Chapter Three

  “This is bullshit, Joy!” I yell into my phone at the teenaged girl whose YouTube tutorial—Foolproof Box Dye at Home!—is now a failed hypothesis.

  While Joy shows off her fabulous glossy highlights from the comfort of what looks like a very soothing pink bathroom, I’m squinting into my phone from a folding chair in my slanted backyard with dye oozing down my forehead and dripping into my eyes.

  I toss the bottle over my shoulder in frustration. Then I wince and start crawling through the dirt, squinting my burning eyes in search of the busted bottle’s plastic pieces before Gram Parsons gets his underbite on them and I’m out another five hundred dollars at the vet.

  And that’s when a jackhammer shudders into earsplitting action at the top of the hillside abutting my backyard.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I shout at the sky.

  The guesthouse I rent on a narrow crevice of Laurel Canyon backs up against a steep and rocky hill. At the top of that hill, some half acre above my backyard, lies a mansion that’s been under construction ever since I moved in three years ago. I’ve never seen the mysterious celebrity living the high life up there, but I’ve heard enough to form a strong opinion. The daily power saws and Bobcats and jackhammers, the troop of tree trimmers and various other burly men have come to dominate my aural landscape, and many of my nightmares.

  And today, I’m less than in the mood.

  I’ve fantasized about mounting a projector screen to that rock for outdoor movie nights. Now it sounds as if my neighbor might be breaking ground up there to put in a pool.

  I grit my teeth. I can already hear that pool’s construction taking up the next nine months of my life, piercing like a diamond arrow through my skull, through my tranquility, my hillside. I know this space isn’t really mine, but I live here, and I need it.

  This stamp-sized rental—and I say that as a fan of postage—is the best deal in the canyon. It’s tiny and quirky, the carpet is older than me, the doors stick, and the kitchen’s built into the hill so that its window is level to the ground. It makes Masha claustrophobic, but I love the fact that when pasta night strikes, I can open the window, reach out, and pluck fresh basil from the ground.

  This house is cool in the summer, cozy in the winter, and smells like night-blooming jasmine for three solid months in the spring—always during my birthday. I love this house, and so does Gram Parsons, who has a real tight crew of puppy pals up and down the block. So as long as I can scrape together the rent to pay my slightly batty landlord, I’m not going anywhere, and I demand some peace.

  I’m already past my breaking point, juggling all my maid of honor duties this weekend. Trying to primp and prep and prime myself to show Glasswell what a non-hot mess I’ve grown up to be. To pull that off, I need things to go smoothly for two days. I cannot deal with the ceaseless earsplitting scream of a jackhammer, or a singed eyeball from this cheap dye, or one more thing going to hell right now. I cup my face in my hands . . . and catch a whiff of something foul.

  “Oh no,” I groan, becoming aware of the chemical burn spreading through my scalp. I race to the garden hose and turn it on full blast.

  I scream as the water nails me, hard.

  I’m afraid to survey the damage I’ve done to my head, but for Masha’s sake, I summon the strength. I find my phone, open my camera app, and shriek at the view in selfie mode. It’s worse than I feared. My hair is fried and slightly . . . blue. Everywhere except for my prematurely gray roots. I’m at the point where I’m contemplating Sharpie . . . when I imagine Glasswell gasping at the sight of me at the rehearsal dinner tonight.

  Not happening.

  A brick-like throb builds in my chest. When I think of showing up at Masha’s wedding, it’s not her judgment that worries me. It’s Glasswell’s. The Best Man. The guy who always managed to make me feel like a loser, starting way back in high school, when I was rather cool.

  I can’t let him see that he was right about me all along.

  I need professional help. I’m going to have to shell out at least a hundred dollars, probably more, for someone to properly fix this. I sigh and open my least favorite app on my phone: my bank. My balance laughingly informs me that my debit card will not quite carry me through a hair rescue at a salon.

  I flop into my creaking hammock and curl into a ball. I pull out the stale bagel I’ve stashed in my sweatshirt pocket and take a bite. I will fix this problem like an adult. Which means I need to make some dough ASAP if I want to avoid asking my mom for a loan. And I do.

  I text Werner to see if I can come in for the brunch shift. He writes back right away:

  Shift’s covered, but the walk-in fridge is open.

  Ugh. I start to type back a no-nonsense rejection when I remember yet another irritating fact: I have to tell Werner that our party tonight is down from a five-top to a four-top. I had to beg him for the Treehouse, usually reserved for parties of twelve. I even used Aurora Apple as a bargaining chip, swearing to snap some social media pics of the famous actress loving Werner’s small plates.

  Glasswell is nearly as good in terms of social media currency, but any pic I’d take of him would have to look like an accident, lest he think I think he matters.

  Werner texts: You there?

  I sigh. In person, Werner’s gorgeous, like a less symmetrical Ansel Elgort. But today his texts are just one more thing I can’t deal with. I feel an urge to throw my phone at my hillside—then I remember Masha’s words yesterday on the boat:

  You’re two texts away from throwing your phone at the wall. Which means you’re four hookups away from breaking up with this guy.

  Two texts = phone very nearly thrown at cliff.

  Four more hookups and . . . honestly, I doubt we’ll get that far. The thought of ending things with Werner doesn’t bother me so much as my own predictability, at least according to Masha.

  If you don’t believe me, check the top row of your bookshelf.

  Not like I have time to do that today.

  Instead, I silence Werner’s notifications and open my Lyft driver app. A moment later, there it is, that ding telling me a rider’s in need, and a very small amount of money will soon flow my way.

  Gram Parsons whimpers hungrily. I give him the rest of my bagel. “This isn’t forever,” I say. “Just make it through the weekend.”

  Inside my bungalow, I grab my Catalina Wine Mixer trucker cap and tug it over my wet, blue head. I search in thirteen places for my keys. I stare for half a minute at my calming visual mantra: a framed poster of the balcony kiss from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Finally, at the door, I encounter Gram Parsons, who gives me side-eye and a disgruntled growl. I forgot I’d promised we’d hit the canyon dog park today.

  “I’m sorry, buddy,” I say, giving him a scratch. “Mama’s gotta work.”

  He changes tactics, to a mewling whine. I kneel to meet him at his level.

  “Would you feel better if you came with me?”

  He wags his crooked tail.

  “Fine.” I swoop him up, praying none of my riders will be allergic.

  We’re halfway out the door when I remember I’ve barely opened the book my mom’s reviewing on the podcast today. Since I always have extra time while I’m waiting for my Lyftees, I circle back to my bookshelf. But instead of reaching for Get Out of Your Inner Hero’s Way, my gaze travels up. To the top shelf.

  There they are. My color-coded row of diaries, all fifteen of them.

  If you don’t believe me . . . I hear Masha’s voice again.

  I run my hand along their spines, tracing my life. A shiver passes through me as I let myself remember the girl I used to be, and the woman I used to dream I would become. She’s all there, in those pages.

  I touch the first diary, a red one, given to me on my thirteenth birthday. It’s the book that documents my first period, the summer I got braces, the paranormal romance novels I used to be obsessed with, and basement rounds of Spin the Bottle.

  Next to it is the spiral-bound salmon-colored notebook from freshman year of high school—the year when my life kicked into a higher gear, when I started to see my future like a path that I could pave myself and follow. My first of many report card 4.0s. And the year Mash and I made school history by being the only girls to have made Palisades’s varsity baseball team.

  Orange diary for sophomore year, when Masha got her license. I remember writing nearly all the entries in the front seat of her car. I was starting catcher by then, and a rising star on the debate team. That book holds the summer my parents took me to New York and we saw a new, life-changing Broadway play every night for a week.

  Junior year is glittery gold—college tours and my first lead in a school play. It’s the year I got serious about acting, the year New York started calling my name. I wore a Juilliard sweatshirt like it was my capsule collection.

  When I reach the fifth book on the shelf—pale yellow, senior year—I smile. I’m an accidental genius. I need to make a toast tonight to Masha and Eli, but I’ve been blocked on what to say. Nothing I’ve come up with yet has felt momentous enough. For all of senior year’s many peaks and valleys, only one matters today. This book contains the story of the first night Masha and Eli got together. Senior prom.

  Call it instant inspiration. Call it a sentimental miracle.

  I pull the journal from the shelf and slip it in my bag.

  Chapter Four

  Near the bottom of Coldwater Canyon, just before I reach the smooth, flat streets of Beverly Hills, there’s a 9:48 a.m. logjam Waze did not anticipate. I find myself sandwiched between a school bus and a party bus on a two-lane road. I can’t see in front of or behind me, but judging from the sustained honking up ahead, everyone stuck here should probably accept that this is where we live now.

  On the bright side, I’ve got a passenger, so at least I’m being paid. I feel a little guilty about the traffic surcharges, but a glance at his suit in the rearview mirror tells me he’s probably expensing this ride anyway. And his soft snores say he could use the extra winks before I drop him at his office in Century City.

  The sun glares through the window, threatening to burn his sleep-craned head if we’re stuck here much longer. This gnaws at me. Suddenly, this guy’s possible future sunburned scalp is all I can think of. I reach behind me, careful not to wake him so I can quietly tug down the sunshade.

  Of course, because I’m me, I forget to put the car in park, and when my toe lifts off the brake, we creep forward until we almost fender bend the school bus up front. I slam on the brakes just in time. Thank God Gram Parsons was wearing his seat belt.

  My heart pounds as I recover from the near-collision, but at least my passenger’s scalp has been spared.

  Is there something very wrong with me?

  Masha jokes that I can’t pass a stranger on the street without intuiting a need in them that only I can fill. Since we started our podcast, my mom has quoted from all manner of self-help books about how my compulsion to help others gets in the way of reaching my own goals. But I wasn’t always like this.

  When my dad died at the end of my senior year of high school, my mom and I fell into a kind of grief that felt like drowning. A few weeks after we buried him, I was driving to baseball practice when I cut off a silver Audi on the 101. The driver changed lanes, caught up to my window, and then, for the next three miles, he rode alongside me, laying nonstop on his horn while flipping me the bird.

  I lived ten lifetimes in those three miles. Anger turned to shame to resignation to bewilderment, and finally, I got there—to gratitude. Because yeah, dickheads gonna dickhead, but this one came swinging with a life lesson, writ large:

  My suffering—blinding and radioactive to me—was invisible to him. Audi Man didn’t have a clue my dad just died. Audi Man didn’t know that my future had disintegrated because my family could no longer afford tuition at Juilliard. That, moreover, there was no way I could leave my mom and move across the country to New York. That, suddenly, so much of what I’d envisioned for my life after high school . . . simply wasn’t going to be.

  I’d looked around at the other cars on the highway that day, imagining the millions of people in my city.

  And ever since then, I’ve proceeded as if everyone around me could use a little extra grace.

  Everyone except Glasswell.

  Maybe it’s because my problems with him started right before Dad died, but Glasswell seems to have been grandfathered in, reserving the lone parking space of antipathy in me ever since.

  Gram Parsons resituates himself so his paws push my yellow journal into the center console. I take the hint and open the book. My dog may not have any idea what’s going on, but I like to think he has my best interests at heart.

  It’s strange: even after all these years, the book still opens automatically to the longest entry, a record twenty-seven pages. Holding the book open in my hands, the memory of writing it rushes back so vividly it makes my stomach hurt.

  May 25, 2014

  Dear Princess Di,

  About last night . . .

  All I can say is I’ve been sold a bill of goods. By adults. By eighties movies. By the universe.

  What was supposed to be a magical evening became mortifying. And now, for the rest of my days, whenever anyone says the word “prom,” I’ll be stuck thinking of him.

  I laugh, because I brought this diary to read some vintage Mash and Eli romance, not to trip into a Glasswell wormhole.

  The years have dulled the acute humiliation of that night, but as I read on, unexpected sensations tiptoe across my chest. I feel agitated, on high alert.

  Like I’m suddenly on a collision course with shame.

  The dress—my mom’s yellow tulle, debuted at her own senior prom.

  My date—Eli Morgan, whom I asked as a friend, because Mash was too scared to ask him as a crush. And too worried that if I didn’t take him, he’d go with Natalie Planco, and the next thing you’d hear would be wedding bells.

  The plan—to go in a group. The plan was fun. But then Sumi got mono, and Alina and Duke had a fight, and soon our whole limo was dropping like flies, until it was just Masha, Eli, me, and—

  Jake Glasswell.

  Yes, Di, that Glasswell. He’s haunted these pages before. Remember when he joined Debate Club (see p. 58) and made verbal sparring with me his national pastime? Remember when he walked onto varsity baseball as starting pitcher (p. 63), right up-mound from my catcher’s mitt? Remember when he capered into the auditions for Romeo and Juliet (p. 69), took one look at me atop the balcony and—mercifully—walked right out? Or, just last week, in homeroom (p. 89), when we received the same slip of paper, notifying us we’d each been named Most Likely to Succeed?

  Why Glasswell decided to single me out as his lone high school rival, invading every one of my spaces, is a mystery. The boy has been enrolled at Palisades for only one year, but the two of us have enough rivalries to last at least three lifetimes.

  That ends tonight, Di. Mark my words. I’m going to tell you this sad story, but let it be the last time I give Glasswell page space in my life’s unwritten book.

  What is up with my writing style in this journal? I must have been reading Dangerous Liaisons at the time. It has that breathless epistolary feel. I just hope I don’t pull out the terms blackguard and alas.

  I skip ahead, scanning for references to Masha and Eli. Surely I documented their first kiss? I can see it so clearly in my mind: The two of them at the center of the dance floor, under the disco ball, her hand on his butt as they swayed to Alicia Keys. She gave him her incandescent whole-soul smile, and then she rose on her toes to kiss him. It was the cutest. Full stop.

  But somehow, it seems I didn’t get around to documenting their first kiss here. Maybe I didn’t feel that moment’s sweetness suited the style of my apocalyptic outrage?

  Instead, I wrote twenty-seven angry pages . . . about Glasswell. I let it rip about his snug-fitting tuxedo and his long legs taking up the limo’s back seat. I wrote about how, on the way to prom, Glasswell made the limo pull over because he couldn’t pass a Baskin-Robbins without ordering a rum raisin. Then tried to get me to share it with him.

  What kind of person likes rum raisin?

  After that, I waffled, detailing moments when Glasswell had seemed almost deceptively . . . cool. How we’d bantered about my dad’s Nikon 7, which I was wearing like an accessory around my neck. How the two of us spent a fun fifteen minutes furtively snapping artsy shots of Masha and Eli flirting.

  But then, I wrote about discovering that Glasswell’s coolness had only been an act.

  I wrote the entire shameful scene in which Glasswell showed his true colors.

  Here’s the thing I can’t get over, Di:

  I almost made it out with my dignity intact.

  It was eleven forty-five—probably three songs left in the DJ’s bank—when I stepped out of the gym for some air.

  I tell you this next part only because you’re physically bound to secrecy. Outside of you, I’ll never breathe this to a soul.

  “What’d The Bodyguard do to you?” came the voice over my shoulder.

  I startled and spun around. Why had Glasswell followed me outside?

  “What?” I asked.

  “You walked out when ‘I Will Always Love You’ came on.” He tipped his head toward the gym, the distant music playing inside. Our eyes met, and his narrowed slightly, like he was seeing something he didn’t expect. “Or maybe . . . you like the song too much.”

  I blinked at him, tongue-tied. Because I love that song. When Whitney sings it. When Dolly sings it. I love it so much that I couldn’t not dance to it in the gym. But I couldn’t dance to it, either. Because my date was dancing with Masha, and it’s not a solo number.