The Brightest Stars of Summer

by Leila Howland

  Dedication

  To Henry, the brightest star in my sky

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. A Young Star

  2. A Bad Feeling

  3. Detour at the Freeway Café

  4. The Wild West

  5. Middle-of-the-Night Mother-Daughter Meeting

  6. Chopped

  7. To Go or Not to Go

  8. The Illuminated Path

  9. Coast to Coast

  10. A Room of Her Own

  11. Ordinary Clothes

  12. Preparations

  13. The First Mission

  14. A Brush with Rathbone

  15. Peter Pasque, Five Inches Taller and Twice as Handsome

  16. Lunch Box Blues

  17. The Boyfriend Question

  18. The Lighthouse of Fear

  19. The Boy in the Backyard

  20. A Case of the Can’ts

  21. Second Chances

  22. The Squall

  23. Old Hat

  24. Gathering Flowers and Collecting Information

  25. Handsome Horace

  26. The Lost Art of Hanging the Wash

  27. Shy Girl in the Key of C

  28. Hidden Words

  29. A Writer Writes

  30. Flashlight Tag

  31. The Summer Triangle

  32. A Little Sadness in Her Happiness

  33. To the Lighthouse

  34. Inspiration

  35. An Astounding Act of Courage

  36. My Sister, the Hero

  37. An Extraordinary Girl

  38. What She Wrote

  39. Sister Crimes

  40. For Sunny’s Sake

  41. A Story, Three Tiers High with Cream Cheese Frosting

  42. A Sleeping Dragon

  43. A Genie among Wild Beach Roses

  44. Anticipation

  45. Building a Cake

  46. An Unexpected Visitor

  47. The Damage Done

  48. Breaking the News

  49. The Plan

  50. The Story

  51. I Will

  52. The Twist

  53. Stand by Me

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Leila Howland

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1 • A Young Star

  It was guaranteed to be one of the highlights of the summer, maybe even of the year, maybe even of their lives, and Zinnie didn’t want to miss a single moment. She plucked her mininotebook out of her back pocket, uncapped her favorite purple pen, and took a good look around.

  She was at a special early showing for the cast and crew of the movie Night Sprites because her very own and soon-to-be-famous older sister, Marigold, had a part in it. Marigold played a small role, but she had got to say two whole sentences on camera, and it was a pretty big deal.

  Being in a movie was Marigold’s dream come true, and it only took one glance at her enormous smile, made extra shimmery today by the lip gloss their mother had allowed her to wear for this special occasion, for Zinnie to be certain that her sister was truly a star.

  Zinnie couldn’t help but feel that she’d had a big hand in making it happen. After all, it had been her idea to have a talent show last summer in the town of Pruet, Massachusetts, where the director, Philip Rathbone, had a vacation home, and where the three Silver sisters had spent a few fun-filled weeks at their aunt Sunny’s cottage. And it was Zinnie who’d written the play in which Marigold had performed so outstandingly that Mr. Rathbone had noticed her. And it was Zinnie again who encouraged Marigold to send Mr. Rathbone her headshot a few weeks later, along with a letter telling him how nice it had been to meet him.

  Zinnie had even helped Marigold write the letter, making sure it had both personality and good grammar. Zinnie was pretty certain that it had been that letter that had sealed the deal and made Mr. Rathbone think of Marigold when, after the rest of the movie had been filmed, he’d decided that the story needed an opening scene that wasn’t even in the book: a scene where a normal, human girl was sitting by a tree reading, not knowing that she was falling into a dream woven by the Night Sprites.

  Zinnie imagined Marigold’s letter and headshot landing in Mr. Rathbone’s mailbox on the very day he had the idea. She could just picture him sitting at a big desk, puzzling over which young actress would play this small but crucial role. Then his eyes growing wide with delight as he opened the envelope containing Marigold’s headshot and realized he’d actually met the perfect girl that summer. “Mildred, get this girl in here for an audition right away!” Zinnie imagined him saying to an assistant, just like the old movies she and her dad saw at the cinema that showed classics every Tuesday night.

  Regardless of how it had happened, Marigold had gotten the part on the spot. And now, a few months later, here the Silver family was, making their way down the aisle of the movie theater to see Marigold on the big screen in what was sure to be the biggest hit of the summer.

  This wasn’t any old Cineplex at the mall; it was a fully restored historical movie theater from the 1940s in downtown Los Angeles, grand and ornate. Zinnie thought it was perfect for the exclusive advance screening of a major Hollywood movie. She paused in the aisle before following her dad down the row to their seats. She narrowed her eyes, hoping to land on the perfect details to capture this epic moment. Mrs. Lee, her sixth-grade English teacher, always said that when it comes to writing, “It’s all about the details.”

  Red curtains hang gloriously in front of the screen, Zinnie wrote in the dim light. Velvet seats snap open like hungry mouths. She read her work over and imagined Mrs. Lee smiling out of the corner of her mouth and tapping her pencil to her lips the way she did when she thought something was really good.

  Mrs. Lee was a real author. She’d had an actual book published. Zinnie had seen it at the library and at the bookstore. It had even won an award and had one of those shiny gold stickers on it. Zinnie wasn’t sure if she wanted to write books or plays or—like her father—movies, but she knew that she wanted to be a writer and that getting into Mrs. Lee’s Writers’ Workshop in the fall was a top priority. Mrs. Lee selected ten students from the seventh and eighth grades, and those students spent the afternoons attending plays and films and going to museums in Los Angeles, visiting bookstores and libraries, and, of course, writing. They even took a group field trip to England over spring vacation, and Zinnie was dying to go on it. One of the best parts was that the members of the Writers’ Workshop were excused from mandatory afterschool sports.

  This was an even bigger deal to Zinnie than the trip to England. She’d endured soccer last fall, and that had been almost as bad as basketball in the winter, though not as terrible as track in the spring. Track was lonely and boring, and it didn’t help that she was always in the very back, “bringing up the rear,” as Miss Kimberly said when Zinnie finished far behind everyone else. Zinnie had come to truly hate that expression.

  Getting into the Writers’ Workshop was not going to be easy. Students could submit a poem, a play, a story, an essay, or even a graphic novel. The work was supposed to be submitted by the end of the school year, but Mrs. Lee said that she understood how sometimes the summer could offer a new perspective, so she’d read applications through July tenth, at which point she was going on her annual summer retreat to Laguna Beach, where she planned to finish writing her latest novel. During the final school assembly, Mrs. Lee said that the only rules were that the writing had to feel true and original. “And it really needs to be the very best example of your work,” she’d added, standing at the podium in one of her signature colorful scarves.
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  Zinnie wasn’t going to need the extra time. She’d turned in a story on the last day of school. It was about a band of young warriors from a forgotten land, seeking to overthrow a demon king by unlocking spells that had been dormant for centuries. Zinnie felt good about it: it had action, plot, and, she thought, good use of setting, something they had focused on in English class this year. Mrs. Lee said that a writer is, in a way, always writing, and that little notes she’d taken over the years had sometimes been exactly the inspiration she’d been looking for later.

  “Let’s sit down,” Marigold said. “It’s going to start any minute!”

  “Okay,” Zinnie said, and scooted down the row, taking a seat next to their dad. Marigold, their mom, and finally the youngest sister, Lily, who was decked out in a fairy costume, followed her down the row.

  Since Mrs. Lee always said that three was the magic number, Zinnie wanted to capture one last detail before the movie started. She looked around the theater. There were crystal chandeliers, golden balconies, and a ceiling with angels painted on it. Even with the splendor around her, Zinnie turned to Marigold for the final detail for her notebook. With her beauty and confidence and unpredictable moods, Marigold was an endlessly fascinating subject, especially today.

  Marigold tossed her long, shiny hair and snapped a selfie with her phone. She leaned toward Zinnie, and before Zinnie even had a chance to pose, she took a picture of the two of them, giving Zinnie a little rush. There was almost nothing that Zinnie liked better than to be included in her sister’s glamorous world, and Marigold had been in the best mood all day.

  She’d even offered to let Zinnie borrow anything she wanted from her closet. Anything. This was unheard of. Zinnie had been bold enough to ask to borrow the jean jacket, the one that had become Marigold’s unofficial weekend uniform. Perfectly shrunken and faded, it was her trademark piece. Zinnie had been expecting rejection, but Marigold said, “Sure,” and handed it to Zinnie as if she had a million of them. For a second Zinnie wondered if she hadn’t aimed high enough. Was there something else she could have asked for?

  The theater lights dimmed. Marigold beamed as she stared up at the screen. Future star shines bright in the darkness, Zinnie scribbled in her notebook, even though she could no longer see the paper.

  2 • A Bad Feeling

  The movie had only been playing for a minute or two when Marigold started to get a bad feeling. She couldn’t explain it, but as the music swelled and she watched the scenery unfurl on the giant screen—the turquoise sea, the rocky beach, the steep cliffs—she became a little queasy.

  She had asked her mother once why sometimes she knew which way something was going to go, good or bad, right before it happened. Like the time she’d known that she was going to get that part on the TV show Seasons before she’d even stepped into the room to audition. Or when she’d felt in the pit of her stomach that seventh grade was going to be a really tough year even before the first bell rang. “That’s your intuition,” Mom had said. “Your gut instinct. And you should always listen to it.”

  Right now, her gut instinct was telling her that something was wrong. The first scene was supposed to take place at the edge of the forest, where a girl was sitting under a tree, reading a book. A girl played by Marigold. But the landscape in those fast and sweeping panoramic views suggested that the girl was being skipped over and the audience was being taken directly to the lagoon where the queen of the Night Sprites lived. The bad feeling landed in her belly like a penny at the bottom of a fountain.

  Marigold had an important line in this movie. It was the first in the film: “Where does the magic of a summer evening come from? It’s hidden deep in the twilight, though perhaps is closer than you ever imagined.” She had practiced it until it was like a favorite song playing on a loop as she walked to school or drifted off while doing homework.

  Now, a few months after shooting her scenes, she was more than ready to hear that line outside her head. She was expecting it to fill the theater, just as she had envisioned so many times. But instead of her voice opening the movie, Xiomara’s song flowed from the speakers.

  Marigold’s scene had been cut.

  Wait. What?

  This couldn’t be happening to her! Or could it? Everyone said that bad things happened in threes. She didn’t believe it, but here it was: the third bad thing. The TV show Marigold had been on for six whole episodes had been canceled this fall. Then two weeks ago her agent, Jill, had announced that she was quitting the business and moving to Costa Rica to discover the meaning of life. Jill had assured her that a part in the summer’s hottest blockbuster would mean that she’d be able to find another agent in no time, and Marigold had believed her. But now she wasn’t even in the movie!

  Marigold wanted to reach up, rewind the action, and zoom in on the tree under which she was meant to be sitting. But of course she couldn’t. All she could do was grip her velvet armrests and try not to cry.

  Marigold could still see that tree where they had filmed just two and half months earlier in Griffith Park, the huge park in the middle of Los Angeles. The tree had tangled, knotty roots that rose above the ground to create a shady, comfortable reading nook for a girl her size. On that perfect day in April, as one of Mr. Rathbone’s assistants adjusted Marigold’s costume, Marigold had wondered how many trees they’d looked at before they found this one. It’s the best tree, she thought as she relaxed against the cool bark, for the best day.

  She’d arrived early on the set. A guy with crazy pants had done her hair and a lady with light and careful fingertips had applied her makeup. Marigold was more nervous than she’d thought she would be. Her mouth was dry and her hands were clammy, but she wasn’t so nervous that she forgot her lines. And when Mr. Rathbone called “Action!” Marigold was such a natural that she’d done the scene in just one take.

  Marigold had returned from spring break ready to tell everyone about her big day. For weeks it was all she could talk about. It wasn’t just because she wanted to relive her dream on a daily basis—it was also because she thought it would give her that something extra she needed to be accepted by the girls in her class.

  Her intuition had been right about seventh grade. It was different from sixth in a way that was hard to put her finger on. It wasn’t just because they were actually allowed to choose some of their classes (French or Spanish? pottery or dance?), or even that they were allowed to use their phones during the school day. It was something much bigger and more difficult to name.

  In sixth grade, all thirty-five girls in her class at Miss Hadley’s School had pretty much been friends. Some girls were closer than others, like Marigold and her best friend Pilar, but overall there weren’t any groups. She didn’t think twice about where she sat at lunch or who she walked to gym class with. And the birthday party rules from elementary school were still in place: girls invited either the whole class or just one or two close friends.

  In seventh grade things changed.

  The year had started off okay, but as the fall crept toward winter, cliques started to form. There was one group calling themselves “the Cuties” who were all on the swim team and who’d gone on a ski trip together over winter vacation.

  In the week they’d spent at Mammoth Mountain, they seemed to have shared a lifetime’s worth of secrets and what they called “location jokes.” Marigold learned these were jokes she’d only understand if she’d been at the location where the joke happened, and they’d all happened during the ski trip. By the time spring vacation rolled around, the Cuties were wearing their hair the same way, sitting together at the smaller lunch table (the one with only enough room for eight people) closest to the windows, and constantly saying the word “amazing.”

  Marigold, who’d always been confident, was suddenly timid about speaking up in front of the Cuties—and she’d gone to kindergarten with most of them. She was also weirdly shy about using the word “amazing.” It was like those girls owned the word, which didn’t make any sens
e. How could anyone own a word?

  She thought there was no better way to get her classmates’ approval than to make sure that they knew she was going to be in the Night Sprites movie. Her entire class had read the books, and it seemed like the whole world was waiting for the film, which would be released on July first—the day her life would change forever.

  Marigold started talking about being in the movie every chance she could get: in homeroom, in the locker room, walking to class. “I just can’t wait until July first!” she’d said more than once. This did get everyone’s attention, but only for a few days. After listening to several stories about “the shoot,” the Cuties lost interest, and they still didn’t invite her to sit at their table.

  It wasn’t until Pilar talked to her in the lunch line that Marigold finally started to understand.

  “People think you’re bragging,” Pilar said as she grabbed a yogurt and put it on her tray.

  “Do you think I’m bragging?” Marigold asked. Pilar bit her lip as she selected a turkey sandwich. “Pilar?”

  “Maybe?” Pilar said, looking up at Marigold from under her long, dark eyelashes.

  “I think everyone is jealous,” Marigold said, picking out a ham and cheese on whole wheat. Pilar froze, her brow pinched. “I mean, not you, but everyone else. The Cuties for sure. They’re such jerks.”

  “They aren’t so bad,” Pilar said, and then she checked to see if anyone had overheard. Marigold felt her throat constrict. Was Pilar becoming one of them?

  It was true that Marigold had been spending less time with Pilar since she’d been cast in Night Sprites. She’d had a bunch of auditions that she’d missed school for, and she was now taking an improv class and a voice-over class in addition to her acting class. It was also true that Pilar had asked her to hang out a lot and she’d almost always had to say no. Had Marigold been a bad friend without realizing it? Didn’t Pilar understand how important acting was to her?

  The truth, Marigold knew, was that she hadn’t signed up for all the extra classes just because acting was her passion. It also gave her an excuse not to fit in.