by Tracy Deebs
By the time I’m done, he’s handing me a torn-off hunk of bread with a wedge of Brie spread across the top. I take it, then watch as he tears off a piece of bread for himself.
He’s got nice hands. They aren’t particularly pretty or elegant—they’re too big for that. The palms too broad, the fingers too calloused and nicked up.
I reach for him before I even realize I’m going to do it, and run my fingertip over one of the many small wounds. He freezes at the touch, eyes on mine and hand halfway to his mouth.
“I’m sorry.” I pull back immediately. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, of course not. I was just…surprised. I’m so used to the scratches I barely notice them anymore.”
“How do you get used to that?” I ask, reaching for his hand again and pulling it close so I can get a better look at the cuts. “Some of these are a lot deeper than scratches. How did you get them?”
“I whittle.”
“You…whittle?”
“You know, like with wood? I make things—”
“Yes, I know what whittling is. I just always pictured…” I stop, unsure of how to say what I’m thinking without insulting him.
“Little old men sitting in rocking chairs whiling away their golden years?”
He’s grinning as he says it, so I take a chance and reply, “Well, yes. Kind of.”
“That’s pretty much how it got started in my family, too. My great-grandpa took it up when he retired, and he taught my dad, who was just a kid at the time. My dad liked it so he kept it up, and then he taught me. Now it’s just something we do together, you know, when we’re watching TV or talking.” He shrugs. “I know it sounds boring, but I like it.”
“It doesn’t sound boring at all. You create things and you get to share that with your father. I think it’s amazing.”
“Yeah?” Keegan looks surprised.
“Yeah. I think it’s cool that you have something like that in common with your dad.”
So much better than what my dad and I have in common. We’ve spent years creating things, too, but all it’s done is break us apart. Break our relationship down. Maybe even break us…or at least, break me.
It’s why I’m doing this, after all. Why I walked away from a (very) successful career. Why I moved to Austin for a fresh start, far away from the L.A. scene. Why I’m here, at NextGen, hiding who I am from everyone…including the boy next to me.
It’s the wake-up call that I need. The reminder that no matter how sweet, how smart, how hot Keegan is, he’s not the boy for me. Or more specifically, I’m not the girl for him…and I never will be. No matter how much I enjoy his emoji texts and impromptu picnics.
“How about you?” Keegan asks when the silence between us drags on too long. “Is there anything special you do with your parents?”
I slam the door shut before my brain can take me down that not-so-happy path, then grab my water and take a long sip as I try to sort myself out before Keegan notices just how much his simple question messed me up.
It doesn’t work, though. Not because I’m not adept at hiding my feelings, because I am—you kind of have to be when you’re a performer and the show has to go on, no matter what—but because Keegan notices everything.
I can tell by the way his eyes darken, the way the look on his face goes from contemplative to quizzical to concerned in just a few seconds.
“Hey,” he says, laying a hand on my knee. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
I shake my head, give him a full-wattage smile that I’m far from feeling. “You didn’t pry. I asked you first.”
“Still, I’m sorry—”
“No apologies.” I reach for the strawberries and this time I’m the one who pops one in his mouth. He shuts up, as I meant for him to, and just kind of blinks at me in surprise. “My mom died when I was ten, and my dad and I aren’t close. We haven’t been for a long time.”
He’s done with the strawberry, and I can tell from the look on his face what he’s going to say before he even says it. So I slap my palm over his mouth and reiterate, “No apologies.”
He nods, and I pull my hand away slowly, pretending—even to myself—that I don’t notice how soft his lips are. How warm his breath is.
“So.” I clear my throat and stare longingly at the cupcakes, wondering if shoveling down all twelve would send me into a sugar coma. At this point, it’s pretty much the best I can hope for. “It’s probably time to talk about Operation Dream Girl, before we have to head back.”
Keegan looks like he wants to protest, but in the end, he just settles back on his elbows with a nod. “Okay. Wow me with your brilliant plan.”
“I already told you it was a work in progress, more than an actual plan.”
“All right, then wow me with your brilliant work in progress.”
He’s smirking at me, and it takes every ounce of willpower I have not to be charmed all over again. If the boy only knew how smooth he was, I’d be completely superfluous in this whole situation.
I almost tell him that, almost suggest that he just be himself with this girl and she—and her panties—would probably both fall at his feet. Something holds me back, though, and I work really hard to convince myself that I’m just being cautious. That there’s no reason to get his hopes up. Not yet, anyway.
“Well, I’ve got a couple of different ideas,” I finally say. “First of all, what track is she in? What does she like? What does she do for fun?”
“She’s in the music track. She’s funny and smart and cool in a not-trying-too-hard kind of way. I don’t know what she does for fun—I’m trying to figure that out.”
“You should totally work on that, because knowing what she’s interested in will really help with the wooing.”
He laughs, low and long, and the sound is way more infectious than it should be. Then again, it could be the way his eyes sparkle and his whole face lights up that’s so appealing. Not that it matters to me, when the whole point of this lunch is to make him appealing to someone else.
“What’s so funny?” I ask when he’s finally stopped laughing.
“Nothing. Just…wooing.”
“Seriously?” I roll my eyes at him. “Are you still going on about my word choice?”
“No, no. It’s not that. It’s just I spent some time looking up wooing last night. It turns out a lot of people use the word.”
“I told you!”
“And you were right. I totally bow to your expertise.” He picks up the cupcake tray I was staring at earlier, pops the top, and then holds it out to me. “So what’s the first step? Talking to her about what she likes?”
I select a caramel-looking one, because caramel is the food of the gods, not ambrosia. Obviously. Also because it’s the cupcake with the prettiest frosting swirl on the top, and that’s important.
“I guess. If you want to be really low-key about it, that could work.”
“Let’s say I don’t want to be low-key. Let’s say I want to punch it up a notch. What should I do?”
“Bring her a present. Nothing big, certainly nothing that screams I want to throw you in a pit in my basement and make a suit out of your skin—”
“Hold on.” He sits up abruptly. “There are actual presents that scream that? I mean, besides shackles and Rohypnol?”
“Yes, there are,” I tell him after I stop laughing. “You have to start off small. Sure, girls love presents, but you don’t want to give her anything that might seem weird or inappropriate.”
“Damn. And here I was planning on doing my best Christian Grey impression.”
“You know what? I’m not going to help you if you keep making fun of me! I’m trying to be serious here!” I mock-glare at him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He holds up his hands in surrender, and even manages to bite back a smirk. But his eyes are all but dancing with amusement, so it’s pretty hard to buy his obviously fake remorse. “I know you’re trying to help and I swear, I’m paying attention. G
et her a small present, nothing too flashy, nothing that screams stalker. Just something that says I’ve been paying attention to her. That I know—and care—what she’s interested in. Right?”
“Right,” I grudgingly admit. “And—”
“Just to be clear,” he interrupts. “We’re talking absolutely no ball gags, right? No blindfolds, no whips, no—”
“I’m leaving now.” I give him a dirty look as I get to my feet.
“No, don’t! Please! I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”
“No, you’re not.” I dust the grass and dirt off my butt and slide my feet back into my shoes.
“I am! I swear.” He grabs me around the waist and tugs me back down. Only I land in his lap instead of on the ground and suddenly he’s all around me. His lean, hard chest pressed to my back. His strong arms wrapped around my waist. His breath warm against my ear.
I shiver despite myself.
“Are you cold?” he asks, wrapping himself even more tightly around me.
“A little.” I make a show of looking at my phone. This isn’t about you, I remind myself. It’s about his super serious, super focused Dream Girl—whoever that may be since he still hasn’t spilled the beans. “We should probably head back anyway. The first bell rings in fifteen minutes.”
“Yeah, okay. But first—” He reaches for the half of the baguette we didn’t eat. “Wanna feed the ducks?”
I follow his finger and see the small parade of ducks swimming around on the other side of the pond. “I do,” I tell him as I scramble off his lap. “I really do.”
“Then come on.” Once again, he puts a hand on the small of my back as he guides me quickly around the pond. It only takes a minute or so, and then we’re right there, only a few feet from the ducks.
He rips off a hunk of bread and hands it to me. I take it greedily, then immediately start ripping tiny pieces off and throwing them into the water. The ducks go nuts for the bread, quacking and honking at one another as they dive for the small pieces.
When I finish with what he gave me, Keegan hands me the rest. And that’s when I realize that he hasn’t thrown any bread to the ducks at all.
“Don’t you want to…” I ask, trying to hand the baguette back to him.
He shakes his head. “You look like you’re having fun. Besides, this is my spot. I can come here anytime and feed them.”
What’s left unsaid is that this is a onetime thing for me. For us. He brought me here today so we could talk, but he doesn’t plan on bringing me back again. Which is fine. I don’t need him to want to bring me back here. Hell, if I want to, I can come by myself anytime I want.
After all, my apartment is less than fifteen minutes away from here.
The realization should make me happy, the idea that if I’m careful and come at off times, I can just show up here without worrying about schedules or paparazzi or any of the other things that kept me trapped in hotel room after hotel room, stage after stage. And yet the thought of coming here alone—without Keegan—fills me with disquiet. With discontent.
I don’t let him see it, though. Instead, I laugh and continue throwing the bread out to the ducks. Continue marveling at the way they compete for each and every piece.
But inside I’m thinking about what it would be like if this were my life for real. What it would be like if I were just a normal teenage girl, going to a cool school, dating a great guy, spending my lunch period having a picnic and looking at art and feeding the ducks.
What it would be like if the girl Keegan knows could be the real me, just for a little while.
Chapter Nine
We make it back to school just as the bell rings signaling the end of lunch. I scoop my backpack out of the backseat and the two of us hightail it to class, sliding into our seats just as the bell rings—which is a good thing because while Oliver is pretty lenient, I’m not sure even his coolness would extend to being tardy two days in a row.
Still, it feels a little weird, too. How abruptly our idyllic little slice of heaven just ended. One second we’re feeding the ducks and oohing over some turtles sunning themselves on a rock and the next we’re back here, sitting on opposite ends of the classroom—Keegan surrounded by his friends and me sitting in the back corner, pretty much alone.
I know it’s by choice—that I’ve kept my head down and not spent a lot of time talking to people because I don’t want to be recognized—but still, it’s lonely. I didn’t realize just how lonely until I started hanging out with Keegan.
When I’m Cherry, I’m surrounded by people all the time. Stylists, assistants, interviewers, my dad, my manager, tour people, label people, paparazzi. But there are very few friends in that group, very few people I can actually connect with. Even when I’m hanging out with other people for “fun,” it’s rarely just for fun. Someone has always called a photographer or wants a favor.
It’s always been like that, from the time I was young and got my first part on a Disney show. My dad liked it like that, and through the years managed to convince me that I liked it, too.
But now that I’m here, now that I see the way Mariely and Willa are together or Keegan and Jacen, I want it. I want that friendship, that ability to just truly be myself with someone. It sounds lame, but I want to make a connection. A real connection.
I start paying attention just as Oliver is calling for us to get out our notes on the project we have due at the end of the week—a detailed synopsis and plan of each of our individualized roles in our senior project. I’ve barely gotten started on mine, mostly because this whole singer/songwriter thing is harder than I thought it would be. So far I’ve been concentrating on writing songs instead of singing them—which is a good thing because I haven’t quite figured out how to rough up my singing voice to make my sound just a little different. I know that won’t last forever, but for now it’s kept me out of the spotlight and off the stage.
But that just puts more pressure on me to write songs—and not just any songs, but really good songs.
When I was Cherry, stuck singing the songs that the label and my dad thought would best advance my career instead of the songs I really wanted to sing, I had a million different ideas. Music and lyrics crowding my head at all hours of the day and night, so many rushing at me that sometimes I thought I’d go crazy under the weight of them all. But now that I’m free, now that I have a year to take a break and try out the whole songwriter thing, it’s like everything has dried up.
Any lyrics I think of are ridiculous. Any music I try to put together sounds off. I know it’s only been a couple of months, but it’s making me nervous. Making me wonder if being an ex-Disney channel pop princess is all I’ll ever be good at. Making me afraid that deep inside I really am nothing more than a mechanized doll who goes where she’s directed and does what she’s told.
It’s a terrifying thought, and a disheartening one.
For a second, tears blur my eyes. I blink them back, refusing to let them fall. Self-pity is so overrated… And so is fear. My whole life I’ve refused to be afraid, refused to tell myself there was something I couldn’t do, something I couldn’t achieve. And I’m not going to start now just because I’m lonely. Just because I don’t know how to fit in with a bunch of kids my own age when I don’t have Cherry’s public persona to fall back on.
This year is all I’ve got to do this. Once school ends in May, I’ve got to get back into the studio to record my next album—and if I haven’t written the songs for it, then I’ll be stuck peddling more vacuous pop princess songs about falling for the boy next door. And while I don’t mind singing love songs, I want them to be more. I want them to be raw, fresh…real.
Because Keegan pops into my mind at the thought of writing a love song, I pull out a pen and start working on the lyrics for the theme song for our Web series. I don’t get past writing—and then scratching out—two lines before my phone vibrates with a text. I tell myself it’s probably my father or my manager or my assistant, but that doesn’t keep my breath
from catching in my throat. Doesn’t keep my hands from trembling just a little as I reach into my pocket and fish out my phone.
And it sure as hell doesn’t stop the extra-hard pounding of my heart when I see that the text is from Keegan. Keegan who, even now, is sitting with a bunch of people and talking animatedly about how we want to market the Lizzie Borden Diaries.
I pull up his text and grin like a crazy person when I see that it’s another song. This time it’s Jay Z’s “Most Kingz,” which might seem an odd choice except I totally get it. The song is Jay-Z’s tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat, who just happens to be one of my favorite painters—it’s totally an allusion to the way we spent our lunch break.
I think about texting him an art song back—maybe even going way old school with “Vincent” by Don Maclean, but then inspiration strikes and I go onto YouTube and find a version of the teddy bear picnic song. I send him the link then wait to see what happens.
Even though I’m deliberately not looking at Keegan, I can tell when he follows the link because his laugh—warm and deep and just a little too loud—carries through the classroom. For a second, just a second, I can feel his eyes on me. I force myself to keep working, or at least pretending to work. There’s no reason for him to know just how happy it makes me that I can make him laugh.
Soon, conversations are flowing all around me, people talking to each other about the project and a million other small things—music, movies, the dance, life. I let it all wash over me as I play with a bunch of different lyrics that I’ve come up with. Some of them are good, some of them are crap, but until I can figure out some semblance of order for the song, some kind of vision for what I want it to be, I’m not going to know what to use or how to put it together.
It’s driving me a little crazy, especially when everyone else seems to be working just fine. I have to get this done so I can move on to the song for the first episode—the last thing I want is to be the one holding things up when they’re ready to film.
I’m about to give up in disgust when a chair plops down right next to me. It’s facing the other direction so I don’t pay any attention to it—at least not until Finn straddles it backward and leans over until his face is only a couple inches from mine.