Sunset Boulevard (34 page)

would take under his girl-groping wing, but his mom had picked up the phone and given MTV

a stern talking-to. It had to be the first time in film history that a young star turned down a role

because his mommy wouldn't let him take it.

It was fine with him, in a way. Plowing through a few weeks' worth of physics and math

homework made him conscious of how much he actually missed school. And his English

teacher was starting his "science fiction as literature" series, starting with Kurt Vonnegut's

Cat's Cradle
, followed by Philip K. Dick stories--they'd be comparing the original text to the

film versions, and it didn't really get any better than that. If he'd gotten anything out of his

stardom, it was that he now felt fairly comfortable with his geekdom. And that, he thought, was

what Justin Klatch would do.

As if to prove things were really back to normal, the words
Now You're Really PG!
were

scrawled in red on his locker. Someone had gone the extra mile and cut a pair of angel wings

and a halo from construction paper and glued them to the door. A note poked through the

vents.
From your friends at pep club! Congrats on the movie!
Okay, so it was embarrassing,

but they'd come in peace for a change.
That
was the only perk of fame he'd like to keep.

As she headed to her Spanish class, Jojo realized things were quiet at BHH today. And not

lazy, rainy Monday quiet. She was sure her classmates were talking about her. Or would be, as

soon as Myla crafted a rumor to explain how Jojo had gone from Myla's closest confidante to

the female equivalent of a No Fucking Way boy.

The weekend had been a lonely one for Jojo, since Willa still wasn't taking her calls--after tons

of begging, Jojo had tried Myla's tactic. But apparently, an
I'm sorry
arrangement of designer

baked goods and specialty candies from Dylan's Candy Bar in New York did not make up for

lying to your best friend either. Jojo had spent the weekend pretending she had a ton of

homework. She'd had her first two-hour-long conversation with her dads, Fred and Bradley, in

days--they'd gotten a Mac with a webcam. Both of them had horrible colds, and their noses

were like Rudolph's on her screen. She'd gone to Saturday and Sunday night dinners with her

parents and the kids, while Myla had gone out with her girlfriends.

The two days away from Myla had been good for her, though. She'd spent her first few weeks

in L.A. desperately trying to make Myla like her and her second two weeks trying desperately

to be like Myla. And she just wasn't that girl. She wasn't sure who she was, exactly, but she

had a feeling the real Jojo resided somewhere between the soccer-playing, goofing-aroundwith-Willa version and the focus-on-my-fabulosity model.

She lugged her backpack, overloaded with books in true PM (pre-Myla) fashion, past

classmates who seemed unsure whether to say hi, mock her, or hide from her. She turned

down the hallway toward her Spanish class, and saw Jake Porter-Goldsmith struggling to cram

another book in his backpack. Speaking of No Fucking Way boys...

Her heart sped up a little too fast for her liking. After all, this guy had been dating Kady Parker

and shooting love scenes with Amelie Adams for the last few weeks. But it couldn't hurt to say

hi.

"Don't you have someone to carry those for you?" she joked, sidling up to Jake's locker just as

he shut the door. She broke out in the half-smile she couldn't seem to give up. She felt like it

had been her smile all along. There'd been some positives from the Myla makeover.

"Hey, Jojo," Jake said, blushing as Jojo looked at the girlish graffiti. "What's going on?"

Jojo shrugged, focusing her violet eyes intently on his hazel ones. She noticed a green, heartshaped fleck on his left iris. "You tell me, Mr. Movie Star."

Jake laughed, looking sheepish. "Those days are past me already. I didn't even get to fade

away. I did a supernova." He looked nervously down at his Chuck Taylors. "Um, that means

exploded."
And it was kind of my fault,
Jake thought, still not believing that a week ago, he'd

been wearing sunglasses indoors and letting himself be referred to as Kake. He must have

subconsciously wanted to live out his superstar days in one heavily compacted burst, just so he

could go back to normal.

Jojo ran her hand up and down her backpack strap, the nylon making a faint scratching noise.

"I know. I had a field trip to the Griffith Observatory last week. When you were busy with the

whole leading-man thing."

"Yeah, some leading man," Jake said, pushing one of his unruly curls from his face. "But in

case I never said it, thanks. Your Justin Klatch advice really worked."

Jojo fake-punched Jake in the arm, wondering even as she did it why she was acting like such

a dork. Her gaze fell on the red writing on Jake's locker. "What about your advice to me?

Shouldn't you be scrubbing your locker?"

Jake bit his lip. "No, that's actually a good thing. From the pep club. It's just kind of weird,

right?" He grinned goofily. Having his existence acknowledged at school actually felt pretty

good.

"No, it's not," Jojo said, touching one of the angel wings. "It's about time you got some respect

at this school, Porter-Goldsmith. Even if you kind of went over to the douche side."

Jake's face turned the same red as his backpack. "I did bag on my best friend," he said. He

wanted to say it out loud, because he still hadn't fully forgiven himself for the shitty way he'd

treated Miles.

"I was just teasing you," Jojo said, worrying she'd taken it too far. In her heart, she knew the

movie star Jake of
Class Angel
hadn't been the real Jake who she'd come to know and like.

"But it happens to the best of us." She shook her head, thinking of Willa and knowing exactly

what he meant. Was best-friend ditchage a side effect of the charmed life? Couldn't you be

fabulous
and
a decent person? Maybe she could try that next. "Anyway, I'll forgive you if you

walk me to class." She looked up at him with her flirtiest stare.

Jake brightened. "You sure you want to be seen with PG?" He reached out, and adjusted her

backpack so that it sat straight on her shoulder. Jojo felt a tickle dance along her collarbone.

"I'm sure."

NO PICNIC

Myla sat in her usual chair at the best table in the cafeteria, her boxy Prada bag on a chair of its

own. Fortune had insisted she not let the buttery leather touch the table.

Things were back to normal. Or, back to two-weeks-ago normal. No signs of
Class Angel

remained, save for a crappy advance movie poster that hung outside Dr. Nachos's office. And

her friends were still in full ass-kiss mode. This weekend, they'd taken her for a spa day at

Bliss (their treat) and then rented a bunch of her favorite movies--
Vertigo
,
Clueless
,
Mean

Girls
, and the BBC version of
Pride & Prejudice
--to watch in Fortune's family's screening

room.

She hadn't seen Jojo all weekend. In fact, she'd carefully avoided her sister. Jojo was once

again her mortal enemy, but Myla was stumped when it came to a suitable revenge plot. It had

to be special, somehow, worthy of the terrible things Jojo had said. But nothing was coming.

She'd passed Jojo in the lunch line, her tray loaded with Myla-forbidden fries. Even with the

perfect opportunity to start a nasty round of whispers, Myla had come up blank.

She hadn't seen Ash, either. She kept glancing across the caf toward his table, but saw only

Tucker, Geoff, and his other friends. Ash must have been eating in the music lab, a privilege

he'd earned after Gordon donated an ungodly amount to the department. Last year, they'd had

weekly picnics in the room, kissing and cuddling and having a hard time pulling away from

each other once the bell for class rang.

Myla shuddered, picturing Daisy in her place on the plaid picnic blanket. She got what Ash had

meant about being haunted. Everywhere she looked, anytime she saw a couple holding hands,

she pictured Ash and Daisy, bound together. It was worse than if she'd seen them drunkenly

making out. Or if she'd learned Ash had hooked up with some common skank, like Cassie

"Easy" Eastman. To torture herself, Myla had played Daisy's songs on her iPod while she got

her massage at Bliss. She couldn't compete. The masseuse had ended the session saying, "I

work out a knot, it comes back. You have to learn to let go."

But she wouldn't let go. Her glimmer of hope lay in Daisy running from Ash at the party.

She picked at her honey-turkey-and-gouda panini, listening to the rain patter against the roof,

an echo of the rhythmic downpour ringing in her ears. The rain was picking up speed, which

meant every news station in L.A. would lead with a story called "Storm Watch." Thunder

rumbled and then a crack of lightning erupted, casting a split-second flash of blue light over the

entire cafeteria.

As if on cue, Myla's cell vibrated, quivering back and forth on her tray. Maybe she was being

obsessive, but she'd set a Google Alert for "Daisy Morton." Her first one had arrived. The top

headline, from TMZ, read
Crazy About Daisy
. She clicked it open.

Beneath it was a photo of Ash and Daisy leaving BLD, a cute, newish café near the Grove. The

photo was a little out-of-focus, but she could clearly make out Ash's hair and Daisy's smile.

They were holding hands again, and Myla felt like the lightning had struck her through the

heart. Myla caught Fortune's eyes as they shifted to the story still on Myla's screen. She placed

her phone, the picture still on-screen, in the center of the table. Her friends were jonesing for a

gossip fix and fought each other to look at the story.

Myla felt her lip trembling and she fought back tears.
I did this to myself, didn't I?
she thought,

stunned to even think it. It wasn't her style to take the blame. In a panic, she mentally scrolled

through anyone else who could take the fall. Ash's dad, who had put Ash on Daisy detail in the

first place. Her friends, for not being there when she needed them. Ash, for being so unwilling

to trust her. Jojo, who could have told her the kiss-someone-else idea was bad from the get-go.

But wouldn't she have told Jojo she was too untrained to know what she was talking about?

Myla pushed her lunch tray away, unable to look at the food she hadn't touched anyway. She

didn't even want to think about what she could have done differently. She needed to know what

she could do next. And not "next" in her plot to get Ash back. Nope, "next" as in helping her

survive the next few seconds. "What am I going to do?"

Talia shrugged, reading the story. "It says you should start dating someone else. Ooh! We

should go to the Kress. It's sooo hot right now. Girls' night!"

Fortune clapped excitedly. "Omigod! Speaking of girls' nights, did you guys hear about

Grant?" She whispered. "He got arrested with a prostitute in Hollywood."

Billie almost spit out her smoothie. "Eeew! Why would he get a hooker when he could have

us?"

Myla deleted the TMZ post on her phone and shoved it into her bag. Her friends might be

experts at spa sessions, clubbing, and all the other things girls with broken hearts were

supposed to do to recover. But trying to actually
talk
to them only made her feel worse.