Shake Down the Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

my letter was
I hate it here and miss you more than anything. Can I at least have your telescope?
His reply arrived in less than a week, written on the prep school’s stationery. The gist of that letter, which was more than three pages long, was
I miss your mother more than anything. Is she seeing anyone?
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I ’m half watching the news, half dozing, when I hear a knock at the door. Danielle, Margot’s event planner, greets me by saying, “Tell them to serve the champagne right after the second speech. Not a fucking second later. Got it?”
    I’m tempted to nod yes, but then I notice she’s speaking into the phone clawed around her ear.
    â€œAnd the waiters need to enter stage left. Just like we discussed. And tell Walter not to dim the lights until they’ve started pouring. I’ll have his fucking head if there’s a single spill.”
    Danielle is all height thanks to the ten-inch stilts posing as shoes she wears. Her form-fitting, shell-colored suit highlights her red hair, swished tonight into a seashell-shaped pinwheel that rests on the top of her head. She’s the dame in a Raymond Chandler novel, the vamp in a 1940s thriller. She’s also Margot’s best friend. Their friendship almost ended recently when Margot told Danielle that she’d hired the one-name wonder Firth to oversee the wedding.
    â€œWe need you downstairs in exactly ten minutes flat.”
    It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.
    â€œCurtis has put together a video montage, and we need all family members present. That means you. Front table.”
    I look down at my sweats and socks. “I’m supposed to watch the girls.”
    â€œNot anymore. We’re switching things up. I’ll watch the twins while you’re downstairs.”
    â€œWhy don’t I know anything about this?”
    â€œIt’s a surprise. Curtis had it in the works for weeks but didn’t want anyone to know. Piper—” She exhales a smile. “He’s written a song for her, ‘We Are a Family Built on Love.’ He’s going to sing it while showing the video he put together. It’s so romantic. He’s releasing the song as the first single from the new album. His people are already saying it’s going to be a hit. Wait—hold a sec.” She’s suddenly all business again and begins pacing the room as she bosses around the unfortunate person on the other end of the phone.
    Danielle and Margot met when they were cast together in the music video for the hit “Black Bitch/White Bitch: It Ain’t No Thang.” By the end of the video, Margot and Danielle were hosing each other down with water while the star rapper and his cronies sat on a fake stoop, pointing and laughing. But Margot and Danielle hit it off, despite the circumstances, and now go on annual Best Friends Forever vacations and talk and text incessantly. Seeing that her video and modeling days were numbered, Danielle used the money from her second divorce to start a catering business, which led to her gig as event stylist. No one would know from looking at her elegant hair and makeup that she’s capable of doing the wide splits while hanging upside down from a pole, as seen in the heavy metal video “Five Licks of Your Cherry Pie.”
    Off the phone, she rests her hand on her hip with a straightforward no-nonsense look in her eye. “Did Margot tell you why she didn’t pick me?”
    She means for the wedding. Luckily, I don’t have to lie. Margot may have told Mom her reasons for choosing Firth over Danielle, but she said nothing to me—although it’s easy to assume that she’s going for name over friendship.
    I reply with the oft-used “Well, you know Margot.”
    â€œYeah,” she mutters. “But I don’t care what anyone says, damn it; I would’ve made her wedding as beautiful, if not