Catch a Falling Star

by Culbertson, Kim

  Now, Parker handed me a check. The rest of the money. When I didn’t reach for it, he said, “You earned it.”

  So I took it from him and tore it up.

  Surprised, he took the torn pieces. “What about your brother?”

  “He leaves tomorrow for his program. We’ll figure it out as a family.” John could finish recovering from his injuries at the inpatient program down in the Bay Area where Mom would drive him. We had no idea how to pay for it, but I couldn’t take any more of Adam’s money. Somehow, the money felt like the biggest lie of all. And Adam had already made that donation to Sandwich Saturdays. He’d called Investigator Meadows for help.

  “We’re even,” I told Parker.

  With sad eyes, Parker shook his head, pocketing the ripped pieces of check. “Someone else would like a chance to say good-bye, if you have a moment.” He motioned to where Adam emerged from the shadow of a tree in the lower part of the garden. “Go easy on him,” he said, leaving us alone in the cool green of the yard.

  I walked down the sloping lawn to meet him. “Hi.”

  He had his sunglasses pushed into his hair and his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Hi.” He cleared his throat quietly. “So, you’re pretty mad at me.”

  I shrugged, studying the fountain resting near the base of the tree. It had a frog spitting water into a pool. “Not really, not anymore.” Because I wasn’t. This was something else, a sort of hurt that burrowed deep and nested there.

  He searched my face. “I’m sorry, though. I wish you could understand.”

  I put my hand on his arm, his nearness still affecting me, still sending those currents moving through me. “I want to, honestly. It’s just …” I searched the leafy trees around us, as if their shade held answers. “I just don’t think I can. I’m sorry.”

  Before he could say anything else, before I could change my mind, I walked away.

  At home, I found my parents reading a note from John at the kitchen table. Mom held it out for me to read, and I dropped into the chair across from them, tears welling.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, as much to myself as to them. It was my turn to feel like a black hole, too much density in too small a space, too much debris sucked inside me with no chance of escape.

  Mom reached across the table for my hand as Dad stood and put his arms around me. The afternoon light played on the kitchen wall, shifting as the tree outside moved in the wind. The refrigerator clicked and hummed.

  Dad sighed into my hair. “Me too.”

  The Ghost of Christmas Future scene would be filmed back in L.A., so the last scene Adam Jakes would shoot in Little, in a narrow Victorian near downtown, was the famous Tiny Tim “God bless us, every one!” moment. In this retelling, Scott would visit a weak Cheryl at her home, and she would wake just in time to say, “God bless us, Scott, every one!” in front of a roaring fire and sparkling Christmas tree.

  Late that night, while my parents talked quietly downstairs about John’s flight, I slipped out of the house, the moon a slim wedge in the sky. I started in the direction of Alien Drake’s, but I paused on the sidewalk, realizing that the one person I really wanted to see, the person I felt pulled to like a magnet, was shooting his last scene in Little in a house two streets away. I turned and headed down the hill.

  When I got to the house, I knocked lightly and one of the crew guys opened the back door for me. A slender hallway spilled into a living room where I found Adam sitting on a red velvet sofa, studying a script as the crew hurried around him, the room a cozy Christmas scene.

  When Adam saw me, he stood in surprise. “Carter?”

  Seeing his face light, I crumbled, and he whisked me into a room they weren’t using, the kitchen. Moonlight streamed through the wide window over the sink, glazing everything silver. Adam looked worried. “What happened?”

  I showed him John’s note.

  “Oh no,” he mumbled as he read. “I’m sorry.”

  “He’s not going.” I brushed at the tears on my cheeks, feeling ridiculous for being here.

  Adam put a hand on my shoulder. “Where do you think he went?” He handed the note back.

  “No idea.” I slipped it into my bag. “We don’t know where he is.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked, his eyes concerned.

  I shook my head. “There really isn’t.” I let out an awkward laugh. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here. It’s just, it’s so stupid of me.”

  Adam frowned. “What is?”

  “I thought he’d get help, you know? I thought he’d get better.” I took a deep breath. “I thought he’d finally figure it out.”

  “Relapse is part of recovery.” Adam held up his hands against my sharp look. “I might not have been in real rehab, but I’ve spent plenty of time in therapy.”

  I leaned against the silvered counter. “I was just hoping he’d have his Scrooge moment, you know? Like Scott, like you do in the movie. Realize he’d been wrong, that he could change, and then fix it.”

  “He’s an addict. It’s not that easy.”

  “So was Scrooge. Addicted to selfishness, addicted to money.” I motioned toward the other room, where the sounds of the scene echoed, spilled Christmas into the night kitchen. “But he fixes it. He realizes he’s wrong in two quick hours.” I sighed. “Do you ever get tired of telling lies to people with all these Hollywood endings?”

  Adam’s expression softened. “Not lies. Possibilities. Isn’t that what you and Alien Drake are always talking about with your stargazing? We have to keep telling these stories, just like we have to keep looking up at the stars at night, because we’re human. We need steady reminders. We need to hope.”

  My heart tugged. Why couldn’t he just be a boy who went to Little High, who took me to the movies instead of starring in them? Why did our lives have to be so different?

  But he was right. We needed our ghosts to remind us.

  “I think I’m going to start dancing again,” I told him. “With Nicky. At Stagelights. I’m going to go see him tomorrow.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Nothing big,” I hurried to explain. “Just for fun. And I’m going to look into some dance therapy programs. You know, for after graduation. For college.”

  He leaned forward, the moonlight catching his hair, bleaching his tan face, making him his own sort of ghost. “I’m going to take some credit for this epiphany.”

  I hoped my face showed how true that was. “You should.”

  “I can hear the sounds of roots ripping up as we speak,” he teased.

  “Mr. Jakes?” Tiny Tom stood in the doorway. “They’re ready for you.”

  “I’m glad you came,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I wish I could talk longer, but —”

  “Go,” I said, waving him on. “I totally barged in on you. Thanks for listening.”

  His body already morphing into Scott, he vanished into the next room.

  Not wanting to go just yet, I followed Adam and found a chair near the back, watching everyone build the rest of the Christmas fantasy. In the scene, Cheryl was home from the hospital, recovering on the couch under a mound of quilts, snow falling gently outside her dark window. Scott had already been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Future, and had brought Cheryl a music box, one that had been broken and he’d repaired for her as a symbol of his new commitment to living a whole, good life. Blinking back tears, Cheryl held the music box aloft and blessed us, every one, the lights of the fake Christmas tree twinkling behind her, reflecting in the frosted windows.

  I couldn’t wait to see it when all the movie magic had been added, the music, the glowing lighting. But even watching from where I could see the cameras, see Hunter’s back hunched as he directed the scene, see the crew moving silently about, I knew it would be a beautiful scene.

  There was a reason this particular story kept being retold. We all had our own ghosts who visited us. We all had these reminders, these spirits sent to warn us, guide us, awaken us
to things in our lives. Each of us had people who reminded us of our past or pointed out our present, who illuminated our future path in some way. I had them in Chloe and Alien Drake, in my parents, even in my brother.

  And in Adam.

  They guided us like night stars, nudging us, reminding us that so much was possible.

  At one point during a lull in the shooting, Adam caught my eye, and he gave me a sad sort of smile.

  After the shoot, he came to sit next to me in the back of the room. As we watched the dismantling of the tree, I realized I’d have to wait another five months before we built Christmas around us again, its spirit dormant in the hot days of summer.

  “Parker said the announcement went well,” he said, his eyes downcast, picking at some loose strings on the chair’s seat. “I look like a prince — hooray,” he added weakly.

  “Yes, you’re officially single and heartbroken. The world will love you again.” I tried to keep my voice light, but it caught. Hearing it, he glanced up, his eyes searching my face. It sent a coil of sadness through me. It might have been fake, what we had, but I’d miss him for real. “Sorry, Adam.”

  “For what?”

  “For not understanding why you needed to do all those things with the tabloids.” I kept my voice low, knowing anyone could overhear us and, suddenly, the whole world would know. “I’m not saying that I agree; I’m just, you know, sorry.”

  He studied the photos lining the walls — another family, another set of stories playing themselves out in the world. “We’re from really different worlds, aren’t we?” His face darkened.

  “That’s an understatement.” We were like two planets whose orbits should never cross.

  “Still,” he said, his gaze slipping to me. “I’m really glad I met you.”

  “Me too,” I whispered over the thickness in my throat.

  “Mr. Jakes?” Tiny Tom stood again before us. Behind him, the room had been completely cleared. Nothing left of Christmas. Just a house, dark in the middle of a July night. “We’re done here.”

  In the small bubble of silence to follow, knowing an exit when it opened, Adam stood. “We should go.”

  I pulled a picture frame from my bag, the dark blue one scattered with stars that Chloe had given me in my survival kit. “This is sort of dumb, I guess, but I brought you this.” I handed it to him. It held a quote I’d written onto a blank piece of cardstock. “It’s from A Christmas Carol, the original novella.”

  He took it, his face unreadable. “Thanks.”

  I told him how glad I was they’d filmed the movie here, how much I loved how Dickens’s little book had been so lasting, had been retold so many times. What I didn’t tell him was how much he mattered to me. I knew my few weeks with Adam wouldn’t really factor into the grand scheme of the world, but they had made a huge difference to me.

  I didn’t tell him because I was pretty sure he already knew.

  “Keep watching the sky, okay?” He leaned to kiss my cheek, his lips the quick flick of butterfly wings.

  “I will.”

  Morning, sky watchers. In 1961, John Kennedy said that we should explore space because it “may hold the key to our future on Earth.” It’s been two weeks since Hollywood left Little, and since they left, we’ve been talking a lot about why we watch movies. Why are they and the lives of their stars so important to us? We think it’s much the same reason as Kennedy suggested. They might hold the key to something in our own future, in our own lives. Whether we search for answers in space or in the books we read, in the music we listen to, or through the movies we watch, the essential thing is that we keep exploring, that we keep pushing ourselves to find our possible lives.

  What possibilities will you seek out today?

  See you tonight, under the sky.

  a few weeks later, there was no trace of Hollywood in Little, CA. No more humming generators, no more blocked-off streets, no more crews scurrying around with snow-hoses and annoying the locals who found stray bits of fake snow on their cars. As much as I felt the hollow of Adam’s absence, peace had returned to our small town, even if it left Chloe sort of sulky.

  “Did you guys even try to talk?” she was asking as she stacked cups above the espresso machine. “I mean, I know he screwed up, but maybe you guys could have given it a real chance. You really liked him, Carter. Like, really liked.”

  “And how exactly,” I asked her, “would we do that? It’s not like my mom and dad would let their high school daughter fly off to Australia with a movie star.” I wiped the counter with a rag.

  “Maybe they would have let you,” Chloe insisted. “They did tell you to keep your options open, to look for something for your life outside of Little. Well, Australia is outside of Little.”

  Over the past couple of weeks, I’d been sharing my ideas about post–high school plans with Chloe and she’d been sharing hers with me. No surprise, she was looking almost exclusively at communications majors in Southern California, Hollywood drawing her like a moth to its neon light.

  “I’m pretty sure becoming part of Adam Jakes’s entourage was not what they had in mind. It’s not going on the list.”

  To my surprise, with Alien Drake’s and Chloe’s help, the list was getting longer and longer. There were plenty of schools near and far with programs in dance therapy as well as social work. I even found a few gap-year programs that would let me take some of the work I’d done with Sandwich Saturdays and expand it to a bigger level.

  My eyes caught on something through the window. Cars piled up in a line, snaking up the street. A stalled SUV blocked the way, angled so cars couldn’t pass. “Hold on, Chlo — we might need to call a tow truck,” I said as I pushed through the door and out onto the patio.

  The SUV wasn’t stalled.

  Adam Jakes lounged against the Range Rover, which he had parked crookedly in the middle of the street. Drivers leaned out of their cars, trying to determine the cause of the holdup.

  All air escaped me. So much for Hollywood not blocking any more of our streets.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him over the fence separating our café from the sidewalk. The café diners paused. The man playing jazz guitar in our patio stopped. Silence leaked in around me. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Australia?”

  The patio door banged open behind me. “Carter, what —” I heard Chloe gasp. “Oh, WOW!”

  Adam waved a sheet of paper in the air. “We have some unfinished business.”

  My face reddened. I waved a sort of apology at Mr. Murdoch, who was fuming in the car behind Adam. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, we were talking about how stories need to be retold, right? What about love being a risk worth taking even when it makes no sense? I’d like to discuss that story more.” Two women diners in the patio gave out a simultaneous “Woo-hoo!” Adam grinned in their direction, then let his gaze fall back on me. “Take a risk, Carter. It’s an old story for a reason. I know you’re considering all your possibilities right now, and I’d just like to throw my hat in the ring.”

  Feeling all sorts of light-headed, I tried to fasten my mind to exactly what Adam was saying as Mr. Murdoch was attempting to push around him. Finally, an old-timer in a beat-up Chevy made a seven-point turn and sped back up the hill, giving Adam a not-so-friendly finger. I tried to hide my smile. “You need to get out of the street. People have jobs. You know, real jobs? They need to get to work.” I nervously twisted the rag I was holding.

  He held up the paper again. “I repeat: We have a tour to finish.”

  I realized with a start that it was my handmade Little Star Map. I couldn’t believe he’d kept it.

  Mr. Murdoch leaned on his horn. “Hey, Carter, can you get this jerk to move his vehicle?”

  “I’m trying,” I called to him, my heart thumping. To Adam, I said, “You have to move your vehicle, jerk.”

  He didn’t waver. “You’re kind of raining on my grand romantic gesture.”

  I grinned. �
�Grand? You don’t even have a sound track.”

  He knew he had me. “I was going to have your dad’s band play, but I thought that might be a bit over the top. I know you like your privacy.”

  “Yes, and this is so subtle.”

  He took a step forward and pushed his sunglasses into his hair. “I think people from two worlds sometimes just have to meet in the middle.” He gestured to the car. “You coming?”

  Mr. Murdoch made the turn like the Chevy had and sped away, but most were clearly enjoying the show, had gotten out of their cars to watch.

  I chewed my lip, not answering, my body electrical, buzzing.

  Adam didn’t take his eyes off me. “You need to come kiss me, and then we need to finish our Star Tour. That’s how this works.”

  “Carter, go to him!” Chloe hissed behind me. “You’re ruining this.”

  I looked at her. Alien Drake stood next to her in the doorway. “Well, go on; don’t drag it out. Some of us have things to do.” He grinned.

  Adam tossed the map into the rolled-down window of the Range Rover, then came to the fence. “People like a Hollywood ending, Carter.”

  “Not all people.”

  “But you do.”

  He was right. I did. I loved a Hollywood ending. Loved the montage where they figured everything out to the swell of music, the scenes from the beach or skyscraper where everything worked out the way it should. Simple, lovely — hopeful.

  The way I wished the whole world could be.

  If this moment were a movie, this would be the part where he kissed me, where the music would rise over the press of our lips, where the shot would pan away into the yellow light of afternoon, the credits starting to roll.