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 because 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.
* * *
When Maren came back to the town house several hours later, I was sitting in the kitchen looking up information on gambling addiction with my laptop. She glanced at the screen, tossed her keys on the table, and sighed.
“Does Kari have a gambling addiction?” I asked.
"No, you don’t have an addiction, just a love of playing cards and an unfortunate losing streak. You’re taking responsibility for your debts, though, and paying them off.”
I flipped from one screen to another. "I'm not asking for the official position, I'm asking if Kari has a problem."
"All you need to know is the official position."
I held my hand out to the computer screen, offering it as proof. “This is serious. Kari needs help. She needs counseling.”
Maren laughed and turned away from me, walking to the cupboards to pull out a glass. As she poured herself a drink, she said, “See, this is the problem with Lorna's allegations. You tell a normal person that Kari Kingsley owes four hundred and eighty thousand dollars to casinos, the only assumption they can make is that she's a gambling addict. People don’t realize that it’s not unusual for wealthy people to blow five, ten thousand dollars on a night of entertainment.”
"Even if they’ve already lost hundreds of thousands of dollars?”
Maren leaned against the counter, the red lipstick she wore still as vibrant as it had been in the morning. "I know celebrities who spend that much going to Cannes every year. And to tell you the truth, Kari owes more than that on her credit cards. Her favorite way to waste time is shopping.” Maren slowly swirled the contents of her drink. "But now that I’m her manager, we’re changing that. I have her on a strict budget, she’s selling off the Lamborghini she hardly ever drives, and no more clothes shopping or gambling until her debts are paid." She took a drink, set her glass on the countertop, and ran her fingers through her hair. "Kari's real problem is that she's dragging her feet on her next album. She records a song and then decides she doesn’t like it. But when the new album comes out, she won't have any problem paying off the rest of her debts. Until then, you’ll do appearances so she can focus on singing. As long as she can make payments on her debts, the casinos will keep quiet about what she owes.”
Maren walked toward her bedroom, kicking her shoes off, but then she bent down to pick them up. She never left her shoes lying around.
"What about Lorna?" I called after her. "Is there a way to stop her?”
"I’ll look into that tomorrow,” she said. "Lorna did sign a nondisclosure contract, so we'd win in court. But the problem is that sometimes when you threaten to sue a publisher, they see it as free advertising. It’s like adding fuel to the fire. Nothing sells print quite as well as a scandal." She turned around and surveyed me for another moment. When she spoke again, her voice was impatient. "But you don’t need to worry about Kari or pry into her life. Your job is to be her when you’re needed. That’s all. And don’t go over to Kari's house again unless I okay it. If you find out anything else you think she needs to know, you tell me first. Understood?”