Sealed With a Kiss

by Robin Palmer

  So this is what happened: I was playing skee ball with my new friend Lady Countess Annabel Ashcroft de Winter von Taxi today (Lady A, to her close personal friends such as myself), and Connor Forrester ended up coming up to us. You know who he is, right? That teen actor who does all the movies with monkeys and once ate a live worm? Anyway, I’m a little worried that all of the weird stuff that happened as I was talking to him—like the electrical shocks in my back, and the way that I got tongue-tied—might mean I have a crush on him. But that can’t be possible, right? I mean, he’s Connor Forrester, a famous star, and I’m just regular old Lucy B. Parker. Yes, everyone’s supposed to have a celebrity crush (BTW, do you have one? I’m really good at keeping secrets, so if you tell me, you don’t have to worry that I’ll blab it), but I think I need one who’s not as cute. Or famous.

  It’s time to leave for set, so I have to go. More later.

  yours truly,

  LUCY B. PARKER

  P.S. Any tickets become available by any chance?

  P.P.S. Everything is okay between Laurel and me, BTW, so when you write back you can just focus on the advice about what to do when you might possibly have a crush on someone you don’t want to have a crush on.

  Thankfully, things were better with Laurel and me. But before they got better, they had gotten a little worse first.

  After Lady A, Frederick, and I got back to the hotel and said good night, I went up to the suite and took out my notebook to make a “Reasons Why I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT Have a Crush on Connor Forrester” list (1. Beatrice has already chosen him as her celebrity crush. 2. He’s way too cute. 3. He’s way too famous. 4. He’s way too cute). Then Laurel got back from dinner.

  “How was it?” I asked as she bumped into the coffee table because she was looking down at her phone.

  “Ow!” She looked up with a goofy smile on her face. “Sorry—did you say something?”

  “Yeah. I asked how dinner was.” I was so busy worrying about this possible crush situation that I’d almost forgotten that I was still supposed to be mad at Laurel for dumping me, but it was all starting to come back to me.

  “Oh, it was just great. Austin is so . . .” She looked back down at her phone and started typing again.

  “So what?” I asked.

  She looked up with another goofy smile. “Huh? Sorry—did you say something? Austin just sent me the funniest text—”

  Okay, that was it. I had had it. I didn’t act this way when I got a crush on Blair, did I? And even if I had a crush on Connor—WHICH I DID NOT—but even if I did, there’s no way I would ever act like she was acting now. “I did, but it doesn’t really matter because ever since we got here you haven’t listened to a thing I’ve said!” I yelled. “It’s like from the minute we got off the plane, I don’t even know you anymore!” I cried.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, finally looking up from her phone.

  “You’re just being so . . . Hollywood. Like every time I ask you something, I’m bothering you!” I yelled. Boy, when you let yourself get angry, it was pretty hard to stop. “And now you’re all Austin this, and Austin that—which, by the way, you wouldn’t even be able to do, if it hadn’t been for me giving you that pep talk and talking FOR you!”

  “I—”

  I wiped away the tears that had started to come. “I never figured you for the kind of person who would dump someone. Especially her supposed best friend.”

  Now her eyes started to fill with tears. “Wait a minute—you think I’m dumping you?”

  “I don’t think it—I know it,” I snapped at her, and snuffled. The tears started to fall.

  “I would never dump you!” she cried. Her tears started to fall, too. “There’s just all this pressure on me right now from my agents and my manager to do all these interviews, and to audition for all these movies that are more dramatic, and then there’s Marci, and that whole thing with that skeezy reporter, and I’m kind of freaking out,” she admitted.

  “How come?”

  “Because before I met you I was fine with just focusing on my career, because I didn’t really have anything else, you know?” She sniffled. “Not you . . . not a crush. But now that I’ve met you, I’m getting to do all of these more normal-life-type things . . . I don’t know . . . it’s really fun. And when you and I hang out together, like during the IBS stuff, I get to be normal. But all this—” she said, motioning to the giant hotel suite, “this is part of my life, too, you know? It’s not normal, but it’s part of me. And I guess because I’ve done it by myself for so long, I keep forgetting that I’m not alone anymore.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. Like how sometimes I’d reach for the last brownie and take a bite without asking first if she wanted to split it.

  “And the whole thing with Austin—I’m really sorry about that, Lucy. You’re right—I did get really caught up in the crushiness of it all.”

  Did? Try “I am.” Even though she managed to control herself, I could tell from the way she kept glancing at her phone every time it dinged with a text, she was still caught up in it.

  “I guess I just got so stuck in the moment.” She sighed. “And I guess I just never think of you as the kind of person who . . . needs someone, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  “I mean, you’re so strong . . . and independent . . . and able to talk to just about anyone. Everyone loves you. I guess I thought even though I was busy, you’d make all these friends on set.”

  Again with the strong stuff! What was everyone thinking?! “But I do need people,” I said. I got all teary again. “Especially you. Do you know how many tissues I’ve been through since we’ve been in L.A. because I’ve been so upset about this?”

  “Oh, Lucy—I’m so sorry!” she said, starting to cry harder. “And I need you. Probably even more than you need me. Will you forgive me?”

  I wiped away my tears and nodded.

  She gave me a big hug. “I love you, frister,” I heard her say.

  “I love you back,” I replied. And I really meant it.

  After we unhugged, and Laurel went to go get ready for bed, I reached for my advice notebook.

  When you’re having a problem with a person, don’t be afraid to just tell her the truth about how you’re feeling. Because even though it sounds like really dumb advice, it really works, I wrote.

  Now that I was officially talking to Laurel again, I told her all about my run-in with Connor Forrester while I got ready for bed. When I was done, she squealed so loud you would’ve thought she had won an Oscar. “Omigod—I can’t believe we have crushes on two best friends! That is so cute!”

  “Wait a minute—I do not have a crush on him,” I corrected her.

  “Sure you do.”

  “How can you say that? I said, like, ten words to him.” I pretty much remembered every word, so if she gave me a second, I could go over the whole conversation in my head and add it up exactly.

  “It’s not what you said—it’s how you felt,” she replied. “The electrical shocks, the sweaty palms, the not being able to speak.” She went to her computer and typed something. A second later she pointed to the screen. At the top it said: “Warning Signs That You Might Have a Crush.” “See—they’re all right here.”

  I paled. How did this page not come up when I did my Google search after meeting Blair? This was a disaster! “But I don’t want to have a crush on Connor Forrester!” I cried. “I want to have a crush on someone who I actually might have a chance with. Like Blair.”

  “What makes you think you don’t have a chance with Connor?” she asked.

  “Um, maybe because he’s super-famous, and I’m not?” I suggested. “Everyone knows that famous people only like other famous people. Like you and Austin.”

  “Maybe you’re not super-famous, but you’re super-fabulous, which is even better than famous,” she said. She gasped. “Do you think the four of us can doubledate? That would be so cute! Not to mention,
the magazines would totally eat it up.” She picked up her phone. “Wait till I tell Austin about this,” she said, getting ready to text.

  “Laurel Moses, if you do that, I will never ever talk to you again!” I yelled, tackling her and yanking the phone out of her hand just in time to see a text ding through. “You’re never going to believe this, but Connor met Lucy . . . and he thinks she’s not bad looking,” I read aloud.

  Laurel squealed.

  “‘Not bad looking’?!” I cried. “What does that mean?”

  She squealed again. “It’s boy-speak for he has a crush back on you!”

  I wondered if “feeling like you’re going to throw up” was one of the crush warning signs. For most girls, hearing that Connor Forrester thought they weren’t bad looking would be a dream come true, but for me it felt more like a nightmare.

  The next night things went from being kind-of-a-nightmare to a full-out-definite-nightmare.

  The day part was actually really cool. I went to the set with Laurel again, but when it was time to break for lunch, Lady A asked me if I wanted to go to Beverly Hills with her and Frederick for lunch because she was wrapped for the day (which is what they said in Hollywood when they didn’t need her anymore).

  “So the gossip blogs aren’t lying—you really do have a pink car!” I exclaimed as Frederick drove up in what I would soon learn was called a Rolls-Royce.

  “Darling, I’ve never had anything but pink cars.” She rummaged in her bag and took out a pair of oversize round sunglasses that were identical to hers. “Here—you can wear these. So that we’re not mobbed on Rodeo Drive.”

  “We’re going to Rodeo Drive?!” I asked as Frederick opened up the door so we could get in the backseat. According to Laurel, Rodeo Drive was the fanciest shopping street in all of Beverly Hills, if not all the world.

  “Oh yes—it’s the only place I shop, isn’t it, Frederick?”

  “Yes, Lady A,” he said, putting on his own oversize sunglasses.

  I settled back into the butter-soft leather seat. I had to say, as much as I loved riding the subway in New York, a person sure could get used to this celebrity stuff.

  I didn’t say this to Lady A, because she liked Rodeo Drive so much, but, frankly, I didn’t see what the big deal was. There wasn’t an H&M or an Urban Outfitters or Target anywhere on the entire street. There were, however, a lot of older women with the skin of their faces pulled tight who were wearing sunglasses that were just as big as Lady A’s and toting tiny yippy dogs. After Lady A did a little shopping, we went to the Peninsula Hotel for high tea. I wasn’t big on tea, but I did like the tea sandwiches and cookies that came with it.

  “Lady A, can I ask you something?” I said, trying to remember to nibble on my shortbread cookie rather than shove it in my mouth all at once.

  “Of course you can, darling,” she said. “Anything other than my age.”

  “Well, see there’s this boy—” I started to say.

  “The one from last night? The one you seem to have a crush on?”

  I turned red. “That’s the thing—I don’t know if I have a crush on him, because, well”—I felt really stupid admitting this to someone as sophisticated as Lady A—“I’ve never actually had a crush before.”

  “Really? No local or long-distance ones before this one, the celebrity one?” she asked, surprised.

  She knew about the three-crush rule, too? How was that possible? Not only was she old, but she had also grown up in another country. “Nope. But if I did have a crush on Connor—I’m not saying I do, but if I did—do you have any advice you could give me about how to act?”

  “Oh, but of course I can!” she boomed. “I’m going to let you in on a very important secret, Lucy B. Parker. A bit of advice that has served me well over the years through three husbands, seven almost-husbands, and countless suitors.” I scrambled to take out my advice notebook and my purple pen. “I learned this many, many years ago in one of the first movies I did,” she went on. “In it, I played a character who, like you, had a mad crush on a boy and spent all her waking hours lovesick and miserable.”

  Oh no—if I did end up having a crush on Connor, was I going to be lovesick?

  “And what the script called for me to do, which I then used in real life as well,” she continued, “was to pretend that, instead of letting the boy I was madly in love with know I was madly in love with him, I had absolutely no interest in him.”

  I got as far as the “Pretend to have” part in my notebook when I stopped writing. Sure, maybe Lady A had more experience than I did with boy stuff (anyone did, really), but this pretending thing just didn’t feel right to me. “I don’t know,” I said doubtfully. I mean, it was hard enough just trying to be myself without also having to not be myself. The tongue-tiedness would probably come in handy for that, but the idea of trying to be someone I wasn’t sounded really tiring. “Pete—he’s my doorman—is always saying that you’re just supposed to be yourself, whether it’s with kids at school, or boys.”

  “Be yourself?” she asked. “Huh. I wonder what that would be like. I’ll have to try it sometime. I’ve been an actress for so long, I’ve completely forgotten what being yourself feels like!”

  As for me, I had a feeling that even if I wanted to be someone else, I was kind of stuck being Lucy B. Parker forever.

  When Lady A and Frederick dropped me off at the hotel (she had decided to stay at the Hotel Bel-Air that night), Laurel was waiting for me in the suite.

  “Guess where we’re going tonight?” she asked as I walked in.

  “On the Haunted Hollywood tour?” I asked excitedly. I had read about it on the plane, and it sounded really cool—they took you to places where famous people had died or hotels that were supposedly haunted.

  “Nope. To a cookout in Malibu. On the beach.”

  “At Howard’s house?” I asked. Howard was one of Laurel’s agents. I had never met him, but once when I was overlistening, I heard Alan say that Howard’s house in Malibu should have a sign in front that said THE HOUSE THAT LAUREL MOSES BUILT because it was built with all the money he made off of her career. Howard always called her “Laurel, babe,” which, now that I had been in L.A. for a few days, I realized was a very Hollywood thing to do.

  “No. To the house that Austin and Connor rented for the summer!” she replied.

  The nauseous feeling came back again. I shook my head. “Uh-uh. No way. I don’t want to go to some big party. You go. I’ll stay here and watch The Real Eleventh Graders of Connecticut preview.”

  “It’s not a big party—it’s just going to be the four of us,” she said.

  That was even worse! That meant that I’d definitely have to talk to him. At least if it was a party-party, I could hide in the bathroom or go drown myself.

  “Now go put your bathing suit on.”

  “Why do you get to decide what we’re going to do?” I grumbled.

  “Because I’m older—that’s why,” she said.

  I sighed. Fristers. I knew she’d end up pulling that at some point.

  chapter 11

  Dear Dr. Maude,

  You’re never going to believe where I am—in a car on my way to a barbecue at Austin Mackenzie and Connor Forrester’s beach house in Malibu. Which, BTW, I totally don’t want to go to, but Laurel’s making me because she’s older and in charge. Not only that, but I’m wearing one of her bikinis because it turns out I left both my bathing suits at home by mistake. She says it looks really good on me, but I think I look horrible because she’s a lot smaller than me on top. Luckily, I’m wearing a sweatshirt and jeans over it, and you can be sure there’s NO WAY I’m taking them off, even though it’s eighty-five degrees and I’m already sweating.

  So if there is any ANY way you can write me back with some advice about how to act in front of Connor, I’d really appreciate it. Lady A says that I should pretend NOT to like him and that’ll make him like me more. But Pete, our doorman, is always saying I should just be myself. Needless
to say, I’m confused. Especially since I still find it hard to believe that I might have a crush on someone as famous and cute as Connor. He just seems so NOT like the kind of boy I would crush on, you know what I mean?

  Oh—one last thing. I was thinking about it, and I realize that in all of these letters, I tend to talk about myself the whole time and never ask you about you. Maybe that’s why you never write back. So how are you? Do you have any vacations planned for the summer? Also, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but I was wondering if you have a boyfriend.

  I look forward to hearing from you.

  yours truly,

  LUCY B. PARKER

  “I thought you said it was just going to be the four of us,” I said through gritted teeth as we stood in the doorway of the big wood and glass house on the beach. As a gaggle of itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-bikini-wearing mostly blonde teen girls pushed past us to go inside, I hunched over and crossed my arms over my boobs. Even with the sweatshirt on, I was miserable.

  “So did I,” she said nervously. “My dad’s going to kill me if he finds out I took you to a big Hollywood party.”

  I didn’t think my mom would be too thrilled about it, either. I was a little nervous, too. I mean, I hadn’t even been to a non-Hollywood boy-girl party yet. When we finally pushed our way through the crowd, the first thing I saw was Connor on a couch, strumming on a guitar while a whole other gaggle of teen girls (also bikini-wearing, also mostly blonde) said dumb things like, “Oh, Connor, you’re so talented—you should totally make an album!” and “Oh, Connor—are you just good at everything you do?”

  “Hey—look who’s here!” he said. “It’s Laurel Moses and—”

  “Lucy B. Parker,” I said.

  He smiled. “Yeah. I remember your name.”

  Connor Forrester remembered my name. How was that possible? He turned to the girls. “She eats bread! Isn’t that completely rad?”