Jeans of a Star

It had been a year since I had seen him. One long, grueling year, in which I had suffered through twelve university courses, a part time job, and three different break-ups - university being the worst, though.

If it had been a year earlier, he would have been the first person I said hello to. I would have walked up to him, gotten one of his perfect, warm hugs, and listened to him bitch about how he’d gotten stuck in traffic. That was always a problem for him, it seemed.

I probably could have gotten away with a hello – it was his party after all – but even that seemed strange. There was so much I wanted to say to him that a simple hello would never suffice. And there was always the chance that he wouldn’t remember my name. It seemed unlikely, since we had known one another for a large portion of our lives, but I had heard about it happening with celebrities before.

A girl in one of my psychology classes talked about how Justin Timberlake, her supposed cousin, hardly acknowledged her, but I had no clue how much truth there was to that statement. She was hardly pretty enough to be related to a God like him.

But, Dave had never been like most celebrities. He had never let the fame go to his head. Even with all the money and fans, he made time for his friends, even if it was just shout-out tweets and small get-togethers like the one he was having that day. He still made time for everyone. Everyone except me.

I don’t know exactly when it happened or why he decided to remove me from the list of people in his “close circle”. All I know is that one day I woke up and things weren’t the same. I never claimed to be his best friend or the one person he couldn’t live without, but there was always a bond between us. He’d invite me over to watch movies or read through scripts with him. We’d meet for ice cream when he had free time, and split snow cones from T-Sno.

We were friends, but then he cut me off like a bad diet.

What happened? Who the hell knows. Well, Dave, probably, but that’s it.

I didn’t blame him, though, because blaming him was a hell of a lot harder than pretending nothing had happened at all.

All I could do was smile and nod at all of our mutual friends while they took sips from their tropical drinks and lounged in the pool. I was just lucky to be there, I guessed, having only been invited because I was Charity’s plus one.

Dave was across the pool, on the opposite side of the lawn, talking to Reese, who had been his best friend since birth. He looked so incredibly happy, and it only solidified my belief that celebrities were one grade above the rest. How could anyone whose dreams had come true ever possibly be sad? Dave sure as hell wasn’t.

He was sipping some margarita his brother had made and smiling while every girl we’d ever known swooned over him. They batted their eyes at him with those big, spider eyelashes, while their crocodile-like claws gripped onto his arms. I swear, they were going to rip his skin off if they squeezed any tighter.

It was funny, really. I mean, suddenly they were like trolls hunting for boogers and drooling from their caved-in mouths, but I didn’t remember them being that ugly before. In fact, last I checked, Anna Cartwright was one of the prettiest girls in our town, but, eh, who am I to judge? People change, you know? Not my fault she suddenly turned into an ogre overnight.

“What is that look for?” Charity asked, her lips pursed as she looked at me from behind her strawberry drink.

“What look?”

I knew exactly what look she was talking about, because I’d felt my face contorting before I had a chance to stop it. I had a problem with unintentionally scrunching up my face every time I saw something I didn’t like – like Anna Cartwright, for example. Charity always called me out on it.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, El.” Charity sipped her drink again. “A snake didn’t slither up your shorts now, did it?”

I rolled my eyes at her, casting her a sideways glare.

“Nope.”

She simply chuckled as she took another sip of her drink. She didn’t understand my sudden grueling hatred of Anna Cartwright any more than I did, but that didn’t stop her from pretending like she’d written a textbook on the subject. That was just Charity’s way.

If I was going to put up with Dave’s welcome back party any longer, I was going to need another drink. A strong one, at that. It wasn’t that I hated everyone there or that it was the last place I wanted to be. It wasn’t. It was just that Anna’s cackling laugh seemed to be getting louder by the minute, even though she was far enough away that I shouldn’t have been able to hear it at all.

Leaving Charity behind to mingle, I made my way towards the kitchen of Dave’s family home. I had spent countless amounts of time in that kitchen in the years before Dave got famous making pizza rolls and popcorn, but now the kitchen was only filled with the ingredients for any type of alcoholic drink you could imagine.

I’d never been good at mixing drinks and I never claimed to be. In fact, if you could get arrested for making drinks that set your tongue on fire, I’d be in a prison gang gripping onto my soap for dear life. It was an easy enough task – just add more mixer than alcohol – but I always seemed to botch it.

I had some vodka in one hand and some strawberry crap in the other and I was more than ready to combine the two in some frightful concoction when the door slammed behind me, startling me and causing me to pour half the vodka down my shirt.

“Oh god, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Of course, of all the half buzzed dimwits at the party, it had to be Dave that walked in the room at that very moment. I didn’t know it then, but I know now that fate’s an angry little bitch, and she tends to do things in a way that is least convenient for you.

“It’s alright,” I said as I set the glass bottles on the counter. “Just spilt a little.”

“Eleanor?”

My back was turned, so it was safe for me to roll my eyes. Which I did. A lot. After knowing me for six or so years, you’d think he’d know what the back of my head looked like, but I guess when you’re famous all the blondes tend to just run together.

Breathe, El. Breathe. Relax.

I turned back to him with my lips pursed and gave a soft nod of my head. He smiled at me as he looked down at the vodka which had run down my shirt. My white top seeped through and revealed the Aztec print of my bikini top, and Dave couldn’t seem to stop himself from chuckling at the fact that I looked like a total mess.

“Sorry about that,” he said, a small laugh releasing from his lips as he spoke.

I can’t say for sure, but I’d like to think that’s the point that Dave turned me into a blubbering, soupy mess. It was like I’d forgotten that he hadn’t spoken to me in a year, just like he’d forgotten to actually speak to me for a year. Funny how that works.

“It’s alright,” I said, offering up the same smile he gave me.

There was a small pause as Dave walked over to the opposite end of the counter, reached for a damp rag and flung it at me. I caught it easily and used it to dab at my shirt, though it did absolutely nothing. Vodka was clear and it had already soaked in. I don’t know what he thought a rag was going to do.

“How have you been, El?”

You’d know if you actually tried to talk to me.

“I’ve been good. How about you?”

“Good.” He nodded his head and fell back into a soft silence, with his back pressed against the countertop. His eyes were still on me, while his lips pursed, and for some reason he was making me more worried than ever. A year of not speaking didn’t worry me as much as that look did.

There was a loud thud out on the lawn, and Dave’s head immediately whipped towards it. His eyes looked wide and a tad bit scared as he looked back at me.

“We better go see what that was,” he said.

What was with all this “we” business? Were we suddenly friends again? God forbid I actually be able to hold a grudge for more than five minutes.

Sighing, I dropped the rag onto the counter, leaving the kitchen several seconds after Dave.

I walked back out onto the lawn to find that everything that could have possibly happened had happened in the brief moments I was inside with Dave. Charity was making out with some blonde kid on one of the patio chairs, Reese had found his way onto the roof and was preparing to jump into the pool, and a crowd had formed around the keg they’d just cracked open.

It hadn’t felt like I’d been gone long enough for the whole party to erupt, but really the party had only just begun.