Catch a Falling Star (33 page)

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parents, but I wanted to let you know you don’t need to worry

about T.J. Shay, okay? That kid’s not going to bother your brother

anymore.” He rested a cool hand on my shoulder.

“Really?” This felt too simple, too easy, that Adam could just

make a call and —
poof!
— the bad guy’s gone. Of course, T.J.

wasn’t the real problem; he was just feeding on the real problem.

And the world had plenty of T.J.s.

Investigator Meadows let his hand drop away from my shoul-

der. “What happened to your brother in there, well, that looks bad

right now, but it was the sort of thing we needed to grab T.J. and

his brother. They messed around in waters they weren’t prepared

to swim in, if you know what I mean. Been watching too many

mafia movies, in my opinion, and got a bit big for their britches.

What a couple of idiots.”

I didn’t know the details, but if Investigator Meadows had

bought my brother some time to figure himself out, I had no way

to repay him. “Thank you.”

He pulled out a phone, frowned at the screen. “You’re wel-

come,” he said, tucking it back into his pocket. “And tell Adam I

said hello. Hope he doesn’t have to hold a gun in this movie. That

kid couldn’t hold a gun to save his life.” Laughing, he walked

toward a silver sedan, got inside, and drove off down the curve

of driveway.

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twenty-one

“wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Adam sat on the edge of my

bed, holding a coffee and some sort of Danish.

I pul ed the covers to my nose, peering into the dim light of my

bedroom. “What time is it?” I mumbled. “What kind of Danish is that?”

“Apple. And get dressed. We’re going on a little trip.” He

poked at me through the covers. “Get. Up.”

I pulled the sheet over my head. “I work at eleven.”

He pulled the sheet back off my face. “Today you’re not work-

ing at all. I’m not long for Little, and I want to take you on a trip.”

I peered at him. For a guy who’d shot a movie all night, he

didn’t even look tired. “My brother’s in the hospital.”

“Okay, this is ridiculous.” He stood up and whipped the covers

from my bed.

I leaped up. “What if I’d been naked?”

“Then it would have been my lucky day.” He held up a sun-

dress. “Get dressed.”

“Another dress?” This one was pale pink with tiny parrots in

lime green and white all over it. “It has parrots on it.”

He tossed it at my head. “There’s a good chance you’ll have

your picture taken in that today.”

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“Will they ask me if Polly wants a cracker?” I held the dress up

against me.

“Oh, and you’ll need a swimsuit and a hat and something

warm to change into.” With that, he left the Danish and coffee on

my nightstand, and went to wait outside my door.

We drove to Tahoe. The trip started out in an ordinary enough

way. Once we got to Tahoe City, we veered right, stopped at Tahoe

House for sandwiches, more coffee, and a half dozen of their amaz-

ing raspberry pockets. A few photographers had managed to follow

us up there, snapping pictures as Adam smiled at the woman at

the counter. After giving a brief wave to the photographers in the

parking lot, we drove the pine-lined edge of the lake past Sunnyside,

blue flashes of lake breaking through the trees, and, at some point,

pulled into a private lakeside home.

I’d lived near Tahoe my whole life and never once set foot in

a house like this one. Mik punched in a code at the gate, and we

entered a shady circular driveway. The gate closed behind us, shut-

ting out the world. We got out of the car, and I just stared. The house

was massive. Whoever designed the house had clearly decided on

a theme of Mountain Extravagance. Seriously, a small forest must

have given its life for all the wood constructed in front of me.

We entered through two polished wood doors into a great

room with sweeping ceilings, angled wood beams, gleaming hard-

wood floors, and smooth granite counters. Adam had said we’d be

going to his friend’s “mountain cabin,” but this was the biggest

house I’d ever seen. Floor-to-ceiling windows showcased a stretch

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of green lawn, a private beach, and a wide blue yawn of Lake Tahoe.

I moved toward the window to take in the view of the lake.

When I was little, I’d thought Tahoe was the ocean. Once in a

while, my parents would drive us up for the day, and we’d play at

the park at Commons Beach. I would stand at the edge of the blue

water, looking out at the waves, the color changing in stripes of

blue and green and gray. It always seemed like the lake spread out

forever, the far mountains blurry.

“Some view, huh? Sweet cabin.” Adam came to stand beside

me at the window. He turned, dropping his bag onto the suede

couch in the center of the great room.

“And by cabin, you mean castle?” I couldn’t pull my eyes from

the view. At the end of a gray dock, a sleek speedboat bobbed lazily.

Adam followed my gaze. “Want to go for a ride?”

We cut the engine far out in the lake’s blue center, the air swirling

around us. The sudden silence crushed against my ears but was soon

replaced with the waves lapping the sides of the boat. We’d left Mik

on the dock, sprawled in a lawn chair, another romantic spy novel

half-finished in his big hands. Watching him stuffed into his chair,

his face serene, he became one more piece of all of this I would miss.

Adam turned from the wheel. He had flipped his hat backward,

and he seemed younger somehow, like a small boy playing with his

father’s tools. He must have noticed me watching him. “What?”

“Do you ever feel guilty about all you have?” I motioned to the

boat, but also back in the general direction of the house, a ges-

ture meant to imply —
all of it
. I kicked my legs onto the white

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cushioned cover of the engine, the boat’s rocking making me

sleepy. Everything that had happened with my brother last night

felt so far away, like the patchy memory of a dream. In a few weeks,

that might be what Adam felt like, too.

Adam pulled off his shirt, tossing it onto the seat next to him.

“Sure, sometimes.”

I tilted my head, tugging the brim of my hat lower, struck by

the way his skin gleamed in the sun. It was like he had no freckles

or imperfections or anything, just miles of bronzed skin. It wasn’t

fair. Turning my eyes to the water, I said, “I would feel guilty.”

“Do you feel guilty now?”

“A little.” I thought about all the magazines devoted to docu-

menting this life Adam led. Celebrity. Wealth. The amount of

energy people spent tracking it, wanting it, wishing for it. Mostly,

it was harmless. A distraction. For most people, celebrity was a

sort of pageant, and peeking in on that world gave them a visi-

ble fantasy, a grown-up version of dressing up like a princess or a

superhero. Celebrities were like exotic zoo animals, and most of

us just watched them through the glass, munching on popcorn.

But for people like my brother, people with darker, addictive

natures, that visible fantasy tipped too far into jealousy, into rest-

lessness, into trying to make something bigger out of something

small. He’d started gambling to win something, to be larger than

us in some way. And it ate him up.

“Thanks for what you did for John,” I told him. At his look of

surprise, I told him about Investigator Meadows coming to see me

last night at the hospital. “He’s hoping you don’t have to hold a gun

in this movie.”

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Adam laughed. “Hey, I got pretty good.”

“I’m sure.” The shadow of a bird passed over the water. “But,

seriously, thanks.”

“Celebrity has its privileges.”

“Obviously.”

We were quiet for a minute. “To answer your question, I pre-

fer to feel lucky,” Adam said finally over the sound of the waves.

He unwrapped a sandwich, chewed it thoughtfully, his sunglasses

full of reflected light and water. “I’ll admit it’s not fair. That I have

this life and other people don’t. Absolutely, it’s not fair. But we can

only live the life we’ve got.” He shrugged. “If I spend too much

time worrying that it’s better than someone else’s or not as good as

someone else’s, well, what a miserable way to spend my allotted

time on this planet. I don’t want to live like that.” He took another

bite of sandwich, staring out over the water.

I followed his lead, unwrapping my own sandwich. “Who

could possibly have a better life than you do?”

“George Clooney.”

I laughed. Wasn’t that a funny thing? Even Adam thought

someone had it better.

“But he’s old.”

Adam smiled at me, plucking a raspberry pocket out of the

white bag. “Good point. You’re right. No one has a better life than I

do.” But even as he said it, I saw the dark flicker I’d seen that night

stargazing when I’d teased him about his arrest, when the light from

a passing car had let me see the mask come off, even for a moment.

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We’d come to Tahoe partly because Adam’s friend was throwing a

party. I had yet to meet the friend, didn’t even know if he was

actually on site, but it wouldn’t be a small party. I could tell by the

setup. Adam told me it would be a press-free party, though, so I

didn’t need to worry about reporters. Still, he warned me, even

specially invited guests and catering staff couldn’t help but tweet

things, post things on Facebook, take pictures, so I should consider

it a public event. My stomach bubbled with nerves. So far, I hadn’t

had to play too much in his world. I had a sense that was about

to shift. The house glowed with lights, the energy building as a

catering company set up café tables and brought in mounds of food

from white vans parked in the circular driveway. A bartender

spread out glittering glassware and bottles.

Around seven thirty, people started buzzing at the gate. Within

a half hour, dozens of people milled through the house, stood out

on the deck or the lawn, holding cool drinks, chatting with one

another. Everyone seemed twenty-one, not a day older or younger.

Like life-size models for the Forever 21 stores. Most of the girls

wore sundresses similar to what I had on, their hair in various sum-

mery updos, and the guys wore collared shirts and Bermuda shorts,

but they all seemed partly gilded, diamond studs glittering in ear-

lobes, expensive watches on tanned wrists. They seemed straight

from the pages of
The Great Gatsby
, walking Instagram photos,

bronzed people, who played tennis and golf, darted down ski slopes

in the winter — all slightly bored, but still, each stealing glances at

Adam over the glimmering rims of their cocktails.

I hedged closer to the guy passing out the crab cakes.

Later, as I stood with Adam, who was sampling the shrimp tower,

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an electric sizzle moved through the room, and I could tell someone

important had just arrived. I craned my neck, making out a glossy,

dark ponytail. The ponytailed girl turned toward us, her smile flash-

ing, and I heard Adam mutter, “Oh, man, what is she doing here?”

Ashayla Wimm, her beauty like a tidal wave.

Adam vanished from my side. I scanned the room, trying to

see where he’d gone, but there was no sign of him.

Everyone watched Ashayla, this sudden, consuming center of

light. Everything else, everyone else became reflections, extras.

She worked the room, nodding to people, stopping to chat, her

body seemingly made of liquid.

Then Adam reappeared, like a seal diving then emerging again

in a separate space of ocean. Across the room, his back purpose-

fully to Ashayla, he spoke animatedly to a couple dressed in almost

identical striped polos. I drifted closer. He was telling them a story

from the set, something about Hunter flipping out over the pro-

testers returning, his gestures wide, his voice silvered, the story

captivating everyone near him, drawing them to him like moths.

They laughed exactly where he wanted them to laugh, eyes widen-

ing at all the right places. As he acted out the protester’s retreat,

their laughter buoying him, it was clear how much he needed them

to be watching
him
and not Ashayla.

As his story came to a close, Adam grabbed a cocktail from a

passing tray. He swallowed it in two gulps before the waiter had

even moved on. I wasn’t an expert, but I was pretty sure someone

right out of rehab wasn’t supposed to be sucking down martinis.

I set my half-eaten shrimp on the edge of the table. Watching

him, I couldn’t believe I’d ever, even for a moment, worried about

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something as small as that picture with Beckett Ray, couldn’t believe

I thought Adam and I had begun building a sort of something that

could exist as part of the same world, the same sky. I thought of the

article Chloe had brought to the café the other day: “The
Star and

the Moon.” The first headline I’d seen that hadn’t made some sort of