But I wasn’t sure I believed her. Maren had a smooth voice, like the kind that used-car salesmen on TV always had.
“You need to get a feel for how she moves and how she talks,” Maren told me. "Do you see how erect her posture is? That’s from years of dancing. You'll need to walk the same way." She looked me over with only a small amount of discouragement visible in her expression. "Have you ever taken a dance class?”
"Yes." Actually, I’d taken a lot of dancing and singing lessons. Mom had never had a great salary, but she always found someone willing to trade classes for housecleaning. All those lessons I hadn’t asked for suddenly made sense. Ditto for the musicals at school Mom forced me to be in. She must have figured I’d inherited my father's talents, and she wanted me to develop them.
Now that I thought about her sacrifice, I felt bad that I didn’t have a passion for either of those things. I was happier reading or playing sports.
"Your dance instructor will help you learn a few simple routines,” Maren said. "I'm hiring new staff for you so they won't realize you're not Kari. You'll need to make sure you keep up the act all the time. Alexia is gone now."
I thought of Abuela's words—to remember who I was— but I nodded at Maren anyway.
After the plane landed, a limo met us on the tarmac and drove us to Beverly Hills. I stared out the window, taking in every house, tree, and bush we passed. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. I almost expected to see Brad Pitt out watering his grass or something.
I’d never been one of those starstruck teenagers who had posters of buff actors or who followed stars' blogs. True, I did buy a magazine once because it had a picture of Grant Delray—a twenty-one-year-old rock sensation—on the cover, and maybe I kept the magazine on my bookshelf so I could look at his picture every once in a while, but that didn’t make me a fanatic.
That was just the normal, red-blooded-girl reaction to sky blue eyes and perfect features.
Being in California where the movie stars lived, I couldn’t help but look for them.
The limo dropped us off at Kari’s gated mansion. Maren had her BMW parked there, so the two of us switched cars. As I did, I gaped at the fountain by the circular drive, the columns, and the balcony. No wonder Kari was in debt. How much room did one person need?
Before Kari went inside, she turned back to me with a smile. "I’ll see you later—you know, either at Maren's or in the mirror.”
"Kari will be by in a few days with some of her clothes from last season," Maren said, as though reminding Kari of this fact.
"Oh, right,” Kari said. "I have a ton of stuff to give you.”
I opened my mouth to thank her, but she added, "Last season I was ten pounds heavier, so it should fit you fine."
"Thanks,” I said, but the word lacked something in sincerity. She didn’t seem to notice.
We drove to Maren’s house, a three-story town house overlooking Santa Monica and decorated like a model home. The fabric on her curtains matched the throw pillows on her couch, which matched the covers on her dining room chairs. Vases and candlesticks and bowls with bamboo shoots growing in them had been placed artistically around the room. I was afraid to touch any of it.
Even though it was practically the middle of the night in
West Virginia, I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep. Sitting on the satiny blue bedspread in the guest room, which matched the dust ruffle, the curtains, and the guest bathroom towels, I felt impossibly far away from home. I wanted to hear my mother’s voice again.
I took my cell phone out of my duffel bag. I'd turned it off after our fight, but I saw she’d called six times. I dialed home, and Mom picked it up halfway through the first ring. "Lexi?"
At the sound of her voice, my words caught in my throat. "I’m sorry I yelled at you, Mom."
"I know, honey. I’m sorry too. Where are you?"
"I’m in California—at Maren’s house.”
There was a pause, then, "You’re already there?"
"I told you I was taking the job."
Her voice spiraled upward. “You didn't say you were leaving right away.”
"I had to. Otherwise, I knew I'd change my mind.”
"If you knew you'd change your mind, then you knew it was the wrong choice." She said something else after that, but I didn’t hear what. Abuela was throwing in her two cents in the background.
"Tell Abuela everything will be fine. I’ll only stay long enough to get to know Kari and to meet my father."
Mom said, "What about finishing high school?”
"Maren said she’d get me a laptop with wireless Internet. Can you call the school and ask them if I can turn in assignments long distance?"
"I’ll call them," Mom said. Then she said something to Abuela in a hushed tone. Abuela doesn’t speak in hushed tones, though, so I heard her say, "What does she think she’s going to find with her new family anyway?”
Mom said, "I want you to check in with me every day— you’ll do that?”
In the background Abuela was still giving her opinion. "Nothing good ever came from a musician! Except music. That's what she’s going to find.”
"Yes, Mom, but I've got to go,” I told her. “Let me know what the school says."
She sighed and said she’d call them in the morning, and we said our good-byes.
My stomach stopped clenching after I’d talked to her, but I still felt odd—disconnected. Like my life had started in one book and suddenly I’d found myself in a completely different story.
I’m just doing this long enough to meet my father, I told myself again—then I'll go home. But when I shut my eyes to go to sleep, all I could see was Kari’s signature, repeating under my eyelids over and over.
* * *
In the morning, Maren—still resembling a news anchor, even though she wore jeans and a beige sweater—took me to a beauty salon. Once there, Peter, a Hungarian hairstylist, ran his fingers through my hair while he shook his head and made disappointed grunting sounds. My current hairstyle was apparently a tragedy.
He spent the rest of the morning transforming my "limp brown mop into radiant blond tresses”—his words, not mine. This involved not only bleaching and highlighting it, but adding permanent hair extensions, a process that felt a bit like mice were burrowing through my skull. After that was done, a manicurist gave me acrylic nails and then a makeup artist introduced me to foundation, bronzing powder, liquid eyeliner, and a bunch of stuff that required little brushes.
Once they spun me around to face the mirror, I was shocked. For a second, I didn’t recognize myself. Kari Kingsley stared back at me. But not the Kari I'd seen in the tabloids and the interviews on TV. I was the Kari from her album covers and press releases. I looked like the touched-up version of her, where her features were softer.
I had to touch my face to make sure it was really me. And then I laughed. It was so odd to think that I could have looked like this all along.
After that, I washed my face off and they made me apply the makeup again to see if I could do it myself. A makeup artist would still do my face for public events, but I had to learn how to do it for everyday wear. It took me three times to get the eye shadow right. There was enough blending, shadowing, and contouring involved that it should have required an art degree.
While the salon beautified me, Maren set up a bank account to deposit my paychecks into. She gave me a credit card with Kari's name and a copy of Kari’s driver’s license so I could buy whatever I wanted.
A wardrobe was the next thing on our to-do list. The shopping trip was also, as Maren put it, my first public test to see if I could pass for Kari. I was more than a little nervous about it, and as we drove to the boutique, I said, “What if someone sees me, snaps my picture, and it ends up on the front of a magazine? People who know Kari will figure out I’m an imposter.”