two

“YOU KNOW, you kind of have his eyes.”

Molly was supposed to be packing, but instead she and Charmaine were doing exactly what they’d been doing for months, ever since Molly’s mother had dropped the bomb: watching every Brick Berlin movie they could get on Netflix. Today’s choice was the fourth installment in the Dirk Venom series, Deadly When Prodded.

Squinting at the screen, Molly mentally compared her eyes to Brick’s. But it was hard to spot any similarities when he had blood, dirt, sweat, and—for plot reasons best ignored—traces of clown makeup all over his face.

“Don’t taunt the snake,” Brick-as-Dirk rasped, “or you’ll get the venom.” Then he shot a cape-wearing man in the face.

“They really should’ve stopped after the third movie,” groaned Charmaine. “This is embarrassing. By which I mean awesome.”

Molly glanced at her watch. It was seven o’clock already. By this time tomorrow, she’d be in Los Angeles, living with a man she’d just seen wield two machine guns on a tightrope while Megan Fox clung to his back. It was too surreal to absorb.

My dad is a movie star. My dad is a movie star.

Molly had repeated this to herself five hundred times since she’d found out, and it still hadn’t sunk in yet. Maybe number five hundred one would be the charm.

My dad is a movie star.

Nope.

Shaking her head, Molly hopped up and hauled her dilapidated avocado green suitcase onto the bed. If she didn’t hurry up and throw some stuff into it, she’d be boarding the plane to L.A. without any luggage and probably ring some kind of alarm with the feds. A long-lost daughter on the No-Fly List sounded like a twist worthy of one of Brick’s movies.

She began rooting through her dresser for things to pack that wouldn’t get her crucified in Los Angeles. Compared with all the über-trendy people she’d seen on 90210 episodes, who looked ripped out of the pages of Lucky, all Molly’s favorite stuff suddenly seemed tatty and plain.

“I have no idea how to do this,” Molly said, blowing out her cheeks. “Are running shoes even legal in Los Angeles?”

“They must be. I just read in Hey! that Jennifer Lopez is starting a sneaker line called Flan, where they’re all named after different desserts,” Charmaine said.

“Well, Hey! wouldn’t lie to you.” Molly grinned at her friend. “You’re its best customer.”

“Isn’t Fancy-Pants Private School going to make you wear a uniform, anyway? Like on Gossip Girl?”

“Oh, God, I have no idea.” Molly chewed on her bottom lip. “Should I bother bringing a coat, do you think? Does L.A. even have seasons?”

“Maybe Brick will buy you a whole new wardrobe,” Charmaine said, a faraway expression on her face. “That’s what he’d do in the movies. You’d get there and you’d have an entire closet full of Prada that fit you perfectly.”

“Too bad this is real life.”

Except it didn’t feel real. Seven months ago, Molly had been the daughter of a long-dead army captain she’d never known and a very much alive seamstress, and the only time she ever paid any attention to the celebrity rags was when Charmaine thrust one at her, usually accompanied by a frenzied query about whether or not Brody Jenner seemed like he would make a good starter husband. Now her mother was gone, and her father turned out to be a living, breathing tabloid regular with his own cologne at Walmart. It felt like having ten minutes to digest a ten-course meal: queasy-making and strange. (That could also describe Trick by Brick, which she’d snuck to the store and smelled.) Life-changing deathbed confessions happened on soap operas, not to a regular girl from West Cairo, Indiana, who ran a six-minute mile and didn’t care about her split ends.

And change generally wasn’t Molly’s thing. She’d dated the same guy since they were old enough to panic about whether kissing would make their braces lock together, she’d slept in the cozy bedroom tucked under the eaves of her grandparents’ house since her mother brought her home from the hospital as a newborn, and she’d eaten a peanut-butter sandwich for lunch almost every day since she was twelve. Even her old gold shoelaces never changed, a good-luck charm she’d gotten in eighth grade and threaded superstitiously through every new pair of sneakers she bought. Given all that, Molly couldn’t quite believe what she was about to do. In fact, secretly, she felt a little impressed with herself for deciding to go live with the dude who’d just killed Bruce Willis in the summer’s biggest blockbuster—even if this move had been basically her mother’s dying wish. Because as weird as it felt to be leaving the only home she’d ever known, Molly was excited. A fresh start after months of misery sounded like exactly the right choice. Possibly the only choice.

“Los Angeles is going to be so cool.” Charmaine sighed. “I wish I could jet off and live in a mansion. I’d make the best rich person. I’d have an electric car, like Cameron Diaz, and a butler like in Batman. I’d never empty the dishwasher again. You’re so lucky.”

Then Charmaine caught herself: “Oh, God, obviously, I don’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” Molly said. “I know what you meant.”

She sat down again on the bed.

“What do I do?” she asked. “Like, what do I say to him?”

“You say, ‘Papa, open your arms and let me in,’ ” Charmaine instructed.

“I can’t quote one of his own movies at him!” Molly laughed. “Especially not Diaper Andy.”

“Maybe you should ask him if you can have your own wing of the Bavarian castle he just bought from Nicolas Cage.”

“Good idea. Or I can ask for a job aboard his new seaworthy replica of the ship from Pirates of the Caribbean,” Molly said.

“That one actually might be true,” Charmaine said. “It was in the same In Touch where they said he insured his abs for seven figures, and that definitely sounds real.”

“I just don’t want to look like an idiot, you know?”

“You’re going to be fine, I promise,” Charmaine said. “Brick is going to be so stoked to have you there, he won’t even notice what you say. He seems really nice every time I’ve seen him on Letterman.”

Molly’s few conversations with Brick had been nice, if bizarre. The first time, he’d seemed gutted about Laurel’s death, offered Molly his condolences and then his home, and sniffled through a strange digression about the merits of Krav Maga versus karate. Molly had been too numb to say much, and she didn’t feel emotionally able to make decisions about anything other than which jeans to put on in the morning. But she’d been tempted. Moving meant escaping the ghost of Laurel that haunted her in West Cairo, where everyone knew and loved her as a happy extension of her mother. And when the doctors announced that Laurel’s chemo had failed, Molly had overheard a whispered conversation between Ginger and Miltie in which they agreed not to take the round-the-world trip they’d saved for all their lives, in favor of helping with Molly’s expenses. So after two months of people walking up to her in the street and hugging her unbidden, and watching Ginger absently caress her hopeful collection of guidebooks when she thought no one was looking, Molly had called back and accepted Brick’s offer. Her grandparents needed to escape, and so did she. For his part, Brick’s glee reverberated through the phone line so loudly that she’d had to put down the receiver for a few seconds. She’d never heard anyone whoop before.

“Do you think famous people hang out at his house all the time?” Charmaine wondered, absently rolling up pairs of socks and shoving them into Molly’s shoes. “Like, are you going to come down for breakfast, and there’s Samuel L. Jackson, eating a bagel?”

“Like Brick gets within ten feet of a carbohydrate.”

“Of course he does,” scoffed Charmaine. “Those biceps need fuel. I bet he has a chef. And a Bowflex machine.”

“Awesome! I’ll be buff in no time.”

“You know, you’re going to need that positive attitude when Brick’s other kid tries to turn you into a Scientologist.”

“I’m sure she won’t be that bad…?”

Molly couldn’t keep the question out of her voice. Brooke Berlin was the most mysterious variable in this entire scenario. Laurel had known nothing about her, and in the few short chats Molly had with Brick to discuss logistics, all he’d said was that Brooke asked for a sister for Christmas when she was eight.

“Her Wikipedia page was hilarious,” Charmaine said. “But that had to be accidental.”

“You mean, ‘Brooke Ophelia Mayflower Berlin is the regal daughter of one of Hollywood’s most cherished actor-directors, known throughout the city for her tiny ankles and tremendous talent’?” Molly recited from memory.

“You’d think anyone who allowed the Internet to say that about her would’ve thrown in a picture,” Charmaine complained.

“I wish she had,” Molly said. “She’d seem a lot less mysterious if I knew what she looked like.”

“Maybe she has a dark secret,” Charmaine said. “Like a disfiguring scar. Or a man face.”

“She might turn out to be fun,” Molly offered. “Anyone whose initials spell bomb has to be kind of entertaining, right?”

The girls giggled. Molly was hit by a wave of nostalgic, melancholy fondness for her friend. Can you miss someone before you’ve even left them? But Molly knew the answer. She’d started missing Laurel, in a hundred tiny ways, the day of her cancer diagnosis. Her eyes moistened.

“You’d better text me every day,” Charmaine said. “What did people do in the Dark Ages before cell phones?”

“Forget cell phones. We’ll need Skype,” Molly said. “I’ll be crying about whether it’s social suicide to wear this.”

She held up her favorite shirt, a tee with a hole in the collar that read “J. C. Mellencamp High School Cross-Country Hurts So Good.”

Charmaine frowned, then shrugged. “Just pack it. Be yourself,” she said. “Most of Lindsay Lohan’s closet is way worse, anyway. Just try not to turn up on Perez Hilton with your bra showing through your top.”

“I am not going to end up on Perez Hilton,” Molly said.

Charmaine cocked an eyebrow.

“Oh, my God. Am I going to end up on Perez Hilton?” Molly gasped.

“The real question is whether he writes anything on your face.”

Molly buried her head in a throw pillow.

“What am I doing?” She half laughed, half moaned. “My father is more famous than God! I’m going to have to start wearing makeup!”

“Don’t forget tooth-whitening strips,” Charmaine added.

“Do I have time to wax my forearms?”

“Yeah, and pick up some Restylane while you’re at it. You’re not truly a celebrity until you look like you’ve been punched in the mouth.”

Still giggling, Molly giddily started dumping entire drawers full of shirts into her luggage. But eventually her attention wandered out the bedroom window, where, through the dusk, she saw a beat-up truck pull in across the street at the two-story clapboard house nearly identical to her own. A lanky boy leapt out, clutching a Big Gulp. He made a beeline for Molly’s front door.

Charmaine joined Molly at the window. “Is it time?”

“It’s time.”

“Go,” Charmaine said. “I’ll… just start throwing all your random shit in boxes. You have so much stuff, I’m reporting you to Hoarders.”

Molly left Charmaine alone in her garret bedroom and plodded down the narrow, curving stairs, her good mood evaporating. She wished she could do the packing and delegate this conversation to Charmaine. If only she were already in Hollywood, she could enlist a screenwriter’s help to make sure she didn’t botch it. This was so much more than saying good-bye to some boy. This was Danny. He’d been her savior during Laurel’s chemo, bringing her mom Slurpees when they were all she could keep down, and hiding sunflowers where they’d surprise Molly just when she needed it most. They’d been together since their sandbox days, and the relationship was as comforting as the cardigan Laurel hung on the back of the chair in her sewing room. Molly was packing that sweater, but she had to find a way to leave Danny behind.

She wished she could ask Laurel what to do. Laurel always had advice. Sometimes the advice was weird—like the time she’d told Molly never to buy yellow underwear—but at least it was always worth pondering.

“How’s the packing going?” Danny greeted her when she opened the door. As always, Molly was struck by what a perfect, stereotypical swimmer he was—tall and lean, with an adorable grin, like he’d just leapt off the front of a Wheaties box.

“Charmaine’s on it,” she said.

“You know she’s just throwing out all the stuff she thinks is ugly.” He sat down on the front stoop and looked up at her. “Take a breath, Molls.”

She closed the door and took a seat next to him. The concrete was warm through her cutoffs. “I am breathing. Sort of.”

“We don’t have to do it,” he said, taking a slurp from his Big Gulp.

“Do what?”

“Have this whole weird good-bye talk. I don’t want to have it.”

His blue eyes met hers and then quickly flicked away.

“Denial,” she said. “Interesting strategy.”

“I think it could work,” he said, running a hand through the strawberry blond thicket of hair she knew he’d shave off right before the first regional swim meet.

“Danny…” Molly began. “The last few months… I mean, did I even say thank you?”

“No need,” Danny insisted. “You’re my best friend. And I didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for me.”

He slung a long arm over her shoulder. “Look, I know things haven’t always been perfect. But we’re Molly and Danny, you know? It’s gonna be okay. We’re always okay,” he said. “Just remember, I love you like Homer Simpson loves beer.”

“Like a mean kid loves dodgeball.”

“Like a dog loves a fire hydrant.”

This was their ritual. It could go on for as long as forty-five minutes, and once made Charmaine threaten to stab them both with a fork.

Danny leaned in and kissed her, his mouth warm and familiar and tasting ever so slightly of Dr Pepper. Behind them, in the house, Molly could hear Charmaine screech, followed by a loud crash.

Danny pulled away. “You’d better go rescue her.”

“I don’t know how to do this without you.” Molly choked, feeling that familiar pricking sensation behind her eyes. At this rate Indiana would put a water conservation ban on her tear ducts.

Danny stood and pulled her to her feet. He kissed her once more, hard and fast on the mouth.

“Call me when you get to L.A.,” he said.

“I will.”

Danny dropped his arms. With one last look, he crossed her front lawn as quickly as he ever had.

Molly turned to go back inside and saw a sunflower poking out of the mail slot in the front door. She hadn’t noticed it, didn’t even know when he’d done it, but it was perfect and perfectly heartbreaking. She turned around to wave it at him, to clutch it to her chest and thank him, but Danny was already gone. Another ghost.