Someone Else's Fairytale (16 page)

“Hey,” I said.

His face fell. “What's wrong?”

“You don't read tabloids do you?”

“Oh no, what? Come in.”

His apartment was a studio, a futon in one corner and a television in the other. The kitchen was just a little square of tiled area with some cabinets, a microwave, and a couple of electric burners. The refrigerator had more storage space than the rest of the apartment put together. The whole place smelled like freon and old carpet, and right then, a chicken, cilantro, and lime burrito.

His futon was folded into a couch and his blankets and things were piled at one end.

“Sorry 'bout the mess,” he said.

“No, sorry to just barge in.”

“You can always come here. I don't mind.”

I plopped down on the futon. “You remember that picture of me and Jason in the paper?”

“Yeah.” He bit into his burrito.

“Well, now there's another one of us on TMZ. I hugged him and it was a friendly hug, that's all. But they caught it on film.”

“What's TMZ?”

“A tabloid website, I guess. I don't really know.”

“Oh, okay. You hungry?”

“No thanks. I just came here to hide, really.”

“How was the tram?”

“It was a nice non-date, and then I did meet his family last night. Turns out his parents know all about me and are really cool about it.”

“Met his family, huh?”

“He was crystal clear. Non-date.”

“But then he did get you to hug him.”

“Aw, you want a hug? That what this is about?” I winced. Matthew hated sarcasm.

But this time he tossed his burrito wrapper in the trash and wiped his hands on the kitchen towel. “Maybe,” he said.

My phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered it.

“Okay,” said Lori. “Someone just busted our front windows.”

I don't know what made me angrier, the property damage, or the fact that I missed the chance to go to the movies with Matthew because I had to be home to answer questions for the police. Matthew came over too, and he and Charles watched WWF so that Matthew would have something to write about for Media Studies. In hindsight, that's pretty funny, but at the time I was too annoyed to laugh.

“So you had reporters in your yard all day and one of them warned you about a suspicious vehicle?” the cop asked. She was a young woman with red hair pulled up into a bun and freckles all over her face.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Driving slowly past your house?”

“Yep.”

“Any idea whom that would be?”

“No, no idea.”

“Any guess?”

“Nope.”

“Have you fought with anyone recently, or seen anything-”

“I hugged Jason Vanderholt-”

“Really?”

 
“He is a
friend.
But once, after we had coffee, someone slashed my tires.”

“So you think this is a jealous fan?” said the cop.

“Given the timing, yes.”

“I'm concerned about that car, though. This is near the War Zone here, where you live.” The War Zone was a bad neighborhood many blocks away that was dominated by drug violence.

“It's not that close,” I said.

“And this, the University Area, can be very unsafe.”

“We've never had any problems,” said Lori. “No one on this street has, that we know of.”

“Miss Winters, do you, or have you ever had any contact with anyone in the drug trade who might hold a grudge?”

Yes, but he's in prison, I thought. I shook my head. “I'm pretty sure this is a fan. Some girl who wants to marry Jason Vanderholt and thinks that I'm competition or something.”

“You really know him?” asked the cop.

I rolled my eyes. “He's from
Albuquerque
. People know him. It's no big deal.”

“Still-”

The look on my face must've silenced her, because she turned back to her notes real fast. “Okay, I'm going to write this up, and has your landlord called back yet?”

“She'll be here in ten minutes,” said Lori.

“We can wait for her, then.”

I looked at our front windows. One had a fist sized hole in it. The other just had a big spiderweb of cracks. The police had put one rock, the one found inside the house, on the windowsill. There was no telling what rock had made the other break. It was with the hundreds of others in our rock garden.

Lori put her head to one side. “What's that sound?”

It was my computer chiming. I darted down the hall and saw that Jason was calling again. “Hey,” I answered.

“Hey, reporters go away?”

“Yeah, and now someone's broken our windows.”

“What?”

“Some jealous fan-”

“You're kidding me.”

“No.”

“You're sure it was a fan?”

I told him about my tires and his eyes only got bigger. “Chloe! I had no idea.
No
idea this was happening to you.”

“It's only happened twice.”

“That's terrible. I'm paying for the windows.”

“There's insurance-”

“I am at least talking to your landlord. What's his number?”

“Hers. Not necessary.”

“No, listen, I don't want you to get in trouble for associating with me. I'd hate it if you got evicted or something because one of my fans is breaking her property. You have to let me talk to her. What's her number?”

“She'll be here in a few minutes.”

“Even better. Let me talk to her on Skype.”

“Chloe?” Lori called from the front room. “Eli's here.”

“That's our landlord,” I said.

“Carry me out.”

“You don't-”

“Do it. Please?” His eyes were narrowed, his expression was all stubborn resolve.

I gave in, picked up the netbook, and carried it out to the front room. Eli blinked at me from behind her thick, round glasses. Her graying hair was piled on top of her head. She was a dance instructor who lived in Nob Hill. I held the netbook screen up to her. “Eli, Jason, Jason, Eli.”

“Jason Vanderholt?” said the cop.

Lori stuffed her hand in her mouth to suppress a giggle.

“Here,” I handed the netbook over.

“Please let me pay for the windows,” I heard Jason begin.

I turned my back on that conversation and went to sit by Matthew.

“He called you?” Matthew moved over to make room for me.

“He called about the tabloid stuff today. Normally, he doesn't call.”

He slipped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him. “Thank you,” I said.

“For?”

“Being you. I needed a good friend today.”

That evening, after the cops had left and Eli had nailed plywood over the broken window, someone else knocked on the door. I was eating my leftovers from Tia Anita's.

Lori was gone. She and Charles had taken off for the evening, and I couldn't blame them. I peered through the peephole to see a Hispanic man in plain clothes who looked vaguely familiar. I opened the door.

“Miss Chloe,” he said. “Jesse Baca. Officer Baca.” He stuck out his hand.

“Oh, hi.” He was the cop who'd written up the report on my slashed tires.

“I heard about what happened here.”

“Yeah, I think we're okay. Just-”

“I wanted to let you know, you're gonna be safe. We'll be patrolling your street for the next little while, all right?”

“Thank you. You don't have to-”

“It's been ten years, but I won't ever forget that phone call when we heard you were gonna pull through. It was a miracle, the shape you were in.” He patted my shoulder. My right shoulder. “You're going to be all right, you hear? Can't help it if a pretty girl like you is attracting movie stars. And two incidents this far apart? That's not good.”

“That is going above and beyond, really.”

His smile was fatherly and kind. He gave my shoulder another squeeze and stepped down off our front step. Sometimes it paid to be from a city that was such a small town in so many ways. Even though I hadn't admitted it to him, I would definitely sleep easier knowing that some crazed fangirl wasn't going to climb in my window and take me hostage.

Jason had seemed able to sweet talk Eli into being sanguine about all this. I was grateful for that too.

“Any more break in attempts?”

“No. The windows are fixed. It's all good.”

“Your landlady wouldn't let me pay.”

“I'm sure she's got insurance, but thanks for offering.”

“So you're okay?”

“I'm fine, really.”

“I really am sorry. The whole fame thing can be pretty stupid.”

“Well, you said it.”

“And you don't disagree. That's refreshing.”