This was the girl I wanted to introduce to my father?
How had I become so false in such a short time?
I walked to Maren and took the ticket and pass. "You’re right. It's time I have a talk with Grant. I'll do it in person." I turned the ticket and the pass over in my hand, then ripped them in two. I handed the pieces back to Maren. "You can consider this my resignation."
I turned and walked away from her, grabbing my purse as I went to the front door. I expected her to call out to me, to say either "If you're done working for me, then don’t come back here—you can go directly to the airport,” or maybe “Don't be so rash, Alexia—you can still make a lot of money." But whatever she thought, she didn’t say it.
Outside the sky was blue, the landscaping vibrant, and my stomach so knotted I felt like I could easily throw up. I used my cell phone to call a cab and told the driver he’d find me walking down Montana Avenue. I didn't know who I would go see first, Grant or Kari. Grant would be harder to face; Kari would be more complicated to talk to, especially since she was mad at me over the tabloids.
I should see Kari first. She was my sister. I owed her an explanation or at least an apology.
But my mind wouldn’t let go of Grant and the words Maren had said. Grant Delray doesn't care about some little nobody from West Virginia. He likes Kari Kingsley. And no matter how much you look like her, you'll never be her.
I trudged down the street, feeling sicker with every footstep, then I called the one person who would understand how I felt: my mother. It was nearly eight p.m. in West Virginia. I tried to imagine what she was doing.
She picked up after a few rings. "Hello?”
"Mom, it’s Lexi. I want you to do something for me. Can you go to the bookcase in my bedroom?”
"Okay, just a second.” I heard her walk through the house. "All right, I'm here."
"Next to my journal there’s a magazine. I want you to pull it out and look at the guy on the cover.”
I heard her shuffling through books, then she let out a low breath. "Oh, qué guapo."
"Yeah, he’s gorgeous. We’ve been dating for a few weeks, and I’m totally in love with him."
Mom's voice rose with worry. "What do you mean when you say totally in love?"
"Totally, stupidly, can't think about anything else. But here's the thing: He thinks I’m Kari.” And then my voice cracked. It felt like I was reliving my mother’s life. "He only likes me because I look like someone else."
"That's the only reason he likes you, because of how you look?"
"Well, no, but he thinks I'm Kari—a famous rock star. I can't keep him from finding out the truth, though. The tabloids spotted us together and now they’re saying Kari is cheating on her boyfriend, and Kari isn't going to let that slide. Which reminds me, you might want to keep Abuela out of the grocery store for a while. I'm sort of on the cover of the National Enquirer kissing Grant.”
She sputtered. "You’re what?”
I didn't have time to go into an explanation of that. "Mom, I don't know what to do. I'm so afraid of losing him.”
For a moment she didn’t say anything. I wondered if she was thinking about how she'd felt about Alex Kingsley when she was my age. Then she said, “You need to tell him the truth. He needs to know who you really are."
I waited for her to say more. She didn’t. I said, "Mom, that didn’t work out very well for you. Alex Kingsley knew who you were and he never called you back. I’ve seen pictures of his Grammy dates, though. They were starlets, singers, and supermodels.”
Her words grew painfully quiet. "I know. But if Grant doesn’t like you for who you are, then he's not worth it.”
It was true, and yet I still didn’t feel that way. I wondered if she felt Alex Kingsley wasn’t worth it. It seemed to me if she had, she would have burned those posters of him long ago.
"The longer you put it off, the more difficult it's going to be,” she said.
My steps on the sidewalk faltered until I hardly moved. "I know.” I hadn't expected her to tell me any different. She couldn't have offered up some magical solution. Still, I needed to know that at least one person understood how hard this was.
"I told Maren that I quit,” I said. “I'll try to get a flight out tonight.”
"You’re leaving before you’ve met your father?”
For a moment I thought of staying and trying to meet him, but the desire had vanished. I couldn’t imagine telling him what I’d done or pretending none of it had happened. "When I get home, I’ll think about having a lawyer contact him. Then if he wants to meet me, he can come out to West Virginia.”
"We'll talk about it when you get here,” she said. I knew she meant to soothe me, but it only made my failure sting worse.
I hung up with my mom and then texted Grant, asking where he was. He texted back, "I'm done with a music video and about to go home. Where are you?”
"On my way to your house,” I wrote. The cab picked me up ten minutes later, and I gave him Grant’s address.
CHAPTER 14
The entire cab ride there, I tried to formulate how to tell Grant the truth. When the cab pulled up to his house, I still hadn't figured it out. I paid the driver extra and told him to wait for me. I hoped I wouldn't need a ride to Kari's quickly, but I figured it was better to be prepared.
Grant met me at the door with a hug, then shut the door behind me. I leaned into him, breathing in the scent of his cologne and imprinting it into my mind.
"I know what you want to talk about," he said. "You saw the tabloids from this morning, didn’t you?”
"Maren showed them to me.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and held me a little ways away, looking into my eyes. “Judging from your expression, you weren’t too happy with the coverage.”
"It complicates things."
His hands traveled down my shoulders to my hands, and he pulled me closer to him again. "I know. My publicist has been getting calls from shows and magazines wanting to know what our relationship is." He leaned closer, keeping his gaze on my eyes. "I figured I should talk to you before I announced anything.” But then he didn't talk. He leaned down and kissed me. I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him back, trying to capture this moment, to clasp it, so I could always remember what it felt like to hold him this way. If I just kept kissing him, I would never have to let him go.
He lifted his head and rubbed his hand across my back. “So was that a 'they're a happy couple and don't have any further comment’ sort of kiss?"
“No, that was a ‘we need to talk more about it’ sort of kiss.”
He smiled and his eyes glinted. “If that's how we’re going to talk about it, I'm happy to discuss it with you at length.” He bent down and his lips brushed against mine again.
I stepped away from him. “No, I meant we should really talk about it.”
“Okay.” He took hold of my hand and pulled me into the living room. “That reminds me—did you go over the duet?”
“Yeah, it's a beautiful song, especially the part that says you should give people a second chance...”
We’d reached the couch, and he sat down. I sat beside him, noticing all the little things I loved about him. His broad shoulders. The curve of his jaw. The rich brown color of his hair.
“I’m glad you like it," he said. “If we hurry and spend some time practicing it, we could debut it at your concert next Friday."