CHAPTER 17
The flight was long, made longer by the fact that people in the airport kept staring and whispering. Several people came up and asked for my autograph. "I’m not Kari Kingsley,” I told them. "I’m her sister.”
I didn't explain about the glitter in my hair. I figured they could think it was a family trait. We all glittered, just like the Cullens in Twilight.
Oddly enough, they still wanted my autograph. "That’s so cool,” one said. "Do you get to tour with her and meet celebrities and stuff?”
That's when it hit me that going back to being Alexia Garcia might be more complicated than just dyeing my hair brown again. I didn’t want to give them a lot of personal information, so I said, "Sometimes.”
All during the flight I worried that Abuela might not have been able to get hold of my mother with my flight information and I’d have to take a cab to my house, but when I got to the airport, Mom stood waiting by the baggage carousel. I could see the lines of worry etched on her face as she searched the crowd, and then her eyes flew open wide when she recognized me. She hurried over and hugged me. "Your hair is so long—just look at you! You look—”
"Exactly like Kari, I know.”
"I was going to say older.” She held me at arm’s length, looking me up and down. "And more ... I don’t know, like such a sophisticated lady.”
"It’s the clothes.”
She led me a few paces away so we weren’t standing by the crowd. "So tell me everything. Did you ever get to meet him?’’
"I met him right before I left. He was really nice.”
"Really?" she asked, but she sounded more alarmed than pleased. “Are you going to see him again?”
I shrugged. "He said he'd call me, so I hope so.”
"He said he'd call you?" The words dropped from her mouth in disbelief, and I knew what she thought. He had said he would call her too.
"Mom, he left your phone number in his jeans pocket and accidentally sent it through the wash. He didn't have any way to reach you. And his manager never told him about your phone call. He didn’t know about your pregnancy.” She blinked repeatedly like she didn’t know what to make of my words, like she couldn’t take them in. The years of not having a father stretched before me again, and this time I wasn’t sure whom I felt worse for, my mother or me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said it, but I added, "Why didn’t you try to contact him again? You wouldn't have had to tell me about it if he had rejected us. Why didn’t you at least try?”
She tore her gaze away from me and swallowed hard. She stared at the baggage carousel for several seconds before she turned to me again. "I always told myself I kept the truth from you because I didn’t want you to get hurt, but when I saw you walk up just now, looking like you belonged in Beverly Hills—well, that wasn't the whole reason. I can’t compete with him, Lexi. He can buy you anything and take you anywhere. What child would want to live with her poor, struggling mother when she could live with her famous, rich father? You're my whole life. I didn't want him to come and take you away.”
Her eyes teared up, and I pulled her into a hug. "I wouldn’t have . . . ," I said, but I couldn’t finish the sentence. I wouldn’t have left you for money. Up until I went to California I had been too preoccupied with my lack of money, my secondhand clothes, and my small house. I’d been so eager to make a bundle of cash for being Kari’s double. If my father and mother had had joint custody of me all along, would I have been too ashamed to live with my mother?
"The money doesn’t matter," I said. "No one has ever loved me as much as you have. Nothing is going to change that."
She held me tighter, put her head against my shoulder, and cried.