"I want my own hotel room," Zac told his father as soon as he'd gotten home from the studio. Diana was nowhere around and Zac was glad for it. He'd had a less than adequate performance and he knew if she heard about it she'd just yell at him again and he didn't want any of that to happen again.
"Why?" Walker asked, turning to his son. "We got this one so we could all share one! That was the point."
"I don't want to deal with this crap any longer," Zac said. "I would like my own hotel room. I don't want to hang around here anymore."
"Is this about your mother yelling at you this morning?" Walker asked. Zac paused. Of course Walker would know about that, but that had slipped Zac's mind.
"Yes, it is," he answered. "She yelled at me for no reason and she called my girlfriend a whore."
"Your girlfriend?" Walker asked. "When did this happen?"
"It's Ginger," Zac said. "The girl who was on Leno when we performed a few days ago. She and I talked and we're dating now. Mom doesn't see me for two days because I'm with her and suddenly I'm not allowed to see her again and Ginger is a whore. She's not a whore! She's anything but! I'm going to see her again and because Mom doesn't like her doesn't mean she has complete control over that."
"Why would your mother call her a whore anyway?" Walker asked.
"Because I had this poster of her and its kind of revealing and Mom freaked out about it. That's the image she gets when she thinks of Ginger! Ginger is nothing like that."
"Well with a name like Ginger, it's hard to get a good impression of her," Walker said. "And she did let you spend the night with her twice." Zac huffed. "I'm not saying she is a whore, but it's easy for your mother to think that way."
"Well can I have my own room or not?"
"I'll think about it, Zac," Walker said. "You know your brothers are going to want their own rooms as well."
"They don't matter," Zac said. "I do." He turned around and went back to his section of the hotel room and closed the door behind him. Isaac and Taylor were in there, sitting on their beds. Isaac was watching television and Taylor was working on something in a notebook. They both looked up when Zac came in the room.
"So is going to let you have your own room?" Taylor asked.
"He said he'll think about it," Zac said. Walker's idea of thinking about things was much different from Diana. When Diana said she'd think about it, the answer was automatically no, she just didn't want to say it yet. Walker would actually take the time to consider the options available and reach a decision from that. His mind wasn't already made up when he made his initial statement. "I don't know. However, I do know that I'm sick of Mom calling Ginger a whore when she hasn't even met the girl yet."
"Well, Zac, she did sleep with you and she doesn't even know you."
"But I didn't give her money for it!" Zac yelled. "The only way she could be a whore is if I gave her money, and I didn't. It�it just really pisses me off. I really like Ginger." Taylor rolled his eyes. "I do. I know I don't know her very well but I know more about her than most people do. I know all of the basics from her unofficial Internet biography." This time Isaac snickered and rolled his eyes at his little brother. "Shut up, the both of you. This is why I want my own room."
"You just don't want to deal with mom."
"I don't want to deal with any of this! I'm going downstairs right now and see if there's an open room somewhere." Zac walked out of his room and his mother was out in the common area. He sighed and headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Her incessant, motherly whine pierced his ears in a way only a nagging mother could.
"I'm going to the lobby to see if there's any other rooms available," Zac said, reaching the door. He grabbed the doorknob but his mother appeared beside him and stopped him.
"Why would you do something like that?" she asked.
"Because I'm sick of this family!" he yelled. "I'm sick of my brothers and I'm sick of you! All you've been doing lately is nagging and yelling and frankly I don't want to deal with any longer. I don't understand how anyone can put up with your bullshit! I'm sick of it and I'm getting my own room if I have to go to another hotel to do it." He left the room and could still hear her as he went down the hall.
"What was that all about? What did you people do to him?" He groaned and jammed his finger into the button for the elevator.
He was downstairs in the lobby and was walking towards the front desk when Ginger came rushing in, her cheeks flushed and her hair all over the place from the wind that was outside. He was confused. "Ginger?" he asked, walking over to her. She saw him and smiled. "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in New York?"
"Something came up," she said, fixing her hair. "They put it off for a few days. I never left town! I'm glad you're down here, I didn't know if I'd be able to find out what room you were in."
"Do you have somewhere to stay?" he asked. She shook her head, pausing.
"No, I didn't think about that. I was too excited about getting to stay a few more days that I didn't even think about where I was going to be staying at night."
"That's okay," he said. "I was just about to get myself my own room. You could stay with me." She nodded.
"All right." They went to the front desk and sure enough there was a room open for the remainder of the time Zac would be staying in LA. It was a double, so Ginger could stay while she was still in town. It turned out she would be staying two more days until she got a call from Kris, who had already left for New York, to fly back east.
"Do you have any clothes?" Zac asked. Ginger paused again. "You didn't think this through, did you?" She shook her head.
"Everything was set and on the plane and right before we boarded I got a call saying that somebody's mother died and we'd have to push everything back a few days. I wanted to stay here so I did. Kris had everything else," she admitted. "Don't worry, we'll just have to go shopping for some stuff. No big deal."
"Yeah, no big deal until you realize how much crap you need," Zac said. They began to walk towards the elevators.
"I'll be fine. We'll just find a Wal-Mart and everything will be good in the world," Ginger said. As they approached the elevators, one of the doors opened and Taylor came walking out.
"Taylor?" Zac asked. "What are you doing down here?"
"Looking for you. Everyone's on a rampage looking for you! Mom's thinking everything is our fault, Dad keeps�who is this?" Taylor asked, finally noticing the shy redheaded girl next to Zac, still looking a bit windblown and out of place.
"This is Ginger," Zac said. "Um, Ginger, this is my brother Taylor."
"Nice to meet you," Ginger said with a smile. She extended her hand and Taylor shook it, staring straight into her violet eyes that had captivated Zac quite a long time ago. Taylor flashed her back that killer smile of his that always seemed to be on his face when a beautiful girl was around, no matter who she belonged to.
"Likewise," he said in his charming manner that made Zac want to throw up. Sometimes Taylor could be too much. The chicks always, always fell for it and were all over him in a matter of minutes, but after a while Zac just found it boring and obnoxious. It was more obnoxious this time around because Taylor was directing it towards the love of Zac's life.
"Anyway," Zac interrupted. Ginger released Taylor's hand and Zac immediately took it in his to make sure that never happened again. "I got my own room and Ginger's going to be staying with me for a while, until she goes to New York, and I hope you let everyone know that. By the way I'll try not to be mentioning what room I'm staying in and I don't want anyone to be bugging me. I'll get Ginger settled in and then I'll be getting my things and I don't want to hear another word about it."
Zac and Ginger went into the elevator together, leaving Taylor to find another one for himself. "Troubles at home?" Ginger asked, looking up at Zac. He sighed.
"Like you wouldn't believe."
"Oh my God, shut up, there are like, five people here," Ginger said, when Zac had parked in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart later that evening and immediately began to whine. "You can come in with me. Nobody's going to care."
"Somebody might care," Zac said. "I don't know�people know we're in town, they might be looking." Ginger rolled her eyes.
"This is LA, Zac. Bigger stars than you and me are here all the time and nobody cares. They're used to it. Now I just need to get some things for the next two days, we'll be out in no time."
"I'm telling you, if you hang around naked it's just fine with me," Zac said, looking over at her with a grin. She rolled her eyes.
"Zac�it's not just clothes. I need other stuff too," she told him. "It won't take long, I promise. I know exactly what I need and I'm not going to try and look for stylish clothes here, I just need something to wear until I can get back to my usual wardrobe in New York."
"What about me?" he asked.
"What about you? Do you want me to buy you something?" He narrowed his eyes and she giggled. "I'll buy something nice to show off for you. Let's go." She opened the door and got out of the car, which was a step further than Zac would have gone if the decision were left to him. Sighing, he opened his door and got out of the car, meeting Ginger again and taking her hand. "Honestly, Zac, do you have something again Wal-Mart?"
"No," he said, shaking his head. "It's just, I haven't been to one in years and I really never planned on going to one again." She rolled her eyes.
"Whatever, Zac. This place is good for temporary crap if you don't want to spend a lot of money. I don't feel like going to the mall and spending a butt load of money on clothes that I'm probably never going to wear again." They walked through the sliding glass doors into the Wal-Mart. It was virtually empty but the people working there were the kind of people Zac expected to see in a Wal-Mart and he didn't necessarily care for it. He'd been Hollywood for so long he forgot what normal people looked like but Ginger didn't seem to have a problem with anything. It was obvious. She'd been famous for less than a year. She had her entire life to be with normal people while Zac had only a few years and he didn't ever remember being normal. All his life he was in weird places doing weird things, to the point where his weirdness was normal. She was definitely not like that.
"What's the weather supposed to be like the next few days?" Ginger asked randomly as they walked towards the section of the store with clothes.
"Um�I don't know," Zac said.
"You're a lot of help," she said, eyeing him. "I just want to know what kind of clothes I should get. If it's going to be hot, I'll get shorts. If it's not, I'll get pants. I need to know."
"It's California, Ging, and it's summer, it'll probably be hot." She paused. "What?"
"Ging," she said, repeating his nickname for her. "I like that."
"You mean to tell me nobody's ever called you Ging before?" She shook her head. "Wow." She shrugged.
"Well it's probably because Ginger isn't my real name," she said.
"It's not?" She shook her head. "How did I not know this?" She smiled.
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe it's because I don't let people know that. You're the first person I've told who hasn't known me all my life." That surprised him. He didn't even know her but there they were, in a Wal-Mart buying clothes so she could stay with him for the next two days in his hotel room. If this was his actual home they'd be living together, as temporary as it was. That scared him. He didn't know her and they were spending all of their time together, talking like they'd been dating for years, and now she just told him something she hadn't told a single person in her entire life that didn't know to begin with.
"�Okay," he said. "So what's your real name?"
"Laura," she told him. "My name is Stevens, but my first name is Laura."
"Why'd you change it?" he asked. "Laura is a beautiful name." She made a face.
"Yeah, yeah, I hear that all the time. Kris is constantly telling me 'Laura's such a beautiful name, I wish you'd go back to using it'�so would my parents. But I don't like it. It's too common. There were eight Laura's my freshman year in high school. Eight! That's crazy. I'd already changed my name to Ginger by then and I wouldn't let anybody know my real name; I even had them change it in the yearbook. I just didn't like being common. I always knew I was different. I didn't know a single person named Ginger and I decided that would be my new name."
"When did you change it?"
"The summer before seventh grade," she said. "I was twelve." She grabbed a T-shirt off the shelf and put it in the cart. She already had two pairs of shorts in there.
"Isn't that when you started writing?" She nodded, then turned to him.
"How did you know that?"
"Lucky guess," he said, giving her a smile. "So, how'd you come up with Ginger?"
"She was the main character in my first story," she said. "How did you know I started writing when I was twelve? I never say that in interviews. Are you a stalker? Are you stalking me?" He laughed.
"No, Ging, I'm not a stalker," he said. "I just happen to know a lot about you. I'm sorry; I'm a fan. Fans do this sort of thing. You're one of my fans, don't you know anything that a normal person wouldn't know about me?" She nodded.
"I guess so."
"See? So it's not that weird."
"I guess you're right," she said.
"Of course I'm right. Are you done yet?" She rolled her eyes.
"I'm nowhere near done." He groaned and she laughed, pushing the cart along further into the store.