Chapter Sixteen
Back on the boat, the boys let me shower first, then we reheat pasta primavera they brought. We eat up on deck as the last of the sunset fades into the water. Somewhere out there, dolphins are settling in for the night, and I wonder when and how they sleep.
“So,” Andrew says, “what are we going to do about Story’s wardrobe problem?”
“Is it a problem?” I ask.
They exchange a look, like they don’t know how to break it to me. “It just would be better,” Luca says, “if we don’t give the tabs anything to harass you about.”
I’m not stupid. I understand what they’re saying. But the solutions aren’t as easy as they think they are. “So I’m supposed to be ashamed that I can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars on a dress when there are kids in the world who are starving?”
Andrew chokes on his mouthful.
“Are you okay?”
“Aye,” Andrew says between coughs. “You’re just very direct.”
“Take it as a compliment,” Luca says without a smile. “She’s only direct if she trusts you. Look, Story, you’ve seen the stuff they print. It might not be fair, but that’s not going to stop them. And the quickest way to make them your enemy is to speak like that. They make their living by glamorizing our lifestyle.”
I look around the boat. “I think you guys do a pretty good job of glamorizing your lifestyle all on your own.”
Luca’s jaw tightens. “I don’t know why we should be ashamed of living well any more than you should be ashamed of living—less well.”
“I don’t have a problem with you living well. It’s the complete imbalance between our worlds that bothers me, and the way your world wants to shame me for it when, if anything, it should be the other way around. I’ve never been poor by normal standards. But wasting huge sums of money on clothes when there’s so much to be fixed in this world, it’s too much for me.”
They look at each other, and then Andrew settles his gaze on me. “Rich people give a lot of money to charity, Story.”
“They do. But there wouldn’t be tremendous poverty in the world if there weren’t tremendous wealth. They don’t exist on separate planes, Andrew. Society is a type of ecosystem, just like the natural world. When those with power tip the scales in their favor to create more wealth and power, someone further down the line gets harmed, whether it’s intended or not.”
Luca turns his limonata bottle around slowly. “She’s not wrong,” he says with a glance at Andrew.
“We don’t create the world, Luca, we just live in it.”
“We all create the world, Andrew. Some of us more than others.” I’m only halfway through dinner, but my appetite is gone. I don’t like being confrontational. I don’t even know why I’m doing it, except that I’m angry with myself for this whole mess, and angry that spending my mom’s hard-earned salary to buy a gorgeous dress isn’t enough for people whose opinion of me I shouldn’t need to care about. I’m doing this to get a scholarship for people their world can’t even understand because when it happens in their world, people are treated differently than mine. Rowdy will be praised for going to rehab. My dad lost his law license.
“But it’s people like your classmates, those girls, who buy the tabloids,” Andrew says.
“Just because someone willfully participates against their own interests doesn’t make it okay to take advantage of that. I guarantee you Guin and Kelsey have never thought about the impact of a click they made or a dollar they spent in their entire lives, but the people who are selling to them do.”
“We’re all afraid of them,” Luca says, “but they keep us in power, so we keep them in business. They keep our brands and businesses flourishing by selling a dream most people will never taste. Hell, we don’t even live that way. We sit here trying to run damage control and worry about how everything we do looks to a camera lens in the distance. We scrutinize every detail of our lives until we care more about what we’re wearing than we do about seeing a colony of red sea stars.”
We’re quiet then. Luca noticing sea stars feels like a victory, but it doesn’t make me happy. I push my food around on the plate and sneak a glance at him. He’s staring at his limonata.
“Well, arguing about geopolitics isn’t going to solve our problem,” Andrew says.
Luca sighs. “Andy’s right there, Stor. I mean, I actually like your”—he throws his hands around as if I’m something that can’t be contained—“vintage totally-you style, but the point is that the tabs expect you to dress a certain way.”
“What am I supposed to do? I don’t have the money to live in your world, even if I wanted to wear thousand-dollar dresses.” The breeze has cooled now that the sun is almost gone, and I shiver. Luca grabs his sweatshirt from behind him and hands it to me.
“Thanks.”
“Luca can afford to buy the clothes you need,” Andrew says. “I tried to warn Jasmine this was a bad idea from the start, but now that you’re both in it, it’s the only thing to do.”
“So wait, this wasn’t your idea?”
Luca’s gaze darts up to mine.
“Actually, it was Jasmine’s idea,” Andrew says.
I don’t know why I had just assumed this was all Luca’s idea, but knowing it was Jasmine’s makes me look at Luca a little differently. Maybe she didn’t realize how much it would bother her for me to be held up to everyone as Luca’s girlfriend. Or maybe she thought I’m so far beneath her she couldn’t even feel jealous. Or maybe she’s just a careless person, too selfish to realize the harm she causes others to get what she wants. Whatever the reason, Luca must really care about her to have gone along with it, because he’s still trying to protect me, too.
“Look, I get that in your world a credit card solves most problems, but that’s not how it works in mine. My mom’s going to want to know where these expensive clothes came from, and she’s not going to be okay with me taking gifts like that, even if I were okay with it, which I’m not. I don’t even know how I’m going to explain the scholarship to her yet. Plus, the paparazzi know I don’t come from money. If they see Luca showering me with gifts, they’re going to label me a gold digger. Or worse. Whatever I do, it’s likely to turn out badly. Everyone’s just going to have to accept that Luca is slumming for the summer. I mean, it’s not even two months now. The sooner this is over, the better for all of us.”
Luca is watching me intently. “The gold digger angle is a concern. I wish you’d worn the dress Jasmine sent you. Then they might not have thought about it.”
“It didn’t fit.” I grip my fork tighter and try not to cry. This isn’t what I agreed to. There’s no way for me to explain that dress without sounding like I’m trying to be the star in an underbudget teen movie. She wants me to date Luca to cover for her, but she also wants me to look like an idiot doing it. I scrape up the last of my dignity. “I’ll get a job. I won’t be able to afford the clothes you expect me to wear, but I have some savings for school, and I can use that for now, and try to replenish it before I leave. I’ll buy a few low-end designer pieces and mix and match them so it seems like it’s more than it is.”
“That’s not right to do to you,” Luca says. “What about your volunteer work?”
“And how are you going to show up with Luca to events if you have to work enough to afford designer clothes?”
I look out over the water. What Andrew’s really trying to say is that the girls Luca dates don’t scoop gelato or ring cash registers. They strut runways and stages.
“Maybe we should call the whole thing now. We’ve distracted the media from the Jasmine story, and she’s off doing her thing. All you two have to do is not see each other outside of a hotel for six weeks or so. You can tell the tabloids I broke it off because I don’t like being called a charity case. It would probably garner you a lot of sympathy. And then I can go back to being Astoria Nobody, and you and your Disney princess can sail into the sunset.”
Luca looks hard at me and then gets up and walks to the rail. He’s facing the water, but he turns his head halfway so that his profile is outlined by the dusk. “You aren’t nobody.”
“Just forget the donation.” I wipe a tear from my cheek. “This whole thing was a mistake.” In some ways, I guess I do envy her. Luca can be really thoughtful when he cares aboutyou.
“I’m keeping my word on the scholarship,” Luca says as he turns around. “But maybe you’re right. It’s actually been a lot of fun hanging with you, but I don’t think it’s fair to put you through this anymore. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss you, defensive sarcasm and all.” He’s looking at me as if my heart is encased in glass and he can see every fold of it. His phone is sitting on the bench beside me. It vibrates, and Jasmine’s name flashes on the screen.
I get up and hand it to him without looking at him. Then I grab our plates and take them below. Andrew follows me.
“You know,” he says as he stands beside me at the sink, “he never meant for any of this to get out of hand.”
“I know. You don’t have to play his fixer to me.”
“Luca’s right, Story. You aren’t a nobody. You’re actually pretty amazing, even if you do make minted guys choke sometimes.”
“Thanks, Andrew.” I can’t look up at him.
He pats my head like I’m a good dog, and we finish cleaning up. When we go back on deck, Luca is sitting in the faint blue dark, staring at the water.
“Well, Jasmine should be happy,” Andrew says. “She didn’t enjoy seeing Story spending time with you.”
“Actually, no,” Luca says. “The press was asking her about me this morning. They keep asking why Rowdy isn’t visiting her on tour, and they wanted to know if there was any truth to the rumors about us that were circulating right before my sudden deep dive into dating Story. They’ve been told Rowdy’s in LA working on an album, but they want to know why no one’s seen him.”
“That’s not good. At least for you and Jasmine. Story could still get out of this cleanly.” Andrew says it like a warning, the way a parent tells you not to make a bad situation worse.
Luca looks at me. I can’t really see his eyes in the darkness, but I feel them searching me. He clears his throat. “I was thinking, what about Dani?”
“Who’s Danny?” I ask.
“My cousin,” Andrew says. “She’s a designer in London. She hasn’t really had much success yet, she’s just starting. How could Dani help this mess, Luca?”
“How many followers do you have now, Story?”
“I don’t know. It was like forty-two thousand a few days ago.”
“Forty thousand, Andrew. Dani could outfit Story, and Story could act as an influencer for her. It’s a win-win. The paparazzi won’t be able to criticize Story then, because she’s getting her clothes from a sponsor based on her own following. And it helps Dani out.”
Andrew’s heavy breath gets carried away on the breeze. “I’m sorry, Luca. I think you should manage your own damage control on this one and leave Story out of it.”
Luca has his elbows on his knees and drops his head down for a moment before looking back at us. “You’re right. Forget it. I’ll figure something else out.” For a few moments, the only sound is the water lapping the boat.
When I do speak, my voice is smaller than I’d like it to be. “I’ll do it.”
They both look at me. “I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Andrew says.
“Probably not. But I agreed to help, so I will. Right now, though, I’m going to go raise the anchor. And if you don’t want a hole in the boat,” I add to lighten things up, “one of you should probably help me.” The words are strong enough, but there’s a sick feeling in my stomach, because this time I’m not just doing it for the scholarship. This time, I’m also doing it for Luca.