Sloppy Firsts_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [51]
About the only people I haven’t seen lately are those lucky enough to escape to more exotic locales for the summer.
Totally out-of-nowhere news: Bridget is staying with her dad in L.A. all summer in the hopes of becoming—get this—an actress. Unreal. Bridget is not fazed by the fact that her acting experience is limited to laughing at jokes I know she doesn’t understand.
"Bridge, you haven’t even acted in a school play," I pointed out.
"I know," she said. "But how much skill does it take to like, act in a sitcom on the WB?"
Valid point. I decided to drop it. Far be it from me to destroy her dream. I was probably more jealous that she was escaping Pineville for the summer than I was of the possibility of her fame and fortune. (Though, if I’m ever labeled Jessica Darling, Bridget’s Childhood Friend on some infotainment cheese-fest, I will kill myself.) I had no clue this was a serious goal of hers. This proves that I am stratospherically out of touch with my former best friend. I assumed that she felt the same way. That’s why weirdness-wise, Bridget’s West-Coasting doesn’t hold a candle to a request she made of me right before she left.
"Jess, I need to ask you for a favor."
Let’s see. The last time someone asked me for a favor, I nearly got expelled from school. But I found myself saying "sure" in spite of myself. I was thrown off not only by Bridget’s showbiz bombshell, but by the very sight of her standing in the middle of my bedroom. She hadn’t been up here for about two years.
"I know Burke is carpooling you guys to the boards all summer and …" She hesitated.
"What? What is it?" I was getting antsy already.
She scrunched up her pretty little nose. It’s so tiny that I doubt it’s functional. No air current could flow in and out of those microscopic nostrils. It’s purely for show. I bet it would look damn good on the big screen, though. She’s got a pug you could put in an IMAX movie without worrying about the fright factor of redwood-size nostril-hairs.
"Well, you’ll get to see him almost every day …" Another pause. Pink fireworks exploded all over her fair face and neck. She’d better get through her auditions better than this. "Could you, like, keep an eye on him for me?"
"Huh?"
"This is the first time we’ve been apart for more than like, three days since I was in seventh grade," she said, tugging her ponytail. "I’m worried that he like, might …"
"Cheat?"
"Yeah."
"Whoa."
"I know."
She nervously twisted her hair around her delicate index finger.
"Do you think there’s someone else?" I asked.
"No. I’m just, like, afraid that other girls might take this opportunity to pounce on him. And being a guy and all he won’t turn them down …"
Why me? Why not Sara? Her sleuthing skills are far superior to mine. And God forbid he actually cheats on her. I’ve always known that the B. and B. breakup would be a very, very bad one. I sure as hell don’t want to be there at ground zero. But if you’d seen Bridget there, all splotchy and jittery, you would’ve said yes, too. Attractive people are highly persuasive, just by being attractive. It’s true. There’s research to back me up.
Long story short: My part-time job is eyeballing Burke to make sure he’s not balling anyone else. And so far, so good.
If Bridget’s ill-conceived stab at fame is the stuff E! True Hollywood Stories are made off, then Hy is a Mysteries and Scandals in the making. She’s as MIA as my menstrual cycle. Seriously. No one has