Part 17 (1/2)

”How about a kiss?” the teen asked. ”Just for kicks.”

The crowd agreed to the brilliance of this idea, and Vic encouraged them with a mischievous lift of his eyebrows.

”No, thanks,” I said, more roughly than I'd intended. ”A photo's fine, though. If you can take one quickly. I need to talk with someone at the front of the store.”

”Aww,” the teen said, faking a pout I'm sure her mother abhorred.

Avery and I smiled for her phone, then stayed in position for another fifteen phones brandished for the same purpose. I tried sneaking looks at Kai, and I could see he was still in the store, but I couldn't get a read on his expression because he appeared to be pacing.

Finally, I broke our pose and turned to Avery. ”I need to talk with Kai. Be right back.”

Avery nodded, busy signing a postcard for a plump woman wearing a denim jumper who was yammering on about her own idea for a cookbook.

I pushed through the gawkers but had an awful time reaching the front of the store. One man wanted to ask me about how I broke into show business. Another woman stopped me to tell me her daughter was a waitress at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando and would I be willing to chat with her about how to move up in the restaurant business? By the time I reached Kai, I felt manhandled.

”This is a lovely surprise,” I said, going in for a hug. ”What are you doing here?”

I tensed. He wasn't hugging me back.

I backed out of my one-sided embrace.

He stared at the crowd for a moment, his jaw tensing.

”I'm sorry to have this conversation here, but I can't wait for a time when we're both awake and alone.”

I felt my heart start to gallop. ”What conversation?”

He brandished his phone and pointed the screen at me. ”Remember when I said Dahlia was trying to get a hold of me? How she'd been texting and calling all morning yesterday?”

”Yes,” I said, struggling to square the intensity of his stare with such a benign question.

”This,” he said, ”is why she was in such a hurry.”

I squinted at the photo on the screen, and when my eyes focused, I gasped. ”Oh, no,” I said. The image was a bit grainy, but anyone could easily make out two figures in front of the fireplace at Thrill, their bodies close, their heads tilted in a heated kiss.

”Kai, this does not tell the whole story,” I said. My defenses flared into a quick burn, and the blood started to pound in my head.

”Really?” Kai's tone was incredulous, angry. ”You are honestly going to tell me this is some sort of misunderstanding?”

”Keep your voice down,” I hissed, noting the sudden quiet in the room.

He shook his head. ”No. I can't. This is too important, Charlie. I need you to hear me loud and clear.”

I swallowed and wished I were anywhere else. ”Kai, I can explain what happened.”

He shook his head, unwilling. ”Here's the thing, Char. I understand your life is crazy right now. I get crazy. I get long nights and deadlines. I get working like a dog to take hold of your dream. Believe me. I get all that.” He took a deep breath and appeared to be grasping for some self-control. ”I even get nondisclosure contracts and working with people you used to date. But even with all that, Charlie?”

He paused. I realized I was holding my breath.

”I need to know who you are. And I thought I did.” He looked at his phone. The people who were standing around us had gone silent, hanging on every syllable of our conversation. He shook his head. ”I do not know who you are. And maybe you don't, either.”

”Kai.” My voice broke.

”I'm sorry, Char.” He backed up, toward the door. ”I can't do this. I need clean, direct, honest. I need all of you. And I'm not even close.”

He turned and walked out the door. The little bell above the gla.s.s chimed a gentle reminder of his exit for seconds afterward. I felt unable to move and likely would not have were it not for the sudden realization that there was a line of phones pointed in my direction.

I turned abruptly, anger climbing over the pile of hurt in my body and gut. ”Stop filming,” I said. The phone people wouldn't even meet my gaze; they were so intent on watching the scene unfold on their screens.

”I said stop filming! This is real life, not some script!” My words sounded strangled. I backed up and knocked over a display of cake pans and rolling pins. Vic called to me, and I heard Avery say he would follow me, but he didn't. I walked out the door and away from the crowd, away from the confused driver who offered me a ride, and away from the place where I had been the star of my own, unraveling life.

23.

BALLET flats are not engineered for long-distance walking, but I put mine to work that afternoon. I turned back in the direction of downtown, the restaurant, my apartment, but really I had no clue where I was. I certainly saw unfamiliar neighborhoods, streets, and restaurants, but I couldn't muster enough interest to get worried. At first, I used all my energy to call Kai's cell and try to repair what I had broken. I left eight voicemails, my words first tilting toward hysterical and repentant, and gradually landing firmly on just depressed and repentant. I tried texting, too. That line of attack wasn't any more effective or dignified, particularly when I resorted to this: Me: Kai?

Me: Kai?

Me: Kai?

I kept up a harried walking pace, catching glimpses of my reflection in storefront windows. My mother had often accused me of ”tromping” instead of walking. She had forced me to attend years of ballet cla.s.s to try to expunge the tromp. Judging by my reflection in Dottie's Organic Pet Treat Emporium, the ballet fees had been a foolish enterprise. I could feel my phone becoming slippery from the sweat on my palm as I continued to check it compulsively, staring at it and willing it to ring. It did ring once, but I silenced it immediately upon seeing Avery's name on the screen.

Around the time when the arches of my feet began to feel like separate, aching appendages, I realized I had slowed down and commenced some sort of shuffle. My eyes stung, and I felt a bubble of emotion threatening to spill over and onto my cute new dress that had cost more money than I would ever admit to Manda. My lip trembled as the image of Kai's face, hurt and angry, held onto my thoughts with a tenacious grip. I took a shaky breath. Deep within my reverie, I gradually realized that a car traveling along my side of the street was matching the speed of my progress. A glut of vehicles had backed up behind the pacer car, a limo, I now saw, and was raising a wail of protests with honking and shouting. I closed my eyes, on edge to think that I'd have to deal with an Internet scandal, a shocking break-up, and a traffic accident, all in one calendar day.

Avery's head was halfway out of the limo's back window.

”I saw you ignore my call,” he called.

I kept shuffling.

”I saw you in action! Busted!”

I said nothing.

”Are you okay?” He had to shout over the honking.

This question stumped me, and I stopped walking. I stood there mulling over a truthful answer until Margot opened the door next to Avery's and stepped out. For a woman who topped out at barely five feet, she carried herself with the authority of an Amazon tribal chief. She shot a look at the driver directly behind the limo, and he looked like he'd been hit with a stun gun.

”Go on,” she said to the men in her jurisdiction. Avery and Vic nodded like privates to their commanding officer. ”Charlie and I will see you at the restaurant tomorrow.” Without waiting for their input or approval, she stepped onto the curb and clicked toward me in her power heels.

”Let's talk,” she said. She pointed to the coffee shop behind me. I glanced at the pa.s.sel of black wrought-iron chairs and tables and wondered if I would have just kept walking right into them if I hadn't heard Avery's call.

Waving away Margot's offer for a coffee, I lowered myself onto one of the chairs. After Kai's words and his abrupt departure, adrenaline had coursed through me, probably helping me cover a lot of pavement in a short amount of time. Now that I was sitting and still, I felt all the energy that had propelled me to that spot abandon me. My limbs, my heart, my head all felt depleted, even jittery, with exhaustion. I squinted up at the sun, surprised it was out and so irritatingly perky during such a horribly dreary moment.

Margot used her back to push through the shop door to the outside. Returning, she balanced two large coffee cups in her hands. Placing one in front of me, she said, ”Drink this. You'll never make it home if you don't.”