Shooting Stars (12 page)

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hear about other people’s.” My stomach starts doing that awful squeezy thing again.

“Not much to tell, really.” Ned turns around again and resumes paddling. “He lives in New York. We’ve got . . . very different lives.”

“New York’s not so far from Boston. Closer than LA, anyway. Have you managed to see him while you’ve been here?” In front of me, Ned nods. But it seems nothing else is forthcoming.

“Katrina gets along with her sisters really well,” I say, trying to lift the heavy mood in the canoe a little for fear it will sink us. “Or maybe that’s just because she’s been living away from them in New York for the last few years.” Cue comment from Ned.

Except that he misses his cue.

There’s silence for the next few minutes, and I make the active decision to shut up, in the hope that Ned will start talking.

But he doesn’t. And after a few more minutes, I start to look hopefully for Katrina. When is that girl coming back? In the end, I can’t bear the silence any longer and have to say something. “That is one long pee!”

There’s another pause in which the only sound is the water lapping at the side of our canoe. Then Ned laughs. “It really was a lot of soda.”

“I guess so.”

We paddle on in silence for a few more minutes until, 106

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fi nally . . . fi nally . . . I see Katrina running down the hill toward the lake. “Here . . . ,” I open my mouth to say, but, in the same moment, Ned is turning around to speak to me.

“Any other thoughts on what we talked about last night?” His eyes bore into me, brushing aside my words. Although I know exactly what he’s talking about, I play dumb.

“Thoughts?” I try to look away, taken aback by the sudden intensity between us, but can’t. It feels as if it would be almost impossible to break my eye contact with him.

Ned doesn’t answer me, but he doesn’t look away, either.

He’s not going to let this go, I can tell. “No,” I tell him fl atly.

“I’ve been busy working on world peace.” He turns away then and starts paddling for the shore and the now- waiting Katrina. As we get closer, I speak up, realizing our time together is almost over. “What about you?” He just shakes his head. “Trying to come up with a plan to fi x the ozone.”

Honestly, neither of us could sound more depressed if we tried. I think I might suggest to Brad that we all get some T-shirts made for Group B—T-shirts with a catchy little slo-gan on the front like . . .

LIFE: IT’S HARDER THAN IT LOOKS.

As we paddle in silence, I wonder why he brought up the subject again. It’s like he was waiting to get me alone, like there’s something weighing on his mind that he needs to tell someone about. A friend, or the closest thing he has to a friend in here. I watch his back for a moment or two, wondering 107

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about this. And then I fi nd myself reaching out. I place my palm fl at on Ned’s back and he startles slightly.

I’m not sure what makes me do it. One second I was staring at his back and the next I was remembering the time his hand had been on me, when I was curled up in pain on those steps. And then my hand had reached out for him.

Now, in front of me, Ned doesn’t look around and he doesn’t ask me what I’m doing.

After a while, I let my hand drop and I pick up my paddle again. Neither of us says anything about it.

I don’t end up taking one single shot of Ned. I don’t get a shot of him, his canoe, the lake, the trees . . .

I don’t get one single shot of anything.

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9

I can hardly believe it, but I start avoiding Ned after the canoe incident. Actually avoiding him. Which is so not like me. So not what my job is about. In fact, when you think about it, it’s really the exact opposite of my job, isn’t it? The one I’m being paid for, every second I’m here. The one I’m not doing.

The one Melissa will skin me alive for not doing.

When Katrina is in the shower after dinner, I take advantage of the quiet moment alone in our room to scroll through the shots I do have.

Well, there go three seconds of my life. I have maybe fi fty half- decent shots in all. Embarrassing circus stuff, embarrassing circus stuff, embarrassing circus stuff, scarfi ng breakfast, scarfi ng lunch, scarfi ng dinner, coming out of group looking 212-47604_ch01_1P.indd 109

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like he’s picking his nose of all things (which he wasn’t, not that Melissa would care). Fifty shots altogether. That’s just . . .

Pathetic, really.

Usually I take thousands of shots per day. And of course, thousands also get deleted, but the point is I take thousands.

I know I’m working under diffi cult conditions, but they’re also controlled conditions. I should have a whole lot of usable shots by now and a couple standout ones as well.

Something is wrong with me. Really, really wrong with me.

Brad’s voice pops into my head then. “How about you, Jo?

Is there something in par tic u lar you’d change?” I throw my fauxPod in my backpack, as if it’s red- hot, and jump up off the bed.

“Are you okay?” Katrina asks from the bathroom doorway.

“No,” I shake my head. “I think Brad’s gotten into my brain somehow.”

Katrina nods slowly. “He’s pretty good at doing that.” I frown. “So I’ve noticed. It’s spooky.” A knock on the door makes us both turn. “Phone call for Jo,” someone calls out, and then we hear footsteps as they walk away.

Katrina looks puzzled. “But it’s not family phone call night.” Which can only mean one thing. Melissa. Only Melissa would be wily and conniving enough to get around the retreat’s rules. Still, I can hardly blame her— if I were paying someone ten thousand plus dollars per day to be here, I’d be checking up on them, too, rules or no rules.

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“You’d better go see who it is,” Katrina urges me. “It must be important.”

I sigh, a sigh that says, “Yeah, yeah,” and silently trudge my way out the door, down the corridor, and stop at the front desk, where the woman manning it this eve ning passes me the phone.

“Hello?” I say warily.

“Jo, doll! How’s it going?”

My eyebrows raise slightly. It’s not Melissa, after all. It’s the second wiliest and second most conniving person on earth.

“Dad?” I say. I wonder for a split second why he’s calling me here and how he got the number, before I realize that though it’s not Melissa on the phone, this still stinks of her.

“So, Melissa’s getting you to check up on me,” I say with yet another sigh. “Do you think she calls all the paps’ dads? Or am I just lucky?”

“You’re just lucky, kid.”

Suddenly, I go from slightly peeved to fl aming angry in zero to three seconds. “I guess Melissa doesn’t think I can do the job, then.”

“I don’t know. Can you?”

No. “Yes. Of course I can. Otherwise I

wouldn’t have

taken it, would I?”

“Sounds like a pretty good job.”

It bites. “It is.”

“For what she’s paying you, you’ll never give up the game now.”

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I take a deep breath when I hear this. Here we go. Again.

I take a second to turn around and lean my back on the large wooden front desk in the reception area. As I do, I see that my good friend Seth is now sitting in the lounge, half watching TV and playing with something that looks like a pen. “Yes I will,” I hiss into the phone. “That was the point of taking this job, which I actually think is pretty despicable.

I’m not going to give up on going to school, Dad.”

“Ah, sure, sure. I said the same thing twenty years ago,” my dad replies. It’s not that he’s against me going to school.

He’s just against me not loving being a paparazzo as much as he does.

I shake my head at what I’m hearing. “Why do you always tell me I won’t get out? Why is that so hard to believe? We’re not the same person, are we?”

My dad just laughs. He never loses his cool, which just makes me lose mine more and end up looking like an over-excited idiot. “Jo, you’re more like me than you think.” I consider making some comment about him having no choice but to say that, considering comparing my personality to my mom’s wouldn’t exactly be favorable, but I can’t be bothered arguing about it. In the end, I don’t say anything, though my silence on the matter says a whole lot. “How’s Tokyo?” I fi nally ask halfheartedly, deciding changing the subject will expend less energy. I’m too tired to talk to my dad to night. I just want to go to bed and forget about Melissa and Dad and Ned and . . . everything, really.

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“Tokyo’s great. You wouldn’t believe how many stars are here on a daily basis making crappy commercials for truck-loads of cash. And they don’t like their fans in the US to know about it, either.”

“I guess the sushi’s good,” I say, trying to remain neutral.

I turn slightly again and then frown as I see something weird going on between Seth and Ned, who has just entered the scene, across the room.

“The sushi almost makes up for the apartment. I’m telling you, you couldn’t swing a Nikon D3 in there.” I’m barely listening to him now, intent on what’s happening in the lounge. After a year and a half of papping, I know a fi ght brewing when I see one, and that is exactly what’s going down on the other side of the room. Seth is still sitting, kind of holding up the pen he’d been toying with before.

Just a few paces away, Ned looks like a Rottweiler ready to pounce (and, believe me, I’ve seen that many a time, too.

Thankfully mostly from the outside of stars’ gates).

“Hey!” Ned yells at Seth.

I grab the phone tighter in my hand. “Gotta go,” I tell my dad. “Something’s come up.” My eyes not leaving Ned, I fumble to end the call and place the receiver back on the desk. I don’t have to worry about him calling me back. We’ve ended calls to each other in this way at least a hundred times before.

“Hey, you! Seth!” Ned calls out again and takes a step or two forward.

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Beside me, I can feel the woman at reception stand up.

“What’s going on?” she calls out to the two guys.

Ned glances over and then seems to remember himself and where he is. He looks odd. Really odd. Despite what’s going on between him and Seth, I get that feeling again that he doesn’t seem quite right. Very weird. “It’s nothing,” he waves a hand at the staff member. But his gaze remains sharply focused on Seth.

I head over to Ned and stand in between the two guys.

“What’s the matter?” I ask, looking from one to the other. I can’t for the life of me see what Ned’s problem is. Seth hadn’t been doing anything exciting— simply sitting around and playing with a pen for something to do.

But Ned doesn’t answer me. Instead he takes one step sideways so he can still see Seth. Or not Seth, I now realize.

He hasn’t really been looking at Seth all along— it’s the pen he’s interested in.

Seth gives him a look. “Do you have the same own er-ship issues she does?” he jerks a thumb in my direction.

“How was I supposed to know the stupid pen was yours? It was just lying around here,” he says, pointing to the coffee table.

“Sure. If it’s a pen.” Ned shakes his head, his jaw tight.

Seth’s mouth twists. “You freak, of course it’s a pen. Look, it’s even got a little restful boat scene for all the insane people in here to stare at mindlessly.” He holds it up now, and I can see what he’s been doing— it’s one of those pens with the 114

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liquid- fi lled end and a little boat that you can move from one side to the other. Probably from some vacation spot.

“Prove it,” Ned says, his face remaining tense.

“Prove it’s a pen?” Seth shakes his head and stands up.

“You really are nuts. You got out of Hollywood too late, you psycho.” And with this, he twists the pen’s body open and an ink cartridge falls out. It’s as the ink hits the fl oor that I realize exactly what Ned’s going on about and all my internal organs freeze.

He’s onto me.

“Satisfi ed, LA boy?” Seth says with a sneer as he stalks off past Ned.

Ned doesn’t watch him go, just stands there and stares at where Seth had been. After a while, he groans slightly as his gaze moves to the ink cartridge on the fl oor.

As for me, I pick up the pieces of the pen and slowly put them together, trying to compose myself for what might be coming. When I’m done, I turn around to face Ned.

“What was that all about?” I ask him, trying to keep my tone even. After all, I know exactly what that was all about.

Ned just groans again. “Nothing. I . . . ,” he starts, then shakes his head once more. The woman at the front desk is still watching us.

“Come outside.” I grab his arm and pull him toward the front door. I’d better fi nd out how much he knows. Or whether he’s just guessing.

Ned doesn’t object and lets me steer him out, where we 115

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stand in the well- lit entrance, just off to the side of the front doors. It’s cooler now and I can smell the pine trees again.