by Linda Gerber
“Oh, you have a part,” Nikos said. “I was supposed to make it look like …” He coughed.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” I thought of all those times he tried to be flirtatious and suave. “You were supposed to pretend you liked me?”
He shrugged. “You were pretty big in the tabloids for a while. My dad thought a shipboard romance might generate even more publicity.”
“And you played along with it?”
“Not very well,” Nikos said sheepishly. “Why do you think he kept getting mad at me?”
“I don’t believe this.” I slammed my potato and my peeler down on the table. I was so angry, I wanted to hit him. “What if I had liked you back? What then? And what about Zoe? How was she supposed to feel about it?”
“I didn’t know Zoe when this all started,” Nikos said. He looked over at her adoringly, but how was I supposed to believe him now?
“So this whole thing,” I said, “was nothing but an act.”
Zoe started to say something, but stopped herself.
“No. Don’t stop. What were you going to say?” I asked her.
“You also act,” she said.
“How?”
“Your Logan,” she said. “You do not tell him how you feel.”
“That’s because I don’t know if he …” But then I stopped. She was right. I was keeping secrets, too. “Okay. Fine.”
“It’s like a trap, isn’t it?” Nikos said.
Zoe and I agreed. All three of us sat glumly for a moment, feeling sorry for ourselves.
I even felt sorry for Mr. Kouropoulos in a way. Yes, he had pretty much orchestrated the whole mess, but I understood the desperation he must have felt when he saw his career slipping away. I felt the same thing, wanting to get back to my mom and dad’s show. Desperation makes you do dumb things. And now he was trapped, too.
Unless …
“Nikos, what’s the worst thing that would happen if people knew your dad didn’t own the yacht?” I asked.
“They might think he’s a poser. …”
“But only if he was posing, right? What if he flat out told everyone about his mistake with the paparazzi and how it backfired?”
“It would be a scandal,” Nikos said, starting to understand. He grinned.
“I don’t understand,” Zoe said.
“People hate lies,” I told her, “but they love confessions. That paparazzo guy is threatening to expose the lies. But if Nikos’s dad beats them to it, there’s nothing to expose. People will forgive him because he has admitted what he did wrong.”
“And you can’t buy that kind of publicity,” Nikos added.
“Right,” I said. “But it has to be sincere. No more lies. Otherwise, he just builds himself another trap.”
“How you know so much about this?” Zoe asked.
“I’ve gone the confession route before,” I told her. “Plus, Logan’s dad is our executive producer. He lives for ratings. He would absolutely eat this up. …” I let the words trail off and glanced at the clock.
“What’s wrong?” Nikos asked.
“Nothing.” I jumped down from the stool. “You go talk to your dad. I have an idea.”
Life must be lived as a play.
—Plato
It was nearly midnight in New Guinea by the time I was able to set up the call, but my mom and dad and Cavin all crowded around the screen, looking very much awake. I was hoping I’d see Logan, too, but this was a business teleconference. Not his kind of thing.
“I’m just so proud,” Cavin said. “Ye’ve learnt the publicity game very quickly, Cass.”
“I’ve had a good teacher.”
Cavin always said to “strike while the iron was hot.” As soon as Mr. Kouropoulos’s confession hit the airwaves, everyone on the yacht would be getting their fifteen minutes of fame, whether they liked it or not. The best way to capitalize on that fame was to be prepared with the next venture while name recognition was at its peak.
“Tell yer parents what ye’ve come up with,” Cavin said.
“You know how some musicians can play by ear?” I asked. “Well, Theia Alexa cooks by heart. While she’s been sailing around with her charters, she’s been discovering regional foods and recreating them in her kitchen. Tell me that doesn’t sound like a great premise for a cooking show.”
Even my mom, When in Rome’s dedicated foodie, sounded impressed. “It’s a wonderful idea. But how is she on camera?”
“Thanks to CJ and the crew,” Cavin said, “I’ve just seen an audition tape this afternoon. She’s great. Corporate’s already on board.”
“I hoped maybe you could come meet us in Corfu and tape an episode with her,” I said. “You know, a little cross-promotion? Mr. Kouropoulos has already agreed to let them use his name as a cosponsor, and he’d be doing some cameos, too.”
“My, you have been busy,” Mom said.
“Dad?” I asked. “You haven’t said anything.”
He blinked at the webcam. “That’s because I’m speechless. Who are you and what did you do with my daughter?”
I invited Mr. Kouropoulos, Theia Alexa, and CJ into the chat, and we spent the rest of the time working out the details of our next move. I have to give Mr. Kouropoulos credit; he warmed up to the confession idea pretty quickly. It’s never easy to admit when you’re wrong, but I guess it’s even harder to stay wrong.
Theia Alexa still looked shocked. She kept hugging me and about anyone else within arm’s length all day. I think that was a pretty good indication she was happy about the idea of her own cooking show.
CJ was as cool and professional as ever, calmly ditching our last at-sea day of filming (I mean, really, how many onboard B-roll shots did they need?) so she could shoot Theia Alexa’s audition tape and some publicity stills to accompany Mr. Kouropoulos’s comeback.
We’d been right about the fifteen minutes. He’d had four scripts sent over to read since he shared his story on the local news. He showed a rare glimpse at his human side, coming clean about how he planned to use his son (tween heartthrob, the papers said) to resurrect his career. The papers went on to report how the newly humbled Mr. Kouropoulos would be cosponsoring a new cooking show, Greek by Heart, starring Alexa Papadakis, and how Davidson and Julia Barnett of When in Rome fame would be on hand for the launching of this new venture.
All’s well that ends well, right? At least that’s what I was trying to remind myself when we left the yacht in Corfu. As happy as I was about how everything turned out, I was sad to see the adventure come to an end.
Zoe had promised we could video chat, once she got her computer at home set up. She and Nikos discovered they live within ten blocks of each other. How’s that for fortune? He promised to go watch her next swim competition.
Logan, I discovered, had dropped his computer while they were in New Guinea. That’s why he didn’t sign in to our chat that last night. When I pressed him to make sure it wasn’t about the tabloid pictures, he asked me, “What pictures?”
I told him to never mind.
Mom and Dad flew back with me to Ohio, but they could stay for only a couple of days before they had to leave again. The rest of the crew was still waiting for them to finish the episode in New Guinea. They promised we would talk more about When in Rome when they got back.
Until then, they enrolled me in school in Ohio.
I start tomorrow.
I haven’t given up hope that I’ll return to the show. I figure if I can stage a comeback for Constantine Kouropoulos, I can figure out one for myself.
You never know when fortunes can change.
The last time I was at a Halloween
party, I dressed as a fairy princess, complete with gossamer wings and a wand that lit up. It was a network function, and I couldn’t wait to go so I could show off my costume. I was seven. There were no other kids at the party.
After that, Halloween lost its mystique for me. What was the point? Mom and Dad never let me eat much candy, so trick-or-treating was
a waste of time. I didn’t know any kids my age, so parties were no fun. And usually, when the date rolled around, we weren’t even in a country that celebrated Halloween. After a while, I became a kind of Halloween Scrooge.
So I was unexpectedly excited when Charlene Jackman—the most popular girl at Buckeye Hills Middle School—invited me to her house for a costume party.
“What do they do at a costume party?” Logan wanted to know when we video chatted after the invitation.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Dress up. Eat. Listen to music.”
“Sounds great,” he said sarcastically.
“Don’t spoil it for me,” I said. “This is the first time one of them has let me into their circle.”
“A costume party is a circle?”
“I’m going to disconnect.”
He made a pouty face. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get it,” I told him. “When I came back to Ohio the first time, I enrolled in school just before the school year started. I went to the open house and everything. Then I got sent to Greece.”
“And after your adventure in Greece …”
“The press wouldn’t leave me alone. I didn’t ask them to follow me to school on my first day back but—”
“Ha!” Logan laughed. “I forgot they did that. Police had to escort them off school property, yeah?”
“It wasn’t funny. Everyone thought I was stuck-up, even though I totally tried to make friends with them. Gramma even made cookies for me to share at lunch.”
“She did not.”
I drew my finger in an X over my heart. “I swear.”
“Well, did it work?”
“Not even.” I frowned, remembering. “Before I could pass them out, Tyler Smitty grabbed the sack from me and started a peanut-butter-cookie fight in the cafeteria.”
Logan laughed again. “You never told me that.”
“It’s not something I want to remember. One of the girls in my grade is allergic to peanuts. Her face swelled up and they had to call the paramedics because she couldn’t breathe. After that, everyone started calling me la chica nutta.”
He laughed out loud, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I really am going to disconnect,” I warned him.
“I hafta go anyway,” Logan said, still chuckling. “Da says my time’s up. Have fun at your party, chica nutta.”
Gramma offered to make me a costume for the party. I wanted to go as Lady Gaga. I showed Gramma some pictures to give her costume ideas, and I thought she was going to have a stroke. She decided I would go as Little Bo Peep instead. I am not kidding. She made me a costume complete with ruffled pantaloons and a stuffed lamb and a shepherd’s crook (tied with a blue satin bow).
“You look adorable!” she gushed as she tied the matching ribbon that held on my hat.
Adorable. Just what I did not want to be. But what was I going to do? I love my gramma. She just spent all week in her sewing room making me the costume. I wasn’t about to hurt her feelings.
I went as Bo Peep.
I got cold feet when Gramma went to drop me off in front of Charlene’s house. Everyone else walking up to Charlene’s front door was dressed as something scary. Like a zombie, or a wolfman, or a ghost. No one was adorable.
“Can you drive around the block?” I begged.
She sighed a long, you’re-killing-me sigh, but she did the drive-around anyway.
“The only way you won’t fit in is if you think you don’t you fit in,” she told me. I was going to argue that it didn’t matter what I thought; Bo Peep and Zombies were diametrically opposed. But then she looked so sad and hopeful, and I was afraid she’d feel bad for not making me a more terrifying costume, so I decided to accept my humiliation and go to the party.
I said good-bye to Gramma, and she promised to come pick me up at nine.
When I rang the bell, Charlene was already waiting at her door. “Cute costume,” she told me. Emphasis on cute. I personally think she smirked when she said that, but it could have been my imagination. She showed me back to the great room where everyone else—in their scary, bloody, normal costumes—were already dancing, talking, eating, and generally having fun.
I could feel all eyes on me as I tried to work my way as inconspicuously as possible to the other end of the room where I saw an empty spot on the couch. In case you’re wondering, it’s pretty hard to be inconspicuous in a hoopskirt that keeps hitting everyone’s legs as you pass.
By the time I made it over to the couch, the spot was taken. I turned to make my way back across the room and hit Rodney Elton in the head with the crook of my staff. He dropped his plate, and I bent to help him pick it up.
Never bend over in a hoopskirt.
I never thought I’d say I was grateful for ruffled pantaloons, but at that moment, I truly was.
With as much dignity as I could fake, I skirted the rest of the group and left the party. I’m pretty sure I could hear their laughter behind me as I started the two-mile walk back to Gramma’s.
In case you’re wondering, two miles is a long way to walk, dressed as Bo Peep. But it gives you a long time to wallow in self-pity. And then, when you get over yourself, to think. I remembered once, when we were on a flight with those personal entertainment screens, I watched that old Reese Witherspoon movie where the sorority girl goes to Harvard Law School. The main character got invited to a costume party and went dressed as a bunny, with ears and cottony tail and everything.
Just like me, she found herself in a room filled with other students, all wearing regular clothes and laughing at her, trying to make her feel small.
In the movie, that party was a turning point for her character. She had to decide that she really wanted to stay at Harvard, and that she was willing to work as hard as she could to prove she belonged there.
I decided if Reese Witherspoon could do it, so could I. I was going to show everyone I was smart enough and tough enough and regular enough to be accepted at Buckeye Hills.
I actually got excited about it. It was like a crusade.
At school on Monday, I held my head high and laughed along with anyone who called me chica nutta, or who baaaa-ed as I walked by. I made an effort to learn their names so I could say hi to them next time we passed.
At lunch, I walked right over and plopped my tray down on Charlene’s table and sat with the popular girls.
“I’m sorry I had to leave your party early on Saturday,” I told her. “But I lost my sheep and I didn’t know where to find them.”
I swear, Becki Daniels thought I was serious for a moment before Charlene started laughing.
It wasn’t much, but it was a chip at the social ice. I ate lunch with them the rest of the week.
Which is why, when I got the call from the network, I actually hesitated.
“Yer still trending in the social media,” Cavin told me. “In terms of ratings potential, that’s huge.”
I twisted the telephone cord around my fingers (yes, Gramma still had one of those phones with the long, curly cords). “That’s cool.”
“Cool?” he scoffed. “Darlin’, it’s phenomenal. It took some doin’, but I’ve come up with funding for a new assignment for you.”
My face went numb. “Assignment?”
“Yes. Now I know yer mum and dad are on their way to see you, but I convinced them to let me tell you the news.”
“What news?”
“The network wants to run spots on the kids’ stations, corresponding with the When in Rome episodes. Tie-ins, you could say.”
I nodded as if he could hear my head move on the other end of the line.
“Do ye hear what I’m sayin’, Cass? They want you to do the spots on location. Ye’ll be traveling with the show again—starting in Costa Rica!”
I sank into Grampa’s old La-Z-Boy chair. That was what I wanted, right? To be back with the show. To be with Logan.
But …
Would it seem like I was running away if I l
eft school again? I’d made all those plans. I actually kind of wanted to see if I could pull off a watch-me-rock comeback.
On the other hand …
“Hello? Are ye there, Cass?”
I sat up straight. “Yes, I’m here.”
“So what do ye think? Do ye want to do the spots or not?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve got a lot going on at school.”
“Are ye bein’ straight with me? Stop joshin’ around. Just say yes and be done with it.”
“All right. I’ll say yes … on one condition.”
He laughed. “Oh, so We’re makin’ conditions now, are we? How quickly fame goes to the head. All right, darlin’, what is it?”
I took a deep breath and smiled. Okay, so this wasn’t the turning point I’d been planning, but it could be an even better one.
“I’ll do the spots,” I told Cavin.
“Yes?”
“As long as Logan does them with me.”
ISBN: 978-0-14-241816-1
Cassidy is thrilled when the time comes for her and Logan to start filming publicity spots for their parents’ TV show in Costa Rica. But there’s a damper on her sunshiny outlook when she discovers that someone hacked into her blog and is posting some pretty negative things—jeopardizing her whole role on the show. Can Cassidy enlist Logan’s help and figure out what’s going on—before it’s lights out for Lights, Camera, Cassidy?