by Meg Cabot
‘Look,’ Gabriel said, his expression unreadable. ‘Don’t be angry. I know I come off as a bit of a prat sometimes. It’s just… well, it’s like those girls we ran into the other day. The ones who were chasing us. They look up to you. I worry you don’t realize that.’
‘Well, I do,’ I said. Was that traffic light ever going to turn green? Then I shot him a suspicious look. ‘Wait a minute. What were you doing at that club at two in the morning anyway?’
‘Oh,’ Gabriel said, looking embarrassed suddenly. ‘I was giving the DJ a copy of a new song I wrote the other day. To see if he thought it would work as a dance mix.’
‘Oh,’ I said, smiling. ‘And? Did he like it?’
It was hard to tell in the glow from the windows of the computer store. But I think Gabriel was actually blushing a little. ‘He loved it actually. He played it on the spot. It brought the place down. Everyone adored it.’
The limo finally pulled up in front of me and the driver sprang out from behind the wheel.
‘I’m so sorry, Miss Howard,’ he said. ‘I got caught behind one of those tour buses… ’
‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘Could you take this?’ I took the huge boxes from Gabriel and handed them to the driver, who hurried to put them in the boot. Then I turned back to Gabriel and said, ‘Well, here’s my car.’
‘I can see that,’ Gabriel said, taking in the long black limousine with raised eyebrows. It had attracted the attention of quite a few people on the sidewalk as well, many of whom had stopped to stare at it, and me too.
‘I owe you a ride,’ I reminded Gabriel. ‘So if there’s anywhere you need to go… ’
‘Not tonight,’ Gabriel said with a funny little half-smile. ‘But I’m going to hold you to that.’
He could not have shocked me more when he leaned over and kissed me — on the lips, but lightly, barely brushing my mouth with his — and whispered, standing just inches from me, ‘Don’t you want to know the name of my new song?’
‘The name of your new song?’ I stared up at him, my mouth still tingling from the fleeting kiss. Even though he wasn’t touching me, it was as if I was bolted into place.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘It’s called “Nikki”.’
And then he was gone, disappearing into the hordes of people who’d gathered on the sidewalk to stare at me and my limo.
Twenty-three
Dragging myself and my boxes from the limo when it finally pulled up in front of my building, I took the elevator up to the loft, expecting to find it empty, since it was after nine at night. I thought surely Lulu would be out on the town, doing whatever it was Lulu did when she was left unsupervised.
So you can imagine my surprise when I stepped from the elevator and heard her call my name.
‘Nikki!’ cried a voice from a ghostly figure stretched out across a massage table in the middle of the loft’s living room. Lulu was — mostly — under a white sheet, while a stern looking woman in a white uniform kneaded her shoulders.
‘Uh,’ I said, even more confused than usual. ‘Hi?’
‘Hi,’ Lulu said, popping her head up from the hole in the centre of the massage table. ‘Oh yeah. I forgot. Nikki, this is our housekeeper, Katerina. Katerina, this isn’t Nikki. I know it looks like her, but it’s not. She had a spirit transfer, and now she’s someone else. But you can still call her Nikki.’
Katerina stopped kneading Lulu’s shoulders and stared at me. ‘You say this is not Miss Nikki?’ she demanded in a heavy Eastern European accent.
‘No,’ Lulu said. ‘Well, I mean, it is. But it isn’t.’
‘Yes it is, Lulu,’ I said, frustrated. ‘It’s still me. I just don’t remember anyone. Because I have amnesia, remember? Hi, Katerina.’
Katerina stared at me for a little bit longer. Then she shrugged and went back to massaging Lulu. ‘You girls,’ she said. Only it came out sounding like ‘gels’. ‘I give up with you and your silly games a long time ago.’
‘I know it was your turn to get massaged by Katerina, Nik,’ Lulu went on, plopping her face back down into the hole in the centre of the massage table. ‘But I just got back from a meeting with my record label, and it was such hell. They say I have to sing these two reject songs from Lindsay Lohan’s album — as if — and I was still such a wreck from last night, I must have had fifteen mojitos and a pack of Milk Duds, and I knew only Katerina could whip me back into shape. And, oh my God, Nik, Brandon has been calling, like, all day. He says your cell’s not on, and all his messages have been going to voicemail. What’s up with that? Like, turn your cell on. Also, he is, like, totally sorry about last night. He’s been talking about getting his dad’s jet for this weekend and taking us to Antigua, and you know he only does that when he’s suffering a major guilt trip. Just FYI. Oh, and I had to lock Cosy up, she was jumping all over me, I couldn’t take it, she’s in my room, she’s been such a nightmare —’
I put down the boxes and crossed the loft to Lulu’s bedroom door, which I swung open. Cosabella careened out of it like a shot, leaping against my shins and yapping happily, her tongue lolling. I scooped her up and went to sit down on the couch with her cradled in my arms while she lapped at my face.
‘She’s already had her walk.’ Lulu popped her head up to look at me again. ‘Karl took her. And I fed her. Oh my God, what is on your face?’
I blinked at her above Cosy’s fluffy head. ‘Where?’
Next thing I knew, Lulu had swung down off the massage table and, still clutching the sheet around her, marched up to me, reached across and scraped a fingernail across my cheek.
‘Ow!’ I cried, leaning away from this five-foot lunatic.
Lulu looked down at her fingernail and said, ‘I knew it. It’s a dead skin flake. Your skin is dry. What have you been using on it?’
‘Look,’ I said, still clutching my cheek. ‘I appreciate your help, looking after Cosy while I was in school and at the shoot and all. But you can’t just go around SCRATCHING people—’
‘What. Have. You. Been. Using. On. It?’ Lulu demanded, shoving her finger in my face to show me the dead skin flake.
‘God,’ I said. ‘Soap. What else?’
Lulu looked horrified. ‘Soap? SOAP? You’ve been washing your skin with SOAP?’
‘Well, what else would you use on your skin?’ I asked.
Lulu shook her head, still staring at me. Then she said to the housekeeper, ‘Katerina. My robe. We have a crisis that needs to be dealt with. STAT.’
Katerina nodded gravely and lifted Lulu’s robe. Lulu, still holding the sheet in strategic locations, slipped her arms into the robe’s sleeves… then let the sheet drop to the floor, once she was safely covered.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I do not need any kind of beauty intervention, if that’s what this is about. I have a lot on my mind right now, and I just want to—’
‘I beg your pardon,’ Lulu said, ‘but Nikki Howard gave you her body — she donated it — as a GIFT, with the expectation that you would take care of it.’
‘I HAVE been taking care of it,’ I insisted. ‘I’ve been eating nothing but freaking green tea and tofu since I GOT this body, as that’s the only stuff that doesn’t appear to make my stomach churn—’
‘But what are you washing your hair with?’ Lulu demanded. ‘And how long are you letting it deep condition? And what kind of exfoliant are you using? Don’t answer that, I already know: none. It’s true that Nikki Howard was a natural beauty. But she didn’t just GET that way. She CULTIVATED it. With a careful and diligent beauty regimen. WHICH YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING.’
‘Look,’ I said, glancing towards Katerina for help, but finding none in her direction. That’s because she’d found the universal remote control, which apparently controlled not only the flat-panel TV above the fireplace, but the fireplace — the flames suddenly leaped and danced as she pushed buttons — the window panes (you could deepen the shade of the glass to purple opaque or brighten it to clea
r), the stereo and even the security camera in the elevator, and she was trying to enhance the mood by making the lighting softer. ‘I have a lot worse problems right now than dry skin, all right? In case you aren’t aware of it, someone is spying on us. Not just me, Lulu. You too. Your laptop was loaded with spyware. And I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m pretty sure it’s Stark Enterprises. I don’t have any proof of course… but who else would it be? It’s OK now, I fixed it. But you might want to get a new, non-Stark-brand laptop. I did. And as if that’s not bad enough, Gabriel Luna — remember, the guy with the scooter, who was at the Stark Megastore grand opening, where the, um, spirit transfer took place? Well, he’s written a song about me. And I don’t even like him. He thinks I have drug and alcohol issues. And the guy I do like —’ suddenly I was fighting back tears. Just like that – ‘wouldn’t even look at me today at school, OK? So it doesn’t matter if I have dry skin or moist skin or NO skin. I mean, I don’t even know what the point of all this is. What is the point of being beautiful when you can’t even get the guy you like to look at you?’
Lulu sucked in her breath. Then she looked at Katerina and said, ‘Better call for backup.’
Katerina nodded, laid down the remote and reached for her cellphone. Observing this, I grabbed the nearest pillow and smashed it over my face.
‘Oh no,’ I wailed. ‘No more makeovers. No, no, no, no!’ I smacked the pillow with each no… not something Dr Holcombe, I was sure, would recommend.
‘Relax,’ Lulu said. The next thing I knew, she was plucking the pillow off my face and sitting down beside me. ‘Katerina’s ordering banana splits from the deli down the street. That’s what I meant by backup. We always order banana splits from the deli when we have guy problems. Not good for your reflux, but you can take one of those pills of yours before you eat it. Now. What is this about Stark Enterprises, Gabriel Luna, and some guy not looking at you?’
Astonished that I wasn’t about to be given a head-to-toe exfoliation, I told Lulu first about her computer, then about Gabriel, and then about Christopher and the way he’d barely spoken to me in the computer lab. When I was done, she shrugged and said, ‘Well, first of all, I never use that computer. I just think it’s pretty. And Gabriel’s easy too. He’s in love with you.’
I nearly choked on some of my own spit.
‘Lulu! No… that’s—’
‘And it’s obvious what’s going on with that Christopher guy,’ she went on.
‘Really?’ Startled, I stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘What?’
‘He’s frightened of his passion for you. So he’s just had to shove it way, way down, so it won’t show.’
I blinked. ‘Lulu. He doesn’t even know Nikki Howard. How can he feel passion for her?’
Lulu put both her tiny bare feet up on the coffee table and rolled her head around on the back of the couch until she was staring at the ceiling. ‘Oh my God. I can’t believe I have to give you this speech again. It seems like I just gave you this speech last month. I did give you this speech last month. But now I have to give it to you again because of the spirit transfer. But here goes. OK, Nikki. Pay attention this time, will you? Straight guys only feel three ways about girls.’ She held up three fingers, and put one finger down each time she ticked off a point.
‘First, they love you, and they show it either by writing a song about you, like Gabriel, or asking you out, and everything is nice and fun like it should be. Second, they love you, but they’re scared of their passion for you because it’s so strong, like your boy Christopher, so they stuff it way, way down and ignore you, or do stupid things like make fun of you because they don’t know how to express it any other way, because they’re immature little babies and are too shy to, say, write a song about you. Or third, there’s something wrong with them, and they start out nice and loving, and then turn around and do stupid things like sleep with other girls behind your back, like Justin Bay did. But we’ll never figure out what went wrong with them and neither will they, so it’s not worth thinking about. OK? That’s it. The end.’
She put down her hand. ‘Any questions?’
I stared at her. She looked serious. But it was kind of hard to tell, considering it was Lulu. So I figured I’d ask to make sure. ‘Um… yeah, I have a question. Are you serious?’
Lulu sighed. ‘OK, I can see I didn’t quite get through to you. Nikki, please don’t tell me your mother never told you this.’
I shook my head. ‘Um… no. I can’t say she ever—’
‘God!’ Lulu rolled her eyes some more. ‘That makes me so mad! How could she not have said anything? That is so irresponsible! I mean, how can mothers send their daughters out into the world to just walk around, making boys fall in love with them all day, without the slightest idea of what they’re doing? Didn’t you see Spider-Man? With great power comes great responsibility! We women can’t just go walking around being so awesome and not have to be careful not to make guys fall in love with us all over the place. Right, Katerina?’
‘Yah,’ Katerina said, nodding fiercely as she bundled up Lulu’s sheets for the laundry.
‘My mother — much like Katerina’s mother, I wouldn’t doubt —’ Lulu went on, ‘sat me down when I was eleven and said, “Lulu, the truth of the matter is, every heterosexual boy — and probably some gay ones too, so look out, because that’s just going to end in disaster — you ever meet is going to fall madly in love with you. He may not admit it, but it’s true. So you have to take responsibility for that, and not do things to encourage him — unless of course you want him to fall in love with you. Because it’s cruel to play with boys’ emotions in that way, because no matter what anyone else says, men are the weaker sex.” Didn’t your mother tell you that?’
Completely stunned by this bit of motherly advice — my mom’s own advice had always been more along the lines of, Never go anywhere without enough money for a cab home, and Don’t have sex, but if you do, always use a condom — I shook my head.
‘Well,’ Lulu went on, ‘it turns out, even though my mom was wrong about a lot of things — like giving me snowboarding lessons for Christmas when I turned twelve, only to go and run off with my instructor — she wasn’t wrong about that. Every heterosexual guy I’ve ever met — and a few gay ones — has fallen in love with me. At least a little bit. Oh, not like they all want to marry me or anything… sometimes, like in the case of my snowboard instructor, it turns out they’ve wanted to marry her. But they’ve all thought about it. And it’s true they don’t always stay in love with me, the way they ought to — but that’s usually because the love they feel for me frightens them so much, because I’m just so incredible, they feel inadequate and end up running away… like Justin.’
I just stared at her. Seeing this, Lulu said, ‘I’m serious. Wait and see. When the delivery guy comes with the banana splits? Just watch when I go to pay him. He’ll probably ask me out.’
Not sure how else to respond, I said carefully, not wanting to hurt her feelings, ‘Well, Lulu… thanks. I mean, for the warning? But, while I’m certain it’s true that every straight guy you meet falls in love with you, with me that’s not really been the case. At least, in my past life. The thing is, in the real world, most girls don’t have to go around worrying about every guy they meet feeling in love with them. I could see how now that I’m Nikki, I’ll have to worry, but—’
Lulu sucked in her breath, looking outraged.
‘Oh yes they do!’ she cried. ‘If girls aren’t worried about this, they’re just kidding themselves! And playing with fire. This is true of all girls. Right, Katerina?’
Katerina nodded as she was folding up her massage table. ‘Oh, yah,’ she said, sounding tired. ‘You should meet some of my ex-husbands.’
‘See?’ Lulu said fiercely. ‘It doesn’t matter how old you are or how you look — no offence, Katerina. Whether you’re pretty or plain, or skinny or round. Guys can’t help it. If you’re a girl, it’s just the way it is. Guys may not want to admit tha
t they like you. They may act like total butt-holes instead of admitting it —’ this made me think, inexplicably, of Jason Klein — ‘but everything my mother said is totally true and applies to all girls. And it’s a lot of responsibility for us. I mean, we have to be so, so careful all the time not to break men’s hearts. Men’s hearts are very fragile. Our hearts aren’t nearly as delicate. Are they, Katerina?’
‘Nein,’ Katerina said, banging the massage table closed. Hard.
‘Now, I don’t know what’s going on with your little Christopher friend,’ Lulu said. ‘But I’m guessing maybe he’s just pushed his love for you way, way down because he’s so frightened of it… that happens a lot. Can you think of a reason why he might have done that?’
I looked at Cosabella, who’d curled up in my lap and was contentedly sleeping. I really had no idea how I’d even ended up taking part in this lunatic conversation.
But there was something about Lulu — something so vulnerable and sweet — that made me want her theory to be true. It was certainly a very nice theory, and one that would boost the self-esteem of any girl whose mother sat her down and told it to her. Who knew? Maybe it was true. Lulu certainly seemed to believe it.
And I had no doubt that every guy she met did fall in love with her, at least a little.
I believed it was probably a little true for Nikki Howard too… except where Brandon Stark’s dad was concerned.
But then there was what had happened that afternoon with Christopher. How could I even begin to explain how weird that had been?
‘I don’t know,’ I said slowly. ‘My sister said something about Christopher maybe having been in love with, um, Em Watts. You know, the girl who died at the Stark Megastore grand opening? Only him not having realized it until it was too late and she was… dead. I don’t know if this is true. She was probably wrong. But they were best friends before she died. And, you know, he was there when she was killed. And my sister thinks maybe now his heart is broken.’