“I look like Miss Piggy,” Julianne declared.
“No you don’t. You look sporty. Well, except for the socks.” Chloe giggled. Humming “Hollaback Girl” quietly to herself, Julianne headed over to her desk and plunked herself down in front of her computer. She was trying to decide between the online crossword and Perez Hilton when the blinking lights of her cell phone caught her eye. Julianne reached across her round Jackson Pollock mouse pad to grab her phone off the desk, but Chloe darted over from across the room and beat her to it.
“Hmm. I wonder who it could possibly be?” Chloe queried in a singsong voice. She looked at the blinking display, then passed the phone to Jules before returning to the Us Weekly on the bed.
Julianne let a few minutes pass and then reluctantly scrolled through her missed call log. 9:45 a.m.—Remi Moore. 10:56 a.m.—Remi Moore. 11:32 a.m.—Remi Moore. 12:19 p.m.—Remi Moore. She pitched the phone across the room, thankfully hitting an overstuffed pillow on her bed, rather than Chloe. She rubbed her hands roughly over her face, looking the very picture of lovelorn angst. Why won’t he stop calling? What part of “I 215
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can’t see you again” can’t he accept? How will I ever supergluemy heart back together if Remi won’t leave me alone with thepieces? A tiny nagging voice in the back of Julianne’s brain occasionally reminded her that if Remi did finally stop calling and texting fifteen times a day, she’d be devastated. Beyond devastated. But Julianne couldn’t focus on her messy feelings for Remi right now—there was too much else left up in the air. She pushed herself up from the desk chair and crossed the room to her bed, completely ignoring Chloe, who was still settled in with her magazine. She picked up a stray pillow in a flowered pil-lowcase and tossed it on top of the cell phone. Then she strode out of the room toward a well-deserved shower, leaving Chloe exactly where she’d found her.
Julianne emerged from the shower forty-five minutes—
and three encores of “Irreplaceable”—later, refreshed and ready to take on the rest of her afternoon. She slipped on a pair of skinny jeans, a white tank top trimmed in hot pink lace—the result of a recent shopping trip with Chloe—and her cute, turquoise slip-ons. She futzed with the clasp of a necklace featuring a hammered metal star that she’d made in lapidary club during sophomore year.
Julianne took a cursory glance in the mirror before sliding her oversize sunglasses up the bridge of her nose.
The she grabbed her digital camera—complete with its new zoom lens, thanks to a summer of gainful employ-ment—and headed out of her bedroom.
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As she walked past Chloe’s room, she heard her sister call, “Jules, is that you?”
Jules walked in and plopped herself facedown on Chloe’s bed, next to Chloe’s hefty stack of surgery guides and diagrams. No wonder she comes to my room to read Us Weekly , Julianne thought.
“So,” Chloe said authoritatively. “Does he always call you seventeen times a day?”
Julianne cast her eyes toward the floor. “On average.”
“He really likes you, Jules,” Chloe declared, her voice softer. “I mean, he really, really likes you.”
“I know,” Julianne admitted.
“Then why are you sitting around the house moping with me all the time?” Chloe asked, a smile crossing her face. “Go out there and get that boy back. Before he actually starts believing that you want nothing to do with him.”
“But—” Julianne began to protest.
“But nothing. You deserve to be happy. So go. Go and be happy with your boyfriend.” Chloe smiled and swatted Julianne’s arm. “I mean it—leave. I have a lot of celebrity gossip to catch up on.” Chloe slipped a copy of People out of her Guide to Cardiothoracic Surgery and opened it with a satisfied sigh. All Julianne could do was walk out of Chloe’s room, camera firmly in hand.
Moments later, Julianne found herself stalking around the side of the house like an incredibly obvious 217
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cat burglar. Just two months earlier, this kind of “casing the perimeter” would have meant that Jules was on the prowl with her super-spy hat on. Today it meant something entirely different to Julianne, though. Her digital camera was hanging from the ’60s-inspired strap around her neck, dangling at the ready. She was determined to photograph every angle, crevice, and shadow of the Kahn house before the Moores forced them out.
Even if she, Dad, and Chloe couldn’t hold on to their physical house, she was determined to create a photographic history of of it. She hadn’t decided whether she would frame each shot individually or piece them together in a mural. Dad had promised her free rein over the family room in their next house and, even though Chloe pointed out that it was slightly morbid, Julianne planned to erect a fitting tribute to their life-long home.
The new school year was rapidly approaching, and Julianne was still trying to wrap her brain around all that had transpired this summer. So much had happened over the last three months that it seemed crazy to Julianne that she was about to just slide back into another September at Palisades High School—the September of her senior year. She was trying to re-acclimate her brain to academic life by reciting the names and capitals of all fifty states, while she snapped her pictures of the house. Then, when she stopped to 218
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adjust the light meter on her camera to catch some shadows poking up from the sea grass that surrounded the house, something occurred to her. Despite all the end-of-summer stress, at this exact moment, she was at peace.
The sun was at her back. Her nose was filled with the salty air of an August afternoon in Southern California, and she was looking at her crazy life through the lens of a camera.
Even with the crushing loss of her home looming before her, Julianne was still able to create art. It was as easy as looking at life through her own eyes and being completely honest with her vision. Last week she’d taken three rolls of film—one black and white, one sepia toned, and one in eye-popping color—of the ocean view from the beach behind her house. It was the same landscape she had struggled to capture all summer. But viewed through the lens of her camera, the scene came together effortlessly.
Julianne worked her way methodically around the house, snapping pictures for the next three hours. She wanted to remember what the house looked like at every moment of every day—with every change of light. She was also determined not to let her last weeks in the house be a blur of crying and exhaustion. She planned to celebrate life in their little beach home until the Moores and their lawyers dragged her out the front door kicking, screaming, and snapping pictures of the whole mess.
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Julianne was relieved to have wrapped everything up with her job at the site. Her courtyard mural had turned out fabulously, and she was thrilled to have such a great new piece to add to her portfolio. It was also a relief not to have to deal with questions from the guys on the crew about her and Remi.
As the sun slipped down behind the ocean, the sky did its slow-motion fade from brilliant navy blue to the cobalt-gray hybrid of a late summer night. Julianne walked down to the beachfront, her camera tapping against her sternum in time with her heartbeat.
Floating in the haze of her thoughts about her photography, the house, and the arrival of fall, Julianne was only half-aware that she was heading onto the Moores’
property. Beyond the jurisdiction of the orange trespass-ing signs, Julianne’s immediate instinct was to plop down on the sand at the bottom of the construction dunes. She snuggled down at the base of the dune and pulled her legs up in front of her.