* * *
In the morning, Maren—still resembling a news anchor, even though she wore jeans and a beige sweater—took me to a beauty salon. Once there, Peter, a Hungarian hairstylist, ran his fingers through my hair while he shook his head and made disappointed grunting sounds. My current hairstyle was apparently a tragedy.
He spent the rest of the morning transforming my "limp brown mop into radiant blond tresses”—his words, not mine. This involved not only bleaching and highlighting it, but adding permanent hair extensions, a process that felt a bit like mice were burrowing through my skull. After that was done, a manicurist gave me acrylic nails and then a makeup artist introduced me to foundation, bronzing powder, liquid eyeliner, and a bunch of stuff that required little brushes.
Once they spun me around to face the mirror, I was shocked. For a second, I didn’t recognize myself. Kari Kingsley stared back at me. But not the Kari I'd seen in the tabloids and the interviews on TV. I was the Kari from her album covers and press releases. I looked like the touched-up version of her, where her features were softer.
I had to touch my face to make sure it was really me. And then I laughed. It was so odd to think that I could have looked like this all along.
After that, I washed my face off and they made me apply the makeup again to see if I could do it myself. A makeup artist would still do my face for public events, but I had to learn how to do it for everyday wear. It took me three times to get the eye shadow right. There was enough blending, shadowing, and contouring involved that it should have required an art degree.
While the salon beautified me, Maren set up a bank account to deposit my paychecks into. She gave me a credit card with Kari's name and a copy of Kari’s driver’s license so I could buy whatever I wanted.
A wardrobe was the next thing on our to-do list. The shopping trip was also, as Maren put it, my first public test to see if I could pass for Kari. I was more than a little nervous about it, and as we drove to the boutique, I said, “What if someone sees me, snaps my picture, and it ends up on the front of a magazine? People who know Kari will figure out I’m an imposter.”
Maren flicked a piece of lint off her sweater. "First of all, that’s why you'll wear your sunglasses anytime you’re out. Second, pictures vary, even taken of the same person at the same event. Kari's friends would just assume the picture was a little off. Third, the big magazines have photo shoots for their covers, and tabloids usually run pictures of celebrities who do something interesting—so don’t shave your head, lose or gain a lot of weight, get divorced, or have another celebrity’s baby. Do you think you can manage that while we’re out today?"
I nodded.
"If someone takes your picture, at worst it will end up on the Internet with the other hundreds of pictures people took of celebrities this week. Nothing to worry about."
I leaned back in my seat, trying to appear as at ease as Maren was.
"I’ve hired a bodyguard," she said as we neared the store. "Nikolay is waiting for us at the boutique. You needn't worry about making small talk with him because his English is limited. Still, he has excellent references. He’s ex-KGB."
"The Russian secret police?"
"Right." She smiled like this was a good thing, but it only made me more nervous. I couldn’t shake images of some burly guy interrogating people in dimly lit rooms.
When we pulled up, I recognized him right away. It would have been hard to miss the six-foot-three-inch guy in a gray suit who stood guarding a parking spot for us. The car stopped, and he opened the door for me. He didn’t smile, just scanned the street as I got out. Then he followed Maren and me inside, stood against one wall, and scrutinized the store.
It was a shop that Kari didn’t usually frequent, so the staff didn’t know her. As we walked toward the clothes, Maren whispered, "Stand up straight, shoulders back, and show a little superstar attitude."
Superstar attitude, I told myself. I’m not Alexia. I’m Kari Kingsley. I sparkle when I’m onstage. The salesclerk, a woman toting more jewelry on one arm than I'd ever worn on my entire body, smiled and told me what a fan she was then brought over clothes for my consideration.
I did okay being Kari. All right, I admit that I gasped the first time the salesclerk handed me a shirt and I saw the price tag dangling from the sleeve. For two hundred and fifty dollars, Tommy Hilfiger himself had better come to my house and iron it. But after that, I stopped gaping at the price tags and pretended it was normal to try on a pair of eight-hundred-dollar shoes.
I put on things that I never would have tried back home. They were too bright, too flashy, and yet when I looked in the mirror they worked. I saw Kari’s body and not my own. I stared at myself, turning side to side, while the clerks hovered by the dressing room telling me how chic and beautiful I looked. I did feel beautiful—and not the sort of beautiful your mother tells you that you are when she's cheering you up. I felt powerfully beautiful, like I could walk out the door, swish my hair around, and the world would give me whatever I wanted.
This was Kari's normal life—this attention, this pampering. And I could have had it all along if I'd grown up as Alex Kingsley's daughter.
It was a thought I hadn’t expected to have, not with such resentful force anyway, but it wouldn't leave, and seemed to get stronger every time I posed in front of the mirror.
I could have lived here in California, and no one would have ever sneered at me because I was poor. I would have grown up with Kari, had famous friends, been given all sorts of things—who knows, maybe I would have been a rock star too.
The feeling grew and swelled until I didn’t want to play this charade just to get to know Kari, meet my father, and then go back to West Virginia. I wanted to know what it would feel like to live a Beverly Hills life. Maybe it wasn’t too late to have it. Maybe this person in the mirror with a thousand-dollar outfit hugging my figure was the real me.
As soon as this idea came to me, I remembered Abuela’s instructions not to change who I was. I had said I wouldn't, but that might be impossible. I'd been changed the moment I'd left West Virginia. Now I had to figure out who exactly I was changing into.
While Maren took my clothes up to the register, a teenage girl came into the store with her friend. She watched me for a minute, then walked up. "Excuse me, you’re Kari Kingsley?”
She sounded like she didn’t believe it. Of course she didn't—I looked wrong. I walked wrong. I couldn't possibly pull this off. But the next moment she laughed nervously like she knew she'd asked a stupid question. "I loved your last album. 'Two Hearts Apart' is my favorite song.” She thrust a pen and a piece of notebook paper at me. "Can I have your autograph?”
"Sure,” I said, with more gratitude than Kari would have shown. The girl had given me a great compliment, though: I could pass for Kari Kingsley.
I signed the paper and then signed the credit card slip with a flourish. Both times my K's were perfect.
Shortly thereafter, Maren ruined my good mood. As we got into the car, she handed me the clothes bags and said, "There. These should hold you over until we can get you down to the next size.”
"What?” I asked.
Her gaze traveled over me, and she shrugged. "The camera adds ten pounds.”
"You think I'm too fat?” All right, I admit I have a weakness for Almond Joys, but I was not overweight. Any high-calorie food I ate was counteracted by the fact that I had to walk ev-erywhere I went, including the mile to and from school.
Maren pulled out into traffic without glancing at me again. "Don't complain. It won't be hard. I’ve already hired a personal trainer for you.”