“Yeah. Gee, I love the glasses. And the choppy hair—nice. Interesting color too.”

I glare some more and he takes a step closer. He puts a hand on my arm, and I shrug him away.

“Oh, come on, Star, I’m just kidding,” he says. “This is me! Lighten up!”

“It’s not funny, Jesse,” I say coldly. He stares at me for a minute.

“Star, this is crazy!” he says finally. Now he looks concerned. “This whole thing! I just wanted to come remind you who you really are. No one knows better than me. I’ve known you forever!”

“Obviously, you don’t know me at all,” I snap.

“What are you talking about?”

“If you knew me, Jesse, you would have known that when I called you the other day, it was because I needed a friend,” I say quietly. “Not because I was hoping you’d come in here with a bunch of TV cameras to mess everything up. If you knew me, Jesse, you wouldn’t have ruined everything.”

He looks stung. “But Star,” he says. “This is going to be great for our careers. This will be the lead story on the news channels for at least the next twenty-four hours. ‘Pop Prince Finds Pop Princess!’ It’s pure gold, Star! Seriously, we’ll probably each sell like twenty-five thousand records off the publicity this week alone.”

I stare at him for a long time.

“You’re a selfish jerk,” I finally say. His eyes widen in surprise. “Nothing matters to you but album sales and publicity and your own needs,” I continue. “You didn’t care that you were screwing up my life.” I blink back tears and head for the door. I can’t even stand to be in the same room with him anymore.

“And Jesse?” I add, putting my hand on the door handle. “It’s not Star. It’s Amanda.”

He’s still staring at me as the back door swings closed behind me, leaving him standing in the kitchen alone.

I duck through the back of the restaurant, and as I climb the small winding staircase up to my apartment (which I’m probably no longer welcome in), I can hear Jesse speaking to the media horde in the dining room.

“Star’s doing just fine,” I hear him say as I reach my door. I roll my eyes. “We just need a little privacy before we talk to all of you. I haven’t seen her in a week, you know.”

I don’t have to wait around to realize that Jesse’s probably raising a suggestive eyebrow at the camera and that at home, people watching on the news will assume that Jesse and I are going to be in the restaurant making out or something equally revolting.

Jesse’s prediction comes true. Finding me is the lead story on every news broadcast that night.