Published October 17th, 2013
Description:
Where does friendship stop and love begin?
At just 19, Kendall Bettencourt is Hollywood’s hottest young starlet with the world at her feet – but behind the glamour and designer dresses is a girl who longs for normal.
Payton Taylor is Kendall’s best friend since childhood, and the one person who reminds her of who she really is – her refuge from the craziness of celebrity life.
With her career taking off, Kendall moves Payton to LA to help keep her sane. But Payton is hiding a secret that could make everything ten times worse. Because to her, Kendall is more than a best friend – she is the only girl that she has ever loved.
Just as they need each other more than ever, they’ll have to answer the question of where friendship stops and love begins? And find out whether the feelings they have can survive the mounting pressure of fame…
The Gravity Between Us is a daring, romantic, emotional story about friendship, love, and finding the courage to be yourself in a crazy world.
GUEST POST
New Adult vs. YA
by Kristen Zimmer
As a reader, I absolutely love Young Adult – especially YA of the dystopian and sci-fi/fantasy persuasion. But as a writer, I wanted to tell a story set in the real world. Before I even started writing The Gravity Between Us, I knew I also wanted to create characters who had already survived high school (and all the drama that comes with it), and who were just beginning to embark on grown-up adventures, while still having the mindset of teenagers. Sometimes, life seems to throw things at us that force us to grow-up pretty quickly, as is the case with Kendall, who, at just 19, has skyrocketed to fame. She’s got boat loads of money and one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood… I imagined changes of such epic proportion wouldn’t be easy for anyone, let alone someone so young. On the flip side, Payton is a pretty average, American college student who is faced with not only the prospect of uprooting herself from her home and family to move cross-country and be on her own for the first time, but learning how to navigate her changing feelings for her childhood best friend and what that might mean for their relationship.
While writing, I came to one very simple conclusion: the difference between Young Adult and New Adult goes beyond curbing myself from dropping however many f-bombs I may deem fit throughout my book, or even crafting a racy-yet-appropriate “intimate” scene for an under-17 crowd; it’s recognizing that adolescence doesn’t necessarily end once you graduate from high school, that no miraculous chemical reaction occurs in your brain the day you turn eighteen, thus magically transforming you into a fully mature adult. Adulthood takes many years to reach, and everyone gets there at their own pace. I honestly believe that most people learn more about who they are, who they want to be, and life in general between the age of 18 and 22 than they could have handled in their younger teen years. The problem is, YA fiction doesn’t always address the real-life issues that older teens and twentysomethings encounter—moving out of your parents’ house, finding an honest-to-goodness job, paying rent, utilities, student loans, etc... Basically, just learning how to stand on your own two feet without toppling over and hurting yourself.
So, did I nail it? What’s your take on the differences between NA and YA?
EXCERPT:
CHAPTER ONE
Payton
Kendall is sitting on my bed playing with
my laptop. I’m hovering in front of my closet, looking for my favorite
Montclair State University sweatshirt. “I hate your hair,” I call to her over
my shoulder. “Sorry, I couldn’t keep that in any longer.” I did notice right
away that the reddish-purple tint of her new hair color made her blue eyes pop.
Nonetheless, I don’t like it. I mean, what natural blonde ever wants to go
auburn? Women drop hundreds of dollars at hair salons trying to attain the
golden perfection she was born with. It’s ludicrous.
“It’s
for my next role.” She laughs. “You could at least pretend to like it.”
“No,
I can’t. And you shouldn’t either. Lawrence made you do it. I know you didn’t
want to.”
“Of
course I didn’t want to. You should have been there when he came to me with the
idea. He was all like, ‘You absolutely have to do this. Don’t worry, it’ll be
great.’ God, he sounded just like my mother. It took everything I had not to
punch him in the throat.”
I
chuckle at that. There’s a lot to be said about Kendall Bettencourt. She’s one
of those people who were put on this earth so that the average human can give
the word ‘beauty’ a definition. Between having the body of a Victoria’s Secret
model and a face that should be immortalized in a Da Vinci painting, she never
stood a chance at living her life in the shadows. It didn’t really come as much
of a surprise that this girl—whose genetic makeup is, by no fault of her own,
startlingly akin to that of a Greek goddess—would become one of Hollywood’s most
sought-after up-and-comers. But my favorite thing about her is not her physical beauty or even the fact
that she has genuine talent. It’s that she doesn’t take shit from anyone,
including her legendary publicist, Lawrence Mackin.
“How
did the Today Show go yesterday?” I
wonder. “I didn’t catch it.”
“I
didn’t even want to do it. I honestly felt like saying, ‘Well, Matt, I don’t
think anyone should bother wasting their money on In Heaven’s Arms. It’s a total gagfest.’” She sticks her finger in
her mouth and makes this half-retching, half-gurgling sound. “‘It’s all Ghost
Girl meets Living Boy. Ghost Girl falls in love with Living Boy, Ghost Girl
tries to figure out how she can be with Living Boy without inhabiting a rotting
corpse, which is sure to be a major turn-off to Living Boy. Blah Blah Blah.’”
I
take a seat next to her on the bed. “Funny. If it’s so horrible, what the hell
possessed you to star in it?”
She
shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I figured I couldn’t sit around waiting for an
awesome script to come my way. By the time someone writes a strong,
intelligent, independent, twenty something female lead, I’d be too damn old to
play her. Besides, everyone and their mother read the book it’s based on. James
thought it would really put me on the map. I know he’s one of the best agents
around, but I still can’t believe he was right! It was such a piece of crap
book, you can imagine how much shittier the movie adaptation is.”
“So,
we won’t be going to see it tonight then?”
“Not
unless you want me to upchuck violently in a public place. That would be a
perfect headline for The Inquirer!
‘Movie Star Visits Home Town, Vomits All Over Friends and Former Classmates.’”
I’m
laughing so hard now, I’m afraid I might pee myself. Oh man, I’ve missed her so much. “We don’t have to go to the
movies, but we should do something
fun. Otherwise, I’m just going to sit here obsessing over the sixty-four bars I
have to write by Tuesday for my Piano Theory class.”
“I
don’t care what we do. You know I’m leaving for a shoot next week. I have no
idea when I’ll be able to make it home again. The only reason I came home this
weekend is because I was afraid I was forgetting what my best friend looks like.”
I
cannot argue that. The last time I saw her was around the Fourth of July. A few
years ago it would have been unthinkable to go three months without seeing each
other.
“Let’s
go to the Grind House,” she says. “For some reason I’ve been craving their
terrible coffee.”
“Sure,
as long as you make sure to put those hideous things on your face.” I point to
the metal-framed sunglasses sitting atop her head. “Otherwise, it’ll be a mob
scene. Everyone will be tripping all over themselves to meet you.”
“Yeah
right,” she says. “Everyone around here knows me, Payton. It’s not like I’m
Angelina Jolie or someone cool like that.” She throws me the keys to the sleek,
silver Beamer she rented. “You’re driving. I can’t stand the potholes around
here.”
❄ ❄ ❄
The
moment we walk into the coffee shop I become aware of just how off-putting
small town New Jersey can be for a famous person, or an “almost famous person”
as Kendall would say. People don’t recognize her at first; she was still
sporting her natural locks in In Heaven’s
Arms, as well as on her most recent press tour. She’s still blonde on all
the magazine covers. But it’s easy to make out that the world around us is
about to lose its collective mind. It starts with stares—everyone squinting
hard in our direction. We’re in line waiting to order by the time the real
craziness kicks in. The atmosphere intensifies as the noise level recedes,
until finally, the whole place goes dead silent. Then, with all the grace and
subtlety of a falling H-bomb, the menacing buzz of whispering beings: “Is that Kendall Bettencourt?” “I think so.
OMG!”
The
barista knows exactly who Kendall is. He can hardly contain his drool as she
begins her order. “Hi. Can I have a tall hazelnut latte, please?” She looks
over her shoulder at me and raises her left eyebrow. I’m standing stiff and
straight at my fully awkward height of 5’9,” somewhat in awe of how she’s
managing to function normally in this preposterously abnormal situation. The
attention that is on her right now is overwhelming. I mean, I get it. Her
biggest movie ever just opened. She has more money than the Catholic Church,
and she’s gorgeous, but really? I want to scream at everyone within earshot,
“I’ve been hypnotized by her much longer than you have! You all need to get over it already!”
It
doesn’t seem to faze her much, though. Maybe she’s just gotten so used to being
gawked at that she legitimately doesn’t care.
She
shoots me a grin. My rigid muscles instantly relax. “The usual for you, Pay?”
“Um,
yeah.”
“And a tall coffee, light and
sweet,” she continues to the barista. When she’s finished, she turns back to me
and whispers, “Ignore it. That’s the approach I’m taking.”
What
a radical strategy! “Okay.”
“Your
coffee, darling,” She hands me a piping hot cup and then takes off toward the
large wall of windows. People continue to gape at her as she passes like she’s
a unicorn or some kind of exotic animal. She is stopped twice—first by two
preteen girls who ask for her autograph, and again by a musclebound,
gym-rat-looking guy who uses his iPhone to snap off a few pictures of himself
with his arm slung round her shoulders.
Once
everyone gets over the titillation of her presence, we find a sunlight-drenched
table in the corner where we can sit facing one another. She looks at me for
what feels like forever before speaking. “I can’t believe your hair got so
long.” She puts her cup down, reaches across to me, and winds a few brown
strands between her fingers. “You should get bangs. Not those full in the front
kind, but the asymmetrical side-cut kind. You’d look bangin’,” she chortles.
“Get it, banging?”
“You’re
such a dork,” I say through my own giggle.
“You
know, I meet new people every day, and they all have these great expectations
of me.” Her voice quickly goes from funny to serious. A hint of melancholy
flashes in her eyes. “I’m supposed to be the cool new superstar, or the latest
silver screen vixen. No one sees me as the dork who makes lame puns.”
“But
you are a dork who makes lame puns. You’re just cooler and sexier than the
rest of us. It’s pretty awesome. You’re like a chameleon.”
“A
chameleon?” She cocks her head. “Yeah, I like that. Thank you.”
“Don’t
embrace it too much. You forget that chameleons are slimy reptiles.”
“Wait
a second. Did you just call me a slimy reptile? Nice, Payton. You’re a master
at backhanded compliments and
completely ruining the moment.”
I
take a sip of my steaming coffee and examine her carefully. Her tone was both
convincingly stern and mildly pained, but the look of anger on her face is so
feigned that she isn’t fooling anyone, certainly not me. “Yes, I’m particularly
skilled at ruining moments. And you should
consider taking acting lessons. Your ‘rage face’ is overly emotive.”
“Shut
up,” she croaks. “Damn it. I can’t pull anything over on you, can I?”
“Nope.”
I shake my head, reminding her that I know her all too well.
“While
we’re on the subject of ruined moments, I’d like to ruin your day by making you
take me to the city.”
“No!
You know I hate Manhattan! It’s loud and dirty and too big for its own good.”
“Please?
It’s barely half an hour away, and I’ll drive. I know how much you despise New
York motorists.”
I
look at her skeptically. She reciprocates with a semi-adorable pout.
“I
want to go to The Met. And afterward, I’ll let you take me to lunch. I won’t
even try to pay.”
“Wow!”
I can feel myself smirking. “What a gift! Thank you so much.”
“Whatever!
You always complain that I never let you pay.” She playfully slaps my arm.
“Come on, look at my sad puppy face! You can’t resist it! I am being so cute right now!”
“Okay,
yes! We can go, as long as you stop with the face. I can’t take it.”
“Sweet!”
She holds out her hand. “Car keys, please.”
❄ ❄ ❄
The
Met is much larger than I remember. It’s teeming with tourists, which turns out
to work in our favor. We walk the halls of the museum in silent anonymity,
drifting through a sea of strangers. Not once does anyone stop to ask Kendall
for a picture or autograph. I can tell she is relieved. Truthfully, I am too.
We
reach the photography section and stop to sit on the floor. And that’s when my
senses are tossed into cataclysmic upheaval. Mounted on the wall in front of us
is a print called “Lesbian Couple at the Monocle.” Instantaneously, I’m
anxious. It’s like a sign from the universe telling me that I need to gather my
guts, forget the past, and finally stop being afraid.
I’ve
never said it out loud to anyone. I’m not sure I should start now. Will saying it
give it some kind of molecular structure that permanently and visibly imprints
itself on me? I doubt it. But saying it means that there is a very real chance
I might lose friends and alienate people. Worst of all, I have no idea how
Kendall is going to handle it. It’s not exactly a topic we’ve discussed much
or, like, at all. Will she still see me the same way she did this morning, last
week, last year? At least if I tell her here, in public, she won’t make a
scene. She is notoriously too good an actor for that. Hell, that’s what she
gets paid to do.
I’m
about to drop the bomb when Kendall’s eyes wander up to the photo. “Lesbian
Couple at The Monocle. What?” She stands up to get a closer look. “That’s
weird. I thought it was a picture of a man and a woman. Look at it.” She bends
down, offers her hand to help me to my feet. For an instant I think about
refusing it for fear that my palms are sweaty. I decide I’m being ridiculous,
but wipe my hands on my jeans just in case.
I
clear my throat before speaking and immediately notice how annoyingly hollow
and gruff that sounds. “I would think it was a man and a woman too, at first
glance.”
“It’s
interesting how old this picture is and how much society has changed since it
was taken.”
“What?”
I’m so close to full-blown panic, I’m willing to bet it’s written all over my
face. “What do you mean?”
“Like,
back in the day,” she starts lightly. “I mean, she is clearly a woman,” she
points at the print, “but she is
dressed like a man. I suppose there had to be that, I don’t know that… dynamic
back then. If it were a picture of two girls…” She’s getting flustered,
blushing a bit, but she presses on. “Okay, say it were a picture of me and you.
That caption, ‘Lesbian Couple at the Monocle,’ would have sent people’s heads spinning
more than I’m sure it already did. Do you see what I’m saying? It’s like there
had to be one feminine woman and one more masculine woman for it to have been
understood that they were a couple.”
“Oh.”
I want to say ‘what?’ again, but know I shouldn’t. “You’re talking about
stereotypes?”
“Yes!
That’s it! Like today, just because a woman has short hair or wears racer back
tanks doesn’t mean she’s a lesbian.”
“And
on the flipside, just because a woman has long hair or wears skirts doesn’t
mean she’s straight,” I add.
“Right!
Those notions don’t apply to the world anymore is what I was trying to say.”
“I
get it. You can’t go by what a person looks like.”
“Exactly!”
Then
it hits me. This is it. It’s now or never, put up or shut up. I’ve gotta go for
it. “So, if I were to tell you that I’m gay, it wouldn’t be all that
surprising—purely based on the fact that I have a feminine appearance.”
“No,
not based on your appearance. Based on the fact that I know you, maybe…”
I’m
staring at her now. Blatantly staring. Was
that too indirect? Should I be more forward?
“Wait,”
she says, her eyes narrowing in on me. “Are you trying to tell me that you…”
I
motion yes with my head. “I’m gay,
Kendall.”
And
then there is silence—a very deep, impenetrable stillness. I want to curl into
the fetal position and die right here in the middle of this world class museum.
“Um,
how about we do that lunch thing I’m letting you pay for? I need a beverage,”
She says finally.
It’s
not at all what I was expecting to hear. “Sure.”
We
walk down to the Rock ‘n Roll Deli, neither of us uttering a word to the other.
When we arrive, I order her favorite, tuna salad on a whole wheat wrap, and my
tried-and-true staple, grilled cheese and tomato on rye, while she finds a
booth in the back.
I
haul ass over to her with our food atop a bright red, plastic tray. She
snatches her wrap from the tray, but doesn’t eat it right away. Instead, she is
hell-bent on gawping at me for I don’t know how long. I can’t tell what she’s
thinking, but it’s as if she is somewhere between eyeing up a piece of meat and
staring down a rabid dog. “So, you’re like, gay
gay?” she asks after taking a few bites of her wrap.
“Uh,”
I pause to think over her question. “Is there some kind of non-gay gay?”
She
laughs—the kind of good, hearty laugh that always gets me laughing, too.
“What
I mean is that you’re gay, as in, exclusively. Not like bisexual?”
“Yes,
exclusively. I’m an exclusive lesbian. Though, syntactically, that would
indicate that I’m difficult to get into or something, like one of your hot LA
nightclubs.”
“It’s
impressive that you’re able to maintain your hilariousness even when talking
about serious, life-altering things.”
“Well,
it’s not like some crazy Body Snatcher thing happened, but yeah, it is pretty
life-altering.”
“How
long have you known?”
“For
a long time, but I didn’t start to think of it as a fact until I was sixteen.”
At
that, I see her expression change. She’s offended, or hurt, or something. Maybe
a little bit of both. “Seriously, Payton? You’ve known for ‘a fact’ for nearly three years, and you’re only telling me now? Jesus, are you that scared of me?”
“No,
not at all!” I shake my head fervently. Terrific, I have to tell her the story.
This is one memory I was hoping to never
relive. It might be old news, but it sucked enough to damage me
irreparably. Every time I think about it, I start trembling like a dead leaf in
the wind. “Do you remember Amanda Garrison? She was a year ahead of us in
school.”
“Amanda
Garrison.” She taps the table top as though trying to place a face to the name.
“Yeah, I remember her. She was the captain of the soccer team the year before
you were, right?”
“Right.”
“Uh
huh. What about her?”
Here we go. “I
kind of had a thing with her. It wasn’t, like, love at first sight or anything.
I just knew that I liked her and that she liked me, too. We started talking a
lot after practice, went out on a couple of dates. Eventually her parents found
out about it; I’m still not sure how. They went through her text messages or
something. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. The point is, her mom totally flipped
out. She dragged Amanda to my house and demanded to talk to my mom. Mom wasn’t
home—thank God—but when I told Mrs. Garrison that, she started screaming at me.
She kept telling me that her daughter wasn’t gay, and I had better stay away
from her. She forbid Amanda from seeing me; she even went as far as making her
quit the team. From that day on, Amanda wouldn’t even look at me. It was so
brutal.
After
that, the thought of coming out to anyone was paralyzing. I pretty much dined
on an unhealthy diet of self-loathing and terror. It took me a long time to get
comfortable in my own skin—I’m still working on it. But at this point, I’m just
too exhausted from keeping it a secret to even bother trying anymore.”
Her
revolted expression speaks volumes. It’s enough for me to know what she’s going
to do next. She reaches across the booth and takes my hand in her own. “Wow,
Payton. That’s monumentally messed up. I’m sorry that happened to you. Some
people are just so closed-minded.”
“Some
people are, and that’s also part of the reason I’ve been hesitant to tell you.
You’re a celebrity now. Your face is already plastered all over the tabloids,
and you’re just doing normal teenage crap. What if it got out that some girl
you’re always flying cross-country to visit is a big old homo? I’m sure that
would start some delightful rumors. Rumors create rifts between people. So you
see, I wasn’t scared of you. I was scared I might lose you.”
“The
tabloids are going to write what they’re going to write regardless of what the
truth is, Payton. I can’t let it bother me. Plus, hello? I live in Hollywood. It would be insane to think
that I don’t have any gay friends! And lose me? That will never happen. I’m
like a bad case of herpes—just ‘cuz you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not
there.”
“Herpes!
Eww,” I roll my eyes. “That is a horrible analogy.”
“Yeah,
but it’s kind of funny and also very true.”
“Are
we cool?” She drags out the “cool,” leans back in her seat, and crosses her
arms. “Yeah, dude, everything’s cool. Everything’s smooth.” She’s making fun of
me, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
“Sweet,
dude. Finish your wrap.”
She
brings the last bite to her lips and abruptly stops. “Hold the phone. If you’re
into girls, what the hell was with you and Scott Strafford the end of junior
year?”
“Let’s
chalk it up to a last ditch effort at heterosexuality.”
She
stuffs the bread into her mouth. “Yeah, you should’ve picked someone else. If I
had to choose between that asshole and lesbianism, I’d go gay all the way.
Seriously, I considered asking your mom to have you committed. Only a mental
patient could’ve fallen for that jerk.”
“I’m
going to write The Inquirer and let
them know that one of Hollywood’s It Girls talks with her mouth full.”
“See
food.” She sticks out her tuna-covered tongue. “It’s all the rage.”
“Charming,”
I lark. “No wonder all the guys find you irresistible.”
“Harhar,”
she says and grabs the tray from the table. “Let’s get out of here.”
❄ ❄ ❄
Discover Kendall and Payton’s full
story in
The Gravity
Between Us
Kristen Zimmer
October 17, 2013
Goodreads ** Amazon ** Barnes&Noble ** BookDepository
About the author:
Kristen is a New Jersey-based freelance writer and editor. A member of the International Women’s Writing Guild, she holds a B.A. in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing from Montclair State University. She also studied Music Performance with a focus on percussion instruments at Five Towns College. When not busy writing or burying her nose in books of the YA/New Adult fiction persuasion, Kristen enjoys spending time with her family, which includes two adorable Black Lab mixes and a very patient Better Half, and making electronic music. The Gravity Between Us, a contemporary New Adult Romance, is her first novel.
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4 comments:
AWESOME!
Thanks
That sounds so great! <3
Interesting story line.
Definite read!!
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