Geekerella Page 5

  “Sorry, I…” I hold up my phone. “This wrong number keeps texting me—”

  But then I look at my texts again and my stomach plummets.

  StepMOMster 11:44 AM

  —The neighborhood watch called me about a food truck in our driveway.

  —We’ll speak about this tonight.

  —After you pick up this grocery list.

  —[1 attachment]

  When I look up again, Sage is back at her sketchbook, totally silent. And for the next four hours, the mystery number doesn’t text back either.

  Once again, I’m completely alone.

  —

  APPARENTLY MR. RAMIREZ COMPLAINED ABOUT A noise violation on his peaceful day off, aka basically tattled on me to Catherine. So when Sage drops me off at the end of the street—so Catherine doesn’t hear the truck—my punishment is cleaning out the attic. And coupon duty for the next month. And dish duty. And grocery duty. Basically every chore I do already, but now considered “punishment.”

  Catherine hands me rubber gloves and a dust mask.

  “You’re lucky I don’t ground you for the rest of summer vacation,” she says. “The humiliation of having to apologize to Giorgio! I’m barely going to be able to look him in the eye at Pilates. This is a respectable community, Danielle. You can’t just go around parking nasty trucks in the driveway. Honestly, sweetie, what would your father think?”

  Dad would think she was a monster for siding with someone who leaves their poor wiener dog out in the weather. Dad would adopt the Frankenwiener in an instant, probably. But most of all, Dad would chastise her for throwing his things away, for wasting our money, for pretending like things were still perfect.

  I still don’t understand how or why he fell in love with her.

  “And working with someone with so many piercings! I’m sure that green-haired girl is rubbing off on you.”

  I finally glance up, afraid for a moment that she would make me quit. “I like my job.”

  But she goes on like I haven’t said anything at all. “I told Robin you would grow up to be a troublemaker. I guess it can’t be helped.”

  My hands begin to shake. “I was going to work! To my job! I was being responsible!”

  “Don’t argue with me.”

  “You’re acting like I committed a crime!”

  She gives me a surprised look. “Go,” she says calmly, pointing up the stairs. “Clean out your attic. Before it gets too late.”

  Fine.

  I march out of the kitchen and up the stairs, snapping the dust mask over my mouth as I pass the twins’ bedroom, when a ridiculously upbeat song blasts from their stereo. It makes me pause, and I backtrack. Through the crack in the door, Chloe and Cal stand in the middle of their room, facing their Mac, waiting for the song to start again. I stare, slack-jawed, as Chloe starts lip-syncing into a comb, wearing a ridiculous pink…thing…clamped around her chin. Whatever the contraption is—the twins are obsessed with Korean beauty products—she can barely move her mouth but still bops her hip and rolls her head. And Cal mimics her, wearing a purple facemask that makes her look more like a luchador than a beauty vlogger.

  They get halfway through the song before Cal notices me out of the corner of her eye. She freezes midslide. Chloe slams into her. They stumble.

  “Oh my god! What the hell?” Chloe snaps at her. Well, she kinda snaps. It all sounds like a jumble of words since she can’t move her jaw. “Klutz!”

  Cal quickly looks away from the door, but it’s too late. Uh-oh.

  Chloe glances over to see what distracted her and, upon seeing me, pales. She lunges for the computer and puts the video on pause. “Freak! Don’t you understand privacy?” She shouts, storming toward me.

  “The door was open,” I argue, “and I heard the Spice Girls. Have you been practicing?”

  She scowls. “Ugh. When we get our new house, I’m going to ask Mom to put you under the stairs.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever.” I begin toward my room when I pause, finally hearing what she said, and backtrack. “What did you say?”

  Crossing her arms smugly, she leans against the doorway. “I guess Mom hasn’t told you.”

  Behind her, Cal begins to pull off her mask and winces. “Chloe, leave her alone.”

  “No, I think someone should tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  She leans toward me out of the room. The twins are tall and long-legged, so when Chloe wants to tower, she’s like the Eye of Sauron. “Why do you think Mom wants you to clean the attic, huh?”

  “It’s dirty,” I fill in, perplexed. “It probably hasn’t been touched in seven years—”

  “She’s selling the house, genius,” she says.

  My eyes widen. I glance from her to Cal, who never lies. Cal, who’s cut from a slightly different cloth. Cal, who’s ripping all the hair off her face as she peels off the mask. Cal, who can’t meet my gaze.

  Chloe smirks. “Now you know.”

  My parents’ house? This house? I take a step back. Chloe’s lying. She has to be.

  I whirl on my heels and rush back downstairs and into the kitchen. The walls are a blur. Catherine glances up from her coupons.

  “You’re selling it?” I tug the dust mask off my mouth, trying to gulp down enough air, but I can’t seem to. “You—you’re selling the house?”

  My stepmother tilts her head like she has positively no idea what I’m talking about. For a moment I take that as a good sign. Like she couldn’t have done something so awful. But then she says, “Oh, Danielle, it’s for the best. You understand.”

  My throat begins to constrict, too tight for words.

  She goes on. “It’s so big and drafty. When the twins go off to college what will we do with the place? I think it’s best to sell it.”

  “When are you selling it?”

  She gives me a patient, pitying look. “Sweetie, that’s why I asked you to clean the attic. It’s already on the market.”

  I lean against the doorframe to steady myself. The room begins to close in around me, warping, melting, like the universe is changing again. Like it did when Dad died. Doorways slamming closed. Bolting. Roads disappearing. What-ifs blowing away like dust in the wind.

  I take a step back. Then another.

  Catherine gives me a patient look. “Danielle, we all have to make sacrifices. Struggle builds character, after all.”

  Blinking back tears, I turn back toward the stairs and climb them again. I don’t bother with the attic tonight. The attic can wait. It has for seven years. It can wait until we’re gone.

  I pass Chloe on the way to my room. “Told ya,” she says.

  I spin around and squint at her. She’s taken the ridiculous chin-thinner off, but I can see the impression on her face. “You know, I think your chin’s thinner.”

  Her eyes lighten. “Really?”

  “No.” Then I close the door to my room. Lock it.

  What am I going to do now? Where am I going to go? This is my home. This house, these walls. I wipe my nose, determined not to cry, and sit down at my old desktop computer. My room is small—just big enough to fit a twin bed and a desk. The twins don’t come in, and Catherine can’t stand tiny spaces. It’s the only place in the universe that is strictly mine.

  And even this won’t be mine for much longer.

  I wiggle my mouse until the computer comes to life, then take a Hershey’s Kiss from my secret stash at the bottom of my drawer—above the $721 I’ve saved up between last summer working at the country club and this summer. It’s the only safe place I could think of, where neither the twins nor Catherine’ll look.

  For a brief moment, I imagine catching the first Greyhound out of here, with Franco in tow. Do Greyhounds take dogs? They’re named after a dog, so I don’t see why not. I begin to Google it when I notice my email has a lot of notifications. From my blog.

  Great. More spammers. And here I thought my day couldn’t get any worse. I log on, getting ready to hit
mass-delete. It takes me a moment to realize something’s different. That the comments on my latest post aren’t spam. The post about Darien Freeman as Carmindor.

  But no one ever comments on my blog. No one knows it even exists.

  And there are over two hundred comments.

  I take out another Hershey’s Kiss and click on my post, fearfully scrolling down to the comments.

  At least he wasn’t whitewashed

  But he SUX at acting

  I click over to my page view and almost choke on my chocolate. Over a hundred thousand. And it’s hot-linked back to news sites. Actual news sites.

  “FAN’S ELOQUENT REACTION TO STARFIELD CASTING REVEAL,” one headline reads.

  “FAN-TASTIC OR FAN-TROUBLE?” another asks.

  And they have excerpts to my blog post. What…what in the world?

  “You’re dreaming, Elle,” I tell myself, checking my subscribers—then ten thousand—and my other posts? Twenty-seven thousand. Thirteen thousand. And so many comments.

  Seaside is the worst!!!!

  cant BELEIVE they are letting him into ECon lolol

  yeah srsly gunners are NOT gunna be happy that d-free is at their con

  i wouldn’t let him autograph ANY of my SF stuff!!!! NO WAY

  My heart gives a funny lurch in my chest. My parents met in an autographing line, twenty-some years ago. As Dad told it, Mom came up to him as they waited in line for the cast—David Singh, plus Ellen North, Carl Thompson, and Kiki Sanchez, the original Carmindor, Amara, Euci, and CLE-0. As the story went, Mom smiled at Dad and said, “I hear the observation deck is nice this time of year,” and that was that.

  Together, they were unstoppable. The way Dad told it, he barely knew how to darn pants, never mind sew cosplay, but Mom was a pro. She was known through the circuits as one of the queens of cosplay. She made Dad’s Federation Prince uniform as an anniversary present, and he looked great in it (that was also back when he had hair). He always said he was the studdiest muffin. I laughed, but in all the pictures Catherine threw away he really was handsome. In a 1980s, Marty McFly sort of way.

  In the Starfield world, Mom and Dad became celebrities in their own right—Big Name Fans before the internet was even a thing—and then Dad went on to found ExcelsiCon.

  I keep scrolling. There are more comments, but it’s just too overwhelming to read. I ease away from my computer, change into my pajamas, and face-plant on my bed. There’s no way that I have that many page views. It’s a trick. Someone’s playing games. But Chloe’s friends aren’t that smart, and I don’t know of anyone else who would.

  Out the attic window, heat lightning streaks across the ocean. Through the damp wood of the attic, I can smell the rain in the air. Dad loved thunderstorms. He would sit with me out on the porch and we would watch them together.

  “They’re starfights, starlight,” he would tell me. Starlight—his nickname for me. Like in the rhyme.

  Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight…

  How many times did we used to look out these windows together? I turn my face into my pillow so I can’t see the sky anymore. Without this house, I have no reason to stay. Catherine doesn’t want me, and the twins certainly don’t either. But I don’t have anywhere to go. What I need is for the Prospero to come sweep me up. What I need is a ticket to another universe.

  Outside, the thunderhead slowly crosses the ocean, eating up all the stars in the sky.

  THE HOTEL MATTRESS IS TOO SOFT. They’re always too soft. I sometimes dream I’m drowning in them. Those are the worst nightmares, but not as bad as the ones where I’m falling. I didn’t have falling nightmares until a stunt went wrong during filming of the climax of Seaside Cove’s first season. My harness broke and I fell twenty feet—onto foam, but still. For two seconds I forgot the camouflaged foam wasn’t cement.

  How am I going to film Starfield, whirling around in harnesses in “deep space,” if I can’t even get over a twenty-foot fall? Worse, what if that dude in the cafeteria was right?

  I fluff up my pillow again and roll over onto my back, trying to forget about him. The ceiling’s absolutely spotless. That’s how you can really tell how expensive a place is. I remember when Mark didn’t put me up in five-star hotels, back when I first auditioned for Seaside Cove. He drove me to the casting call in Santa Barbara and booked me into a shoddy Motel 6 that had roaches crawling across the ceiling.

  It’s no use. I can’t sleep. I sit up, scratching my stomach from where the airbrush makeup irritated my skin, and wander over to the mini-fridge. Low-calorie beer, bottles of water. I actually don’t want beer, though I’m pretty sure the entire population of eighteen-year-old guys would disown me for that, and the water’s the weird kind with added electrolytes.

  What I want is an Orange Crush. It’s my one and only kryptonite, diet or no diet. One of these floors has to have a soda machine, and even a walk down the hall beats being holed up in a hotel room.

  I’m pulling a hoodie over my head when the door lock clicks green and Mark strides in, coming off a call from some other agent or producer or whoever.

  “Hey! Yo, ever heard of knocking?” I grumble, tugging my hoodie down in aggravation.

  “Heard of it.” He takes a no-taste beer out of the mini-fridge and pops it open on the half-kitchen counter. “Enjoying the hotel room?”

  “I was just about to go get a soda.”

  “Call room service,” he replies, taking out the menu from behind the phone on the desk in the sitting area. Yeah, my hotel room has a sitting area. “What do you want? I’ll do it—”

  “Never mind. I’ll just have a bottle of water.” I sulk over to grab one from the fridge. Electrolyte water tastes as bland as my soul feels. “What’d you want?”

  “What, a father can’t spend some quality time with his son?”

  I give him a look.

  “Fine.” He takes another swig before setting his beer on the coffee table. He sits down in one of the plush velvet chairs. I take the one opposite of him.

  We look alike, from our brown skin to our black hair. But I got my nose from my mom, and apparently my temperament from her father. At least that’s what Mark said. They split up a long time ago, in the B.S.C. (Before Seaside Cove) days. Mom went back to her socialite family in London, and I can’t say I blame her—if being Mark’s son is this bad, I can’t imagine what being married to him was like. These days she’s always doing charity work with her new husband in India or modeling for Italian magazines or something. She used to invite me to family reunions to meet the Dayal side of the family. I went once, but because I grew up with my dad, I didn’t know how to address my grandparents, I didn’t know table etiquette (you use your right hand, never pour your own drink, eat only after the eldest at the table has eaten). The Dayals were open and welcoming, but I felt like an idiot, like a jigsaw piece that didn’t fit into their big picture.

  After that disastrous reunion I stopped going, and after a while Mom stopped inviting me, the son of a Hollywood social climber—I’m sorry, manager. Now it’s just me and Mark, united under the Freeman brand.

  “So, here’s the deal,” he says. “We’re moving your vacation to the weekend after you wrap filming.”

  “Surprise,” I deadpan, waiting for the rest. I want him to bring it up—ExcelsiCon. Because he sure as hell hasn’t yet. I failed miserably this morning when I called—well, texted—that stranger. I didn’t get the person at the con, and I practically blew my cover besides. It was, certifiably, one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had.

  “We had some last-minute gig come up. A photo shoot for Entertainment Today, a car commercial—assuming those clowns at BMW USA sharpen their pencils a little—and that appearance at the…you know. The thing.” He waves his hand in a spiral.

  “The con,” I say shortly.

  He snaps. “That’s it. Look, I know Hello, America spoiled the surprise, but—”

  “Spoiled the surprise? I’m not an idiot, Mark. I know you didn�
��t tell me so that they’d corner me and I’d basically have no choice but to agree on camera!”

  He sighs. “Come on, kid. You love cons, don’t you? You always went with that buddy of yours. Billy or Bucky—”

  “Brian.”

  “Yeah, him. And you haven’t been to one in a while. I thought, hey! Let’s give him something he’ll actually like doing!”

  I massage the bridge of my nose. “Mark, you know I don’t—”

  “Yes yes, you ‘don’t do cons.’ I get it—”

  “Did you just air-quote me?”

  “—but hey, you know what? It’ll perfect timing at the end of summer to remind everyone that you’re in Starfield. You’re coming right off filming! You’ll be in great shape! And it’s great press to get out there and meet the fans.”

  “The fans,” I repeat. Like the Rebelgunner blogger, ready to slug me in the face for besmirching Carmindor’s good name.

  “C’mon. It’ll be good for you to get out and do something normal.” He’s trying to reason with me—which, props for that, at least. “All you gotta do is show up—”

  “No.”

  “And do a meet-and-greet—”

  “No.”

  “—with one lucky contest winner, and make an appearance at their weird dance party afterward—”

  I jerk to my feet. “How many times do I have to tell you? No.”

  “Well, hate to break it to you, buddy, but you agreed to do it on live television. If you cut out now, it’ll look bad. Like you’re temperamental. A diva.” He lowers his voice. “Hard to work with.”

  “Whatever.”

  He gives me an appalled look. “What’s gotten into you, kiddo? You know how important these things are for your image.” He softens. “And you love conventions.”

  “Loved. Past tense. I also loved making my own decisions, but I guess that doesn’t get me enough good press, huh?” Turning on my heels, I snatch the room’s keycard from the counter and shove it into my back pocket.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “To get a soda,” I grind out, yanking open the door.

  “Remember your diet—”