by Dani April
“I have cash and credit cards, too,” Brad put in. Chrissie smiled. The two competitive brothers were about to get in a fight over who paid for her change of clothes.
“Well, that solves that problem,” Ethan told them. She noted that he hadn’t offered to spend any of his money. He was always such a hard case. Inwardly, she found herself laughing when she saw him walking with a noticeable limp. He also had a grimace on his face. After their escapades in the shower that morning, she knew why. She had squeezed him awfully hard. She cupped her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing outwardly.
Scott came up to Ethan and handed him the leash he had Skipper on. “Looks like you get to stay out here and look after the dogs, bro,” he told him. Chrissie wanted to laugh when she saw the look of horror on Ethan’s face. He had just talked himself into a boring job.
“Right, looks like I do.” Ethan shrugged and took the leash from his brother.
Inside, the mall was small and its array of shops simple. There was a women’s clothing section at one of the stores, and Chrissie and the two guys headed straight for it. The fashions on sale there weren’t exactly what she was used to, but she decided she liked them better than the latest designs out of Paris.
The guys waited for her outside the dressing room, and she took half a dozen outfits in to try on. She was determined to get them all but wanted to make sure they fit her first. Normally, she had a wardrobe person fit all of her clothes for her. The idea of actually trying on these new garments in private, and with the ability to choose which ones she liked best, was a new concept to her.
She was looking at herself in the mirror of the changing room. She had tried on a short skirt and a tank top. Beneath them was a matching set of bra and panties she had picked up from the intimate-wear section. She was determined to walk out of this store in something other than Ethan’s torn, old blue jeans.
A girl about her own age entered the changing room carrying a stack of new clothes about the same size as the one Chrissie had carried inside. The girl stood next to her and looked in the long mirror with her, rearranging her hair style. Then the girl caught Chrissie in the mirror and her stare lingered.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I think I know you from somewhere.”
Chrissie shook her head. “I don’t think so. I don’t live here. I’m just passing through town with my friends.”
“That’s really weird. You look like someone I’ve seen before…”
Chrissie tried to go back to examining the fit of her top. After another few seconds the girl was staring at her again. “I know you must have heard this a million times,” the girl told her. “You look like Chrissie Murphy, the singer. You even have your hair done like hers.”
“Yes, I have heard that a few times before.” Casually, Chrissie tried to face in the opposite direction. “I don’t really think I look anything like her myself.”
“Really? But you do. It’s amazing…”
“I don’t even listen to her music.” Chrissie had to fall back on everything she had been taught in acting class.
“I don’t either, but she does have a hot boyfriend. Zach Gomez. I love to listen to his songs. I think he’s really super cute.”
Chrissie looked over at the girl. “Believe me, Zach Gomez is a creep. Don’t listen to his music anymore.” She took her bundle of clothes and started from the dressing room. Then she turned and cast a last glance over her shoulder at the girl. “By the way, Chrissie Murphy doesn’t go with Zach Gomez anymore.”
She turned and walked out of the dressing room.
Outside, Brad and Scott were waiting patiently for her. Scott gathered the clothes from her. Both guys whistled at her when they saw her in the short skirt and tank top.
“You decide which one you want to buy?” Scott asked her.
“All of them.”
She watched as Brad and Scott exchanged a glance. “Don’t worry,” Brad told his kid brother. “I’ve got enough on my card for it.”
She realized that her method of shopping, which was just to buy everything in the store that she liked, was probably much different from their way of shopping. She put a hand on Brad’s shoulder.
“When we get back to my house, I’ll pay you back,” she told him.
“Of course not, honey,” he told her, giving her hand a little pat. “This is the first present I’ve ever bought you. If you pay me back, I’ll feel terrible.”
“Okay…Thank you.”
He gave her a big smile and took the clothes up front to check them out. When he was gone, she pulled Scott aside to an aisle where there were no other shoppers and cast a worried look back at the dressing area.
“People know who I am,” she told him.
He hit the side of his head. “Of course. We were pretty stupid to think we could bring you out in public without at least a few people recognizing you.”
“I saw a shop on the other side of the mall,” she explained to him. “When we leave here, I want to go over and buy one more item in there, but I swear I am going to pay you back for this.”
“Sure. It’s no problem, Chrissie. What’s the other store you want to go to?”
“A costume shop. I want to buy a wig.”
He looked a little puzzled, but nodded that it was fine with him.
“I’m an actress,” she told him. “This’ll be my chance to find out how good of one I really am. But if I don’t change my appearance a little, I’m going to end up just playing myself, and that’s a role I really don’t want to play right now.”
The costume shop was small and void of customers. It was the type of place that probably did most of its business during the Halloween season and then just hung on for the occasional party the rest of the year. Most of the outfits in there were of witches, vampires, and werewolves. These were definitely not the type Chrissie could use on their journey to Hollywood.
Finally, Chrissie selected a Josie and the Pussycats wig from a rack in the back. This was a short-haired, dark wig. Chrissie was used to fitting her long, blonde hair under wigs for her various performances. She quickly had her own hair tied up and the wig placed over it snugly. She also purchased a bottle of cheap but very strong perfume that she applied liberally that added to the effect. The final touch was a pack of chewing gum she had Scott buy for her. She threw a piece of gum in her mouth and began popping it outrageously. Her posture was different and her voice was higher than normal. She did not look like Chrissie Murphy the superstar any longer.
“Who are you?” Brad asked her. He was only half kidding because she was so transformed by the disguise.
“How do I look?”
“You still look amazing,” Scott reassured her.
“What happened to Chrissie?” Brad laughed.
“Chrissie isn’t with us right now,” she wailed in her convincing high-pitched voice. “Call me Josie.”
“You will get the Academy Award someday, Chrissie,” Scott said.
Both guys were carrying bags for her, and they escorted her back outside the mall.
“What in the hell did you all do?” Ethan asked when they joined him back in the parking lot. “I thought you weren’t going to run away and hide anymore?”
“This is what I do,” Chrissie told him, bending down to pick up her dogs. “I get paid to become other people. You’re taking me back to my career. I’ll be Chrissie Murphy again when you get me back to my home in Hollywood. Right now I’m a dumb bimbo.”
“Okay, you have me convinced.” Ethan didn’t sound happy. “But what the hell took so long? I’ve been waiting out here all afternoon for you, and I was about to kill these dogs.”
Chrissie clutched at Peaches and Cream protectively. “Don’t worry, darlings. Mommy won’t let the bad man hurt you.”
It was getting dark outside, and the overhead lights of the mall parking lot were coming on. It had gotten cold again, and a bitter north wind was blowing past them. Chrissie wasn’t wearing her fur coat any longer and shivered against
the cold.
“We still have to make time tonight if we want to stay on schedule,” Ethan reminded them. “Come on, guys. Let’s get a move on.”
Chrissie felt somewhat afraid as they started back down the highway. Every mile they drove took her that much closer to her old life and a decision she was going to have to make as to how to start dealing with that life. She looked out the window at the empty blackness night had shrouded the land in and wasn’t at all certain she would have enough strength to face up to things when she got back home. She gave Peaches and Cream each a kiss and tried to drive these thoughts from her mind. If she only had tonight and tomorrow to be happy, then she had to make the best of the time.
“Hey, little bro,” Ethan called back to Scott from the driver’s seat. “Bring out that little computer of yours and see what’s on the news.”
“You want me to check for all things Chrissie Murphy on the net?”
“I want to see if the authorities are treating her disappearance as a kidnapping yet.”
Chrissie took the iPad out of Scott’s hands. “I know all the sites my daddy’s PR people would have talked to. Let me look.”
She opened a web browser and quickly flipped through some sites. She frowned as she read about herself. The news was not good, and by the words on the screen, she knew her daddy was angrier than she had ever known him to be before. She also knew Ethan would be angry when he heard the news. So she handed the handheld device back to Scott to let him read for her.
“William Roy Austen, father of pop superstar Chrissie Murphy, told authorities today that he has received a call from an individual holding his daughter for ransom.” Scott read the illuminated screen of the iPad in the darkness of the backseat.
Ethan pounded the steering wheel of the truck in frustration. “That son of a bitch!” he shouted. Then he quickly looked back at Chrissie. “Sorry, Chrissie. I didn’t mean to say that about your father. But tell me what part of my conversation with that man today gave him the idea that I was holding you for ransom?”
“I’m sorry, Ethan,” Chrissie told him. “My father is angry at me for running off. That’s why he’s saying that to the press. He isn’t really lying. In his own mind, I think he believes what he’s saying.”
“But my brothers and I are the people who might get hurt by his anger.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t let you get hurt. As soon as we get home, I’ll tell everyone what really happened.”
“If you don’t, my brothers and I are probably going to prison.”
“I wouldn’t ever let anything bad happen to you guys. I’m the one who’s been missing. They’ve got to believe me when I tell them the truth.” She picked up Scott’s hand in her own. He bent down to her and gave her a kiss. This felt so good to Chrissie. She wondered again why in the world she had to go back to her old life and give up her freedom. It wasn’t fair.
About ten o’clock that night Ethan found a roadside motel for them and pulled them off the road into the big parking area outside. Ethan went inside to the front desk to get them two rooms for the night, and Scott got out of the truck to take the dogs for a walk. Chrissie crawled over the front seat and into Brad’s lap. He held her in his big arms, and she snuggled up next to him and gave in to her emotion, letting the tears roll down her face as she hid herself against his chest.
“I’m so scared, Brad,” she told him. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, Chrissie,” he told her honestly and stroked her shoulder comfortingly.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan had rented them adjoining rooms, one for him and his brothers and one for Chrissie. Again Chrissie felt self-conscious because she knew the guys were paying her way. She would really have a lot to pay them back for when she got home. Although the motel did not appear to be expensive, and in fact Chrissie didn’t think she had ever stayed in such poor accommodations in her entire life, to her surprise she found she loved the little room that was hers.
The motor inn allowed pets, so that meant Peaches and Cream would be able to stay the night in her room and Skipper in with the guys.
Brad carried in the shopping bags with the clothes she had purchased that afternoon and set them down in her room. Scott knocked on the door from the adjoining room, and Chrissie opened it up for him. She stuck her head inside the guys’ room and saw Ethan was already sprawled out on one of the twin beds watching TV. He really was a cool one. But now she had her other two guys in her room with her, and she felt safe.
It was apparent that Ethan would have the other room all to himself that night, because these two were not going to leave her alone, and she was glad of it.
She was tired after the many hours spent driving on the highway that day, and she knew the guys probably were, too. Yet, there was a tension in the air with all they were going through and what still lay ahead of them. The uncertainty of her future made Chrissie dizzy every time she thought about it.
When they turned on the motel’s cable TV, they found her movie from last year just starting to play.
“Turn that off, guys,” she told them. She had always hated to watch her own movies.
“Not on your life,” Brad shot back at her. “I’ve never seen any of your movies before. This is my chance to watch a Hollywood movie with the star right next to me.”
“It’s actually pretty good,” Scott told him. “It is funny, and Chrissie does the soundtrack, which is also very good.”
“Oh, making that movie was such a nightmare.” Chrissie buried her head in her hands, not wanting to even watch the opening credits as her name appeared in big block letters across the screen. “The director hated me and made me shoot every scene ten times before we were done. He said I was a bad actress and a bitch to work with.”
“Well, screw him!” Brad said.
“You can watch it if you want,” Chrissie told them. The two brothers were getting comfortable, each laying back on one of the twin beds as they glued their eyes to the romantic comedy on the screen. “I’m going to take a shower. See you in a bit,” she told them and fled to the bathroom to get away from the bad memories the movie brought back to her.
Chrissie lingered in the shower and let the warm water flow over her and wash off the cheap perfume she had applied as a part of her disguise that afternoon. When she was finished, she wrapped herself in a big motel towel and walked out to see which scene her movie had progressed to out in the bedroom.
“Pizza?” she asked as she walked across the carpet on bare feet.
There were two big boxes of pizza on the table, and the guys were just digging in. “Yeah, we ordered from a place in town. They delivered to our room, but we had to give the driver an extra big tip. It’s pretty good. We got an all-meat and an all-veggie because we weren’t for sure which one you liked.”
“Looks great, guys.” Chrissie was hungry and wrapped the towel securely around her body then came over to the bed nearest the table and eagerly joined in the pizza feast with the guys. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized her movie had just made it up to the first plot point. It was only half an hour old and had over an hour to go yet. Yuck she thought, they were really going to make her watch it all with them.
Scott got up and headed into the shower. He stopped to give her a kiss. “Hope you enjoy it, sweetheart,” he told her.
“Who doesn’t like pizza,” she said and laughed. “Even movie stars like pizza.”
“I’ll be back after a while. You guys enjoy,” Scott told them and then closed the bathroom door behind him.
Chrissie munched on a veggie slice and fed a tiny bit to her dogs. They were both on the floor at her feet and eagerly gobbled up her offering.
Brad took his piece of pizza and a can of soda and came to sit at her side on the bed. He put his arm around her bare shoulders. She leaned in against his chest, and they got comfortable sitting back on the bed to watch her movie, eat pizza, and cuddle.
“I think you are fantastic in this film, darling
,” he told her.
“I don’t believe you,” she told him, nibbling on her slice of pizza. “Everything you say is clouded by your desire to get inside my pussy, Mr. Hudson.”
“Well, you’ve got me there. I can’t deny that.”
Her movie on the TV screen had reached a scene at a wedding where her character was singing a song. It was an outdoor shot at a pagoda. A host of extras were on screen dancing behind her.
“The roof is going to fall down on me in about a minute,” she told him. “Just when I finish the song.”
“How do they do that and make it safe for you and the other actors?”
“Two sets,” she explained. “I sing on both sets. This one right now is the real pagoda we shot at. It isn’t really going to fall down. Now see right here they cut to the crowd and then back to me. Now we’re actually shooting on a different set. That was like a week later after we did the first take.”
“It looks the same.”
“Yes, we had real good production people on this film. That’s a prop setting behind us now. We were on stage about fifty yards or so away from it. So when it falls down, we just react to it, but we’re not really close to it.”
“It looks like you’re standing right underneath it.”
“That was the film editor. He split the shots and put a close-up on the background. There, see now it’s falling down.”
“You look like you’re really scared.”
“I really was scared. Daddy was on the set that day watching me, and the director had just yelled at me. We had already done a dozen takes. Then Daddy started yelling at me, and Melinda, one of my PR people, started telling me I was lazy and embarrassing my father…so yes, I was really scared in that shot.”
Brad hugged her tightly against his body, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “I guess this movie wasn’t as fun behind the scenes as it is to watch on TV.”
“No, it sure wasn’t,” she told him and cuddled up closer to him.
