Next Door To A Star

by Krysten Lindsay Hager

  Michalina had me pick out a pair of earrings and told Faith the 14k gold ones were the best. She made a dot on each ear with a marker and asked me if the marks seemed straight. I nodded and she loaded the piercing gun. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  I bit my lip and nodded. She placed the gun against my earlobe. Punch! It felt like she had stapled my ear. I put my hand up to see if I was bleeding.

  “Are you okay?” Michalina asked. She and my aunt were staring at me. I wondered if I could go the rest of my life with one ear pierced or would it look weird? I decided to get it over with. Michalina pierced my left ear and it hurt worse than the right. I thought I was going to fall out of the chair from the pain.

  “See? You hardly felt a thing,” Michalina said.

  Yeah, I loved feeling like the earth was swaying underneath me. My ears were throbbing, and I was so lightheaded Aunt Faith had to help me out of the chair. Michalina asked if we wanted to look at earrings, but I thought I might pass out and I wanted to go home. I leaned against the counter as my aunt paid. Michalina came over and gave me a hug. She reminded me to clean and turn my posts and gave me a bottle of cleaning solution.

  “Are you okay?” Faith asked when we got in the car.

  “It hurt worse than I thought. Still, I’m glad I didn’t have Simone do it,” I said.

  “Ew.” She shuddered. “Promise me you won’t put any more holes in your ears. I don’t want to see you in a month with three holes in each ear.”

  I promised I wouldn’t get any more piercings. I wanted to say there was no way I’d ever go through that again, but I didn’t want her to get upset. I had to act like it was no big deal so she wouldn’t feel guilty for taking me behind my parents’ backs. I flipped the visor mirror down so I could see the earrings.

  “Do you regret it?” she asked.

  “No, it looks nice, don’t you think?”

  She nodded and told me to drop hints to Grandma about wanting diamond earrings for my upcoming sixteenth birthday. I couldn’t wait to show Simone. I wished I could have gotten cooler earrings. I didn’t realize I was going to have to wait so long to change them, but as soon as I could, I was going to go downtown and buy a pair of dangly palm tree earrings like Simone’s. Grandma was waiting by the door when we pulled up. She pulled my hair back with her hands.

  “Maggie, do these studs look even to you?” she asked, squinting. My aunt rolled her eyes and said they were straight.

  “Are you sure?” Grandma asked, tilting my head up. “They look off to me.”

  “Yes, Ma. Perfectly even. They look nice, Hadley,” Aunt Maggie said. She held Lily up to see and Lily put her hands up to touch them. I backed away since my ears were already sensitive and I didn’t need somebody swatting at me.

  I called Simone to tell her about my ears, but she was in a weird mood.

  “Do you want to come over?” I asked.

  “I’m like, super busy. Maybe another time.”

  I went over to Charlotte’s house instead.

  “Why are you smiling so weird?” Charlotte asked.

  I had put my hair in a ponytail so she could see my earrings better. “Notice anything?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you’re acting like a freak,” she said.

  “I got my ears pierced. Aunt Faith took me this morning,” I said.

  She peered closer and asked if it hurt. I didn’t want to act like a kid so I said it didn’t.

  “It looks okay, I guess. I mean, if you like them that’s all that matters, and at least you didn’t let Simone do it,” she said.

  Her grandpa had made some lemonade and his hands shook as he poured it for us. He asked if I wanted to stay for lunch and said he’d make us mini pizzas. I called my Grandma’s house to check and asked if I could have lunch over here. I was in luck because Aunt Maggie answered and said I would miss out on a fresh batch of her tuna salad.

  “Oh, your friend Simone called,” Maggie said. “She wanted to get together today.”

  I bit my lip. Simone wanted to see me. I could pretend I had to go home and then call her, but I did like spending time with Charlotte and her grandpa.

  “So? Can you stay?” Mr. Lidstrom asked when I hung up the phone.

  “Yup, sure can,” I said. “Thanks for having me.”

  I decided to stay longer after lunch, and Charlotte and I worked on a collage she wanted for her wall of pictures from magazines.

  I didn’t call Simone until after dinner, and then, when she came over, she said Pilar and Morgan were acting weird around her.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, I went out to dinner and a movie with my mom the other night. Connor wanted me to come over and watch movies with Lucas, Nick, Morgan, and Pilar, but it was my mom’s birthday, so I went with her instead,” she said. “I mean, it would be wrong to leave her alone on her birthday.”

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  Simone picked up Jack the Bear. “I’m not sure. All I know is Morgan told me we were going to have to find somebody new for me to like because Pilar was going out with Connor now.”

  “Wait—after one night?”

  “Yup,” she stared up at me with her round blue eyes. “I can’t believe they would go behind my back like that. But you know, the other day we all went to the beach and she kept talking to him and touching his arm.” She rolled her eyes. “She’s so obvious. I think she’s jealous because Lauren’s coming to visit me.”

  I nodded.

  “I swear, everything had been fine until the party. Connor kept trying to kiss me and I didn’t mind at first, but then it seemed like it was all he wanted to do. I felt weird because he wanted to be alone and I wanted to go back to the party. He even called me a ‘little girl.’ What a jerk,” she said, picking fuzz from the bear. “And I think Morgan only got him and Pilar together because Morgan and I had the same shorts on at the party, and Connor said I was hotter in them.”

  “Did he say it in front of her?” I asked.

  “Not right in front of her, but I’m pretty sure she heard. And she didn’t seem too thrilled when Nick started asking me questions about you. Then, when the guys went to watch a baseball game, they went past this channel that was showing a movie I was in years ago. I only had a tiny part in it, but Connor seemed impressed and I think it made Pilar and Morgan mad. I didn’t even want to watch the stupid movie.” She sighed and put Jack the Bear down. “I used to have a bear like this. Except mine was a girl bear with a princess hat.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I guess she ended up in the garage. I put a lot of my kid stuff in boxes when we moved,” she said.

  “When did you guys move here?”

  “A year ago, after I stopped working and then my parents got divorced. Sort of why I went out with my mom for her birthday.” She pulled her knees up to her chest. “She’s been upset because she found out my dad’s marrying his girlfriend,” she said.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said it might be cool to have a new stepmom. However, that wasn’t the right thing to say, because she gave me the coldest look.

  “The woman will not be my stepmom,” she said. “My dad never spends any time with me, but now he’s talking about putting his house up for sale and getting a bigger place in case they have kids.”

  “Does he live nearby?” I asked.

  “About a half-hour, but he never comes here. I always have to go there, and then he usually leaves to go out or something. The worst thing is my mom was pregnant two years ago.” She sighed. “Then she lost the baby and my parents started fighting a lot.”

  Simone got super quiet and stared out the window until I suggested we walk down to the docks and get a Tropical Icy.

  “I dunno. I don’t want to run into my friends there. I’m not ready to deal with all that drama. It is cool if we stay in and watch TV or something?”

  I nodded and we went downstairs and made root beer floats.<
br />
  “This summer officially stinks,” Simone said, licking root beer foam off her upper lip. “All my friends hate me, my dad’s a jerk, and now I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

  “Did Morgan sound mad when she called?” I asked.

  “No, it’s…I don’t know how to explain her. She acts like she’s your friend one minute, and then she says something totally mean to you. The day after the party we all had plans to go to the beach, but Morgan called and said they weren’t going, so I stayed home.” She licked the ice cream off the end of her straw. “But then I found out they went to the beach without me.”

  “That sucks. Do you want to do something tomorrow?” I asked. “We could go to the beach.”

  She said she didn’t want to run into Morgan and Pilar, but she told me to call her tomorrow and we’d get together. “Oh, and Lauren will be in town soon, and we should all get together,” she said. “Maybe we could invite Nick since he’s obviously into you.”

  After she left, I planned what I would wear when I got to meet Lauren Gere. I pulled out my new journal with the wildflowers on the cover, and when I opened it, I realized it was a gratitude journal. Underneath the post, Things to be grateful for, I wrote:

  1. Had fun with Charlotte and her grandpa 2. Hung out with Simone 3. Simone invited me to hang out when Lauren gets here 4. Finally being included in plans 5. New earrings 6. Getting to hang out with Aunt Faith 7. Spending time with Grandpa and watching soaps 8. Nick was asking about me 9. Best. Summer. Ever.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning I woke up and saw I had two missed calls from Simone. I guess I had accidentally turned my ringer off when I went to bed. Charlotte called to see if I wanted to go downtown. I wanted to, but I told her I’d call her back after I asked my grandmother. Instead, I dialed Simone’s number. I mean, she had called me first after all.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Mrs. Hendrickson, it’s Hadley. Is Simone home?” I asked.

  “Hi hon, no, she’s not. Simone’s out with her friends.”

  I guess they made up. Nice of Simone to let me know. I called Charlotte back.

  “Hey, I am dying to go to the lighthouse museum. Wanna go?” Charlotte asked.

  It sounded super boring, but she was so excited about it that I couldn’t say no. We had to walk pretty far to get to it, but at least we got to go inside and look around. The guide said there were rumors it was haunted.

  “What do the ghosts do?” I asked.

  “Well, sometimes I hear somebody walking up the stairs, but no one’s there and the lights turn on and off all the time,” he said.

  Not exactly the lighthouse of terror then. I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic, but Charlotte was in awe and taking pictures of everything. The air felt hot and stale, and I needed to get out of there. Finally, I told her I’d wait outside for her until she was ready. We walked down the boardwalk and decided to go to this spot that overlooked downtown Grand Haven. Some of the cottages were built right into the hills and were so high up they had these little elevator thingies to help the people get up the hill.

  “I wish I lived in one of those,” I said.

  “Yeah, but most of the stores and restaurants close during the fall and winter because there aren’t a lot of tourists and then it’s not as much fun,” she said. “Oh, see the huge brown house with the two tier deck in the front? That’s Pilar’s house.”

  The house was across the street from the beach and overlooked the lake. We started to walk back down to the beach when we saw Morgan and Pilar coming up the path. Pilar was wearing one of those strapless bathing suit cover-ups, which showed off her impossibly dark tan. I had seen the exact same cover-up in Seventeen, and I knew it cost a ton. I wondered which house Morgan lived in and figured it was probably the big blue one I had been drooling over. I started to say something to the girls as they got closer, but they walked past me without even looking in my direction.

  ***

  I called Simone the next day, but she was going over to Morgan’s for lunch.

  “I so want to talk to you though,” she said, and my heart soared. “I’ll be back around three, so call me then and we’ll hang out.”

  After lunch, Charlotte called and invited me over to watch Charmed Lives. I wanted to tell her Nick had been asking about me again, but she had acted so weird the last time that I let it go.

  After the show, Charlotte asked if I wanted to get some ice cream. I wanted to, but it was after three o’clock.

  “Simone asked me to hang out later. You could come too,” I said.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Nah, I’m good. That’s not really my scene. But you guys have plans, so no worries. We’ll hang out another time.”

  I called Simone as I walked to the house.

  Her mom answered. “Oh hi, hon,” she said. “Simone’s still out with her crew. I’ll let her know you called. I think Nick’s mom is flying home tonight, so it probably won’t be too late.”

  Wait, she was with Nick too? The same Nick who supposedly wanted her to bring me along the next time they hung out? That sucked.

  I decided to walk back to Charlotte’s since I didn’t have plans anymore, but when I got there, her grandpa said she left. I figured she probably went to get ice cream by herself and I could meet up with her at the parlor, but Grandma wouldn’t let me go alone. Aunt Faith went with me, but Char wasn’t there. I wondered where she was and if she was hanging out with someone else.

  ***

  Charlotte didn’t call me the next day either. I stayed in my room reading until it got too hot up there and went outside to read in the hammock. Uncle Stu asked if I wanted to go with him and the boys to play miniature golf, but I decided to go over to Charlotte’s. Her grandpa let me in and I went into her room where there was another girl sitting on her bed looking through a scrapbook.

  “Oh, hi,” Charlotte said. “I didn’t know you were coming over. This is Deidre.”

  Deidre stared up at me through her straight black bangs and nodded. Then she went back to the scrapbook. “Remember when we went tubing last year?” she asked, leaning closer to Charlotte.

  They both cracked up and I tried to smile even though I had no clue what they were talking about. Charlotte explained Deidre’s mom had convinced her to try tubing last year.

  “I thought I was going to drown,” Char said. “I fell out of the tube, but I kept hanging onto the rope thing and everybody was yelling at me to let go—”

  “’Cause when you let go, you float up to the top,” Deidre said.

  “But I didn’t know that and it was so funny,” she said. “Well, except for the almost drowning part.”

  “Did you guys meet this summer too?” I asked.

  They exchanged a look. “No, we’ve known each other for a long time,” Charlotte said. “Deidre lives in Grand Haven. She’s back from gymnastics camp.”

  “My cousins Pilar and Jeremy Ito live nearby,” Deidre said. “Do you know them?”

  Pilar was her cousin? Deidre sort of resembled Pilar, except she didn’t have the super dark tan, the long hair, or the cheekbones. Deidre was what Pilar would look like without the platform sandals, tons of makeup, and cute clothes.

  The two of them kept talking about school, and I felt so left out.

  “We’re going over to Deidre’s house,” Char said. I didn’t know if I was invited or not from the way Deidre was looking at me.

  “Oh, okay, well, I have to leave anyway because I’m going to play miniature golf with Clark and my uncle,” I said, getting up.

  I walked home and Grandpa said Uncle Stu had already left with the boys. I tried calling Simone’s cell phone.

  “Hi, it’s Hadley. Is Lauren in town yet—?”

  “Hadley, I gotta go,” she said, interrupting me. “I’ll call you later.”

  Simone never called back, and I ended up spending the night watching a baseball game with Grandpa.

  “It’s kind of nice to have a TV watching pal,” Gra
ndpa said smiling.

  “Yeah, Dad watches the History Channel non-stop, and my mom could watch HGTV all day long. It’s nice to have someone who understands my love of soaps and sports.”

  “And you understand baseball pretty well,” he said. “Your dad was never into it.”

  “Nope, Mom’s the bigger sports fan, but she likes basketball more.”

  I heard my phone buzz with a text, but I didn’t recognize the number.

  Hey, it’s Nick. Finally got your number from Simone. Hope it’s cool that I’m messaging ya. I wanted to see what you were up to.

  I almost dropped the phone I was so excited. I wrote back that I was watching a Tigers game with my grandpa and then winced because it looked lamer on the screen than it had sounded in my head.

  Nick: No way, I’m watching with my dad right now. We got back from picking up my mom.

  Nick and I texted back and forth about the game. It seemed easier to talk about baseball with him, but Simone hadn’t told me exactly what he had asked her about me. Did he want a friend to talk to about sports or something, or was he interested in me?

  Nick: Did you see the first baseman trip over his feet? I think we found our new role model in life.

  I laughed and texted back.

  Me: We might need to aim higher and go for someone who can run two feet without landing on his face.

  Nick: You have loftier goals than me. See, I knew it—you’re good for me. Making me aim higher.

  I smiled and texted back a sticker of a girl prancing down a runway.

  Me: I might be delusional if I think I could make it down a runway like her.

  Nick: If anyone could do it, you can. So why haven’t you come around with Simone? I’ve missed seeing you.

  What to say? That I was never included in her plans? That I wasn’t sure she saw me as what—an equal? I tried to think how to word it, while sounding mysterious and like someone he’d want to go out with.