Priceless (26 page)

Jackson grinned and shook his head. The man stuck out his hand, and Leila Karraby wandered over to make introductions.

“Ben Albrecht, this is Jackson Pearl. His band, the Pearly Kings, is quite the sensation in the city, you know.”

The man smiled broadly. “Of course. I’m surprised we never met before. Your band is very popular, son.”

“Thanks, Mr. Albrecht. We have a lot of fun together.”

“Call me Ben, please, you’re making me feel old. And this lovely young woman is …?”

“I’m Charlotte Williams.” She smiled at the older man but dropped her gaze quickly. The last thing she wanted to do was draw more attention to herself. It was funny. When she was performing, she felt safe and protected, but once the performance was over, she felt especially exposed. Fortunately, Jackson didn’t seem to know what nerves were, and she was glad he was there to handle the conversation. They were standing close together next to the piano, and behind her back, he took her hand, twisting his fingers into hers. She felt herself relax.

Leila was being a gracious hostess. “Ben owns the biggest radio station in Louisiana, Jackson, although you might already know that.”

“Not just in Louisiana, sugar, but in all the Gulf Coast. Get that song recorded and over to me tomorrow, and I’ll have it on the radio by the time people are driving home.”

“That’s fantastic!” Jackson said. “We don’t have a record label, though. Does that matter?”

“Not to me. It won’t take long, son, with a little radio exposure. You should get it up on iTunes or something, though, for
download. I’ll make sure it’s on our site. You’ll get a good start, and I’ll get to boast about it when you’re taking home your first Grammy.” His eyes lingered on Charlotte. “You should take some pictures, too. She’s a big selling point. I guess you know that already.”

There was a slightly uncomfortable pause, which Leila stepped in to fill. “Charlotte has just arrived here from New York, Ben.”

“Oh, really?” His eyes were still on her, and a certain hunger had entered them. Charlotte was familiar with that look. Sometimes friends of her father’s had come by the apartment and looked at her the same way. The little girl they’d ignored till then had turned into a sexy young woman, and it was hard for them to shift mental gears. That was the charitable way to look at it, anyway.

Kat appeared at her elbow and smiled at the station owner. “Hi there, Mr. Albrecht. Charlotte, can I borrow you a moment?” She led her away and whispered in her ear. “Is the dirty old man making you feel icky? Come on upstairs. I want to show you my room.”

Charlotte was grateful. With no mom at home, she had often played hostess for her dad’s parties. Fortunately, he didn’t throw them very often, but when he did, she was expected to do the honors. Sometimes recently, that had meant fending off unwelcome advances from men twice her age or pretending that the hand that lingered at her hip was avuncular rather than predatory. Since the roof had caved in on her life, she’d come to realize how difficult some of it had been, how tightly she’d kept herself wound. Since coming south, she seemed to have shed a protective layer of skin, and many things she would have shrugged off
before were making her anxious. Luckily, Kat seemed to know this.

Kat’s room was at the very top of the house. “That way, I could look down on everyone.” She laughed. “Janey’s room is much bigger and has its own bathroom, but I like this one better. I persuaded my mother to let me move up here when I was fourteen, which was not a moment too soon. I still like coming back.”

“I can see why.” Charlotte gazed around. As a former attic, the room had a steeply angled roof and dormer windows set at regular intervals. Each had been turned into a window seat, and the cushions were covered with vintage fabrics in shades of yellow and orange. Even in the dark of the evening, it felt sunny. Wide plank floors were polished to a deep mahogany shine, and old rag rugs were puddles of muddled color. An old iron bed was painted butter yellow and set at an angle in one corner, a traditional candlewick bedspread giving it a timeless appeal. Stuffed toys were clearly Kat’s—trolls vied for space with My Little Pony, and in general, the childhood of the early ’90s was well represented.

“My God, I had one of these!” Charlotte pounced on a Beanie Baby in the shape of a unicorn. “But mine was purple.”

Kat smiled. “I was more of a Barbie freak, clearly.” Along one wall ran a single shelf displaying about one hundred Barbies in various outfits. Charlotte looked more closely.

“Where did those clothes come from? I don’t remember any of those.”

“I have the clothes they came in originally somewhere, but I was an early eBayer and spent much of my lonely teen years styling dolls with vintage clothing and trading handmade clothes with other Barbie losers.” She pulled a mock sad face. “I had no real friends to dress up, so these plastic ladies were my only companions.” She laughed at herself. “Mind you, I’m not sure real girls would have put up with me mixing patterns and fabrics the way Barbie did.” She pointed to one of the dolls, who was sporting vinyl leggings under a tartan miniskirt and a dress shirt with a ruffled front. “That’s Ken’s shirt, actually.”

Charlotte looked around. “I don’t see Ken. What happened?”

“He kept pressuring Barbie for a blow job, so she killed him.”

“Wow!”

“Well, look at her. She’s not one for putting up with crap from guys, right?”

“I guess not. Where did she hide the body?”

“Under the beach house, where else?”

“But seriously, you don’t have any Kens—don’t you like styling guys?”

There was a pause. “Uh … I don’t really like guys in general, if you catch my drift.” Kat was smiling gently at her, but Charlotte still wasn’t getting it.

“How do you mean? You and Jackson are friends. And the guys in the kitchen.”

Kat sighed and put her finger to her lips. “Hmmm, how can I put this more clearly? I. Am. Gay. I like men just fine as friends, but I’m only attracted to women. I find women
more inspiring, and I love our clothes and the way we look in them, so I tend to style women. But I could style guys, I guess. Never thought about it.”

“Oh. You’re a lesbian.”

Kat giggled. “Now you’re getting it. Just one more reason for people not to like me at school, although now, of course, when I run into people, they pretend they were all cool and hip with it back then. But they weren’t.”

“People are fuckwits.”

“True dat.”

“Do your parents know?”

Kat nodded, then shook her head. “Yes … and no. My dad does explicitly, and my mom does secretly, but we’ve never discussed it among ourselves. They worry, I think. It’s easier for parents if their kids are normal, run-of-the-mill heterosexuals, right? I’m their ‘different’ kid, but they do their best. My mom knew a lesbian back in college, I think.” She laughed again. “And rumor has it that my cousin Brady is a flaming queen of the first order, but he moved to Paris after college.” She sighed and looked around at her comfortable and stylish space. “I love it here, but I need to move to a bigger city, I think. Somewhere where being gay is less defining, if you know what I mean.”

“I think so.”

“I don’t find you attractive, by the way.”

“Um … thanks?”

Kat blushed a little. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant whenever I tell a girl I’m gay, she worries I’m coming on to her. You’re very beautiful, of course.”

“Um … thanks again?”

“But you’re not my type. I like a sporty, no-makeup kind of
girl. I’m the stylish one.”

“Are you saying I’m out of shape?” Charlotte was laughing at her, and Kat grinned.

“Well, your upper body is OK.”

Charlotte threw a troll doll with deadly accuracy, and the two friends giggled.

Standing outside the door, Leila Karraby smiled and headed down the stairs.

The next day, Charlotte and Jackson had a fight.

It was over something very small, as these things often are. Jackson had taken Albrecht’s advice to heart, and he and Kat were discussing what Charlotte should wear in some photos they were taking to go along with the song.

“What are these photos for, exactly?” Charlotte was curious. “I mean, we’re literally e-mailing the man a digital file of the song, right? An MP3?”

Jackson nodded and returned to flipping through the racks at Kat’s store. He was in the underwear section.

“I just don’t think you need to make her look sexy. She’s already sexy.” Kat was on the other side of the store, flipping through the evening dresses.

“Yeah, but I want her to look like a pop singer, not a blues singer. If we want to cross over and get big, we’ll need to have a more commercial look.”

“Does that have to mean slutty?” Kat was losing her cool a little.

“No, but she’s gorgeous, and you heard Albrecht, that’s a selling point.” He held up a white Victorian camisole. “That’s not slutty, it’s sexy.”

“Excuse me?” Charlotte broke in. “Are these pictures just for Albrecht to jerk off over, or are we using them for publicity for the band? Because if it’s the latter, then shouldn’t you be in them, too? And if it’s the former, then why don’t I just hand-deliver the song and blow him at the same time?”

Her tone was still cool, but both Kat and Jackson stopped what they were doing and looked at her. And then at each other.

“Don’t be like that, Charlotte,” Jackson started, and that was when Charlotte lost her temper.

“Hey, I’ll be like I want, OK? For the last month, people have discussed me as if I wasn’t there or as if they know me when they don’t, and I’m getting sick of it. I am a person, you know, not just my criminal father’s or my beautiful dead mother’s daughter or a rich bitch or a ‘selling point.’ I would like to represent myself the way I feel inside, and why on earth we should send that pervert any pictures at all, seeing as he owns a
radio
station, is beyond me, and I won’t do it.”

There was applause from the doorway, making them all jump.

“You tell them, Charlotte.” It was the reporter, Dan Robinson.

“Mr. Robinson, what the hell are you doing here? Didn’t I tell you I had nothing to say?”

The journalist wasn’t ruffled by her rudeness at all. “Miss Williams, you clearly have plenty to say. I would have thought you would welcome an opportunity to express yourself, to see your words in print, to answer your critics. Besides, since that crazy guy attacked you the other day, you’re back in the news, and I’d love an exclusive. I think I’ve proved my loyalty, haven’t I? I’ve been following you since the beginning.” He said roguishly, “I’ve been after you much longer than anyone else.”

“Yes, you’re very persistent. You and whoever’s taking photos of me for that horrible Web site.”

Charlotte was still steamed. Kat and Jackson were just watching, Jackson still holding the camisole. Kat made a mental note to check it for fingerprints.

Robinson shrugged. “Well, some people are nuts, and I guess that’s true online and off.” He looked pointedly at Jackson. “And people follow celebrity, whatever it’s for, right? People love to hitch their wagon to a runaway train, don’t you think? They don’t care if it ends up a train wreck.”

“Look, I don’t know who you are …”

Robinson stuck out his hand to the young man. “Dan Robinson,
New York Sentinel.
And you would be Jackson Pearl, am I right?”

Jackson didn’t take his hand but nodded at his name. “Yes, that’s me.”

“And you’re Kat Karraby?”

Kat didn’t even nod at the reporter, merely raised her eyebrows.

He laughed. “Well, the gang’s all here, Charlotte. Where’s Mr. Scarsford?”

“You seem to know everything, you tell me.”

“I’d love to talk to you. Can we go somewhere private?”

“No,” Kat and Jackson spoke in unison, and suddenly, Charlotte got annoyed again.

“Yes. Of course.” She picked up her bag from the counter and turned to her friends. “Don’t tell me what to do, OK? Everything’s going just a little bit fast, and I’m going to go have coffee with Mr. Robinson and calm down. I’ll see you back at the house, Jackson, for the recording.”

And with that, she brushed past Dan Robinson and walked
out. The reporter grinned at Kat and Jackson and followed her, shutting the door firmly behind him.

There was a moment of silence.

“How long should we wait?” Kat still hadn’t moved.

“Let’s give them another ten seconds, and then you follow on one side, and I’ll go around the block and get ahead of them.”

“Can I be Cagney?”

“Is that the blond one?”

Kat nodded.

“OK.” He put down the camisole, and the two of them headed after their friend.

DAN ROBINSON WALKED
to a small café that Charlotte didn’t even know existed. He must have been checking out the neighborhood. They seemed to know him there, and they took a table in the sunny back room.

“So, Charlotte, what’s new with you?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I think you know what’s new with me. I’m worried about my dad in jail, I’m working in a restaurant kitchen, I’ve started singing in a band, I nearly got killed by a crazy stalker. You know, the usual young American woman’s life. Not the life I thought I was going to have but the life I apparently do have.” He was watching her intently, and suddenly, Charlotte needed to vent to someone who knew her before, knew her whole New York persona. She leaned forward. “You know, it isn’t so bad. I like working, I like doing something physical.”