Starburst (15 page)

Fletcher
kind of laughed. “I’m sure you will,” and then he lost her again when she
stared out the window, looking down Garner Street. The street that if you took
a left, and then a right with three more blocks would take you to Trevas’s
apartment. She could feel the tears behind her eyes, and she closed them
tightly, trying to stop it.

She
wondered if he was home or if he was working, and then she felt a burning in
her chest, feeling once again, as though she was suffocating. “I have to go to
the bathroom,” she told her dad as soon as they entered into the building.

Alley
sat on the toilet and buried her face in her hands, rocking back and forth
trying her best to get a grip and not, psycho out right there, and turn back
into the cocoon that she had been for the past three days right there on the
bathroom floor.

She
was washing her face and patting it dry with a paper towel when Lidia, one of
her dad’s co-workers came to check on her.

“Hey
kiddo, you okay in here? Your dad was getting worried.”

“Yeah
I’m fine, just got a little woozy,” she replied. She had known Lidia pretty
much her whole life and wondered if she could talk to her. Maybe if, she could
just tell someone and get it out, she would feel better. She stopped that notion
very quickly, and knew she wouldn’t chance her telling her dad.

There
were four people sitting at the table, her dad, Gary Flowers, who she had also
known her whole life. Stella Gains was an agent, sitting next to him and then
Lidia the director’s assistant beside of her. Alley sat on the end next to her
dad, and they talked to the first girl and explained what they were looking
for. She hadn’t gotten two paragraphs out before Alley made a buzzer noise,
disqualifying her.

“Alley
stop it,” her dad disciplined, turning to her slumped in the chair next to him.
She didn’t make any more noises, but laughed at the thought of this girl
playing Peanut Silks.

Once
the girl had left the room they all turned to Alley and asked what she didn’t
like about her. They had all thought she did a decent job and would consider
her.

“Have
any of you read the book?” she asked. “That girl is like a giant. Peanut Silks
had a hell of time even making it into the army. She was a small, dainty girl. She
lived on Big Mac’s for three months and did everything she could to build
muscle just to make the weight.”

They
all thought about it, and either crossed her name off or scratched the notes
that they had been taking.

She
was no more impressed with the next girl or the next or the next and every time
they would leave the room they would turn to get her opinion.

“You
had to like her,” her dad said after the fourth girl.

“No,
not at all.”

“Why?”
Gary asked, this time.

“Peanut
Silks was a hard ass. She had a tough life. That girl is way too prissy to play
Peanut Silks and what the f---,” she stopped herself before saying the F word,
and they all laughed. “What the heck is up with all of the smiling, and she
definitely didn’t walk like that.”

“Why
don’t you show us who Peanut Silks is, little Alley,” Gary spoke, getting extremely
annoyed with her, and wishing her dad would have left her at home.

Alley
gave him a death glare and almost told him where to go, but for some reason she
didn’t, and she wanted to show them all who Peanut Silks was. She would be so
mad if they messed up this book.

She
kicked the chair from under her and sat at the one in front of them.

“You
read Milk’s part,” she demanded to Gary. “I’m not talking to myself.”

“Do
you want a script?” he asked, flipping his to the correct pages.

“I
don’t need a script. I’ve read the book, just read, ass hole.”

“Alley!”
her dad scolded.

“Sorry,
ready when you are.”

Gary
had some sort of smart smile on his face, like he was going to enjoy this, and
she wanted to get up and knock it off of him.

“What’s
your name?” he started.

“The
same as yours, leave me alone,”

“You’re
quite the artist,”

“And
you are quite irritating, what do you want?”

“You
painted up my building. We have to do something about that.”

“Go
fuck yourself, I aint doing shit for you.”

“Well,
I guess I’m just going to have the get the cops involved then,”

“So…
wouldn’t be the first time. At least they have hot food and beds,” Alley came
back with everything he said with the perfect attitude and body language,
without a script. Yes, none of it was word for word but she pretty much nailed
it head on.

They
continued their simulation for twenty minutes and Alley stopped him. “That’s
enough, you get the picture.” She wondered why they all looked so bewildered
and confused, even her dad, as she went back to her seat and waited for the
next girl.

“What?”
she finally asked them all staring at her like she had two heads or something.

“Alley,
you have to play this part,” Lidia, was the one to throw it out.

Alley
almost choked on her own saliva. “Whatever,” she exclaimed.

“Alley
you are that girl, you are exactly what we are looking for,” Gary begged.

Alley
was no stranger to any of this. She grew up on a set and knew exactly what it
was all about and she wanted no part of it.

“You
are all crazy, forget it. I just didn’t want you to screw up the book by
putting some yuppie in in it. Forget it. I’m going to get something to drink.”
She got up and left the group alone.

“Fletcher,
you have got to talk her into this. Please,” Lidia begged. “She is perfect, the
perfect height, the perfect weight and the attitude just comes natural for
her.”

“Lidia,
you have known Alley long enough to know that Alley doesn’t do anything she doesn’t
want to do. She hates the spotlight. She will never agree to this.”

“You
have to try Fletcher, we have a month, you have a month, I should say. Do this
Fletcher,” she begged. “You owe it to us after sabotaging the last movie.”

“How
long are you going to hang that over my head?” he asked, exasperated at his lifelong
co-pilot.

“I’m
not sure, until we see if your stupidity hurts the movie or not,” Lidia spoke
the truth.

The
ride home was quiet, and Fletcher never mentioned the movie. Alley had her
headphones in place and stared blankly out the window. She didn’t want to go
back home. It did help getting out of the house, and she didn’t want to go back
there.

Alley
went straight to her room and closed the curtain that her dad had opened. She
lay on the bed with her boots still on and cried, once again in anguish. She held
the pendant clinched in her hand and held her hand to her lips.

Trevas’s
day went just about as well. He wanted to do absolutely nothing and everything
that he tried to do, he lost interest quickly and ended up back in the same
chair. He stared into space blankly and continued to ignore the phone calls. His
mother called again in the evening, and left a message that she was getting
worried about him, and to please call her. He ignored that too, but she
wouldn’t give it up and dialed him over and over and over until finally he couldn’t
take it anymore and answered, which is what she knew or was hoping that he
would do.

“MOM… WHAT!” He
yelled.

“Trevas I have been
worried sick about you. I haven’t heard a word from you for almost a week.”

“Probably because I
didn’t want to talk to you, or Anna,” he added, knowing that her and his sister
had talked, and he was annoyed with all of her calls too.

“Was it bad?” she
asked, in a soft understanding, mom kind of way.

“It was horrible mom.
I can’t get the image of her placing her hand on my chest and looking up to me,
saying my name, out of my head. She was so scared, and there was so much hurt
in her eyes, and her unstable voice. It has haunted me for days. I am so ready
to call her and tell her to meet me at the gate and just take her away. I can’t
take it mom. What am I supposed to do? I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, and I can’t
work. It just doesn’t stop.”

“Have you talked to
her?”

“No, I can’t but I
just wished I knew if she was okay, maybe that would help.”

“Do you want me to
call her?”

“I
don’t know. She will know that I put you up to it. I’m just so afraid that she
thinks that I’m back to living my life and have forgotten all about her.”

“Trevas I don’t know
what to say. I can’t make this better for you.”

“I know, I’ll be okay,
I just need a few more days.”

“No. You need to go
back to work and get your mind on something else. I saw the pictures of her
online,” she added. “She didn’t look good.”

“What pictures?”

“You didn’t see them?”

“No I haven’t even
turned on the computer. Oh, you mean the one where she flipped off the
paparazzi?” he said, remembering their day of arrival. “She did that when we
were going through the gate at her house.”

“Yes that one and
another one, where she was standing on a balcony.”

Trevas powered on his
computer while they talked. He didn’t open them up until he hung up, not sure
of what his reaction would be. He told his mom that he loved her and would talk
to her in a day or two. She told him if there was anything she could do, to
call.

Trevas opened the
internet and typed in her name. He clicked on the first one of her flipping off
the cameras, and it looked exactly how his mind pictured it. He opened up the
next one, and it had been taken earlier that day, and the headline read, “Alley
Fletcher, daughter of Peyton Paxton and Nicholas Fletcher, rebels against father’s
recent affair with best friend, Brooke Austin.” He clicked on the picture to
enlarge it and was in total disbelief. She stood on her balcony with the
lighter and ivory pipe to her mouth. Her hair was down and looked like it
hadn’t been washed in a month. She was wearing his t-shirt, and he couldn’t
tell if she had anything on underneath or not. The shirt was long, and most of
her shorts were very short. Her eyes were so puffy, and as he read through the
article he realized for the first time why she hated the paparazzi so much. It
was all lies and talked about her eyes being the eyes of a drug addict. They
had no idea what she was going through or anything about her, and it infuriated
him to no end to read what they were saying about her.

Fletcher saw it too,
when her mother called him, seeing it first. He went straight to her room, with
laptop in hand. He opened the door, and she was laying in her fetal position
again, and he flipped on the light. She jumped up and turned, startled.

“What are you doing?
What do you want?” she screamed.

Fletcher was ready to fly
into her until he saw her and then he couldn’t do it. “Alley, please tell me
what is wrong. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

“I don’t need your
fucking help. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Do you need help
Alley? Are you into drugs?”

Alley responded with
half of a laugh. “No. I do not need help, and I’m not on drugs.”

“Than what the hell is
this?” he asked, dropping the laptop to the bed for her to see.

She blinked away tears
to see what the fuss was all about, and laughed, slamming his laptop closed.
“That is the life that was chosen for me.”

“Alley what are you
smoking?” he wanted to know.

“It’s weed and don’t
worry it’s all gone. I had to do something to make it through the day with you.”

“Alley, why are you
crying?” he asked, in a more civil tone, wanting so bad to help her and not
knowing what to do.

“Don’t worry about it
dad. It has nothing to do with you, so you’re off the hook, go feel guilty
about something else.”

“Alley what do you
want from me? I don’t know what to do with you.”

“I don’t want you to
do anything. I want out of this house. I want my mom!” she screamed, and
decided that, that was what she really wanted. She wanted out of that house
where Trevas was. Where everything she saw there, reminded her of him. She
wanted to go home to her mom, but she too was too busy to be there for her.

“I just talked to your
mother. She will be home in a few days.”

“Of course she will,”
Alley snapped. She got up and shoved past him and went out and sat by the pool
and now stared into the darkness.

Fletcher left her
alone and looked out periodically to her sitting in the exact same position,
not moving as if she was a statue that was carved for a pool ornament. He went
into his office around ten and called her mother.

“Hi, Fletcher,” she
answered and he could tell that she was at a party or a club, because of the
loud music, and he was instantly pissed. She was off having a festivity of some
sort and he was left to deal with their teenaged daughter.

“When are you coming
home?” he asked, in a not so pleasant tone.

“The first part of
next week, probably, why?” she asked, alarmed.

“Are you done
working?”

“Yes, we finished up
today. Why, what’s going on Fletcher?”

“What the hell do you
mean, what is going on? You are the one that called me. Didn’t you see our
daughter? She has been like that for a week. I don’t know what is wrong with
her, and I don’t know how to help her.”

“What’s wrong… is her
daddy was out screwing her only friend in the world,” she snapped at him.

“Peyton, I don’t think
that’s it. Something bad happened while I was gone, but she won’t talk to me.”

“What do you mean
something bad happened?”

“I don’t know. I just
know something is wrong.”

“I think you are over
reacting, and I think she is upset over your stupid little stunt.”

“She screamed that she
wanted her mom at me earlier.”

“She did?”

“Yes Peyton and I
think you need to come home now, not in a few days.”

“Where is she? Let me
talk to her.”

“She is out at the
pool. She has been sitting in the same position for over an hour now.”

“Take your phone to
her,” Peyton demanded.

Fletcher walked out
the glass door, and she didn’t turn until he was right beside of her. He handed
the phone down to her. “Your mom wants to talk to you,” he said quietly, and it
broke his heart when she looked up at him to take it. There was so much pain in
her eyes that he almost started crying himself.

“Mom,” she said in a
voice that now made her mother worry.

“Alley baby, what’s
going on?”

“When are you coming
home?”

“I will get the first
flight out, but it is a twenty to twenty five hour flight. I will be home as
soon as I can get there Alley,” she promised, deciding at that moment that she
indeed was heading home as soon as she could get there.

“Come and get me.”

“I will baby, tell me
what’s wrong, Alley.”

“Nothing is wrong. I
just want you to come home.”

“Okay, honey. I will
get the first flight out.”

Alley didn’t say
another word and handed the phone back to her dad.

“I will be home as
soon as I can get there Fletcher,” Peyton told him and wished she could go
right that moment.

Once they hung up it
dawned on Fletcher to call Trevas. Maybe he had some idea of what was going on
with her.

Trevas did answer that
call with his heart at his feet, worried that something happened.

“Evans,” he answered
as he always did.

“Hey Trevas, its
Fletcher, I was hoping we could talk about Alley.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”
he asked.

“I’m
not sure, she has done nothing but stay in her bed and cry for a week. I
thought it was because of my senseless incident with Brooke, but I really don’t
think that is it. She won’t talk to me, and I have no idea what is going on in
her head. Did something happen in Utah?”

“No…
not that I’m aware of, I was close by the whole time. She never talked the
whole ride home, but I didn’t think much of it,” he lied. “She never talked
much,” he added.

He
felt like such a scoundrel and felt like he was throwing her under the bus. He
wanted so bad to tell him that she was hurting, and it was all because of him,
but knew that he couldn’t. There was nothing at all he could do to help her, nothing
that wouldn’t send him to prison anyway.

“What
about drugs, did you see her doing anything?”

That
made Trevas angry, but he hid it well. “No. I’m one hundred percent sure she is
not on drugs.”

Fletcher
abruptly had to go when he watched Alley walk into the spare bedroom where
Trevas slept when he was there.

He
opened the door to find her under the covers in the dark.

“Alley,
what are you doing?” he asked, not understanding.

“I
don’t want to sleep in my room. I’m sleeping down here tonight.”

“Why?”
he asked.

“Why
do you have to fucking analyze, everything? I just told you why, because I
don’t want to sleep in my room.”

Fletcher
closed the door and ran his hand through his short cropped hair. He couldn’t
wait for her mother to come home. He didn’t know how much more of this he could
take.

Alley
turned Trevas’s pillow sideways and lay across it. She closed her eyes and
pretended as though she was lying on his chest with the pendant held in her
hand, touching her lips.

She
thought about how she had been treating her dad and felt guilty. She hadn’t used
her acquired mouth trick in days and spat out whatever was on her mind. She did
feel comforted laying in his bed but, it didn’t last and the tears that she had
no idea where they were coming from began to flow again. She had to bite the
pillow when the uncontrollable scream escaped. She knew she had to get over
this and had to straighten up but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t
imagine her life without Trevas. She knew that she would never love anyone like
this ever again. She wouldn’t let herself.

Alley
lay awake for hours in the dark, pulling the pendant apart and letting the
attraction of the magnets, snap back together, over and over. When exhaustion finally
took over, and she thought she would finally fall asleep, she held the pendant
tight in her hand, right next to her heart and rolled back to his pillow to
fall asleep in his arms, nestled up to his imaginary chest.

Trevas
lay awake too, worrying sick about her and willing her to pull herself
together. He wanted to call but was to terrified that it would only set her
back and refrained. The last time that he looked at the clock before his own exhaustion
took over was three in the morning.

When
Alley woke she was surprised that it was nine o’clock, and she felt rested for
the first time in a week. She lay in bed for a while and thought about what day
it was. Her days had run together so much that she realized she didn’t even
know. She thought about it and counted in her head. Friday was the last night
she had seen him, and she recollected each waking morning to determine that it
was only Friday, and it seemed a lot longer to her. She felt like she hadn’t
seen him in months, when really it had only been seven days.

She
then thought about the month. She knew that it was July but had no clue of the
day. She searched for her lost phone amongst the covers and after reading the
text from her mother, letting her know that she had gotten a flight out at two
a.m. her time, and should arrive one or two in the morning the next day, she figured
the date to be July 16
^th
, and then it hit her, what this day was.

 It
was four years that day that her nanny, Maria had passed away. She wished that
she was there to talk to. She could tell Maria anything, and she knew that she
would understand and tell her what to do. She was closer to Maria than anyone
in her life. Maria was the one that was with her through her growing up years.
She was the one that took her to the dentist, to the mall, the movies and there
were even a few birthdays that she could remember that Maria was the only one
with her because her parents had been off making movies some place. Maria was
the only one, up until Trevas that she could laugh with, cry and talk to her
about anything, and her heart was now not only missing Trevas but Maria too.

Alley
sat up and searched for the necklace around her neck. She opened it and looked
inside and then let it snap back together. She walked out and her dad was
sitting at the dining room table with papers strung about.