Chapter 12
Kiki must really be a miracle worker, because everything around me is starting to look better, not just my outlook. The mattresses in the room make it cozier, the bathroom is much improved, and the musty odor is gone. It actually smells pleasant.
No, wait. That’s not my imagination. Next to the brochure of the observatory is a plate of food left for me on the kitchen counter.
At least my mom didn’t completely forget about me.
It reminds me of Carolina’s meals, which were presented to me on a marble tray under a glass dome.
But, like, the poor man’s version. I pare my expectations for whatever is left for me on the plate.
Stale bread, a piece of cheese, maybe even an apple.
Underneath a film of plastic wrap, however, I’m surprised to find something more palatable. Eggs Benedict?
It isn’t until I peel the plastic wrap off that I notice the eggs Benedict look different from the ones I’m used to.
Instead of an English muffin, the poached eggs slathered in hollandaise sauce are sitting on top of rice that has been shaped into a mound with a chopped-up layer of something in the middle.
When I take my first bite, the flavors burst in my mouth.
The mystery layer is sautéed chives, and the rice has been fried so that it’s crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.
At least we don’t have to eat like we’re prisoners, even though our accommodations may suggest otherwise.
When did Mom learn to cook like this? What am I saying? When did she learn to cook, period?
Mom is not someone who works with her hands.
Every year, Brenthaven organizes a community service day where we go to the inner city and paint over graffitied walls or plant flowers in underfunded communities.
Parents are always encouraged to come and do the work with us, but Mom always declines.
Instead she writes a check, which is the extent of hands-on that she gets.
I guess if Mom is making an effort, I should take her suggestion to get to know the place better more seriously.
And who knows? Maybe I will like it here.
I get ready to go to the convenience store, where I intend to pay Callie back with cash our parents left us, but there’s something else I have to do first. Yesterday’s outing was unsettling.
I’m not used to being in a place where I’m not the life of the party.
So, fueled mostly by curiosity and a little bit of denial, I’ve come up with a plan to remedy that.
The bell on the door jangles when I push it open, and Hal looks up.
I nod at him. He grunts back, charming as ever.
I waste no time and make a beeline to the refrigerated section in the back.
If my time in the media spotlight has taught me anything, it’s that fun and alcohol are synonymous.
So I grab a subpar—but probably good enough for the locals—bottle of vodka and a jug of orange juice.
In a town with a population of a hundred and fifty, I’m bound to run into someone as desperate as I am for fun.
When I do, I’ll invite them over. They’ll bring their friends, we’ll play drinking games, and, bam, I’ll be back to being the life of the party.
So maybe Gavin’s right after all. Maybe I am going to pull an Elena.
I confidently place my items at the cash register and wait for Hal to ring me up. With money to pay him this time, I won’t encounter the same embarrassment from yesterday.
He starts ringing up the items and stops when he gets to the bottle of vodka. “Do you have ID?” he asks.
On reflex I swat a hand at him, as if it’s ridiculous he’s even asking.
“ID?” I giggle. When he remains unmoved, I falter.
“I didn’t bring one with me. Is that going to be a problem?
” As much as I don’t want to encourage him, I realize that without my reputation to carry me, I’ll have to resort to something a little more foolproof.
Leaning my body against the counter, I bat my lashes and then wait a beat before gazing directly into his eyes and pursing my lips ever so slightly.
“I can’t sell this to you without seeing proper ID,” he says in a voice resembling a low growl.
I blanch. How did that not work? “Are you sure you can’t look the other way, just this once?”
He doesn’t respond, but his expression—brows clenched and a glare that’s just shy of menacing—says it all.
Then, in a moment of weakness, I hear the words come out of me before it’s too late. “Do you know who I am?” Immediately I recoil. Am I that desperate that I’ve lost all sense of decorum? I mean, I may as well have asked to speak to the manager while I was at it.
“No, I don’t. Should I?” he says, revealing what I feared the most. No one cares who I am here.
“No, guess not,” I mutter pitifully.
“Great,” he deadpans. “That’ll be five even.” For once I’m grateful that this place is the land of the forgotten. If this were LA, my Big Karen Energy would have gone viral by now, canceling me indefinitely.
I leave the store with a bruised ego and a jug of orange juice I have no intention of drinking. I’m in a daze, and I nearly walk right in front of a white Jeep Wrangler pulling into the parking lot. A second later, after the Jeep parks, the door opens.
“Hey,” Callie says, walking toward me. “Sorry I startled you. It seemed like you were lost in thought.”
“Yeah, I must have been.”
“I just realized I know who you are. You’re Elena Ok,” she says, catching me completely by surprise.
“Oh my God, yes.” Finally she gets it.
“You live at the property on Blaire Road, don’t you?” Callie continues.
I falter. It’s not exactly what I’m known for. And if she didn’t know who I was before yesterday, I’m pretty sure that whatever she’s learned about me in the past twenty-four hours can’t be good.
Her lips curl up, as if she knows our secret. I brace myself for it. “My dad’s Officer Hartford,” she says. “He said he stopped by your place earlier for suspicious activity. He mentioned new tenants.”
“Oh, right,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed.
So Callie doesn’t know who I am, not really.
“We learned our lesson the hard way. No more Bluetooth.” I point to my ear and laugh, probably a little too loudly.
Luckily, Callie doesn’t seem to notice my strange behavior.
Come to think of it, why would she, when she has no idea how I am normally?
After I regain clarity over the situation, I remember something. “I have your money,” I say, handing her two twenty-dollar bills from my pocket.
“I almost forgot about that. Thanks.” She pockets the twenties, then opens her trunk and pulls out a box of jars.
“So, do you work here?” I ask, taking a peek at the contents of the box. There are some jars of honey, which I remember Callie saying her family makes. But there’s also a variety of other jars and oils along with them.
She stares at me curiously. “Oh,” she says, then laughs. “I’m sure that’s what it looked like. But, no, I don’t work here. I collect the locally sourced products and deliver them to the store.”
“But I thought the farmers all moved out of town because of some radioactive observatory,” I say, thinking out loud.
She laughs again, then stops when she realizes I’m not joking. “Oh, you’re being serious? Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. It’s just that most people move here because of the radio telescope at the observatory. I assumed it’s what brought you here too.”
I shake my head. “Our tenants left, so we’re fixing up the house while it’s empty.”
“That makes sense,” she says, easily buying my story. “Most of the families left when the observatory was built. Some of us, including my family, maintain a small portion of the property that was farmed long ago as a kind of homage to the past.”
Farming as a hobby? Maybe that’s why my family seems so at home here. They’re among their people.
“Is it just you and your brother here?” she asks.
“No, I live with my parents as well. I’m only seventeen; they’d never let me move out on my own.” Yet.
“We’re the same age.” Her face lights up, and I find myself smiling with her. “I’m an intern at the observatory this summer, but I’ll be a senior at Blaire High School in the fall.”
“Same,” I say. “I mean, not that I’m going to Blaire High, but I’ll be a senior in the fall too.” A second later I realize she may ask more questions about where I go to school or where we came from—questions I don’t want to answer. So I change the subject. “You’re an intern at the observatory?”
She nods. “I’m headed there now and can show you around if you have time.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Maybe next time,” I say. Knowing Gavin is there at this very moment, I would rather be anywhere but the observatory. “What do people do for fun around here?”
“Fun?” She considers the word. “There’s not much…,” she starts saying, and my frown deepens. “But Blaire does have one place where most of the locals hang out.”
“Hang out?” I perk up.
“Yeah, it’s a cafe. Would you like to go? I can take you there now,” she offers.
“I don’t want to make you late for work.”
“Oh, you won’t,” she says with a curious smile I don’t know what to make of. “Let me just drop off these things, and we can go.” She lifts the box in her hand.
I tell Callie I’ll wait for her by her car, since I’d rather not see Hal again. Somehow he is impervious to my charm. I’m a person who usually likes to confront my haters head-on, but in this case, in the absence of my cloak of invisibility, a.k.a. my reputation, I think avoidance is best.
Callie is back in a flash, and we both hop into her Jeep. She revs her engine on and starts driving down the path, and in the far distance I see a crossroads.
“Is it far from here?”
“Not too far. Just left at the fork in the road.” She points. When we turn at the intersection, there’s a satellite-dish-looking structure peeking out of the treetop landscape that looks like it came right out of a science fiction movie.
“That’s the radio telescope,” she explains. “Isn’t it cool?”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to conjure up enthusiasm.
“And this is the main building of the Blaire Observatory.” She pulls into the parking lot of a stand-alone brick building that is bigger and notably nicer than anything else in this town, similar to the ones on Wilshire.
“Wait. I thought we were going to a cafe.”
“We are,” she says with the same coy smile.
Even though I don’t comprehend, I follow her into the building, where she takes me through the large open space of the lobby, which is lined with linoleum-tiled floors and tall ceilings with exposed pipes, making it seem slightly industrial.
There are a handful of people coming in and out of the elevators, but it’s otherwise empty.
“The cafe’s this way,” she says, heading toward an archway at the end of the lobby.
We’re technically in the same building when we walk through the archway, but the look and feel of the place become strikingly different.
Where the lobby is sterile, like a hospital, the cafe is cozy, with colorful red booths and natural-wood-paneled walls.
“I’m sure you noticed, but Blaire is a small town, so the cafeteria isn’t only for the observatory’s employees; it’s for everyone in the town,” she says.
“Oh, that makes sense,” I say.
“Why don’t you find a table for us to sit at, and I’ll grab us some water?”
“Great. I could use a Perrier.” While Callie leaves, I look for a place to sit.
Most of the tables and booths are occupied, and the room is filled with a white noise of pleasant conversation.
It feels welcoming to be among other people.
As though this were a civilized society.
Maybe there’s hope for this place after all.
That is, until I spot an eyesore.
“Ew, what’re you doing here?” I find myself staring at Gavin sitting comfortably in one of the booths. “I thought you were on a tour. Or did you just tell Mom and Dad that you were going so you could uphold your reputation as the responsible one?”
Gavin folds the menu and sets it down with an eye roll. “As it turns out, I did go on the tour. It just ended, and I happen to be here with a friend. He’s getting me a drink.”
“Ha,” I say dryly. “Your first mistake was not coming up with a more believable lie.”
Gavin somehow finds my comment offensive. “I am capable of making friends.”
“Since when? And don’t say Sonya, because she doesn’t count.” I tsk.
“He works at the observatory,” he says, unamused.
“Sure he does, Gavin,” I say, playing along.
“And I bet he’s really smart, good-looking, athletic, and all the things you imagined him to be.
” Just then, a guy who eerily fits the description I uttered approaches us.
I’m stunned by his sudden appearance. I wonder if it would work if I wished for a different life.
Nope. Still here.
“Sorry about the wait,” he says, handing Gavin a coffee. Then he sits down in the booth across from him.
This is Gavin’s new friend?