by Dahlia Adler
Liam’s eyebrows shot up. Guess that wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “What about financial aid?”
“Apparently, my parents make too much money for me to qualify for it. Never mind that we can’t afford to use any of that money for college,” I said sourly. “And don’t get me started on loans. Just thinking about paying them back with interest gives me hives. The last thing I need is to get stuck in raging debt when my mom’s already struggling to make ends meet for my sister.”
“I hear that.” He was quiet for a moment, and then said, “My mom died of cancer when I was a kid. It’s a bitch.”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
He shrugged. “How would you? And I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks.”
“What kind of cancer?”
“Melanoma. Stage IV.”
“Jesus. Where’d it metastasize to?”
Sick as it was, there was something oddly nice about being able to talk cancer with someone who already knew the terminology. “It’s in his liver and lymph nodes. What’d your mom have?”
“Lung. She never smoked or anything, but she got lung cancer anyway.” We both fell silent, and then he said, “Makes you feel like a hundred years older, doesn’t it?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it makes me feel even younger than I am, realizing how much I need my daddy.” I plucked a red throw pillow from the couch and started picking at the tightly knit threads, just to have something to do with my hands. “I feel like I should be able to do something for my mom and sister but really I can’t do anything but run away.”
“You’re not running away,” Liam argued. “You’re running to something. And you don’t have to go to Columbia, do you? It’s still early in the year; can’t you apply elsewhere?”
“Not really. Maybe. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t even really care anymore.” I hadn’t even realized how true that was until I spoke the words out loud. “I’ve wanted to go to Columbia forever. The idea of going to an Ivy League school and living in New York is just…I mean, how could I not want to go to school where I could walk to Central Park and listen to the Beatles in Strawberry Field? All while going to classes taught by some of the best professors in the world?” “Oh, well, I didn’t know about the Beatles thing,” he teased.
I stuck out my tongue at him in an admittedly childish gesture. “Look, I know it sounds stupid, but that’s just always been my vision. Go out on Long Island one Sunday and read The Great Gatsby where Fitzgerald wrote it; take a class on Impressionism and then go see Starry Night at the Museum of Modern Art—that sort of thing. But now that all just seems so incredibly ridiculous and unimportant.”
“So why are you still so intent on going?”
“Because it’s something to focus on. And it’s something for my dad to focus on. Which turns my work and achievements into things that matter, even though nothing fucking matters anymore.” It probably should’ve hit me at some point that of all the people to spill my guts to, Liam “Buy This Cologne Because I Have Nice Abs” Holloway was probably the strangest choice. But while I was still weirded out by how attractive he was, the bluntness of his questions—and the fact that he actually seemed to care about the answers—compelled me to babble on endlessly about things I hadn’t really discussed with anyone else, not even Van. “Whatever, it’s all stupid. I’m so incapable of focusing on my own work at this point that I’ll probably write awful scholarship essays and get ones on all my APs and then I won’t be able to afford to go anyway.”
“Ally, please. I’ve successfully uttered at least five French sentences that I’m pretty sure make sense, and you’ve only been tutoring me for a day. You’ll ace them.” The pizza was long gone, but Liam had made us popcorn for the movie and he popped one of the few remaining kernels into his mouth. “Besides, it’s cool that it makes your dad happy to watch you succeed. It’s not like he’ll love you any less if you don’t. It’s just a nice bonus. If you wanna know the truth, the first thing I think when I get a part is that I wish my mom were around just so I could tell her.” He made a face. “Not that I’d want her actually seeing any of this shit.”
Despite the heavy conversation, that made me burst out laughing. “Okay, your turn. Why the hell do you do all this stuff if you hate it? Is it, like, in The Rules of Being Attractive that you must become an actor-slash-model?”
He smiled slowly, my heart melting just a tiny bit with each new millimeter. “Does that mean you think I’m attractive?”
I rolled my eyes, hoping it was dim enough in his apartment to hide my blush. “You’re just avoiding the question now.” Though I was deliberately avoiding his, too.
He popped another kernel into his mouth. “See? You’re brilliant. You’re going to be valedictorian of Columbia.”
I refused to rise to the bait. I’d spilled my guts, and now it was his turn. I told him as much.
He sighed. “Okay, okay. Yes, I hate all of this shit. Are you happy? I hate modeling—it makes me feel like a mannequin with an IQ to match. I hate acting, especially in stupid teen shows. I hate that everyone under the age of twenty-one recognizes me and waves a camera in my face every time I’m just trying to have a burger, and I hate that there are people out there who’ll pay five hundred bucks for something just because I touched it. I’m a self-loathing, ungrateful, unappreciative asshole. Are you glad to know that?”
It was by far the most worked up I’d ever seen Liam about anything, and it was oddly intriguing. “I’m glad to know the truth, I guess. But then why do you do it?”
“Simple—emancipation.”
“Come again?”
“My mother’s dead. My dad’s a dick. When she died, I had to move in with him. He didn’t want me any more than I wanted to go to him, but it was either him or my crazy grandparents in Montana, so I promised him that if he took me in until I was old enough to be emancipated and then let me go, I’d start working and he could keep half the cash.”
I was horrified. My dad might’ve been sick, but at least I’d had eighteen wonderful years with him. Liam had never even known what it was like to have a father worth missing. “Liam, I’m sorry—”
He shot me a hard, unblinking look, and I shut my mouth and let him finish.
“So I got into acting and modeling,” he continued, his gaze no longer meeting mine as he looked down at the label he was peeling off his water bottle. “I was already getting asked to be in commercials and shit all the time. All I needed to do was work on a regular basis and my life would be mine as soon as I turned fourteen. Or at least I thought it would be, because I was a child and an idiot. I had no idea how soul-sucking this would all be.”
“Can’t you get out of it now? Aren’t you legally an adult?”
“I’ll be nineteen this summer, but what’s the point now? A few modeling campaigns, some stupid movie roles and magazine covers, and now I can barely walk down the street. If I tried something else, I’d just look like some enormous has-been who couldn’t get any more work. It’s probably just my stupid pride speaking, but that seems worse.”
“That is stupid pride speaking,” I said firmly. “If you’re not happy with your life, make a change. Aren’t you studying for the SATs so you can go to college someday? Didn’t you work for your freedom for the very purpose of being in control of your own destiny?”
“It’s not that simple, Ally. This is my life. I can’t turn it upside down just because I feel like it.”
“But—”
“Look at you,” he broke in. “Look how much your life has just changed and you’re struggling to get your footing, and that’s with everyone you know trying to help you out. I don’t have ‘people’ like you do. I have costars and an agent. And Josh,” he added, almost as an afterthought.
I didn’t know what to say. I suddenly felt very naïve, and very, very young, despite the fact that Liam and I were almost the same age. “Don’t forget a tutor,” I said meekly and
was relieved when he laughed.
“Right. Nous sommes amis.”
I whistled. “Not bad. Hey, maybe I really am awesome at this.”
“I told you.”
“That you did.” I stood up, feeling like it was definitely time to go. Liam had politely ignored the foot I’d shoved down my throat, but the air around us had grown extremely charged in the last few minutes and I wasn’t helping things by butting into his life. “Listen, it’s pretty late and I should probably head out. I’ll see you on set tomorrow.” I got up and dusted off my jeans, taking my time to get myself together in the hopes that he would ask me to stay a little longer.
Instead, he nodded, got up, and walked to the door. “Thanks for the tutoring. Do you want cash or—”
“Keep it,” I said firmly. “Consider it my half of the pizza.” Not that my going rate for tutoring was equivalent to half a pie, but it felt cheap to take money after I’d had a good time hanging out at his apartment. He might as well have told me he was leaving the cash on the nightstand. “Have a good night, Liam.”
“Au revoir, Ally.”
He closed the door behind me, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit relieved that he’d chosen the phrase for “goodbye” that actually meant “until we meet again.”
7
“I’M GONNA SAY…C!”
I sighed. “Van, you’ve said C for the last seventeen questions. Are you even paying attention?”
“If C’s not the answer, then what is it?”
I took an exasperated bite of my no. 2 pencil. “Okay, it is C, but that’s not the point!”
She smiled triumphantly. “I believe it is the point. If I recall correctly, they don’t ask you on the SATs how you got the answer.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You’re just jealous because I’m kicking ass.” Vanessa took a sip of hot water with lemon from the mug in front of her. She was a little hoarse from yet another party Friday night and the director was not happy about it. “And speaking of tutoring, you haven’t mentioned how it’s going with Liam.”
I glanced over to where Liam was practicing a scene with Jamal Cowan, who played his best friend, Malcolm, on the show. As Tristan, he often wore nothing but board shorts or a wet suit peeled down to reveal that V of muscle right below his six-pack; right now, it was the latter, and I quickly looked away. After the way our first session had ended, I was sure Liam would be done having me tutor him, but he’d called to ask me to come over again the next night—which ended in yet another movie, this time Scarface—and then again on Friday night, when he’d surprised me with La Vie En Rose and French macarons. If I didn’t know any better—and if I weren’t leaving his apartment with cash in hand at the end of each session—I’d say it was almost like we were dating. Which, of course, we weren’t.
“Yeah,” I said, hoping I sounded casual. “He’s a quick learner.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that on set too.” She pushed aside her SAT book and picked up her sides. “Would you mind running some lines with me before my next scene?”
“Sure,” I agreed, grateful to change the subject from Liam’s attractive traits. “Where do you want to start?”
“The line where I’m slutting it up with the science teacher,” said Van, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Aaaaand go!”
We went through the lines a few times, and it was such a ridiculous scene that by the time we got to the end of the third read-through, I was actually kind of enjoying myself. It was fun to pretend to be someone else, at least for a little while. In fact, as we started read-through number four, I actually started to feel sorry for Liam that he couldn’t seem to enjoy acting, even though he clearly had natural aptitude for it.
“Ms. Summers, I’m afraid I’m going to require some extra credit,” I said in my best stodgy old man voice, even though the science teacher, Mr. Vasquez, was played by a hot actor named Marco Barone who was barely older than Liam. It made Vanessa crack up laughing, and suddenly I heard, “What’s so funny?” and looked up to see Liam himself standing over us.
“Just a silly voice I was doing,” I said dismissively, embarrassed to have been caught making a fool of myself. The amused quirk of his lips suggested he’d been listening for longer than a line. “Do you need Vanessa?”
“Yup. The fight scene’s coming up, and they want to fix her makeup.”
“Ooh, fight scene. Sounds like fun.”
“As long as Vanessa remembers not to actually slap the bejesus out of me like she did in rehearsal,” Liam said wryly.
“Um, I was committing to the scene. Hello? Acting?” She winked at me before prancing off to makeup with Liam in tow.
It was nice to see the two of them getting along well, but I couldn’t help feeling a little envious of their newfound rapport. Van was exactly the kind of girl Liam should’ve been with—beautiful, smart, talented, and every bit as famous as he was. She was probably just the person to make him appreciate his career, too. Assuming he stayed away from Shannah Barrett, I was sure it was only a matter of time until he and Van hooked up.
God, how I wished that fact didn’t make me want to hurl.
* * * * *
After an hour or so—which I spent working on a fluff piece I’d agreed to write for the paper after I hadn’t been able to come up with any good ideas on my own—Vanessa returned for her sides, saying the writers wanted to make a couple of changes to the script.
“What are you working on?” she asked, glancing over my shoulder.
“Just a stupid article about spring break,” I replied. “It has to be in tomorrow, and it’s basically a piece of crap.”
“Ooh, spring break! How are you spending it?”
“Um, at home? Because I’m broke?” Did she really need a reminder of that? “Plus, it’s an ‘on’ week for my dad in the hospital, so I’m sure I’ll spend a lot of time there.”
“Oh, we can definitely help you have more fun than that. Right, Liam?” she called to him for reasons I could not begin to comprehend.
“What?” he called back.
“We’re going to make sure Ally has a good spring break.”
“Cool. Now get back here.”
Van smiled. “See? Even Liam’s in. It’ll be fun, Al. We don’t even have to go to any parties or anything. We’ll go shopping and get fish tacos and watch a movie or two and it’ll be cheap and perfect and totally chilled out.” She kissed the top of my head and went back to set, leaving me slightly bewildered. I loved the way Vanessa always believed she could make things better, no matter how crappy the situation.
And I loved the way she managed to make me believe it too.
* * * * *
Still, my spring break didn’t sound nearly as cool as the ones everyone else was planning. All around me, people were going on and on about the great times they were gonna have in Cabo or Cancun. Even Dana and Leni had fun plans.
“So, you’re sure you can’t come to Jamaica with us?” Dana asked me at my locker the next day, twirling a strand of flaming red hair around her index finger. “It’s gonna be so, so awesome.”
“So awesome,” Leni echoed.
“Thanks, guys, but I really can’t,” I said as apologetically as I could muster. The truth—besides the fact that I had no desire to spend a week trapped on an island with them—was that I hadn’t actually told Dana and Leni that I was no longer operating on the same budget I once was. “My dad’s going to be in the hospital that week.”
“Bummer,” said Dana. “Guess you don’t wanna come shopping for bathing suits after school then, either.”
“Sorry,” I said, not even bothering to fake it this time.
Leni shrugged. “Later,” she said as she and Dana walked off.
As quickly as they had gone, Nate took their place. “Bummer? Seriously?”
I groaned. “Why on Earth are you eavesdropping on my conversations?”
“Because they’re so utterly fascinating, Duncan. Can you please explain to me wh
y you continue to hang out with chicks who refer to the situation of your father being treated for cancer as a ‘bummer’? I thought you were a Columbia girl. Don’t you worry about them killing all your brain cells before you even get to freshman orientation? I can’t believe you even tried to set me up with one of them.”
“They mean well,” I said, which I was pretty sure was the truth.
Nate smirked. “You are so full of shit.”
I laughed. “Shut up. I’m trying, okay? Van and I were so attached by the ass when we were younger that I kind of missed out on the friend-making boat. Filling the last three-and-a-half years with newspaper, the debate team, tutoring, and a zillion random clubs hasn’t exactly left me with tons of time to shop and tan with the rest of the class. At least Dana and Leni try to include me. When’s the last time you invited me to Jamaica?”
“I’m actually sticking around here this week to save some cash for a graduation trip, but I am going to spend the day with my Nana on Monday if you’d like to join.”
“Kind of you to offer, but I have a whole bummer thing going on that week,” I replied sweetly.
He laughed. “Okay, fine, point taken—I shouldn’t make fun of your friends if I’m not going to be any better. So maybe we should do friendly things. Liiiike, for example, visit a TV set together.”
“God, you have such a one-track mind,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“I was just kidding. But really, you should come out with me and my friends some time. You could get to know some people who don’t suck.”
“Just in time for us all to graduate in three months?”
“Three months is three months, and besides, it’d still be more fun than hanging out with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Bummer.” He pulled out his phone. “Macy Easton’s having a party at her house on Friday night, and I’m texting you the address right now. You should come.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, just as the bell rang.
“Good,” he called over the noise as we each headed to our respective classes, but I could tell he knew as well as I did that I would never go.