Famous (4 page)

I grabbed his arm to stop him and we kissed in the middle of the crowded sidewalk, our lips pressed warmly as other bodies brushed past. “Thank you,” I said, our faces close. “Only, for the six hundred and seventy-fifth time, I am not a paparazzo. I am a celebrity photographer.”

Nasim rolled his gorgeous almond eyes, and we started to hurry again, our shoulders now and then bumping. “There is no difference.”

“There's a
big
difference,” I insisted. “I may take pictures of celebrities, but I don't stalk or harass them or try to get them to punch me so that I can sue them for assault.”

Nasim changed the subject. “You never told me they wanted to send you to the Sundance Film Festival.”

“I don't know why my father had to bring that up,” I said, although the truth was, I knew
exactly
why he'd done it: to bask, as they say, in the reflected glory of his daughter's accomplishments. “I'm not exactly proud that my mother wouldn't let me go. I mean, do you think that
in the entire history of independent film festivals, there's ever been anyone else who had to say no because her mother didn't want her to miss school?”

By now we were nearing the “hip, downtown,” but still academically excellent Herrin School, which our parents paid a fortune to so that we could get in to the best colleges and someday become rich and important and genetically prodigious. As we joined the ranks of our fellow movers and shakers to be, Nasim leaned close and whispered in my ear. “Don't look now, but at least one hundred people are staring at you.”

I would be lying if I didn't admit the thrill that ran through me.

We pushed through the wooden front doors into the warm, perfume-scented, emotionally charged world of Children of Privilege Trying Not to Appear Too Chic and headed for our lockers. Uncertain how to deal with the attention, I felt my face flush in response to the glances and whispers.

“And what must be most exciting of all for you?” Nasim said. “That you are in the same magazine as your favorite couple, Willow Twine and Rex Dobro.”

He was right. If there is such a thing as Fame by Proximity, then I was doubly blessed and privately delighted to be in the same issue that carried an article about the break-ups, the make-ups, and the shake-ups of Rexlow, Hollywood's hottest couple. Recently, hardly a
week had gone by without some report of a spat or fight, tearful reconciliation followed by an expensive truce offering. Rex gave Willow diamond rings, bracelets, and necklaces. She gave him fast cars, motorcycles, and a Jet Ski. One thing no one doubted was, they were crazy in love with each other.

With the emphasis on “crazy.”

“Oh my god! Kickin' story, Wonder Girl!” Coming toward us was Avril Tennent, the nicest, sweetest, cutest chubby-guy-with-curly-brown-hair-who-was-convinced-he-was-going-to-be-famous someday that you'd ever want to meet.

Postgush, Avy turned to Nasim and bumped knuckles. “Yo, dawg.”

“S'up, pup?” replied Nasim. It was some sort of semiprivate inside joke they shared, a running satire on the macho school jocks who always greeted one another in a similar fashion.

Avy turned back to me. “Do you know what this means? You, Jamie Gordon, are, at this moment, the most famous high school student in all of New York! So now we can be famous together! You and me! I mean, you're in this week's
New York Weekly
! This is amazing. Mind-boggling! How does it feel?”

“Pretty cool,” I said, as his words floated though my thoughts.
You, Jamie Gordon, are, at this moment, the most famous high school student in all of New York!

I liked the sound of it. What's the point of pretending? To be honest, it felt fabulous. Can you imagine? People all over the city. Thousands. Maybe even millions. People I didn't even know. All of them knew who I was.

We talked a little more and then at the next corner, Avy headed in a different direction saying he'd catch us later. Nasim and I continued down the hall. If the hallway that morning had been something of an obstacle course, I wondered if it was about to become a minefield. Planted in the middle of the corridor directly in front of us, chatting amicably and pretending to be totally unaware that they were forcing everyone to go around them, was Shelby “The Lioness” Winston and her pride.

We've all seen enough teen movies and
Gossip Girl
to be familiar with Shelby. I suppose what truly puzzled me was how someone like her could go through life without realizing that she was the stereotypical rich, snotty, popular girl. So either she didn't see it in herself, or she saw it and had made a conscious decision that she'd rather be rich, snotty, and popular than rich, snotty, and unpopular.

On the other hand, I have a feeling Shelby would be the first to point out that I also fit a familiar stereotype—the sort-of maybe sometimes semipopular, sort-of artsy, sort-of pretty, sort-of-just slightly pudgy, sort-of-always questioning, sort-of-uncertain-about-a-lot-of-things type who probably grows up to write the very books and movies about girls like Shelby that I just referred to.

But here's the truth. And I know some people will despise me for this, but I'm just being as honest as I can possibly be. From the very instant that I learned
New York Weekly
was going to do a piece on me, I couldn't help wondering how one person in particular would react. I mean, here I was, living in one of the great power, money, and media capitals of the world. By now the story in
New York Weekly
had probably been read, and my picture seen, by millions of people, some of them incredibly important—movie stars who made their homes in New York, the mayor, probably someone on the New York Yankees, perhaps a senator or two, surely the odd Rockefeller and Clinton.
I knew
this kind of publicity is way bigger than high school.
I knew
that someday I'd look back at Herrin and wonder how I could have possibly cared what anyone there thought. And yet, no matter how hard I tried, there was one person besides Nasim and Avy whose opinion was going to count. And that person was . . . Shelby Winston.

CAN'T SAY I'M THRILLED ABOUT GOING BACK EAST AFTER I HAVE
my calves done. Out here it's so different. Everybody has cosmetic work. Everybody! It's like orthodontia. Had liposuction? Got a new nose? Chin? Some Botox? No one even blinks. Back in New York everyone has surgery too, but it's all hush-hush. No one wants anyone to know. People disappear for a month and then reappear with a new nose and think no one will figure it out? Give me a break.

Some of the kids from Herrin probably won't even recognize me, but some will, and people are bound to make comments, right? So who cares? Love me, love my
new look, okay? Besides, I am so past that high school scene. Those kids who still live with their parents, what do they know? They're just tots.

But then there are my parents. Can't imagine what they'll do when they see me. Not sure I want to imagine.

Even in Mexico calf implants ain't cheap. But there are ways to finance these things. It's kind of ironic, but those ways involve going across the border, too.

YOU WILL LOCK THE DOOR TO YOUR ROOM AND TURN ON SOME
music. Something soft and emo. A single voice accompanied by a piano or guitar. You will sit on your bed, listening to the melancholy tune, and stare at the FedEx box for a long time. The room, lit only by the small lamp on your night table, will feel dim and shadowy like a burrow, a safe place to hide. And yet you will feel afraid. Afraid to look inside. Afraid to learn what it will tell you about the end of your friend's life. Afraid that somehow you were partly responsible.

And yet from the moment Mrs. Tennent told you about the box, you knew you had to see what it contained.
As if it might possess the answers to all the questions you wished you could still ask Avy. So after a while, even though you're still not feeling ready, you will reach down, bend back a flap, and feel an instant of relief that the first thing you see is not a photograph of Avy near the end.

Instead you will find a memory stick attached to a green and yellow lanyard. Curious, you will plug it into your MacBook and discover that it holds only one file, a video. The thought of playing it will frighten you. Your fingers will tremble and your heart will thump against your sternum. What if this video is something you really don't want to see?

But you will play it. A picture will come on the screen—an unrecognizable blur. It's someone very close to the camera, moving, probably setting up the shot. As the person backs away, you will see that it's Avy in a room with an unmade bed and posters taped crookedly to the walls. He will sit in a chair, brush his dyed straightened black hair back with his fingertips, look at the camera, and ask, “What was the biggest surprise you faced after moving to LA from New York?”