Chapter 6
OKAY, SO THINGS WERE BAD. BUT THEY still weren’t that bad. Nikki Howard’s brother may have been moving in, and her mom may have been missing, and I might have put myself in charge of finding her. But at least Nikki had a brother and mom, whereas a few hours ago, I’d thought of her as a siblingless orphan. Well, practically. Some family was always better than none, right? Of course, it was a little annoying that every five seconds, my roommate kept going, “Do you think he liked me?” That was all Lulu could ask. And ask. And ask again. I’d never seen Lulu like this over a guy. Granted, I hadn’t known her all that long. But even if I didn’t know her at all, I’d have been able to tell: She had the hots (and that was putting it mildly) for Nikki Howard’s big brother. Which was sad, because I was pretty sure the feeling wasn’t mutual. In fact, I’m fairly certain that was why Lulu liked Steven Howard so much. He was the first guy she’d ever met who wasn’t a hundred or obviously gay (because even though I’m almost positive Steven Howard isn’t gay, you can never be sure, especially with military men and the whole don’t-ask-don’t-tell thing) who didn’t like her back. “He had to like me a little bit,” Lulu was saying, as she lay sprawled across my bed, still in her silky pajamas. “I mean, I’m cute, right?” “You’re so cute,” I assured her, jamming my feet into a pair of Stark brand imitation Uggs. I seriously never thought I’d be caught dead—ha-ha—in a pair of these, since every girl I knew at Tribeca Alternative had a pair, including my own sister. I wouldn’t wear them at all if I wasn’t required to by my employer. Stark brand Ugg knockoffs were the hot new thing…half the price of the real ones. Although, believe it or not, they were the most comfortable footwear you could put on if the bottoms of your toes were raw from having been clinging to a cliff face the night before. Also if you’d spent an hour pacing the length of your apartment while calling your cell service provider, begging them to give you a printout of all the calls you’d received—not made—on your cell phone for the past two months. “I am cute,” Lulu said firmly as she rubbed Cosabella’s ears, breaking into my reflections. “I’m totally cute! He just doesn’t know me yet. Every guy who gets to know me agrees—Lulu Collins is cute! And, anyway, Steven’s all bummed out from the awful way you’ve treated him over the years. I mean, no wonder he’s all tortured and moody and stuff. ” “Hey,” I said, shooting her a wounded look. I was completely guilt-stricken over the fact that I hadn’t recognized my own brother. Well, Nikki’s brother. And how I was going to have to get to the bottom of his mother’s disappearance and find her myself if it was the last thing I did. Even though I didn’t know how. “Oh, right,” Lulu said. “I forgot. The old you was the one that was mean to Steven. Sorry. Still. How could you have treated him that way? He’s so hot. I’ve never met a guy that hot. Did you see those arms. I mean,” Lulu went on, bunching one of my pillows beneath her head, and staring dreamily up at my ceiling, “he looked strong enough that if he lifted me, he could do it with just one hand. Did you notice that?” “Uh,” I said, slipping on a fitted leather jacket, then snapping my fingers for Cosabella to come to me. “He’s my brother, Lulu. I wasn’t exactly checking out his arms. Because, ew. Look, if anyone calls, I’m just going to take Cosy for a walk for an hour or so. I’ll be back soon. Okay?” “Mrs. Captain Steven Howard,” Lulu breathed, still staring up at the ceiling. “No—Mrs. Major Steven Howard!” Lulu had totally lost it. It was sad, really, what a uniform could do to a girl. I hoped she’d be feeling more like herself when I got home. Or that she’d at least have brushed her teeth. In the meantime, I had places to be. I left my room, threw on a scarf and gloves and woolly cap and sunglasses (even though it was still gray and dismal outside. But I didn’t need anyone recognizing me. Until I started walking around in a celebrity’s body, I had no idea what they had to go through, with people grabbing them and screaming and trying to get them to talk on their cell phones to their friends in Pasadena just to prove they’d really met them), then grabbed Cosy’s leash and a dog coat for her (because dogs get cold and wet exactly like we do; Cosabella actually shivered like a person when she got cold), my tote of gifts for my family, and finally left the building, heading across town toward Washington Square Park. It wasn’t somewhere I was supposed to be. In fact, my “handlers” at Stark had subtly been encouraging me not to go home to visit my parents since the first time I went there in my new body (and brought Lulu). It wasn’t hard to imagine how they knew we’d been there…not once I saw the holes in the ceiling in the loft. I just tried to make sure none of them brought any Stark brand electronic products home, even as promotional gifts from Stark. But there was nothing I could do about the fact that I’m regularly followed…at least by paparazzi (though not today. The weather outside was horrible. It was spitting little drops of ice crystals that stung my skin wherever it was exposed, and the temperature had to be barely thirty degrees out. Anyone sane was staying in where it was warm and dry). Then again…whoever said the paparazzi were sane? I didn’t think I was being paranoid about feeling as if I were being spied on. Pictures of me doing the most innocuous things were popping up all over the place. I could be at the corner deli, buying toilet paper at eleven o’clock at night, for Pete’s sake, and the next day a picture of me would show up on Page Six, looking all pasty and strung out (because it was after a shoot and I was exhausted and had no makeup on and it was eleven o’clock at night at the corner deli and I was buying toilet paper, the toilet paper Lulu should have remembered to buy, but hadn’t), and the story underneath my photo would read, What’s Nikki Howard been smoking? We’d sure like some of that! when I had not, in fact, been smoking anything, because I don’t smoke. How had they even gotten that photo? I never saw a flash go off. There wasn’t anyone in the store with me except the clerk. It was creepy, that’s what it was. Because next thing I knew, this extremely unflattering photo, in which I did, in fact, look high or stoned or whatever, was on every Internet gossip site known to man, with even less complimentary captions than What’s Nikki Howard been smoking? And then my mother was calling, wanting to know if we needed to “talk” about my recreational drug use. My mother! It was bad enough that Gabriel Luna, hot up-and-coming British Latino heartthrob singing sensation with whom I was constantly being thrown together because he’s on the Stark label, and who always seemed to see me out in clubs with Lulu and Brandon (where I drank nothing stronger than water, thanks very much), believed my press and thought I had chemical dependence issues (although in Gabriel’s case, he knew I’d been hospitalized a couple of months ago…just not for what). But my own mother? Yeah. Someone was spying on me, all right. For all I knew, he could be watching as I stood on the corner of Houston and Broadway at this very moment, cursing the fact that I hadn’t brought along an umbrella to ward off the sleet. Although if I had, I probably wouldn’t have been able to juggle it and Cosy’s leash and my tote and Nikki Howard’s cell phone, which suddenly went off. I had to fumble around in my pocket to find it instead of just letting it go to voice mail as usual, because I was afraid it might be Nikki’s mom, and I’d miss her, and then I’d have even more to feel guilty about. “Hello?” I said. It wasn’t Nikki’s mother, though. It was Nikki’s agent, Rebecca. Who was exactly like a mom, if you asked me. If your mom smoked and wore four-inch heels and talked through a headset all the time and said things like, “Ten thousand? Are they high?” or kept asking you if you’d remembered to keep your bikini line electrolysis appointment (Yeah. Nikki has no hair down there. Well, a strip. Talk about creepy. But it cuts down on the amount of time I have to spend getting waxed by Katerina). “Why are you calling me on a Sunday?” I asked her, when she said, “Thank God, you’re there. ” “You know I work seven days a week,” Rebecca replied in her smoke-roughened voice. “You’re supposed to take Sundays off,” I informed her. “Even God took Sunday off. ” “Well, if He hadn’t,” Rebecca said, “maybe the world wouldn’t be such an effed-up mess. How was the shoot in St. John?” “Fine,” I said. “Except for the part where I nearly tore off most of the skin on my fingers and toes, clinging to this cliff. Oh, and where Brandon Stark wanted to stay an extra day to take me Jet Skiing. I think someone is letting money and fame go to his head. ” I’d crossed Houston, and was walking past the Stark Megastore where, ironically enough, all of this had happened to me. “Brandon Stark is worth thirty million. ” Rebecca sounded like she was inhaling. “At least. A billion when his father croaks. Maybe more. Breaking up with him was a big mistake. ” “I’ll keep that in mind. ” I take it back about Rebecca being like a mom. No mom would give the kind of advice she does. Which reminded me. “Rebecca, have you heard anything from Nik—I mean, my mom?” “Why would I hear anything from that woman?” Rebecca asked. She said that woman like Nikki’s mom wasn’t someone she liked. “Because,” I said. “Apparently, she’s missing. No one’s heard from her in three months, and people back in, um, Gasper are starting to worry maybe something’s happened to her. ” “Well,” Rebecca said. “Your mother was never the sharpest knife in the drawer. Chances are, she went up to Atlantic City to play craps and got lost. ” “Oh,” I said. “Good to know. ” For some reason, I didn’t mention Nikki’s brother. I don’t know why. I just didn’t. It didn’t matter, I guess, because Rebecca had already moved on. “But about why I’m calling,” she said. “So, listen. Are you sitting down?” “No. I’m walking Cosabella. ” I didn’t tell her I was really on the way to see my family. That’s the last thing I’d mention to Rebecca. Because she doesn’t know about my real family. Or the real me. “Well, I just got the call from Robert Stark himself…The nationally televised Stark Angels New Year’s fashion show is going to be shot at the newly constructed Stark Sound Studios in Midtown, live on New Year’s Eve…and they want you to be the Angel wearing the ten-million-dollar diamond bra. Apparently, it’s just your size. Giselle dropped out due to a contract dispute. Could you die? Nikki? Nik?” I stumbled over a grate in the sidewalk and nearly dropped my phone. A couple who were hurrying by, as anxious to get out of the rain as I was, barely gave me a second glance, even though my image was in every window of the store next to us, blown up to ten feet tall. Nikki Howard in a trench coat, Nikki Howard in a bikini, Nikki Howard in an evening gown, Nikki Howard in a summer dress, Nikki Howard on a pair of skis, Nikki Howard in jodhpurs, Nikki Howard in a kimono, Nikki Howard in a matching Stark Angels bra and panty set. The sunglasses and knit cap totally worked as a disguise. “Oh, no,” I breathed into the phone. My heart felt as if it had just gone into overdrive. I thought I might throw up. My bones felt as if they were frozen solid. Because Stark Angels lingerie was seriously the saddest of the sad. It was Stark Enterprises’ attempt to compete with Victoria’s Secret for American women’s underwear drawers. Only Stark’s bras and panties cost about twenty percent less, and itched and poked about fifty percent more. And the Angels were a straight-up rip-off of the Victoria’s Secret’s Angels. Except that their wings were much smaller and cheaper-looking. The only thing more expensive was Stark’s diamond bra—ten million as opposed to the Victoria’s Secret paltry million-dollar bra. “Oh, no?” Rebecca sounded shocked as she echoed what I’d just said. “What do you mean, oh, no?” “I mean,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “I have to go to high school every day. ” I tugged Cosabella away from someone’s abandoned hot pretzel, now cold and congealed on the sidewalk, which she seemed determined to examine and then consume, even though I always fed her extremely well at home. “I’m not going to go on live national television New Year’s Eve in a pair of wings and a demi-cup bra…even if it is one made of diamonds!” “You’d be wearing panties, too,” Rebecca said, sounding surprised that I hadn’t realized this. “Oh, well, that just makes everything all better,” I said sarcastically. “It would be very tasteful,” Rebecca said. “You wouldn’t be showing any more than you did in the Sports Illustrated bathing suit shoot last week. ” “But this is underwear!” I wailed. “Even worse, Stark’s underwear!” “Oh, that’s a nice way to talk about your employer,” Rebecca snapped. If only she knew about the phone tap. And the spyware on my Stark brand PC. And the hidden surveillance transmitters in my loft (if that’s what they were). Oh, and about the brain transplant. Which did save my life, but still. “And that was still photography,” I said. “This is TV. ” “There’s a seven-second delay,” Rebecca said. “So if anything were to—you know, slip out, you adjust it before…you know. ” “That is so reassuring,” I said. “Nikki, honey,” Rebecca said, exhaling audibly. “I wasn’t actually asking your permission. Robert Stark called to let me know it’s already settled. You’re doing this. I would have thought you’d be thrilled. You’re the lead Angel. Do you have any idea what that means?” Yeah. I knew. I knew, all right. “I have to go,” I said to Rebecca. I knew I’d been wrong to think everything was going to be all right. “Wait,” Rebecca said. “Don’t you want to know how much they’re paying you for this? Because you’re never going to believe what I negotiated—” But I’d already hung up. It really didn’t matter. However much it was, it would never be enough. Not for being publicly humiliated in front of everyone I knew. Specifically, Christopher. Who, okay, wouldn’t actually know it was me, his old pal, Em Watts. But we used to sit and watch the Stark Angel fashion show every year together and make merciless fun of it, and especially of the dumb Angels, and how many starving Africans they could have fed with the money that had gone into making the diamond bra. And now I was going to be the dumb Angel wearing it. Great. Just great. Maybe I could give the money to some Africans. Except I was probably going to need it. For therapy.