“I just hope Alex doesn’t hold this against us too much.” Lisa sounded worried.
Carole shrugged and twined the phone cord around her finger. In her opinion, Alex would just have to deal with it. “I think he understands that Stevie really needs this right now,” she said. “Besides, from what Stevie told me, there’s no way he could get away. He’s already committed to all those lawn jobs.”
Lisa sighed, and Carole guessed that she was missing Alex a lot. “Anyway,” Lisa said, “it’s probably better this way. It sounds like Stevie really needs a break from everything that reminds her of home.”
“Except us,” Carole added immediately. “But you’re right. She’s really had a tough time these past two months.”
“Don’t worry. If anything can cheer her up, it’s the friendly people, blue skies, and gorgeous beaches we’ve got out here.”
Carole raised an eyebrow, a little surprised. What did Lisa mean, we? It almost sounded as if Lisa was thinking of California as home. Carole quickly shrugged the idea off. “Sure,” she said. “It sounds like you’ve been having fun. You know, partying with movie stars and everything.”
Lisa laughed. “Well, TV stars, anyway. And it’s been great. But don’t forget, they’re just people like you and me.”
“Right,” Carole said sarcastically. “I’m so sure that Skye Ransom and Jeremiah Jamison have everything in common with a bunch of snot-nosed Pony Clubbers who all want to ride Patch at every lesson. And of course, Summer Kirke must be exactly like old Mrs. Twitchett, who starts screaming bloody murder if her horse breaks out of a walk.”
Lisa laughed again. “Hey, I didn’t say things here were exactly the same,” she protested. “For instance, back in Willow Creek I’m not just a fifteen-minute walk from the beach. I can’t wait to show you guys around. You’ll love it here. I know you will.”
“Great.” Carole kept her voice bright, but suddenly she didn’t feel quite as excited as she had a few moments before. She bit her lip and picked at the fabric of the sofa. Was it her imagination or did Lisa sound awfully high on this whole California-living thing? Now that Carole thought back over their conversation, Lisa had seemed a lot more interested in talking about all the great things out there than she was in missing the great stuff back home. Could that be true? Or was Carole just being paranoid? Was Lisa thinking of California as home? There was only one way to find out, and that was to ask her about it.
Before Carole could figure out how to broach the subject, she heard a gasp from the other end of the line.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
Lisa let out another laugh, though it was a bit high-pitched and nervous. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she said breathlessly. “Just a tremor.”
That made Carole sit up straight on the couch. She gripped the phone hard. “A tremor?” she repeated. “You mean, like an earthquake?” She remembered that when Lisa had called them during Callie Forester’s party, she’d said something about a tremor then. Now she was experiencing another one. Suddenly Carole thought these tremors were getting a little too frequent. She knew California had earthquakes, but that was something it hadn’t even occurred to her to worry about—that the earth could open up and swallow Lisa whole at any moment. There are no earthquakes in Willow Creek, she thought.
This time Lisa’s laugh sounded more genuine. “It’s over already,” she announced. “Don’t worry. It wasn’t the Big One this time, I guess.”
Carole forced herself to chuckle in return. “Good,” she said. “Well, I guess I’d better go before Dad realizes how long we’ve been talking and decides to cash in those frequent flier miles to pay the phone bill.”
The two girls said good-bye, and Carole hung up. But she sat still for a few minutes, thinking hard. Something about the conversation had left her feeling unsettled. Maybe it was just the earthquake tremor. That had been pretty weird, talking to Lisa at the same time the ground was shaking under her feet. It had to be what was bothering her.
Then again, maybe that was only part of it.
FOUR
“And this is the beach,” Lisa said, pointing to a glistening stretch of pure white sand. “See? It’s just steps away from home.” She waved a hand down the trail at the enormous, sprawling white modern house they had just left.
“Neat,” Stevie said cheerfully. “I’m so glad we came to visit.”
Carole nodded in agreement. The beach was beautiful. So were the majestic mountains rising directly behind the walking trail where the girls were standing and the towering California redwoods all around them. From somewhere in the distance, Beach Boys music drifted toward them on the breeze.
Carole breathed deep, enjoying the scene. But then she felt something odd under her feet.
“L-Lisa?” she stammered uncertainly. “Um, was that a—a tremor?”
Lisa laughed carelessly and waved her hand in the air. “Don’t worry about it!” she exclaimed. “Nobody around here even notices a little tremor or two.”
Carole gasped as the ground rumbled under her feet once again. This time she heard it as well as felt it—an ominous crunching, grinding sound.
Now Stevie looked worried, too. “Was that another tremor?”
Lisa shrugged, looking slightly irritated. “Would you two stop yammering on about tremors?” she said. “I want to teach you how to surf before we have to leave for the movie premiere tonight. And don’t forget, we have reservations afterward at that hot new restaurant on Rodeo Drive where all the most famous movie stars hang out, and—”
“Eek!” Carole squawked as the dirt beneath her feet buckled and swelled. This time there was no mistaking it, and this time it didn’t stop. The trail in front of them lifted and swayed as if there were some monstrous creature beneath it that had just awakened and was struggling to burst out.
Stevie’s face had gone white. She took a deep breath. “Earthquake!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Carole was too scared to scream. She grabbed at the trunk of a nearby redwood for support, but even as she did, it started to topple sideways. Carole threw herself on the ground, hardly daring to look as a gaping fissure suddenly yawned open just a few yards in front of them and huge boulders started to roll down the hillside. She could feel her whole body shaking along with the tortured earth …
“Carole! Wake up!”
Carole’s eyes flew open. She still felt herself being yanked back and forth. But now she saw the real reason why. Stevie was shaking her briskly by the shoulder, peering impatiently into her face.
“Uh—wha—?” Carole murmured, twisting her shoulder out of Stevie’s firm grip and rubbing her eyes. She glanced around the crowded interior of the jumbo jet. She and Stevie were seated in the center row, so she couldn’t see out the windows. “Are we there yet?”
“We just landed.” Stevie stood up and reached to retrieve their bags from the overhead compartment. “You really conked out for a while there. Must have been all those peanuts you ate after we boarded.” She dropped her overstuffed backpack onto the seat with a thump.
Carole gasped at the sudden impact, which made her own seat jump a little. “Don’t do that!”
Stevie paused and cocked her head to one side, giving Carole a surprised look. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I had the weirdest dream just now.” As the two girls shuffled out of the plane with the rest of the passengers, Carole quickly told Stevie about her nightmare. When she finished, Stevie snorted.
“You should have known it was a dream all along,” she pointed out. “Since when do I use words like neat?”
Carole shrugged and yawned. “Good point.”
When the two girls stepped off the ramp into the terminal building, they both spotted a very familiar figure grinning and waving and hurrying toward them.
“Lisa!” they cried in unison.
The next few moments were lost in a flurry of hugs and exclamations. Finally Stevie pulled back and took a good, long look at Lis
a.
“It’s so great to see you again,” she said. “You look fantastic. You’re so tan!”
Lisa grinned. “Mom will probably have a cow—she sent me out here with a vat of SPF forty-five,” she said. “But when you spend so much time outdoors in this incredible weather, you’re bound to get a little color no matter what you do.”
“I know what you mean,” Stevie said. “I’ve been outside a lot this summer, too.”
“Sure.” Lisa shrugged. “But you know what they say about that California sunshine.”
Stevie couldn’t help frowning a little. “No, what do they say?”
Carole spoke up before Lisa could respond. “Lisa! Your hair. It looks amazing! Did you get it cut at a fancy Hollywood salon, or what?”
Now that she took a second look, Stevie saw that Lisa’s hairstyle was slightly different. At first she had assumed it was just pulled back or something, but actually it had been cut in a subtle, elegant style that framed Lisa’s face, bringing out her high cheekbones and large, luminous eyes. That reminded Stevie of her last conversation with Alex before leaving home. He hadn’t exactly come right out and asked her to check up on Lisa for him, but Stevie knew that was what he was thinking. Alex thought Lisa was the most beautiful girl in the world, and he was convinced that every guy who saw her would want to steal her away from him. Now that she was face-to-face with her, Stevie thought he might be on to something. She had almost forgotten how truly lovely her friend was.
“Do you like it?” Lisa put a hand to her head self-consciously, but she looked pleased, too. “Evelyn’s stylist did it. Evelyn thought it would make me look, you know, a little older. More sophisticated.”
Carole nodded enthusiastically. “It definitely does. I’m surprised they haven’t asked you to be in that TV show yet, instead of just working behind the scenes.”
Lisa laughed, looking embarrassed. “Not a chance,” she assured her friends. “My acting days are long behind me.” She grabbed one of Carole’s carry-on bags and gestured toward the baggage carousel. Her friends followed. “Besides, there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes than you could ever guess. It’s really fascinating, actually.”
Stevie was still looking Lisa over. Besides the tan and the new hairstyle, there was something else different about her. “What’s up with those clothes?” she asked abruptly. “Back home we don’t dress up in our Sunday best to go to the airport.”
Lisa looked surprised. She glanced down at her outfit, which consisted of a short, filmy printed skirt and a sleeveless white linen blouse. “Oh, this is no big deal. It’s just an outfit Evelyn helped me pick out.” She grinned. “Actually, we got it at the Galleria—you know, that famous shopping mall out here. Don’t you like it?”
“Sure,” Stevie said quickly. “I bet Alex would really love it, too.”
“It looks great,” Carole assured her, shooting Stevie a perplexed look.
Stevie shrugged, then hurried toward the baggage carousel to hide her whirl of emotions. What was wrong with her? Obviously she should have followed Carole’s example and gotten some sleep on the plane. She must be overtired from the long flight—why else would she have such conflicting feelings about being here, seeing Lisa … So Lisa’s made a few changes to her appearance, she told herself. So what? She’s the same person inside, right? Your best friend. So chill out and relax, okay? This trip won’t do much good if you forget about one set of problems just in time to make up another whole batch to worry about.
It didn’t take long for the girls’ bags to appear on the revolving baggage conveyor. “There’s yours, Carole.” Stevie pointed as a red nylon bag slid down the chute.
Carole nodded. She leaped forward to grab it, but she missed the handle and the bag hit the metal edge of the carousel with a resounding thud. Noticing that Carole winced at the impact, Stevie quickly guessed why.
“You’re not still jumpy about that dream, are you?” she teased, hoping to lighten the mood—and to take her mind off her own brooding thoughts.
“What dream?” Lisa asked.
Looking sheepish, Carole told Lisa about it. When she finished, Lisa was smiling. “Don’t worry,” she told Carole as the three girls gathered up their bags and headed for the door. “Like I told you, tremors are pretty much a way of life here. Anyway, despite what people in other parts of the country think, we don’t get that many of them. I seriously doubt you’ll have to worry about it.” She paused. “Now, as for your dream description of my dad’s house …”
A few minutes later, Lisa was expertly steering her small red car in and out among the streams of traffic speeding by as they headed away from the airport. The road was so busy that Stevie couldn’t even manage to get an accurate count of the number of lanes going in each direction.
“Let me guess,” she said grimly, gripping the armrest in the backseat. Another side effect of the accident was that Stevie still felt an occasional twinge of nervousness whenever she was in a car. But she was pretty sure this traffic would have made her anxious anyway. “This must be one of those L.A. freeways you’re always hearing about.”
Lisa glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Yep,” she confirmed. “It was pretty nerve-racking driving here at first, especially after all those nice, peaceful country roads back home.”
The words were innocent, but for some reason they rubbed Stevie the wrong way. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You make Willow Creek sound like some kind of sleepy hick backwater.”
Carole couldn’t help noticing the tension in Stevie’s voice. But she was too busy with her own worries to try to figure out what was going on with her friend. Despite Lisa’s reassuring words, she couldn’t stop thinking about her dream. That earthquake had felt so real … Carole knew that its veracity had probably been due to the jolts and shifts of the plane as it landed. Her subconscious mind had simply turned the motion of the landing into the feel of the earth shifting in a tremor—just the way she so often found herself dreaming about the school bell or a train whistle or whatever just as her alarm clock went off.
Forget the stupid dream, she advised herself sternly. You can’t enjoy all that Hollywood glitz you’ve been looking forward to unless you relax and stop expecting the Big One to hit at any second. Still, she couldn’t quite put it out of her mind.
At that moment she felt a rumbling and heard a loud roaring surrounding the car. She gasped and jumped but caught herself after a split second as a giant tractor trailer thundered past. Feeling her face turning red, she glanced at her friends. Luckily they hadn’t noticed.
Get a grip, Carole! she told herself, sinking down in her seat and sighing.
She tried to forget about her dream by tuning back in to her friends’ conversation. They were talking about Alex.
“You should see him,” Stevie bragged. “He’s totally buff from pushing all those lawn mowers around this summer. Tan, too. I think the sun even lightened his hair a little.”
“Does he talk about me?” Lisa asked, sounding wistful.
Stevie snorted. “Only every second he’s awake. He’s driving us all crazy. Chad can’t wait to escape to his dorm next week so that he doesn’t have to listen to it anymore. Michael tried to wear his portable CD player to the dinner table a few times, but Mom and Dad made him take off the earphones.”
Lisa laughed. “Sounds like things haven’t changed much back home.”
“One thing has been totally different,” Carole said. “You’re not there.”
Lisa smiled, looking a bit uncomfortable. Then she changed the subject and started talking about Lily. “You guys are going to love her,” she said enthusiastically. “She’s so adorable. I think she already looks a lot like Evelyn, but Evelyn insists she has the exact same eyes as me.”
Stevie did her best to smile. “Really?” she said. “That reminds me. Max and Deborah were just saying the other day that Maxi has the same eyes as Mrs. Reg.” Maxi, short for Maxine, was the elder of Max’s two daughters. Most people around Pin
e Hollow agreed that the little girl bore a strong resemblance to Max’s wife, Deborah. But there was also a definite touch of the Regnery side of the family, particularly of Max’s mother, known as Mrs. Reg.
“Oh, I haven’t even asked about Max and his family yet!” Lisa cried. “How are they?”
Stevie smiled, slightly mollified. It’s about time she asked about the people back home, she thought as she began to chatter about the Regnery family. It’s not like Alex and Carole and I are the only connections she has in Willow Creek.
“Prancer is fine, too,” Carole broke in after a few minutes. “She misses you, though.”
“Really?” Lisa smiled and glanced over at her. “How can you tell?”
Carole pretended to look surprised. “She told me so, of course.”
All three girls laughed, and for a moment Stevie relaxed. This was just like old times—the three best friends together, laughing and talking about horses.
Then Lisa muttered something under her breath and honked her horn—another motorist had cut too close in front of her—and the moment was shattered.
“Don’t worry, we’re almost there,” Lisa assured her friends. She hit her turn signal and prepared to follow a line of cars heading for an exit ramp. “I know the freeways can be kind of scary if you’re not used to them, but once you’ve been here a while they seem like a lifeline.” She grinned. “You know how people say that nobody walks in L.A.? It’s true.”
Stevie found herself frowning again. Lisa wasn’t talking like a girl who was getting ready to leave behind a strange, stressful new place and return home. She sounded more like a content, settled native who was perfectly comfortable in her surroundings. Don’t be an idiot, she told herself sharply. Alex’s paranoia about all those hot California hunks he thinks Lisa is dating must have poisoned your brain. She’s just being Lisa—making the best of the situation.
That thought comforted her a little. But as Lisa steered the car down a wide, sunny boulevard lined with palm trees, riotous tropical-looking flowers, and stucco bungalows, she couldn’t help wondering what everybody thought was so great about California. It didn’t seem all that special to her.
Reining In Page 5