THE NEXT DAY, WEDNESDAY, Mel was in a daze because of what she’d done the night before. She’d called a boy—a popular boy—and asked him to go to the movies with her, and he’d said yes. Just like that.
Diana had nearly killed Mel because no chase had been involved. No chase whatsoever. But Mel pointed out that her mind certainly had been taken off of Justin. Diana had to agree.
After school that day, Mrs. Braderman drove downtown to do some errands, and Mel and Dee went with her. While their mother was in the lingerie shop, the girls browsed through a magazine store. Dee immediately headed for the beauty magazines, while Mel checked out the tabloids (or “rags,” as Lacey called them). She looked them over eagerly. “Live Alien Found in Cow’s Stomach,” she read. “Baffled vet thought cow was pregnant.” She glanced at another. “Possessed Car Drives Owner to New Jersey.”
Mel smiled. Then she turned away from the tabloids. She knew the real reason she had wanted to go in the store, and it was time to do something about it.
Mel found the shelf with the current issues of the most popular magazines on it, and scanned it for People, as well as for the new issue of TV Guide, which she hoped would be the Fall Preview issue. She found the TV Guide first. Bold red letters on a banner across the front of the magazine assured her that it was, in fact, the Fall Preview. Mel picked it up without bothering to look inside, and continued her search for People. She couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Can I help you, miss?” someone asked.
Mel turned to find a store clerk at her elbow. “I’m looking for People magazine,” she said. “The newest one. I was sure it would be here somewhere.”
“It is. It’s been going like hotcakes, though. Has that new star on the front—what’s-his-name. Jason somebody. Pete’s bringing another load in from the back. If you’ll wait just—Oh, here he is now.”
A young boy was struggling toward the front of the store, staggering under a huge stack of bundles of magazines.
“Got a new People in there for the little lady?” the store clerk asked the boy.
Pete dropped his load ungracefully at Mel’s feet. “Sure,” he replied. He looked through the bundles, selected one, untied the strings that bound it, pulled out a magazine, and handed it to Mel.
It was backside up. Mel closed her eyes and turned it over.
She opened her eyes.
Justin smiled up at her from the cover.
It really was Justin. No question about it. Mel could do nothing but stare down at his handsome face.
“Everything all right?” she heard Pete ask.
Mel was unable to answer him.
The clerk shook his head and shot a knowing look at Pete. “Crazy teenager,” he muttered.
Pete grinned and went to work untying the rest of the bundles.
Still, Mel could not move. She held the TV Guide in one hand and People in the other and stared down at Justin Hart.
“You want to buy those,” the clerk asked, “or just stand there and stare at ’em?”
Mel snapped back to reality. She realized that the clerk was losing patience with her and hoped that Dee hadn’t noticed. But Dee was across the store, looking at fashion magazines.
“Buy them,” Mel replied. “Thank you.” The clerk stepped behind the cash register at the counter, and Mel handed him the magazines and a five-dollar bill. He slipped the magazines into a bag and handed it and the change back to Mel.
She threaded her way through the racks to Dee. “We better go,” she told her shakily. “We’re supposed to meet Mom in a few minutes.”
Dee didn’t look up. “Okay,” she replied vaguely. “Mel, how do you think I would look if I got my hair permed?”
“Like a poodle.” Mel was anxious to go home. She wanted to read her magazines, but she wanted to read them in private, although she wasn’t sure why.
Dee returned the copy of Seventeen to its place on the rack.
“Are you going to buy anything?” asked Mel.
“I don’t know.” Dee noticed Mel’s bag. “What’d you buy?”
“Oh…nothing.”
“‘Oh…nothing’ always means something. What is it? Scientific American!”
“You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Probably not. All right, let me just find out if they have the new People, and then we’ll go.”
“They—they don’t!” Mel said hurriedly. “I just asked.”
“They don’t?” Dee looked so disappointed that Mel felt guilty.
“The clerk said they’ve been selling like hotcakes.”
“Oh. Darn.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Mel.
“Everyone at school’s talking about the guy on the cover. They say he’s absolutely dreamy. I’m dying to see the article. Oh, well. Somebody’ll bring it to school tomorrow.”
Mel and Dee left the store, Mel carefully steering Dee in a path that avoided the rack of current magazines. They met their mother at the car.
By then, Mel was frantic to get home, escape to her room, and open the cover of People. No, she didn’t even want to open the cover—at first. She just wanted to stare down at Justin’s gorgeous face…and try to figure out what it was doing on the cover of a magazine.
Silently she urged her mother through every red light and stop sign. When Mrs. Braderman finally pulled into their driveway, Mel was out the door before the ignition had been turned off.
“What’s Mel’s hurry?” she heard her mother ask.
“Don’t know,” replied Dee. “She was acting funny in the store, though. It’s probably just a stage she’s going through.”
Mel was too panicked over Justin to bother to defend herself. She tore upstairs to her room, closed her door, flung herself on her bed, got up again, locked the door, and returned to her bed.
At last she could read in peace.
She withdrew People from the paper bag as if she were handling a rare jewel. Holding her breath, she gazed down at the cover—at Justin’s head of dark curls; at the freckles marching from cheekbone to cheekbone, crossing the bridge of his nose; at his gray eyes. Mel knew Justin well enough to see that even though he was smiling broadly, the smile was his shy one. She kept looking at him and noticed a small space between his top front teeth. “Why didn’t I see that before?” she wondered.
Mel remembered that the store clerk had referred to Justin as “that new star.” However, he had also called him Jason, so maybe he was wrong. Maybe Justin wasn’t on the cover because he was a star. Maybe he had done something really important, like developed a radical, new, nonpolluting form of energy. Or maybe he was a self-made millionaire.
Gingerly, Mel opened the magazine to the table of contents. Cover story—page 56. She then opened the magazine, turning directly to page 56, and wondered if that were some sort of sign. She took a deep breath and began to read about Justin Hart.
When she finished, she let the magazine slide off her lap. She leaned against the headboard in a daze. Justin was a star. No, he was more than a star. He was the hot new teen idol. He was going to be what Ricky Nelson had been to young fans in the fifties, or what Michael J. Fox was to fans in the eighties—known by all, enjoyed by most, and adored by most girls.
Mel sighed.
A year or two earlier, Justin had scarcely been known. He’d done some modeling, he’d done some voice-overs, and he’d appeared in several commercials. Mel remembered the commercials mentioned in People and tried to place Justin in them, but she couldn’t do it.
Then, in the past year, he had made two movies and been cast in the central role of Zack in a new television series. Everything was breaking at once—the movies, the TV show, and lots of articles and attention. (Justin’s press agent must be working overtime, Mel decided.) Soon the face of Justin Hart would be as familiar to the American public as the face of the president of the United States.
Mel flipped through TV Guide, looking for a description of “It’s No Joke,” the show Justin would star in. She found it, along with a posed photo of the cast members and a close-up of Justin. The caption under it read: “Meet Justin, the nation’s new ‘Hart-Throb.’” Mel groaned, then scanned the blurb about the show.
“‘It’s No Joke,’ ” it read, “the continuing story of the Brodys, a family facing today’s problems with a sense of humor.” She read on. The rest of the cast included a mother, a father, a grandfather, an older brother, a little brother, and a younger sister.
Mel took a close look at Tania Delaney, the girl who played Zack’s sister, Susannah. She seemed to be about Mel’s age, but was entirely too pretty. In fact, she was gorgeous.
Suddenly feeling shaky, Mel slapped the TV Guide closed and leaped up. She needed to talk to somebody, but not anyone in her family. They wouldn’t have answers, just star-struck questions, and questions were not what Mel needed.
As silently as she could, Mel crossed her room and stood at her door. She listened for a moment. Not a sound. She turned the lock, opened the door, and peeped into the hallway. More silence. Mel tiptoed into her parents’ room, closed the door, sat down on their bed, and reached for the phone.
She dialed Lacey’s number.
Ring…ring… ring…ring. Mel let it ring fifteen times before she gave up.
She returned to her bedroom and closed the door again.
Why, she wondered, had Justin kept the truth from her?