IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE FOR Mel to keep her secret a secret. By the end of school the next day, it seemed as if the whole world knew about Justin Hart and Melanie Braderman.
Things started in the cafeteria at lunchtime. Mel, brooding, was just settling down at a table with Diana and two other girls, Valerie and Jane, when Dee ran over to them, waving a copy of People.
Mel realized what was coming. She wished she were an ostrich so she could bury her head in the sand.
“Mel! Mel!” shouted Dee. “Have you seen this? Have you seen this? It’s Justin. Your Justin! The guy everyone’s talking about is Justin Hart!”
Mel nodded slowly. “I know.” (Why couldn’t Dee have confronted her at home?)
“You know?” Dee repeated. She pulled up a chair and sat down with Mel and her friends. Mel figured that Dee must be out of her mind with excitement. That was the only way to explain a junior voluntarily sitting at a table with a bunch of freshmen. “You mean all last month you knew about this and kept it quiet?” Dee regarded Mel with a look that was annoyance mingled with surprise and respect.
“What?” asked Diana. “What about Justin Hart…Mel?”
“Yeah…what?” echoed Valerie and Jane.
“Mel met this guy on Fire Island over the summer. They went out for an entire month,” Dee explained.
“You did?” Valerie and Jane’s eyes grew as wide as saucers.
Diana’s practically dropped out of their sockets. “The guy you told me about is Justin Hart? Oh, wow—your Justin is this Justin!”
Mel slid a fraction of an inch further down in her seat. She nodded miserably.
“And you knew?” Dee asked again.
Mel didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to lie, but she felt foolish admitting that, in fact, she was as surprised as Dee and her friends were. Her astonishment at Justin was slowly mixing with anger. He had humiliated her.
Suddenly Mel stood up. She had decided that she didn’t have to answer any questions. “I don’t feel like discussing it,” was all she said. Leaving her uneaten lunch behind, she stalked out of the cafeteria.
Mel did her best to avoid her sister and friends in school that afternoon. She knew she owed Diana and Dee, at least, some sort of explanation, but she couldn’t face them. Not yet.
The first thing Mel did when she got home was ask permission to lock herself in her parents’ room and phone Lacey, something she should have done the previous afternoon when she tried to call her. She warned her mother that it might be a long call and said that she would pay for it when the bill came. Mrs. Braderman, seeing that Mel was upset, immediately gave her permission and didn’t ask any questions.
Mel settled herself on her parents’ bed. She checked her watch. There was a good chance that Lacey wasn’t back from school yet. She usually took the subway home, and, since Mel had been on the subway herself several times, she was surprised Lacey ever made it home at all, let alone late.
But she dialed the Reeders’ number anyway.
Someone picked up after the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hello…Lacey?” Mel found it hard to tell Lacey and Jeanmarie apart over the phone.
“Yes…Mel?”
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m so glad you’re home. I really didn’t think you would be.”
“Mel, I raced home today. I mean, I took a taxi from school just to get home as fast as possible.” Lacey’s voice sounded breathless and excited.
“You did? Why?” asked Mel. “What’s up?”
“What’s up? Are you kidding? Have you seen People magazine?”
“Oh…Yes. That’s why I’m—”
“Can you believe it?! Justin was famous, or almost famous, and he never let on…did he? Did he tell you?”
“No.”
There was a pause.
“Mel?” asked Lacey. “What’s wrong? Something’s wrong. I can tell.”
“Well, I’m mad, that’s what’s wrong. This is so humiliating. I feel like a fool. Everyone is running around waving copies of People in my face and being impressed that I went out with Justin Hart, and then I have to admit that I didn’t know he was a big star—or going to be a big star—either. Why would he keep that from me?”
“You mean,” said Lacey after a moment, “you really didn’t know about any of this?”
“Not a word. If I did, I would have told you. I tell you everything…Why do you think he did this?”
“I don’t know. But you know what I think you should do?”
“What?”
“Call him and ask him point blank.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. You’re Melanie Braderman. You’re not afraid of things like—”
“It’s not that,” Mel interrupted Lacey. “I don’t have his phone numbers or addresses. He didn’t give them to me because he said both his parents were moving this month. He said he’d give me the new numbers and addresses later.”
“Well,” said Lacey practically, “I’m sitting right next to a New York City phone book. I’ll just look his parents up for you. We’ll find out where they are now.”
“Oh, Lacey! What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Hold on just a sec.” Mel could hear a thunk as Lacey put the receiver down, and then the sound of pages turning. After a moment, Lacey got the phone again. “I hope you know his parents’ first names,” she said. “There are three and a half columns of Harts.”
Mel groaned. “I don’t know. I mean, I think Justin mentioned the names, but it’ll take me a while to remember them…Lacey, tell me the truth. Why do you think Justin kept all this a secret?”
Lacey sighed. “Well, he’s shy. He probably just didn’t want to talk about himself too much.”
“But it was almost as if he lied to me. He mentioned his work in New York a couple of times, but he never said what it was. I assumed he was, I don’t know, a clerk in an office, or a gofer or an assistant somewhere. But he must have been filming instead, probably working on the TV series. You know what I think? I think I was convenient. I think I was someone nice to pal around with in a place where he didn’t know anybody, but now that he’s a star, he can have his pick of starlets. He doesn’t need me anymore. Did you see that gorgeous Tania Delaney who plays his sister? She’s a hundred times prettier than I am. And she’s glamorous—”
“Mel,” said Lacey, “stop it. I wish you could hear yourself.”
“But think about it,” Mel rushed on. “This must be why he didn’t give me a phone number. He didn’t want me to call him. He doesn’t need plain, skinny old Melanie Braderman anymore.”
“Mel, stop,” Lacey said sharply. “I didn’t get to know Justin very well, but from what I saw, he seemed honest and straightforward…and just plain nice. What I want you to do is get off the phone and think seriously about your relationship with Justin. Try to remember conversations you had, and the things he said to you and how he looked when he said them. After you relive it all, if you still think the whole thing was a farce, then you can worry.”
Mel took Lacey’s advice. When they got off the phone, she went to her own room, stretched out on her bed, crossed her legs, put her hands behind her head, and leaned against the wall. She remembered that the first time she had met Justin, Timmy had injured him. Justin had seemed pleasant but eager to be on his way. He had looked like a loner.
She remembered that she had made all the next moves—following Justin and spying on him—and that she had been interested in him—even concerned about him—because he was always by himself.
She remembered that Justin hadn’t taken any interest in her until he had been overcome with curiosity about the person spying on his house with binoculars.
What did all that tell her? It told her that Justin wouldn’t even have noticed her if she hadn’t gone after him. On the other hand, Mel reminded herself, once Justin had become interested in her, he hadn’t (as far as she knew) paid attention to any other girls in Davis Park, even though there were gorgeous, available ones (like Lacey) everywhere you looked. Justin had chosen Mel and stuck with her.
She felt a bit better.
Then, as Lacey had suggested, Mel tried to remember some of the talks she and Justin had had. She recalled reciting the Robert Louis Stevenson poem with him. Then bits of actual conversation came back: Justin saying, “The sun’s out and I thought maybe we could take a walk.” And “I’ve only known you for two days, but it feels like a lot longer…I wish it didn’t feel so long…Because it’s going to be so hard to leave.” And other things—talks about freshman year and fights with friends and how it feels to be a “divorced” kid. Would Justin have said those things, divulged those feelings, to someone he didn’t really care about? Mel didn’t think so.
She felt even better.
She tried to conjure up Justin’s face. When she couldn’t do it vividly enough, she pulled People out from her desk drawer and gazed at him. Slowly she found herself lost in the feelings of their first kiss, lips meeting tenderly, hearts pounding.
With a rush of pleasure and relief, Mel realized that she was still in love with Justin Hart, and that he was in love with her, or at least had been over the summer. She thought she understood why he had wanted just a summer romance, but she didn’t know why he had kept his work a secret from her. And she felt she had a right to know. Mel decided that summer or autumn, phone number or no phone number, she had to see Justin once more. She had to talk to him. The question was—how?