Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9)

by Heather Wardell

  "I'm so sorry, I didn't know it was you. Yes, of course. Let me just put you on hold and I'll find someone. Is that okay? Can you wait a couple of minutes?"

  I shut my eyes. There was something so icky about trading on Misty's fame to get the center moving. "I can. Thank you."

  "You're so welcome. I love your songs."

  I waited until a deep voice said, "And what can I do for you, Misty Will who I don't know but who has totally flustered Adrienne?"

  I smiled. "For one thing, you can call me Amy."

  "Done. May all your issues be solved so easily, Amy. Now, I understand you want to fund a center. What are you looking for from us?"

  I took a deep breath and explained that I wanted to run it not fund it, and told him how my friend and I had long planned to do it, and since I could now afford to get it moving, even though she'd passed away I still wanted to make it happen.

  When I'd finished, he paused then said, "I'm not sure I understand. You want to run the center yourself, be its administrator?"

  "I do."

  "Not just give the money for it."

  "Right."

  "And what are your qualifications to do this?"

  "At the moment, none. That's what I want to know, what I need."

  "Hmm. Were you planning to meet directly with the girls yourself? Be a counselor, so to speak?"

  "No. The original plan was for my friend to do that. I was going to handle the administration and all that sort of thing."

  He paused again. "Amy, I think you want the business department not me. If you were planning to work with the clients yourself, then a social work degree would probably be a good idea. To run the place, it wouldn't particularly help to have one. Wouldn't hurt either, but you need a strong business background far more."

  I swallowed hard. Memories of snapping at Tim when he told me much the same thing flooded me. Why had I snapped then? And why did I want to scream at this man now?

  "Hello?"

  "I'm here," I said. "Sorry. I guess... back then we thought we needed social work degrees and I guess we were wrong."

  "She did. You don't."

  His bluntness left me stunned, but I managed to thank him and get off the phone.

  Now I could only think of one thing: what had those plans Giselle and I had created so long ago said about our educational needs?

  Mac got me home and I went up to my apartment and found the hot pink plastic file box we'd used to keep our materials together. Giselle, queen of organization, had filed everything carefully, and it was easy to find our education plan.

  In my teenage loopy handwriting, every 'i' topped with a happy face, I'd written, "Giselle will be head of counseling and will get a social work degree. Amy will be the chief executive officer and therefore needs a business degree."

  I slumped onto the couch. I'd known all the way back then. How had I forgotten? Why had I forgotten? Why had I been so sure I needed a social work degree when even a few moments' thought would have made it clear I didn't?

  The answer hit me like a wave of sound from an audience, knocking the wind from me.

  I wanted it because Giselle should have had it.

  She should never have died. She'd been brilliant and caring and driven to help in a way I'd never really understood. I had followed her, but I hadn't shared her drive.

  Now, eight years later, I wanted to start the center because she had wanted it, not because I wanted it any more. That was why I'd procrastinated so hard on the course.

  Another realization. I'd become enraged whenever anyone put down Misty's music, even though I knew it wasn't as deep as my original pieces. Because I loved Misty's career.

  I shouldn't, probably. Fluff and bubble gum and miniskirts? What was there to love in that?

  But it was so much more than that. It was fans changing their lives and people getting joy from my songs and all I gave and got while on stage.

  And I loved it. I did.

  I picked up the hot pink file box again and carefully closed the lid. It made me feel sick to admit it, even to myself, but it wasn't my dream any more.

  No, I still didn't have it right. The center had never been my dream. It had been Giselle's.

  So what were my dreams for my life?

  *****

  "C'mon, Misty, come to bed. I'm tired and I have to fly out first thing tomorrow morning and you look hot."

  Bart patted the pillow beside him, but I shook my head and stayed on the couch where I'd planted myself after coming out of the bathroom in the black satin nightgown he'd given me, no doubt actually bought by his assistant. "I really want to talk about this."

  He sat up straighter, the sheet falling down to expose more of his muscular waxed torso. I didn't actually like hairless guys but he'd never asked my opinion. "Okay, fine. But I don't get the problem. You don't have a degree and you don't need one. That's good, right?"

  On the most superficial level, sure. "It's not just that. It's the whole thing." I gave a deep sigh as I tried to get my thoughts in order. "For eight years I've thought this was my dream. But today I find out I've been living her dream the whole time. But now I know it's not mine. So what do I do with that?"

  Bart raised his eyebrows. "Nothing. Right?"

  "What?"

  "It's not your dream. So you drop it and move on. Why worry about it if it's not what you want?"

  I supposed that made sense, but... "Shouldn't I still do it for her?"

  He stared at me. "But she's dead."

  Why are the pretty ones always so stupid? "Yes, I know. But I could honor her memory by doing it."

  Bart climbed out of bed and came to sit beside me on the couch, his silk boxer shorts soft against my bare thigh. "Look. You and me? We're living the dream of millions of people. Maybe billions. Rich and famous and young." He trailed his hand along my leg. "And sexy. Everyone wants to be us. Why do you want to be someone else?"

  Maybe not so stupid after all. I couldn't think of an answer. Because Misty is pointless? But I knew she wasn't. Because Giselle deserved it? But she was dead and gone and wouldn't know. Because Amy wants it? But she didn't.

  "See?" He brushed my hair back from my neck then leaned in and kissed the skin he'd uncovered. "You want to be you. You, in bed with me. Okay?"

  Not really. Part of my brain had gone strangely silent as it grappled with the question he'd asked. But I didn't want to think any more so I said, "Okay," and let him take me.

  Afterwards, though, I lay beside his snoring body and thought. Tim would have understood. His novel was all about living his parents' dream for him, and it was messing with his mind just as badly as trying to live for Giselle was messing with mine.

  Thinking of Tim made me wonder how Bart would react if I told him about Shawn. He'd mentioned it once, a casual "sorry that idiot made those accusations, but that's fame for you". But if I told him for real? I didn't know.

  But I felt sure he wouldn't be anywhere near as effective as Tim in taking away my shame.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The restaurant was gorgeous, the food amazing. The three drinks I'd had were making me feel pleasantly floaty and even more detached than normal. Too bad the company was intent on making an ass of herself.

  "Angel, seriously," I said after the waitress took away her plate for the second time. "There's no way the food was disgusting. Mine is amazing."

  "You must have low standards." She flicked an errand bread crumb onto the floor. "I couldn't eat that slop."

  She'd been in a strange mood most of the day. We'd spent hours together, well into the evening, doing guest appearances in each other's newest video, and while at the beginning she'd seemed to enjoy it she'd quickly slid into being a complete pain in the butt. Her pickiness about how her own video looked was reasonable, if annoying, but it took us nearly twice as long to film mine because she kept insisting an extra had moved funny or something else had happened to spoil the perfection of her performance. Since it was my video not hers, and I hon
estly thought it looked great, I couldn't see why she was throwing such a fit, but she was, and repeatedly acting like we were the best of friends as the cameras rolled had been exhausting.

  I'd been looking forward to a relaxing night alone afterwards since Bart had left for Paris to shoot his next movie, but to my surprise Angel had insisted I come try out a restaurant with her. "You like spicy food, right? I've wanted to go for a year and I don't know anyone else who'll go with me."

  Wishing I'd never added extra hot peppers to my food in front of her, I gave in. But now, watching the waitress and her clear dejection as she walked away, I wished I hadn't. The poor girl had been so excited when we arrived with our security teams, had shyly admitted she was a huge fan of both of us, and now she looked miserable.

  "Well, let's hope you're happy with the next plate they bring out," I said, trying to sound relaxed and cheerful.

  "Let's hope!" She leaned forward. "So, tell me about Bart."

  "What is there to tell? You dated him, you know everything I know."

  She sighed. "Sometimes I wish I hadn't let him go. He's so hot. Maybe I should get him back." She blinked innocently before I could say anything. "When you're done with him, of course."

  "Oh, of course." I had no doubt she'd steal him right out of my bed if she wanted him. She didn't know, of course, that I was increasingly not sure I wanted to keep him around.

  The dismal failure of my attempts to discuss the center with him bothered me. We didn't have anything in common besides fame and a bit of sexual attraction, although even that had faded for me. Realizing he mostly wanted me to keep himself in the news hadn't exactly made me fall in love with him.

  "Did he give you a hard time about... you know?"

  I didn't know, and my face must have made that clear because she pushed out her cheek with her tongue a few times as if she had something long being driven rhythmically into her mouth then said, "The hooker thing."

  My stomach twisted but I would never give her the satisfaction of letting her know. "Why would he give me a hard time for a stupid rumor like that?"

  She shrugged. "Why do guys do anything? Like, why did that guy make it up in the first place?"

  "He wanted Jo to pay him half a million bucks not to tell. I guess that's enough of a reason."

  "Suppose." She shook her head, and I half-expected her to show me some sympathy, or at least say she'd hate it if it were said about her. Instead, she shocked me by saying, "Too bad it's not true."

  She sounded sincere, but I was afraid she was trying to trap me into admitting it. "Why, exactly?"

  "People would think it was hot. Some of them, anyhow. And they'd be talking about you. You don't get it yet but it's so important that they do. Once they stop, your career's over."

  I took a long swig of my fourth cocktail to hide that I had no idea what to say to this, but I didn't need to speak anyhow because she was rolling ahead. "Plus they'd feel bad for you. Poor little girl who made a mistake. Nobody feels bad for me, and it'd be nice if they did. Sympathy leads to sales. I wish I'd had a crappier childhood so people would like me more. Oh, what the hell is this?"

  Our security guards, two for each of us, half-rose from their chairs nearby at Angel's shocked tone, then relaxed when they realized she was simply complaining about her food again. "This is so not what I ordered. Misty, does this look right to you?"

  I looked her plate over, and had to say, "Actually, not quite."

  "Not quite! It's completely wrong. The tuna was supposed to have jalapeño peppers on it, not regular peppers, and I specifically said no onions. It might not matter what other people smell like, but I can't reek of onions."

  Had she said no onions? I remembered the pepper thing, but then I hadn't been listening too closely since her dietary obsessions weren't my concern.

  The waitress, not the young one who'd dealt with us before but an older and altogether sturdier-looking woman, said, "There are no onions here, and the menu specifically says regular peppers."

  There was a hint of mockery in her use of 'specifically', and I saw Angel puff up as she recognized it. "How dare you? Don't you know who I am?" She gestured at me. "Who we are?"

  The waitress glanced at me then looked back at Angel. "Nope."

  Her tone said, "Nope, and I don't care either," and I didn't appreciate it. Angel was being a bitch, yes, but I hadn't done anything wrong. The alcohol I'd drunk loosened my tongue. "Well, it doesn't matter who we are, right? Shouldn't you be taking care of us, not claiming there are no onions in food that clearly has them?"

  The waitress blinked, obviously having expected this sort of thing from Angel but not from me. "There are no—"

  I pointed. "What's that then?"

  Unfortunately for her, Angel's spicy tuna fillet had been laid on a bed of purple onion. She probably hadn't seen it through the mass of red pepper, but she saw it now and I saw her pale.

  "Yeah," Angel said. "Fix it. And of course we won't be paying for anything we've ordered after this mess."

  Quite the overreaction, Angel. I thought about saying, "No, it's okay, we will," but Angel went on before I could. "I don't even expect to see a bill. Now go get this right, would you?"

  The waitress left and Angel rolled her eyes. "I'm surrounded by incompetence."

  I waited, and it took her a good long time to notice and say, "Oh, not you, of course."

  "Of course."

  We talked a while longer, or rather Angel talked about all the things that were wrong in her life and I listened and wondered how someone as privileged as her could possibly believe her own words. But she clearly did.

  I tuned out some of her ranting, letting myself drift in an alcohol-supported dream land, but when she said, "And my eyes aren't even right," I had to say, "What? Why?"

  She leaned toward me. "See? There's a crack."

  I stared, and could in fact see a small brown line in the vibrant blue of her left eye. "What happened?"

  "The implant's faulty."

  My eyes fell to her chest.

  "Not those, idiot, they're fine. The iris implant."

  To my shock, Angel revealed that her natural eye color was dark brown, but she didn't think they suited her image so she'd undergone surgery to implant a blue iris over her real ones. "You should do it too. Cover that weird spot in your eye."

  "I don't even have breast implants, I'm hardly going to jump straight to my eyes."

  She laughed. "You'll have the boobs in three months tops, then you can think about the eyes."

  With a bigger chest I'd be afraid of popping out of my costumes on stage, and even if I had wanted one I didn't like the idea of cramming plastic and silicone or whatever those things were made of into my body. "I won't."

  "You will. You'll see one too many articles talking about your tiny boobs and that'll be it." She sighed. "That's when I got mine."

  We'd never talked like this before, but she'd drunk even more than I had and the words fell from her. I felt sure even though my own haze that she didn't realize how much she was revealing.

  Put simply, she didn't like herself. I'd suspected Angel wasn't her real name, and she admitted she'd been born Matilda but had christened herself Angel Dove when she was nine for a school talent show. No part of her was real, not even her eye color, and not a trace of Matilda remained. She was Angel Dove twenty-four hours a day.

  And she hated it.

  What she wanted, I realized as she kept talking about the parents who hadn't supported her enough and the fickle fans and the childhood friends who weren't cool enough to hang with her, was someone to blame. She had everything anyone could possibly want: money, fame, a hot rock star boyfriend in Evan, and yet she was quite possibly the least happy person I'd ever had the misfortune of talking to.

  Her thought process almost made sense to me, drunk as I was. She had everything and wasn't happy. Other people had much less and were happy. So someone was to blame for her not being happy.

  The problem, as I saw it, wa
s that she needed to blame Angel Dove, the decisions she'd made to make herself famous, and she'd never do that.

  Her continued blathering made it hard to think, and something was nagging at me so I felt like I had to think right then, so I waited until I could squeeze a word in and said, "Sorry, I need to hit the bathroom. I'll be back in a second."

  She sighed. "Fine. But hurry up. I'll be bored here by myself."

  We can't have that.

  I stood, and my female bodyguard did too. She followed me at a discreet distance to the bathroom, then gave the place a quick check before saying, "You're good," and taking up a position in front of the mirror while I moved into a stall.

  I sat on the toilet in the blissful Angel-free quiet and tried to focus my booze-soaked brain cells. What had brought me in here? Which part of Angel's tirade was bothering me more than the rest?

  No responsibility. She'd made stupid moves, dated guys who were terrible for her purely for her career and pushed away so many people in her life who cared about her, and yet everything was someone else's fault.

  I had done that a bit myself, blaming my slide into the partying lifestyle on Tim's departure, and I realized now that I didn't want to do that any more.

  I took a deep breath and in my head made myself a vow. "All me. All my responsibility. If I'm happy or sad, it's on me. I won't blame or praise someone else for what I am or what I do. Never again."

  Making such a momentous statement while drunk and sitting on a toilet did seem a little odd, but no more so than the rest of my life at the moment, and despite my drunken state I knew I meant it.

  I washed my hands and headed out of the bathroom ahead of my bodyguard, then stopped halfway through the dining room when I saw Angel's security surrounding our table and my other guard standing nearby looking intimidating.

  "Shit," my guard muttered behind me. "Hold on."

  I didn't, though. I could see what was happening. Angel was arguing with the second waitress and a tall woman wearing red lipstick. As I neared, the woman said, "You'll have to leave. I will not tolerate that kind of language." She looked at me. "You too. You're not welcome here."