Just Like Me, Only Better (32 page)

When Ken opened the door, my first thought was: he looks wonderful! Funny how being in love can make you more attractive.

But then I realized that his beauty came from the outside at least as much (maybe more) than it did from the inside: new haircut, smooth complexion, a sage T-shirt, designer jeans, and leather flip-flops from someplace other than REI.

“Veronica—hey! Haley, Veronica’s here!”

Behind him, the room was dark, the blinds drawn, the only light coming from the flickering television set. Haley was not planting tomatoes, making pancakes, or otherwise embracing normal domestic life. Instead, she was sprawled on the plaid couch in one of her velour track suits (brown today—Ken liked earth colors, after all). She held up a hand (not the whole arm, just the hand) to greet me before returning to her familiar fugue state.

“I just wanted to make sure you got back from Whitney safely.”

“Oh, Whitney.” Ken laughed. (“Ha. Ha.”) “We didn’t go.”

“But . . .”

“We started up there, but after about an hour on the road, Hay said that what we really needed was pampering, so we went to a spa instead. You ever been to the Bacara?”

“Uh, no.”

“Just north of Santa Barbara. Goleta I think. Nice setting, lousy service. But Hay was right: it was exactly what we needed. Wasn’t it, babe?”

“Mmm. Hmm.” Haley (“Hay,” “Babe”) managed to answer without moving her mouth.

He rubbed his perfectly smooth cheek. (Facial? Acid peel? Dermabrasion?) “It was great to get away. For both of us. The distance allowed us to see things more clearly and to envision the kind of future we want to live.”

Across the room, Haley moved! She shifted her weight and reached for the remote and hit a button and . . . that was it.

“We’re moving to the Santa Ynez Valley,” Ken announced. “You’re the first person we’ve told.”

“Oh,” I said. “My God, you’re . . . wow.”

“We went up there to go wine tasting one day—Fess Parker, you been there?—and fell in love with the area. So the next day we went back and had a Realtor show us around. Found a piece of property—forty acres of gentle hills, mature trees. There’s a two-bedroom house on there now, along with a barn. We can live in the house while we build.”

“But what about the boys?”

“They’ll come with us, of course. Hay loves kids. Don’t you, babe?”

“Are there any more of those pastry things?” she replied.

“Oh! Of course!”

I followed him into the kitchen. The bright light hurt my eyes after the darkness of the living room. The ceramic tile counters gleamed, empty except for a pink cardboard box. A clean frying pan sat drying in the dish rack. Ken pulled a white Corelle plate from the cabinet and plucked a shiny Danish from the pink box. “You want one?”

I shook my head.

“Haley loves them.” He pulled a few brown vitamin bottles from another cabinet, twisted open the caps, and lined the pills up next to the Danish.

“Haley’s eating habits are not the best. Ha, ha. So I’ve started her on supplements.”

“Does this mean you’re selling your house?” I asked.

“Yup. Realtor’s coming by this afternoon. I’m using Darcy—hope you don’t mind.” He replaced the caps and put the bottles away. “And I’ve got a couple calls in to Beverly Hills Realtors. Our ranch purchase is contingent on the sale of Hay’s house, so the quicker we get it on the market, the better.”

I leaned against the counter. “Ken, I don’t mean to intrude.” I’d done an awful lot of intruding lately. “But isn’t this kind of quick? It’s great you two get along so well, but to be selling your house and moving the kids. And for Haley to give up her career . . .”

“Haley’s not giving up her career.”

“She’s not?”

“Of course not. With her talent? We’re giving up the kiddie stuff, though, and moving in a new direction.”

“We?”

“I’m Haley’s new manager.” He beamed.

“Oh, my God. I mean—but what about Jay Sharpie?”

“Haley texted him earlier. He’s history. We’re going to build a recording studio at the ranch. So she doesn’t need to leave if she doesn’t want to. And she’s going to record the kind of music she loves rather than that teenybopper stuff.”

“You mean soul and R&B?”

He shook his head. “John Denver. Would you believe she’d never even heard of him? We listened to his songs all week.”

“John Denver,” I said, still not believing it.

“We’re hoping to start with a cover album—get this: I’m thinking we call it ‘Rocky Mountain Higher.’ I’ve got a call in to John’s estate; need to get the permission issues sorted out. After that, Hay will write the kind of songs John would have written had his life not been cut so tragically short.”

He picked up the plate and strode back into the darkness. “Here’s your pastry, Hay-Babe.”

 

 

 

S
tefano had a new ’do: still black, but short on the sides with a long, curly lock in the front. He’d filled his studio with jasmine sprigs. The scent almost managed to overpower the smell of dyes and relaxers. There was even a big bouquet of flowers in the fireplace; it was much too warm to burn anything.

“Girlfriend. OMG.” He grabbed a lock of my hair—I think it was mine. “You’re like a cross between Boy George and Britney Spears.”

“You said I didn’t look like Britney.”

“Well, today you do. In a bad way.”

“It was worse before I bleached the roots.”

“You colored your own hair?” He bit his knuckle. “Well, let’s not waste another minute. Go change out of those Kohl’s clothes and put on a kimono.”

I was wearing straight-cut jeans and a green V-neck T-shirt. “How did you know this stuff came from Kohl’s?” I’d gone shopping over the weekend, figuring a splurge would make me feel better. It didn’t.

He giggled. “Did it really? I was just joking.”

I handed him a foil-covered paper plate. “I made you blondies—they’re like chocolate chip cookie bars.”

He took the plate and inhaled deeply, his eyes wide with wonder.

“They’re a little dry around the edges,” I admitted. “I made them in my toaster oven.”

“I’ve missed you, Veronica Zap.”

“It’s actually Czaplicki, but I’ve missed you, too.”

When I finally got settled in Stefano’s comfy chair, he said, “So tell me the look you’re going for. Spoiled heiress? Hollywood royalty? Film executive wife?”

“How about Orange County schoolteacher?”

He looked appalled for just an instant before he said, “I’ve never done that one. Might be kind of fun.”

 

 

Three hours later, I left with the best haircut of my life: just above the shoulders, lightly layered and swingy. The extensions were gone (getting them out was easier—though somewhat more painful—than putting them in) and the color was close to my natural medium brown, now with a warm touch of copper.

In return, I left Stefano with the story of Ken and Haley as well as the details of my seduction by Brady. I didn’t tell him that Brady and Haley had never been connected for anything other than professional reasons. It felt like a betrayal of Jay—and I’d messed up his life enough already.

Stefano had heard about the Leventhal party from a woman who’d been there—only she couldn’t remember Haley’s name, just called her “that not-that-talented blond girl from that TV show that all the kids seem to like for some reason that I’ll never understand.” She hadn’t realized that the blond woman on stage wasn’t Haley, just that, “She acted like she’d never heard those songs before.” Stefano guessed it was me.

“I’m just not cut out for Hollywood,” I said as he brushed some sprinkles of cut hair from my neck.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.” He held out two pieces of hair, one from either side of my face, to make sure they matched. “Though I couldn’t bear to live anyplace else. I’d die of boredom.”

I was kind of hoping he’d offer to cut my hair for free again. Instead, he recommended that I have someone take my picture as soon as I got home so I’d have something to show future stylists. “And then tonight you should go dancing—or at least out to dinner. You look too gorgeous to stay home.”

“Oh, I’ve got plans.” My plans involved heating a frozen pizza and watching a Disney DVD with Ben, but he didn’t need to know that.

 

 

I’d never written down Jay’s address, but after a few false turns around Melrose, I found his fairy-tale house with the Mini Cooper parked in the driveway. I hadn’t planned on stopping by, but getting the extensions out had been quicker than expected, and things with Jay felt unfinished. He might not want to see me, but I needed to tell him I was sorry: about Haley, about Brady, about everything.

At some level, I expected to find him unclean, unshaven, and depressed. But if anything, he looked tidier than usual—not that that’s saying much—in dark blue jeans and a worn black polo shirt.

He gaped at me for a minute and then said, “Wow. I mean, hi.”

“You’re probably surprised to see me here.” I’d been rehearsing this speech for the last ten minutes in traffic.

“You look amazing,” he said.

That threw me. As I’d rehearsed the speech in my head, I’d expected animosity.

“Thanks.” I blushed. “Stefano took pity on me and gave me a freebie.”

“Nothing is free in this town. How much did you have to tell him?”

“Not everything.” My speech, my speech . . . what the heck was supposed to come next?

“You want to come in?” he asked.

The house was just as I remembered: gleaming hardwood floors, arched windows, comfy leather furniture. It smelled of lemon polish and Windex. Soft rock played over the speakers.

“I was afraid I’d find you watching TV in your underwear, surrounded by dirty dishes,” I admitted.

He smiled. “When I get tense I clean.”

“You must clean a lot.”

“You have no idea. Want something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“Tea would be great, thanks.”

In the small, gleaming kitchen, he filled a stainless steel kettle from a Brita pitcher and set it on the stove.

“I doubt you’re very happy to see me,” I blurted.

He squinted in puzzlement. “Am I acting like I’m not happy to see you?”

“No. Actually, you’re—it’s just . . . you see, on the way over I figured out what I wanted to say to you, and things aren’t going quite the way I expected. I kind of thought we’d have this whole conversation on your doorstep and then you’d slam the door in my face.”

“We can go back downstairs if you’d feel more comfortable. Though I’m not planning on slamming anything.”

I shook my head. “No, I like it up here.” I blushed again. And then I felt ridiculous for blushing.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I ruined your life.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is that what you came here to say?”

“Not exactly. I was actually going to lay a lot of it on you. Say you shouldn’t have thrust me into such an uncomfortable position and that you should have told me the truth about Brady from the beginning. But the fact is, I’m a grown-up, and nobody forced me to do anything.”

He opened a cupboard. “You want something to eat? Crackers? Some shortbread? My mother keeps sending me shortbread. I must have liked it when I was a kid or something.”

“No, thank you.”

He closed that cupboard, opened another, and pulled out two white mugs and a box of teabags. “How do you take your tea?”

“Milk and sugar. Thanks.”

He bustled around, making the tea, acting as if we weren’t going to talk about what had happened. It wasn’t until we were in the living room, settled on opposite ends of a couch, when he said, “You didn’t ruin my life.”

“If I hadn’t introduced Haley to Ken, she would have been around for the Leventhal party, and everything would be fine. Did you know that she’s planning to move to a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley and record John Denver songs?”

He laughed softly. “I knew she was selling her house, but not the rest. John Denver. Wow.” He sipped his tea.

“You must be a little mad at me,” I said.

“I was upset about the car thing.” He didn’t even want to mention Brady’s name. “But I never should have let you meet him in the first place. I guess I just thought that you . . .”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

We drank tea without talking for a few moments, which wasn’t as awkward as it sounds. Finally, Jay put his mug on the big coffee table and said, “Rodrigo is writing a book. A tell-all about Haley. He signed the contract last week. It’s got everything—her drug and alcohol use, the bulimia, the agoraphobia, the bipolar stuff. The girl’s a walking psych textbook.”

“But the nondisclosure contract . . .”

“He signed it under Rodrigo Gonzo. But it turns out his real name is Rodrigo Gonzalez: that’s what’s on his license, his credit cards, his apartment lease—everything. So the contract wasn’t valid.”

“So all that time he spent with Haley, pretending to be her friend . . .”

“Research. Nice, huh? So you see—what happened at the Leventhals’ didn’t matter. Haley was going down, and I was going with her. For what it’s worth, your encounter with Brady—you know, in the car—”

“Yeah, I know.”

“It actually hurts Rodrigo’s credibility. Because he goes on and on about how Haley and Brady faked their relationship, and there’s that video of them obviously not faking anything.”

“There may have been a little faking involved,” I quipped before I could stop myself.

He burst out laughing.

Eager to change the subject, I said, “But won’t Rodrigo just say it’s me?” Oh, crap: now everyone would know. There goes my teaching career.

“Rodrigo has no reason to think you and Brady were ever even involved. Brady’s thrilled about the publicity, and you can bet he will tell anyone who will listen that he and Haley were in love and that Rodrigo is a compulsive liar who’s made it all up.”