by Dahlia Adler
“Cool, so when exactly do I get my best friend back?”
“I’ll be back on Sunday; maybe we can hang out then?”
“Sure, as long as you come armed with many more details.” She paused for a moment, and then she said, “And hey, A?”
“Yeah?”
“Congrats on mastering the ukulele.”
I laughed. And it felt really, really good.
27
AS IT HAPPENED, THE tabloids caught wind of the fact that Van wasn’t with Liam on his birthday, and from there, it was only a matter of time until their public relationship slowly unraveled. Neither of them confirmed it, of course—their days of publicly discussing their private lives were done—but after that, the “date” appearances stopped and the public began to fill in the blanks.
With Daylight Falls coming in September and both of them filming movies over the summer, it didn’t really matter; there wasn’t much that could bring them down. When Liam finally came home at the end of July (okay, finally might be a little unfair, seeing as he flew me back to New York for a long weekend, with Josh’s blessing), we actually managed to venture out in public without anyone trying to throw eggs at me. Okay, so it was only semi-public—mostly movies in dark theaters, dinner at restaurants like Burger King that were almost never plagued by paparazzi, and drives up PCH protected by the tinted windows of his Range Rover.
It was incredible.
No, it wasn’t necessarily “normal” by the strictest definition of the word, but who said normal was a good thing? If my dad were “normal,” he’d have been on his death bed. If Van were “normal,” who knows if we’d still be best friends? And if Liam were “normal”… Well, let’s just say that the idea of Liam being anything other than what and who he was didn’t really appeal to me anymore.
“Ally? Are you almost ready?” my mother called up the stairs.
I took a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. We—me, my family, Van, and Liam—were going out for dinner to celebrate my father’s upgraded status of “No Evidence of Disease,” as well as the fact that I was off to college in a little less than a month. I was wearing a new dress and carefully applied makeup, and I’d spent no less than an hour on my hair. I had something of my own to celebrate tonight, but I wasn’t quite sure how everyone else would feel about it. At least if my announcement was met with lots of anger and yelling, I’d look good for my public stoning.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” I called back. I smoothed down my hair and took another deep breath, willing my hands to stop shaking. “It’s show time.”
* * * * *
Sitting in the car with my parents and having to keep my mouth shut was torture, but I didn’t want to say a word until Liam was there as well. Van was the only person who knew what I was up to, and I prayed she wouldn’t spill the beans to Liam, who was driving her, before I had a chance to.
Van and Liam were already at the restaurant when we arrived, sitting at a table in the back corner and obviously doing their best not to draw any attention to themselves. I squeezed into the seat next to Liam, accepting a warm kiss on the cheek upon my arrival, and watched as Van excitedly hugged my parents like the third daughter she basically was.
A busboy immediately came over, filled our drinks, and handed out menus. Before we could even check out the appetizers, my dad clinked his fork against his glass.
“I just want to say how grateful I am for each and every one of you,” he said, smiling around the table. “This is not the kind of thing you can survive on your own, and it takes a really strong support system to be able to sit where I am now. And a big part of that is making sure that your support system has a support system.” He winked at Liam, whose cheeks turned the tiniest bit pink at the acknowledgement. I squeezed his hand under the table.
“And, of course, I want to make a toast to Ally, who’ll be going off to New York soon…” He blinked, and I could see his eyes start to mist over. “I can’t believe what a big girl you are,” he half-murmured, as if talking to himself. “Going off to college already, all the way across the country—”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m not,” I burst out, jumping up. All eyes turned to look at me, except for Van’s; she was studying her menu so hard there was no way she could read a single word. “I mean, I am,” I amended, “but not yet. I was going to tell you all tonight. I deferred admission to Columbia.”
My mother’s mouth dropped open. “You did what?”
“Ally!” My father didn’t seem too pleased either. “How could you do that without telling us?”
“I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it happen,” I said quickly. “I missed the deferral date, and I didn’t even realize I wanted to defer until…”
Until Liam took me to look at an apartment he was considering buying in New York so he could be near me as often as possible, then took me back to his hotel room to make love to me again and whispered “Je t’aime” in my ear as I fell asleep. And then I came home and saw my family looking like a happy, healthy family, which we haven’t in months. And then I had dinner with Van at the Lunchbox, and I realized we’ve just entered this weird and cautious new phase of our friendship and I can’t leave like that, can’t leave anything just like that, can’t leave everyone behind.
“Um, recently,” I finished, shrugging meekly.
“Let’s just say, this past year didn’t exactly go as I planned, but right now, things are good. Really, really good, actually. And I know I was dying to leave everything behind and go to New York, but now, that’s the last thing I want.” I took a deep breath and looked around, grateful that everyone was still listening calmly and no one was looking at me with an expression of horror. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned this year, it’s that you have to work at making your own happy ending. So that’s what I’m doing. Columbia will still be there next year, and until I go, I really just want to spend more time with all of you.”
“How did you manage to defer if you missed the deadline?” Dad asked with a furrowed brow.
Vanessa timidly raised her hand. “Um, I might’ve had something to do with that.” She glanced past me at Liam. “We have to make an appearance at the drama school at some point, by the way.”
He looked up at me and smiled, revealing his rarely seen dimple. “Well worth it,” he replied, reaching for my hand to intertwine his fingers with mine.
“And what are you going to do in the meantime?” Mom asked, sounding less angry but still a bit confused.
“Actually,” I said slowly, “Josh offered to extend the assistant job through next year. Apparently, I don’t suck at it, and I’d rather take orders from someone who already gets on my nerves than my best friend. Much as I’ll miss seeing you guys on set,” I said to Van and Liam, “I feel like this is probably a better arrangement.”
“I’m not sure anything that requires you to take orders from Josh can be classified as ‘better’ than anything,” Liam said wryly, “but whatever keeps you here is okay by me.”
“So you see,” I said to my parents, “I’ll be making more money, still get to go to Columbia if I want to next year, get to spend more time with the people who matter most, and I’ll still be around to drive and babysit Lucy. Doesn’t get much better than that, right?” I said hopefully.
My mom smiled despite herself, shaking her head. “We’re happy you’re sticking around, Ally. Next time, maybe just give us a little advance notice? Now we’ll have to wait a whole extra year to turn your room into a gym.”
“You what?”
She and my dad exchanged a grin and laughed. “You deserved that,” said my father.
“Maybe,” I grudgingly agreed. “So, are we toasting or what?”
Everyone raised their glasses in the air, and my dad announced, “To happy endings.”
My mom smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “To happy beginnings, thank you very much.”
“To happy beginnings,” the rest of us chorused, and as our glasses cl
inked and everyone in the restaurant turned to stare in our direction and whisper, I simply smiled.
Acknowledgements
IT’S EMBARRASSING TO SAY THIS as a writer, but I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary to adequately express my gratitude to my wonderful editor—and friend—Patricia Riley. Thank you for loving Ally and Liam just as much on twelfth read, for making them and their story stronger, and for giving them the perfect home.
Major Spencer Hill thanks are also due to Lauren Meinhardt, for all her editorial insights; Lindsay Smith, for her meticulous line edits; Linda Braus and Traci Inzitari for all their help and support; Christa Holland at Paper and Sage, for my beautiful Hollywood cover; Cindy Thompson and Patrice Caldwell, for all their work on the publicity side; Jenny Perinovic, Sydnee Thompson, and Rachael Kirkendall for making this look like an actual book; and my brilliant copy editors and friends, Becca Weston and Sarah Henning, who do so much more for me on a daily basis than fix my typos.
This book probably wouldn’t exist if not for a few amazing people guiding me along the way. Utmost thanks to Christopher Koehler, for teaching me that writing is not a solo effort, and for so much more than that. To Arielle Kane, thank you for ripping this manuscript to shreds so I could learn how to piece it back together. This would be half a story if it weren’t for you. And to Andrea Somberg, thank you for placing so much faith, time, and effort in this book.
To my critique partners—Marieke Nijkamp, Gina Ciocca, Maggie Hall, and Erica Chapman—you light up my life. You are constant support, and brilliant notes, and all-important commiseration, and endless patience, and glorious gifs, and you make me love doing this every day. Thank you for more than I could possibly fit in this book, let alone on this page.
I also owe major debts of gratitude to the following:
My agent, Lana Popovic, the warmest, most brilliant, most supportive mama bear anyone could ever dream of having in her corner;
The teachers who made me feel like this whole writing thing was something worth doing, and taught me how to do it well (or at least with proper grammar), especially Mrs. Helene Fechter, Dr. Steven Milowitz, and Ms. Melissa Jensen;
Team Cupid, for all your support and page-polishing efforts—especially Melanie Stanford, for great-under-the-wire notes—and, of course, the lovely Cupid herself;
Sarah Benwell, Cait Greer, Valerie Cole, Phil Siegel, Jen Malone, Diana Peterfreund, and Leah Raeder for early reads and/or general wonderfulness at various points in the process;
YA Misfits—my sisters in argyle—for being there through everything, always;
OneFourKidLit, for sharing your wealth of knowledge, experience, and battle scars;
Ali Rosenbaum Grange, for graciously lending me “AlGal”;
Gawker, WordSmoker, Crasstalk, Twitter, and all the “invisible friends” I’ve made within, for being my homes away from home and making me feel I had a voice worth listening to;
The fantastic book bloggers out there who work their butts off to promote authors and share their love of the written word, and especially those who went out of their way for this one;
And all the other amazing writer friends who are always willing to hold my hand (or my hair back) through this world, especially Rick Lipman and Heidi Schulz, who’ve had to do it a lot more than most.
I’m incredibly blessed to have the most supportive constants in my life a dreamer could ask for. Thank you to my wonderful family-in-law—Debbie, Jerry, Eric, Orly, and Simona—for everything, plus bonus points to Eric for setting me straight on LA roadways.
To Mom, Dad, Aytan, Tamar, and Jonathan, I am eternally grateful to have grown up in a family that always made me feel achieving this particular dream was not an “if” but a “when.” Thank you for that, your patience, your constant support and pride, and all the ways you inspired this particular story.
Finally, the biggest thanks of all goes to my husband, Yoni, for making all of this possible in everything he does, for being my biggest fan, and for giving me unwavering faith that teenagers can have a happily ever after.
And Liz, happy 30th. Thanks for sharing your day.
About the Author
DAHLIA ADLER is an Assistant Editor of Mathematics by day, a Copy Editor by night, and a YA author and blogger at every spare moment in between. She lives in New York City with her husband and their overstuffed bookshelves. Behind the Scenes is her first novel.