Dream Life

by Lauren Mechling

  “Whatever,” she said. “I’m going along with the name because you can also call her Bug.”

  Andy sat down next to me and slung his arm over my shoulder. My heart was about to explode—I couldn’t believe he was acting all lovey-dovey with me in front of the other two. It appeared I wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable; Becca was clicking her studded ankle boots together and studying the dust patterns underfoot.

  “C’mere, little monster.” It took me a second to realize Louis wasn’t talking to the dog. He’d reached up for Becca’s ivory hands and pulled her down next to him.

  I bit down on my lip and kept petting Bella’s cashmere-soft coat, trying not to think about how weird it was that Louis had nicknames for Becca that I’d never heard of.

  Becca started talking about how absentminded the dog breeder had been. “She had wads of tissue between her toes and she kept saying ‘Bingo’ to everything.”

  “That was the least of it,” her brother added. “She tried to give us somebody else’s puppy. Total nut job.”

  “They’re probably hard to tell apart when they’re this young,” I said.

  “Um, I’m no vet,” Becca said, “but I can tell the difference between a Dalmatian and a standard poodle.”

  “I always knew you were smart,” Louis said in fake admiration.

  “She does go to Henry Hudson,” I threw in. “Home of New York’s best—”

  “And brightest,” Becca finished for me, her voice shot through with mock pride.

  We deserved a gold medal for the way we were hanging out as a foursome, as if it were something we did all the time.

  Suddenly Bella let off a yelp.

  “I think you scared her.” Andy pulled the puppy out of the bag and held her tight against his chest. “Nobody’s going to eat you, little munchkin,” he cooed, then launched into a story about the original Nathan’s Famous hot dog stand in Coney Island. “There was a rumor that they were serving actual dogs, so Nathan got doctors to stand on line outside in their white coats. He paid them off with free hot dogs, and sure enough, customers assumed they must be healthy and started lining up.” Andy peered into his new love’s sleepy eyes. “I bet you’d like a wiener, little bug.”

  Bella let out a whimper of agreement.

  Louis looked at his watch. “The movie starts in twenty minutes.”

  “You guys are leaving?” Andy made a pleading face.

  I looked over to make sure Louis would be okay with Andy’s implication. Our eyes connected, and in that instant we both silently consented. What choice did we have? If we tried to hold our friendship in a cocoon for two it was going to get left behind.

  “You guys are welcome to come,” I said. “Seriously, the more popcorn the merrier.”

  “Awesome.” Becca leaped to her feet and mussed my hair. “And don’t forget, we have doggie snacks too.”

  { 25 }

  Vertigo Girl to the Rescue!

  Back at school on Monday, I was sitting in the cafeteria, going over the night’s plan in my head again and again. After school, I had to pick up the Vertigo Girl mask that Ian was making for the production. And at nine o’clock, the bridge would be closed to traffic and we’d set up the film shoot. At 11:18, when the power went out, workers disguised as actors would scramble up the bridge’s weak cable and reinforce it with platinum. Nearly ten minutes later, the bridge would be in perfect shape and Sink’s plan to take over the waterfront would be nothing but a pipe dream. It was a plan worthy of an Academy Award, and yet I had an eerie sense the other shoe was going to drop. The Directors Guild would go on strike or compromising documents were going to surface on Moonwatcher.net or Sink was going to clue in to what had happened and send a ninja after Reagan and the rest of us.

  I had to stop thinking about all the ways things could go wrong, so I tried to concentrate on how smoothly my life was going—for once. Dad had finished his book. I’d made up with Louis and Ian. As for Andy, even though he had one last test to study for, he was being as attentive as could be—during Kiki’s Sunday night Starlight Roof Scrabble party, he called Clem’s cell phone to check up on me. Twice.

  And there were no hiccups on the school front, either. Classes were easy. Somehow I was on “hey” terms with more kids than I could count on two hands. And dear old Sheila was too busy carrying around fifty-pound film theory books Alex had lent her and posing as a budding intellectual to hate on me.

  As I started to unwrap my ham baguette, someone nudged me from behind.

  “Hey, stranger,” came a voice. It was Alex, who lowered himself into the seat across from me.

  “Hey yourself,” I said, unable to look him in the eye. He pulled a school paper out of his back pocket and studied the front page. “Anything good there?” I asked, still studying my lap.

  “Typical mediocrity,” he said, “but there’s some funny stuff on the plagiarism fallout.”

  I looked up. My blank expression must have said it all.

  “You didn’t hear? Like, three kids in Bunting’s freshman English class handed in the exact same essay, on the inner self and the outside world in Wuthering Heights.”

  “And the lazy bastard noticed? I didn’t think Hudson teachers bothered to read papers—mine just get graded on length.”

  Alex dismissed my question with a flick of the wrist. “Of course he didn’t notice. But he gave some of them different grades, and one of the girls made a stink about the injustice of it all.”

  I shook my head and laughed. Sometimes you just had to love Henry Hudson.

  “Hey, Claire.” Alex gave me a crooked smile. “I think I owe you an apology. I guess I just went after what I wanted without thinking of you. I’m sorry.”

  “No worries.” I looked down at my stack of Bakelite bracelets and I wondered how I’d ever thought he was anything more than a goofy kid who had some growing up to do. “You gave business cards out at Kiki’s party. It’s not a biggie.”

  “What?” he said. “I’m talking about going after Sheila.” He looked at me sheepishly. “I know you guys aren’t exactly tight these days.”

  “Alex,” I said, holding back a smile, “I’m not mad at you at all.”

  “Really?” He was squinting. “You’re way cooler than I’d given you credit for.” In the moment of silence that followed, I marveled at the ridiculousness of the way things had turned out. “You know what? Maybe the three of us can hang out sometime, unless it would be too strange.”

  “Maybe.” I ran my finger along the chain around my neck. “Stranger things have happened.”

  It was a cool, misty night, and my heart was beating fast as I approached the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. A huge orange sign said: CLOSED THRU 12:00 A.M. USE ALTERNATE ROUTE.

  A megaphone-happy woman greeted me with: “Nobody beyond this point! Film shoot in progress!” The scene playing out over her shoulder was unbelievable. Whenever the girls had talked about staging a shoot, I’d pictured something along the lines of the handful of low-budget music video productions that I’d pedaled past on my bike rides over the bridge. Those crews always seemed to consist of nothing more than a kid holding on to a video camera while a friend steadied him on his skateboard. Tonight, though, the bridge was a hive of activity, the walkway clogged with hundreds of crew members who were fiddling with equipment and muttering important-looking messages into their headsets.

  When I walked up to the woman with the megaphone, her nostrils flared at me. “This is a closed set.”

  “I’m—I’m here for the movie,” I blurted. “I have a delivery for Becca Shuttleworth. She’s one of the Blue Mo—” I caught myself just in time. “Producers?”

  The woman did little to conceal her skepticism. “I’ll see if there’s anyone here by that name. Stand back.” My hands went clammy while I waited. Finally my friend’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “It’s Claire? Tell her we’re under the Manhattan-side arch.”

  “Be right up!” I hollered, hoping the walkie-talkie
would pick up my words.

  I found Becca standing in front of a Porta Potti, arms akimbo. A flash of pink was visible in her down-jacket pocket—looked like the iPod was safe and sound. My chest heaved in relief.

  Poppy and Sig were off to the side, conferring with a goateed guy wearing head-to-toe black fleece. Becca’s eyes warmed up when she saw me. “Did you bring the mask?”

  “No, I forgot my one and only task.”

  “Are you kid—” She stopped short when she saw I was rolling my eyes. “Don’t mess with me. My nerves are a little frayed here. My sleep was all messed up last night.”

  “I know the feeling,” I told her, and handed over the brown paper bag I’d picked up at Propeller Comics. Without bothering to check out the mask Ian had made, she cracked open the white structure’s door and shoved it through. A talent sign came into focus, and I realized Becca was guarding a tiny little trailer. It beat me how anybody would find it soothing to hide out in a box that was the size of a phone booth, but status and comfort didn’t always stand shoulder to shoulder.

  “How is it?” A girl came flying out the door. She was wearing a black cat suit and the Vertigo Girl mask that Ian had made out of origami paper and tiny fake diamonds he’d removed from a kid-sized tiara he’d found on the street. When Ian had shown it to me at the comic-book store, it had seemed like a fantastic piece of art that might call to you from a museum wall—but set against those unmistakable waves and the mist-coated New York skyline, it sprang to life far beyond that. Vertigo Girl was mythical goddess and dream girl all wrapped up in one.

  “Sills,” I whispered, “you have no idea how fierce you look.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a low voice before floating away.

  “Don’t let the cat out of the bag,” Becca ordered. “Sills isn’t supposed to be here, given her celebrity-girlfriend status, but we couldn’t keep her out. She did write the damn thing, after all, and she really wanted to play the role.”

  Seemed fair.

  “All clear!” somebody shouted in the background.

  “Watch out!” Becca pulled me aside to keep me from getting mauled by a crane that was tearing through the air. “Let’s get you parked somewhere a little more comfortable. I’ll show you to the holding area.”

  I knew this trick—Kiki is the master of saying “Now, there’s a spot on the davenport!” to guests she doesn’t find worthy of more than two minutes of her time. Becca’s desire to unload me stung, but when we got to the holding area and I saw it was less of the jail cell its name implied and more of an upscale banquet, with endless tables stocked with cookies and fried zucchini sticks and roast beef wraps, my sense of injury evaporated.

  Vertigo Girl and Samurai Sam, the movie’s stars, were now standing on their marks about twenty feet away. A wardrobe assistant was down on her knees, running a lint roller along every square inch of their costumes. Then a makeup artist came in for one final coat of powder (Vertigo Girl’s mask didn’t cover her neck) and the continuity girl homed in to snap Polaroids.

  Just when it was beginning to feel like they’d never actually start filming, the man in black fleece boomed: “Quiet on the set! Rolling! And action!”

  This was beginning to be fun.

  After watching Vertigo Girl deliver her line where she tells Samurai Sam that she’s afraid of heights for the fourteenth time, I began to get twitchy I got up to grab a Coke, but one of the wardrobe girls clawed my arm. “Don’t move,” she hissed. “Visitors always distract the talent.” I wanted to pull rank and let her know I was hardly a mere visitor—if it weren’t for me, there would be no shoot. And when she and a couple of cohorts started talking about how sick they were of working on rich kids’ vanity projects, I had to count to ten to hold back from explaining what this whole circus was really about.

  “You ready?” a familiar voice whispered from behind, and I turned around to see Diana smiling devilishly, her chin jutting toward the huge digital clock over the Watchtower building. It was 11:15, three minutes before blackout time. My chest clenched in fear—what if the plan didn’t work? But a minute later the clock went dead and blackness settled over the city. Chaos broke out among the crew members and I felt a surge of nervousness.

  Across the river, without their lights on, the skyscrapers and buildings staggered along the waterfront looked like thick cardboard cutouts. I held my breath and prayed for the team of acrobatic engineers that was scurrying up the cables and doing their magic.

  When the lights came back on, I tried to deep-breathe my residual nervousness away. Becca appeared by my side, wearing an ear-to-ear smile. “It’s done! It’s done!”

  There was a lot of commotion on the set, and an amplified voice said: “Back to your places, everyone.”

  Becca leaned in closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Save next Saturday night. There’s a little initiation ceremony.”

  I nearly fell out of my director’s chair. I’d gotten so preoccupied with saving the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d forgotten all about becoming a Full Moon. I glanced around to see if any of the crew members had caught wind of our little tête-à-tête. No worries on that front. Everyone was whizzing about, far too stressed about making up for lost time to pay the annoying blond visitor any mind.

  As far as they were concerned, it was back to making a lousy movie. Little did they know they were also making history.

  { 26 }

  Tit for Tat

  “And you must be Claire’s parents,” Becca’s mom said by way of greeting at the doorway. True to form, her plain navy dress was set off with to-die-for accessories, including the chunky jade and ruby necklace that I could have sworn I’d just seen on the back page of Vogue. The pièce de résistance, though, was the tiny polka-dotted dog draped over her shoulder. “I’m Deirdre,” she said. “I wish I could shake your hand but I’m covered in doggy drool.” As if on cue, Bella snarfed.

  “Then you will have to settle for a French introduction.” Dad moved in to plant a kiss on each of the hostess’s cheeks. “Gustave Voyante. Enchanté.”

  I felt my face burn but Becca’s mom thrilled to the double kiss. “Enchantée!” she replied in a girlish squeal, repeating the exercise with my mother. “I’m so glad you could come to my birthday party.” She winked at me to convey that we were both in on the secret—all the Half Moons’ parents had been told that we were here to celebrate Deirdre Shuttleworth’s birthday and not Sink Landon’s downfall.

  Once she’d closed the door behind us, she guided my parents over to Becca’s dad, who was presiding over the party from a spot by the staircase.

  I hung back in the entryway and scanned the living room. A string quartet played in the corner and late-afternoon light poured through the windows. All the girls were decked out in their parent-approved best, and I was glad I’d worn my Kiki-donated aqua blue Oleg Cassini cocktail dress instead of the purple Diana Ross–esque mini I’d nearly opted for.

  “There you are.” Becca was looking like a prim schoolgirl in her red pleated skirt and white button-down shirt. “I need your social know-how like never before.” Her brown eyes gleamed with eagerness in the semi-darkness of the corridor.

  “Don’t tell me the Helle Housers are crashing another party,” I said.

  “I wish.” She turned and indicated our own traitor’s spot by the bay window with her chin.

  Reagan looked gloomier than I’d ever seen. My stomach drew into a knot. “What’s she doing here?” I asked.

  “I invited her,” Becca said. “I didn’t want to have to explain to my parents why she couldn’t come. Plus, better to keep an eye on her, don’t you think? But the way she’s standing there looking like the queen of death is creeping me out.”

  “And you want me to keep her company?”

  “Becca!” My friend’s mom was making an indecipherable hand signal and her little friend growled.

  “Just go and talk to her, will you, C? Wait—” She wiped at my ear and smile
d placidly. “Attack of the random glitter.”

  “Henry was having a creative morning,” I told her. “Thanks.” As I tried to cross the room, I kept getting wrangled into parental meet-and-greets, but I finally made my way over to Reagan. “Having fun?” I asked when I finally arrived at her side.

  “Oodles,” she said sarcastically, and kept staring out the window.

  She wasn’t going to make this easy on me.

  “Your parents coming?” I asked.

  “They had other plans.”

  “What could trump a Shuttleworth soiree?” I asked lamely.

  “They’re busy having nothing to do with their daughter.” She glared at me and she pulled a letter out of her bag.

  I saw the Dartmouth letterhead and the words “regret” and “admission” and “withdrawal.” The movie shoot had been only three days ago. When you double-cross Sink Landon, he sure works fast.

  I felt a lump in my throat and looked back up at her. “Maybe if you talk to your parents they can help you. Come clean.”

  “I already did.” Her smile was bitter. “They said I have to figure it out on my own. So here I am, with nothing to show for myself but an unacceptance letter and a dad who wishes I’d never been born.”

  I gazed out the window. Golden light was flooding the street and a young father and pair of little boys hopped out of a yellow cab.

  “You know, Ray, it was worth it.” A picture of the foiled Bridge Towers project leaped to my mind’s eye. “And college can wait. I’m sure you’ll work something out.”

  “Or not.” Her tone was fake-chirpy. “Lots of highly successful people don’t go to college. Like, um … well, I’ll let you know if I think of any.”

  I felt sad and breathed in deep as I looked around the room. When I turned back to Reagan, the spot where she’d been standing was empty.

  Kiki’s “circulate, circulate” maxim popped into my head and I drifted over to Diana and a white-haired man who must have been her grandfather.