Abby Road

by Ophelia London

I dipped my chin, staring at my sister through my eyelashes. “Lindsey. I broke up with that idiot almost a year ago. Again, stop with the match making.”

  My sister pulled an innocent expression, complete with big, round eyes. “Okay, okay. But if you don’t tell me what’s going on in your life, then I’ll have to get my information elsewhere, and my sources say he’s hooked on you.” She gestured to the tall stack of magazines behind me next to the picture window. Despite everything they printed about our family and all those other crap-filled stories, Lindsey relied on the tabloids way too much.

  “Max is my manager,” I said, skipping back to our earlier subject, “and he’ll be calling me at some point.”

  “I thought you were on an official vacation.” She dumped the contents of my bags onto the kitchen table to examine the day’s purchases.

  “I am on vacation.” I rubbed my nose. “I just don’t want Max to think I’m hiding from him.”

  “You should be hiding. One whole summer off after five years nonstop?” She chuckled sarcastically. “How generous of him.” She lifted her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at me as she held up a jumbo-sized conch shell coated with cheap mother-of-pearl. “I get you for three whole months,” she reminded. “That’s the deal.”

  I nodded, unwilling to argue at the moment. She returned the tacky shell to its blue tissue paper. “When you showed up here last night, you looked like death.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said, running my hands through my hair.

  Upon further consideration, however, I probably had looked freakishly ghastly when I’d appeared on Lindsey’s doorstep, because I’d yet to wash off the gaudy stage makeup from my performance fifteen hours earlier or remove the several feet of pink extensions woven through my hair. I probably looked like something that was dug up then left out to rot.

  Lindsey claimed I looked like death. Okay, so at least my outsides were catching up to my insides.

  I held my breath and glanced at my sister, willing myself not to break into sobs. There was so much she still didn’t know. That sob hung in my chest, torn between the agony of holding in and wishing that I could’ve told her everything.

  “Ah! Muchas gracias for this!” Lindsey suddenly exclaimed, flipping through my one purchase for her from the bookstore. “I’ve been dying to read this.”

  “You’re welcome.” I smiled.

  After returning my other souvenirs to their bags, Lindsey turned her scrutinizing eyes back to me. In response, I pushed my fingers through my hair, vainly attempting to appear non-dead.

  She tipped her head to the side, eyebrows raised. “Don’t they let you sleep on that tour bus? Or eat?”

  My spine stiffened, causing my proverbial panic-and-retreat alert to kick into high gear.

  “Your hair’s thinner, Abby.” She planted her hands on her hips, continuing to study me.

  I felt my face getting hot.

  “You’ve lost more weight, too.” She bit her thumbnail, looking guilty. “Seriously, what’s happened to you? I saw you six months ago; you looked fine then.”

  Fine? I wanted to ask. Six months ago, I’d been merely a tragic caricature of my once happy, normal self. Now I didn’t even have the energy to keep up the façade.

  “I told them,” Lindsey continued when I remained silent. “I told them you weren’t strong enough. I told them we shouldn’t have let you go back out on the road alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone,” I corrected automatically, not bothering to disguise the misery in my voice. “Not for two seconds am I ever alone.”

  She continued to chew her thumbnail, not listening. “But we didn’t know what else to do, ya know? And you wouldn’t let Mom or Dad help or . . .”

  Just breathe, Abby. Just breathe. Let her talk. She’ll finish in a minute.

  I stared into the middle distance between us, trying to make it look like I was listening, when I was really counting backward from one hundred in my head.

  My focus was pulled when I felt something cold on my palm.

  “I’m being a bad mom,” Lindsey said, after placing a bottle of water into my hand when I apparently didn’t take it. “I’m fixing mac and cheese for the boys.” She displayed and shook a blue box of dry noodles and powdered cheese. “Seriously contrary to Doctor Oz.”

  “I’m telling your Mommy Group,” I warned, folding myself into a kitchen chair.

  “And I’m being even lazier and making a dumbed-down version of Rachel Ray’s Cobb salad for Steve and me. I’ll fix you whatever you want. Sky’s the limit.”

  “Food.” I gulped, feeling woozy just speaking the word. “Food is the last thing—”

  “Then don’t worry about it,” she said, filling a saucepan with water at the sink. “You’ll have to eat sometime. I’ll try not to worry about you. At least not openly worry about you. I know how much you hate that.”

  I leaned over, reaching for one of the glossy magazines. At a glance, I realized I’d met every single person on the cover. I grabbed a pen off the counter and idly start filling in black teeth on Angelina.

  Lindsey dried her hands on a red kitchen towel then tucked it into her apron. As she examined the magazine over my shoulder, she played with a chunk of her shiny blond hair, looking exactly like pictures of our mother at that age: both natural, effortless beauties. Unlike me. I had to work like a maniac to keep my booty in check. The men in the family were just as genetically fortunate, father and son, movie star good looks, spitting images twenty-five years apart.

  Falling last in line, I’d been born a hodge-podge of all four. My hair is naturally dark, and so is my skin. My peepers turned out an odd grayish-blue and larger than sometimes look normal for the size of my face. My neck is long, my face round, and my feet big. I’m also the shortest in the family by several inches, shooting up to five foot six when I was fifteen, all sharp knees and elbows.

  I used to beg Mom to give me highlights so I would look more like Lindsey, but it never happened. Of course, the color of my hair was the first thing I was required to alter after I signed Max’s contract five years ago. That makeover experience was my own personal Miss Congeniality transformation. Out of that salon I’d stepped: new hair, new eyes, and new clothes. Malibu Abby, made by Mattel.

  After that, every photograph of me was as a blond in colored contacts—an ice-blue so dramatic it reminded me of the sky in the Van Goghs I’d obsessed over in my painting classes during my last semester of college. At first I thought my eyes looked too phony, but like most things, I got used to them. Then they became my trademark.

  “You did get one other phone call,” Lindsey began again, pulling me back to the present. “Mom.” She stood very still in the middle of the kitchen, waiting to see my reaction.

  “Oh?”

  When she didn’t get the response she was expecting, Lindsey turned her back to resume her task. “Just checking on you,” she continued from over her shoulder. “Making sure you arrived safely. You should give them a call when—”

  “I will,” I cut in. “When I get the chance.”

  And with that, Lindsey let the subject drop.

  Lazily, I glanced past her at the refrigerator, covered in photos and drawings, some with crayons, some with markers or finger paint. I felt a little lump in my throat, slightly jealous of the normal life she was living, and feeling pained at the same time, knowing that I’d basically forfeited any kind of traditional normalcy to live my life.

  Something caught my eye. “Lindsey?” I rose to my feet. “Why do you have that up there?”

  Lindsey followed my stare to the magazine page taped to the side of the fridge. “I think it’s hilarious.” She grinned as she regarded it. “It was taken the night before I left you in Amsterdam, back in January. Remember?”

  I stood before the picture. “I remember,” I said, smiling at the memory.

  The picture was of Mustang Sally—all four of us in the band. At the far end of that ornately decorated Dutch hotel hallway, Hal and the guys had thrown a
sort of cul-de-sac after party our last night in Europe. That photo captured the scene: ice buckets, pizza boxes, some random girls behind us out of focus, and visual evidence of the aftermath of a multicolored Silly String war. The guys had unleashed a surprise attack on Lindsey and me.

  “Hey, they airbrushed you out.” I pointed at the photo. “You were right there next to me. You had Jordan in a headlock.”

  “I know.” Lindsey shrugged, wiping down the counter.

  I turned back to stare at the picture. Cameras don’t lie, but computers sure can be deceptive. Not only deleting my sister, but also adding what looked like strategically placed items of beer bottles and ladies’ lingerie. I’d been there that night, and I knew the guys were drinking nothing more than Mountain Dew. In their own ridiculous ways, the guys did try to play their parts—dating models, racing motorcycles, and other equally mature endeavors. But we weren’t your typical rock stars.

  I examined the picture more closely. “It’s kind of endearing, if they weren’t so infantile.”

  “I love it. Because look.” She pointed at the photo. “You’re laughing.”

  And I was. Huh.

  Frozen in time, the four of us were covered in a rainbow of sticky, wormy webs, and my mouth was wide open. Laughing. Unabashed.

  No, cameras don’t lie. But I also remembered the guilt I felt right afterward, knowing that before that night, I hadn’t laughed in months. I didn’t deserve to laugh after what I did.

  “What do you want to do tomorrow?” Lindsey asked, probably catching the change in my expression. I tore myself away from the picture to look at her. She was chopping bell peppers with an orange-handled chef’s knife on a turquoise plastic cutting board.

  “Absolutely nothing,” I answered, returning to my chair. “I intend to be an über beach bum for the first month.” I let my head drop onto the table and then rested it on one cheek. “Just flip me over twice a week so my tan is even.” I closed my eyes.

  Lindsey dropped something loud into the sink.

  “Why?” I asked, popping one eye open. “What do you have going on?”

  “Cleaning house,” she said. “Early in the morning before the boys are up.”

  “Need help?”

  She looked at me with a grin. “Abby. Please . . .”

  We har-har’ed in unison, knowing the domestic gene had totally skipped me.

  I propped my head on my elbow and flipped through the magazine in front of me, not really looking at the pages. I let myself be distracted for a while, my attention shifting from the magazine to watching Lindsey bustle around her kitchen, always on the go, always on top of everything, chatting away.

  “Around eight o’clock,” she said, “I’m taking the boys into Panama City for haircuts, and then we have their four-year checkup in the afternoon. Steve’s meeting us for dinner at a new place that just opened on the water. Why don’t you come along? We’ll make a day of it.”

  “Sounds like fun.” I yawned, shoving the magazine aside so my head could drift down to the table. “But I should probably lay low around here, if that’s okay.”

  I felt Lindsey at my side. She swept the hair off the back of my neck and laid her cool fingers on my skin, exactly like our mother used to do. “Why don’t you go up to bed?” she suggested. “After all those frantic pop-sprints you do onstage, I’m sure your body is exhausted.”

  I pulled myself to my feet, heading in the general direction of the guest bedroom. “Just so you know,” I said over my shoulder, “that maniac performer is the old me.” My legs felt so heavy, it was exhausting to climb the stairs. “I’m much more boring now. No tricks, no surprises, no—”

  Before the words had completely escaped my mouth, I stubbed my toe halfway up to the landing and fell face first onto the plush carpeted stairs.

  As I began my slow and helpless slide back down, Lindsey went from gasp to laugh to cackle. By the time I reached the bottom, she was bent in half, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Abigail Kelly, ladies and gentlemen. No pictures, please!”

  It was exactly 9:02 in the morning when I caught myself watching the clock. Lindsey and her boys had been gone barely an hour, and I was already bored out of my skull.

  After drifting from room to room, I slid open the glass door at the back of the living room and stepped out onto the deck.

  The Gulf of Mexico was bright blue, like sun hitting stained glass in a church window. Florida always seemed so clean to me, probably because I spent my quality time—if and when there was any—in small, secluded places like Seagrove Beach and her sister city Seaside, instead of Miami’s South Beach or Tampa’s club strip.

  Tipping my chin up and to the east, I closed my eyes, allowing the morning sun to hit my face straight on. Yellow and black sunspots danced inside my eyelids. I clutched the railing of the deck, swaying back and forth.

  Something fluttered in my stomach, and I realized my palms were sweaty.

  I know what this feeling is . . .

  The desire to be out in the world—free at last!—if even for a little while, was suddenly overwhelming. The same desire had hit me yesterday and inspired my impromptu fieldtrip to Pensacola, which had turned into a big, fat fail. Before then, I hadn’t really been out in public since the day I went to see Dr. Robert in L.A. Another fail.

  I pressed my hands against my stomach and opened my eyes, staring into the different levels of blue. When my tummy flipped again, I realized I’d concocted a plan.

  Before I could change my mind, I spun on my heel and headed back inside the house in search of my sandals. While strapping them on, I spotted my cell being charged on the counter. I unplugged it and slipped it in my pocket. With shoes properly on feet, I hustled out back to the shed behind the house, hauling out my sister’s monstrous red beach cruiser—balloon tires, wire basket, the whole works—and the accepted and preferred mode of transportation in South Walton County. A Dodgers baseball cap hung on a nail next to the door. I plopped it on my head and yanked down the bill.

  At a leisurely pace, I pedaled along the bike path that followed Scenic Highway 30A. Houses to my right, Gulf to my left. It was one of those perfect Florida days, the kind you read about in The Best Places to Go travel books and hear in those old Beach Boys songs about turquoise waves, white sand, and surfer babes.

  A few other bikers, joggers, and dog walkers were out on the path, all of whom nodded to me as we passed each other. Across the street, two women were speed walking. One was in a purple T-shirt, and one in a red windbreaker, both in matching yellow visors and round sunglasses. I was enchanted by how typically Florida they seemed.

  Lindsey and I used to be chummy like that, I thought as they speed-walked ahead of me. Sometimes when she came to visit me in L.A., we used to creep around shopping malls, me in deep disguise until an ultra-observant fan inevitably busted us. Then we’d run like mad, giggling until we cried.

  I bit my lip and squinted up at the sun. Lindsey and I didn’t laugh like that now. Like so many other things in the past year, I’d also learned to live without my sister.

  Behind the walking pair strolled a man and a woman, hand in hand. When they stopped for a little cuddle, he patted her belly, rubbing the swelling baby bump. I didn’t bother to hide that I was drinking in their private moment.

  As I got closer, I found that I was wondering if the daddy-to-be was cute. Then, for whatever reason, I thought about that idiot Miles. Even though the relationship was ancient history, there was something reassuring about knowing that once upon a time I’d been able to feel a romantic connection. I wondered if that would ever happen again.

  What really interested me now was the lofty idea of meeting someone with whom I could have an interesting, non-celebrity-centered conversation.

  Dream big, Abby!

  I glanced at the happy couple again.

  And now they’re kissing. Great. The one thing I actually miss about dating.

  I knew I shouldn’t have been daydreaming about romance, beca
use I was trying to get my head straight. Kissing should’ve been the last thing on my mind. So with a flex of my abdominal muscles, I mentally forced that yearny feeling down my legs and to the bottoms of my shoes. When I paused at a crosswalk, I stomped my feet, just to make sure I got it all out.

  Back on the bike, I coasted in and out of little beachfront neighborhoods with names like Gulf Glades and Seashore Shades. Lush greenery lined the streets, along with flower patches and quaint cookie-cutter homes, reminding me of the candy house from Hansel & Gretel. I was grateful Lindsey lived in a place like Seagrove Beach. I could disappear here.

  Skidding to a halt at a three-way stop, I had the monumental decision of which direction to take next. Left was sugary white sandy beaches, right was a string of T-shirt shops, and straight ahead was Seaside Town Square.

  I smiled and adjusted my hat, setting my course dead ahead.

  {chapter 3}

  “DAY TRIPPER”

  The big red cruiser rattled and jarred as I rode over bumpy cobblestones. While still in forward motion, I swung my leg over one side of the bike, landed on both feet at a little jog, then walked us both up the sidewalk. I leaned the bike against the front window of Modica Market; no chain, no lock—something you could still do in Seaside.

  It was pretty early, and there weren’t many people out yet. Feeling at ease, I strolled up the sidewalk, peering in the different store windows as I passed, just like any other shopper might do. For a while, I lost myself in shark teeth on strings, paintings of tropical settings, homemade fudge, and hand-crocheted baby blankets.

  When I heard the characteristic muffled and thumping bass line of pop music, my attention was drawn to a blue minivan pulling into a parking space a few yards away. The side door slid open, and out poured approximately twenty teenage girls. It was like one of those clown cars at the circus—they kept coming and coming and coming.

  And I froze, except for the wind whooshing from my lungs like a deflating balloon.

  I knew if I were spotted, my clandestine outing, and quite possibly my entire vacation, would be dashed beyond all human repair. I also suddenly remembered what I was wearing. Max would have a brain seizure if anyone published pictures of me in my sister’s off-the-rack jean cutoffs and a yellow tank top that read “I’m a Woo-hoo Girl” across the front. Also, I didn’t have my blue contacts in, and I was sure my hair was a windblown disaster.