My Double Life (12 page)

When I didn’t go after Stefano, Grant laughed under his breath, then took hold of my hand again and pulled me toward the back of the club.

“You could have least told him ‘I left something on the stove.’ That’s nearly believable.”

He spoke to me so casually, like he knew Kari. Maybe he hadn’t realized I was a fake in the low lighting of the club, but we were heading toward a back door with a sign that read EMPLOYEES ONLY. Would his tone of voice change then? A bouncer stood by the wall, surveying the crowd. When he saw us and our entourage of bodyguards he said, “Is there anything I can get for you, Mr. Delray, Miss Kingsley?”

“We need a place to talk alone for a few minutes.”

The bouncer stepped aside—just like that—and let us by.

Grant opened the door and we walked into a supply room, leaving the bodyguards outside. He hit the light switch and I blinked, adjusting my eyes to the harsh white glare. I was afraid to turn and face him, so I stared at boxes stacked against the wall labeled NAPKINS, CUPS, STRAWS.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Grant said tightly. “I shouldn’t feel obligated after what you’ve done.”

He knew then. He knew I was a fake. I turned to him, trying to think of the right words to plead my case. I had considered the fact that I might not be able to pull this charade off. I had even thought out justifications for my position when I got caught, but I had never once thought I’d be busted by Grant Delray in a supply closet.

Before I could say anything, he went on. “I guess I’m telling you this because, despite everything, I hate it when people make a profit trashing celebrities, and this time I feel partially responsible. So I’m giving you fair warning. You know I helped Lorna Beck get a job?”

“What?” I asked.

“Lorna Beck. I got her a job working for my agent. She’s his personal assistant now.”

“Oh.” Maybe he didn’t know who I was. That was good news, except that I had no idea what he was talking about.

“She’s a good assistant—has a photographic memory. You might not have realized that about her.”

I smiled. It seemed like I should. After all, he got someone a job, and she was good at it. “That’s great,” I said.

His eyebrows drew together at my words, and he scanned my face to see if I was serious. “You think that’s great?”

Which meant I’d given the wrong reaction, but I didn’t know why. I swallowed hard. “I mean, I’m glad your agent likes Lorna. . . .” That seemed like a safe statement.

More doubt shadowed his face. He took a step closer, examining my expression. “You’re serious.” This seemed to surprise him. “You don’t hold any bad feelings for her?”

I shrugged. “Why should I?” And I wasn’t being rhetorical. I really wanted to know.

“Well, you’re the one who fired her. Remember that entire bit about ‘you’ll never work in this business again’?”

Oh. Kari had fired Lorna. That was an important detail, but how was I supposed to react now?

Right there staring at the paper towel box, I decided that as long as I was being Kari, she could be gracious about her ex-employees. I nodded sadly. “Right, well, sometimes in the heat of the moment, we all say things we don’t mean, and I’m sorry about that. Really. I’m happy she’s got a good job now.”

“Uh-huh.” He watched me, still not convinced.

“Tell her I said hi the next time you see her.”

He folded his arms and regarded me silently.

It was easy to smile back at him because I was Kari and she was important enough to hold his attention. For the first time since I’d become her, I really relished her status. I was looking at Grant Delray, and he was staring back at me with deep blue eyes. “Is that all you wanted to talk about?”

He shook his head. “No. I thought you should know she’s writing a tell-all book about you.”

“What?” I took a step backward. “What is she saying about me?”

“That you’re a gambling addict, for one thing.”

“I am not.” The denial came out before I could fully process that he meant Kari. I had no idea if she was or not.

“Lorna says you owe half a million dollars to casinos, and she’s seen the documentation herself—dates, amounts. She’s got photographic recall.” He said this as a challenge. He expected me to deny it or explain it away. I couldn’t do either.

“She’s an ex-employee with an ax to grind,” I said, perhaps more to myself than to Grant. I didn’t want the claim to be true, even if it did make sense, and maybe it did. Kari had brought me in to make money. Why would she take the risk unless she needed the money fast? I hated the thought of being used that way—to pay off casinos.

I didn’t want to hear any more bad things about Kari—my sister—and yet I had to ask. “What else is Lorna saying?”

Grant didn’t speak for a moment, his expression turned from accusing to something else, contemplative maybe. His voice had gone quiet. “That you’re a spoiled prima donna, raised with a silver microphone in your mouth. I don’t know a lot, only the things my agent has let slip—”

“Is she saying anything about my father?”

My question seemed to take him aback. “What are you afraid she’ll say?”

I was afraid if anyone dug into Kari’s past—or her father’s past—they would turn up information about my mother and me. The thought of my life being laid open that way made my throat feel tight. Would the tabloids try to track my mother down? Would they come after me?

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just want her to leave my family out of it. If she has something against me, that’s one thing. I might deserve it, but they don’t.” I realized my mistake after I’d spoken. I had referred to my family as “they” instead of “he.” Kari only had her father as her family.

Grant’s eyebrows rose, but if he noticed my mistake, he didn’t mention it. “I don’t know what she’s saying about your father.”

“Can you find out what’s in the book?”

“You mean like ask to see the table of contents or something?”

“Wouldn’t Lorna tell you?”

He put his hand on his chest in disbelief. “You’re asking me for a favor? Me?”

I weighed his words and then decided I should answer him anyway. “Yes.”

He tilted his head, blinking. “And what did you say when I asked you for a favor?”

Well, that was a question I couldn’t answer. Although I imagined it was some sort of no since he was acting like I’d sprouted a second head. I shrugged and held my hands out to him as though reaching to make amends—anything rather than stand there and stare at him like I had no idea what he meant.

“You said you didn’t do appearances unless you got paid,” he said. “And your fee for singing was twenty thousand dollars.” He walked to the door, resting one hand on the doorknob. “How about this—I’ll do a book review for you for the same price.”

Then he walked out and left me standing there among the boxes.

CHAPTER 8

I stayed there longer than I should have. I bet real celebrities don’t hide out in supply closets full of boxes of straws, but I needed time to process everything Grant had said. When I came out, I asked Nikolay to escort me to the limo.

Instead of going back to Maren’s house like I was supposed to, I told the driver to take me to my house—Kari’s house. I needed to talk to her.

The gate code wasn’t a problem. That had been easy enough to remember from when we dropped her off from the airport: It was 1111. I think as in “I’m number one” repeated four times.

There was one awkward moment while Nikolay escorted me to the door. I worried that it would be locked and then I’d have to make up some excuse about losing my keys, which would cause Nikolay to walk around the house checking for open windows. My mind was already racing ahead to the moment that Kari called the police to report burglars, and the scene down at the police station when the police—and then the media—realized I’d been at a club opening impersonating Kari Kingsley.

How would my mug shot look in this gladiator dress?

But the door swung open. I didn’t want Kari to freak out if she unexpectedly heard her front door opening, so as I walked in I called out, “Hey, I’m back from the club!” Which—in case Nikolay heard me—is something Kari might have said, if she was one of those people who talked to her cats.

I shut the door firmly, then leaned against it, waiting for Kari to appear. While I waited I took in the entryway. In my house, you walked into the living room and from there you could see the kitchen and the hallway that led to the three small bedrooms that made up the rest of the house. Kari had an entryway the size of my living room, but you couldn’t see anything beyond it. All you saw was this wall with a huge black-and-white picture of Kari wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in a wheat field. It even had its own lights aimed at it.

Stone tiles spread out in front of me, and on either side of the entryway were matching antique chests. A lamp and a silk plant sat on one. The other had a decorative bowl full of funky black and white balls.

After a minute, Kari appeared. She wore an oversized football shirt that must have doubled as pajamas and carried a corn dog. She cocked her head when she saw me. “What are you doing here?”

I pointed at her corn dog. “What are you doing with that? I thought you were a vegetarian.”

She looked down at the food in her hand. “Oh, this. Sometimes when I’m stressed-out I have to have comfort food. Besides, this hardly counts as meat. It’s all preservatives and nitrates.”

I took a step toward her, still pointing. “I had to pass up coconut shrimp appetizers at the club and you’re here eating a corn dog?”

“Save the lecture and tell me how things went.” She gave me a teasing smile. “Especially things with Stefano. Did you kiss him?”

I folded my arms. “Stefano left the club after I danced with another guy.”

Kari took a bite of her corn dog and shook her head. “Well, good riddance, then. I totally hate jealous guys. That was the problem with Michael; he got too demanding, you know? I mean, my boyfriend has to realize that I’m going to smile and flirt with a lot of people. That’s just the business. A guy should deal with it, not retaliate by partying with some trampy little starlet from
General Hospital
.”

“I was dancing with Grant Delray. Do you want to fill me in on why he hates you?”

“Grant Delray?” She put her corn dog down on the antique chest with a thud. “He was there?”

“Yeah. We had an interesting talk. Mostly interesting because I didn’t know what he was talking about—”

Kari cut me off. “He was not supposed to be there. I have made it clear to anyone I deal with that I am never going to be in the same place as that egotistical, hypocritical, kiss-up publicity hog. I’m calling Maren about this right now. This is absolutely—”

“He said someone named Lorna Beck is writing a tell-all book about you.”

Kari didn’t speak. She let out a shrill “Nooooo!” picked up a lamp, and threw it against the wall. It smashed and little chunks skittered across the tile, spinning to a stop.

How much had that cost? At least two hundred dollars. I couldn’t help myself; I thought of things that two hundred dollars could buy. A year’s worth of cold cereal? Six months of cell phone coverage? A dozen T-shirts? One broken lamp.

Kari ran her hand through her hair and took deep, labored breaths. “She can’t do this. She signed a nondisclosure contract. I will sue her. I will sue her publisher, and I will sue any store that carries her book!”

This is what Grant had expected to see, I realized. He’d thought I would fall apart like Kari was doing now. Maybe she would have thrown those boxes of straws against the wall and then they would have rained down like confetti on the two of them. I was glad I had been there instead.

“So the stuff about the gambling debts is true?”

Kari put her hand over her mouth, sank onto the floor crying, and didn’t answer me.

I called Maren. I didn’t know what else to do. Then I sat next to Kari on the entryway floor. I hated to see her this way, so fragile and hurt, her flair and confidence gone. A real sister would know what to do in this sort of situation, but I had nothing to draw on.

I scooted over until we were almost touching, then I patted her arm awkwardly. “It will be all right. Things can’t be that bad.”

Kari held one hand over her eyes. “Lorna will make things look that bad—and Grant will probably give away copies of her book at his concerts.”

I thought of Grant, of him taking my arm and leading me to the floor, and how my heart had flipped around in my chest so persistently it had been hard to dance at all. I remembered his blue eyes, cool with resentment, staring at me in the supply room, and his expression when he’d left. I wanted to hate him for Kari’s sake, but perhaps his blue eyes were still too vibrant in my memory. I could only muster some disappointment that he would never like me. “How come you don’t get along with Grant? And why did he act like he knew you but didn’t recognize I wasn’t you?”

“I’ve never actually met him,” she said, her voice uneven from crying. “We’ve only talked through our publicists. A few months ago, Grant put together a fund-raiser for the Sun Ridge Children’s Hospital, and he wanted me to appear as one of the headliners. And since it was a fund-raiser he wanted it for free.”

Kari took a shuddering breath. “I refused. I get requests to do fund-raisers all the time—and I mean every single day. My policy is that I do two free ones a year, and that’s it. I’ve already done one for California animal shelters and one for breast cancer, and besides, right now I really need money. I’ve even had to let a lot of my staff go. If I’m going to take off work to practice and put on a concert, I need to be paid. I’ve got to buy a costume, have a choreographer come up with something new, pay the backup dancers, the makeup artist, the hairstylist—my glam squad is expensive. I gave him a cut-rate price for a mini concert.”