Fake Plastic Girl

by Zara Lisbon

  “Sure, maybe—”

  “It’s the exact shade you’re wearing,” London noted.

  “Nice work, detective.” Eva-Kate gave her minions that familiar, crucifying bored-to-tears glance over her sunglasses as she stirred her mango mojito.

  “Justine, look over here,” Spencer said. “I need a solo shot of you for the site. Sort of like a ‘meet Justine’ type intro for the fans.”

  I turned to him and smiled mechanically like this was for a yearbook photo. FLASH! FLASH! FLASH! He snapped three in a row, leaving me blinded.

  “Babycakes, don’t smile for him,” Eva-Kate advised. “You should always look like a camera in your face is a nuisance, like you have somewhere to be and this is wasting your time.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Justine.” Spencer kept snapping and I made sure to pout, even scowl. “She’s bitter and jaded. Everyone loves a big smile.”

  “First of all, it’s not about what everyone loves. If you give everyone what they love, they own you. Fuck everyone. Second of all, okay, stop, you’re gonna hurt her eyes.” Eva-Kate put her hands out in front of his lens until eventually he gave up. I blinked and blinked, trying to make the spots of silvery light go away. Suddenly it felt very bright out. I closed my eyes to try to reset.

  “Here, take my glasses.” Eva-Kate lifted the Tom Ford sunglasses off her face and put them on mine. Then everything was softened with a nice, muted green tint.

  “Thanks, that’s much better.”

  “Goddamn, those look good on you.” She leaned back to admire me and seemed proud of herself. “You should def keep them.”

  “Keep them? No, these are thousand-dollar glasses, at least. I couldn’t.”

  “Actually”—she leaned in closer so that only I could hear—“they’re fake.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’re knockoffs. I bought them online for like fifteen dollars.”

  “Really? But they look so … legit.”

  “I know,” she practically gushed. “That’s what makes it so beautiful.”

  “I don’t … understand,” I confessed.

  “Okay, you’re gonna think I’m a freak,” she warned me, “but I absolutely adore knockoffs. Of all kinds. Purses, glasses, watches, jewelry, you name it. They’ve always been so much more exciting to me than their ‘authentic’ counterparts.”

  “I think I get that. Is it because they’re kind of like … a lie? And if they’re good imitations, then they’re a lie you can get away with?”

  “I never thought of it that way, but sure, yeah, that’s part of the appeal. But it’s more than that. Nine out of ten times the knockoffs actually last longer than the originals. Designers can effortlessly put out whatever product they want, and everyone will buy it just for the label, it’s an easy sell. Meanwhile, the swindlers have to work twice as hard to create a believable imitation, so the knockoffs end up with double the effort put into them, and are often so much more durable because of it. Almost nobody knows this, because anyone who can afford the original isn’t gonna bother slumming it with knockoffs, and anyone who can only afford knockoffs will never be able to splurge on an original.”

  “That’s true…,” I said, and then backed off. I wanted to hear more. I loved her weird, confident plans and opinions; they were weird and confident plans that nobody else had.

  “And the way I see it, the knockoffs are so good at imitating the originals that they’re actually more impressive as an art form, the process by which they’re created is so much more intricate and nuanced. I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes imitation is an art, while simply designing a purse for people to carry around just isn’t. And if the imitation version is an artistic feat and it functions better than the original, then tell me, which one is real and which is fake?”

  “Wow.” I hadn’t realized her capacity for philosophical thought, and this was one I knew would haunt me for some time. “You’re right. Who’s to say what’s real and what’s fake, anyway? Who gets to define those words?”

  “Exactly.” She pinched my cheek. “Of course you understand. You’re my fucking gemstone, that’s what you are.”

  Blood and heat rushed to my cheeks in a blush so forceful it almost hurt.

  Then, across the pool, emerging from a cabana, I caught a glimpse of brilliantly blond hair and cardinal-red lips, a bikini—yellow and white stripes—on a buoyant, gazelle-like body. It was Taylor. Swift. It was Taylor Swift in the flesh.

  “There she is,” said Eva-Kate, making a visor with her hand as she looked across the pool. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  “No.” Involuntarily, I gripped on to the white plastic arms of my chair. “I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  “I mean”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“it’s Taylor Swift.”

  “So? She’s just a person, Justine, she’s not God.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Let’s go, we have to desensitize you, celebrity worship doesn’t look good on anyone, trust me.” She grabbed on to my wrist and pulled me up with her. “Plus, I can’t have a girl in my squad so mesmerized by Taylor fucking Swift.”

  My squad. I was in Eva-Kate Kelly’s squad. Suddenly I knew she was right: There was no reason to have Taylor on a pedestal. She’s just a person.

  “You’re right, you’re right.” I laughed. “Let’s do it.”

  But as we made our way around the perimeter of the pool, a new party guest arrived, and from the looks of it, he brought a date. It was Rob Donovan and … Eva-Kate? I stopped dead in my tracks: The girl with Rob looked almost identical to the girl whose hand was now holding my wrist. She seemed to weigh a bit more than Eva-Kate, and her hair was somewhat darker, and she wore wire-framed glasses, but her face … She had the exact same face …

  “Why’d you stop walking?” Eva-Kate asked. Then she saw what I saw. “Oh, fuck me sideways,” she said under her breath. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Who is that?”

  “My ex, Rob Donovan.”

  “I know who Rob Donovan is. I mean who is he with?”

  “Liza,” she sighed. “My sister.”

  CHAPTER 14

  GETTING THE HELL OUT OF HERE IS PRICELESS

  “You have a sister?” I stared. “An identical twin sister?”

  Eva-Kate ushered me to an open table and manipulated the adjoined umbrella so that we were hidden.

  “Obviously,” she said, like having to explain this was the biggest inconvenience of her life.

  I sat back and tried to figure out how I hadn’t known this. A memory flickered into formation: Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen played one role on Full House. They were credited as Mary-Kate Ashley Olsen as if it were one long name, and it was years before people realized Michelle Tanner was played by two different girls.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Of course you have a twin. Child labor laws…”

  “State that children ages three to seven can only work for six hours a day, four days a week. Maximum. Jennie and Jenny, like most shows, would need me to work all five days. So they had to cast twins. It’s not uncommon.”

  “I don’t know why I never thought about that. I mean, I knew that shows do it.”

  “But one year into the show we turned eight and the rules weren’t as strict. Eight-year-olds can work five days a week for up to eight hours, and she desperately wanted out, so then it was just me. Of the nine years Jennie and Jenny was on the air, Liza only acted in one season.”

  “Liza,” I repeated, “right. That’s the name you … wait, but I thought you said it was Liza McKelvoy?” I remembered her in the Little Beach House hallway, coercing information out of that poor waiter.

  “Yep.” She closed and opened her eyes. “That’s her.”

  “But your last name is—”

  “Also McKelvoy,” she confirmed. “‘Kelly’ is just a cuter version. My agent came up with it after Liza dropped out. I liked it right away; McKelvoy never really felt l
ike me.”

  “Wow.” It was a lot to process. “So you have a twin sister who isn’t an actress.”

  “She hates acting. Everything about it. I’ve honestly been kind of impressed with how well she’s managed to stay out of the spotlight. She’s a hostess. Most people don’t even know she exists.”

  “Right. She used to work at the Little Beach House but now she works at Chateau Marmont. So that means Rob’s new song is about…”

  “That’s right,” Eva-Kate said sadly. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hate her.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s awful.”

  “Not really,” she assured me. “She hates me too. It’s always been like this.”

  I didn’t see how this made things any less awful, but I nodded compassionately. I wanted to put my hand on hers and find a way to let her know that it was going to be okay, that one day she’d forget about Rob and looking back on all this would make her laugh. She looked into my eyes then and gave me a slow, deeply thankful smile, then quickly kissed me on the cheek.

  “Thank you so much for listening to me rant,” she said. “Now it’s time to face the music.”

  “What do you—”

  “Look, they’re already talking to my friends. My friends. Oh, come on, Olivia.” She spied on their table from behind our umbrella. “Don’t engage.”

  I looked over and saw Olivia offering Rob a seat. He declined, slipping his arm around Liza’s waist. She was wearing black jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, sandals that looked like they could be from Target.

  “How’s my makeup?” Eva-Kate looked into me like a mirror. Her makeup was impeccable, not a line out of place; every color adhered to her face as if she were born with it.

  “It’s perfect. What are we doing?”

  She stood up and rolled her neck a few times in each direction.

  “We’re going over there, acting like everything is totally copacetic, okay? We’re acting like we couldn’t possibly care less. When I introduce you, you’ll act like you’ve never heard of either of them … act like you’re having too much fun with me to even notice them, got it?”

  “Yep. Got it,” I said, though I was troubled by how many times she’d used the word act. I had zero acting skills, and knew somehow I’d mess this up.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “What’s what?”

  “That vibrating. Is that your phone?”

  I heard it then, the aggravated buzzing coming from my purse.

  “Oh.” I peered at the screen without taking it out. “It’s … my dad. He never calls me.”

  “Answer it.”

  “But I thought no phones?”

  “Take it out to the parking lot, it’s fine. Just meet me back at the table when you’re done. And remember, act disinterested.”

  “Right.” I nodded. “Disinterested.”

  She flipped her hair off her shoulders and walked away, headed for the table where Rob and Liza were hovering uncomfortably. She walked so calmly, hips swaying slightly from side to side, her fingers wiggling a vague hello as she approached them. Luckily for her, unlike me, she was a very convincing actress.

  “Hold on, Dad, give me five minutes.” I answered the phone, then slipped it back into my bag and backtracked through the lobby, out into the parking lot where the valet boys were organizing the black and white luxury cars like a game of Tetris. “Okay, hey, what’s up?”

  “What’s up? I haven’t heard from you in two weeks, that’s what’s up.”

  “I haven’t heard from you either,” I deflected. “I was waiting for you to call me. Mom said you would.”

  “Oh, Mom said,” he repeated. “Well, then.”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t have anything else to say—what was I supposed to say? He’d decided to divorce my mom without telling me; he’d moved all his stuff out without saying goodbye.

  “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

  “Yes,” I shot back. “Have you?”

  He sighed, crackly through the speaker. I could hear the sound of liquid being poured and ice rattling against glass. Distant and muffled, but unmistakable.

  “Look, I’m a little worried about you, bumblebee.”

  “Me? Why?” He hadn’t said something like this in years. My heart skipped a paranoid beat.

  “I ran into Christopher at Erewhon and he said he’s seen you going over to the house across the way.”

  “Christopher our neighbor? What were you even doing at the Venice Erewhon?” I surprised myself by being mildly hurt that he’d been in Venice and not bothered to come see me. “And what, is Christopher spying on me now?”

  “He’s not spying on you, don’t be dramatic, little bird. He lives right there and he happened to see you go over there two or three times.”

  “And? So?”

  “Supposedly some famous actress girl lives there now? Are you spending time with her? I hope you’re being careful.”

  “Careful? What if I am spending time with her?”

  “You’re just a kid, JuJu, I don’t want you living too fast. Famous kids, girls like Ava Kelly, they’re bright stars but they burn out fast. It never turns out well for them.”

  “It’s Eva-Kate Kelly,” I corrected him. “And I’m not her. She’s just a friend.”

  “I just wouldn’t want to see you get pulled into that mess.”

  “What mess? There is no mess.”

  “Drugs, parties, booze. We’ve always trusted you to make the right decisions. Can we still trust that?”

  “Absolutely. Yep. No parties, no drugs, no booze. Got it.”

  “You could move in with me for a bit until your mother gets—”

  “No, no, no, that’s really not necessary. Promise. Nothing’s changed, I’m still the same person. You should be happy for me, you wouldn’t actually want me to spend all my time with Aunt Jillian, would you?”

  “Well … no. But you’re sure you’re being safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re eating vegetables?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re exercising?”

  “Uh … sure. Yes.”

  “Okay, just make sure to take your vitamins.”

  “I will. Dad, I gotta go, we’ll talk soon, okay?”

  “Okay, okay. And remember to brush your teeth.”

  “My teeth? Dad, I’m not five.”

  “Sure, but—”

  “’K, Dad, gotta go. Love you.”

  I hung up and took a deep breath.

  “He’s right, you know.” I spun around and saw Rob Donovan leaning against the metal fence separating us from the pool. How long had he been standing behind me? How much had he heard? What had I even said?

  “Sorry?” I asked, playing dumb, but also feeling dumb. He lit an American Spirit.

  “You’re too sweet to get caught up in Eva-Kate’s whirlwind world of mayhem.”

  Whirlwind world of mayhem? Wow, he really did fancy himself a poet.

  “You don’t know that.” I folded my arms.

  “Then you’re not a total sweetheart? Sure, I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

  “Um, what exactly about all of this screams ‘total sweetheart’?” I gestured at my outfit, the bandage dress and clunky wood-block wedges.

  “What you’re wearing?” He laughed. “Oh, I can see through all that. You’re just a sweetheart in Eva-Kate’s clothes.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “It’s okay. Want a cigarette?”

  “No, thanks, I told Eva-Kate I’d be back.”

  “What a good soldier.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Eva-Kate is the general. You’re one of her soldiers. A new recruit. You do what she says.” He took a long drag. “And you’re doing a great job.”

  “I’m not a soldier,” I protested, though the word squad began to reverberate in my mind.
“I’m her friend.”

  “Wanna know a secret?”

  “Uh, not really.”

  “It’s about Eva-Kate.”

  “Fine. What?”

  “You’ll actually get more of her attention if you stay here and have a cigarette with me.”

  “Her attention? I met her two days ago and she’s already invited me to move in, so I think I’ve done a pretty okay job of getting her attention. But thanks.”

  “So you think once you’re in, that’s it? Are you actually that blinded by the light?”

  “What do you mean?” He was trying to make me nervous but I didn’t know why. It was starting to work.

  “She has the attention span of a frog. Just because she’s into you today doesn’t mean she will be tomorrow. Her besties are just flavors of the week.”

  “That’s not true. Josie and Ruby have been her closest friends forever.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe that’s just what she says.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” I said, trying not to latch onto the thought.

  “You want her to like you, right? You think being a loyal friend will make her like you, and you think being a loyal friend means staying away from me, right?”

  “You’re her ex, aren’t you?”

  “But here’s the irony: The more time you spend talking to me, the more attention you get from me, the closer she’ll want you to her. She keeps her friends close, but she likes to keep her enemies even closer. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So, the real way to secure your spot in her inner circle is to make her feel jealous … or threatened. Which you can do easily by staying out here to have a cigarette with me.”

  “I don’t want to make Eva-Kate jealous,” I said. “That’s the last thing I’d want to do. Why would I want to be her enemy?”

  “Like I just said: to secure your spot. To be in for good. Do you have a better plan?”

  “A plan? No, I don’t have a plan. Eva-Kate’s my friend, I’m not trying to play games with her. Maybe you are, but I’m not.”

  “Ohhhh.” The confusion on his face melted away and he smiled like he’d cracked some kind of code. “You actually care about her.”

  “Excuse me?”