My Double Life

by Janette Rallison

CHAPTER 8

  I stayed there longer than I should have. I bet real celebrities don’t hide out in supply closets full of boxes of straws, but I needed time to process everything Grant had said. When I came out, I asked Nikolay to escort me to the limo.

  Instead of going back to Maren’s house like I was supposed to, I told the driver to take me to my house—Kari's house. I needed to talk to her.

  The gate code wasn’t a problem. That had been easy enough to remember from when we dropped her off from the airport: It was 1111. I think as in "I’m number one” repeated four times.

  There was one awkward moment while Nikolay escorted me to the door. I worried that it would be locked and then I’d have to make up some excuse about losing my keys, which would cause Nikolay to walk around the house checking for open windows. My mind was already racing ahead to the moment that Kari called the police to report burglars, and the scene down at the police station when the police— and then the media—realized I'd been at a club opening impersonating Kari Kingsley.

  How would my mug shot look in this gladiator dress?

  But the door swung open. I didn’t want Kari to freak out if she unexpectedly heard her front door opening, so as I walked in I called out, "Hey, I’m back from the club!" Which—in case Nikolay heard me—is something Kari might have said, if she was one of those people who talked to her cats.

  I shut the door firmly, then leaned against it, waiting for Kari to appear. While I waited I took in the entryway. In my house, you walked into the living room and from there you could see the kitchen and the hallway that led to the three small bedrooms that made up the rest of the house. Kari had an entryway the size of my living room, but you couldn't see anything beyond it. All you saw was this wall with a huge black-and-white picture of Kari wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in a wheat field. It even had its own lights aimed at it.

  Stone tiles spread out in front of me, and on either side of the entryway were matching antique chests. A lamp and a silk plant sat on one. The other had a decorative bowl full of funky black and white balls.

  After a minute, Kari appeared. She wore an oversized football shirt that must have doubled as pajamas and carried a corn dog. She cocked her head when she saw me. "What are you doing here?"

  I pointed at her corn dog. "What are you doing with that? I thought you were a vegetarian.”

  She looked down at the food in her hand. "Oh, this. Sometimes when I’m stressed-out I have to have comfort food. Besides, this hardly counts as meat. It’s all preservatives and nitrates.”

  I took a step toward her, still pointing. "I had to pass up coconut shrimp appetizers at the club and you’re here eating a corn dog?”

  "Save the lecture and tell me how things went.” She gave me a teasing smile. "Especially things with Stefano. Did you kiss him?”

  I folded my arms. "Stefano left the club after I danced with another guy.”

  Kari took a bite of her corn dog and shook her head. "Well, good riddance, then. I totally hate jealous guys. That was the problem with Michael; he got too demanding, you know? I mean, my boyfriend has to realize that I’m going to smile and flirt with a lot of people. That’s just the business. A guy should deal with it, not retaliate by partying with some trampy little starlet from General Hospital."

  "I was dancing with Grant Delray. Do you want to fill me in on why he hates you?”

  "Grant Delray?” She put her corn dog down on the antique chest with a thud. "He was there?”

  "Yeah. We had an interesting talk. Mostly interesting because I didn't know what he was talking about—"

  Kari cut me off. "He was not supposed to be there. I have made it clear to anyone I deal with that I am never going to be in the same place as that egotistical, hypocritical, kiss-up publicity hog. I’m calling Maren about this right now. This is absolutely—’’

  "He said someone named Lorna Beck is writing a tell-all book about you.”

  Kari didn’t speak. She let out a shrill "Nooooo!” picked up a lamp, and threw it against the wall. It smashed and little chunks skittered across the tile, spinning to a stop.

  How much had that cost? At least two hundred dollars. I couldn’t help myself; I thought of things that two hundred dollars could buy. A year’s worth of cold cereal? Six months of cell phone coverage? A dozen T-shirts? One broken lamp.

  Kari ran her hand through her hair and took deep, labored breaths. "She can’t do this. She signed a nondisclosure contract. I will sue her. I will sue her publisher, and I will sue any store that carries her book!"

  This is what Grant had expected to see, I realized. He’d thought I would fall apart like Kari was doing now. Maybe she would have thrown those boxes of straws against the wall and then they would have rained down like confetti on the two of them. I was glad I had been there instead.

  "So the stuff about the gambling debts is true?”

  Kari put her hand over her mouth, sank onto the floor crying, and didn’t answer me.

  I called Maren. I didn’t know what else to do. Then I sat next to Kari on the entryway floor. I hated to see her this way, so fragile and hurt, her flair and confidence gone. A real sister would know what to do in this sort of situation, but I had nothing to draw on.

  I scooted over until we were almost touching, then I patted her arm awkwardly. "It will be all right. Things can't be that bad."

  Kari held one hand over her eyes. "Lorna will make things look that bad—and Grant will probably give away copies of her book at his concerts."

  I thought of Grant, of him taking my arm and leading me to the floor, and how my heart had flipped around in my chest so persistently it had been hard to dance at all. I remembered his blue eyes, cool with resentment, staring at me in the supply room, and his expression when he'd left. I wanted to hate him for Kari’s sake, but perhaps his blue eyes were still too vibrant in my memory I could only muster some disappointment that he would never like me. "How come you don’t get along with Grant? And why did he act like he knew you but didn’t recognize I wasn't you?"

  "I've never actually met him,” she said, her voice uneven from crying. "We’ve only talked through our publicists. A few months ago, Grant put together a fund-raiser for the Sun Ridge Children's Hospital, and he wanted me to appear as one of the headliners. And since it was a fund-raiser he wanted it for free."

  Kari took a shuddering breath. "I refused. I get requests to do fund-raisers all the time—and I mean every single day. My policy is that I do two free ones a year, and that's it. I’ve already done one for California animal shelters and one for breast cancer, and besides, right now I really need money. I've even had to let a lot of my staff go. If I’m going to take off work to practice and put on a concert, I need to be paid. I've got to buy a costume, have a choreographer come up with something new, pay the backup dancers, the makeup artist, the hairstylist—my glam squad is expensive. I gave him a cut-rate price for a mini concert.”

  That was why Grant didn’t like her? Because she hadn’t done his fund-raiser for free? Inwardly my opinion of Grant slid downward. What was it with these celebrities that they always had to get what they wanted?

  "I thought the whole thing had ended,” Kari said, “but then a few weeks later, Lorna—she was still my assistant then—Lorna gave out my cell phone number to the hospital director so he could call and lay a guilt trip on me about how the sick kids really wanted to see me and couldn’t I just come make an appearance and sing a couple of songs?

  "I couldn’t believe Lorna had given out my number. It was so completely unprofessional, and I’d already said no. She put me in a bad situation, making me turn them down all over again. And I had to change my phone number too. Once those things get out to the public, they always go viral. Of course I fired her.

  "So Grant—Mr. Higher and Mightier Than Anyone Else, since he obviously cares about sick kids more than I do—he got her a new job. A job where apparently she has enough free time to write an entire book trashing me.” Her voice broke again. "That’
s going to kill my endorsements—I’ve been talking to some department stores about doing a clothing line . . . and my agent is working on a movie deal with Disney, and Mattel wants to do Kari Kingsley doll be-cause I'm such a good role model. Now my fans will turn on me.” She didn't say more. She went back to crying.

  "Don't worry about the book.” I patted her arm again, this time less awkwardly. "It’s not like most people read anymore. Well, not unless the book has a wizard school or a hot vampire. And as a Kari Kingsley expert, I’m absolutely certain your life has neither of those things."

  She let out a halfhearted laugh, then put her head on her knees. "The paparazzi will gather in packs to hunt me down.”

  "You could always dye your hair brown and hang out with my family in West Virginia. The paparazzi would never find you there. We could do the prince and the pauper."

  "What’s the prince and the pauper?"

  "See?” I said. "You just proved my point. No one reads anymore.”

  She lifted her head. "Oh, you mean that book by Mark Twain. I remember it now. As my life went flashing before my eyes, I recognized it in my eighth-grade English class.”

  "Your life only flashes before your eyes when you’re dying,” I said.

  "Or when you find out someone is writing a tell-all book about you—at least the really bad parts flash before your eyes.” She let out a moan and rested her head in her hands.

  I put my arm around her, giving her a side hug. This moment more than any other made her feel like my sister, only I felt like the older sister instead of the younger one.

  Maren came not long after that. She took a look at the broken lamp, then helped Kari to her feet and put her arm around her shoulders. Her voice, which had always been so brisk and businesslike with me, dripped with consolation. "It’s okay. I’ll talk to your lawyer, and we'll take care of this.” She patted Kari’s arm soothingly. "You shouldn’t have to deal with people like Lorna and Grant. You leave everything to me.”

  To me she said, "I’ve called your driver. He’ll take you to my house.” Then the two of them walked out of the entryway, leaving me there. That's when the full weight of Kari's words hit me. If the press got wind of Lorna's book and gathered in packs to hunt her down, I could very well be the one they found.