Chapter Two

Twenty Years Earlier

Zoey never quite felt like she fit into her parents’ world. They were all glamour and drama and paparazzi flashbulbs. She was more swing-from-the-monkey-bars-and-fall-off-and-break-a-wrist, or better yet scale the ridiculously tall fence that surrounded their imposing Malibu mansion and scrabble down the rocks to the beach, far below. Their world had never interested her.

And after the horrible night at that kid Tanner’s place, God, she wanted nothing to do with her parents. Whatever they were taking part in was not something she wanted to know about. Seeing those men with those things sticking out from between their legs about made her die. And the women, with freakishly huge boobs that looked like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats. Yeesh. Her chest was as flat as an ironing board so she couldn’t relate to that and honestly, those things scared her. If she ever grew something like them, she’d seek medical assistance to get rid of ’em. That night, it was as if they’d walked in on some Monster’s Ball. Only at least the monsters would probably be covered in fur or something. Not naked with those icky things sticking out. Yuck. A good month had passed since then, and still, it made her sick to her stomach to think about that night.

Tonight her folks were forcing her to go to some stupid movie premiere, which she totally didn’t want to do. Her mother’s stylist had shoved some annoying prissy dress on her and even stuck a bow in her hair plus swiped on lipstick—lipstick of all things!—and she felt like an idiot. Besides, she had two skinned knees, and everyone would know she wasn’t a dress-up kind of girl anyhow, so what was the point?

These movie premieres were the worst—she felt like an animal at the zoo. Her parents put on their acting faces and slathered her with false affection for the cameras as they stood in front of the step and repeat banner—the one with the movie name repeated like wallpaper. There, they posed for photographers who took a million and one pictures of them and pretended to want to be there.

Zoey had been doing these things since she was a baby—her mother called them dog and pony shows. Although she felt more like Koko the Gorilla, with everyone pointing at them and popping off pictures like she was some freak exotic animal.

She never paid attention to whatever her parents were starring in. This was a business in her family and she was a kind of prop for them, to be honest. It was good business for them to appear to be kind, warm, loving parents, and as talented actors, they did a good job of pulling that off.

Her mother held her hand and her father wrapped his arm around her mother as they walked toward the banner. And that’s when she caught a glimpse of him—Tanner, the kid she was with when she saw their parents naked. Standing with his gross parents. The boy she never ever wanted to see again because it made her want to throw up thinking about what they’d seen together. It was beyond embarrassing. How was she to know his parents were involved with this stupid movie?

The sound of the crowds gathering for the premiere grew louder in her ears. Or maybe it was her heart beating harder, pumping the blood through her veins too fast. The whole thing was awful. She couldn’t look at his parents without seeing them stark naked, his dad with that, that, that thing sticking out like it did. His mother with some man’s hands on her private parts like he was petting a dog.

Before she could pull herself away, her mother guided Zoey up to the banner right alongside Tanner’s family, and damn if she wasn’t stuck standing right next to him, which made it all the worse. Her face must be the color of that tomato sauce Mr. Puck always made for her when her parents dragged her to Spago’s for dinner.

She tried to pretend Tanner wasn’t there but then the photographers were telling them to hold hands and God, no, she couldn’t touch him! His father’s icky thing had been sticking out at the swimming pool. It was all so dreadful. Tanner was reaching for her hand—he told her he always followed the rules—and she kept trying to shake her hand away like she had a dead bug stuck to it she needed to get rid of, but the photographers were insisting.

“Zoey, grab the boy’s hand,” her mother said through gritted teeth with one of those fake smiles that said, “I’m going to spank you with a wooden spoon so hard your butt is going to be too sore to sit on if you don’t listen to me,” while telling the cameras she was the best mother on the planet.

Just as Tanner’s fingers clasped around her hand, Zoey couldn’t help herself. She drew back her right arm, as if she’d actually done this before, pivoted her body, putting the full force of herself into it, and ka-pow, her nine-year-old fist made contact with Tanner’s nose. There was a loud gasp and her knuckles hurt and then he screamed out. Her mother grabbed her by the arm so hard she thought it might be dislocated at the shoulder.

And then Tanner was crying loud, aching sobs. He clutched on to his mother, and his nose was bleeding. Zoey was dragged away like a rag doll, but she could see him crying and bleeding and she felt bad, but she couldn’t help herself, it was all so awful. And she kept hearing him cry.

When the movie reviews came out the next day her father was reading the paper over breakfast and looked up over the top edge of the paper while she pushed a soggy bite of pancake around in a puddle of syrup with her fork. It was a wonder she could sit at the table because her butt was so sore from the wooden spoon spanking she received.

“I don’t know what you were thinking, young lady,” her father said to her in that stern voice that dads used to scare children, “but that was unacceptable behavior.” He then turned to look at her mother and winked. “That said, you did us all a bit of a favor. Because we knew this movie would bomb at the box office, but as they say, no such thing as bad publicity. You’ll probably bring thousands more people to the theaters to see this stinker with that bizarre little maneuver of yours.”

Her mother laughed, a tinkly little laugh that made her sound like the ingénue she wanted the world to think she was.

Zoey felt horrible for what she’d done to Tanner. But she had no way to even apologize to him. This would be the first of many lessons on why she wasn’t cut out to be the daughter of movie stars.