Star Rider (6 page)

“This doesn’t look quite right to me,” Carole said.

“But didn’t I hear your father talking the other day about how much he loved Michelangelo?” Stevie asked, hoping desperately that they’d be able to buy at least
something
for the party.

“A different Michelangelo,” replied Carole. “The one dad likes was the sculptor and painter—not a turtle.”

“Oh,” Stevie said. “Well, I don’t think there’s a line of paper plates with the Sistine Chapel on it, so let’s forget it. It’s time to meet your dad now, anyway.”

Carole looked at her watch and agreed. “We didn’t get much done, did we?”

“Not much,” Stevie said. “But we did have fun. Anyway, we can come again. Maybe Lisa can come with us next time.”

“I hope so,” Carole said, opening the door that led to the parking lot. “It may be that Hollywood needs Lisa, but it’s clear that we need her more!”

Colonel Hanson honked to get the girls’ attention. They ran over to the car and climbed into the backseat.

“Ah, making me feel like a chauffeur,” he teased. “Well, then, where to, mademoiselles?”

“Home, Jeeves,” Stevie commanded.

The colonel turned the car around and headed back toward Willow Creek. “So tell me,” he said, speaking over his shoulder to his passengers in the back. “What did you two accomplish at the mall this afternoon?”

“Nothing,” they answered in a single voice, more than a little aware of how true that was.

S
KYE AND
L
ISA
perched on a paddock fence, watching Samson trot happily in circles. They chatted easily while Oliver and the rest of the crew considered whether there was enough light left to do any more filming for the day.

“As a matter of fact, I was right here when you called the other day,” Lisa said. “I was working with Stevie and Carole on Samson’s training. He’s supposed to be getting used to a bit now. He doesn’t like it much, but he’s a good sport about it.”

“You three have an awful lot of fun together, don’t you?” Skye asked suddenly.

“Of course,” Lisa answered, surprised by the question. “We do everything together—at least everything our parents will let us. Sometimes it’s trouble, but it’s just about
always fun. What kinds of things do you do with your friends?”

“Not much,” Skye said. He seemed embarrassed to be admitting it. “For one thing, I don’t have many friends. I’m working on movies most of the time, which means I’m not in regular school. The other kids I work with have the same kind of schedule I do, and that means there isn’t much time for fun.”

“But what about weekends and vacations and things?” Lisa asked.

“Sure, I have time off, but the fact is that it’s very hard for me to go out and do the ‘normal’ stuff that you and Carole and Stevie do. Wherever I go, people are bugging me. They don’t mean it in any bad way. Most of them feel as if they know me because they saw me in one movie or another, but they don’t know
me
, they just know the character I played.”

“Does it make you angry?” Lisa asked, realizing for the first time that the life of a star might not be one hundred percent wonderful.

“Not anymore. It just makes it hard. Sometimes I wish I could just be me and do the things I want when I want to, not because my agent or my producer says I have to.”

“But the things you have to do are so exciting, and the things I get to do are so boring!” Lisa said.

“I think boring can be fun,” Skye said. “For instance, after we wrap here for the night, I’m supposed to go back to the motel with my chaperone. We’ll order dinner in. I’ll study my lines and go to bed. That’s all.”

“Want to do something more boring?” Lisa asked.

“You have any suggestions?”

“Well, I could show you around Willow Creek. Now that’s boring!”

“Let’s do it!” Skye said. Lisa couldn’t believe how excited he seemed by the prospect.

A few minutes later, Oliver told everybody they could go. Lisa went back to the makeup trailer to have her makeup taken off. Skye said he’d meet her in front of the stable. It took almost half an hour before Skye showed up. He apologized and explained that he’d had to get permission from three different people to take a little walk around Willow Creek with her. However, they had all agreed, and that was the important part.

Skye offered Lisa his arm and they were off.

“Any tour of Willow Creek begins with the center of all activity here,” said Lisa. “It’s a place known as TD’s. That stands for Tastee Delight, and that is where I am going to buy you an ice-cream sundae.”

They walked together toward the shopping center where TD’s was located.

“I meant to ask you where Stevie and Carole were
going this afternoon. You seemed disappointed not to be able to go with them.”

“I hoped nobody noticed,” Lisa said. “I was disappointed, but it seemed like such a silly thing. See, they were going to the mall to buy things for Colonel Hanson’s surprise birthday party.”

Skye’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that sounds great! I bet Carole’s dad is going to love it.”

“I’m sure he is, even if we don’t come up with something clever and wonderful to do at the party.” Then Lisa had an idea. “Don’t you go to a lot of parties in Hollywood where people are forever doing clever things that get written up in magazines? Do you have any suggestions for us?”

“Hmmm,” Skye said thoughtfully. “Well, there was one party where somebody had their swimming pool filled with champagne.…”

“But then you couldn’t swim!” Lisa said, quite horrified. She loved to swim.

“Exactly,” Skye said. “I hated the party, but it
did
get written up in a magazine. Then there was another party I got invited to where the host flew everybody on a couple of jets to his mountaintop hideaway in the Rockies.…”

“I think that’s a little beyond our budget,” Lisa said woefully.

“It wasn’t any fun anyway,” Skye said. “Most of the
people there were more concerned with the fact that they had been invited to this exclusive party than with the idea of having fun. It was awful. Besides, the studio made me go with my co-star as a date, and she was a real pain.”

“Is all this your way of telling me that these fancy Hollywood parties aren’t any fun?” Lisa said, now disillusioned.

“Not really. Sometimes they are fun. But to tell you the truth, when I think of fun birthday parties, I think of the ones I used to go to before I became an actor. I think of games and balloons and, best of all, magicians. Now, in my opinion, a good magician
makes
a birthday party.”

“Maybe, but do you think that’s right for a man who is turning forty? Besides, a magician is a little out of our budget, too. All we can really do is get some good snacks, cook a few things, make a tasty punch, and put up some decorations. Believe me, Colonel Hanson is a terrific man. If we could afford it, we’d fly him and all his friends to a mountaintop hideway in the Rockies.”

Skye laughed and then smiled at Lisa. It was a smile Lisa had seen a dozen times on the screen and one that made most teenage girls—including Lisa Atwood—positively melt and swoon. In person, however, it didn’t have the knee-melting quality that millions of girls adored. It was the warm and genuine smile of a warm and genuine friend. Lisa smiled back.

“This,” she gestured grandly at the motley collection of shops in front of her, “is Willow Creek’s shopping center. As you can see, we have two shoe stores, a supermarket, a liquor store, one jewelry shop—we used to have something they called a health spa, but it got sick and went out of business—and, most important, TD’s. Come, be my guest!”

“I’d be charmed,” Skye said. He followed her into the ice-cream shop.

It was after six o’clock, and only a few patrons were in TD’s. Lisa took Skye over to The Saddle Club’s favorite booth, the one in the far corner. One of Lisa’s friends from school, Eloise Marshall, was at the counter, buying a quart of ice cream to take out. She came over to the table and said hello to Lisa and Skye. Lisa introduced her to Skye, though it was obvious that Eloise knew who Skye was.

“You missed a history test today,” Eloise said.

That struck Lisa as odd. “You and I aren’t in the same history section,” Lisa reminded Eloise. “We had our test last week.”

“Oh,” Eloise said, and then blushed a deep pink. “Well, see you around,” she stammered. “Nice to meet you, uh … Skye.” The final word fairly oozed out of Eloise’s mouth before the girl fled from TD’s, leaving her change on the counter.

“I wonder what’s the matter with her?” Lisa mused.

“It’s me,” Skye said. “Sometimes I have that effect on the most normal people.”

“And, to be sure, Eloise is the most normal person you’ll ever want to meet. Oh, well. What would you like? The ice cream is wonderful, and so are all the toppings. Trust me. I’ve tried every one of them.”

“Hi, Lisa,” the waitress said. Lisa hadn’t known that she knew her name. “Your friends were here before. They looked lonely without you, but I can see you were busy.” She smiled brightly. Lisa had never seen her behave this way. Usually she wasn’t the least bit friendly. “What’ll it be?”

“Hot fudge on vanilla for me,” Lisa said.

“Me, too,” Skye agreed.

“We’ve got a special on extra toppings,” the waitress went on. “Walnuts or almonds are free today for good customers. We’ll toss in a maraschino cherry, too.”

“Almonds, no cherry,” Skye said.

The waitress jotted a note to herself and walked away before she could even hear that Lisa didn’t want anything extra.

“I’m beginning to see your problem,” Lisa said as she watched the waitress wander away.

“The trouble is that it becomes
your
problem when you’re around me,” he said.

“I don’t mind. I’m just surprised the way some people are transformed by somebody famous.”

“You never were awed by me, were you?” Skye asked.

“Of course I was,” Lisa said. “But remember, the first time I met you, you had just been thrown from a horse and you needed my help.”

“How could I forget?” Skye asked. “There you were, a knight in shining armor—come to my rescue!”

“Hi, Lisa!” A warm greeting interrupted her conversation with Skye. Lisa looked up. It was Melanie Winkler. She was a classmate of Lisa’s, and she was Eloise’s best friend. She was also a health-food nut, and her diet did
not
include ice cream. Lisa knew immediately that she hadn’t just dropped into TD’s to pick up some ice cream for the family dessert.

Lisa introduced her to Skye. Melanie, it turned out, had seen every movie Skye had been in, and she wanted to talk about all of them with him. She also just happened to be carrying her favorite Skye Ransom poster, and would it be possible for him to autograph it?

Skye thanked her for her interest in his career, autographed the poster, and waited for her to leave. She didn’t move. By then, she almost couldn’t because she’d been joined by four other friends who just “happened” to be stopping by for a cone or a quart or to order an ice-cream cake. They all also just happened to have something
Skye could autograph. He willingly signed his name for all of them. Then, although Lisa could hardly believe it when she thought about it later, one of the girls actually reached over and took Skye’s water glass.

“I have his fingerprints, girls!” she shrieked, and then ran from the restaurant, sloshing water with every step.

“I think it’s time for us to leave now,” Lisa said. Skye nodded and they both started to stand up.

“Oh, you want him all to yourself,” one of the girls said. “We’re not good enough for you now that you’ve gone
Hollywood
!”

It wasn’t a true or fair thing to say, and it made Lisa very angry. She was not the one who was behaving badly. It was her schoolmates, and she intended to give them a piece of her mind when the movie was finished. For now, all she wanted to do was get out of TD’s.

Quickly Lisa fished into her wallet and put enough money on the table to cover the sundaes they’d never eat. Then she and Skye had to push through the crowd to get to the door, where they were greeted by an arriving horde of six more girls.

“There he
is
!” two of them shrieked at once. Girls Lisa had once thought of as her friends started running toward her and Skye in an uncontrolled frenzy.

Lisa panicked. How were they ever going to get out of this mess, and how could she have gotten Skye into it?

“This way!” Skye said urgently, taking her hand. The two of them moved quickly, almost running down the steps and out the door, and within a short time Lisa found herself following Skye into the backseat of a limousine that was magically waiting for them. The door closed firmly and the locks snapped protectively, shielding the two of them from a fast-growing crowd. Majestically the limousine pulled out of the shopping-center parking lot and turned onto the main road.

“Where did
this
come from?” Lisa asked, looking around her.

“It was Oliver’s condition,” Skye explained, a little embarrassed. “He said we could walk around, but that the car had to be there in case we needed it. He suspected this might happen.”

“Wasn’t that nice of him,” Lisa said.