Page 2 of #Starstruck

She was still pretty much my only friend. After she discovered my lack of pop culture knowledge, she’d made it her personal mission to rectify it, not even caring that I’d been just a bit untruthful about loving Chase, since I hadn’t even known who he was. Lexi had been a cheerleader, the lead in every school play, and the homecoming/prom queen. Everybody loved her, and everybody wanted to hang out with her. People were nice to me because we were friends, but I never really felt a part of things. It wasn’t until I took an Intro to Psych class that I realized something important about myself—I was the biggest introvert who had ever lived. It was why everything was so difficult for me—parties, hanging out, trying to make another friend besides Lexi. She, meanwhile, was the quintessential extrovert. We were the epitome of opposites attracting.

And she was almost as devoted to me as she was to Chase Covington. Because she hadn’t been kidding about the loving-him thing. She bought teen magazines by the truckload and cut out every article and picture of him. It was a very serious process deciding whether a picture should be put up on her wall or into her scrapbook. We spent hours discussing the merits of each photo and where it should go. Somewhere along the line it had gone from being Lexi’s obsession to a shared one.

Even now in our bedroom, she still had Chase Covington posters hanging on her side of the room, and she blew them kisses before she went to bed for the night. After we’d graduated from high school, Lexi had wanted to head immediately for Los Angeles and start auditioning. But her grandmother had made her a deal—if she went to college and graduated, her grandma would fund Lexi’s acting ambitions for two years.

She agreed, but the delay had frustrated her. Lexi was determined to find Chase Covington and make him fall in love with her. I didn’t doubt her ability to do it—with her half-Italian heritage, dark hair, dark eyes, and flawless skin, she was never without male company. None of her relationships lasted for very long because, as she would always tell me, “He’s not Chase Covington.”

I did have hopes for her latest conquest. His name was Gavin, and he was majoring in software engineering. He was actually the kind of guy I would normally have a crush on—tall, dark hair, slightly nerdy, wore glasses. An approachable, nice man. Nothing like Chase. But Gavin and Lexi had been dating for two whole months, and it was already her longest relationship. He seemed to have mastered the fine art of giving Lexi the attention she needed but being frequently unavailable to her. Which made her want him more.

When I walked into our apartment and she pounced on me, my hope was that her news was something good about Gavin. My fear was that she had somehow seen my Twitter exchange with Chase. I didn’t know how that would happen, given that Lexi detested Twitter and refused to use it, but with all the negativity pointed at me earlier in the evening, I was worried.

She would be jealous, and a jealous Lexi was not fun—as Valentina Sokolov had discovered our senior year when she’d made out with Lexi’s boyfriend-of-the-week behind the bleachers.

“Zoe Miller! Where have you been? Why didn’t you answer my texts?” she demanded, jumping up and down.

I let my book bag slide to the floor. “At the library. I turned my phone off. What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” she repeated, still hopping around. “Only the greatest thing in the entire world. My flirtation subterfuge has finally paid off. We’re going to meet Chase Covington!”

It took me a minute to figure out what she was saying. About three months ago, Lexi had been at a club in LA and met someone who knew someone who had Chase’s publicist’s cell phone number. Lexi got the digits and had been carefully cultivating Mr.Aaron Mathison since then for information. And her digital flirt-texts hadn’t even bothered Gavin, who somehow seemed both unaffected by, and understanding of, his girlfriend’s addiction.

“What do you mean?” It felt like a big cosmic joke that I had finally (possibly) had some real interaction with Chase, and now Lexi was saying we were going to meet him.

Which was nearly impossible to do, because Chase didn’t seem to care about the fame thing. He didn’t do meet and greets. He barely showed up in the tabloids and seemed particularly gifted at avoiding paparazzi. People didn’t get to meet him in real life.

And now Lexi, her eyes glittering, was announcing that we would. “Aaron let slip that Chase is going to do some radio stuff early tomorrow morning at KHWV. I think we should leave now, go down there, and stalk him until he talks to us. What do you say?”

Los Angeles was a little more than an hour away if the freeways were clear. Which they never were. I didn’t want to drive all the way out there and all the way back. I wanted to crawl into my bed. But I had never been able to tell Lexi no. “I have class at eleven, so we have to be back by then.”

“Zoe!” she screeched, throwing her arms around me. “You’re the best friend a girl could ever have! We have to pick out our outfits, and you have to let me do your hair and makeup. Then we’ll just stay up all night so we don’t mess anything up. Ack! I’m so excited!” She started for our bathroom; then she suddenly stopped. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Laura Henderson called here looking for you because your phone was off. She said she needed you to call her right away.”

Santa Isla University was a small college not far from the sleepy beach town where we had grown up. As was the case with most people who lived nearby, the Hendersons were fantastically wealthy, and they began hiring me in high school to watch their kids for a couple of hours every afternoon while Mrs.Henderson Botoxed or waxed or did whatever it was women in their forties who were trying to look twenty-eight again did. Lexi had once asked me why they didn’t have a nanny, and I explained that Mrs.Henderson’s father had left her mother for their nanny, so the Henderson household was a nanny-free zone. They paid me an obscene amount of money, in part because they could and because, thanks to my much younger siblings, I was a pro at babysitting. I had been working for them since I was sixteen.

Their housekeeper answered the phone and went to track down Mrs.Henderson. I could hear her three boys yelling in the background as she said, “Hello?”

“Hi, this is Zoe. My roommate said you called.”

“Oh, Zoe! Yes. I’m glad I got ahold of you. I have some bad news, I’m afraid.”

Concern bloomed in my chest. “Are the boys okay?”

“Yes, the boys are fine. I’m sorry to have worried you. No, it’s nothing like that.” I could just imagine her lounging on the couch while she talked to me, how she might be trying to frown or make a facial expression and would be unable to. “It’s just that Mr.Henderson has been offered a promotion. In New York. And he’s going to take it.”

“When?”

There was a long pause. “He was actually offered the promotion weeks ago, and he finally found us a suitable place, so we’re moving out to be with him. This Saturday.”

That was only three days from now. I had noticed boxes and things around their house, but I had assumed she was just redecorating for the millionth time. It had never occurred to me that they would move. Or that I wouldn’t be seeing Tevin, Carson, and Freddie any longer.

I was now out of a job.

A job I depended on for silly things, like paying rent and eating food.

I was so screwed.

She kept talking, apologizing for not telling me sooner, saying she didn’t know how to explain. The petty part of me assumed she hadn’t wanted me to look for another job so I could be available to her for as long as she needed me.

But I decided to be generous. “I will really miss you and the boys.”

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