A few days later, I went to my room after dinner and locked the door before digging out the diary. I didn’t want my sister bursting in and finding out I was writing down the things on my mind. She’d most definitely try to read it when I wasn’t home—especially if she knew the type of stuff on my mind lately.
Two days ago, Spencer had asked me to be his girlfriend. I’d had the biggest crush on him since fifth grade. Of course I’d said yes, even though my parents had told my sister she couldn’t date until high school when she’d asked, and I was only in seventh grade. Before Spencer became my boyfriend, I’d never been nervous around boys. But now I was freaking out whenever he and I so much as talked. I knew the reason—he’d gone out with Kelly Reed before me, and they’d made out. I’d never kissed a boy before, and now I worried I might do it wrong when the time came. So I thought it might be a good first entry in my new diary. Maybe it would help me work out how I was going to handle things by putting my fears down on paper.
Lying on my stomach on my bed, I swung my feet in the air behind me as I chewed on the top of my pencil and decided how to start. Do I just write Dear Diary or is that geek city?
“Stella?” My father’s voice and the sound of him attempting to turn my door handle startled me.
I jumped up, and the diary bounced off the bed, landing pages down on the floor. “Uh, who is it?”
“It’s your father. What other man knocks on your bedroom door, and why is it locked?”
“Ummm…because I’m getting changed for bed.”
“Oh. Alright. I was just popping in to say goodnight.”
“’Night, Dad!”
“Goodnight, pipsqueak.”
I listened for his footsteps to fade into the distance before I scooped the diary off the floor. Some of the pages in the middle had wrinkled, so I went to smooth them out. But when I turned the book over, I found words written on the pages. Lots of them. Confused, I read a few lines and then flipped a few pages back. My eyes widened as I read the top of one of the pages.
Dear Diary,
Oh my God!
I flipped back more pages. Two or three were filled with words, but then there was the same start.
Dear Diary,
Pages and pages were filled. How could I have not noticed? I could’ve sworn I’d opened it at the garage sale. But as I flipped to the beginning, I realized why I hadn’t spotted all the blue ink. The first five or six pages of the diary were completely blank.
But whose diary was it? The woman said she’d bought it at a garage sale years ago. So had she not noticed either?
Maybe I should go back and return it.
Or give it to my mom and see what she thought I should do?
Though…
Maybe I could read a little first and see if it gave me any idea who the book belonged to.
I didn’t have to read the entire thing.
Just one little entry.
That would be it.
I flipped through from the first page to make sure I was at the very beginning, and then scanned the two simple words on the first line.
Dear Diary…
Just one little entry.
It couldn’t do any harm.
I had no idea then just how much those words would come back to haunt me.
CHAPTER 7
Stella
“Hello?”
“Hi, Stella. It’s Olivia.”
I switched the phone to my other ear so I could finish putting on my earrings. “How are you, Olivia?”
“I’m good. But my day is a little busier than I’d thought. Do you think you might be able to come by my office today with the perfumes? I’m not sure where you live, but if downtown is a giant pain in the ass for you, I can send a car.”
My apartment was on the Upper East Side, so getting downtown was actually pretty inconvenient. But I owed Olivia, so I wasn’t about to complain. “That’s fine. I have some errands to run downtown anyway.”
“Oh, that’s great. Thank you. Is around two o’clock okay?”
“Sure, that’s perfect.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
It sounded like she was about to hang up. “Wait—I need the address.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought you had it.”
Why would I have her office address? Did she think I’d stalked her thoroughly before showing up at her wedding? Jesus, just when I’d started to get over being embarrassed. “No, I don’t.”
“It’s Fifteen Broad Street. Fourteenth floor.”
I shut my jewelry box. Broad Street? That’s where Hudson’s office was. “You work in the same building as your brother?”
“Oh, I assumed you knew. Hudson and I actually work together. Rothschild Investments was our father’s business.”
I hadn’t known. And it shouldn’t have made any difference, but I’d be lying if I said the thought of possibly running into Hudson didn’t make my pulse race.