Teen Idol (8 page)

But lately catching rides with Scott hasn’t been all that much fun, on account of Geri Lynn’s moodiness. I mean, I’ll be sitting in the backseat, having a perfectly civil conversation with Scott about something or other—like
The Two Towers
and how I thought the ents looked kind of Jar Jar Binks-ish or whatever, a fact he strenuously denies—and suddenly Geri Lynn will interrupt with something like this:

Geri Lynn: Scott, did you remember to ask Ellis Floral if they were running their annual Spring Fling special clip
’
n
’
save coupon on corsages
?

And then the conversation goes from ents and Jar Jar Binks to this:

Scott: No, Geri, I didn’t ask Ellis Floral if they were running their annual Spring Fling special clip ’n’ save coupon on corsages because that’s Charlene’s job. She’s in charge of ad placements.
Geri Lynn: Scott, your duty as editor in chief is to oversee
all
aspects of the paper. You can’t expect Charlene, who is a freshman and wasn’t even at Clayton last year for the Spring Fling, to remember to ask Ellis Floral if they’re running another special
.
Me: Um, actually, Geri, I noticed their ad didn’t have the coupon when I was laying that page out, so I called them and they are, so I put it in.
Geri Lynn: Well, it’s good to know
someone
on staff is paying attention
.

See? Talk about uncomfortable. It’s just easier to get a ride with Steve.

As Luke and I emerged from our session at the
Register
—yeah, he even came to my after-school meeting at the paper. How interesting could
that
have been for him? Although he and Geri Lynn did get into a pretty spirited argument about a celebrity’s right to privacy, with Geri insisting that journalists play an important part in building up a celebrity’s status and that anybody who willingly takes on a job in the public eye should expect to be stalked by paparazzi and Luke, not surprisingly, having a different view of things. Luke went, "So that was a typical day in your life?"

"Yeah," I said. "I guess so."

It was kind of weird to think about—you know, your life from somebody else’s perspective. Especially somebody who has such a
different
sort of life from mine. I mean, my life must seem really, really boring to Luke, compared to his own, which I’m sure is filled with invitations to club openings, stints on talk shows, movie premieres, nude scenes, chocolate body paint, and that sort of thing.

But Luke didn’t say anything about it. I mean, about how boring my life is compared to his. Instead, he said, "Okay, then."

Okay, then
? What did
that
mean? What was
up
with this guy? Why couldn’t I figure out what made him tick? I mean, that’s what I
do
.

It was right at that moment that Steve pulled up in his Chevette, and Trina leaned out and was all, "Going our way?"

Which of course I fully was. But it turned out Luke had other plans.

"Sorry," he said. "I’m meeting someone."

Of course it was totally ridiculous that the new guy should be "meeting someone" at five o'clock in front of the Clayton High flagpole his very first day there But neither Trina nor Steve seemed to think anything about it. They just went, "Okay, bye," and, after I’d piled into the car, drove away.

Neither of them, of course, turned in their seat and looked back. Because if they had, they would have seen a big black limo pull up into the turnaround a few seconds after we’d pulled away and Luke high-five whoever was inside it before climbing in himself.

All I could think was,
Where did he get that limo
? Because there is no limo company in Clayton. Our town is too small to support one, since the only time people here ever need one is at the Spring Fling.

Anyway, that was when Trina started talking about Luke. Or Lucas, I should say. She talked about him all the way home, and then, after dinner, when I went upstairs to do my homework, she e-mailed me about him.

All she could talk about was Lucas this and Lucas that. Did I think Lucas had liked his first day at Clayton High? Did I know why his parents had decided to move so late in the school year? Why hadn’t he stayed at his old school? He could only have had a few months to go before graduation. Wasn’t he going to miss graduating with his old friends? Did he like living out by the lake? Did he have a girlfriend at his old school? Did I think it was serious?

And the clincher, the one I’d been dreading all day:

Didn’t I think Lucas looked uncannily like Luke Striker?

I tried to answer Trina’s questions as best I could without outright lying, but of course it was hard. I mean, I
had
to lie for a few of them. It was turning out to be no joke, student guiding a movie star. You know, really, Mr. Mitchell should be
paying
me for letting Luke follow me around. There was a lot of work involved. . . .

Not the least of which was the abuse I’d had to put up with from Luke himself. That night, as I lay in bed, looking up at my canopy—I had been nuts for princesses as a kid and had begged and begged for a princess bed, so my mom, being an interior decorator and all, had gotten me the most princessy bed available in southern Indiana, and now I was fully stuck with it—I thought about what Luke had said to me outside the caf about Cara.

Luke hadn’t known what he was talking about, of course. I mean, he didn’t know the effort I’d put into being nice to Cara, all the times I’d run after her into the bathroom, all the tears I’d mopped up, all the advice I’d given her (none of which she’d taken). He didn’t know about my being Ask Annie and all the letters from Cara I’d answered. He didn’t know how much worse it might actually have been for Cara if I hadn’t been around.

And he
really
didn’t know what it was like to be me. It was exhausting, frankly. Between Cara and the Ask Annie thing and the Trina and Steve thing and the kidnapping of Betty Ann and the arm movements in Troubadours . . .

It’s a wonder I even get up in the morning, really.

I have to admit, I didn’t really expect to see Luke the next day. I mean, after all the problems he’d had waking up the day before, the lack of espresso on school grounds, the Salisbury steak—not to mention the whole Cara thing—I figured he’d probably had enough. He might have been dedicated to his craft and all, but who would put up with conditions like those? Especially a millionaire.

So when he walked into Latin the next morning, I nearly choked. He had abandoned the football jersey for something that looked like it had been woven out of one of those Mexican blankets, open at the chest to reveal one of those pooka shell necklaces surfers always wear. He’d ditched the cross trainers, too, in favor of suede Pumas.

Plus he’d managed to find some espresso . . . or at least a latte grande, in a tall paper cup. He looked a thousand times more awake than he had the day before.

"Hey, Jen," he said, sliding into the seat behind me.

I have to admit, I was shocked to see him. What was he
doing
here? I’d been sure that he wouldn’t be coming back. Sure of it.

Only now he was back. He hadn’t disappeared after all.

I turned around and whispered, glad the second bell hadn’t rung yet so there weren’t a lot of people in the room, "What are you
doing
here?"

Luke blinked at me from behind the wire-rimmed glasses. "What do you mean? I’m staying for two weeks. Didn’t they tell you?"

"Um, yeah," I whispered, "but I just . . . I just figured. . . ."

"I was a quick study?" Luke smiled. It was the same smile that had melted hearts all over the world when he’d flashed it at Angelique Tremaine’s Guinevere. And, I’ll admit, it gave me a flutter.

But not enough of one not to be all, "Luke—"

"Lucas," he corrected me.

"Lucas, then. You . . . I mean, you so obviously hated it here." And then, because I felt I had to, I added, "Hated me, too."

The smile disappeared. "What are you talking about, Jen? I don’t hate you."

"But the whole Cara thing—"

"Well, yeah," he said with a grimace. "That wasn’t too pleasant. But after you yelled at me, I got . . . curious."

"Curious? About what?" Then I added hastily, "And I never yelled at you. I was just—"

"Letting off steam. I know. Still." He opened the latte and released its rich aroma into the air. "I want to see how it all turns out."

I stared at him like he was nuts. "How
what
turns out?" I asked him. "What are you talking about?"

But I never found out, because just then the bell rang.

I wouldn’t say that, after that moment, Luke and I started getting along like—well, like Lancelot and Guinevere or anything. I mean, he still walked around with this little frown on his face a lot of the time . . . especially when there wasn’t anything worth frowning over going on at all. Like when Courtney Deckard and her friends walked by us in the hall, they’d all lower their gazes to Luke’s feet, then slowly lift them along the length of his body, until they met his eyes. Then they’d smile.

Why should
this
make him frown? That’s how the popular crowd communicates. Everyone knows this. They are checking out his outfit to make sure it’s regulation trendy. This is status quo for the popular set.

Other times, he seemed to find stuff that wasn’t funny at all totally hilarious. Like during show choir rehearsal. Luke seemed to find Mr. Hall’s constant nagging of me to "quit sloughing off" and get Trina her hat faster during "All That Jazz" absolutely thigh-slappingly funny.

Although I honestly don’t know what cracked him up so much about that. It’s no joke, trying to get from the top of the riser down to the bottom in time for the sopranos cancan, or whatever it was. I finally figured out that if I threw Trina the hat from the top of the riser, she could get it in time to join the kick line with Karen Sue Walters and all those guys.

I’m not the world’s best thrower, but Trina is an excellent catcher, so that seemed to work. At least, Mr. Hall quit yelling at me and moved on to yell at the baritones.

I guess after his initial shock at the barbarism existing in a modern-day high school, Luke mellowed out a little. Even lunch seemed not to faze him. It helped that the second day, he brought his own. Of course, that nearly blew his cover—or at least I thought so—since the lunch he brought had so obviously been flown in from Indianapolis. I mean, there are no sushi places in Clayton. We don’t even have a limo company! How are we going to have sushi?

But Luke—pretty smoothly, I thought—explained that he’d made the sushi himself, with tuna from the fish counter at Mr. D's. I have to admit, this almost made me choke on my Diet Coke. But Luke said it so matter-of-factly that even Scott believed him. In fact, the two of them got into this whole conversation about sushi-grade tuna and flash freezing. I had no idea what they were talking about, but I was pleased that my friends were making an effort to make the new guy feel welcome. . . .

Until I remembered Luke wasn’t actually "the new guy." He was the former star of
Heaven Help Us
, ex-boyfriend of Angelique Tremaine, a breathtaking Tarzan in his loincloth, and a heroic and tragic Lancelot. It was a testament to Luke’s acting skills, I suppose, that even
I
began to think of him as Lucas Smith, transfer student. He didn’t break out of the character of Lucas at all that next day—

Except for once. And that was right after first period, when he learned of the kidnapping of Betty Ann Mulvaney.

"Why are you taking Latin?" Luke asked me as we moved toward my locker after class. "I mean, isn’t it a dead language? Nobody even speaks it anymore."

"It’s good to know," I said, using the standard response I give everyone. Because the truth is too weird to explain. "For the SATs."

"You don’t need it," Luke said with kind of an alarming amount of confidence for someone who’d only met me twenty-four hours ago. "You work for the school paper. You know all about grammar and stuff. What are you
really
taking it for?"

Maybe because he’s older—only nineteen, but much older than most nineteen-year-olds, considering he has his own house in the Hollywood Hills and that his paychecks are about ten million dollars more than what my dad makes every year, not to mention his commitment tattoo and all—I told him the truth.

"I heard Mrs. Mulvaney was a really good teacher," I whispered in case Courtney Deckard or any of her friends might be around, listening. "So I signed up for her class."

Luke understood even better than I thought he would.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "That’s like in acting. If you want to work with a really good director, you take the part, no matter what it is or what the movie’s about. Only . . . well, no offense, but Mrs. M. doesn’t seem all that great. I mean, she just kind of seems to . . . be there."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. Well, right
now
. She’s a little off these days, on account of Betty Ann."

Luke asked who Betty Ann was, and I told him. I guess I told him a little too much—like the rumor about how Mrs. Mulvaney hadn’t been able to have kids and that Betty Ann was her substitute baby, in a way. The truth was, I was still worried. About what Kurt and those guys were going to do to Betty Ann. Because I didn’t think any of them were smart enough to realize how important Betty Ann was to Mrs. Mulvaney. I mean, to Mrs. M., Betty Ann isn’t just a doll or the school mascot or anything. She’s kind of like . . . well, family.

Telling Luke that was a mistake, though.

"Kidnapped her?" he practically yelled, right there in the hallway. "What for?'

"It’s a prank," I explained. "The senior prank."

"Oh, yeah, very funny," he said. "When are they going to give her back?"

"Well, after graduation, I guess," I said. I hoped.

But that wasn’t a good enough answer.

"
After
graduation?" Luke was appalled. "Do you know who did it? Who has her?"

"Well," I said. "Yeah."