‘So you’re a little rusty,’ Rebecca said with a shrug. ‘You hit your head! That we should all look so good after concussion. And Bob Stark hates everybody. Uh, this is ringing —’ She held out the cellphone my mom had given to me. It was flashing my home number. My mom was calling, no doubt about dinner. I realized I hadn’t followed her directions and called as soon as I’d gotten to the photo shoot.
I let it go to voicemail. ‘I’ll call her back,’ I said. I didn’t think I could handle my mom and all her questions — and concerns — just then.
‘Great,’ Rebecca said. ‘Now, Kelly and I want to take you out for dinner to celebrate the SI gig. We got your favourite table at Nobu. We’ll make it a ladies’ night… unless Brandon wants to come?’
I glanced over my shoulder at Brandon, who was already on his way to the elevators.
‘Uh, Brandon’s got other plans,’ I said. ‘And actually, I’m really tired. I think I’m just going to head back to the loft and crash, if that’s OK. I mean, I just got out of the hospital this morning, and I’ve got school in the morning—’
‘Say no more,’ Rebecca said with a smile. ‘We’ll do it another time. Tomorrow afternoon, after the Elle shoot, perhaps.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I stared at her. ‘We have a shoot tomorrow?’
‘Honey, you are booked solid all this week,’ Kelly said, thrusting Cosabella into my arms. ‘You are on fire, you’re so hot right now. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this going-back-to-school thing? Because it’s really cutting into your availability—’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I mean, yes. I mean, I have to go to school’ I wanted to. How else was I going to find out if Christopher was into me at all? Oh, and get an education?
Kelly shook her head. ‘This school thing’s gonna kill me,’ she grumbled. And a second later she was barking into her headset, ‘No! I told you! She’s not available until after three p.m. What part of three p.m. did you not understand?’
‘Well, I think it’s great,’ Rebecca said to me. ‘Christy Turlington ended up studying comparative religion and eastern philosophy at NYU, you know. If she can do it, you can. Although, how smart could she be if she thought Fashion Cafe would ever take off?’
‘Um,’ I said, because I had no idea what she was talking about, ‘I should go… ’
‘Of course you should.’ Rebecca took me by the arm and started steering me back to the changing area. ‘Girls! Nikki has to go!’
And, like magic, a few seconds later, I had been stripped of my ethereal dress and stilettos, and was back in my own clothes, in a limo heading back downtown — by myself, this time. And in my lap — besides Cosabella — was something Rebecca had handed me on my way out.
‘Oh,’ she’d said. ‘Here. I’ve been meaning to give you this.’
And she’d passed me a bronze-leather tote marked Prada, that caused my shoulder to sag, it was so heavy.
‘What’s this?’ I’d asked curiously.
‘Hon,’ Rebecca had said with a laugh. ‘It’s your purse! You dropped it the day of the accident. I’ve been holding it for you. Your life is in there. Your Sidekick, your cellphone, your credit cards… hold on to it this time, all right, honey?’
Now, in the limo, I dumped the contents of Nikki Howard’s bag into my lap and marvelled at what I found there.
I’d suspected before. But now I knew for sure.
I was rich.
Nikki Howard had a platinum American Express card, two gold Visas, a gold Mastercard, a platinum Chase bank card for quick ATM withdrawals, tons of cash (four hundred and twenty-seven dollars’ worth), and a chequebook that said she had three hundred and six thousand, six hundred and thirty-two dollars and eleven cents in her savings account, and twenty-two thousand dollars in her current account.
And that was just what was in her bank account. Who knew what she had invested? Because I found a business card for a Smith Barney investment adviser that was tattered and looked well used.
I was freaking loaded. Not enough to buy myself out of my Stark contract. But I could help my parents out if they ran into problems. This was awesome.
The first thing I did (after admiring Nikki’s neatly balanced chequebook) was check out her cellphone. But, like the one my mom had given me, it was Stark-brand. Same thing for the Sidekick. The batteries of both were dead from having gone without use for so long, so it wasn’t like I could turn them on to check (and even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to tell myself. Only the Commander would have been able to know for sure). But I suspected they, like Nikki’s laptop, might have been tapped.
Maybe I was just being paranoid. But waking up in someone else’s body can do that to a girl.
The rest of Nikki’s bag seemed to contain only makeup and half empty containers of acid-reflux medication. But it was comforting to know I had some money at least. All I wanted to do when I got to the loft was order some takeout for dinner (which I could now pay for — and I didn’t feel guilty about using Nikki’s money, because after that photo shoot, I felt like I’d earned it), strip off my clothes, take a long, hot bath, maybe watch some TV and go to bed.
And now I could pay the delivery guy. And pick up a bagel or whatever for breakfast on my way to school in the morning.
But when I arrived at the loft five minutes later, I saw my plan for a quiet dinner and a nice bubble bath in Nikki’s jacuzzi go down the drain… pretty much literally. Because when the elevator doors opened to let me and Cosabella out into Nikki’s place, a dozen people — including Lulu and Brandon — yelled, ‘Welcome home, Nikki!’ threw streamers, popped champagne corks and rushed to hug me.
Yeah. I was surprised, all right. Especially since the person hugging me the hardest turned out to be Justin Bay.
Nineteen
We were at a club called Cave. It was called Cave because it was in the bowels of New York City, in a part of the subway system that the city had planned and then abandoned due to lack of funds nearly a century earlier. Someone had installed spotlights along the rock walls in strategic places, strung a sound system through it, put a couple of DJs in place, and now it was the hottest dance spot in Manhattan. There was a line out of the door that went halfway around the block, even on a Wednesday night. You couldn’t get in unless you were somebody.
Nikki Howard, it turned out, was somebody. Even though she was only seventeen and not legally allowed into bars.
But it was all right, because Nikki didn’t drink. I found this out from the bartender when I wearily approached the bar, parched from so much dancing, and he said, ‘Hey Nikki, long time no see. The usual?’
‘I have amnesia,’ I said. It seemed to me I’d been saying this to people all night long, as they approached me and cried, Nikki, it’s me! Don’t you remember me? It’s Joey/Jimmy/Johnny/Jan from Paris/Denmark/East Hampton/Los Angeles! ‘Didn’t you hear? I don’t know what the usual is.’
The bartender took a long-stemmed cocktail glass, filled it with water, added a curled piece of orange peel, then slid it towards me. If you didn’t know it was just water, it looked exactly like a Martini, only with orange peel instead of an olive.
‘We call it the Nikki,’ he said with a wink. ‘Only the bartenders in town know it’s just water. You can’t drink alcohol because of your stomach problems, remember? And because you’re not twenty-one of course,’ he added piously.
I grinned. I was kind of starting not to be so annoyed with Nikki Howard… something I wouldn’t have thought earlier in the day.
‘Thanks,’ I said gratefully, and sipped Nikki’s signature drink while I surveyed the dance floor. I couldn’t believe it was so late — nearly two in the morning — and the club was still so crowded (and only getting more and more crowded) on a week night. Of course, I had never been to a place like this before. Maybe they were always like this. Here at the bar, there was barely a seat available. I had only gotten mine because a gallant fan had surrendered his (in exchange for an autograph of course. The first time someone had asked, I had almost written Em Watts, but changed it to Nikki Howard at the last minute. I’d been so swamped by autograph seekers all night, I’d actually gotten almost used to it).