Movers and Fakers (4 page)

Now that Shira knew the truth about who Allie was (and who she wasn’t), her paranoia level was permanently at code orange.
Because the only thing more tiring than lying to everyone was trying to figure out why Shira had kept her secret for so long.
It had been a week since Allie had come face-to-face with the real Allie J in Shira’s office, so what was she still doing
here? And even if she
were
staying, what kind of greatness could she possibly aspire to? Being the best liar in school? Root maintenance that rivaled
Madonna’s? Faking her way through life?

As the New Age elevator music careened toward a crescendo, Allie’s exhausted mind groped for reasons she wouldn’t be kicked
out. Maybe Allie J snubbed Shira by not wanting to attend the Academy, and Shira needed Allie to stay in order to save face?
That was the only logical explanation for why Shira didn’t kick her out last week, for why the barefoot songstress had not
made a follow-up appearance, and why life on the island was Alphas as usual. Or maybe the encounter with Allie J hadn’t really
happened? Could it have been a dream, just a vivid hallucination during her fainting spell in Shira’s office? Allie’s nerves
were so frayed that anything was possible.

“Hey, Chew-baca!” Skye whisper-yelled. “Puh-leeze quit chewing. I bit it hard today, and sleep is all I have to look forward
to.”

“Sorry,” Allie mumbled, spitting out her latest piece of gum and wrapping it up. The slideshow had ended without her even
noticing.

“You can always look forward to the challenge of keeping up with me tomorrow,” Triple sneer-snorted at Skye from underneath
her blackout eye mask. The words
rock star
were embroidered on the outside in screaming pink letters, apparently affirming her unshakable ego even while she slept.
Triple pointed an OPI Russian Debutante Red foot, and Allie grimaced at Triple’s calloused feet hanging off the edge of her
bed. Didn’t the girl know that pathogens could affix themselves to so much dead skin?

“Thanks, Triple,” snapped Skye. “But I’d rather focus on trying to drum up some excitement around here.”

“My excitement is with my craft.” Triple raised a corner of her eye mask to glare in Skye’s direction, flipped her flawless
blow-out so it fanned out over her pillow, and settled back into bed as if to say,
The Diva Has Spoken.

As Skye and Charlie shared a simultaneous eye roll, Allie wished for the millionth time that she could just tell them her
secret and move on, knowing they were friends with her
for her
. She had almost confessed a thousand times this week, but every time she came close to telling the truth, there was always
a better reason not to. She even had a running tally in her head:

Allie hadn’t seen Darwin alone since her encounter with the real Allie J. Not only did the potential revelation of her real
identity make it impossible for her to lock lips with a clear conscience, but Shira had installed cameras
everywhere
to watch the girls’ every move. Allie needed to stay out of any situation that smelled like trouble. And Darwin reeked of
it.

Shira’s number-one rule for Alpha girls was
No Fraternizing with the Brazille Boys
. They were to share classes and ideas—not spit. But avoiding Darwin wasn’t easy, and as his texts grew increasingly persistent,
Allie’s dodges had become increasingly lame.

Now all Allie had of Darwin was her gum, a pathetic facsimile of his cinnamon-scented toothpicks. No gum was sweet enough
to match the flavor of his kiss, the feel of his arms around her waist, the thrill of knowing she would see him soon, and
the chance that their relationship would bloom like the tropical flowers on Alpha Island—wild, exotic, yet engineered for
perfection.

Ping!

Hoping it was Darwin—and then praying it wasn’t—Allie leapt for her aPod. She checked the glowing screen, half hoping, half
dreading a sweet good-night kiss via text—or worse, another request to sneak out that she would have to refuse.

But it wasn’t Allie’s aPod beeping. Sweeping aside a heap of gum wrappers, she laid her aPod on her bedside table and looked
around the dark room to see whose face was glowing.

“Taz!” Allie could see the white of Skye’s smile lit by her aPod’s mini-screen. “I’m emoticon-ing him back this time. Now that
dance is dead to me, I have nothing to lose.”

“Not that you’ll be able to actual-leh
see
him,” Allie reminded her.

“These cameras are
such
a drag.” Skye groaned. “The past two weeks have been deader than MJ.” She moonwalked her fingers across her comforter and
looked up at the stars. “RIP, Michael,” she added with a sigh.

Allie envied Skye’s single-mindedness. Whether it was dancing or Taz, Skye had her eyes on the prize. She wondered if she
would ever manage to be that way about anything. Split-end maintenance didn’t count as a passion, did it?

“Allie-oop,” Skye whispered to Allie, “no text from Darwin?”

“He texted earlier,” she said. “I’d love to see him, but I’m too freaked out.”
For so many reasons.

She looked over at Charlie, who was still tapping away on her laptop. Even though Charlie was her best friend at the Academy,
Allie wasn’t always totally convinced she was over Darwin. After all, they’d been together for years. If she were in Charlie’s
position, Allie wasn’t sure she would be so accommodating.

“You can all thank me later,” Charlie announced, her face blue in the glow of her computer screen. “I’ve just finished writing
my six-point plan of attack.”

“What are you attacking?” Skye cracked her neck first to the right, then to the left, and shot Allie a
Charlie’s lost it
look.

Charlie flashed Allie a mischievous grin. This was going to be good, Allie could feel it. Charlie could do things regular
Alphas just couldn’t. Flying a PAP wasn’t even the half of it.

Charlie straightened up behind her laptop. “I’m going to find a way to help Allie see Darwin. And Skye, you’ll be able to
see Taz. In fact,
any
Alpha girl can see
any
Brazille boy—if my plan works.”

Everyone glanced over at Triple, but she was out cold under her
ROCK STAR
eye mask.

“Serious-leh? You mean you’re going to find a way to get rid of the cameras?” Allie felt her face flush, both at the possibility
of seeing Darwin again and at the awesomeness that was Charlie Deery. How could she have doubted Charlie’s sincerity about
Darwin? Charlie was everything that Trina wasn’t—loyal to a fault.

“Uh-huh.” Charlie beamed a thousand-watt smile straight at Allie. “Tomorrow.”

Skye jumped out of bed and did a spontaneous pirouette. “Ah-mazing! Charlie, you’re a lifesaver.” She sat back down in her
bed, frantically tapping on her aPod. “I’m texting Taz right now.”

“What are you writing?” Allie asked. She wished she could be as in-the-moment as Skye, but she suddenly felt as if she’d just
swallowed a bag of Pop Rocks with a Diet Coke chaser—full of fizzy, slightly scary expectation.

“I’m asking if he’s free tomorrow night. I’m not the kind of girl who takes her time.” Skye pointedly raised her eyebrows
at Allie.

“You should text Darwin,” agreed Charlie in a gentle voice. “I mean, if you want.”

Allie nodded, shivering at the possibility. Charlie was the best! If she could just feel the warmth of Darwin’s hand in hers
and maybe even make contact with his soft lips, she knew she’d be able to survive the anxiety of living a lie.

“I will. But first, lemme see the plan!” Allie rolled out of her bed and bounced onto Charlie’s, almost knocking the laptop
to the floor as she squeezed Charlie in a happy hug, the kind she used to give her favorite stuffed animal, Mr. Moose McCuddles,
back when she was seven and the phrase
identity theft
didn’t even exist.

“Okay, so you know how Shira’s always asking me to spy for her? That’s step one…,” Charlie began.

Staring at Charlie’s carefully calibrated spreadsheet, Allie brushed her secret back under the rug of her unconscious, where
it couldn’t torture her so much. After all, if Shira really wanted Allie out, she would already be gone. Wouldn’t she?

BRAZILLE RESIDENCE

FRONT PORCH

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST

5:37 P.M.

T-Minus 29:00

Like the mogul herself, Shira’s front door was larger-than-life. The enormous slab of Brazillian Rosewood gleamed in the late-afternoon
light. Charlie laid her hand on the nine-foot door, trying to remember how much Bee had told her it was worth.
Forty thousand? Eighty?
The sums were so large that Charlie couldn’t keep them all straight. A pair of white butterflies danced in front of the jasmine
that crept along Shira’s fence, and Charlie took a deep breath of the fragrant air.
Calm down, Charlie, you can do this.

Nobody knew Shira better than Charlie did, except Bee, but the stakes were high. If she got caught, she’d be shipped off to
boarding school in Hoboken, New Jersey, faster than a PAP could reach 40,000 feet.

The plan, focus on the plan!
Charlie checked her watch for the twentieth time.

So far, things had gone off without a hitch. At exactly 5:29, Charlie had sent a text.

Charlie:
I’ve been a good spy. I have a name for you. Need to see you today.

Being Shira’s ex-assistant’s daughter had its perks. Charlie had Shira’s schedule memorized—it helped that her habits had
remained relatively unchanged for more than ten years. 5:29 was when Shira’s driver dropped her off at home, and at 5:58,
she had a nightly conference call with her accountant. What Shira did for the twenty-nine minutes in between was a mystery
to Charlie, but whatever it was, it happened at home. Thankfully, Shira’s mysterious time slot coincided with Darwin’s nightly
jog on the beach, so chances were good that Charlie wouldn’t have to explain to him what she was doing here.

Charlie pressed Shira’s doorbell again and realized she had never entered the house from the front before. For almost her
whole life, she’d been a member of Shira’s professional family: first, because she came along with Bee, who had keys to the
back entrances of all of Shira’s properties. Later on, when she was with Darwin, she entered the Brazille house as if she
lived there. Now she was on her own, without the backstage pass that came with being part of Shira’s entourage. And neither
her mother nor Darwin was there to protect her anymore.

T-Minus 26:00

Just when Charlie was starting to hyperventilate from nervousness, the door whooshed open to reveal Fiona,Shira’s first assistant
(formerly her second assistant, until Bee left).

“Come in, Charlie. Shira will see you now.” A thin smile passed quickly over Fiona’s lipsticked mouth, as crisply professional
as her tailored crepe suit and pumps. They had known each other for years, but it was clear that to Fiona, Charlie was on
the outside now.

Charlie stepped inside, feeling faintly ridiculous in her Alpha uniform: a platinum vest, pleated mini in shimmering pewter,
champagne-colored blouse with oversize puffed sleeves, and clear knee-high gladiator sandals with massaging soles and no-tan-line
technology. All Alpha-issued clothing was light-reflective—Shira wanted her girls to never forget to shine.

Shira’s great room was easily large enough to house a jet. One side looked like the swooping wing of an enormous glass seagull,
curving and narrowing into a dramatic archway. Charlie hovered near the back wall, which was lined with framed photographs
of Shira and the boys. Charlie knew most of the photos by heart—the twins, Taz and Dingo, at six, each missing front teeth,
grinning on an Indonesian beach. The one of Melbourne and Darwin fencing in Bath, England, Charlie’s mother, Bee, standing
off to the side. The one of Sydney, age nine or ten, studying an atlas in the living room of Shira’s Park Avenue penthouse.

Charlie peered among the pictures, looking for the one of her with Darwin. Her eyes skimmed past Shira shaking hands with
Bill Clinton, Shira with foreign dignitaries at an international conference in Davos, Switzerland, Shira with Oprah and Bono
at her End Global Hunger Annual Gala, Shira with Bill and Melinda Gates…. Where was the picture from Lake Titicaca?
Aha!