Written in the Stars Page 2

“I noticed the two of you pretty much stayed away from Tyler all evening,” Cooper said. “Any news there?”

  “No,” Annie said. “We don’t talk about it. I kind of wish we could, because right now it just feels like this big thing standing between us. I can’t even imagine how Tyler feels about it.”

  “It will work itself out,” Cooper told her. “You and Kate have been through too much together. We all have. You just need to give it time.”

  “I know,” Annie said. “But it makes me sad.”

  As they pulled up to the Crandall house, they saw that there was an unfamiliar car parked in the driveway. Also, there were lights on in the house.

  “That’s weird,” Annie said. “Meg is staying at her friend Amy’s house tonight. Aunt Sarah isn’t supposed to be home until tomorrow.”

  Suddenly she was filled with an overwhelming fear. Something was wrong. Something bad had happened. As soon as Cooper stopped the car, Annie got out and ran to the front door. Fumbling with her key, she unlocked the door and ran inside. There she found her aunt standing in the living room. Grayson Dunning was with her.

  “Perfect timing,” Aunt Sarah said as Annie stared at them. “We just got here.”

  “You’re not supposed to be back until tomorrow,” Annie said, confused.

  “I know,” her aunt said. “But we wanted to come home and tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” Annie asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Mr. Dunning said.

  “Not at all,” added Annie’s aunt. “In fact, everything is great.” She looked at Mr. Dunning and smiled. Then she looked at Annie. “Grayson and I are getting married,” she said.

  CHAPTER 2

  “How was your party?”

  Cooper was seated on a chair the next day, facing Jane’s bed. Jane was sitting on the bed, propped up against a pile of pillows. Her guitar was resting on her lap, and she was halfheartedly strumming it. She seemed distracted, and Cooper was trying to figure out what was wrong.

  “What?” Jane said, looking up as if she’d forgotten that Cooper was in the room. Her long black hair hung down in her face, and she didn’t make any move to push it out of her eyes.

  “I was just asking how your party was last night,” Cooper repeated.

  “Oh,” said Jane. “It was okay, I guess.” She went back to playing her guitar without saying anything else.

  Cooper put down her guitar. “Okay,” she said. “What gives? Where’s the endearingly bitter Jane I know and love?”

  Jane stopped playing. “I’m just tired,” she said. “It was a long night.”

  Cooper eyed her suspiciously. “There’s something else,” she said. “I can tell. Are you pissed that your family isn’t here?”

  Jane’s parents were frequently away on business. In fact, Cooper had yet to meet them, as they’d always been gone on some trip whenever she came over to the Goldstein house. Similarly, Jane’s two older sisters were both away at college, and Cooper had only seen pictures of them. The only member of Jane’s family she’d ever met was her grandfather. A survivor of the Holocaust, he was a quiet man who frequently seemed not to know where he was or what was going on. But on more than one occasion he’d shown himself to be almost psychic in his understanding of people and their problems, and Cooper had come to really care about the old man. She knew that Jane did, too, although Cooper suspected that having to care for her grandfather so often was probably very hard on her friend.

  “No,” Jane said. “This isn’t about them. I’m used to them being gone.”

  She stopped, not saying anything else. Cooper waited impatiently. She wanted Jane to tell her what was wrong, but she knew that pushing her would only make her retreat farther into herself. Instead, Cooper picked out a soft melody on her guitar, tempering the deep silence in the room with the sound of her playing.

  “Have you ever broken up with someone?” Jane asked suddenly.

  Cooper shook her head. “I’ve only ever gone out with one guy,” she answered. “T.J. I’ve almost broken up with him about a dozen times, though. Does that count?”

  Jane smiled weakly. “Afraid not,” she said. “But thanks anyway.”

  “Is that what happened?” asked Cooper.

  Jane nodded. “Last night,” she said. “Great timing, huh?”

  Cooper was confused. “How could you break up with someone?” she said. “I didn’t even know you were seeing someone.”

  Jane shrugged. “What can I say?” she replied. “I’m a woman of mystery.”

  “That you are,” said Cooper. “So tell me everything. What was the jerk’s name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jane said. “It wasn’t anyone important.”

  “It must have been someone at least a little important for you to be getting all gloomy about it,” answered Cooper. “I’ve never seen you even look at a guy before, and here you’ve been dating one. How long had you been going out, anyway?”

  “A while,” said Jane vaguely. “I guess it was a big deal because this was kind of my first real relationship, too. You know, like with you and T.J.”

  “And he dumped you on New Year’s Eve?” Cooper said. “What kind of creep would do that?”

  “I know it’s stupid,” said Jane. “I mean, no one expects high school romances to last, right?” She looked at Cooper, then added, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you and T.J.—”

  “It’s okay,” Cooper said. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that myself. You’re right. People change. They go off to college and grow apart and all of that stuff. It’s one of the reasons I was hesitant about getting involved with T.J. in the first place.”

  “Then why did you?” Jane asked.

  Cooper smiled. “Believe it or not, my mother talked me into it,” she said. “She said that I should think of dating in high school as practice for real life.”

  “If real life is anything like high school, I’m on the next bus out of here,” Jane said, throwing herself back against the pillows.

  “I don’t really like that image either,” admitted Cooper. “But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that she was right, at least sort of. I like T.J. We have a lot in common. He’s fun to be around, and he challenges me. I don’t know if we’ll be together forever, but right now it’s good. Even if we do end up going different ways at some point, we’ve had a great time together, and I think we’ve both learned a lot about who we are and what we want.”

  Jane stared at Cooper for a moment, blinking. “When did you become so mentally well?” she asked.

  “I know it sounds really New Agey,” said Cooper. “But it’s the only way I can look at it without it all seeming like a giant disaster in the making. I’m trying to be realistic about it. No, I honestly don’t believe that the guy I’m with when I’m sixteen is going to be the guy I’m with when I’m twenty-six, or thirty-six, or seventy-six. I’m not even convinced that the guy I’m with when I’m thirty-six will be the guy I’m with when I’m seventy-six. Look at my parents.”

  “But you’re still doing it,” Jane said.

  Cooper nodded. “Right,” she said. “I’m still doing it.” She paused, thinking for a minute before continuing. “I used to spend a lot of time alone,” she said. “Before I met Annie and Kate I sort of prided myself on not needing anyone around me. But they showed me that I do. I need friends. I need people like them—and like you. Will all of us be friends forever? I hope so, but even if we aren’t, we make each other’s lives better right now. That’s how I look at my relationship with T.J. If it ends at some point, I’ll be sad. But I won’t ever forget the things he and I have done together. If I hadn’t taken a chance on him, I wouldn’t have those things.”

  Jane pushed her hair back, and Cooper saw that her dark eyes were wet, as if she was about to cry. “I wish I could see it that way,” she said. “But it hurts so much right now that all I can think about is how stupid I was to think that someone might fall in love with me.”<
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  “Hey,” Cooper said. “Did you just say what I think you did? You don’t think someone would fall in love with you? What kind of garbage is that?”

  Jane sniffed, half laughing and half crying. “You have to say that,” she said.

  “Want to bet?” Cooper said. “You should hear some of the things I say to Annie and Kate. I’m serious. You’re one of the coolest people I know. You’re smart, and funny, and you play a mean guitar. Oh, and of course you’re ravishingly beautiful. Let’s not forget that.”

  Jane smiled, looking a little like the old Jane, Cooper thought. Jane wiped a tear from her cheek and sniffed. “You’re a great liar,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Are you always this hard on yourself?” asked Cooper. “You’re even worse than I am. Don’t you know that in any breakup it’s always the other person’s fault?”

  “I’m not so sure this time,” said Jane. “I think I just tried too hard. I really wanted this to work out.”

  “This guy must have been something else to get your attention,” remarked Cooper. “Where did the two of you meet? School?”

  “No,” Jane said. “We met at this community center I go to sometimes.”

  Cooper knew that Jane did some volunteer work at a community center after school. But as it was with most things in Jane’s life, Cooper didn’t know any of the details. She wanted to ask some questions now that Jane had brought it up, but she didn’t think the time was right. “Was he cute?” she asked instead.

  Jane nodded. “Blue eyes. Punky blond hair. Loved Green Day and bad 1980s metal bands.” She laughed. “On our first date we went to one of those used-CD stores down on Ferguson and looked for Motley Crue records.”

  “Sounds dreamy,” Cooper said emphatically, rolling her eyes and clutching her hands to her chest in imitation of a love-struck girl.

  “It was,” Jane said. “It was fun to do that with someone.”

  “You’ve done that with me,” Cooper said.

  “I know,” said Jane. “But I didn’t want to kiss you. I wanted to kiss Max.”

  “Max?” repeated Cooper. “Romeo’s name was Max?”

  Jane nodded. “As in Max from Where the Wild Things Are. It was, as they say, an assumed name.”

  “What was the real one?” asked Cooper. “It must have been something awful if Max was better. I’m guessing Percival, or maybe Lawrence.”

  “I never found out,” said Jane quickly. “I just always used Max. And I thought it was adorable.”

  “Wow,” Cooper said. “You really were into this guy.”

  “Yeah,” Jane said, sighing. “I was. And for a while there it seemed to be mutual.”

  “Until last night,” said Cooper.

  “Until last night,” Jane said. “We were at a party at the center. I thought we were having fun. Then, a couple of minutes before midnight, the ball fell a little early. Max said things just weren’t working out. I ran out. It was all very Cinderella.”

  Jane began to cry, softly. Cooper got up and went to sit beside her on the bed. She put her arm around Jane’s shoulder and gave her a hug. “Hey,” she said. “You’ve still got me.”

  Jane leaned her head against Cooper’s shoulder. “That and thirteen bags of Oreos should just about get me over this,” she said.

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. “I’ll go get the milk,” she said, making Jane laugh.

  They sat together for a few minutes, neither of them speaking. Cooper could feel Jane breathing, and Jane’s head rested on her shoulder. She and T.J. had sat like that many times, usually when one of them was trying to make the other one feel better. She hoped it was making Jane feel a little bit better.

  After a minute Jane reached out and took Cooper’s hand. She squeezed it gently. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed this.”

  Cooper squeezed Jane’s hand back. “That’s what friends are for,” she said. “Who else would keep it a secret that you ate thirteen bags of Oreos?”

  Jane sat up and sighed.

  “Feel better?” Cooper asked her.

  “A little,” Jane said. “It will take a while. I’m not exactly the kind to let pain go right away, you know? I like to keep it around. Sort of like those people who save their gum to chew on later.”

  “Been there,” Cooper said. “Take as long as you want. But in the meantime, don’t call Max, okay?”

  “How’d you know I was thinking about that?” Jane asked, sounding truly surprised.

  “Please,” Cooper said. “And pass up a moment of self-torture? Look who you’re talking to.”

  Jane held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I bow to the master,” she said. “And I promise, no calling.”

  “Or E-mail,” Cooper said.

  “Geesh, you’re tough,” said Jane. “Fine. No E-mail. No nothing. I swear.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Cooper, stroking Jane’s hair. “Now, can we play some music? I’ve been working on some new stuff, and I want to hear what you think of it.”

  “Sure,” Jane said. “I think I’m past the point of breaking into tears over sappy lyrics.”

  Cooper swatted her friend. “And just who writes sappy lyrics?” she demanded to know.

  Cooper got up and retrieved her guitar. Sitting down in the chair, she began playing a song she’d been working on for a few days. Jane listened carefully, nodding her head and occasionally frowning slightly. When Cooper was done, she looked at Jane. “Well?”

  “I like it,” Jane said. “The chord progression is really cool. But I think the second verse needs some work, and maybe the chorus has some tiny little problems.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Cooper said.

  “Relax,” said Jane. “It’s great. It just needs polishing.” She picked up her own guitar. “I’m thinking something like this.” She began playing, altering Cooper’s melody just slightly. Cooper listened, then began playing along with her.

  They were working on the chorus when there was a knock on the door. The girls stopped playing and Jane went to see who was there. When she opened it, Mr. Goldstein was standing there.

  “There’s someone here to see you,” he said. “One of your friends.”

  “One of my friends?” Jane said. She looked back at Cooper with an expression of surprise.

  Mr. Goldstein stepped aside and someone else stepped into the doorway. It was a girl. She was a little shorter than Jane, and she had short blond hair that stuck up as if it had been messed up with the utmost care. She was wearing faded jeans and a white T-shirt beneath a green bomber jacket.

  Mr. Goldstein shuffled off down the hall, leaving the girls alone. Jane glanced back at Cooper, then looked at the girl. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  The girl shrugged. “I just thought I’d come by and see how you are,” she said. “I didn’t know you had company.” She looked past Jane and nodded at Cooper. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” said Cooper. “Cool boots,” she added, indicating the Doc Martens the girl had on. They were covered with stickers for various rock bands, and the toe of one of them was held together with silver electrical tape.

  “Thanks,” the girl said. “By the way, I’m Max.”

  “I’m Coop—” Cooper began to say, then stopped. Had she heard the girl correctly? Had she said that her name was Max?

  “Coop?” the girl said, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “Cooper,” Jane said quickly. “It’s Cooper.”

  “Cool,” Max said. Then she looked back at Jane. “So, can we talk?”

  Jane turned to Cooper, who was sitting there looking from Max to Jane and back again. Was this the same Max Jane had been talking about? As in the person she’d broken up with? But that meant that Max was—a girl, she told herself. Which meant that Jane was—

  “We’re kind of in the middle of something,” Jane said.

  Cooper shook her head, trying to regain her composure. A dozen different thoughts were running around in her head, and she was having a hard
time remembering where she was. “That’s okay,” she said. “I mean, if you guys want to talk. . . .” She looked at Jane’s face, searching for some clue to what Jane wanted. Jane nodded slightly.

  “I’ll just go,” said Cooper. She put her guitar in its case and her music notebook into her backpack. She picked both of them up and headed for the door. “It was nice to meet you,” she said to Max.

  “Same here,” Max said.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Jane said.

  Cooper walked down the hallway, stopping to say good-night to Mr. Goldstein. At the door, she paused. Jane looked at her. “I didn’t know how to tell you,” she said.

  Cooper shook her head. “Don’t worry about it,” she said.

  “I wanted to,” said Jane. “But—”

  “It’s okay,” Cooper said, smiling. “Really. We’ll talk about it later. Go talk to Max. But don’t let her off the hook too easily or I’ll be really pissed.”

  Jane smiled, looking more vulnerable than Cooper had ever seen her. Cooper reached out and hugged her. “Call me later,” she said.

  “You’re sure?” Jane said softly as Cooper slipped through the door. “I mean really sure?”

  Cooper turned back to face Jane. “I’m sure,” she said. “Really sure.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “When are you going back to school again?” Kate glared at her brother as he put an empty plate on the kitchen counter. She’d been looking forward to having a piece of cheesecake all afternoon, but Kyle had eaten it all, leaving nothing but crumbs and a dirty knife behind.

  “Can I help it if I’m a growing boy?” Kyle said, grinning as he wiped the last bits of cheesecake from his mouth.

  Kyle had been home from college since two days before Christmas. Normally, Kate would have enjoyed having him there, but they’d had a falling out at Thanksgiving after Kate had told Kyle about her involvement in Wicca and he’d made disparaging comments about it. As a result, things between them had been decidedly chilly. For Christmas, Kate had given him socks, and he’d given her a cheap bottle of stinky perfume.

  “What’s going on in here?” asked Mrs. Morgan, walking in to find her children looking like wild dogs circling one another.