Extra Credit #22 Read online

  “There was no—”

  Sarah didn’t let Brynn finish. “The whole point of all that stuff was to get noticed, to get you more screen time, to help you become a star. What’s wrong with Chace wanting the same thing?” Brynn was such a hypocrite. Sarah couldn’t believe it.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it if you don’t break the rules and hurt people,” Brynn shot back.

  “Wearing an authentic ’50s jacket is going to hurt someone?” Sarah demanded. “I think you need a dictionary.”

  “I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about Lowell.” Brynn’s face flushed with anger. “Chace stole Lowell’s line. And that’s more than just a few words. That’s a SAG voucher. That’s a step toward becoming a professional actor.”

  “Lowell wasn’t here when the scene was reshot. You’d have done the same thing if you’d thought of it first.” Sarah’s own face felt hot. It was probably as red as Brynn’s.

  “I wouldn’t have cheated Lowell out of it. I wouldn’t have purposely lied to him and told him that the extras weren’t needed so he wouldn’t be around when the scene was reshot,” Brynn said. “I wouldn’t, and you know that I wouldn’t.”

  “Chace didn’t do that, either. You heard him tell us what happened,” Sarah argued.

  “I heard him lie. I’ve heard him lie a lot of times,” Brynn answered.

  Suddenly, Sarah got it. She understood everything. “This is still about me and Chace going to the movie without you. You’re feeling left out and jealous and that’s why you’re saying all this horrible stuff.”

  Brynn shook her head. “No,” she said simply.

  “I apologized for leaving you out of the movie,” Sarah told Brynn. “And I meant it. If you still want to be my friend, you’re going to have to apologize to me for what you said about Chace.”

  “I’m sorry, but what I said is true, Sarah,” Brynn insisted. “And he’s probably going to end up hurting you, too. You can’t trust him.”

  Sarah looked at Brynn for a long moment. There had to be something to say, some way to fix this. Her friendship with Brynn couldn’t end right here.

  But nothing came to Sarah. So she turned around and walked to the wardrobe line. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She hated fights. Hated them. But Brynn had been wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Sarah avoided Brynn the rest of the day. It wasn’t hard. There were a ton of extras, and she made sure she and Chace entered the gym, which had been cleared of wardrobe for the sock hop scene, well after Brynn. The AD ended up placing Sarah and Chace on the opposite side of the room from her, too. Bonus—he assigned Sarah and Chace to be dance partners, and put them in a spot near the actor playing Sam Quinn’s son. They’d almost definitely make the final cut.

  Had Chace’s killer costume had something to do with that? Maybe. Was that wrong—even if it was slightly against the rules? Like Sarah had told Brynn, it didn’t hurt anyone, so no.

  She didn’t believe Brynn’s accusations about Chace sabotaging Lowell. Now that would have been wrong, with a capital W. And a capital R,O,N, and G.

  After the last shot, Sarah changed back into her street clothes. Again, that was easy to manage without a Brynn encounter. Lots and lots of girls to use as barricades.

  It would be a little harder to avoid Brynn at the train station, but Sarah would do it. She was sure Brynn was avoiding her, too. Which helped.

  Anyway, she wasn’t going to think about that right now. Right now, she was going to find Chace and enjoy every second of the short walk they’d have together before he had to stop at his bus stop.

  Chace came right up to her the second she walked out of the changing room. And as they started across the quad, he grabbed her hand in a no-big-deal way. Sort of like he’d been her boyfriend for months. Did he think of them that way, as a couple?

  Sarah gave his hand a slight squeeze, and Chace squeezed her hand back. That seemed couple-ish. She wondered if she should kiss him good-bye on the cheek when they got to the bus stop. She was still considering the pros and cons when they arrived. She decided she would just leave it up to him, she thought as she lingered just a few moments. Or maybe—

  “Peter! What are you doing in Guilford?” a guy asked, stepping up next to them and interrupting Sarah’s thoughts.

  To Sarah’s surprise, Chace answered. “I have a gig as an extra in the new Sam Quinn movie. Sarah, this is Ian. We were on the same tennis team last year.”

  “Back when Peter’s only interest wasn’t going Hollywood,” Ian said.

  “I’ve heard some weird nicknames, but how do you get Peter from Chace? Or Chace from Peter?” Sarah asked.

  “Chace Turner is my screen name. I thought I might as well start using it from the beginning,” Chace, or Peter, explained. “My real name is Peter Chace.”

  “Chace Turner. Good name. I need to get going or I’ll miss my train.” Sarah tried to walk away in a straight line, even though the sidewalk suddenly felt like it was alive and wriggling around under her feet.

  Peter Chace. Who lived in Connecticut. Now Sarah knew exactly where she recognized Chace from. He had almost the exact same face as Avery Chace from Walla Walla. She had always said her twin was really into acting. Peter had to be Avery’s twin brother. He just had to be.

  This was . . . disastrous.

  Avery had to have told her brother all about the lonely, pathetic girl who’d told everyone at Walla Walla she was movie-star Tad Maxwell’s daughter because she wanted to be popular.

  When Peter found out Sarah was that lonely, pathetic girl, she wouldn’t be his favorite moth anymore. There was no possible way. Peter could have any girl. A perfect girl. When he found out the truth, he would know Sarah was so unperfect. Then he would dump her faster than yesterday’s trash. If they were even a couple to begin with.

  chapter TEN

  Avery wondered if she was hallucinating.

  She was sitting in her room after school on Wednesday. Her so-called room. It was so ugly, it should have to have a different name. And she could have sworn she’d heard crying coming from what would be the nursery.

  There won’t be a squaller in there for months, she told herself. She returned to her algebra homework. Then she heard it again. Softer, but definitely crying.

  This is not you, Avery told herself. You don’t have whatever sound hallucinations are called. True, having to deal with Dad and the stepmother’s late-in-life baby is not right. But you’re not going to have a breakdown. If anything, you’re going to give some other people around here breakdowns.

  She looked at the algebra problem again. She liked algebra. It was different than other kinds of math, sliding everything around until you got x on one side. It was sort of like a puzzle. For this one, first she needed to—

  There it was again. Avery wasn’t crazy. Which meant the sound was real. Which meant somebody was crying in what should still be the guest room. There was nothing to cry about in the guest room.

  Avery slammed her math book shut, stood up, and strode out of her room and down the hall to the guest room. She was right. The crying was not coming from the spirit of the baby that was going to haunt her for the rest of her life. It was coming from the stepmother. She was sitting on the floor, with her head in her hands, trying—and failing—to get control over herself. Mystery solved. Avery didn’t feel the need to take any action. She’d just do her homework downstairs in the living room.

  She slowly began to back up . . . when the stepmother lifted her head. “Oh, Avery, sorry,” the stepmother said. “I knew you were home. I guess I didn’t know how loud I was.”

  “Uh, is something wrong?” Avery asked. Please don’t feel the need to share. Or at least phone a friend.

  “I don’t know how to decorate the nursery,” the stepmother confessed, sniffling.

  That was it? There were people who were paid to handle that kind of crisis. Should Avery bring the stepmother the yellow pages or what? “My friend Natalie’s mother probably knows some
great designers,” Avery said, deciding that allowing the stepmother to choose a decorator from the yellow pages was asking for ugly.

  The stepmother gave a choked laugh. “No, this is something the mother is supposed to do. It’s part of nesting. Instinct. Mother’s love. If you don’t do the room right, then you’ll probably forget to feed the baby and social services will come and take it away.”

  “My dad makes a good salary, you know. I’m sure you could have a doula. Isn’t that what they call a baby nanny?”

  The stepmother laughed so hard, Avery thought she might have to slap her to prevent hysteria. “I hadn’t even heard that word until after I graduated from college. But then, I didn’t grow up in Connecticut.”

  “You know what they are now, so you could get one.” And stop crying, Avery added to herself.

  “I really want to take care of the baby myself. And decorate the baby’s room. It’s just—” The stepmother gestured to the baby instruction books scattered all around her on the floor. “They all say something different. And I don’t know which one I’m supposed to believe. My sister has kids, and there’s my mom, of course, but they’re all the way in Ohio. I don’t have any family here. And talking on the phone isn’t the same, and anyway, they think I’m silly to get so intense about all this and—”

  The stepmother was hiccuping now. It sounded like a countdown to more bawling. Avery quickly dropped down onto the floor and picked up the closest book. She did a fast flip-through until a good sentence jumped out at her. “You can do this. It’s not that complicated. Listen: ‘Babies first respond to primary colors.’ So that eliminates a lot of color choices right there.”

  The stepmother wiped her eyes with her fists, like a little kid. “But listen to this.” She picked up a different book and read a line. “ Babies are soothed by pastels.” She dropped the book. “I want the baby to be soothed in its nursery, don’t I? And then this book . . .” She kicked yet another book across the room. “It says babies see black and white contrast best of all, and that it stimulates their development.”

  Avery didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m starting to understand why you were crying.”

  The stepmother laughed. But a real laugh this time. Not choking or borderline hysterical.

  Avery laughed, too. She couldn’t help it.

  Usually a book could become Sarah’s whole world. People could be talking to her when she was reading, and she wouldn’t hear them. Her mom always said an entire circus could parade through the room when Sarah had her nose in a book, and Sarah wouldn’t notice. Even if the elephant stepped on her foot.

  But the usual book magic wasn’t working for her today. Every few words, she’d think of Chace. Peter. Had he found out the truth yet? Avery knew that Sarah and Brynn were extras on the movie. She had to know her brother was, too. Eventually, she’d ask if he’d met them. And then she’d tell the funny story of how Sarah had pretended she was a movie star’s kid to get a little attention at camp.

  Had it happened yet? Was it happening right now?

  Sarah had asked herself those two questions about a million times since Sunday. She’d hardly gotten any sleep the last three nights. She’d start to drift off, then the questions would flash through her mind and she’d jerk awake, heart pounding.

  “I need help,” she muttered, putting her book aside. “I need serious psychological help. Or I need some kind of mind-erase tool that I can use on Chace—and Avery.”

  Getting psychological help seemed a little easier than inventing sci-fi technology, so Sarah put her book aside, got on her computer, and logged on to the camp blog. Her friends would be happy to give her advice, but Sarah had to be careful how she asked for it. If Avery hadn’t figured out the movie set sitch, Sarah didn’t want her reading about it on the blog. Avery had turned out to be a lot nicer than she seemed at first. But Sarah still didn’t want to hand over the ammo Avery could use to destroy Sarah’s life.

  She thought for a few minutes, then began to write.

  Posted by: Sarah

  Subject: Boy-Induced Insanity

  I’m going crazy. Possibly take the “going” out of that last sentence. So I’m calling on the sisterhood for help. Here’s the rundown.

  I met a guy a few weeks ago. A cute—make that gorgeous—guy. He’s great. He makes everything fun. And he’s really into me. He notices things about me that I haven’t even noticed about myself.

  So you’re probably all thinking, where’s the problem, Sars? The problem is, this guy knows somebody who knows me. And this person knows something really embarrassing about me. Humiliating. Cringe-worthy.

  I’m afraid if the guy finds out what the person knows, he’ll think I’m too pathetic to even look at again.

  What do I do?

  Sarah’s friends must have realized how desperate she was. She started getting responses almost right away.

  Posted by: Jenna

  Subject: Easy Solution

  Your real problem is the person who knows this info about you. You obviously don’t trust him/her. The easy solution—assassination. You won the game at camp, now it’s time to move on to the real thing.

  I did a little research for you, since as a crazy person, I wasn’t sure you could do it yourself. I think the best way to go would be with an accident scenario. Arrange a private meeting with this person near a window (open, unscreened), bridge, stairwell, elevator shaft. Basically anyplace that has a convenient seventy-five-foot drop that ends on a hard surface. You see where this is going. A little push, then you start screaming about the horrible accident that just happened. There are lots of other methods if you don’t like this one, but most of them involve some kind of equipment.

  You can do it, Sars!

  Killing Chace/Peter’s sister. Somehow that didn’t seem like the best idea . . . Besides, Avery was a fighter! Even though Sarah had turned out to be the top Assassin at camp during the summer, she didn’t want to go mano a mano against Avery.

  Sarah returned to the posts.

  Posted by: Priya

  Subject: It can’t be that bad

  Sarah. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Whatever this deep, dark humiliation is, it can’t be that bad. I mean, you’re Sarah!

  My advice: Tell the guy whatever it is yourself. The insanity is coming from wondering if and when he’s going to find out. And then what he’s going to do. Just tell him. If he’s as great as you say, he’ll still like you. You’re Sarah! If he doesn’t, then you’ll know. It will hurt. I’m not saying it won’t. But you can cry and scream and we’ll all call the guy really bad names, and then you can get on with your life (and start sleeping again).

  Seriously, stop making yourself bonkers. Tell him.

  Priya’s advice made sense. It completely did. But when she tried to imagine standing in front of Chace and telling him how she’d felt so insecure around the Walla Walla campers—including his sister—that she’d borrowed her friend Natalie’s life for herself, she started feeling nauseous.

  And since just thinking about the scenario made her nauseous, she would probably actually throw up on Chace if she tried to follow Priya’s advice and tell him the truth. Even if he could deal with her pathetic lie, would he really be able to deal with puked-on shoes?

  Sarah wasn’t willing to risk it. She moved on to the next post, hoping it would give her some advice that wouldn’t lead to more humiliation.

  Posted by: Chelsea

  Subject: Move on

  So this guy’s great and gorgeous. I bet you can find another G&G with no problem. (I can’t handle them all myself. =) ) I say pick one that doesn’t know the person that knows the secret. Problem solved.

  Posted by: Sloan

  Subject: Intuition

  If you use your intuition you can find the answer within you yourself. Just hold your hands over your chest with your right palm over the back of your left hand, crossing your thumbs. Spread the fingers of both hands apart. Meditate on your decision while holding this position. It wi
ll heighten your intuition and increase contact with the spirit world.

  There are all kinds of poses like this if anybody else needs help with anything. Just let me know.

  Peace, love, and light.

  Sarah didn’t exactly like the idea of contact with the spirit world. It sounded scary. She was already borderline nutso. She didn’t need to be dealing with ghosts, too.

  The advice from Chelsea sounded good. Sarah composed an answer for the board.

  Posted by: Sarah

  Topic: Thanks

  Thanks for all the help. You all deserve lifesaving badges!

  I’m going with your advice, Chelsea, although I have to admit, it’s going to take off several layers of skin—heart skin—to walk away from this guy. But like you said, I’ll meet someone else.

  I think I’ll go try to take a nap. Hopefully now that I’ve made a decision I’ll be able to sleep.

  Natalie read the newest posts on the camp blog. It was like visiting her friends without having to show them her mouth. She could add to the blog without showing them her mouth, too. But if she posted, she’d get questions about what she was doing, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. She didn’t want to “talk” about Eli. She didn’t have enough to say about him. He was nice. She liked his freckles. He was nice. He was really into models of all kinds. Actually, she didn’t really want to give that detail. It didn’t make him sound that interesting. And she was already back to nice. Which didn’t sound that interesting, either. She couldn’t say the thing she really liked about him—he had braces, so he didn’t care about her braces. He didn’t look at Nat like a freak.