Epic Fail (13 page)

Chapter Sixteen

T
hat night, I was clicking back and forth between my English paper and an online chat with a couple of friends from Amherst who should have been asleep, given the time difference, but one of them was excited about a guy and one was in despair about a guy, so they were both up. I was just on the verge of telling them I really had to get some work done when I noticed I had an email from an address I’d never seen before and clicked on that instead.

It was very long. I scrolled down and read the name:

Derek.

That was unexpected. And oddly unsettling. I quickly scrolled back up, eager to read it.

My eagerness wasn’t at all diminished as I read: every word fed it until I was reading as fast as I could, my eyes sweeping the screen as I tapped the scroll bar faster and faster.

Hi, Elise.

I’ve been trying to decide if I should write or not and finally decided I should. I figured why not clear the air before tomorrow night. A fresh start and all that.

First of all, I want to apologize. I’ve thought back to what I said about your family when I asked you to the semiformal and realized how rude it was. I’m sorry. No wonder you didn’t want to go with me.

More importantly—and more awkwardly—I feel like I should tell you a little more about what happened with my family and Webster Grant.

I know I can trust you not to repeat any of this.

He told you we were friends and I guess we were. Friendly anyway. He was always just sort of THERE, and he was fairly entertaining, so I didn’t mind.

But when he started coming over to my house, things got weird pretty fast. He kept trying to wrangle his way into my parents’ company. And then I found him looking through the drawers in their bedroom when he was supposedly going to the bathroom. I didn’t say anything about it—I just didn’t invite him over again. He was creeping me out.

Georgia really liked him—he always spent time talking to her—and I guess once it was clear I wasn’t going to be his ticket to my parents, he went after her instead. One day she told me they were going out.

My parents and I went ballistic—on top of everything else, she’s like four years younger than he is. They wouldn’t let her date him. She insisted they were in love. We all figured he’d lose interest pretty quickly since he could only see her at school. And he did. Only he figured he’d get something out of it first. So he got her to sneak out and meet him one night, got her drunk—she’d never had more than a sip of wine before—and took some embarrassing photos of her. He didn’t even have the decency to take her home, just left her at a mall all alone after dark. She wandered around for a while, trashed. Fortunately, a security guard got concerned and used her cell phone to call us.

A couple of the photos appeared on some online gossip site, but my parents’ PR people got them killed pretty quickly.

Georgia was already shy and nervous. This put her over the edge. She couldn’t face going back to school, just broke down when she tried. The school she’s in now is for girls with emotional issues. It’s been good for her. She feels safe there.

I know you consider the guy a friend. But every time I look at him, I think about how he messed up Georgia’s life. If it weren’t for him, she’d still be living at home, going to Coral Tree.

So that’s the story. We don’t have to talk about this at the premiere—in fact, I’d prefer not to talk about it ever—but I really wanted you to know. No one can confirm it for you because I’ve never told anyone else, so I guess it’s up to you whether you believe it or not.

Derek

“My God.”

I realized I had spoken out loud and was relieved that Jules was already asleep. Otherwise, she’d have asked what I was talking about and I couldn’t tell her. Derek had asked me to keep it confidential and I would.

I believed him. No question about that.

Webster had lied to me to go out with Campbell because of who her father was. Everything Derek said fit with that. Webster’s charm and my stupid determination to show what an egalitarian I was by siding against the guy I had already decided was a total celebrity brat had both succeeded in convincing me that Webster was some kind of victim, Derek some kind of aggressor.

I had picked the wrong side from the start.

I hit reply and sat there trying out various responses for a while before I finally settled on one.

I believe you. Thanks for telling me. I’m so sorry for your sister.

I’ll see you tomorrow night.

Elise

P.S. Webster isn’t my friend anymore, anyway.

I sent it but didn’t return to chatting my friends. I kept obsessively checking my email to see if Derek had replied to my reply until I finally closed my laptop an hour or so later and went to bed.

But I couldn’t sleep. I felt awful that I hadn’t believed Derek about Webster in the first place, had acted all high and mighty because I, the great Elise Benton, wasn’t about to fall all over someone just because his parents were famous. Oh, no. I was way too smart, way too intuitive, way too perceptive to do
that
.

I was an idiot.

And Webster was a horrible human being.

And Derek was . . . what?

A pair of dark eyes that hid more than they revealed and some broad shoulders and a mouth that could be cold and thin and then suddenly widen into a generous grin when you thought it was impossible.

Maybe he was my friend now, too?

I hoped so but wasn’t sure I deserved his friendship. I had misunderstood and misjudged him from the beginning.

I flipped onto my other side.

On top of everything else, I shouldn’t have been so mean to him when he invited me to the dance. He was right: Layla always managed to embarrass me, and Mom, too. He was only being honest about that.

I turned onto my back. I could hear Juliana’s soft and steady sleeping breaths. She, at least, was fine with the state of things tonight. She wasn’t tortured by what she should and shouldn’t have said in the past, by how stupid and prejudiced she’d been when she should have been smart and open-minded.

Nope. That was me.

At some point early in the morning I fell asleep, but as soon as I woke up, I checked my email. Still nothing from Derek. Was he angry? Should I have said more in my response?

I wiggled my fingers over the keyboard uncertainly. Should I write something else?

No, that would look needy.

Anyway, what more did I want from him? He had told me something he hadn’t told anyone else. He wouldn’t have trusted someone he hated with a secret, right?

I hugged that thought to me all day as I did some homework and then joined Juliana in primping for the movie premiere.

We were slipping on our shoes when Chase and Derek pulled up in front of the house at exactly seven the following night—in Chase’s car, not the limo, which was a relief.

By the time we made it downstairs, Dad had already opened the front door and Chase and Derek were waiting for us inside the foyer. Mom was out at a school function of some sort, so at least it was only Dad greeting them—but he could be scary in a whole other way.

Juliana ran down faster than I did. Chase met her at the bottom of the staircase where he took her hand and gave her a very quick, chaste kiss on the cheek. Dad nodded his approval.

At first I was concentrating on picking my way carefully down the stairs in my high heels, but as I got near the bottom, I looked up and saw that Derek was wearing a sports coat over a white shirt, no tie, the buttons open at his throat. His neck was strong, his chin tilted up as he watched me, his mouth parted just enough to show a glint of straight white teeth—

I realized I was totally staring at him—and Dad and Juliana and Chase and Kaitlyn were all right there. I broke my gaze, swallowed hard, and said, “Am I okay?” in a voice that came out awkwardly squeaky. I was wearing the rust-colored slip dress that Juliana had worn to the dance (with the same jacket over it until I got out of the house).

“Yeah,” Derek said. “You’re okay.”

You know, he was a man of few words, but each one felt like it carried a lot of weight.

Chase said, “You look amazing, Elise. You both look amazing.”

“What about me?” asked a voice from above, and Layla came skittering down the stairs. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a gauzy shirt with a gathered top that I suspected could be pulled down off the shoulder, but which was demurely pulled up to create a wide neckline at the moment. Her hair was curled, and she was wearing a ton of eye shadow and lip gloss. “How do
I
look?”

“Go wash your face,” Dad barked. “You’re too young to be wearing all that gunk on it.”

“Oh, Daddy, it’s just tinted moisturizer,” she said blithely. “It’ll all be absorbed in a minute.”

His brow furrowed uncertainly. He was suspicious but also aware of his own ignorance in these matters. He satisfied himself with a brusque “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“No time,” she said. “I’m meeting Campbell at Starbucks. Can you give me a lift?” she asked Chase. “It’s only like three blocks away.”

We divided up into boys in the front seat, girls in the back.

“So what are your plans for tonight?” I asked Layla.

“Just hanging out.”

“You’re awfully dressed up for Starbucks.”

“So? I wanted to look nice.”

When we dropped her off, I watched her walk into the dark-windowed coffee shop, clutching a panda bear purse and wobbling in heels that were too high for her.

A half hour later, Chase parked his car in a huge garage in Hollywood and we all got out. I shed my jacket, and Chase locked it in the trunk for me. “You sure you won’t be cold?” he asked me.

“Probably. But—”

“What price beauty?”

“Exactly.”

“Now we walk.” Chase took Juliana’s arm and led the way to the stairs out of the parking garage and onto Hollywood Boulevard.

Derek and I fell back a few paces behind them. The night was cool, and I wasn’t wearing much other than that thin slip, but I was shivering with excitement, not cold.

I glanced sideways at him. I didn’t feel like I should bring up the email since he hadn’t mentioned it. But it was weird not bringing it up. His face was impassive, impossible to read. And I didn’t even know how to begin. “Thanks for telling me all that horrible stuff that happened to your sister?”

Better to wait and let him bring it up. If he did.

You could see the movie theater we were going to from a block away: there were huge searchlights, and the whole area was cordoned off with police officers and security guards patrolling the edges. People were thronged outside the velvet ropes: tourists, who had probably just come to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre to see its famous footprints and then discovered with delight that an actual movie premiere was going on, with Melinda Anton herself in attendance.

“Wow,” I said. “The whole red-carpet thing is for real.”

“Yeah,” Derek said heavily. “It’s real.”

I glanced sideways at him. “I’m sorry. I’ll probably say lots of stupid things tonight. Do you mind?”

“No.” Like I said: a man of few words.

“Do you like going to these things? It must be cool seeing your parents up on the screen.” He didn’t reply immediately, so I added sheepishly, “Or not.”

“It’s just how it is,” he said. “They were already famous when I was born. I’ve never known it any other way.”

“Was it weird when you were little? Going to stuff like this?”

“I usually stayed at home with a babysitter. Georgia, too.” There was a pause and then, to my surprise, a sudden torrent of words. “We hated the whole paparazzi thing. Photographers would stake out our preschool and hang from trees and yell at us to get our attention—crazy stuff like that. You’d walk out of a building and be blinded by flashes. My sister used to put her hands over her face and cry, she’d be so overwhelmed. One guy actually tried to get her to hold this vodka bottle he’d brought, so he could snap her picture holding it. She was seven.”

“That’s awful.” I was beginning to understand why Derek came off as so standoffish. If you had to deal with strangers constantly getting in your face, rooting for you to mess up in some way so they could get a photo of it, you’d probably learn to be on your guard all the time. And the way some of the kids were at school—all sycophantic and fawning—probably just made him feel even more targeted.

And then there were the people like me, who assumed he was a jerk just because he was trying to protect himself from all that other stuff.

“Don’t worry,” he said, misinterpreting my silence. “I won’t let anyone bother you tonight.”

“It’s not that. I think I’m starting to understand a little more what you have to deal with every day. It sucks.”

“It’s not all bad,” he said, as we joined up with Juliana and Chase, who were waiting for us near the theater entrance. “In about ten minutes, we’re going to be scarfing down as much free popcorn and Coke as we like. There are perks to my life, you know.”

“
To
your life?” Chase repeated, overhearing the last bit. “Derek, your life
is
one big perk. I mean, look at this—” He gestured all around us. “This is the American Dream. And you’re living it.”

“Yeah,” Derek said flatly. “I guess I am.”

Chapter Seventeen

W
hen you’re actually walking down a red carpet, the bright lights are blinding, and so are the flashes going off all over the place.

Photographers all around us were calling out, trying to get the attention of anyone who might possibly be a celebrity. The tourists screamed whenever they recognized someone famous.

Derek and I walked together, caught in the glare of the klieg lights and the stares of dozens of strangers. I felt excited, bewildered, important, unreal. . . .

Someone said, “Hey, you! Girl in the slip dress!” and I turned toward the voice, without even thinking about it. A light flashed in my face. “Who are you?” the same voice called.

I hesitated, but Derek firmly propelled me forward. “Just ignore them,” he said.

A photographer leaned forward over the velvet ropes that separated us from them and shouted, “Hey, you’re Melinda’s son, right?” but Derek didn’t respond, just kept steadily walking.

Juliana and Chase were right behind us. A voice yelled, “Hey, you—girl with the dark hair in the blue skirt!” I glanced back to see Juliana turn instinctively toward the speaker, and then the same guy screamed at her, “Get out of the way—you’re blocking my photo! Brooke, stop! Look here!”

Brooke Shields was right behind Juliana and Chase.

Juliana sped up, tugging Chase forward, and they caught up to us as we entered the building.

“That was so embarrassing!” she said, collapsing against Chase’s side and hiding her face in his shoulder.

“Don’t let them get to you,” Derek said. “Those guys make a living out of being professional jerks.”

“Should we find our seats?” Chase asked, glancing around the crowded lobby. A few feet away from us, Megan Fox was talking to a woman in a glittery metallic dress, while a cameraman pointed a handheld video cam at her face.

Derek shook his head. “I should check in with my folks first. They said they’d be doing interviews inside the lobby.”

Juliana suddenly detached herself from Chase’s side and grabbed my arm. “Look!” she whispered. “That guy over there. See? He was on that Disney show we used to watch. We had the biggest crush on him—remember?”

“Is he wearing eyeliner?” I said. “Yuck.”

“I know. And those pants . . . they’re practically spray-painted on.”

“This is all very disillusioning.”

“There they are.” Derek pointed across the room. “Come on.” He led the way as Chase, Juliana, and I followed in single file along the path he cleared through the crowd to the other end of the lobby, where a more organized interview situation was taking place. Several people were standing against the wall, chatting comfortably like the reporters were old pals and they hadn’t even noticed the microphones and cameras.

I recognized all three actors—Johnny Wall, Bud Depatillo, and Melinda Anton . . . aka Derek’s mother.

I stared at Melinda Anton as we came closer. It was weird how much I felt like I already knew her. Everything about her face was so familiar: the beauty spot near her lips, the large luminous blue eyes, the unusually arched eyebrows, the cheekbones any woman in America would kill for—and Derek had inherited, come to think of it.

She felt like an old family friend, like an aunt or a cousin, like someone I had spent hours and hours of my life with. Which I guess I had, only she was always lit up on a screen and I was always in the dark below, watching her. And of course I didn’t know her at all—I only knew the characters she played.

Tonight she was wearing a simple black dress, sleeveless, but tailored so that it skimmed her body and showed off her narrow waist and slender legs. Her layered hair looked artlessly messy—which probably meant it had been painstakingly styled by a pro. At first I didn’t think she was wearing much makeup at all, but up close I decided she was, it was just skillfully applied.

She was even more beautiful in real life than she was on the screen.

She spotted her son and blew him a kiss. “I’m almost done,” she called gaily to him. “Don’t go anywhere.” Then she glanced around, saying, “Kyle?”

A man immediately removed himself from a nearby group of people and came toward us.

“Hi, Dad,” Derek said.

“There you are,” said Kyle Edwards. “Did you kids find parking?”

Wow, was that the kind of question movie stars asked their kids? It was so . . . boring.

Derek nodded. “Yeah, no problem.”

His father was casual in a T-shirt and jeans, but the unzipped leather jacket he wore somehow made him look carelessly elegant at the same time. He was handsome, and if it hadn’t been for a few creases near his eyes and a slight puffiness under them, you’d think he was still in his twenties. His eyes were just like Derek’s: gorgeous, dark, veiled in a way that made it impossible to know what he was thinking, but also made you want to find out. His light brown hair was slightly overgrown and stylishly greasy from product. “Chase! How’s it going, man?” he said, shaking hands with his son’s friend. He turned to Juliana who nervously sidled closer to me. “And who’s this?”

Chase introduced us and Kyle took first her hand and then mine, gazing into my eyes with an intensity that made me shiver. “Are you also at Coral Tree?”

Juliana just looked at me, so I had to answer for us both. “Yes. We’re new this year.”

“Here I am!” a voice trilled. And there she was indeed: Melinda Anton, shoving her hair out of her eyes with a pretty gesture and gently pushing her husband to the side so she could enter our little circle. “Sorry about that. I’m done. For now. Chase!” she exclaimed, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so glad you came tonight. You always bring the fun.”

“Oh, no!” he said with mock distress. “I left the fun in my car. Shall I run and go get it?”

“Didn’t your parents teach you to always keep a spare fun in your pocket?” she said, laughing. She turned toward Juliana and me. “Derek,” she said, but she was looking at us—my God, those beautiful eyes, that gorgeous face, all aimed at us! “Introduce me to your friends.”

“Juliana and Elise Benton,” he said. “This is my mother, Melinda Anton.” Like we might not know that.

She pressed our hands warmly. “You’re sisters? Which one of you is older?”

“I am,” Juliana said faintly.

“She’s a senior,” Chase added. “Like me and Derek.” He nudged Juliana’s shoulder gently with his.

Melinda registered that and then looked at me with sudden interest.

And I knew why. Chase’s affectionate bonk had made it clear that he and Juliana were there as a couple. Which maybe meant I was Derek’s date. Her son’s date.

I flushed under her scrutiny and felt like I was about two years old. The slip dress that had seemed so elegant back at the house now seemed juvenile compared to the severe lines of her simple linen dress. “And you?” she said in her deliciously throaty voice. “What grade are you in, Elise?”

“Eleventh.”

“So you don’t have to worry about college yet.”

“Don’t have to, but I do—I’m an early action worrier,” I said.

She acknowledged my attempt at a joke with a gracious smile. “Do you have any other siblings?”

“Two more sisters.”

“Wow!” Her beautifully arched eyebrows soared up. “All girls in your family?”

“Yes—I think my parents are still surprised that not a single boy snuck in there.”

“They should adopt one from a Third World country,” she said seriously. “It’s such a wonderful thing to do—you literally save a life.”

Yeah, right. I could just picture my mother, Madonna, and Angelina Jolie all trooping off to Malaysia together and becoming besties on the way.

A woman in a navy business suit approached us. “Melinda, Lauren from E! Entertainment says she hasn’t gotten any time with you yet.”

“Sorry. I’m coming.” She ran her fingers quickly through her hair, twisting the ends and arranging them carefully so that they appeared to fall carelessly. “Excuse me, kids. I wish I could stay and chat, but I’m working tonight.”

“I’m not,” Kyle said cheerfully.

“Actually,” the woman in the suit said, “they’d like to do some photos with both of you.”

He shrugged in a becomingly self-deprecating way, then carefully ran
his
fingers through
his
hair and minutely adjusted his leather jacket on his shoulders. “Well, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Melinda took his arm. As they moved off, she called over her shoulder, “We won’t be sitting together, but I’ll see you all at the party.”

Party?
Juliana mouthed at me. I smiled and shook my head. I hadn’t realized there was going to be a party either. Cool.

We snagged some popcorn and soda—there were rows of both out on the counter, free for the taking, just as Derek had promised—then Chase and Juliana headed up the stairs to the balcony where their seats were. Derek and I were sitting downstairs. We were squeezing through the crowd to get to the entrance of the auditorium when Derek exchanged a brief nod with some guy who was passing us.

He immediately stopped and said, “Derek! How great to see you!”

The guy was fairly handsome with lots of wavy hair that looked dyed and tanned skin that also looked dyed. Hard to tell how old he was. Somewhere between forty and death. “Wow, you’ve gotten tall!” he said, shaking Derek’s hand. “I haven’t seen you in years, not since I worked with your mom on
Slippery Slope.
You barely came up to my knees back then.”

“How are you?” Derek asked politely.

“Good, good. You still have that stamp collection?”

Derek’s smile grew even more strained. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“You should keep it up. It’s good to have a hobby.” Derek made a noncommittal sound. “You know, my son is just a couple of years older than you,” the guy said. “Our families should get together—I think you guys would really hit it off.”

“Sounds great,” Derek said. “Excuse us.” He took my arm, and we moved toward the auditorium entrance.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“No idea. Probably some D-list actor who wrangled an invitation out of his agent. It’s the story of my life—everyone knows who I am because of my parents, but I never know who they are.” His hand was warm and steady under my arm. “It’s my mistake for letting him make eye contact with me.”

“Really? You can’t make eye contact with people?”

“Not out in public. The second you do, people see it as an invitation to start talking to you.”

“Is it so bad to have to talk to people?”

“Not always—but a lot of people are nuts and think they actually know my mom and dad because they’ve seen them in movies and read about them in the tabloids, so they’ll say really personal things. And my parents have to be polite or suddenly they’re known as the rudest stars in Hollywood. The easiest thing is just not to open the door to a conversation.”

“Makes sense.” We were stuck in a bottleneck of people waiting to get inside. I took a sip of my Diet Coke. “Well, now I have to ask—”

“What?”

“A stamp collection, Derek? Really?”

He cringed. “Just stick the knife in and twist it around, why don’t you? I was, like, six. And it was Jackie’s idea—my nanny. Since my parents were always filming on various exotic locations, it gave us something to look for wherever we went.”

“So did you score some Australian stamps this summer?”

“Oh, damn, I forgot,” he said sarcastically. We had made it through the entryway, but as we headed down the aisle we got stuck behind two young women in absurdly tight and very similar short black dresses who had stopped to hug each other with excited squeals. Idly watching them, Derek said, “Now we only travel during school vacations, but when George and I were little, our parents would pull us out of school and take us all over the world with them. Jackie always came along. She’s great.” He glanced around the bustling auditorium. “Mom invited her tonight, but she’s not really into this stuff—she’d only come if George or I begged her to.”

“How long has she been your nanny?”

“She’s always been my nanny,” he said. “Although I hate that word—it sounds so stupid. I don’t know what else to call her, though. She was around all the time, took us to the park and the doctor, got us ready for bed, helped us with homework. . . .”

The word for that is
mom
,
I thought. “Was it fun or overwhelming?” I asked. “All that traveling?”

“Both. Georgia and I saw amazing things, but we never got to be with other kids. Made us closer than most siblings but also probably a little—” He searched for the word. “—socially inept, I guess.” He shot a grin sideways at me. “You don’t disagree with that, do you?”

“Yeah,
that’s
not an awkward question,” I muttered, and thus managed to avoid answering it.

The girls in the tight dresses finally separated, and we were able to continue down the aisle.

When we got to our row, we had to squeeze past a few people who were already sitting down. I hoped my butt wasn’t too much in anyone’s face. Our seats were right in the middle and basically the perfect distance from the screen. I guess when your mother’s the star of the movie, you get good seats at the premiere.

My fingers were freezing from holding my Diet Coke; it was a relief to put it in the cup holder. Derek offered me some popcorn from the bag he was holding, and I reached in greedily.

“It all seems so cool from the outside,” I said.

“What does?” Derek asked.

“The whole celebrity thing. I mean, the traveling and the red carpet and all. . . . But now I know it’s got its dark side. Do you ever wish your parents weren’t so famous?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never known it any other way. It’s like asking me if I wish I had different colored eyes.”

“Do you?”

There was a short pause. “Sometimes I wish I had blue eyes,” he said. “Girls seem to trust guys with blue eyes more.”

My chest contracted at that. “Only the stupid ones.” I twisted toward him so I could put my hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I was wrong about everything. You should hate me. Why don’t you hate me?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He stared at my hand on his arm. “Just can’t, I guess. I’ve tried but then—” He stopped. “Anyway, it’s not your fault. I’ve thought a lot about some of the stuff you said to me at Jason’s party and then later, when I asked you to the semiformal—”