Parent Night rehearsals with the kids wil have to wait until next week. My Habitat for Humanity project has a more pressing deadline thanks to the self-centered, egocentric moron who drove his stupid sports car into the living room of our future family’s rental place. I don’t get people like him

—people who think of no one, ever, but themselves. They just take up space on the planet, never contributing anything worthwhile.

He’s the reverse of someone like my dad—Pastor Doug to the parishioners of our church and the surrounding neighborhood. Dad would tel me that God wouldn’t be pleased about my biases concerning Reid Alexander.

God has a purpose, even for him, Dad would say.

Yeah, right.

Ugh, there I go again.

I’l be spending the next several days straight working on the Habitat house. Luckily, we have much of it done.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t include the A/C, and it’s already hot and hazy. Much of Los Angeles lives without central air; I shouldn’t complain. I have a comfortable home, even if it’s not chock-ful of luxury items like big-screen televisions and rooms of furniture where everything matches. Mom knows her way around with a paint brush, and she’s amazing at using saris bought at the bazaar as colorful window coverings and table cloths, or plants to cover a stain on the carpet or a crack in the plaster wal s.

I’ve got a few more things to get turned into UC Berkeley before I start next fal : AP exam results, graduation certificate, housing deposit. Almost everyone who knows me seems puzzled by the fact that I intend to pursue a degree in social work rather than music. I’m often told that I have a beautiful voice, but that would be an impractical career path. I’d rather do something.

Dad’s the only one who real y gets that sentiment. He’s also where I get my voice. Mom and Deborah, my older sister, are absolutely tone-deaf, but they have useful natural sister, are absolutely tone-deaf, but they have useful natural and applied skil s. Mom’s an obstetrical nurse specializing in low-cost prenatal care, and Deb recently began her hospital residency in Indiana—she’s going to be a pediatrician. Dad and I just had to be more creative about finding our ways to contribute.

This summer, like the last several years, I’m working the summer program our church offers for the poverty-stricken neighborhoods nearby. The van picks the kids up in the morning, enabling their parents to go to work without worrying about what to do with them. The kids stay al day, which means we have to come up with lots of activities. The swimming pool was Mom’s idea. Some members of the church finance committee balked at instal ing something so lavish, but Mom convinced them we could use it for VBS, family days and monthly baptisms.

Dad says Mom could talk the Devil into baking Christmas cookies.

“…Amen,” Dad says, and I open my eyes, banishing thoughts of Satan wearing an apron and icing reindeer.

“Dori, your dad has some news that might interest you.” Mom hands me the bowl of mashed potatoes, and they’re both watching me closely. Weird.

Dad clears his throat. “You got a cal just before you got home. I guess Roberta doesn’t have your cel number.” Roberta, my project leader at Habitat, doesn’t get that people can be easily reached on the phone they carry around with them. Her cel phone is always in her bag and off, because she believes the battery wil run down if she leaves it on, and then it wouldn’t be at the ready in case she gets mugged and needs it. I’ve never asked her how she plans to hold the bad guy off while her phone boots up.

“There’s a new volunteer starting tomorrow, and she wants you to help him acclimate, show him the ropes.” My brow furrows. While we appreciate volunteers, this isn’t exactly huge or unusual news, plus my parents are being downright odd. “Okay. No problem.” Waiting for the punch line, I pass the potatoes to Dad. “Is it someone with electrical experience, I hope?”

“Er, I doubt that.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, I final y say, “Dad, spit it out.”

Dad isn’t meeting my eyes, unusual y cryptic. “Wel , this volunteer may be someone you know. Not know, exactly.

But know of.”

Good grief, I’m way too tired for this. “Am I supposed to guess who it is?” I sigh. “Is it someone from church?

Someone from school?”

“It’s Reid Alexander,” Mom blurts out, unable to contain herself any longer.

“What ? ”

Dad tries the logical spin. “Apparently working to get the house ready sooner for the Diegos was part of his plea bargain.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. This is not happening. “Wait. So he’s not even actual y a volunteer, then—he’l be on site under court-ordered coercion?” They cannot expect me to babysit that self-absorbed, womanizing, probable alcoholic.

“Roberta said that since you’re about his age, she was hoping you could… er…”

“Babysit him.” I scowl. “Please tel me it’s only for a day or two.”

Dad shrugs and starts to eat. “You’l need to ask Roberta that. I’m just the messenger.”

I close my eyes for a moment, imagining the absurdity of Reid Alexander on site, the wasted time accumulating hourly. I’d planned to tile the master bath’s shower tomorrow. No way I could trust him to help with that—tiling is pretty much skil ed labor, and while I’ve done it enough to be proficient, he’s probably never touched a trowel in his life.

“Why me?” I hear his answer in my head before he says it.

“Don’t know, honey. But there’s a reason for everything.” Dad pats my hand. “We’l just have to wait patiently to see what it is.”

As I do every time he says that or something like this, I bite back what I’d say if I could reply honestly. I don’t believe there’s a reason for everything, and having faith doesn’t mean I’m blind. I believe people make poor choices. I believe bad things happen to good people. I believe there’s evil in the world that I wil never understand, but wil never stop fighting.

If I believed for two seconds that there was a reason behind some of the awful things that occur in this life, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Chapter 3

REID

“Wel , this is promising.” Dad walks across the kitchen, setting his attaché on the granite-topped buffet.

I don’t bother to reply. He’s been goading me like this since I was a kid. Took me a while to learn not to take the bait and let him prove how much more intel igent he is. My father gets paid to argue—and by the size of this house, the cut of his custom-made silk-blend suit and the cars in the garage, he’s bril iant at it.

It must gal the crap out of him that I do what I do and earn more money than he does. Of course, he has no idea how hard I work when I’m filming, but who cares. Let him think I do next to nothing. Just pisses him off more, which is fine with me.

“I even made coffee.” I gesture to the half-ful carafe, stil warming.

He fil s his travel mug and screws the lid on. “Is your mother up?”

“Haven’t seen her.”

“You’l need to cal a car to get to work,” he reminds me,

“since your license has been suspended for six months.” He sounds way too satisfied about that.

“I thought you were gonna take me.” I blink my baby blues at him. His mouth opens and no sound comes out as I fight for a straight face. “I’m joking, Dad—I already cal ed the service. They’l be here in ten minutes.”

“Oh.” Scowling, his mouth snaps closed. “Wel , fine then.”

I’m not sure if I should be amused or pissed that he’s so surprised.

***

When I hand the driver the sheet with the charity build-a-house address, he studies it before looking at me with a perplexed expression.

“Yeah, dude, it’s correct,” I say, anticipating his question.

“Just take me there, okay?”

He opens the back door to the black Mercedes. “Yes, sir, Mr. Alexander.” As we pul away, it occurs to me that this car wil be fucking conspicuous in the neighborhood where I’l be for the next month. If I took a regular taxi it would only be marginal y better. To blend in, I’d need to hire a gang member in a pimped out Monte Carlo to drop me off.

On the drive, I read through some of the scripts George and I are considering for upcoming projects, but none of them motivate me to look beyond the first page. A year ago, I’d have been happy enough with several, but now I’m thinking they’re al the stupidest shit I’ve ever read. I attribute this new perception to Emma, my costar in School Pride. She told me last fal she’d rather do serious films than movies that have immediate blockbuster potential.

Why her viewpoint rubbed off on me at al , I have no clue.

Emma is also the only girl I’ve bothered to pursue but not caught in years, and I screwed up any possible second chance by hooking up with other girls when she didn’t cave.

I begged her for another shot, but the damage was done.

By the time the cast met up for the premiere, she was with Graham, another costar. My longtime ex, Brooke, wanted him. She offered me a devil’s bargain: Brooke would seduce Graham, and Emma would fal right into my arms.

Graham didn’t go for it, but thanks to Brooke’s scheming, Emma thought he had. She was distraught.

Fragile. I had her right where I wanted her, but I couldn’t do it. One of the few principles I have where girls are concerned: lying to get a girl in bed is cheating. If I cheat to win, I didn’t real y win.

I got a little overly introspective after that. A short-lived state, luckily. I snapped out of it after my accident, when I had a few compulsory meetings with a court-appointed therapist who suggested that maybe I was trying to kil myself. I laughed in his face. I mean, there’s a difference between being suicidal and not giving a shit if you live or die. Right?

“Sir?” the driver says. “We’re here… if you’re sure this is where you want to be dropped…”

Outside the dark tinted glass lies a sea of generic bungalows—paint fading, bars on windows and doors, each house separated by a few feet from the next one and surrounded by limp, untended palm trees amidst otherwise sparse vegetation. I stare at the partial y-completed house, which is literal y steps from the road—just like al the others.

A house number sloppily painted onto a piece of raw plywood leaning against the front matches the number on the court info.

“Yeah, this is it. Be here at or before three to pick me up. I don’t want to wait, for obvious reasons.” I normal y wouldn’t be caught dead driving through this neighborhood, let alone helping to build yet another piece-of-crap house.

This sucks ass.

“Yes, sir, I’l be here by 2:45.”

Activity around the house has come to a standstil , because everyone is staring at the guy exiting a chauffeured Mercedes in the gang-infested neighborhood.

Man, I seriously should have thought about arriving in some other mode of transportation.

As I walk up the unfinished pathway, a girl comes out to greet me… although greet is generous. She’s glaring as she walks towards me, her brows drawn together in an expression I go to concerted efforts to avoid making, even when I’m pissed.