Runaway (Airhead #3) (10 page)

“Your father is fine,” Mom said, in the tightest voice you could imagine. She sounded like she’d just gotten Botox in her lips or something, she was speaking in such a cold, controlled, tiny little voice. It was clear that she’d been bottling up her anger with me all week, just saving it for the moment when she could see me, so she could explode all over me like one of Christopher’s pipe bombs. “Thank you for asking. I’ve been leaving messages for you on your cellular telephone. Have you not received any of them?”

Cellular telephone. She had actually said the words
cellular telephone.
I was so, so dead.

“Uh, no,” I said. “You know what happened, actually? It was the funniest thing, I dropped my cell phone in the ocean, and I haven’t gotten around to replacing it….”

Beside me, Lulu stamped the floor and gave me a dirty look.
“No more lying,”
she mouthed.
“To anyone!”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“Well,” Mom said. Her voice was still insanely small and cold. “It’s lucky I happened to catch you at home.”

“Yes,” I said, trying to get Lulu to go away by making shooing motions with my hand. Unfortunately it wasn’t working, because she was still jumping around, going,
“Stop lying! Don’t lie!”
which wasn’t at all annoying (yes. It was). “So how’s Grandma?”

“Your grandmother is fine,” Mom said, still sounding as frosty as a lemon ice. “Emerson, your father and I would like to meet with you. Would fifteen minutes be enough time for you to get to the Starbucks on Astor Place?”

“What?” Feeling panicky, I flung a glance at the windows of the loft. It was, as usual for late December in Manhattan, sleeting outside. “Um…”

“Your father and I are already sitting here waiting for you,” Mom went on, “since I understand from TMZ dot com— the only way I seem to be able to keep track of my own daughter’s activities anymore— that you’re back in Manhattan. The adult thing to do would be, of course, to show up to meet us. However, if you just want to leave us here waiting for you like complete idiots, that’s fine. But—”

“Oh, my God, Mom,” I said, sitting up. “I’ll be there. I’ll be right over. Is everything okay?”

“No, Emerson,” she said. “Everything is not okay.”

And then the line went dead.

I held the phone away from my face, staring at it.

“What’s the matter?” Lulu asked, hopping around on her bare feet, probably getting black nail polish all over the white fake fur carpeting.

“My mom just hung up on me,” I said in disbelief.

“She did?” Lulu shrugged. “My mom does that all the time. When she remembers to call me. Which is once a year, on my birthday.”

Aw.
I felt so bad for Lulu, I reached out to give her a hug.

“Well, my mom’s never done that before,” I said. “I think something might really be wrong. I mean, aside from the fact that she is supremely pissed with me for spending the week at a boy’s house without his parents being there.”

Lulu looked concerned. “Like you think Robert Stark might actually be there holding a gun to her head, making her call you, so it’s actually a trap or something?”

“Oh, great,” I said, giving her a sarcastic look. “I hadn’t even thought of that. She says she’s at a Starbucks. Why would Robert Stark be holding a gun to her head at a Starbucks?”

“Oh,” Lulu said. She seemed a little disappointed. “Yeah. You’re right. That’s not very likely, is it?”

I gave her another hug. I just couldn’t help it, she was so cute. “I gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

“But what about our banana splits?” Lulu called after me as I ran to grab my coat and hat, as well as a leash and coat for Cosy.

“Save mine,” I yelled. “I’ll be back for it.”

“I hope so,” I heard Lulu shout as I jumped onto the elevator.

She had no idea how much I hoped so, too.

Eleven

I FOUND MY PARENTS SITTING AT A TABLE in the back of the café, huddled over tall cups of coffee, looking extremely serious. Since they were both professors, they looked serious most of the time, anyway.

But this was out-of-the-usual serious. Dad had dark circles under his eyes, and it appeared to have been a while since his face had seen the business end of a razor.

Mom’s hair could definitely have used some conditioning, and I don’t think she was wearing a lick of makeup. Not that she’d ever been a close personal friend of Maybelline’s.

But I’d come to find out that a little goes a long way when it comes to mascara and lip gloss, something about which someone might want to remind Nikki.

God, did I, Emerson Watts, just think that? What was happening to me?

Robert Stark, despite what Lulu had worried about, wasn’t anywhere nearby. So they weren’t being held hostage.

But they didn’t say hi or even wave while I got my biscotti and herbal tea (caffeine is a big trigger for Nikki’s acid reflux) and then joined them at their table. They acted like we were complete strangers.

Which is totally unfair because while I may not be related to them by blood anymore, I’m still their daughter. Even if I’ve shamed the family name by allegedly hooking up with Brandon Stark. Or so every major tabloid in the U.S. and most of the United Kingdom claims.

“So, hi!” I said, trying to act all cheerful, while I peeled off my leather jacket. Cosabella got to work prancing around and sniffing them excitedly, which Cosabella considers her personal life’s work…sniffing everyone and everything, and basically making people smile, because she wants only one thing, which is food, and to be petted and admired.

Well, I guess that’s two things. Or three.

“Hi,” Mom said finally, while Dad was a little bit friendlier, saying, “Hi, honey.”

“So,” I said, when my coat was off and so was Cosabella’s and we were all settled in and I’d had my first sip of tea and burned my tongue and everything. Why do they do that? Make their hot water so hot.

“What’s up?” I asked. I thought that sounded nice and nonconfrontational.

Mom and Dad looked at each other, and I could see that they were giving each other the old
Go ahead, you start, No, you start eye
signal.

Then Dad was, like, “Em, your mother and I wanted to talk to you about something. We chose to do so here in this café because it’s neutral ground, not our place or yours, and we thought it might be a little less emotionally charged than either of our apartments.”

Whoa. My heart began to thump a little harder than usual. This sounded serious! Neutral ground? Less emotionally charged?

Wait…were they getting divorced?

I knew it. Dad worked most of the week in New Haven, teaching at Yale. I’d wondered when he’d taken the job if their marriage— always volatile, since they were different religions, and both academics, not to mention attractive— I don’t know how they’d managed to have a daughter as plain as me— could survive the stress of so much separation.

And now the truth was coming out. It couldn’t!

Or wait. Maybe it was me. Maybe it was me their marriage couldn’t survive the stress of! Because of my accident and subsequent coma and then reawakening in the body of a major teen supermodel!

“The thing is,” Dad went on, “we’ve been a little distressed about your behavior lately—”

Wait, I thought. My
behavior?
Oh, God! It
was
me! They were getting divorced because of me!

“Not just your behavior,” Mom jumped in. “Your grades this semester were abysmal.”

“My
grades?”

When Mom had called to schedule this meeting (and then hung up on me), I had thought a lot of things must be going on:

Robert Stark was breathing down their necks, maybe making threats.

They’d found out their apartment was bugged, the way I’d found out mine was (why else the meeting in a Starbucks, instead of at home?).

They’d found out about Frida skipping out on cheerleading camp and flying to South Carolina to rescue me, and were naturally upset about their underage daughter jetting all over the place without their permission. This wouldn’t be the biggest surprise. Frida had told the camp officials she was going to her grandmother’s. I’d thought the whole thing sounded sketchy, but Frida claimed no one was going to find out. She’d be home in time for the Stark Angel show tomorrow night on New Year’s Eve with no one the wiser.

Now, of course, I knew better.

Then I’d thought maybe they were getting a divorce.

Or even, God forbid, one of them had cancer.

Or was having an affair (Lulu’s mom had left her dad for another man. And I wouldn’t put it past Mom to announce she was turning lesbian. Hey, she wouldn’t even tell her own daughters they were pretty. Why would she care about the sexual orientation of a lover?).

But I’d never expected it to be about my
grades.

All this neutral-ground chatter for a talk about
my grades?

I’m sorry, but a corporation was trying to kill my friends. The true owner of my body wanted it back. The love of my life had just unceremoniously dumped me.

And my parents wanted to talk about frickin’ finals?

“How did you even find out about my grades?” I demanded. “You’re not Nikki Howard’s guardians. You’re not even supposed to have access to—”

Mom pulled something out of her purse. It was a crumpled-up printout from the website TMZ.com. Someone (probably a reporter from their offices, though of course it didn’t say that) had broken into Tribeca Alternative High School’s main computer and accessed my (or more accurately, Nikki’s) grades, then plastered them all over the Net.

And let’s just say I wasn’t doing so hot.

America’s Top Model Not Quite Top of Her Class,
screamed the headline.

I snatched the sheet from my mother’s hands and scanned it.

“A C minus?” I was stunned. “Mr. Greer gave me a C minus in Public Speaking? That mall cop!”

Dad made a disapproving noise over his coffee. “Now, Em,” he said.

“But seriously,” I said. “It’s
Public Speaking.”

“Exactly what I’m thinking,” Mom said, pulling the sheet from my hands. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have gotten an A in it. You just have to stand up in front of the room and talk. You’ve never had difficulty standing in front of people and talking before. In fact, no one ever used to be able to get you to shut up.”

“Now, Karen,” Dad said, exactly the way he’d said
Now, Em
when I’d called Mr. Greer a mall cop. “I’m sure there’s more to it than that.”

“Yeah,” I said, coming to my own defense. “You have to make up reasoned arguments, and—”

“What about all those subjects you formerly always did well in?” Mom demanded. “How do you explain the C minus in Advanced Algebra? And the D in English? For God’s sake, Emerson, English is your native language!”

I scowled. “I didn’t have time to do the readings,” I said. “It’s not my fault—”

Mom gasped triumphantly and pointed straight at me.

“There!” she said, looking over at Dad. “She said it! Not me! She said it!”

I looked from Mom to Dad, not knowing what had happened.

“What?” I asked. “What’d I say?”

“I…didn’t…have…time,” Mom said, hitting the table with her palm to emphasize each syllable. “Face it, Emerson. You’re letting your schoolwork go because you’re spending too much time socializing.”

“Socializing?” I made a face. “Excuse me, but I never get to socialize. I’m working so much, I never even get to see my friends!”

“Oh, I think you get to spend quite a lot of time with your
friends,”
Mom said, reaching into her purse and pulling out a different sheet of paper. “Quite a lot
of quality
time.”

She unfolded the page to reveal an
Us Weekly
cover that showed me in a bikini hanging out poolside at Brandon’s beach house, and him standing right next to me, holding what looked like a cocktail.

Except that put in context, I knew that that cocktail was actually a breakfast shake and that bikini was actually my workout gear after going for a perfectly innocent run on the beach.

But it would still look pretty bad to a parent, considering I had, after all, spent nearly the whole week at Brandon’s without her permission.

And the fact that the headline splashed above the picture of us together screamed:

Back On!

Nikki and Brandon Rekindle a Love So Hot,

They Had to Take It South of the Border

(Islands)

I felt myself turning beet red. First of all, Brandon’s house was on a barrier island. I didn’t even know what a border island was. Could the press just write whatever it wanted and get away with it? Apparently.

And second of all…

“Look,” I said, remembering what Lulu had said about telling the truth. “I can explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” Mom said, folding the picture back up and putting it away again. “It’s all perfectly clear to us. Isn’t it, Daniel?”

Dad looked uncomfortable.

“Um,” he said.

“Look,” I said again. “It’s not what you guys think. Brandon made me go with him to South Carolina. I didn’t want to. And nothing happened. He and I aren’t, you know, boyfriend and girlfriend. I mean, he and Nikki were. But he just wishes he and I were—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mom said, shaking her head back and forth and not making eye contact with me. Which, to be honest, is basically something she really hadn’t done all that often since I’d woken up from my surgery. “I really don’t. All I want— all I’ve ever wanted— is for all of this just to be over, and for things to get back to normal and for me to have my daughter back.”

This kind of stung. Because the thing is, I
am
her daughter. On the inside. I’ve never stopped being her daughter. Even with the not-so-hot grades, I’m still her daughter.

So…what did that mean? She only loved me when I got above-average grades and was average-looking? Was this another thing about
character?

I didn’t get it. I really didn’t. I felt like Frida and the pretty thing.

“Well,” I said. “How do you think I feel? But that’s not—”

“And so,” Mom went on, completely ignoring me, “your father and I have decided to just pay it off.”

I blinked at both of them. It was busy in the Starbucks they’d chosen. There were bloggers and NYU students everywhere, crowding every table with their laptops and expensive film equipment (the Astor Place Starbucks is right down the street from the Tisch School of the Arts, where the NYU film school is), looking all angsty in their hand-knitted woolen hats with the earflaps, and their facial piercings and their tattoos, which they’d all gotten to show off how individual they were.

Except how individual were they, really,
if every single one of them had facial piercings and tattoos?

I was the only person in there under twenty who
didn’t
have a pierced lip or eyebrow or any visible tattoos.

And I was also the one with the modeling contract with a corporation I bet all of them hated.

Not without good reason, of course.

But I’m just asking: Who was the biggest conformist there?

“What do you mean,” I asked my mom, trying not to let all the bloggers and Eli Roth wannabes distract me, “you guys are going to pay them off?”

“Stark,” she said. “We don’t have much in our savings and our 401(k)s. But we’re going to pull together what we do have and pay them off, so that you don’t have to do this anymore. It won’t be enough, we know, but it will be a start. You’ll be able to go back to being yourself. Em—” Suddenly, I was back to being Em. Mom even reached out and grabbed my hands, resting on the tabletop. “We’re going to get you out of the contract.”

I stared at both of them. I really wasn’t sure I understood exactly what she was saying. I thought I did.

But it was so insane, I just assumed I was mistaken.

“Wait,” I said, inching my hands out from under hers. “Are you saying…you want to violate the confidentiality agreement you signed about my not really being Nikki Howard and
pay Stark off?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Mom said, withdrawing her hands into her lap. “We want to get you out of this, Em. We never should have agreed to it in the first place. We only did it because we were scared, and…well, we wanted to save your life. But now we see that maybe… well, maybe it was the wrong choice.”

The wrong choice? They should have let me
die
rather than be a model?

My shock must have shown on my face, since Dad leaned forward and said, quickly, “That’s not what your mother means. She means maybe we made the wrong choice not negotiating more—”

“But.” I tried to think back to what had been said in Dr. Holcombe’s office that day my parents had told me about all the papers they’d signed when they’d agreed to the surgery that had saved my life. “You can’t. You’ll lose everything.”

“Well, not everything,” Dad said, in his usual cheerful manner, like we were talking about egg sandwiches or something. “We’ll keep our jobs. And they can’t take your mother’s apartment, which is through the university. So we’ll always have a place to live.”

“But you’ll go bankrupt,” I protested. “That lawyer guy in Dr. Holcombe’s office said you could even go to jail!” I didn’t mention the part about how Robert Stark would have them both killed before he’d ever allow this to happen. If it were that simple —just paying back the money— I’d have tried to do it myself, out of the money in Nikki Howard’s bank accounts.

“Well,” Mom said, after she’d taken a fortifying sip of coffee. “I’d rather go to jail than see my daughter failing to live up to her potential, gallivanting around half naked with playboys on the cover of gossip magazines.”

I have to admit, my jaw dropped when she said this. My mom’s always been a feminist.

But I never thought she was a prude.