yellow colonial with the maroon shutters, and I pray I’m seeing it for
the last time, no matter how homey the house and the family inside really is.

An hour later, I’m at LAX and I have one hundred and ten dollars in my pocket. It cost me seventy dollars to get here! Geez,
cabs in Los Angeles are expensive. Now what do I do? There is no emergency credit card in my wallet—Allison and Beth seem
to have those, but I do not—and I need money. Fast. Even if I got hired at the local airport hamburger joint (and I can’t
stand the smell of microwaved meat), it would take me weeks to make that cash.

“Kaitlin?” I turn around. “IT IS HER!”

Liz comes flying toward me, and she’s got… no. It can’t be. Is that Austin?

Liz throws herself at me. “Thank God we found you!” she gushes, and I catch a whiff of her lilac body mist. I see some people
on the check-in line smile, thinking we’re having some long-overdue reunion. “I knew you’d be here. I said you’d never wait
around. You get something in your head, and you have to do it right away.” She looks at me with her dark eyes, hopeful. “At
least the old you did.”

I push her off. I’m still mad. New Liz, old Liz, whoever she is, it doesn’t matter. She’s not my friend. “What are you guys
doing here?” I hold the duffel tightly and push the red sparkled purse deeper inside. I don’t want them seeing my notebook.
I have tons of notes about where Nadine could be, things she’s said to me over the years about Boston and where she’d go if
she lived there. I’m going to cover every lead I can. If I actually get there.

“We’re here to help you,” Austin says and smiles that smile that always makes me melt. God, he looks good today. He’s wearing
a zip-up navy-and-green sweater over a white tee, and he has on distressed jeans. Even his cast matches his outfit. Oooh,
must concentrate. Alter-crush and friend are bad. Real boyfriend and girlfriend are good!

“I don’t need help.” I walk toward the nearest ticket counter, pushing my duffel with one of my crutches. I don’t actually
have the money to buy a ticket. I guess I’ll just pretend and eventually they’ll walk away.

“Yes, you do!” Liz insists, folding her arms across her chest and sending several gold bracelets on her arm into a landslide
toward her wrists. She stares at me, determined, her face as dark as her purple Rebecca Taylor top. She has a funky plaid
scarf wrapped around her neck, and she’s wearing skinny J Brand jeans with… are those the Jimmy Choo boots we bought a few
weeks ago? Liz and I have been eyeing them for ages, and Mom finally gave me permission to buy a pair. We had them on hold
at Fred Segal forever (not that they hold merchandise usually, but I asked very nicely).

“Where did you get those?” I point to her shiny black feet.

“At Fred Segal, with you, a few weeks ago. We both got a pair.” Liz taps her toes happily. “Don’t you remember? We had them
on hold forever and the guy was like, ‘Are you taking them or not?’ but you didn’t have permission from your mom to get a
pair because you still owe her money, and then finally she said yes.”

But that doesn’t make any sense! Alter-Kaitlin wouldn’t have money to buy those. “I don’t have those boots in my closet.”

“Yes, you do.”

I shake my head impatiently. “I don’t.” If I did, I’d be wearing them right now. “How would I have the money for those?”

Liz and Austin look at each other. “Forget it,” Liz says. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is we’re here to help you get to
Boston. That is where you’re going, right? When you said Harvard I figured you were heading to Massachusetts. Either that
or there was a hot new club in L.A. called Harvard that I didn’t know about… and I know about all the new hangouts in town.”
She raises an eyebrow. “I won’t ask why you’re going to Massachusetts. I just want to help.”

The line inches forward. “I don’t need your help,” I say stubbornly. “Why are you here anyway? You’re not my friends. I heard
what you said at the party, Liz. Don’t even try to deny it. And you.” I point to Austin. “I’m sure Lori doesn’t know you’re
here. That would put you on the Tipster List right alongside me.”

Austin’s blue eyes lock on mine. “Actually, she does know,” he says, and I try to resist the urge to gape at him. “I told
her that you and I were friends—or maybe more than that, I don’t know.” My face starts to flush. “I told her where I was going,
and I said I wanted to be there for you, for once, the way you’ve tried to be there for me.” He grins. “Not counting the time
you tried to run me over with a car.”

Does he have to keep bringing that up? “You really told her that?”

Austin nods. “I did.” The two of us stare at each other.

“I told Lauren and Ava I wasn’t going out tonight or the next night or all weekend,” Liz adds. “They weren’t happy, but I
don’t need to be their plus one. I have my own invites.” She sighs. “Besides, you were right—they’re not so great. After you
left I started listening to them talk, and I never noticed what airheads they are! Or how obnoxious! I don’t want to be like
that, even if I have been lately.” She grabs my hand. “Can you forgive me?”

I squeeze her hand and feel the multitude of rings on her fingers. Just like real Liz. How can I say no? “Yes.”

So that’s it, then. Liz and Austin are changing, I have a meeting with Laney Peters, I told off Alexis Holden, I had a heart-to-heart
with my mom for the first time in forever, and Matty is finally coming out of his room. I’ve started to fix this universe
and make it feel more like my own.

But I don’t want to make it my own. Even if I have ten meetings with Laney and I get Austin to ask me out, this still isn’t
my life. I miss acting, and my friends, and even my zany schedule. I wish I could take pieces of this life back with me—my
family time, my downtime—and make it work in my world. But even if I can’t, I’m ready to go home.

Liz looks relieved. “Good. So that’s it, then. We can go home. You don’t need to go to Boston now, do you?”

Uh… “I’m glad we made up, but I still have to go to Boston.”

“But why?” Liz whines.

“I feel it in my gut.” I pat my belly, hidden beneath the two sweaters I have on—one a sage green turtleneck, the other a
thick, chocolate button-up. I’m wearing skinny jeans and the cutest navy wellies I found in my shoe rack. Hey, it’s cold and
snowy in Boston! Even if people are looking at me oddly in the airport, it will work where I’m headed.

“That’s not an answer,” Liz says, sounding more like the Liz I know. “What’s the real reason you’re going there?”

“I…” I look at their curious faces. I can’t tell them the truth. They’d never believe me. Sometimes I don’t believe it myself.
And if Nadine can’t get me home, I don’t want to come back to Los Angeles and have everyone here think I belong in a box of
my favorite cereal, Froot Loops. “I’m visiting a friend, and I need to get there right away,” I explain. “I think she can
help me figure some things out.”

“Next! Counter five!” A Delta attendant standing at the front of the line makes crazy arm motions, pointing to the next available
attendant. Austin grabs my duffel bag from the floor, and Liz walks alongside me as I make my way to the attendant. It really
is helpful having someone with you when you’re traveling on crutches.

“Can I help you?” the tall, dark-haired woman behind the counter asks me.