My eyes went wide and I took a step backward. What was I supposed to do? Apologize for staring? Pretend that I’d been looking at someone else? Amy Curry gave me a smile and a half nod, like she was saying it was okay, and I gave her a relieved smile back.

And then, in that moment, I realized that I didn’t have anything to lose. I was going to be grounded for the foreseeable future anyway; I might as well embarrass myself in front of a movie star. I took a deep breath and hurried up to them before I could realize that I was about to make a huge mistake and stop myself. “Um—Ms. Curry?” I asked, when I was still standing a few feet away. Nobody liked having their personal space invaded, and I was sure this was doubly true for famous people. “I’m so sorry to bother you—both of you. I just wanted to say that I’m a huge, huge fan.”

She smiled at that, and she was even more gorgeous up close, her teeth impossibly white. Her eye makeup was smoky and iridescent—how was that possible?—with liner that winged out so precisely I figured there must have been a protractor involved. “Thank you so much,” she said. “That’s really nice of you.”

“I actually go to Stanwich High—it’s where you went? For a year?” The second I said this, I regretted it. People generally didn’t need to be reminded of their biography. “Which you know,” I said, my face getting hot. “And I just wanted to say that—the fact that you were in the theater department too, and you made it, makes me feel like… like…” I lost my train of thought, and most of my words then, and just finished with a helpless shrug. How did famous people have conversations? Did every interaction break down like this when the person they were talking to realized they were famous and ceased to have the ability to construct sentences?

“Stanwich!” Amy exclaimed. “That’s amazing.” She whacked the arm of her boyfriend—his attention had been wandering, and he’d been looking around the room. “Luce, she goes to my old high school.”

“In California?” he asked, in a honeyed Southern accent that was a little bit startling to hear in the middle of New York City.

“No, in Connecticut,” she said, and rolled her eyes at me with a smile, like we were in on this together, like we were sharing a joke. I was about to explode with happiness. How was this happening?

“Oh well, that’s cool,” he said, giving me a quick smile that seemed friendly, just distracted. “Small world, huh?”

“And you said you do theater too?” she asked sounding genuinely interested. Interested! In me!