The Reece Malcolm List by Amy Spalding Read Free Book Online Page A

nothing. I just couldn’t stop thinking about Reece Malcolm. “I didn’t— No one told me—”
    “Right,” she said. “Did your dad brag or something?”
    “Dad’s never said anything.”
    “I don’t want to see you with that again,” Tracie said. But the next time we went shopping I slipped into Barnes & Noble to buy my own copy.
    I never said a word to anyone about it, most especially to Dad. I promised myself that eventually I would. I wouldn’t stay silent and I wouldn’t hint around and I wouldn’t change the subject if I got nervous. Just because he didn’t want to tell me didn’t mean he didn’t have to. Except now Dad’s gone and I’m here and it’s way way way too late.

    We’re all supposed to go to Vaughn and Kate’s that evening—which is why I switch out my jeans for a skirt that matches my new shirt—but as we’re getting ready to leave Brad suddenly remembers some work he has to finish before Monday morning. From my mother’s raised eyebrows I know she thinks he’s lying, but she says nothing except that she’ll meet me in the garage. I take that as a hint and head out ahead of her.
    My mother walks in behind me a couple minutes later and points to the passenger side. “Get in; it’s just us.”
    “Is that okay?” I ask, only because her eyebrows aren’t quite in place and she’s stomping a little.
    “Of course.” She gets into the car and slams the door. “It’s just—”
    “Just what?”
    “Just that you are not my sounding board for all things Brad-annoyance-related,” she says. “I apologize. Moving on.”
    Except neither of us says anything else.
    This time we turn off one winding road onto another one even more winding (and another one I recognize from pop culture or whatever, Mulholland), and then progressively hillier ones like we’re in the middle of nowhere until we pull up to this house straight out of a fancy Hollywood party—or at least how they look in movies, absolute cliché. Walls in earth tones, like a makeup palette and not at all what houses are normally colored like, a flat roof like a warehouse, and giant windows all over.
    “Right?” My mother catches my gaze. “I call it the Logan-Sinclair Compound. It’s ridiculous.”
    “I’m glad you have a normal house.”
    “God, me, too. Come on.” She jumps out of the car and walks up the driveway, me right on her heels. “I should warn you . . .”
    “What?”
    “They’re a lot to take. Separately, together, in groups, one-on-one. They’re my best friends, but I won’t act like that isn’t true. So.” She rings the doorbell.
    The door opens so quickly it’s like someone was waiting on the other side. A woman at least a few years older than my mother with very artfully messy light brown hair and huge green eyes who all at once looks just like Kate Logan and yet smaller and different, somehow, rushes out and throws her arms around my mother. Up until then I truly couldn’t imagine anyone hugging Reece Malcolm. Maybe when you’re famous you can get away with more?
    Actually I guess to most people, Kate Logan isn’t super famous. She’s been in, seriously, dozens of Broadway shows (if you count the ones that only lasted a few performances) and sung on a ton of cast recordings. Now she lives here, obviously, and acts in TV shows and sometimes little parts in movies. Probably a lot of people won’t know who you’re talking about if you mention Kate Logan, but to me she’s a huge star.
    “Hey, sweetie, you look great,” she says to my mother. “I presume cohabitation is treating you well.”
    “It’s feeding me well, at least. This is Devan. Devan, this is my friend Kate.”
    “Devan, it’s so wonderful to meet you.” Kate grasps both my hands in hers. “Come on in, dinner’s very nearly ready. Brad couldn’t make it?”
    “Don’t ask,” my mother says.
    “I’m not asking right now.” She giggles at her own joke, when a man I recognize as Vaughn—thank you,