Suckered

by Gina LaManna

  “It was a risk we took,” Lizabeth said without a blink in my direction. “A calculated risk.”

  “Are you frickin’ kidding me?” The woman shook her hand, her nails like sparkling talons. “It’s perfect. She’s so…” The reporter paused, sizing me up. “She’s so average. It’s brilliant! Women everywhere are going to see Lacey and think—well, if she can fall off a catwalk during Milan Fashion Week, then why can’t I?”

  “Oh, great,” I said. “Because that’s the sentiment we were trying to achieve.”

  “Forget that first title. I’ve got a new one!” The reporter sucked on the end of her pencil like a lollipop. Then with a dramatic flourish she waved her hand through the air, envisioning yet another newspaper headline. “Lacey Nobody: The Face of Average.”

  “That’s just what I always wanted to be when I grew up,” I said, a grin plastered across my face. “Really, really average.”

  “It’s frickin’ unbelievable,” she said, scribbling some notes. “Now, when you planned this event, did you foresee becoming the face of women everywhere, Lace—?”

  “Thank you for your time, that’s all for today. We must get over to the afterparty.” Lizabeth grabbed me, pulling me from the midst of shouted requests for exclusive interviews, photo shoots, and my fiancé’s phone number.

  “I am so sorry,” I said as we huddled into a corner backstage, the rest of the models lurking like vultures. “I had to do it, there were people coming for Anthony and I had to warn him—”

  “He’s okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. I’ll call him, but he got the message.”

  “Well, if Anthony’s okay, then…” Lizabeth trailed off.

  I waited as she paused, her fingers intertwined with one another around her waist. I spoke first. “I’m really sorry, Lizabeth. I shouldn’t have taken a dive offstage, but—”

  “It was incredible!” Lizabeth squealed, her hands on my shoulders. “I couldn’t have planned it better. You two were adorable…and Anthony, God bless him, that kiss…” She fanned her face. “I didn’t plan it, but I’m glad you improvised.”

  “Oh, um. Well, good.” I winced at the memory of me out on that runway, turning into a flying squirrel and sailing offstage. Which reminded me…I raised my dress to reveal a bare foot. “About my other shoe…”

  Chapter 32

  We climbed into the trailer. Meg, Clay, and Arnold went first, joining Anna. Lizabeth and I finished the train. I still had yet to find my phone and call Anthony. He’d disappeared by the time we escaped from the reporters, probably off prowling the perimeters.

  “Sorry about the dress,” I said to Anna. “It snagged a bit when I fell.”

  “I received three requests for custom designs between you falling off the stage and jumping back on,” she said. “Who doesn’t want to be Cinderella? Is that really your fiancé?”

  “Yes,” I said, flicking off my single shoe and replacing it with the pair of flip-flops from before. They were a little big on me, but it wasn’t like I had a ton of options.

  “Let’s get going,” Lizabeth said. “I talked to Anthony, and he’ll meet us at the afterparty.”

  “That’s right,” Meg said. “If we don’t get going soon, Lacey’s gonna turn into a pumpkin at midnight. Just like her cousin Joey.”

  Chapter 33

  The afterparty was being held over on Via Montenapoleone. After all, what better street to host the fanciest people than the fanciest street? Beautiful art, beautiful people, beautiful jewelry…I didn’t belong near any of it. Maybe they’d have beautiful appetizers, too, because I was starving.

  We were all in the limo, but the driver was nowhere to be seen. Lizabeth had sent him on an errand, and he had yet to return. So when Clay offered to drive, Lizabeth agreed and texted the driver to meet us at the event.

  “Your fiancé is coming to the afterparty?” Anna asked as Clay pulled the car forward. “I want his autograph.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Good luck with an autograph, though. He’s not exactly chatty.”

  “The swoony, quiet type? That’s Anthony,” Meg said. She sat in the passenger seat next to Clay. She patted his knee. “Not me. I’ve got myself a nice nerdy inventor. Speaking of nerdy inventors, can you put the turbo blast on this thing? That car behind us is too close.”

  “The limo doesn’t have turbo blasters,” Clay said. He glanced in the rearview mirror and frowned. “What the—?”

  He didn’t finish his sentence before we all lurched forward. The bottom of my flip-flops had no traction whatsoever, and I slid a good four feet before I grasped onto Anna’s head and held on tight.

  “Ow!” She pried my fingers from her skull. “Let go!”

  “Clay, drive straight!” I said. “We’re not seatbelted in!”

  “It’s not me,” he said. “They hit us. The car behind us rammed into the back.”

  “That dumb old turd,” Meg said. “Don’t they know we’ve got a baby in here?! Lacey, where’s Arnold’s car seat?”

  “I don’t have a car seat!”

  “What am I supposed to do with him?” Meg turned, dangling Baby Arnold by the foot. “He’s flopping all over the place.”

  “Hang onto him, I don’t know!” I cried, as the limo jerked forward, shuddered, and then halted again as another shock wave erupted from the back of the vehicle. “What’s happening?”

  “That dumb old turd keeps hitting us!” Meg said. “I bet it’s the same guy from before.”

  “Which guy?” Clay finally threw the car into Drive and we shot forward. It wasn’t pretty, and the limo made some unfortunate clunking noises, but at least we were moving. “There was a guy?”

  “He tried to steal Lacey,” Meg said. “Baby Arnold saved her.”

  Clay blinked. “Why would anyone steal Lacey?”

  “Of everything Meg told you, that’s the only response you could think of?” I stumbled my way toward the front of the car.

  “I’m just confused why anyone would want to take you,” Clay said. “Mostly, you go around and cause trouble. If I weren’t related to you, I’d probably stay far, far away.”

  I sighed. “Fair enough.”

  “I don’t know why I stay by you,” Meg said. “But I guess I like the thrill. There is a thrill around you that makes me feel like I could die at any second.”

  I sighed louder. “Can we go faster, Clay? Are you sure there’s no turbo blast?”

  The other car zoomed forward, coming up next to us on the narrow cobblestone road. But I couldn’t make out the face of the driver. I couldn’t tell if it was a he or she. I leaned forward over Clay’s shoulder to look through the driver’s window, but I backed away just as quickly.

  “Did you eat onions?” I asked him.

  “We don’t have turbo blast,” Clay said, ignoring my latter question. “But I have an idea.”

  “Does your idea contain gum?”

  “What?”

  “Your breath,” I said, waving a hand in front of my face. “Normally I wouldn’t pause a car chase for this, but it’s urgent.”

  Clay’s eyes widened and he looked at Meg. “You told me I didn’t smell!”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t think so, but I had the onion focaccia bread too, extra onions. How am I supposed to know? If we both eat onions, it’s all good, right?”

  I handed out gum all around as Clay hurtled down a road. He whipped past an ancient castle, and I admired it from afar. “That’s a nice fountain,” I said. “Don’t hit it.”

  Narrowly missing the ancient relic, Clay opened his mouth and I dropped the gum inside.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Chew first, and then get us out of here.”

  “Watch this.” Clay careened to the left—hard—and we slid like a stack of dominos against one side of the car.

  Lizabeth gasped, and I checked to see if she was all right. Out of breath, she just nodded and called for Clay to go faster.

  His plan worked. At the last second, h
e straightened the wheel and we shot into a side alley so small most bicycles wouldn’t fit. Clay somehow managed to maneuver this “long-ass limousine”—according to Meg—down the road, knocking only one sign off a storefront in the process. It was magic.

  “Woohoo!” Meg cheered, bouncing Baby Arnold on her lap as she glanced behind her. “They’re gone.”

  “Don’t celebrate so soon,” I said as we hurtled back onto the main road. I pointed as the car flew toward us again, wheeling around a different corner. “They’re back.”

  “How’d they do that?” Clay grumbled. “My driving game is on point today.”

  “I’m impressed,” I said. “But it’s not your fault. They’ve got one of those really fast cars…what’s it called?”

  Meg fanned herself, leaning back in the car seat. “I’m going to give you one chance to correct yourself. If you can’t name that car, I am going to cut off our friendship immediately.”

  “It’s shiny and black,” I said. “I can’t see the logo since the front is a little dinged up.”

  Meg shook her head. “Shame on you, child. Shame on you! It’s a—”

  Whatever the answer, I didn’t get to hear it. The other vehicle had screeched to a stop in front of us. Clay rammed his foot on the brakes, but he couldn’t stop the skid. We skidded and skidded, picking up the pace as we spiraled out of control, drifting past the small black car.

  I caught sight of a pair of wide eyes staring through the window. They stared through two holes in a hat or mask, the material covering enough of his face so that I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features. My gut told me it was the same person from the alley.

  “Who is that?” I said. “Why are they after us?”

  Meg glared at the diamonds around my neck. “Well, it’s easy to see what they’re after, but I’d never ruin a perfectly good Porsche over a couple of diamonds.”

  “Meg, he could buy ten Porsches for the cost of this necklace.”

  “Stupid,” she muttered, bouncing Baby Arnold extra hard. “Arnold, don’t listen to your mother. Always take care of your car. Better yet, buy a motorcycle.”

  “Don’t tell him to buy a motorcycle!” I said. “They’re dangerous.”

  Then I paused as the rest of the car fell silent.

  Maybe I sounded a little crazy. After all, he was plastic. I cleared my throat. “You know, theoretically. If he were a real baby.”

  “I need some help over here!” Clay said, his voice thin. “The other car is too fast, and it’s too close behind us. I can’t turn at all. Someone…do something!”

  “How?” Anna asked. “We’re going so fast.”

  “Think of something!” Clay said. “Otherwise we’ll be forced into that.”

  I glanced forward, not liking the looks of that. Train tracks spanned the street in front of us, and the train itself was flying down the tracks toward the crossing. It whistled, loud and clear.

  The ground vibrated.

  We only had one block to do something, or a collision was imminent.

  “Brake!” I said.

  “That won’t work,” Clay said. “The pedal fell off.”

  “What?”

  “The brake pedal is gone.”

  I looked underneath his feet and sure enough, the pedal had sunk to the floor. I watched as it bounced.

  “Oh, crap,” I said.

  “That stinks,” Meg said. “Don’t you worry, Clay. I’ll save us. I’ll be your hero.”

  Next thing I knew, Meg had opened the limo’s sun roof and was now hanging out of it, her hair blowing wild in the breeze. Right beside her, flying outside the window by one leg, was Arnold.

  “Take that, you dumb old suckers!” Meg said. “Get ’em, Arnold.”

  With a horrified stare, I watched, partly fascinated, at Meg’s idea. She shook Arnold so hard he got a stomachache, and up came all the blue gel we’d ever fed him.

  As I knew from personal experience, that gel was sticky. The stream of blue landed on the Porsche’s windshield, splattering across the target.

  The driver turned on his windshield wipers to full blast, but even the water and soap spray had nothing on Arnold’s goo.

  The car swerved left, crashing into a fruit stand beside the road. I watched, wincing as the small man took a flying leap from behind the counter. In true Italian form, the store owner was back on his feet and waving his hands, shouting phrases full of swear words that even I could understand.

  “They’re gone,” Meg shouted. “You can stop now, Clay!”

  “I can’t!” Clay swerved the wheel left and right. We took down another sign. And then a mailbox. Neither of those items slowed us down in the slightest, nor did the small tree that Clay ran over as we hurtled toward the train.

  I wasn’t any good at math, but I could tell that our paths were intersecting in a very bad way with the oncoming locomotive.

  “You have to go for it,” I shouted. “Speed up!”

  “You’re crazy.” Clay was sweating profusely. Unfortunately, that only made the smell of onions worse. “We’ll never make it!”

  “We have to,” I said. “Move over.”

  “No!”

  I wrestled my way onto the front seat with Clay. Never in my life had I wished to sit on his lap, and even then, I wished I could take it all back. But I had to do it. “Move over!”

  When Clay still didn’t budge, I slammed my foot onto the gas. He tried to push me off, but it was no use. We were wedged in tighter than two peas in a pod, my foot leaning hard on the gas.

  We were either going to make it or we were going to crash, because stopping wasn’t an option.

  The train honked one hundred and ninety-four times, I thought. Maybe I was overestimating. But the honk was loud, and long, and continuous, as the front wheels of the limo leapt across the tracks.

  Everyone closed their eyes.

  Everyone screamed.

  Even the screams didn’t drown out a last blast from the train’s horn, sounding long and loud and sad as the front of the train crashed into the rear of the limo.

  We spiraled out of control, spinning, tipping, wheeling, falling…

  Chapter 34

  “Whew!” Meg said after a long moment of silence. “Pretty sure that was good for my diet in so many ways. I’ve never burned so many calories in my life. Cripes, I almost wet my pants.”

  After sizing everyone up for injuries, I untangled myself from Clay as quickly as possible, surveying the rest of the damage as the limo slid to a stop.

  The car had spun 360 degrees which, really, wasn’t that unusual considering I was from Minnesota. During the icy winter months, it wasn’t unusual to fishtail in a full circle on the way to work.

  No, it wasn’t the spinning that bothered me. What bothered me was the position in which we’d landed. Somehow, the vehicle had tilted to a stop, perched halfway over another one of the many fountains in this city. The top of the limo rested against the head of a statue, and I suspected that if we moved one inch, we’d collapse the whole thing. Even breathing at this angle had me worried about disaster.

  On the positive side, everyone was alive. I’d thunked my head pretty hard against the steering wheel and could feel something warm on my lip, blood probably. Other than that, however, I was fine.

  “Everyone okay?” I asked.

  Lizabeth, Anna, and Clay all agreed somewhat hesitantly, while Meg grinned. “I’m five pounds skinnier. Anna, maybe you can take in my clothes when you get a second. To account for my sudden weight loss. Whadda ya say?”

  Anna gave Meg a blank stare. Then she marched to the back of the limo, swung one leg out through the open roof, and dropped her small frame to the ground. As we all watched, she set off down the street without looking back.

  “Should I go after her?” I asked.

  “Her hotel is just one block down,” Lizabeth said. “I think she’d rather be left alone.”

  “Look at that,” Meg said. “Good job, Clay. That’s what I cons
ider curbside service.”

  “We have to move slowly,” I said, spreading my arms wide for balance as the limo crunched against the statue, shaken by Anna’s sudden departure. “Really slowly.”

  Clay didn’t listen, sliding out of the front seat and rocking the limo so hard that it crumpled a few more feet down. The open roof through which Anna had slid was now completely off limits to anyone else. It was too tightly crunched together for even Arnold to slip through.

  “We have to go through the driver’s side,” I said. “We can climb out the door and jump into the fountain.”

  “I’ll go first,” Meg said. She climbed over Clay, the car sinking a few inches but holding mostly steady. Perching on the edge, she wedged the door open and took a flying leap. “Cannonball!”

  “Clay, you go next,” I said, breathing out in relief when Meg surfaced below.

  “I don’t like heights,” he said.

  “We’re not up high, we’re about five feet off the ground.”

  “It’s wet down there.”

  “Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said, as misty spray filtered through the window from Meg’s pool party down below.

  “I’m staying here,” Clay said. “Get the firemen to rescue me.”

  “Oh, me too!” Meg said. “I can climb back inside if the firemen are coming.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I told Meg, while helping Lizabeth forward. “Are you okay to jump, Lizabeth? Should I go first and help you from the other end?”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m old, not dead,” she said, before catapulting toward the fountain. Meg tried to catch Lizabeth in her arms. She hadn’t braced herself well enough, however, and the two crumpled into the water together, a splash the size of a tsunami soaking me from above.

  “I’m not leaving without you,” I said to Clay. “Hurry up.”

  “You go first.”

  “Clay,” I said sternly. “If you don’t move right now, I’ll take this necklace off and the whole van will explode. I’m serious.”