My Double Life (13 page)

That was why Grant didn’t like her? Because she hadn’t done his fund-raiser for free? Inwardly my opinion of Grant slid downward. What was it with these celebrities that they always had to get what they wanted?

“I thought the whole thing had ended,” Kari said, “but then a few weeks later, Lorna—she was still my assistant then—Lorna gave out my cell phone number to the hospital director so he could call and lay a guilt trip on me about how the sick kids really wanted to see me and couldn’t I just come make an appearance and sing a couple of songs?

“I couldn’t believe Lorna had given out my number. It was so completely unprofessional, and I’d already said no. She put me in a bad situation, making me turn them down all over again. And I had to change my phone number too. Once those things get out to the public, they always go viral. Of course I fired her.

“So Grant—Mr. Higher and Mightier Than Anyone Else, since he obviously cares about sick kids more than I do—he got her a new job. A job where apparently she has enough free time to write an entire book trashing me.” Her voice broke again. “That’s going to kill my endorsements—I’ve been talking to some department stores about doing a clothing line . . . and my agent is working on a movie deal with Disney, and Mattel wants to do Kari Kingsley doll because I’m such a good role model. Now my fans will turn on me.” She didn’t say more. She went back to crying.

“Don’t worry about the book.” I patted her arm again, this time less awkwardly. “It’s not like most people read anymore. Well, not unless the book has a wizard school or a hot vampire. And as a Kari Kingsley expert, I’m absolutely certain your life has neither of those things.”

She let out a halfhearted laugh, then put her head on her knees. “The paparazzi will gather in packs to hunt me down.”

“You could always dye your hair brown and hang out with my family in West Virginia. The paparazzi would never find you there. We could do the prince and the pauper.”

“What’s the prince and the pauper?”

“See?” I said. “You just proved my point. No one reads anymore.”

She lifted her head. “Oh, you mean that book by Mark Twain. I remember it now. As my life went flashing before my eyes, I recognized it in my eighth-grade English class.”

“Your life only flashes before your eyes when you’re dying,” I said.

“Or when you find out someone is writing a tell-all book about you—at least the really bad parts flash before your eyes.” She let out a moan and rested her head in her hands.

I put my arm around her, giving her a side hug. This moment more than any other made her feel like my sister, only I felt like the older sister instead of the younger one.

Maren came not long after that. She took a look at the broken lamp, then helped Kari to her feet and put her arm around her shoulders. Her voice, which had always been so brisk and businesslike with me, dripped with consolation. “It’s okay. I’ll talk to your lawyer, and we’ll take care of this.” She patted Kari’s arm soothingly. “You shouldn’t have to deal with people like Lorna and Grant. You leave everything to me.”

To me she said, “I’ve called your driver. He’ll take you to my house.” Then the two of them walked out of the entryway, leaving me there. That’s when the full weight of Kari’s words hit me. If the press got wind of Lorna’s book and gathered in packs to hunt her down, I could very well be the one they found.

When Maren came back to the town house several hours later, I was sitting in the kitchen looking up information on gambling addiction with my laptop. She glanced at the screen, tossed her keys on the table, and sighed.

“Does Kari have a gambling addiction?” I asked.

“No, you don’t have an addiction, just a love of playing cards and an unfortunate losing streak. You’re taking responsibility for your debts, though, and paying them off.”

I flipped from one screen to another. “I’m not asking for the official position, I’m asking if Kari has a problem.”

“All you need to know is the official position.”

I held my hand out to the computer screen, offering it as proof. “This is serious. Kari needs help. She needs counseling.”

Maren laughed and turned away from me, walking to the cupboards to pull out a glass. As she poured herself a drink, she said, “See, this is the problem with Lorna’s allegations. You tell a normal person that Kari Kingsley owes four hundred and eighty thousand dollars to casinos, the only assumption they can make is that she’s a gambling addict. People don’t realize that it’s not unusual for wealthy people to blow five, ten thousand dollars on a night of entertainment.”

“Even if they’ve already lost hundreds of thousands of dollars?”

Maren leaned against the counter, the red lipstick she wore still as vibrant as it had been in the morning. “I know celebrities who spend that much going to Cannes every year. And to tell you the truth, Kari owes more than that on her credit cards. Her favorite way to waste time is shopping.” Maren slowly swirled the contents of her drink. “But now that I’m her manager, we’re changing that. I have her on a strict budget, she’s selling off the Lamborghini she hardly ever drives, and no more clothes shopping or gambling until her debts are paid.” She took a drink, set her glass on the countertop, and ran her fingers through her hair. “Kari’s real problem is that she’s dragging her feet on her next album. She records a song and then decides she doesn’t like it. But when the new album comes out, she won’t have any problem paying off the rest of her debts. Until then, you’ll do appearances so she can focus on singing. As long as she can make payments on her debts, the casinos will keep quiet about what she owes.”

Maren walked toward her bedroom, kicking her shoes off, but then she bent down to pick them up. She never left her shoes lying around.

“What about Lorna?” I called after her. “Is there a way to stop her?”

“I’ll look into that tomorrow,” she said. “Lorna did sign a nondisclosure contract, so we’d win in court. But the problem is that sometimes when you threaten to sue a publisher, they see it as free advertising. It’s like adding fuel to the fire. Nothing sells print quite as well as a scandal.” She turned around and surveyed me for another moment. When she spoke again, her voice was impatient. “But you don’t need to worry about Kari or pry into her life. Your job is to be her when you’re needed. That’s all. And don’t go over to Kari’s house again unless I okay it. If you find out anything else you think she needs to know, you tell me first. Understood?”

I felt the sting of her reprimand. “All right.”

But after she left, I kept reading about gambling addiction. The prognosis for people who didn’t get help seemed bleak. They faced financial ruin, estrangement from their families, thoughts of hopelessness and despair. A lot of them ended up in jail or committed suicide.

Then again, maybe Maren was right and I was worrying about nothing. Maybe four hundred eighty thousand wasn’t a big deal to people who spent eight hundred dollars for a pair of shoes and broke lamps when they were angry.

The image of the glass shards on the floor stayed in my mind, bothering me. Maybe because it reminded me of the way I’d pushed books onto the floor in the library, the way I’d stormed out on my mother. Perhaps besides our mannerisms, our love of horses, and weaknesses for Almond Joys, we also shared a temper.

Seeing it in Kari made me realize for the first time that I didn’t like it in myself.

I did an Internet search on Sun Ridge Children’s Hospital. They’d already had the fund-raising concert. Dozens of pictures from the event dotted their website. I found myself staring extra long at the ones of Grant. They didn’t do him justice. They couldn’t capture the energy of his movements or the way his gaze sliced through you. Next I noticed the pictures of the children. There was a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten—completely bald, but still smiling. I wondered if I would be able to smile like that after chemotherapy. I looked from face to face, my heart squeezing tighter with each set of eyes I looked into.

How could Kari have turned them down?

How could she get requests like this every day and not go crazy with grief?

I finally turned off the computer and went to bed, but the faces stayed in my mind long after I’d shut my eyes.

I woke up early the next morning thanks to a phone call from Abuela. She either didn’t get the whole concept of the three-hour time difference or she didn’t care.

“Were you still sleeping?” she asked after I gurgled out a hello. “It’s nearly lunchtime.”

“Which is eight o’clock California time.” This was the one day Maren had let me sleep in because I’d been out late, and it figured that Abuela would call.

“I’ll tell you what time it is. It’s time you came home.” She lowered her voice. “
Escúchame
.” Listen to me. “Your mother went out with Larry again last night. You need to know that.”

I lay back down on my bed and let my cell phone rest against my face. “Why do I need to know that?”

“Because that’s two times in one week,” she said. “He had her over to his house last Wednesday to watch TV.”

TV. He really knew how to woo a girl.

“What am I supposed to do about that?” I asked.

Abuela’s voice took on a terse tone. “The only reason your mother is getting serious with him is because she thinks you need a father figure. You’re so starved for one that you ran off to California, and heaven knows what other fool-minded things you’ll do in an effort to have someone who was never worth it to begin with take notice of you.”

“What?” I asked suddenly, shaking off the remnants of sleep. “Did my mom say that to you?”

“Your mother and I discuss you. It’s not gossip, since we love you. Your mother thinks that man is going to break your heart the same way he broke hers, and she wants a healthy example of male nurturing in your life for when you wise up and come on back home. If you came home now, we could all save ourselves grief. You won’t have to meet Alex Kingsley, and I won’t have to see my daughter marry a man who can speak nonstop through dinner about tax law.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“I don’t have many more years left on this earth, Lexi. Don’t make me spend them with Larry.”

“I said I’d talk to her.”

“You’re going to college in a few months, so what do you need a male role model for anyway?”

“Okay, Abuela, I’ve got to go now. Good-bye.” I hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling for a while.

I didn’t think my mother would really marry Larry just to provide me with a father, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t marry him for other reasons. Maybe if your teenage daughter is meeting her rich, famous father for the first time, you want to feel like you have a stable, successful man in your life.

I dragged myself out of bed and went to the kitchen for breakfast. There was no point in calling Mom now. She was at work.

Maren had gone. She’d left a cut grapefruit sitting on the table and a note saying she went to meet with Kari’s lawyer. I ignored the grapefruit and made myself toast. She also left me instructions to practice my dancing routines, but since it was Saturday and Jacqueline wouldn’t even be at the dance studio, I ignored that too. I had other plans for the morning.

I went to Maren’s office. Last week when I’d been autographing pictures of Kari to send out to fans, I’d noticed a boxful of Kari’s last CD. I took about thirty of them and shoved them into a tote bag.

Then I called my driver and asked him to pick me up in forty-five minutes. Maren never said I couldn’t leave the house. She’d just said I couldn’t go to Kari’s house. I showered, trying to remove all the lingering glitter from my hair, then dressed and re-created my hair and makeup the way I’d been taught—shading my nose to make it seem sharper, applying thick eyeliner and dramatic eye shadow.

I’d just finished when Bao-Zhi came. It occurred to me during the ride down to the hospital that I should call Kari to make sure she wasn’t out somewhere doing a public appearance while I showed up elsewhere, but I didn’t call her. I knew she’d been up late the night before, so she was most likely still asleep. Besides, she wouldn’t want me to visit the hospital, not when it had been the heart of her most recent problem. This was one of those times it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.