“See there, Vera, it’s how they roll nowadays,” her dad says, and I swear it’s all Emily and I can do not to lose it. Emily’s parents bought a book called Decode Your Teen! when Grant was in high school, and are oblivious to the fact that adolescent lingo changes daily.

Hours later, we lie in Emily’s bed, stuffed with raspberry cobbler and fresh whipped cream.

“So what’s the deal with Abercrombie boy?”

Emily sits up and hits me in the face with her pillow, and I squeal. “Your brother is a bad influence!”

“My brother is a tool.” She stuffs the pillow back behind her head.

“So, what’s the deal with Derek, then?”

She throws an arm across her face. “It’s hopeless.”

“Hopeless how?” I turn on my side, watching her.

“We’re complete opposites. He’s super prep boy. He wears khaki chinos. He’s never even heard of most of my favorite bands, and I’ve spent years making fun of his. I have purple stripes in my hair. Piercings in places I had to have parental permission to get. My favorite nail polish is called Vampire State Building. All of his friends think I’m a freak.”

“Did he tell you that?” I ask, and she turns on her side to face me.

“He didn’t have to tell me. I can see it on their stupid faces.”

I sweep her purple-accented hair out of her eyes. “Who cares what they think?”

“Oh come on, all that ‘If they’re your real friends, they’ll accept whoever you love’ is a load of crap. I can’t expect a guy to stand up to that kind of pressure. And I like me the way I am. I don’t want to change!”

“Has he asked you to change?”

“No,” she says, sounding almost disappointed.

“So how much do you like this guy?”

“Oh my God. So much.” She turns into me and buries her face under my chin, her voice desolate, as though she’s confessing to murder instead of attraction.

“Sounds like a bungee-jumping sorta moment.”

She nods her head.

“Emma?” My name is muffled by the comforter. “I think I already fell.”

“I guess all you can do is wait to see if the cord holds.”

Funny how I can in no way apply this wisdom to myself, no matter how sensible it sounds when I say it to Emily.

Chapter 31

REID

I have every intention of taking a break from hookups while I’m pursuing Emma, but this party is full of hot girls who are flying so high they don’t know which end is up. The invitation to ditch my temporary abstinence plan is powerful. Plus, Emma and I aren’t actually together yet. She’s taking her own sweet time about that, though I think we’re getting there. I came home to LA this weekend certain I could be patient… but every moment that goes by is draining that resolve.

The exclusivity factor of this little gathering is high. I’ve recognized several film colleagues and a couple of John’s friends—trust fund babies who live for rubbing elbows (and other body parts) with movie stars and music idols. Highly unlikely that anything will turn up on the Internet. Non-celebrities who get invited to these events understand that outing any of us puts them on the other side of that door in the future. That’s why you seldom see photos of famous people misbehaving in private settings. Figuring out who narced amongst a restricted set of people is far too easy.

I’m both buzzed and high, lounging in a chair and watching the curls of smoke rise from half a dozen joints. John has his tongue down the throat of an aspiring runway model as they paw each other in the space cleared for people pretending to dance. Really they’re all just committing foreplay in front of anyone watching. John really digs models. The foreign ones, especially. This one looks and sounds, I don’t know, Swedish? I’m not the best judge at this point.

Tonight, I’m a voyeur. I can reign this in and wait.

And then some girl a few feet from John is dancing with another girl and the two of them are taking each other’s clothes off. Slowly. Once they have my attention, they’re both flicking glances my way at regular intervals, to make sure I’m still watching. No problem there—I’m riveted.

Damn. I’m not getting through the next half an hour without tossing my short-lived celibacy out the window, let alone the rest of the night, and I know it.

***

John’s model is in the shower. He’s too soft. My two were sent home in a taxi while it was still dark out. Now, he and I are sprawled on the sofa in our usual Sunday morning state: hungover. “What are we doing tonight, man?” John blows a few rings of smoke from the cigarette between his fingers, like a cartoon smokestack from a train. One of those people who smokes irregularly, he’s curiously gifted with the stuff he can do with a cigarette, especially considering how infrequently he picks one up. He’s made an art of it. “Do you want to go out?”

I watch the smoke rings dissipate, lay my head back against the cushion. The shower goes off. “I don’t know. Sure. Nothing high-profile, though.”

The bathroom door snaps open. “John?” His name in her mouth sounds more like Jonah—two syllables.

His eyebrows kick up once before he rolls off the sofa. “Yeah?”

She asks for a towel. He slips into the bathroom to show her where they’re kept, and stays in. The sound of giggling pushes through the door, and I pick up the remote and click on the television. My voyeuristic tendencies have explicit limits, and listening to John screw some chick in the bathroom is definitely outside that perimeter. On the screen a correspondent reports on a politician who got caught cheating on his wife with their kid’s nanny… who’s in the country illegally.

My first thought is what a moron, and then they show a photo of the hot Guatemalan nanny. Damn—that poor bastard was doomed from the start.

*** *** ***

Emma

“I’m just not sure this is such a great idea.” I sit in Emily’s vintage Sentra, staring at the house. “Talking to my father how I feel is always an exercise in frustration, Em. There’s no way I can tell him all the stuff we talked about.”

“Then start with the college thing. Tell him you want to go.”

“Do I?”

She sighs. “You said you did last night.”

“I felt safe talking to you about it. It’s different, bringing it up to him. He’ll probably just say no, anyway, even if I manage to argue my point adequately, which is doubtful if he starts objecting right off. Plus I’m half scared to death that if he actually lets me do it, it might be a huge mistake.” I hear the panic building in my voice. “I could flunk out. I could ruin the career I have. Emily, if that happens, what else do I have?”

She grabs my hand. “Emma, what the hell. A few hours ago, you were way more certain of yourself. It’s like the sight of this place scares the confidence right out of you.”

“He doesn’t know me. He only thinks he does. I’ve just followed along my whole life, no big rebellion, barely any disagreement. I always thought that at least he understands my need to be an actor. But what if that isn’t him understanding me at all, what if that’s just what he wants, and what he really understands is nothing.”

“He’s your dad, Emma,” she says, still holding my hand.

“Em, sometimes you and your parents argue. Yell at each other even. But you know they’re trying. You know they love you.” My throat feels tight. “It’s not the same with me and them. It never has been. You know that as well as anybody.”

She pulls me in for a hug. “If you don’t want to talk to him, then don’t. But I think you should go in there and say what you need to say. For your own sake. Because yeah, you’re almost eighteen, and it’s your life, and maybe this is the first step to just telling someone besides me what you want out of it.”

“I don’t know how to start, what to say.” I’m stalling, and we both know it.

“Yes you do. Go in there. Just say it.” Emily has this way about her when she knows she’s right. Compassionate, but persistent. I take a deep breath, and go inside.

My father’s sitting in his reading chair with a business magazine spread across his lap. He reads them all, in paper form and online. I fear the usual smallness of my voice. “I need to talk to you,” I say, too loudly, because I have to force it out. He startles and the magazine jerks in his hands.

He exhales. “Okay. What’s up?” Looking at my face, he reads something there that changes his expression from interest to wariness. “Um, Chloe will be home in an hour or so, if this is something important …”

I ignore that, clear my throat and sit, my hands clenching each other on my knees. No way in hell I’m waiting for Chloe to return. “I, uh… I want to go to college.” Sitting on the sofa across the room from him, I wait while the silence lengthens between us. I think maybe he’s in shock, and I wait for him to snap out of it.

He frowns, puzzled. “You do? You’ve never mentioned this before…”

“I’ve just been thinking lately, with high school almost done, you know… What’s next? I’ve been talking to other cast members who are planning to go, and I started considering the idea. And I decided I want to go.”

“Okay…” he says after a moment. “Do you have a university in mind? A course of study?” I look at him, searching for potential disparagement. I don’t see any. Not that this means there isn’t any. But I don’t see it.

I swallow the lump in my throat, the half-dozen arguments Emily and I formulated last night jumbling together in my head, like I stopped short in the middle of the path and they all ran into me. And then I realize he’s not saying no. “Theatre, I think. I don’t know where, yet. I can start checking out places online, looking at requirements and stuff. I need to take the SAT…” My eyes slide to the floor. “Um, how will I pay the tuition?”

“Oh, you’ve got that covered with your Coogan account. After School Pride wraps up, you’ll have more than enough, if you’re sure that’s what you want to use it for.”

“I’m sure.” I’m more sure about this than I’ve ever been about anything.

“Is there… anything else?”

I look at him, and I can’t say any more. As high as this one thing leaves me, as giddy with truth-telling as I feel, I’m not ready to bare my soul just yet.

“Um, no.”

He smiles, relieved. “Okay then. Well, you should probably go get ready for dinner. I think Chloe’s planned a fun night out for your last night home.”

Doubtful. But I’m not in the mood to dissent, so I nod and walk to my room in a sort of daze, shower and get ready to go out. Tomorrow I’m going back to Austin. And maybe I’ll try a little of this honesty business on Reid when I get there.

Or not.

***

As I wait for the boarding announcement, I try to get some reading done for English, but give up after attempting to reread the same page of A Room of One’s Own for the third time. I can’t concentrate on the words in front of me. Bookmarking the page, I stuff the book in my bag and pull my iPod from a side pocket, pondering the changes that one conversation with my father could set in motion, in both my immediate future and long-term.