Abby Road (2 page)

I pressed both hands over my heart. “Hal and I snuck a look at each other at the end. We were grinning like idiots. Right then, I knew I was doing exactly what I was meant to do, what I
love
to do, every day, every minute. I felt it in my bones. And I was
so
. . .” I broke off when my voice cracked. “I was so perfectly happy.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Dr. Robert, pleased that I’d done what he asked.

“And now?” he said. “How do you feel today?”

I felt my chest go instantly tight and my hands ball up as before.

{chapter 1}

“A DAY IN THE LIFE”

“Y
ellow Submarine” was playing from my jeans. I knew who was calling by the ringtone, but I didn’t answer right away. It couldn’t be too important; we’d already spoken five times.

By the second chorus, I moved to a corner of the bookstore and fished out my cell. “Hi, Molly,” I half whispered. “What’s happening on the home front?”

“Hold on, Abby. Just a tick.” Behind her voice I heard traffic, the radio, and a single horn honking: Molly’s. “Bloody
move it
, Tiny Tim!”

I bit my lip in amused pity, imagining some poor waif on crutches trying to cross the street without being mowed down by the beautiful, impatient brunette in the convertible Mini Coop with the Union Jack paintjob. Despite the British accent, Molly’s creative potty mouth was legendarily dirty.

“Move your bloomin’
arse
!” she called out, probably while stopped at a red light on Hollywood Boulevard, reminding me of Eliza Doolittle’s similar outburst.

The urge to crack up tickled my throat. I stifled it, stood on my toes, and reached for a biography about Janis Joplin on a top shelf. Sure, Molly could be abrasive, but I happened to find it hilarious. She knew her colorful Cockney swearing was known to make me laugh at highly inappropriate moments. She claimed that part of her job as my personal assistant/best mate was to treat me to ten belly laughs in each twenty-four-hour period, even on a day like today when we were on two different sides of the country.

But that was “before.” These days, it took a lot to get me to laugh.

My life had changed since the shooting. It had been a year, and there I was, chopped into bits, organized and separated like items on the dinner plate of a finicky eater. Nothing touching, no overlapping. Compartmentalized survival mode at its most dysfunctional. Doctor Robert would’ve been
so
proud.

“Anyhoo,” Molly finally said to me, “Where was I?”

“We hadn’t gotten past hello.” I replaced the Joplin book and grabbed one about Julie Andrews. Snowcapped mountains were on the cover. I liked that.

“Hello, Abby
, darling
.” Molly chimed, bright and sparkly, exactly the way I’d needed her the past five years. “Where are you now? Still at your sister’s place, yeah?”

“No. Pensacola, at a bookstore.” Hearing whispers on the other side of the bookshelf, I quickly moved to the end of the biography aisle, getting that hot-and-prickly feeling up the back of my neck. I couldn’t see anyone, but I knew I was being watched. I guess my cover was blown.

After a beat, Molly asked, “You’re out in public? And are you out-out,” she continued, using our
very
ingenious code language, “or just out?”

“Just out,” I reported, adjusting the dark aviator sunglasses that covered practically half my face. My long hair was pulled back, too, tucked inside a baseball cap. I tried, but I’d never been very creative at the whole
disguise
thing.

“You’re out in public,” Molly repeated. “On your own?”

“Doctor’s orders,” I sing-songed. “He said if I took this trip to Florida alone, I couldn’t just hide in Lindsey’s house all summer. He made me promise to get out among the people.”

“He’s a quack,” Molly muttered.

I nodded in private concurrence and then dropped the Julie Andrews book in my shopping bag. “It was the right decision, though, to stay away from L.A.,” I conceded aloud, knowing that Molly’s protective/venomous dislike of Dr. Robert was for my benefit.

“It
was
impulsive,” Molly admitted slowly. “Less than a week ago, you were onstage in Paris.”

“True.” I lowered my voice. “But for the past year, you know how everyone’s been saying I need support—the familial,
unconditional
kind.” I paused to roll my eyes, wondering if Molly would disagree with this diagnosis as well. When she didn’t, I jumped back in. “I suppose they’re right. Or maybe I got tired of arguing. I don’t want to even think about . . .
it . . .
anyway.” I paused again, stuffing down the sick feeling that came every time I thought about Christian.

“I’ve been here only one day,” I continued, after quickly crossing from behind one bookshelf to another, “but Lindsey kept watching me with those big eyes, so I called her a bad word, grabbed her car keys, and started driving.”

“What word?” Molly asked, a wicked smile in her voice.

“You don’t want to know. But let’s just say I won’t be given any sister-of-the-year awards.”

When I heard another sound behind me, I glanced over my shoulder. But again, no one was there, only whispers from around the corner. I heard my name more than once. I sighed.

“What’s wrong?” Molly asked.

“Cockroaches,” I answered. “The lights came on, and everyone scattered.” Of course I should’ve been happy about it—that no one was pawing at me for a change. But for some reason, knowing that I was being watched was worse than being approached. Since my public meltdown on the street two days ago, I suppose people were afraid to venture near.

“Start flapping your arms around, then,” Molly suggested. “And scream like a banshee. See what happens.”

“Nothing will happen. They’ll be too stunned to speak, or they’ll say, ‘Isn’t that
her
? Didn’t she used to be that famous singer? Such a shame.’”

I paused, staring blankly at the shelf in front of me, listening to the sounds of the bookstore: shoppers, clerks, background music. “An hour ago, the place was pretty much empty. Now it’s packed. I’m afraid to come out of the fortress of books I constructed in the back corner.”

“That bloody
stinks
, babe,” Molly said sympathetically.

I smiled, but it hurt my face. Frowning felt more natural. Evidently my mood-altering happy pills weren’t doing their intended job.

“But how clever of you. A whole book fortress? Aww, and the tabloids claim you’re a one-trick pony. Ha! One trick, indeed,” she muttered. “You should give an impromptu concert, right now, in the middle of the store. Rock their socks off.”

“Now there’s a thought,” I joked, positioning myself in front of a row of thick books with glossy black covers.

“Seriously, though,” Molly said after a moment, “do you want me to have Max send in some muscle men to pull you out of there? He has connections everywhere. Like the mob.”

“No!” I exclaimed, then dropped my voice. “We promised each other I would be manager-free this summer.” I slid the hot-vampire-meets-socially-awkward-teenager book back into its place on the shelf and glanced down the aisle. “It’s not like I’m being assaulted by psychos jumping out of corners, so why cause a scene?”

“I’m your biggest fan, Abigail Kelly,” Molly quoted in her best Kathy Bates stalker voice.

“I’ll leave soon,” I promised, mostly to myself. “I’m just not ready to go back to Lindsey’s yet. She’ll have questions I don’t want to answer.”

There was a silent beat before Molly exhaled a noncommittal, “Yeah.”

I immediately felt the vibe of our conversation darken. I bit my lip, hating how disconnected and gray my life had become.

After another stretch of silence, Molly said, “So, Abby? I called you for a reason this time, actually . . . b-because . . .” After some uncharacteristic stammering, her comments changed direction. “Well, anyway.” She exhaled. “I have to ask, you still taking your meds?”

My stomach dropped. I knew she was just doing her job, but I hated being treated like a mental patient. “Yes, Molly,” I reported, busying myself with the growing stack of books in my bag. “Every morning,” I practically cheered. “Every morning for three hundred and sixty-three days—” The last word caught in my throat.

I had no idea why I tried to make a joke out of it. Reciting the exact number of days since Christian died was
not
totally hilarious. And suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. That year-old noose, that long, slippery snake was slithering up my throat, coiling around my insides, choking me until I couldn’t—

“Well!” Molly cut in brightly. “You’ll be happy to hear that the stalkerazzi are still ’round your house here. And you haven’t even been up in Malibu for, like, what? A year?” She scoffed. “So completely
stupid
.”

I caught my breath, listening to her complain unintelligibly for a while, her slurry Eliza Doolittle lost on me again. Since Molly and I were practically joined at the hip, the paparazzi pissed
her
off as much as me.

“Any guys around?” she asked, veering us toward a more pleasant distraction subject. “Describe them, please. It’s high time you got a little action.”

I shook my head but played along. “There’s a tall gangster wannabe behind the computer games,” I reported in a low voice while leaning against the end of the bookshelf. “He’s holding his hand over half his face trying to make it look like he’s not totally ogling.” I whipped off my sunglasses and made a point of holding direct eye contact with the guy. His face went beet red before he backed up and disappeared.

“How ugly is he?” This was always Molly’s first question about anybody.

My reply to her was always the same.
“Butt,”
I answered. “Gold chains, wife beater, fedora. He looks like 2003’s Justin Timberlake puked on him.”

“Hot.”

When I moved my phone to the other ear and turned around, I noticed
him
, standing alone, right across the aisle at the end of Sports & Outdoors. I did a double take, which didn’t happen often, because except for the ones with wicked-tall blue hair or an exceptionally nice posterior, I hardly noticed the existence of guys anymore. Occupational hazard of living in L.A., where everyone was perfect, plastic, and beautiful.

But I did notice this guy. He was laughing out loud at whatever he was reading.

That’s what hooked my attention, the laugh. I wished it were contagious. Before I fully realized that we were staring at each other and that maybe I should have, I don’t know, smiled or something similarly human, he tucked the book into the crook of his arm and walked away.

“Listen.” Molly broke into my thoughts. “I’ll pay ya ten bucks to walk over and kiss him. Right now. Chop-chop.”

“What?” I gasped, feeling a little fluttery. “No way, Molly.” As I spoke, I couldn’t help standing on my tiptoes to see where Laughing Guy had gone.

“Go on, then,” Molly continued. “March up, tear off his stupid fedora and gold chains, close your eyes, and think of England.”

That’s when I realized who she was talking about. “Oh. Har har. Here I go. Alert the media.” It was a joke, but even back in the day when I was milking my celebrity for all it was worth, I never would have sauntered up to a stranger and attacked. After another quick glance around, I realized Laughing Guy had left my section of the store. I sighed, a bit disappointed.

“You’ve been out of the VIP scene for too long,” Molly said.

“He’s gone, anyway. So much for all men fainting into a heap at my feet.”

When I heard Molly’s chuckles turn to snorts, I started laughing, too. I absolutely adored her—she was as close to me as my sister, Lindsey. While running my fingers along the skinny spines of Dr. Seuss, I calculated how long it had been since Molly and I hit those VIP clubs on our rare nights off.

Not long enough
.