Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood(61)
Author: Abby McDonald

Dakota looked back at her, eyes full of something she could swear was regret. “I never meant . . .” He trailed off. “What I mean is . . . I’m sorry, about the way everything went down. I should never have treated you like that, or even ended it at all.”

Hallie was still trying to process those last words, when Dakota stepped forward. “You have to know,” he said, pleading, “it wasn’t because I stopped loving you. Hallie . . .” He clutched her hand. “Things just got so confusing, and then the label, and Talia . . .” He held on, as if for dear life. “Please, I loved you. I still do.”

Hallie stood there, still numb. His words seemed to drift somewhere, just out of reach — not connecting, not making her feel anything at all. But that made sense, she realized, looking at that face that had consumed her every thought since the night she first laid eyes on it — nothing so desperate as the way she’d felt about him could ever last for long. She’d exhausted every last ounce of love for this boy, blazing through it like a wildfire, and now Hallie was left with nothing more than a small, empty place in her heart where he used to be.

It was over.

Hallie sighed, feeling the last breath of devotion leave her body. “I hope it’s worth it,” she said quietly. “I hope you picked right.”

Dakota’s face seemed to slip for a moment. His eyes were pained, and as his hand held on tight to hers, the touch took Hallie back: to those nights driving around downtown, her fingers laced between his.

Nothing else in the world had mattered. She’d belonged to him, completely.

That was the problem.

“Good-bye.”

Hallie kissed him gently on the cheek, and walked away.

It was March; the tree-lined streets of Beverly Hills were bright with blossoms, and Grace was turning seventeen.

“Are you sure you don’t want a party?” Amber asked hopefully as they sat over coffee in the sun-drenched kitchen. “Just something small. A hundred people, top DJs, a cake in the shape of the periodic table . . . You know, intimate!”

Grace shook her head vigorously. After the dramas of the past year, she would have happily chosen a quiet evening in with a book, but Amber, she suspected, would keel over at that suggestion. “I want to keep it simple,” Grace said instead. “Just family, and maybe Palmer.”

“And Brandon too,” Amber added, with a meaningful grin.

Grace turned, following her gaze out to the back lawn, where their neighbor sat running lines with Hallie. It looked like a death scene, but every time Hallie fell to the grass in her final writhings, Brandon would say something, or poke her with his toe, and Hallie would fall about in hysterics.

“She looks happy,” Grace said, the knot of worry she kept for her sister loosening another notch. Since the day Dakota had come by, they hadn’t heard another word about him. Now Hallie was taking acting classes, and booking jobs, and making plans to move out; passing newsstands plastered with updates of his love affair without a second glance.

“She sure is.” Amber turned back. “But what about you? Are you sure you don’t want a big blowout? We could book out a restaurant, and get a band you like to come play —”

“No!” Grace cried again. “Small. Simple. A family dinner, or a beach picnic. Promise?”

Amber sighed, pouting.

“I mean it,” Grace warned her. “I hate surprises. The last thing I want is to walk in and find half my class at school pretending like they’re my best friends. I’ll turn around and walk right out.”

“Fine,” Amber agreed reluctantly. “I promise. But I’m taking you for a girl’s day out, pampering at the salon, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

Grace’s birthday dawned warm and sunny, and — after Grace spent five solid hours being pummeled, smeared, straightened, and polished by Amber’s team of quasi-sadistic spa experts — a caravan of cars wound their way out to the Malibu shore.

“This is your idea of simple?” Grace laughed, as Auggie and Brandon struggled to unload a trunk full of gourmet foods, complete with wicker picnic baskets and matching designer blankets.

“But it is!” Amber protested, wide-eyed. She had a silk scarf wrapped over her hair, and a bright-pink bikini under her sheer white cover-up. “I only had them pack three different freshly squeezed juices, and two flavors of cake!”

“Don’t listen to her,” Hallie interrupted, passing their mom a stack of pillows. “This is fabulous!”

“That’s because you’re not carrying it all.” Brandon staggered past them toward the beach path. Hallie let out a noise of protest.

“These blankets are pure wool cashmere. They’re heavy!” she cried, following him.

“It is OK, isn’t it?” Amber looked distressed, surveying the bags of bone china and silverware. “I know I got a little carried away with the decor, but I wanted it to be special —”

“I’m just teasing,” Grace reassured her, with a hug. “It’s perfect. Thank you!”

Grace fell back with Palmer as their motley crew headed through the lagoons to the beach. “It’s so nice out here, with the hills, and the ocean . . .” She took a deep breath. “How did you find it?”

“Jesús showed it to me last year.” Palmer grinned. “There are tons of private places to stop and —”

“Eww, enough!” Grace quickly cut her off.

Palmer gave her a withering stare. “I was going to say, share a chaste kiss.”

“Sure you were.” Grace laughed. Palmer and Jesús hooked up for a while after Harry’s party, until Palmer decided that even a casual, no-strings kind of dating was too much of a demand on her time. The star tours were still going strong, and she’d been talking about adding a handbag line to her portfolio — apparently there being piles of Italian leather goods waiting to be imported, and sold to the fashion-hungry girls of L.A. at ridiculous markups.

“So . . .” Palmer began meaningfully, when Amber and Valerie disappeared around the next bend. “Any word?”

“Nope.” Grace hugged her box of glasses to her chest and kept walking.

“Aww, I’m sorry.”

Grace shrugged. “He hasn’t contacted me since before Christmas, why should he start now?”

“Because it’s your birthday.” Palmer gave her a sympathetic look. “And if he doesn’t call, then he’s a stupid selfish asswipe who deserves that stuck-up British bitch.”