Next Door To A Star

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  “Hadley, don’t be silly. She said to drop over after lunch, so they are expecting you.”

  Well, this was what I had wanted, right? To meet and hopefully hang out with someone this summer? But part of me wished that someone wasn’t a TV star who was intimidatingly pretty. The whole thing about hanging out with Simone had sounded like a good idea in my head, but the reality of it was pretty terrifying. Plus, Grandma was acting like Simone actually cared whether or not some nobody from Goodacre came over to meet her.

  I went upstairs and put on my new jean shorts, but Grandma made me change so Mrs. Hendrickson wouldn’t think I “always dressed so provocative.” They were jean shorts, not bikini bottoms. Sheesh, but the Capri pants made my legs look better anyway.

  “Now have fun and take the hair out of your mouth. You’ll smell like a wet dog,” she said.

  I knocked on the door and Mrs. Hendrickson told me Simone was on the porch in back. I took a deep breath and walked to the back where Simone was sitting. Her long blonde hair was impossibly straight and shiny, and she looked like an adult in her tiny beige shorts and baby-blue halter top, while I couldn’t have seemed younger or less cool if I tried. She was stretched out on a wicker couch talking on the phone. She didn’t even look up at me, so I sat on a bench and waited for her to finish talking. She was in no hurry to get off the phone so I stared out the window.

  “Asia, I’m so bored. There’s nothing to do,” she said, twirling her blonde hair. “I went for a walk today and I didn’t see a single cute guy. Not one. I know,” she said. “When are you coming back?”

  Simone went on about how bored she was and how “life sucked.” She hung up with her friend and then stared over at me, and I went into this whole thing about meeting her last summer, but she cut me off and said she was going to lay out in her backyard. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I followed her outside. She spread her towel out and rubbed some Chanel sunscreen on her face, arms, and legs. I had seen that lotion on the Style Network and I knew it cost a ton. I watched her lean back and put a towel over her face, while I sat there like an idiot. I couldn’t believe she was only going to be a sophomore in the fall like me. She seemed more like an eighteen-year-old. Simone got bored after a while and said she was going down to the beach.

  “Hey, do you have a swimsuit?” she asked. I nodded. “Go get it and we can hang on the beach, ‘kay?”

  Was that actually an invitation to hang out with her? I nodded and raced back to the house to change into my new bathing suit.

  “Grandma, I’m going to the beach with Simone,” I said as I walked to the door.

  “Okay, have fun and take your phone with you,” she said.

  I took a deep breath as I headed over to Simone’s. I felt like my whole life was about to change.

  Chapter Five

  I got to Simone’s and she was sitting on the porch texting and waiting for me.

  “Finally, I thought you died,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Simone walked fast, and I had to almost run to keep up as I followed her to the beach. She stood on the sand for a minute, looking around for the best place for us. Then she went to the area right in front of the tan lifeguard with perfect hair. She looked up at him, flashed her perfect Colgate smile, and spread out her towel. Her towel said “Juicy Couture” on it, while mine had Hello Kitty on the front. I flipped it over to the plain side so I didn’t look like such a kid.

  I turned to ask her something and realized she was listening to music on her iPhone. I sat there unsure if I should be glad I was hanging out with someone or if I should try to get to know her.

  “Simone?” I asked. She was moving her lips as she listened to the music, and even though her sunglasses were on, I could see her eyes were closed. I tapped her wrist and she sat straight up.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  I lost all courage and said, “Do you want me to get you a soda from the concession stand?”

  “Oh yeah, sure. That’d be great. Cherry Coke if they have it,” she said as she went back to her reclining position and turned her music back up.

  Well, at least she was talking to me, although she didn’t offer me any money to get her drink. I got up and went to get her soda. As I waited in line, I noticed all the groups that were together on the beach. There wasn’t one person who was there alone. I hoped Simone and I would hit it off so I didn’t have to spend summer up in my room by myself. I would go broke with all the books I’d download, and eventually I’d run out of stuff to read. No, I was going to have to make an effort with Simone to become someone she wanted to hang out with.

  I walked back to the towels with her soda.

  “Thanks, doll,” she said opening it. “We’ve been here ten whole minutes and that lifeguard hasn’t even come over to talk to us.”

  “Well, he’s working. There’s probably a policy where they can’t take their eyes off the water.”

  “Yeah, lame,” she said. “But you’re probably right. I’ll have to catch him off duty, I guess. Want to go for a walk and see if there’s anyone interesting over by the lighthouse?”

  I nodded, and she told me we were okay to leave our towels there and I could stick my phone and sunscreen in her tote bag. As we walked, she stopped to take pics and post them on Instagram. I have only fifteen people on my account, and most are book bloggers who I don’t know in person but liked to talk to. I showed Simone the photo I posted.

  “Nice shot. I like to post pics for my fans, but ones that don’t show exactly where I am in case anybody weird is checking my account,” she said.

  Here I was posting to my fifteen kinda/sorta friends and she was posting to fans.

  “You must love being here year round,” I said.

  “It’s okay. It gets a little boring in the winter.”

  “I’d imagine any place is boring after L.A.”

  “I guess.” She stopped and looked out at the water. “Where are you from?”

  “Goodacre,” I said. “It’s a half-hour north of Detroit.”

  “Is there stuff to do there?”

  I doubted my sleepy town’s movie theater and regular mall would impress someone who had gone to the People’s Choice Awards.

  “Sometimes my mom’s work gets free tickets to games and we go see the Tigers or the Pistons. That’s pretty fun.”

  “Some of the Pistons are pretty cute,” she said.

  “Once I got an autograph from one of them. It wasn’t at one of the games. He was waiting in line to get coffee and my friend asked him. He signed our napkins,” I said. Oh wow, I fangirled to someone who probably signed autographs all the time. How lame could I be?

  “Did he, like, flirt with you or anything?” she asked, lowering her sunglasses.

  “Well, he was twenty-eight.”

  She stood there staring and waiting for me to answer.

  “Um, no…why? Do guys who are almost thirty flirt with you?” I asked.

  “You’d be surprised. I’ve even been hit on by guys in their thirties,” she said, rolling her round blue eyes.

  “Gross.”

  “Hollywood is different.” She shrugged and looked away. “Whatever. Do you want to walk all the way down to the end of the pier?”

  “Sure. There are some guys who aren’t ancient sitting down there,” I said.

  She smirked and opened her mouth to say something when her phone buzzed. “Instagram likes. I got fifty-eight likes so far. How about you?”

  I looked down at my phone. One person had liked it and asked where I took the picture.

  “Um, a few.”

  She nodded and then got up. “Gotta go to the bathroom. Be right back,” she said.

  I picked up the magazine she had been reading and noticed she had dog-eared a page with a soap star named Valeria Joseph. Valeria had straight blonde hair with bangs, unique-looking, squinty blue almond eyes, and shimmery tan skin. She was so flawless and gorgeous, I was surprised I hadn’t heard of her before or seen her i
n another magazine or something. She had this knowing, confident little smirk, and in that one picture, she was everything I wanted to be and look like.

  The interview was only about her hair and makeup, so I didn’t learn anything about her other than the show she was on, but I took out my phone and texted myself all the names of the beauty products she listed as her faves.

  “What are you doing?” Simone asked, sitting down.

  “Nothing…texting my friend,” I said, and then I looked up and realized Simone was on her phone and actually not talking to me at all, but chatting to her friend Asia.

  “Connor sent me a text this morning,” she said. “Oh my gosh, Asia, you know I would never like him if Morgan did. Don’t even hint at that.”

  After twenty minutes, I decided to head back to Grandma’s when it appeared Simone wasn’t getting off the phone anytime soon. I would have stayed, but I had been in the hot sun for a while and was starting to feel a little sick and didn’t want to end up sunburned. Simone did kind of wave when I left. Well, she put her hand up, sorta. I guess it counted as goodbye.

  I walked in the house and Grandma asked if I had fun. I wasn’t sure what to say, because if I said, “yes,” and Simone never spoke to me again, I’d look stupid.

  “It was okay, but Simone and I don’t have a lot in common.”

  “Maybe you’d have more in common with Judd Lidstrom’s granddaughter. I’ll call and see if they can stop by later,” she said. “Besides, you’ll get to know Simone better as time goes on.”

  I nodded and wished I wasn’t so pathetic my grandma had to set up “play dates” for me. Clark was only eight and he had made tons of friends on his own. He was never around, but I was always hanging around the house like a leech or something.

  Mr. Lidstrom came over with Charlotte later. Charlotte had a short, dark bob and huge brown eyes. Mr. Lidstrom kinda seemed more exciting and fun than Charlotte. Grandma told us to go outside, so Charlotte and I went for a walk on the beach.

  “Where do you go to school?” she asked. “I go to Watson.”

  “I go to a private school in Goodacre,” I said. “It’s kinda near Detroit.”

  Charlotte was a mathlete and in some club called the “Future Scientists of America.”

  “I want to go to science camp this summer, but Grandpa wouldn’t let me go because I have too many allergies and they’re literally outside all the time there.”

  “Wanna walk on the pier?” I asked. “We can go down to the lighthouse.”

  “Sure. It’s a good thing I put sunscreen on before I came over. It takes a while to soak in and I burn fast.”

  We walked down to the pier where some older girls were sitting with their boyfriends. I wanted to get out of there, but Charlotte was busy sticking her pasty feet in the water.

  “Let’s go back,” I said, tugging her arm.

  We walked back to the beach, but my back felt prickly from having those girls stare at us.

  “Do you know why Simone stopped acting?” I asked.

  “I dunno. She never bragged about being on TV or anything when she moved here. She was in my class because they held her back a year. She did get mad when they cast this other girl as the lead in the winter play last year,” she said. “But she was right to be upset ‘cause the other girl sucked.”

  Charlotte and I walked down to the ice cream stand. The cool girls I had seen on my first day at the beach were there. The one with curly blonde hair was drinking a soda. She was so tan and perfect-looking. I would have killed to be her. Then I realized Simone was sitting with them.

  “Hadley, your nose looks like it’s getting red,” Charlotte said. “Put some sunscreen on.”

  Charlotte handed me the bottle. I tried to wave her away, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had put some lotion on her own nose and didn’t even bother to rub it in. I tried to get her to blend it when I overheard someone from Simone’s group make a comment about Char’s sunblock-covered nose. I was super embarrassed and tried to steer Charlotte toward the boardwalk.

  “Do you want to get a Tropical Icy?” she asked. “I’ve got some money.”

  The Icy containers were huge and the juice dripped out the ends so I went to get some napkins to wrap the bottom. I heard some girl say something about someone being “all gross and sticky,” and I glanced up in case they were talking about me. The blonde girl I had seen the other day at the beach was standing with her boyfriend and they were looking at Charlotte. Charlotte had cherry juice running down her arms and on her chin, and I was embarrassed for her. Simone smirked at her and then walked over to me.

  “Can I get a napkin?” Simone asked.

  I handed her a stack of napkins and she pulled one from the bunch.

  “Um, I only needed one,” she said. “I know how to handle a sno-cone.”

  I didn’t know what else to do, so I laughed along with them.

  “You guys know each other?” Simone asked, looking Charlotte over. I didn’t want to say “yes,” and be on the loser list all summer, so I shrugged. I had my back to Charlotte and I rolled my eyes.

  Simone nodded. I glanced around, but Charlotte was gone. I felt horrible.

  “Looking for sticky girl?” Simone raised her eyebrows.

  “Um, I don’t want to get in trouble for losing her,” I said.

  “Hey, we’re going to grill hamburgers tonight at my house. Do you wanna come over later?”

  “Sure, what time?” I asked.

  “Around seven,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away.

  “Okay, see ya then.”

  I went to look for Charlotte but couldn’t find her, so I went to tell Grandma I was going over to the Hendrickson’s for dinner. Clark was always eating dinner at one of his friend’s houses, so his empty chair was a constant reminder of what a friendless loser I was. At least for one night my chair would be the empty one. I put on my makeup and asked Aunt Faith to help me with my hair since I was useless with a curling iron. I didn’t want to get there right at seven o’clock and look overeager, so I waited until five minutes after seven to leave.

  Simone’s mother seemed happy to see me. She gave me a hamburger bun and told me to help myself. I got a hamburger and some chips and went over to where Simone was sitting with her friends. Simone was sitting in a big white lawn chair, but everyone else was seated on a big picnic blanket. There wasn’t any room for me on the blanket, so I sat on the grass.

  “Guys, this is Hadley. This is Lucas, Connor, oh, and Nick,” she said, nodding at the boys and then pointed to the girls—the same two perfect-looking girls I had seen on the beach the other day. “And this is Morgan Kemp and Pilar Ito.”

  They all nodded, and I noticed Lucas, Connor, and Nick were the only ones who were eating hamburgers. Morgan and Pilar were both eating salads, and all Simone was having for dinner was a bottle of diet vanilla cola. She leaned back in her chair and pulled her tanned legs up. Simone had a baby-blue American Hotties hooded sweatshirt over her white tank top, and her hair was hanging over the back of the chair. Pilar’s dark hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and it showed off her high cheekbones—like Valeria’s. Pilar was wearing a denim mini skirt with Milan written all over it, and Morgan had her curly hair piled on top of her head and she was wearing a short t-shirt dress. Morgan was much curvier than the other two girls and Lucas kept staring at her.

  “Did you try the macaroni salad?” Simone asked me. “It’s super good.”

  “Pasta salad,” Morgan said.

  “Sorry, right. Pasta salad,” Simone said. I shook my head.

  “It’s so fattening with all the mayo,” Morgan said. “Not like it’d matter to you.”

  She was staring at my legs, and I felt like a skeleton in shorts so I tucked my legs underneath me. Simone went on about how Morgan was so thin. Then Simone patted her own flat stomach as if she had a big belly and said she was the only one who had to watch her weight.

  Nick looked over at me. “So where ar
e you from, Hadley?” he asked. He had warm hazel eyes, and I almost lost my train of thought looking into them.

  “Goodacre. It’s near Detroit.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right near where the Pistons play, isn’t it?” he asked smiling. He moved closer to where I was sitting. “You ever go to any games?”

  I nodded. “Sometimes my mom’s work gets tickets. She’s a bigger fan than I am and she gets so into it—it’s kind of funny sometimes.” I felt my face get warm. They probably all went to games with friends, and here I was talking about hanging out with my mommy. So embarrassing.

  “That’s cool. I watch a lot of games with my dad,” he said. “So you’re into basketball?”

  “I like to watch basketball and baseball. I suck at playing sports, but I get really into watching them. I guess that’s lame,” I said, feeling stupid.

  “No, I’m the same way. I mean, I play baseball a little, but those guys—” He nodded over to where Lucas and Connor were sitting. “—They get on my case about being more into watching the game than going out and playing basketball or whatever with them.”

  “Yeah, the girls at my high school are all super athletic, and I trip over my own feet if I change my shoe height.” I felt my face get hot. “Seriously, why did I tell you that?”

  He laughed. “I hear ya, I am about as coordinated as a newborn baby chick.”

  “That’s still better than me.”

  “Did I mention that the chicken still has part of the egg shell on its head and it’s running into the barn door?” he said. “Repeatedly?”

  I cracked up. “That’s quite the visual. I think I may have met my match.”

  The smile grew across his face. “It’s nice to have someone with a great sense of humor around,” he said. “No offense to the other girls, but it’s sure nice to hear something other than them talking about each other or their lip gloss color or something.”

  I glanced over to make sure the girls couldn’t hear him. Pilar and Simone were bent over looking at Pilar’s phone screen, but Morgan was glaring in our direction. I was pretty sure she couldn’t hear us, but she didn’t seem happy to see him with me.