No one warns you when you make it in Hollywood that one day it might all come crashing down on you.
Oh no . . . yep. I’m tearing up again. I’d hoped I had finished with all that on the flight here. Thank goodness for these sunglasses to cover my shame. I’m so sick of crying. There’s been way too much of it lately. I feel a lot like the water fountain behind me, except instead of the melodic trickling sound it’s making, I tend to make not-so-pleasant noises when I cry—really cry, not the acting kind. There’s lots of gasping, and hiccupping, and snorting.
I’m not blubbering like that right now, though. Not in front of Brash Betty standing in front of me, her hands on her hips. I’ll push these tears back to where they came from if it’s the last thing I ever do. And it just might be. This is hard.
I take a deep breath.
“Let’s see you sit up taller now,” the woman instructs, or rather demands, as a soft breeze ruffles the hair peeking out of the top of her visor.
“Right,” I say after a sniffle. I play along because, aside from the quick conversations with the resort staff and the man I just talked to at the bookstore, she’s the only other person I’ve talked to in days. Even if she is judging my posture—or lack thereof, as it were—I miss talking to people. I didn’t realize how much I like being around other humans until recently, when all the people I thought were my friends turned their backs on me. One person in particular literally gave me her back. I’ve never been so snubbed.
I sit up, lifting my chin a bit higher as I force my spine straight, pushing my shoulders back.
“That’s more like it,” she says. “You young people looking at your phones all the time—you’re ruining your posture.”
“I wasn’t—”
“There’s a whole world out there, you know,” she cuts me off, continuing her nitpicky lecture, punctuating her words with a bony, arthritic-looking hand directed toward nothing in particular. “And yet you’d rather be on that TokTok and the Twitters.”
“Well, Twitter isn’t really a thing any—”
“I think you’re all a bunch of nitwits and nincompoops,” she interjects.
“Right,” I say. I’m not sure why I’m agreeing to this. Although, I am considered a bit of a nitwit and a nincompoop by millions of people right now. That, and some other more colorful words that have been thrown around, all of which would probably make the hair on the back of ornery Betty’s neck stand up straight.
The older woman mutters something about young people and their phones before pivoting in her Birkenstocks and walking in the other direction, past a cute café I’d love to spend time in, but for obvious reasons cannot, and back in the direction I just came from.
I feel like I should call after her to defend myself because I wasn’t looking at my phone. I didn’t even bring it with me. It’s sitting on the bedside table back at the resort. It’s basically useless to me, especially with its lack of Candy Crush. And yes, I did consider ordering a new one but thought better of it. I don’t need to be tempted to look at social media or the gossip sites and see all the nasty things people are saying about me right now.
One thing is for sure: not all publicity is good publicity. I’m living proof of that.
I start to tear up again. No, no, we’ll have none of that. I blink rapidly, what’s left of my eyelash extensions hitting the frames of my sunglasses as I do. I won’t be able to get those fixed for a while. Neither will I be able to fix the nails I picked all the gel off last night. Sadly, it was the most exciting thing I did all day. And oddly satisfying.
I slouch in my seat and then sit up straight again, not to be caught by rude Betty. How sad that I kind of miss her company. I’m so lonely that a curmudgeonly old woman lecturing me is welcome, and maybe even appreciated.
She was right. My posture is horrendous, and also there’s a whole world out there, one that I’m missing, not because of my phone, but because pretty much everyone in that world hates me right now. And my answer to it all is to hide at the resort.
I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can stay holed up in my room at the Belacourt Resort. I’ve got a gorgeous suite overlooking the beach, with beautiful, white sand and crystal-blue water off my balcony as far as the eye can see. The resort even has its own private beach. The Belacourt is fully booked, but it’s on the small side, so I rarely see other patrons, and I sort of feel like I have the place to myself sometimes. Yet, it all feels like a prison.
I’m in my own personal tropical-island hell. Which sounds ridiculous, I realize. Even more ridiculous, it’s only been three days since I got here. Three days since I took a flight from Los Angeles to Naples and then took the ferry over to the island. I couldn’t even make it in a fancy resort overlooking the ocean for more than three days. Actually, today is the third day, so technically I only made it two.
Wow. Just . . . wow.
What am I going to do? I’m supposed to be hiding all summer. No one knows I’m here, apart from Noah. He’ll keep my secret because he knows how it is. He’s sort of famous himself, and his sisters are massively famous. But now I’ve got cute-bookstore-boy—or man, really—who’ll figure it out soon enough, and I’m fairly confident the lady I ran into on the way out of the shop recognized me. I’m clearly not good at going incognito. How did I already screw this up so badly?
I guess I could have put on a better disguise. A baseball hat and sunglasses were the best I could do, under the circumstances. I didn’t bring anything else to hide my identity because I had no plans to leave the resort once I got here, but I’ve never been able to sit in one place for too long. It’s a flaw of mine. I was a fool to think I could do that for an entire summer.
What if this doesn’t even work? This hiding thing I’m currently failing at executing. What if it doesn’t make a difference? What if humans aren’t as fickle as I’m counting on, and they don’t move on so easily? Many others in the industry have made a comeback after a mistake. Shouldn’t I get a chance, too? I don’t need to be America’s Sweetheart anymore. That was a lot of pressure anyway. I’d settle for America’s Quirky Cousin. Or maybe just the weird next-door neighbor? I could be America’s Kimmy Gibbler.
I really could use a friend right now, someone to talk to. Maybe I can track down surly Betty and see if she’ll spend time with me. I’ve got plenty of other flaws for her to nitpick.
I see something in my peripheral vision and look to my right to see a tiny, light-colored lizard perched on the armrest of the bench.
“Hello there,” I say, leaning toward the petite reptile. “Would you by chance want to be friends with me?”
Maybe I can catch him and bring him back with me to my room at the resort and he could keep me company. I’ll name him George, and he’ll be my little sidekick for the summer. He can perch adorably on my shoulder.
“What do you think? Do you want to be my buddy, George?”
The lizard sticks out his forked tongue before he quickly scurries away.
Great. Even lizards hate me.
Well, I guess that’s my sign to go back to my resort prison. I’ve gotten what I came here for. I needed something to pass the time and a book sounded like the perfect thing, and now I have three. Yes, I could have ordered them, but I didn’t want to wait. I also know I could have purchased the e-books, but I’ve always loved the feel of a real book in my hands. The smell of the paper and the soft sound of pages turning are some of my favorite things.
I’m not quite ready to leave this bench in the center of this quaint town yet, with the ocean breeze on my skin and the melodic trickle of the fountain behind me. This could be the last time I get to come to this area of the island once I restart my self-imposed sentence. Just eighty-seven more days to go. My shoulders fall and my posture falters just at the thought. I don’t correct myself this time. I just want to wallow in it. Plus, there’s no sign of cantankerous Betty around.
I sigh audibly. It’s possible I’ve already ruined everything just by risking this shopping trip. I’ll have to hope that cute-bookstore-guy and that woman I passed didn’t realize it was me, and if they did, that they don’t sell the information to the gossip sites. I’ll know soon enough if the paparazzi show up. Then I’ll have to find another remote island to hide away on. Or someone’s basement. Maybe someone out there will want to harbor a runaway actress until the news blows over, or a different celebrity does something that gets all the wagging tongues and tails to look in their direction and away from me.
I’ll never find a lovelier hiding spot than this one, though. It’s hot and humid, like you’d expect an island off the Florida coast to be in the summer. But the breeze that softly whips around me makes everything sort of perfect. And there’s also the no-cars-allowed-here thing, which is kind of strange, but also refreshing. It’s a small island and easy to navigate on foot. I’d love it more if I didn’t hate the reason I’m here.
Oh gosh. Will I actually be able to do this?
I just want a happy summer. I’ve never had one, not in my entire life, not since I was a kid and my parents divorced. And then not long after that, my summers became about filming sitcoms and movies, whatever my mom would sign me up for. I’ve never had an entire summer to myself to just . . . be. I thought I was going to get one this year, an entirely free summer. But that obviously didn’t happen.
“You’re slouching again!” I look to my right to see sour Betty across the street, one hand on her hip, the other pointing a finger in my direction. That’s my cue to leave, since I don’t need more eyes drawn in my direction, more chances to be recognized, not that there are a lot of people out and about on this sleepy island.
I wave at her before pushing the strap of my bag up my shoulder, grabbing my books, and standing up from my bench.
