I’d just stared at her. Until she’d added, ‘And if I’m not mistaken, in some of the ad campaigns Nikki Howard’s contracted for, and that you’re going to be doing now, you’re going to be wearing a lot less than a halter top — hello, Victoria’s Secret model. And you can walk in there and tell the art director how sexist his ad campaign is, but guess what? They’ll just hire some other girl to replace you. So you better get over yourself.’
At which point she’d turned on her heel and stalked from my room, right past Mom and Dad.
‘What’s eating her?’ Dad had wanted to know.
But I hadn’t told him. I had bigger things to worry about than Frida — who had lately more than proved she could take care of herself — just then. I was minutes away from officially starting my new life as Nikki Howard on the outside, and Em Watts on the inside.
I hadn’t exactly been given any guidelines of course, as to just how I was supposed to accomplish this. Dr Holcombe and his team were scientists, not social workers, and they had no idea what to tell me about being Nikki Howard. Their job was over: I was alive.
Granted, I was living someone else’s life. But what I did with that life, apparently, was up to me… and Stark Enterprises.
Still, I was really, really hoping that I wouldn’t screw it up for my family. And myself.
Standing in front of Mom, Dad and Frida now, I wiped the nervous sweat off my hands — Cosabella’s fur was proving excellent for this — and said awkwardly, ‘Well. So. I’ll come by as soon as I have a night off.’ The truth was, I didn’t want to commit to a particular night for dinner with my parents in front of Mr Phillips, who was standing right there, watching. I figured Stark Enterprises knew enough about my personal business.
But Mom didn’t catch on. I probably should have just told my parents about Nikki’s computer. But the truth is they’re both so untech savvy, they’d probably think spyware is something you eat with.
‘Friday for sure, no excuses,’ Mom said firmly, standing on tiptoe to kiss my cheek. She’d never had to stand on tiptoe to kiss me before. ‘We’ll go to Peking Duck House on Mott Street. That was always your favourite.’
I rolled my eyes in Mr Phillips’s direction. He was tapping on his Blackberry. Interesting that he didn’t carry a Stark-brand handheld personal organizer.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you.’ But not on this Stark-brand cellphone I wouldn’t.
‘Friday,’ Dad said, giving me a squeeze that caused Cosabella to grunt in protest as she was squashed. ‘You heard your mother.’
‘Call us as soon as you get there,’ Mom said, fussing with my jacket. ‘I wish you had a warmer coat than this. I should have brought you something from home.’
‘Mom,’ I said.
‘Surely Nikki has warmer coats than this,’ she said, picking at the slim jacket I’d plucked from Nikki’s closet. ‘Promise you’ll find something warmer to wear tomorrow.’
‘Mom,’ I said.
‘It’s November,’ Mom said. ‘Here, take my scarf at least.’
She wrapped her scarf around my neck.
‘Mom,’ I said as she twined the woolly scarf around my neck tightly enough to strangle me. ‘I’m just getting straight into a limo and then out again when I get there, I don’t need—’
‘Don’t forget to call,’ Mom said, hugging me again. Then she let me go as suddenly as if she’d had to force herself.
Both Cosabella and I felt a little bruised by the time we got to Frida, to whom I said awkwardly, ‘So. See you in school tomorrow?’ Mr Phillips had succeeded in securing me a place at Tribeca Alternative, and I’d gotten permission to start there whenever my schedule permitted. Which I was hoping was going to be tomorrow.
Frida shrugged. ‘Yeah. Whatever,’ she said. We gave one another wary pats on the back — although hers was more on my waist because she was so much shorter than I was — and then I turned around, barely able to see due to the sudden tears in my eyes. I think it was the scarf that did it.
That’s when a red-headed woman in a bright green skirt suit, with one of those headsets in her ears, stepped forward and, escorted by two armed security guards, took me by the arm and began steering me into the elevator, going, ‘Yeah, yeah, we got her,’ into the mouthpiece. ‘We’re on our way. ETA to Stark Corporate, fifteen minutes.’
One of the security guards stabbed the B button for basement, and then, as the elevator doors slid shut on the tearfully smiling faces of my family, the woman in the green skirt suit turned to me and said, switching off her Stark-brand headset and smiling in a very fake way, ‘Nikki, darling.’ She smelt of expensive perfume. ‘I’m so glad you’re feeling better. I was so worried! Oh, right, I forgot, you don’t remember me. Kelly Foster-Fielding.’ She held out her hand to shake mine in a grip so firm I thought my own would be crushed. ‘I’m your publicist. How are you feeling, honey?’
I blinked at her. Did she really not know, or was this a put-on for the security guards? Did Stark Enterprises not tell her? I mean, that I wasn’t really Nikki Howard?
But Kelly didn’t even wait for a response from me. Instead, she whipped a Blackberry from her oversized tote and, pressing buttons on it so quickly her thumbs were a blur, went, ‘I’ll be trying to give you a little breathing room this week so you can ease back without getting completely slammed — and I get the school thing, I really do — but there are a few people I haven’t been able to put off. COSMO wants you for its January cover and won’t take no for an answer. I’m telling you, Nik, this amnesia thing is pure gold, since they want to do a piece on you too. But I’m not promising them anything, because I’ve also got requests for both covers and pieces from Vogue, Elle and People — well, we can scratch People, I don’t know who they think you are, an American Idol winner? But this is the big news: Larry King. Right? You and Larry, dishing the dirt? I’m trying to put them off until you’ve actually got something to hock. It’s a complete waste otherwise. Listen, I’m fielding offers from three publishers for a book deal… a roman-à-clef, tell-all, how-Iovercame-losing-my-identity… whatever you want, they don’t care. They’ll hire a ghostwriter, all you have to do is let them slap your photo on the cover —’
The elevator doors slid open and, taking my arm again, Kelly dragged me quickly towards the waiting ink-black stretch limo, while both the security guards flanked us. We’d barely gone two feet before half a dozen paparazzi leaped out from the shadows and, shouting Nikki’s name, began to snap pictures of me, their long telephoto lenses so close they would have jabbed me in the eye if the security guards, saying calmly, ‘All right, guys, let the ladies through,’ hadn’t shoved them out of the way and guided us into the waiting car.
Once we were safely inside the cool leather interior of the limo, and the door had been shut behind us and the car was on its way, Kelly went on, as if she hadn’t even been interrupted, ‘Anyway, all of this is great news. If we can time the release of the book so it coincides with the release of the new clothing and beauty lines — sister, you can’t PAY for that kind of publicity. And they’ll be paying US! Oh, and of course all the usual places want you: the morning news shows and Ellen and Oprah and The View and so on. I’m holding them off as best I can, but you’re going to have to do one of them —’
I, meanwhile, was collapsed against the seat opposite her, completely stunned by the incident that had just taken place, Cosabella clutched to my chest, her little heart fluttering against mine. I didn’t know which had shocked me more — the paparazzi, what Kelly had just said, or the fact that Brandon Stark was sitting across from me, his arms folded over his chest. He appeared to be fuming about something, if the curl of his lip was any indication.