“Nick—hey! There you are. We’ve been looking everywhere for you. We’re all so worried. You okay?”
The voice is familiar, but the words are spoken with such genuine relief at seeing me that I have to turn around to be sure it really is her. And what I see makes my eyes practically pop out of my head.
This is not the Holly I know and loathe.
This Holly is so different, all I can do is stand there and stare.
For starters, the wavy dark hair that’s always hanging in her face has been replaced with fluffy golden waves that sort of bounce and swirl like she’s a walking, talking shampoo commercial.
And instead of ghostly pale skin, this Holly looks healthy, like she actually spends time outdoors.
And don’t even get me started on the pink dress and heels.
It’s like a bizarre, alternate-universe, Barbie doll version of Holly. It’s as though the sarcastic part of her brain has been surgically removed and replaced with the impulse to grin.
Holly’s hand presses between my shoulders and steers me toward a spacious room at the very end of the hallway with solid double doors, miles of carpet, and a giant round bed smack in the center. “Better change quick. You know how Ezer gets.”
She pushes into the room, picks up a pile of clothes from the bed, and places them in my arms. “I’d really appreciate it if we could get started soon. Remember that audition I told you about? It’s today. Wish me luck!”
Audition? Since when does Holly ever audition for anything other than the role of “most annoying sister,” which she nailed long ago?
But when I look at her again, standing before me with a bright and hopeful expression, all I can do is mutter, “Um, okay. Good luck,” then watch as she exits as quickly as she appeared, leaving me to sink onto the soft furry blanket I hope isn’t from a real animal skin as I check out my room.
It’s just as modern up here as it is downstairs. The carpet is white, which seems really impractical, but from the looks of it, someone’s doing a good job with the vacuuming. The shelves along the far wall resemble long metal slats floating in space, and they’re crammed with all kinds of awards and framed photos of me posing with some big-time celebrities and musicians. Including one of me standing next to the president, both of us wearing grins so big it’s like we’re in a smiling contest. The desk facing the window is made from some kind of thick, clear plastic that juts right out of the wall, yet it still manages to support a pile of just about every electronic gadget you could possibly want. There’s a large bathroom off to the right and a huge walk-in closet next to that. And I swear, if you squished those two rooms together, they’d be bigger than all of our bedrooms at home combined.
This dream is so detailed, it’s almost like there’s a set decorator standing by.
And yeah, despite my not waking up during the whole fancy-pen incident, I’m still holding to the dream theory. There’s no other way to explain it.
I dump the contents of my backpack onto my bed, but instead of the books I usually haul around, it’s filled with all kinds of stuff that’s not mine.
For starters, there’s a bunch of grooming stuff I would never use in real life, like a bottle of oil you’re supposed to put on your face and a jar of something called Dashaway Do that’s supposed to be a kind of hair paste, like I have my own hair product line. There’s even a small tube of lip gloss that definitely, one hundred percent, isn’t mine.
A black leather wallet crammed with fat wads of hundred-dollar bills and loads of black and silver credit cards sits there as well.
The rest is more normal—a comb, a brush, a small mirror. Well, normal for the kind of person who spends most of the time thinking about his appearance.
I change into the clothes Holly gave me and am just about to shove the wallet (since my name is on the cards, and considering this is a dream and all, I might as well put them to use, right?) and my cell phone (in case it starts working) into the back pocket of the designer jeans when Ezer shouts from the other side of the door, “Do not make me come in there, Nick. I’m serious. I—”
But before he can finish, I open the door and push past him. In search of whoever’s in charge of hair and makeup. I mean, if I’m going to dream I’m an International Superstar, I might as well enjoy some of the perks before I wake up.
TWITTER LIPS
I end up in a den that’s not at all like a normal den.
And by not at all normal, I mean it’s not like my Greentree den.
Which means it’s a really, really cool den.
The kind of den you might see on an old episode of MTV Cribs.