Double Take

by Laura Kennedy

  Maria laughed. “Well, I’m sure Jamal will give you all the shoes and purses you want when he’s a successful lawyer.”

  “Yeah, if I live long enough for him to make it through law school.”

  Sudsy leaned across the scarred picnic table until she was in my face. “So, is Miss D going to make a real movie when you’ve had enough lessons?”

  A real movie? It was a fascinating thought. “I don’t know. I mean, she’s never said anything.”

  Maria clapped her hands. “Just think if she does! We could all be in it!”

  Sudsy beamed. “Maria, you could be Tony’s pretty sister! And I could be some Greek girl.”

  Tamara glared. “And who the hell will I be? The maid?”

  Maria smiled. “Now, I’m sure we can find a part for you, too.”

  It was the next Wednesday afternoon and the Green Lady and I had just pulled into Miss de France’s driveway when Nick cruised up in his red van aka The Apartment. Parking inches from my driver’s side, he flung open his door.

  “Hey, watch the paint!” I yelled, managing to rescue the door before he dinged it.

  “I wasn’t going to hit it. Don’t be so uptight.”

  “I am not uptight,” I said, simultaneously scowling and admiring the outline of Nick’s seductive pecs under his white dress shirt. “I’m only careful.”

  “Same thing.”

  What an asshole! But a disturbingly good looking asshole. “What are you doing here? It’s only Wednesday.”

  “Anthony’s ankle is better, so Miss D moved your acting lesson up a day.”

  “So, why didn’t anyone call me?”

  Nick laughed. “Why, afraid you don’t know your lines?”

  “Of course, I know them.” I leaned over the seat of the Green Lady to rummage for the script, imagining his eyes on my ass. Blushing, I emerged with the script to discover he was watching two baby armadillos poking their screwdriver faces into the dirt. Annoyed he was admiring the armadillos instead of me, I threw the pages on the driveway. Pretending dismay, I charged after two of the sheets that had flown into Miss D’s fishpond.

  “Damn,” I said, returning in a moment with the soggy sheets of paper. “Why, do these things always have to happen to me?”

  “Because you create your own reality, that’s why.”

  “So, you’re saying I dropped the script on purpose?” I turned and stomped up the sidewalk.

  Nick’s black tasseled shoes followed me up the walk. “As long as you’re mad over nothing, you might as well hold onto the anger and make it work for you in our scene.”

  “I’ll hold onto it, all right.”

  Instead of her usual red throne, Miss de France lay on her gold chaise lounge looking tired, but pleased. “Ah, you’re together! Meeting on the sly, hmm?”

  “We are not meeting on the sly, Miss de France,” I said, sounding ruder than I’d meant. “We just happened to arrive at the same time.”

  “And Jupiter just happened to collide with Mars at the same time.” She laughed.

  Nick shook his head. “Don’t worry, Miss de France. There’s nothing going on between me and your star pupil. I don’t date little girls.”

  “I am not a little girl!” I snarled. It was the second time I’d been called a little girl in less than two weeks.

  “Let’s not squabble,” Miss de France said. “Now, why don’t we begin with the restaurant scene where Gwyneth and Nick meet for the first time.”

  Consisting of no more than a few lines, the scene went easily, although being close to Nick made me seriously nervous. Maybe it was because I hadn’t been within six feet of any male since Tyler and I’d broken up. Or maybe it was because I was secretly undressing Nick with my eyes.

  Since most of the dialogue was between Nick and Gwyneth’s fathers, Miss de France played their parts, making her voice low and gruff. Actually, she was pretty good. When we were through, we took a lemonade break.

  “Now, the next scene between Gwyneth and Nick is absolutely crucial,” Miss D told me while we guzzled our vitamin C quota for the day. “And do you know why?” For once I was speechless. She turned to Nick.

  “Because it’s when the two of them begin to fall in love.”

  “Absolutely. It’s Romeo and Juliet. Tristan and Isolde.”

  I gulped. “But it’s not entirely a love scene, Miss de France,” I squeaked. “In the beginning, Gwyneth basically tells him to get lost.”

  “Yes, and then she flirts with him outrageously and ends up kissing him. You did get that far, didn’t you?”

  I looked at the floor. “Yes, but do I really have to kiss Nick? I mean, this is only a rehearsal.”

  “Darling, I am well aware this is only a rehearsal, but you must understand realism is the key to good acting. And I know you want to become an accomplished actress, do you not?”

  She had me. But then, didn’t she always?

  “Now, for the first run-through, just read your lines. The second time I expect you to really act.”

  I was okay just standing next to Nick reading my lines, but by the time we got to the second time and the acting part, I was in total meltdown mode.

  We began the scene, me running across the room, Nick grabbing my arm and pushing me to the ground, trying to kiss me. Stumbling, I blurted out my first line.

  If I’d been nervous before, I was ready for a psychiatric ward now. Nick let me up and I ran away again. By the end of the scene where Gwyneth teases him with kisses, I was practically hyperventilating.

  I wish I were at home, I thought. I wish I were in my bedroom painting my toenails Petulant Pink or reading Twilight. I wish I were anywhere except in Nick Diamandis’s arms. I looked up into his handsome face. Full lips, sculptured nose, romance novel eyes. The face of a man, not a boy.

  Kiss him, I told myself. You want to be an actress, so just kiss him, but I was frozen.

  He knew what he was doing to me. What he did to all women. Mesmerized, I looked into his eyes. Then gently as a butterfly, his lips brushed mine. Once, twice, three times, until I was filled with the unfamiliar taste of mint and desire.

  “Cut!” Miss de Frances’s voice sliced through my fog. Reaching for her cane, she tapped her way across the tile floor. “Bravo, Brooke! Bravo! You’re finally reacting and not just saying words.”

  The look of desire in Nick’s eyes was gone and he pulled away, leaving me feeling like I was thirteen and just been turned down for ladies’ choice at the Friday night dance. He was only acting. He didn’t want me at all.

  But I want him, I realized. For the first time in my life I didn’t want the kissing to stop. Not ever. And it scared me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Suddenly it was June. School was over and I was only days away from my seventeenth birthday. I lay on my stomach, drifting aimlessly across our pool on a pink manatee float, trying to figure out my life.

  Once upon a time things had been so simple. School, the Sisters, Tyler, the mall, Surf’s Up, the Tastee Freeze. And then suddenly everything was all screwed up. When had it all started? The night the Green Lady had broken down in front of Miss de France’s Victorian.

  If only I hadn’t wanted to wear the Cleopatra dress, I wished. If only Miss de France hadn’t had a heart attack when Tamara said those terrible things, and I hadn’t been forced to give up my entire life. If only I still loved Tyler and Nick Diamandis had never pretend kissed me. But all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to change things.

  Why did everything have to happen to me? I wondered, dangling my Petulant Pink fingernails in the blue-green water. I was a good person, sort of. So, why me?

  Because you create your own reality. Nick’s cool words from the afternoon I’d dropped the script into Miss D’s fish pond came back to me. Well, if Nick was so mature and wise, why had he fooled around with a married woman?

  It takes two. The thought came floating through my mind out of nowhere. A painful thought hidden in the back of my head for an entire y
ear, like the expensive tennis racquet in the back of my closet, just waiting for me to trip over it.

  I blinked behind my sunglasses. It was the truth. It did take two. Nick hadn’t raped my mother. For all I knew, she’d seduced him. Hadn’t she met Nick at the Cove that day to make out, even unzipping the top of her pink polka dot dress to expose her breasts?

  I thought of how Piper Farrell, her brother, and I had come upon them as we paddled down the bayou in their canoe. Thank God Piper had been busy digging around in the ice chest for a soda and hadn’t noticed that half of the couple making out in the red van was my mother.

  It’s hard to think of your mother as anything but perfect. But she was just a person like anyone else. She couldn’t have been happy or she would have never done it. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t still mad at her for cheating on my dad. Another tear slipped down my cheek.

  I’d always thought girls who spent all of their time thinking about guys had to be the biggest morons in the universe. Unfortunately, I was now one of them, because every second of that week I spent thinking of Nick and how long it would be until I saw him again.

  The cat that ate the canary. That’s what Miss de France looked like the following Wednesday afternoon when I showed up for my acting lesson fifteen minutes early. Miss D was already in the drawing room looking very much the spring flower in a floral print blouse and yellow slacks.

  “Hello, my darling,” she cooed as I floated into the room. “You are looking especially adorable today. Your hair is nothing but ringlets.”

  I ran my fingers through my now chin length hair. “It’s growing out,” I answered. “No more marcel, I guess.”

  “Well, time marches on.” She paused, tracing the outline of one of the flowers of her skirt with a tiny finger. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” I flopped down next to her on the green loveseat.

  “I’ve been thinking. Since your seventeenth birthday is next week, I’d like to have a party for you here Saturday evening.”

  I corralled my OMG expression before it reached my face. “Oh?” It was all I could manage.

  “There’s still time to order a cake from Publix and James could make hors d’oeuvres. And we could decorate the solarium with streamers. My orchids would add a lovely touch, would they not?”

  “They would be beautiful, but...” Suddenly pale and weak, I felt like I’d been hitchhiking through Alligator Alley on a ninety-five degree day.

  I won’t let her do this to me, I thought desperately. No more parties. She’s not going to control every minute of my life.

  I looked into Miss de France’s face. She was wearing one of her movie actress smiles. Sweet and expectant. Innocent as an alligator’s.

  “That’s really nice of you, Miss de France, but I already have something planned with my friends.” I paused. “Not that you’re not my friend, of course.”

  “Well, what if we have our party first? You’ll have plenty of time to move on to your other party later. It will be like a progressive dinner, remember those? No, of course you don’t.”

  I smiled a smile I didn’t mean. “I don’t think they do those anymore.”

  She laughed. “I think you’re right. Actually, I don’t think they even do dinners anymore.”

  The noise of Nick coming into the room saved us from more words. But somehow I knew it hadn’t saved me for good.

  The hour proceeded in a blur of flubbed lines and missed cues. Maybe it was my worrying about my soon-to-be birthday party thrown by Miss de France, or it could have been Nick’s cologne that made him so scrumptious I wanted to chow down on his neck like one of those vampire chicks in Twilight.

  Miss de France had left early for her afternoon nap, so Nick and I were alone. “Are you okay?” he asked after I’d flubbed the same line for the third time.

  “I’m okay.” I blew a wisp of hair from my forehead. “I guess I just have a lot on my mind.” Like you, you gorgeous jerk.

  “Don’t worry. It happens to all of us. Maybe it would help if you meditated. Meditation and yoga have really helped me get it together. I was pretty out of control for awhile.”

  Out of control with my mother. I was a millisecond away from saying it. Did he know that I knew about their affair? He couldn’t. Not as cool and composed as he was.

  Mercifully, the hour ended. The hour I’d dreamt about for a week had been totally ruined by Miss de France and her virtual reality plans for my seventeenth birthday party.

  “Feeling any better?” Nick watched me gather the pages of my script.

  “It’s probably just my allergies. I always have trouble with them in the summer.”

  “Well, remember yoga and meditation. And you might want to try some rose hips for the stuffiness. You can find them at the health food store.”

  With a wave, Nick turned and sauntered out of the room, the scent of him lingering on to tease me.

  The key was in the ignition of the Green Lady when I made the decision. I had to tell Miss de France I wouldn’t let her give me a party. And I had to tell her now.

  Stomping up the stairs to her room, I met James in the hallway.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To see Miss de France.”

  James crossed his arms, looking like the guard protecting the wizard in front of the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. “She can’t be disturbed during naptime.”

  “But I have to talk to her.”

  He scowled. “All right, just for a minute.”

  Miss de France was asleep when I tiptoed in. Propped up in bed on a mound of lace pillows, she looked like a fragile china doll.

  I don’t want to hurt her. She’s so old and little. I never want to hurt her.

  Sensing I was there, her eyelids fluttered open.

  “Oh, Brooke, darling. It’s you.” Her childlike blue eyes fixed on mine as I made my way across the room until I was at the edge of her massive four poster bed.

  “Miss de France,” I began in a quivering voice, “you know I love you and would do anything to make you happy, but I just can’t let you throw a birthday party for me.”

  Alarmed, she pulled herself up to a sitting position. “But I want to! Really, it’s no trouble at all.”

  Doesn’t she get it? I thought wildly. Doesn’t she ever just get it?”

  “But, I’m having a party already,” I said. “It’s just too much.”

  “Nonsense, we’re having the party and that’s final.”

  “No, you’re not!” My anger filled the room. “You have to stop, Miss de France. Please, you just have to stop!”

  “Stop what?” She was as white as her bed linens.

  “Ruining my life.”

  “But I never meant...” She lifted a frail hand, reaching out to me. If I take her hand, I’ve lost, I realized and backed toward the door.

  “I have to go now, Miss de France,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  A look of anguish crossed her face, hovering long enough to send its message, then with a small cry she fell lifelessly back against the pillows.

  I turned and flew down the steps. I wasn’t going to let her do it to me again. She was nothing but a drama queen. She wasn’t having a heart attack. She only gave them.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Barely sleeping, I kept my cell on all night, imagining it would ring with a message telling me Miss de France was in the hospital. When a call finally came the next day, it was only a curt message from James saying there would be no dance lesson because Anthony had taken a client to a dance exhibition. No hello, no good-bye, no go to hell.

  Saturday night arrived with my seventeenth birthday party with the Sisters at the Green Iguana. When I walked into the restaurant at seven-thirty, they were all sitting around a table in the party room off the main restaurant where I was greeted by helium balloons, pink streamers, and a big sheet cake with a frosting drawing of a girl with long blonde hair sitting in a green conv
ertible.

  “Happy Birthday, Boo!” Maria said, jumping up to hug me. “The picture was my idea. We got it from Publix. Do you like it?”

  “Omigod! It’s me driving the Green Lady! I love it!” I jumped up to hug her back, dropping my cell phone in the middle of my cartoon face.

  Maria’s face crumpled like the face on the cake.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” I said, retrieving my cell from the frosting.

  “Don’t freak,” Sudsy said, smoothing the frosting with her finger. “It looks fine.”

  But it wasn’t true. I’d wrecked my darling cake and somehow it felt like a bad omen.

  “Don’t be bummed,” Tamara consoled. “Besides, I think there’s a law you can’t be sad on your birthday. Now tell us what your parents gave you.”

  “These.” I did a pirouette modeling my new jeans.

  Tamara gave me an appraising look. “Wouldn’t you know, they’d be Guess.”

  Sudsy whistled. ”Your heinie looks fabulous in them, Brooke.”

  It wasn’t until an hour or two had passed that Tamara brought up Miss de France. “So what did your favorite Sugar Momma give you?”

  “Probably nothing. We sort of had a fight.” I proceeded to tell the Sisters how Miss de France had wanted to throw me a birthday party and about our awful scene.

  Maria was the first to take a pot shot. “You mean, you’re not even going over to her house?”

  I felt about two centimeters tall. “Maria, I told her you guys were having a party for me. I had to be firm. Besides, it wasn’t a big deal or anything.”

  It was Tamara’s turn to pounce. “So does that mean it’s okay to blow her off completely? I mean she’s an old lady, and she’s been really good to you.”

  “Oh, stop.”

  Sudsy scowled. “They’re right, you know. I bet Miss de France is absolutely devastated. I can see her now, sitting in that red chair, dissolved in tears. What if she does something drastic?”

  “Like what?”

  “Remember the old movie that starts out with the dead guy floating in a big pool at a Hollywood mansion?”