Airhead a-1

by Meg Cabot

  And Mr Stark said, ‘Thank God,’ and started taking out his cufflinks. I was sitting right on the desk in front of him, so I just went, ‘Mr Stark? Can I talk to you a minute?’

  And he looked down at me, and went, ‘No.’

  Seriously! Just like that!

  But I’m not a straight-A student — and haven’t gotten to level fortyfive in Journeyquest — for nothing. I mean, I’m no quitter.

  And not even a billionaire corporate executive who also runs an underground brain-transplant clinic is going to thwart me.

  ‘It’s just… ’ I said in a low voice as everyone around us was gathering up power cords and taking down the blackout curtains. ‘Don’t you think what you’re doing is wrong? I mean, about Nikki.’

  He looked right at me. His eyes, I noticed, were brown, with tiny ruby glints in them. Or maybe that was just the way they looked in the klieg lights, which were being turned off, one by one.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ I went on quickly. ‘I’m totally grateful for what Doctor Holcombe did for me. And I am totally willing to go through with my end of the contract. But don’t you think Nikki’s friends — her family — deserve to know the truth? So they can mourn her properly? I mean, some people even think she was in rehab last month. How unfair is that? I’m sure once they understand your issue with the whole thing, they’ll get it. It’s just that you can’t go around replacing one person with a completely different one, you know. It’s not right. I know Nikki might have been a model and all, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have a unique personality and people who loved her. And, I’m not sure you’re aware of this, but someone loaded that computer you gave her with keystroke-tracking software—’

  ‘JESSICA!’ Mr Stark startled me by yelling.

  One of the ponytailed girls in the fancy glasses came scurrying up. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Jessica, get my coat. Is my reservation at Per Se all set?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jessica said, trailing after her boss as he strode away from me. ‘And your car’s waiting downstairs —’

  It was only then that I realized: Robert Stark was walking away from me! He was just walking away from me, as if I hadn’t said anything! As if I was just… not even there! As if I was just… just…

  An airhead model.

  ‘But — Mr Stark!’ I called after him.

  But Robert Stark just kept going, walking out of his office without so much as a second glance at me. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe how he’d just walked away like that. The one person I thought could help me — or not even me so much as Nikki — and he’d just completely ignored me, as if I was a fly. Or a busboy.

  Or a girl.

  ‘Don’t even bother,’ a deep voice behind me advised.

  I turned around and found myself looking up at Brandon. Brandon was staring after his father with a look I can only describe as… well. Not very friendly.

  ‘He doesn’t speak to the talent,’ Brandon informed me.

  I stared at him in confusion. ‘The talent? You mean… ’

  Me. I’m the talent.

  ‘Or to me,’ Brandon added bitterly, ‘if he can help it. He’s much too busy and important.’

  ‘But.’ I shook my head, not sure I understood. ‘He’s your dad. Of course he can’t be too busy for you.’

  Brandon gave me a strange look. Then he said, ‘You really do have amnesia, don’t you?’

  And with that, he turned around and walked away before I could say another word.

  I was on my way back to the changing area to slip into my own clothes, when I ran into Rebecca and Kelly.

  ‘Darling, you were fabulous!’ Rebecca cried.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I said to her. My neck still throbbed from the way Raoul had made me arch it. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. And Mr Stark hates me.’ Although, truthfully, I wasn’t sure that was such a bad thing…

  ‘So you’re a little rusty,’ Rebecca said with a shrug. ‘You hit your head! That we should all look so good after concussion. And Bob Stark hates everybody. Uh, this is ringing —’ She held out the cellphone my mom had given to me. It was flashing my home number. My mom was calling, no doubt about dinner. I realized I hadn’t followed her directions and called as soon as I’d gotten to the photo shoot.

  I let it go to voicemail. ‘I’ll call her back,’ I said. I didn’t think I could handle my mom and all her questions — and concerns — just then.

  ‘Great,’ Rebecca said. ‘Now, Kelly and I want to take you out for dinner to celebrate the SI gig. We got your favourite table at Nobu. We’ll make it a ladies’ night… unless Brandon wants to come?’

  I glanced over my shoulder at Brandon, who was already on his way to the elevators.

  ‘Uh, Brandon’s got other plans,’ I said. ‘And actually, I’m really tired. I think I’m just going to head back to the loft and crash, if that’s OK. I mean, I just got out of the hospital this morning, and I’ve got school in the morning—’

  ‘Say no more,’ Rebecca said with a smile. ‘We’ll do it another time. Tomorrow afternoon, after the Elle shoot, perhaps.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ I stared at her. ‘We have a shoot tomorrow?’

  ‘Honey, you are booked solid all this week,’ Kelly said, thrusting Cosabella into my arms. ‘You are on fire, you’re so hot right now. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this going-back-to-school thing? Because it’s really cutting into your availability—’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, yes. I mean, I have to go to school’ I wanted to. How else was I going to find out if Christopher was into me at all? Oh, and get an education?

  Kelly shook her head. ‘This school thing’s gonna kill me,’ she grumbled. And a second later she was barking into her headset, ‘No! I told you! She’s not available until after three p.m. What part of three p.m. did you not understand?’

  ‘Well, I think it’s great,’ Rebecca said to me. ‘Christy Turlington ended up studying comparative religion and eastern philosophy at NYU, you know. If she can do it, you can. Although, how smart could she be if she thought Fashion Cafe would ever take off?’

  ‘Um,’ I said, because I had no idea what she was talking about, ‘I should go… ’

  ‘Of course you should.’ Rebecca took me by the arm and started steering me back to the changing area. ‘Girls! Nikki has to go!’

  And, like magic, a few seconds later, I had been stripped of my ethereal dress and stilettos, and was back in my own clothes, in a limo heading back downtown — by myself, this time. And in my lap — besides Cosabella — was something Rebecca had handed me on my way out.

  ‘Oh,’ she’d said. ‘Here. I’ve been meaning to give you this.’

  And she’d passed me a bronze-leather tote marked Prada, that caused my shoulder to sag, it was so heavy.

  ‘What’s this?’ I’d asked curiously.

  ‘Hon,’ Rebecca had said with a laugh. ‘It’s your purse! You dropped it the day of the accident. I’ve been holding it for you. Your life is in there. Your Sidekick, your cellphone, your credit cards… hold on to it this time, all right, honey?’

  Now, in the limo, I dumped the contents of Nikki Howard’s bag into my lap and marvelled at what I found there.

  I’d suspected before. But now I knew for sure.

  I was rich.

  Nikki Howard had a platinum American Express card, two gold Visas, a gold Mastercard, a platinum Chase bank card for quick ATM withdrawals, tons of cash (four hundred and twenty-seven dollars’ worth), and a chequebook that said she had three hundred and six thousand, six hundred and thirty-two dollars and eleven cents in her savings account, and twenty-two thousand dollars in her current account.

  And that was just what was in her bank account. Who knew what she had invested? Because I found a business card for a Smith Barney investment adviser that was tattered and looked well used.

  I was freaking loaded. Not enough to buy myself out of my Stark contract. But I could help my parents out if they ran into p
roblems. This was awesome.

  The first thing I did (after admiring Nikki’s neatly balanced chequebook) was check out her cellphone. But, like the one my mom had given me, it was Stark-brand. Same thing for the Sidekick. The batteries of both were dead from having gone without use for so long, so it wasn’t like I could turn them on to check (and even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to tell myself. Only the Commander would have been able to know for sure). But I suspected they, like Nikki’s laptop, might have been tapped.

  Maybe I was just being paranoid. But waking up in someone else’s body can do that to a girl.

  The rest of Nikki’s bag seemed to contain only makeup and half empty containers of acid-reflux medication. But it was comforting to know I had some money at least. All I wanted to do when I got to the loft was order some takeout for dinner (which I could now pay for — and I didn’t feel guilty about using Nikki’s money, because after that photo shoot, I felt like I’d earned it), strip off my clothes, take a long, hot bath, maybe watch some TV and go to bed.

  And now I could pay the delivery guy. And pick up a bagel or whatever for breakfast on my way to school in the morning.

  But when I arrived at the loft five minutes later, I saw my plan for a quiet dinner and a nice bubble bath in Nikki’s jacuzzi go down the drain… pretty much literally. Because when the elevator doors opened to let me and Cosabella out into Nikki’s place, a dozen people — including Lulu and Brandon — yelled, ‘Welcome home, Nikki!’ threw streamers, popped champagne corks and rushed to hug me.

  Yeah. I was surprised, all right. Especially since the person hugging me the hardest turned out to be Justin Bay.

  Nineteen

  We were at a club called Cave. It was called Cave because it was in the bowels of New York City, in a part of the subway system that the city had planned and then abandoned due to lack of funds nearly a century earlier. Someone had installed spotlights along the rock walls in strategic places, strung a sound system through it, put a couple of DJs in place, and now it was the hottest dance spot in Manhattan. There was a line out of the door that went halfway around the block, even on a Wednesday night. You couldn’t get in unless you were somebody.

  Nikki Howard, it turned out, was somebody. Even though she was only seventeen and not legally allowed into bars.

  But it was all right, because Nikki didn’t drink. I found this out from the bartender when I wearily approached the bar, parched from so much dancing, and he said, ‘Hey Nikki, long time no see. The usual?’

  ‘I have amnesia,’ I said. It seemed to me I’d been saying this to people all night long, as they approached me and cried, Nikki, it’s me! Don’t you remember me? It’s Joey/Jimmy/Johnny/Jan from Paris/Denmark/East Hampton/Los Angeles! ‘Didn’t you hear? I don’t know what the usual is.’

  The bartender took a long-stemmed cocktail glass, filled it with water, added a curled piece of orange peel, then slid it towards me. If you didn’t know it was just water, it looked exactly like a Martini, only with orange peel instead of an olive.

  ‘We call it the Nikki,’ he said with a wink. ‘Only the bartenders in town know it’s just water. You can’t drink alcohol because of your stomach problems, remember? And because you’re not twenty-one of course,’ he added piously.

  I grinned. I was kind of starting not to be so annoyed with Nikki Howard… something I wouldn’t have thought earlier in the day.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully, and sipped Nikki’s signature drink while I surveyed the dance floor. I couldn’t believe it was so late — nearly two in the morning — and the club was still so crowded (and only getting more and more crowded) on a week night. Of course, I had never been to a place like this before. Maybe they were always like this. Here at the bar, there was barely a seat available. I had only gotten mine because a gallant fan had surrendered his (in exchange for an autograph of course. The first time someone had asked, I had almost written Em Watts, but changed it to Nikki Howard at the last minute. I’d been so swamped by autograph seekers all night, I’d actually gotten almost used to it).

  Out on the dance floor, bodies were gyrating to hypnotic techno, and different-coloured flashes of lights and thick clouds of dry ice made it impossible to tell who was who. I knew Lulu was out there somewhere, along with both Brandon and Justin and a ton more of Nikki Howard’s ‘best’ friends (she’d collected more and more as the evening wore on). We had begun the evening at the loft, then moved on to a boisterous dinner at one of Bobby Flay’s restaurants (and the Food Network chef had actually been there and come over to our table to wish me — I mean, Nikki — a speedy recovery from my amnesia), then ended up at Cave.

  Lulu had been so excited about the surprise party she’d thrown together for me, I hadn’t had the heart to tell her I wasn’t exactly in the mood for a party. I’d tried to go along with the whole thing, even letting her drag me off into Nikki’s closet and choose an outfit for me to wear for the evening.

  Which was why I was sitting at one of the many bars in Cave in black spiked ankle boots, a low-cut black top, and a gold lamé miniskirt. I looked just like a hooker I’d seen once down on the West Side Highway. Though I hadn’t wanted to hurt Lulu’s feelings by saying so. Especially since the hooker had been a man.

  ‘Aren’t you having fun?’ Lulu bounded up from out of the dry ice smoke to ask me suddenly. She was in a contrasting outfit of gold lamé ankle boots and top and black skirt. She’d teased both our hair out to stand about five inches from our heads. She was calling it Eighties Night.

  The only problem was, we were the only two in the entire club in eighties attire.

  ‘I sure am,’ I told her. Then I added, ‘But, you know, I have to go home soon, Lulu, because I have school in the morning.’

  Lulu’s tiny mouth popped open like a baby bird’s.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she cried. ‘I forgot! That’s right, you’re doing that school thing. You must, like, totally hate me.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I assured her. The truth was, out of all the people I’d met since waking up in Nikki Howard’s body, she was my favourite. Brandon was still acting angry with me over Gabriel, and Justin, of course, was giving me the cold shoulder because Lulu was around (for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to talk to him anyway). I didn’t know who the other people were — Lulu had introduced them, but their names and how Nikki was supposed to know them had gone right over my head. None of them had turned out to be having secret affairs with me (or rather, Nikki), much to my relief…

  But while they all seemed pleasant enough, they just kept talking about people I didn’t know, and I mostly just felt left out and… well, pretty lonely, despite all the autograph seekers (and the fact that my mom kept calling, even though I was still sending her calls to voicemail. Why did she have to be so clingy? I was sixteen and a half, I could take care of myself) and people who evidently knew and adored Nikki Howard, who kept coming up and gushing over her.

  Being adored was great. It really was.

  But it had been a long day, and I just wanted to go back to the loft and get some sleep.

  Was that so wrong?

  ‘What’s up with this school thing anyway?’ Lulu wanted to know, smiling flirtatiously at a guy who surrendered his barstool for her — seriously, it was amazing what guys would do for a pretty girl. It was a whole different world, being gorgeous; a world with which I was entirely unfamiliar — then hopping on to it and signalling the bartender for a drink.

  ‘I mean, why do you want to go to school so badly?’

  ‘Because,’ I said. No way was I telling her about Christopher, and I decided it would be wiser to keep my mouth shut about Frida too, ‘I want to go to college some day.’

  ‘College?’ Lulu made a face. ‘What for?’

  ‘So I can get a job,’ I said. ‘Teaching, probably. Both my parents are professors, and I’d like to be one too.’ Then, realizing what I’d said, I blanched. ‘I mean —’

  But Lulu just waved my statement aside. She was
still convinced her spirit-transfer explanation, not my amnesia story, was the correct one for Nikki Howard’s bizarre recent behaviour.

  ‘Teaching what?’ The bartender had brought her a drink without her even specifying what she wanted. Lulu’s signature drink was something yellowish that had green leaves floating in it and some crystals all along the rim. When I tasted one that had fallen on the bar, I found that it was sugar.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I like a lot of subjects. That’s another reason why I want to go back to school. To figure it out.’ Then I had an idea. ‘Hey, you should come with me!’

  Lulu nearly choked on her drink. ‘Wh-what?’

  ‘You should,’ I said, getting excited by the idea. ‘I’m sure your dad could get you in. He’s super famous. TAHS would be so excited to have you. Come with me tomorrow!’

  Lulu made another face. ‘Um… thanks, but no thanks.’

  I shook my head. ‘Lulu,’ I said, ‘you’re only seventeen. You should be in school. You shouldn’t even be living by yourself. Why do you live alone anyway?’

  She looked up at me, her elfin face twisted with confusion.

  ‘I don’t live alone,’ Lulu said. ‘I live with you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I mean why don’t you live with your parents?’

  ‘Because my mom took off with my snowboard instructor and wants nothing to do with me, silly,’ Lulu said cheerfully, ‘and my dad’s new wife is five years older than I am. How stoked would you be to live at home in that situation?’

  And with that, she polished off her drink, jumped off the stool and jetted back off to the dance floor, leaving me alone at the bar.

  Only not for long, because a second later, Justin Bay slithered on to the stool she’d vacated and went, ‘So you honestly expect me to believe you don’t remember anything — anything — about us… and Paris?’