My Double Life (26 page)

She held me tighter, put her head against my shoulder, and cried.

Mom took me to a salon the next day to dye my hair back to brown. I only felt a twinge of guilt that I was covering Peter the Hungarian hairstylist’s highlighting masterpiece. I was ready to be a brunette again. I had the beautician dye the hair extensions along with my hair. I decided I wanted long hair, after all.

I had expected that once my hair turned brown again, I’d look pretty much like I had before I left for California. I’d only been gone two months. But even as I peered in the mirror, I couldn’t find the old Alexia. Mom was right. I seemed older. Or maybe it was just that I felt so different.

All day long, I kept finding bits of glitter scattered throughout the house. They turned up on the bathroom counter and kitchen table like little fairy gifts. They didn’t bother me so much now. I knew they wouldn’t last.

I spent most of Sunday sitting on our worn and fraying couch telling Mom and Abuela everything that happened. It was good to be home. Instead of being ashamed of our cramped kitchen and the family portraits that hung in cheap frames on the wall, I found I didn’t want to change any of it. It was comfortable and cozy, unpretentious and warm, like Mom and Abuela.

Abuela for once was more interested in listening than talking. She loved how I told Alex Kingsley that he was my father after he’d lectured me on ethics. They both felt sorry for Kari. Mom felt sorry for Kari because she’d had such a hard life, and Abuela felt sorry for Kari because she’d had such an easy one. Mom said she’d remember Kari in her prayers. Abuela offered to teach her Spanish.

When I laughed at the idea, Abuela pulled herself up straighter and said, “And why shouldn’t I teach her Spanish? If she’s your sister, she’s family. She’s my half granddaughter.”

I wondered what Kari would think about such an addition to her relatives. And then I wondered if she already knew the truth. When would he tell her? Would she be happy or horrified?

I also wondered if my father had told Grant about me yet. How upset would he be that I’d deceived him about my identity? Would he try and contact me or would he be happy to let everything about us disappear?

The phone rang, and Abuela, Mom, and I looked at it, then looked at each other. “You get it,” I said to Mom.

She didn’t move. “If that’s your father, he’s calling to talk to you, not me. You get it.”

“Mom, he said he wanted to talk to you. You should get it.”

“I’m not going to answer it.”

Abuela stood up. “
I’ll
get it. I have a thing or two to say to that man.”

Which made Mom and I both dive for the phone. I got to it first, answering with a breathless “Hello?”

It wasn’t my father or Grant. A man’s voice I didn’t recognize asked to speak to my mother. I handed her the phone. After a few moments, I could pick up from the conversation that it was my father’s lawyer. He wanted the name of Mom’s lawyer—as though we naturally had one. Something to do with back child support. The whole topic made Mom uncomfortable, and she paced around the kitchen while she talked. After she hung up, she said to Abuela, “I don’t know how to handle this. I didn’t raise my daughter because I thought someday he’d pay me for it.”

“Don’t look a gift check in the mouth,” Abuela said. “You’ve still got to send Lexi to college.” Abuela brushed a piece of lint from her housedress. “And if we have enough left over to take a cruise,
bueno.
Who’s to say we don’t deserve it?”

I waited for the phone to ring again. And I knew, though she didn’t say it, that my mom waited too. Certainly if my father’s lawyer called today, my father would call too. He’d call to talk about money stuff with my mom or to make sure I got home okay. Something.

Lori came over that evening. She loved my hair’s new length. I told her my sister had insisted I get it done so we’d have our hair the same way. I didn’t tell her any names, though. It would change how everyone saw me, and I was still getting used to the idea of them as family. Besides, it was my mother’s secret too, and maybe she didn’t want the whole town to find out.

“So do you feel better knowing your father?” Lori asked. “Do you feel more complete?”

“I do feel better,” I said, “but probably because it made me realize I was complete to begin with. Knowing who he is doesn’t change who I am at all.”

Lori passed over this comment like it was self-evident, and maybe it had been to her all along. “Did you meet any cute guys?”

“One.”

“And?” she prompted.

“And now I’m probably ruined for dating for the rest of my life. Nobody is going to be able to measure up.”

She leaned toward me. “Sounds interesting—what was he like?”

“Handsome, nice, talented. He wrote a song for me, and when he sang it . . .” I sighed. I didn’t have words to describe the experience. “He had the most beautiful voice.”

“So are you keeping in contact with him?”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t work out. We’re from different worlds.”

She must have seen how much it hurt to say this. She immediately switched into loyal-friend mode. “Don’t worry. I promise you’re not ruined for dating.” She leaned over and playfully flicked a piece of my hair. “You look great—your hair, makeup, and . . . I don’t know, you just have this confident air about you now. It’s so . . . I can’t put my finger on it.”

I could. It was so Kari Kingsley, but I didn’t say it.

“Hey, I bet the day after finals Theresa will dump Trevor flat-out,” Lori said. “I think she’s only dating him because he’s smart—you know, geek-farming. He’ll be ripe for some consolation.”

I smiled at her, but really, the thought of Trevor did nothing for me.

Eventually it grew late and Lori left and I got ready for bed. I stayed up later than I should have. I was still on California time. It didn’t have anything to do with phone calls that never came.

Monday morning was abruptly depressing. First of all, I was tired. Second, it was gray and rainy, and I was still used to blue California skies. Third, instead of a driver, I had to get out my one-spoke-is-broken-but-it-still-works-anyway umbrella and dodge puddles and worms on the sidewalk going to school. Then I had to explain to the office that I’d returned for the rest of the school year.

Hector waved when he saw me, but didn’t do anything odd or stalkerish, so I assumed he was back to normal.

Besides a few of my friends, no one in the hallways even commented on the fact that I’d been absent for so long. It should have felt nice to be invisible for a change, but it didn’t. It was almost heartening when Theresa looked me over while I walked to third-period English and said, “You’re back. I guess we’ll need to watch for flying books in the library again.”

Zoey, one of the Cliquistas, said, “Theresa, you’d better keep an eye on Trevor. Alexia has got some temptress hair going. Maybe she’ll try to steal him.”

Theresa laughed and said, “What
did
you do to your hair? I mean,
really
.”

I ignored her, though, glad for once I could chalk it up to sour grapes. Between Peter and the salon, my hair still looked great. I also ignored Trevor when he tried to make small talk in physics class. He practically draped himself over my desk, but I figured if he could dump me without explanation before the Sadie Hawkins dance, then I wasn’t required to respond to his flirting. And besides, what sort of guy flirted with me when he was going out with Theresa? They deserved each other.

At lunchtime Trevor sat at Theresa’s table and they both looked at me, lowered their voices, and then laughed.

This was the sort of thing I was going to have to endure until graduation. Even though I tried to fight it, my mind kept replaying memories of Grant. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed. The lilt in his smile when he saw me.

There’s something really depressing in knowing that the happiest moments of your life have all come when you were pretending to be someone else.

I dreaded last period, when I’d have to see Trevor in world history, but at the end of fifth period, the principal came on the loudspeakers and announced a school-wide assembly. We were to go immediately to the gym. “And I caution you not to skip out,” she said. “Trust me, you don’t want to miss this.”

Which went to show you how out of touch school faculty was, because I had never been to an assembly that wasn’t worth missing. Still, I found Lori and filed into the gymnasium with the rest of the school.

Bleachers lined the wall, but the middle of the floor had been partitioned off by gym mats turned on their sides to create a screen. These were being held up by teachers so no one could get a look inside. Our only clue to their content was several electric cords that snaked across the floor. The kids sitting behind me spent their time guessing what the assembly would be about. “Definitely a drug assembly,” one said. “We’re going to hear how we’ll die penniless, emaciated, and covered with sores in some crack house if we ever try them.”

“Car safety,” someone else said. “I bet some idiot crashed during lunchtime and now we get a lecture on wearing safety belts.”

I flipped open my calculus notebook and concentrated on my homework. I’d done two problems when the screaming began.

At first I thought something was wrong. Like maybe the bleachers were collapsing or the gym had caught on fire. Then I saw what everyone was gaping at. The teachers had pulled away the mats, revealing a drummer, two guys on electric guitar, a guy on keyboard, and in front of them, rock sensation Grant Delray.

CHAPTER 18

I didn’t blame the girls for screaming. He looked that good. He wore white pants and a tight white shirt that emphasized his broad, muscular shoulders. His hair had been gelled back, which accentuated his striking features and square jaw.

I watched him, unable to breathe.

Grant looked up at the bleachers, but if he was searching for me, I couldn’t tell. He held up one hand and said, “Hey, everybody, how’s it going?”

He might have said more, but since nearly every girl in the gym, including Lori, screamed again, I didn’t hear what. Even his microphone headset couldn’t overcome that kind of volume.

After the sound died down, he said, “I came to Morgantown to pay someone a visit, and I thought I could stop by and give you a short concert—”

More screaming. Even louder this time, if that was possible.

He smiled and called out, “Let’s get it started!”

And just like that, he and the band moved on cue. He wasn’t a person now, he was an entertainer, fluid with the beat. When he sang, the music vibrated through me and I couldn’t think of anything else. I watched him song after song, mesmerized.

Why had he come here? It seemed like a long way to come to pay a visit. Did it mean he’d forgiven me for lying to him, or was it something else?

As I stared at him, I tried to catch his eye, any little shift of his gaze that would show he saw me. Sometimes when he did more singing than dancing, his eyes seemed to rest on my section of the bleachers, but then the next moment he’d look somewhere else, so I couldn’t be sure. Maybe he had trouble picking me out of the crowd with my brown hair.

After about forty-five minutes of performing, he said, “We’re going to slow things down now. This is a song I wrote for someone who means a lot, and it would mean even more if she sang it with me.” Then he looked directly into my eyes; he’d known where I was all along.

“Alexia,” he said, “do you want to come down here?”

En masse, every pair of eyes turned and looked at me. Grant smiled, and I felt myself blush bright pink. Lori nudged my arm. “Oh, my gosh!” she whispered. “Go!”

I stood up, still blushing, and made my way down the bleachers. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. I told myself I shouldn’t be so rattled. I’d been up in front of bigger crowds than this during the last month. But this was different. I wasn’t standing up in front of an audience as Kari Kingsley. I couldn’t hide behind her image here—I was facing them as me.