Geekerella Read online

  “What? Oh, no, I don’t think Mark would…”

  “Who’s Mark?”

  “My—” I stop. There’s no way I’m going to say dad, and manager isn’t much better. He would not approve of me doing this without Lonny. Which makes it enticing. “No one. Never mind. C’mon, let’s do it.”

  We barely make it to the barrier. I give the crowd Sebastian’s (my character’s) bro nod. The girls go nuts. One shoves a picture into my hands—it’s of me shirtless, pulled from the Teen Vogue photo shoot last year.

  “Hi!” I say, faking enthusiasm as I take her Sharpie and sign it. “How did you guys find me so fast?” I try to make it a joke, which is the best way to frame a serious question.

  “The footage,” the guy beside her says. Tall, gelled hair. “It was awesome!”

  “I can’t believe they put it on Twitter,” squeals another.

  “Oh my god that scene today was amazing. I loved the kiss!”

  I pause mid-autograph (I’ve already signed three photos and an arm). The kiss today? Footage?

  I glance over at Jess, whose big white smile has faltered. She’s thinking the same thing as I am: we have a snake in the water. A leak. Even an actor from a dumb teenage soap opera knows that’s not good.

  “Jess, what’s it like kissing Darien? Isn’t he amazing?” interrupts a girl in pigtails. I hand back her notebook.

  Jess laughs. “He’s a terrible kisser!”

  “Hey,” I say. “I am not.”

  “Oh, did I hurt your feelings?”

  “Positively shattered.”

  “They’re so cute together!” someone cries. Cameras flash.

  Jess wraps her arm around mine and tugs me toward the costume trailer. I give a guy back his Sharpie, having half-signed his T-shirt. “Well, you guys are awesome, but we should really get going. Dare?”

  “Yeah. Hey, it was nice meeting you all!” I say to the group, waving and smiling like we’re both in a beauty pageant. I don’t think I exhale until we get to the trailer. My jacket sticks to my shoulders when I shrug it off.

  “You’re way too nice, you know.” Jess comes out from behind one of the racks, now wearing into street clothes and pulling her hair into a high ponytail. “You can’t waste more than two minutes on stuff like that. Tops.”

  “Nah,” I say with a shrug. “They’re nice people.” Sometimes, anyway. I step out of my pants, hop into my gym shorts, and pull a hoodie over my head. “Hey, do you think it’s someone working for the movie? Who ratted the footage, I mean.”

  Jess shrugs. “It could be a PA—and if it is, they’re going to get a piece of my mind. Trust nobody around here, Dare. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date.”

  “A date?” I say. “With…?”

  She blinks, twice. “Like I said. Trust nobody.”

  Then she leaves in a twirl of dark hair and cherry blossom perfume.

  “She’s a firecracker, that one,” says Nicky the wardrobe manager, clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

  “Tell me about it,” I reply, unable to wash her cherry kiss from my lips. I fish into my gym shorts pocket for my phone.

  A glowing blue message is waiting for me.

  Unknown 6:06 PM

  —It’s Elle.

  —Just Elle.

  —Elle.

  A name—her name. Elle. A nickname? Short for a horrendously long name? Eleanor? Janelle? Elle…izabeth? There’s a whole universe of possibility in it.

  Elle.

  I add her name to my contacts, able to put a pin into the idea of her and keep it steady because now I know her name. I didn’t think a name could do that: turn a wispy idea of a person into, well, a person.

  Suddenly I’m wondering what someone named Elle looks like. Blonde hair, brown? Pale skin or dark? Large eyes, but what color? Are her teeth straight or does she have a cute overbite? When she smiles, is it crooked? Is she tall? Short? Curvy or skinny?

  Elle.

  “What’re you smiling at?” Nicky asks loudly.

  “Oh—nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I reply, swiping off the lock screen and exiting the trailer.

  The girls begin screaming my name, but it’s not my name that I’m thinking about anymore.

  REBELGUNNER’S AT FORTY-THREE THOUSAND FOLLOWERS and counting.

  I’m working on a post instead of working on my cosplay because no matter how many YouTube tutorials I watch, I’m still terrified of slicing through Dad’s costume. But I have nineteen days. In the meantime, there’s Starfield news—movie news—and all forty-three thousand of my followers are waiting for me to pass judgment.

  I add a link to a video of the now notorious leaked kissing scene from the reboot next to what I think is its TV show parallel. Episode 33, “A Nox to Remember.” It looked like the ballroom scene. The one before Princess Amara’s coronation, when the Nox attacked. But I can’t be sure.

  I rewind the video and replay it. Darien Freeman holding Jessica Stone’s face, his mouth moving in words I can’t make out and then drawing, slowly, into a kiss—before the camera shakes and cuts away.

  Yeah, definitely episode 33. You can tell by the balustrades in the background. The ash on the ballroom floor.

  “One thing’s for sure,” I write in closing, “Darien Freeman’s Carmindor uniform is the wrong color blue.”

  Then I hit POST. 11:34 p.m.

  Everyone is gone to bed by now, so I quietly slide out of my chair and pad down the stairs.

  The house is so dark I can barely see, but I know it blindfolded, having snuck around in the dark for years. In the kitchen, I open one of the cabinets, reaching in the back for the new jar of peanut butter, and then grab a spoon from the clean dishwasher. I’ll have to put away the dishes in the morning, and Catherine will probably scold me for letting them sit all night, but I’m too tired and hungry to care.

  As I scrape another spoonful from the bottom of the jar, I hear something shift at the table.

  “I wondered where you stashed that,” says the cool, soft voice of my stepmother.

  I freeze, the spoon stuck in my mouth. I turn slowly toward the darkened figure.

  “Turn the light on, sweetie. We aren’t Neanderthals.”

  I reach over to the switch and begrudgingly flip it on. I already know the scene I’ll find on that table. The brightness of the light makes my eyes water. Catherine is still in her “work” clothes—a five-hundred-dollar wrap dress she can’t afford, with hair curled up on top of her head. She looks tired.

  “Sorry, I…,” I say, trying to come up with an excuse to explain why I’ve been caught red-handed with super-creamy Peter Pan peanut butter, but my mind fails me.

  “We all have our guilty pleasures,” she says, tapping manicured nails on the rim of her empty wineglass. Her cheeks are warmed and her eyeliner faded, flakes of mascara scattered around her eyes. The last time I saw her look this, well, human was the day Dad died.

  I pull the spoon out of my mouth and quickly screw the top onto the jar, “Yeah, sorry, I just—”

  “Don’t apologize. I have Rocky Road hidden in the back of the freezer,” she replies.

  I blink at her. The stepmonster eats Rocky Road? I make a mental note to check the freezer when she’s not around.

  She tilts her head as if she didn’t just admit to having ice cream— which I’m pretty sure is not Paleo—in the freezer.

  “No matter what I do, I can’t get rid of him, you know,” she says in a voice so soft I almost don’t hear. “First you—but oh, I knew you’d be just like him—and now the twins.”

  “The twins?”

  She waves a hand. “They’re obsessed with that thing—Star Trek?”

  “Starfield.”

  “The show Robin liked.” Her eyelids flutter shut. “He’s everywhere.”

  I fold my arms over my chest. “The twins only like it because of Darien Freeman—”

  “What’s so special about it?” Catherine snaps, her eyes wide open. “Every time I see
the logo for that stupid show, I think of Robin. There’s no point to it. It’s for children.”

  “Why does it have to be stupid or childish?” I ask, my voice trembling a little. “It taught me a lot of things. Like about friendship and loyalty, and how to think critically and look for all sides of a narrative. It helped me—”

  “Helped you? Taught you?” Catherine shakes her head. “How can a show teach you anything? How can you learn about the world if you’re buried in a fantasy?”

  “How can you think something’s stupid if Dad liked it so much?” I say. “He loved that show.”

  “Well he should’ve loved other things more!”

  The room is deadly silent. Catherine clears her throat, as if she remembers that it’s not ladylike to yell and is afraid the neighbors might hear.

  “If he cared half as much about his family, we might not be in this mess,” she says in her usual sticky-sweet tone. “Scraping by. Cutting coupons. Alone.”

  “Is that why you’re selling the house?” I ask. “Because my dad had the audacity to die in a car accident without buying enough life insurance to pay for all your stuff?”

  Catherine’s eyes turn hard and sharp. “You know nothing about the world.”

  “I know that you don’t have to sell the house!” I say. “I know that you could get a real job!”

  “My job is real, Danielle.”

  I ball up my hands. It might not be my decision, but it isn’t her house, either.

  “You talk a lot about how stupid it is to like a TV show, but you’re the one living in a fantasy world,” I say. “You’re the one being childish.”

  With a crack, Catherine’s manicured hand strikes the side of my face.

  “Go to bed, Danielle,” she says ever so softly. “You have work in the morning.”

  I don’t have to be told twice. I throw the spoon on the table, run for my room, and dive into bed. Holding a hand to my stinging cheek, I pull the covers over my head and untuck my phone from my pocket.

  11:52 PM

  —Car?

  Carmindor 11:52 PM

  —What are you still doing up?

  11:52 PM

  —I can’t sleep.

  —Why are YOU still up?

  Carmindor 11:53 PM

  —Same.

  I press my phone against my mouth, still angry with Catherine. Angry that she thinks she has to do things alone.

  She’s not alone. She has the twins and their real dad—wherever he is—and she has Franco’s terrible owner Giorgio. She has the country club and her friends at the salon and her clients and her parents (although they live in Savannah and apparently it’s such a chore to drive to see us). She doesn’t understand what being truly alone means.

  Her life is crowded compared to mine. And I’m angry that I thought, even for a second, that she had room for me.

  Carmindor 11:54 PM

  —Do you want to talk about it?

  —Not wanting to brag, but I’m the MASTER at listening.

  11:55 PM

  —Got an award in kindergarten for it, did you.

  Carmindor 11:55 PM

  —My crowning achievement.

  —And I don’t tell secrets, either.

  —I’m a steel trap.

  I lay the phone on my chest. For some reason, all I can think about is that leaked video being replayed again and again. To the people who haven’t watched the show, they don’t know what he says. His mouth is too blurry to read.

  But I know that scene. I know those words by heart.

  “You are not alone, ah’blena.”

  And then she kisses him.

  In the right universe, the possible one, I don’t want to win a contest to see the premiere, to watch that famous scene on the big screen. I wouldn’t have to. In a perfect world I’d be buying two tickets to the midnight release at the local theater. I’d wait for Dad to get off work and we’d go together. And maybe at that midnight release I’d see a guy across the theater dressed in a Federation uniform and we’d lock eyes and know that this was the good universe. Maybe a guy with dark hair and chocolate eyes and—

  For a moment, Darien Freeman flashes across my mind. Startled, I quickly shake away the image. No. Abort.

  Not Darien Freeman. Not that it matters. I pick up my phone and answer Carmindor.

  11:57 PM

  —Thanks, but I’m good.

  —Goodnight, Car

  His reply lights up my phone almost instantly.

  Carmindor 11:57 PM

  —Goodnight, Your Supreme Intergalactic Highness.

  I hide the phone under my pillow. Because I’m not a princess. And this is the impossible universe, where nothing good ever happens.

  I’VE BEEN CHECKING MY PHONE ALL day. That is, when I’m allowed to have my phone on me. And yet here I am, checking my phone again. Nothing. Not since last night.

  Did I say something wrong?

  Underneath a parking light on the lot I rub my eyes in exhaustion, waving to Jess and her entourage of equally gorgeous girlfriends. I don’t even know their names, and I think she met two of them today on set. Everyone’s leaving, filtering out of the looming black gates like a river of bobbing, tired heads. My stunt coordinator claps me on the arm as she passes.

  “Good work today,” she says with a smile. “A few more takes and your footwork would’ve been almost as good as Cary Elwes.”

  “I almost stabbed Calvin in the face with my sword,” I remind her. Calvin Rolfe is our reboot Euci, and from what I can tell he’s less than thrilled about playing second fiddle to a kid almost ten years his junior.

  “He had it coming, hero. Get some shut-eye, you look terrible.”

  “Night shoots aren’t my favorite.”

  “Aw, poor wittle hero,” she teases, and gives my head a scrubbing before strolling off toward the parking lot.

  Lonny pulls up to the gates in a black SUV. At three-thirty in the morning, my fans are nowhere to be seen, but he still assists me into the vehicle like I’m about to get assassinated.

  My phone beeps.

  Elle?

  I glance at the clock on the dash. 3:32 a.m. She shouldn’t be awake at this hour.

  I pull out my phone anyway and frown. Not Elle, but another unknown number.

  Unknown 3:32 AM

  —Killer skills, bro.

  —[link]

  Against my better judgment, I tap the link. It goes straight to a video of today’s shoot—basically me almost stabbing Calvin in the eye. I wince. But even worse than my poor swordsmanship are the comments. I close out of the link and delete the text for good measure.

  “Something wrong?” Lonny asks.

  “Long day,” I reply.

  He drives me back to the hotel and parks in the back. We enter through the emergency exit and he follows me all the way to my room, where he tells me he’ll pick me up at seven-thirty sharp. Then he hands me a protein bar.

  “You look weak,” he says.

  I take it, kind of touched by his thoughtfulness. “Thanks.”

  Even after I shower off the eight hours of failed footwork—after a night of being blown out of a spaceship hatch—and put on clean clothes, I’m not tired enough to go to bed. I should be; it’s been an exhausting day, and usually whenever we’re shooting Seaside I crash harder than a cow shot with an elephant tranquilizer.

  But I lie awake and keep thinking about that video. Who could have filmed it? Jess already asked the PA manager to rake everyone through the gutters. I heard him screaming at the PAs from the soundstage. Half of them are probably too traumatized to take another job in production ever again.

  I flop onto my back and waste I don’t know how long trying to count the popcorn kernels in the stucco ceiling. Eventually my mind wanders. What’s Elle doing? I wonder if she stares at the ceiling too, counting sheep or doing what I do when I can’t sleep, namely, wondering what would’ve happened if Barbara Gordon never answered the door in The Killing Joke.

  As the
red-lettered clock on my nightstand blinks to 5:58, I roll out of bed.

  5:58 AM

  —Hey. Are you awake?

  She’s probably still asleep. I’d be asleep right now but I can’t, and this room is suffocating. I grab a hoodie from the floor around my exploded suitcase and pull it on, taking the keycard from the TV stand and slipping out the door.

  The hallway is eerily lit, like in those horror movies where an ax murderer is just around the corner. I pull up my hood—by habit, not because I’m emo or anything—and set off toward the stairwell. As in most hotels, the door to the roof is rigged with an alarm. But also as in most hotels, the alarm doesn’t work. Probably.

  I push the lever timidly to make sure. The door squeaks open, but no alarm, so I shoulder it open the rest of the way and escape onto the rooftop. There’s not much up here—air-conditioners, a water tower, a storage hut of sorts. I slide off one of my shoes and wedge it in the doorway so I don’t get locked out and sit at the edge of the building.

  Mark would flip. “You’re too close!” he’d rage. “What if you fell off?”

  I look down, and down, and down, along the side of the building. My heart thrums in my throat. I hate heights, but there’s something quiet about rooftops. Peaceful. The way the city sounds like a distant, muted ambience.

  It might sound stupid, but up here I feel most myself, and these days I don’t feel that way often. Between having to put on a face for the cameras or for other industry people or for the paparazzi—Darien Freeman seems to always be “on.”

  The only other time I feel myself is when…well, when I talk to Elle, and that’s stupid because she’s the only person who doesn’t know I’m me. How could I be most myself when I’m lying?

  My phone buzzes.

  Elle 6:04 AM

  —Sadly, I am.

  —Why’re you up?

  6:04 AM

  —I haven’t gone to sleep yet.

  Elle 6:04 AM

  —OMG GO TO SLEEP

  —Weirdo