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Two bar stools under the fold-out windows were vacant, and we sat on them while we ate. And then, just when I thought the night couldn’t get any better, three familiar pedestrians walked up to the open windows.
“Are there any more chairs around that side?” Isaac asked, and I stood up to hug them awkwardly over the counter.
“We’ll make space,” I said. “I’ll sit on your lap if I need to.”
“Count me out of that,” Dad said. “But you can have my stool. I need to find Bob.”
He slipped through the crowd as Dean, Isaac, and Wyatt came inside and joined me, each of them munching on a slice of pizza that they must have found on their way past the kitchen.
“How does it feel knowing that in twenty-four hours, you’ll be on your way to a new life?” Dean asked, and a jolt of nervous excitement shot through me at his words.
“There’s nothing wrong with my old life,” I said, gesturing at everyone who had turned up. “But… incredible. Terrifying. Thrilling.”
“Good.” Dean gave me a smile when I frowned in confusion. “All the best changes are scary. You’ll learn that with us.”
Us. He was talking as though they were already a unit, and that sounded like a very good sign.
“Can I have everyone’s attention for a moment?” Bob called out, and a chorus of “shhh” sounds put a stop to all the conversations happening around us. Like Preston last night, he’d set up a video display, this time on a projector that was aimed at the white brick wall. “I don’t know if everyone is aware, but we have a big movie star — sorry,four,” he corrected himself when he saw Dean, Isaac and Wyatt,“big movie stars in our midst.”
There was a round of applause as heads turned in our direction. When they turned back to Bob, he continued. “As you know, Kyla has been a valuable part of our Bob’s Books and Bites family for the past five years. Now, I don’t know if any of you are aware of this, but Kyla’s acting career started way back when she was tiny. Yes, even tinier than she is now.” A few people chuckled at his joke as I wondered what he was talking about.The first time I’d ever acted was in my high school musical, and even though six years had passed, I was the same size then as I was now.
Bob used a remote control to start the projector, and I was met with video footage of April and me as children in April’s backyard.
I frowned. Everything looked familiar — the dog kennel, the Hills Hoist clothesline, the swing set — but I couldn’t remember that day, or the red overalls I was wearing. Nor could I remember the green dress that April wore. We were five or six, judging by our size, and the way we grinned at the camera without any self-consciousness.
“Hey Trixie,” I said, and my lower lip wobbled as I tried to remember my line. “What comes next?”
“Hey Trixie, isn’t the weather great today?” my mom’s voice said from offscreen. I grinned again and repeated the line, and April pouted.
“Nuh-uh. Look at all the clouds.”
And then… there was my mother, wearing a blue dress with white paper clouds pinned to it.
“Is she supposed to be Mother Nature?” Dean asked, and I groaned as April called her exactly that.
“I guess so.”
The play continued on, as ridiculous as you’d expect for something written by two six-year-olds, and in the next scene we danced with umbrellas. My mom recited every line with absolute sincerity, and at the end of the play, which came after about five minutes, we took a bow on screen while our real-life audience clapped.
“You didn’t tell me your mom was an actress!” Wyatt said, as he nudged me in the ribs.
“She wasn’t… but maybe she should have been.”
I kept watching the brick wall long after the projector switched off and everyone went back to the party.
If Mom knew that I was flying to Hollywood and embarking on a scary new career path, would she be proud of me?
I wasn’t sure, but I hoped so.
45
KYLA
Dean, Isaac and Wyatt must have been used to traveling by air, but I had never been on an airplane before. Ironically, my parents always believed that driving was safer than flying and after mom died, my dad and I stopped going on holidays at all.
On the drive to the airport, I was as excited as a puppy, pressing my nose against the window so I could see the view. Country highways melted into industrial areas, then suburbs, then high-rise buildings and finally, more highways as massive planes took off above us, some of them flying so low it looked like we could reach through the skylight and touch them. The driver dropped us off outside the international terminal and the guys kept their sunglasses on as they dragged their suitcases inside. Nobody was going to recognize me since the movie hadn’t been released yet, so I didn’t bother trying to cover my face. We didn’t need to join the queue that snaked up to the check-in counters — an airline staffer rushed out from the back room to check us in and take our luggage.
“Four first-class tickets to Los Angeles,” she said as she handed them over. “Enjoy your flight.”
