Now That I've Found You

by Kristina Forest

  My phone vibrates on the bedside table, and my stomach sinks as I glance at messages from Kerri and my mom.

  Kerri: Morning! Checking in to make sure everything is going smoothly. How are you? How did the conversation go with your grandmother?

  Groaning, I put my phone facedown on my lap and pick it up again. I’m okay. Working on talking to Gigi, I text back.

  All right. Good luck! Let me know if you need anything. I hope you’re getting some much needed rest.

  And there are two texts from my mom.

  Mom: Call us sometime today.

  Mom: Better yet, FaceTime us. We want to see Gigi too.

  I text back, Okay, will do.

  But that’s going to have to wait until I get my chance to talk to Gigi.

  I ease out of bed and retie my silk scarf around my head. I open my door and peek my head into the hallway. It’s still eerily quiet, and Gigi’s bedroom door is closed. Taking a deep breath, I walk down the hall and knock lightly on Gigi’s door.

  “Good morning, Gigi,” I say. “Can I come in?”

  There’s no answer. Not even a shuffling sound on the other side of the door.

  “Gigi?” I say, knocking a second time.

  Again, not a peep.

  She’s still upset with me. Okay. I expected as much. Gigi is known for holding long grudges, but I’m not James Jenkins. I’m her granddaughter. There has to be a way I can fix this.

  I think about ways to lure her out. I could cook breakfast. The best way to say you love someone is to say it with food, right? The only issue is that I can’t cook to save my life. But how hard is it to make eggs and bacon? I’m not saying that presenting her with breakfast will suddenly smooth things over between us, but at least it’s a start.

  I rush down to the kitchen and almost trip over her cats, Mark Antony and Cleo, who yelp and dash out of my way. God forbid I fall and break my neck three days before the FCCs because Gigi’s cats were willing to kill me for food. They follow me into the kitchen and circle my feet as I open the cabinets.

  “You don’t even like me,” I say to Cleo, glancing down as she rubs her whiskers against my shin. For years I’ve been trying to get on her and Mark Antony’s good side. What’s suddenly changed?

  Wait … why are Mark Antony and Cleo even down here? They usually follow Gigi wherever she goes. They should be lounging on her queen-size bed right now.

  Mark Antony meows loudly and walks to his bowl. There are still remnants of food at the bottom. Gigi must have been up to feed them this morning, but why shut the door and keep them out of her room? A prickling sensation grows at the back of my neck.

  Cleo is doing figure eights around my ankles as I puzzle over this. I step to the side and turn toward the kitchen table so that she’ll skitter away, and that’s when I see it. A note placed in the center of the table. I grab it, and the prickling sensation spreads from my neck to my arms and stomach, continuing down to my feet.

  Right away, I recognize Gigi’s pink stationery, the elegant slope of her handwriting. Then I see my name written at the top of the page.

  Evie,

  I need to clear my head. I promise I won’t be too far away.

  All my love,

  Gigi

  PS: Don’t worry about feeding Mark Antony and Cleo. I’ve got that taken care of.

  I read it one, two, three more times. The words begin to tremble, and I realize that my hands are shaking.

  “No. No, no, no, no.” I turn around and shout, “Gigi? Gigi!”

  I suddenly hear a loud ruckus upstairs, like someone fell out of bed and landed on the floor. Mark Antony and Cleo hightail it out of the kitchen, and I race into the hallway, hoping and praying to see Gigi. Instead, I see Milo rushing out of his room. He struggles to run and put on a shirt at the same time. For a moment, I forgot he stayed here.

  He looks at me with the wide, alert eyes of someone who just woke up and is trying to adjust to chaos. “What? What’s wrong?”

  I don’t answer and dash upstairs, brushing past him with my sights set on Gigi’s door. I push it open and walk into her empty room. It smells like Chanel No. 5, and her huge bed is neatly made, covered in a soft cream-colored comforter. Nothing looks out of place. Nothing, except for the fact that Gigi isn’t here!

  I groan. I lean against Gigi’s dresser and try to catch my breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Milo repeats, coming to stand beside me.

  “She’s gone!”

  “What?” he says, blinking. “Who?”

  “Gigi! Who else?” I shove her note into his hands. “It says so right here.”

  Milo scrunches up his face and scans Gigi’s letter. The seconds I stand there waiting for him to finish are agonizing. He reads so slowly!

  I don’t have time to wait. I walk around her huge bed to her nightstand and open her jewelry box, where she keeps her passport. It’s still there, so at least now I know she hasn’t left the country. She said she wouldn’t be too far away, but “far away” could have a completely different meaning for Gigi. She could be anywhere! And when did she even leave? She must have written the note this morning. But how long before I woke up? Minutes? Hours? I insinuated that she needed to get out of the house, but I meant, like, take a walk around the neighborhood, not just disappear altogether! What am I supposed to do? I can’t even call her because she doesn’t own a cell phone.

  This is like when she left LA after she and James divorced. She fell off the face of the earth for weeks and then suddenly reappeared in New York. At least this time she left a note.

  This is all my fault. She couldn’t stand to be around me anymore. I didn’t even get a chance to tell her about the Every Time We Meet remake. I don’t have the role if I can’t get Gigi’s blessing or convince her to agree to a meeting with James. How can I accomplish either of those things if she isn’t here?

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  “So we can probably rule out that she’s missing,” Milo finally says, refolding the note and handing it back to me. He still has crust in his eyes and sleep lines on his cheeks.

  “What do you mean?” I say. “Of course she’s missing. You just took about three years to read her note.”

  He narrows his eyes and, with measured patience, says, “I did read the note, and what I read lets me know that she left on purpose. I think the better word is disappeared.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s much better,” I say sarcastically. I worry the note in my hands, but I stop because I’m afraid I might rip it. We might need this for evidence in the future. The last note that Gigi wrote before she went AWOL. The cops will have to keep it in a missing persons file. The story will break out everywhere. Gigi and I will be the subjects of yet another scandal.

  Nobody can find out about this. Nobody.

  “I talked to her this morning,” Milo says, snapping me out of my downward spiral.

  “What?” I ask, gripping his arm. He winces. “Sorry,” I say, quickly pulling away. “You talked to her? Why didn’t you lead with that?”

  “You didn’t give me a chance to!” he says, rubbing his arm where I grabbed him.

  “What did she say? Tell me word for word.”

  “I got back mad late, like almost four A.M., because we spent a long time trying to figure out stuff for tonight’s show. I walked inside, and your grandma was sitting in the living room with a suitcase next to her. I kind of just stood there because I didn’t know what was going on. She told me that she’d been waiting for me, and she said that she had to go away for a bit to handle some things and that she needed me to take care of the cats. She said she wouldn’t be too far away, just like she wrote in her note, and then she left.”

  “That’s it?” I ask. “She didn’t say where she was going? Or how long she’d be gone?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah.”

  “And you didn’t ask her?”

  “No,” he says, surprised. “It wasn’t my business to ask.”

  “My grandmot
her, who is arguably one of the most famous people ever, hasn’t bothered to truly take part in society for almost a decade, and when she suddenly decides to up and go, you don’t think to ask where she’s going?”

  “No, because like I said, it’s wasn’t any of my business!”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  We both stand there fuming at each other.

  “Yelling isn’t going to solve anything,” he finally says.

  “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better,” I mumble.

  He lets out a short, surprised laugh and looks away, shaking his head. Before he can reply, the phone rings downstairs. Maybe it’s Gigi calling. I hope to God that it’s Gigi calling.

  I run to the sound, and Milo is right on my heels.

  Her answering machine picks up before I reach the phone.

  “Peggy, hun, it’s Candice. I’m following up on our phone call from last night. I found what you were looking for, and I’ll have it for you tonight. Don’t worry; I promise to be discreet. It’s been so long, friend. I can’t wait to see you.”

  The message ends with a loud beep.

  Now she’s decided to go to the gala? I play it a second time to make sure I heard correctly. What was Gigi looking for? My wheels start turning.

  “I have to go to the gala,” I say.

  “What, why?” Milo follows me out of the kitchen and into the living room.

  I made that statement aloud more to myself than to him, actually.

  I turn around, exasperated. “What do you mean, why? Gigi is going to be there, and I need to find her and convince her to come back. The last time she did something like this, she was gone for weeks. We don’t have weeks right now. We have the ceremony on Sunday. She can’t miss that.”

  “But she doesn’t want to go to the ceremony,” he says, frowning.

  I ignore him and head upstairs. She doesn’t want to go to the ceremony because getting the lifetime achievement award isn’t important to her, but when I tell her how I need her to take a meeting with James, she’ll change her mind to help me.

  That’s not any of Milo’s business, though.

  “And how do you even plan to find her?” he asks, still following behind me. “Are you going to walk in, go up to the mic, and ask if Evelyn Conaway will please come to the stage?”

  “Candice said she’d use discretion, which probably means no one else will know that Gigi will be there,” I say. “Maybe they’re going to meet in secret. I don’t know! I just know that if Gigi’s going to be there, I need to be there too.”

  Milo bites his lip. “I just don’t think that will work.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I’m not basing this plan on your opinion,” I say, and he frowns again.

  We’ve reached my bedroom doorway. Now that I feel less frantic, I realize that Milo has watched me run around with my hair wrapped, wearing a big Mildred McKibben Performing Arts Academy T-shirt and plaid pajama shorts. If this were another day, I’d be embarrassed, but there’s too much going on right now to care.

  Well, that’s not exactly true. I at least wish I weren’t wearing my headscarf.

  I step into my room, waiting for him to take the cue to walk away. When he doesn’t, I grab my phone off my bed to Google the gala. It’s at the Brooklyn Museum at 8:00 P.M., and it’s black tie. Crap. Kerri is bringing all of my dress options on Sunday, so I don’t have any black-tie clothes. Maybe I can borrow something from Gigi’s closet.

  When I look up, Milo is still standing in my doorway.

  “Don’t you have to work or something?” I ask.

  “I don’t clock in for another hour,” he says. Then, determined, “I’m coming with you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m coming with you to the gala.”

  I blink. “No, you’re not.”

  “There’s a better chance of finding her if two of us are looking,” he says.

  I narrow my eyes at him. He has a point. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so smart to turn down his help.

  “It’s black tie,” I say. “Do you own a tuxedo?”

  Ha. This is where I’ll get him. What nineteen-year-old boy randomly owns a tuxedo?

  “Yes,” he says. “I do have one. I get off at four. What time should I be ready?”

  “Seven thirty,” I say reluctantly.

  “Got it.” He takes a step to walk away, then pauses. “Um, I’m gonna get ready for work … Will you be okay here by yourself?”

  “Of course,” I say, annoyed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

  If only he knew just how much time I’ve spent alone.

  “Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up. “Well, if you need me, just call the store.”

  And with that, he turns and walks down the hall. I hear his door close, and I let out a deep breath.

  Gigi is gone. That much is clear. But I still don’t know why. What I do know is that she left around 4:00 A.M. after talking to Milo, and last night around midnight, she was wide-awake in her office. That’s where I need to start looking for answers.

  Chapter Seven

  Gigi’s office is only an office in the sense that there’s a desk and a chair where she occasionally sits. The rest of the space is devoted to her personal Evelyn Conaway library. Bookshelves line the walls, containing every magazine with her on the cover, along with each of her movies in VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray format. Besides all her movies, she has footage of every appearance and performance, and she even owns cassette tapes, CDs, and vinyl records of each movie soundtrack she’s ever recorded. Pictures from her various photo shoots over the years decorate the walls.

  The champagne-colored carpet is made of expensive silk, and shoes aren’t allowed, so I’m barefoot as I cross the room and look down at the envelopes covering her white marble desk. Last night she mentioned that she’d been overwhelmed by the amount of people who’ve reached out to her since the FCC Lifetime Achievement announcement. I sift through the envelopes and see that she’s been invited to parties and screenings, most of which took place earlier this month or toward the end of July. There are at least thirty invitations on her desk alone. I’m sure there are more that she’s thrown out.

  Gigi wasn’t always so antisocial. When I was little, she had parties at her house in Beverly Hills all the time. She’d walk me around, accepting hugs and kisses from her guests as she held my hand, glancing down every now and then with a reassuring wink. That was back when she was married to James Jenkins for the third time, years after my real grandfather, Freddy, had died from cancer. The parties were mostly James’s idea, and Gigi always put on a good face to entertain everyone.

  Some of my best memories took place at Gigi’s house. I was homeschooled most of my childhood because I traveled around with my parents, depending on where they were filming their next documentary. But I spent my summers with Gigi, and it was always something I looked forward to because it meant I actually got to spend time with someone. My parents never ignored me, exactly. They were just understandably busy, which meant I was understandably lonely. I never felt that way when I was with Gigi.

  Then she and James got divorced for the third and final time when I was ten, and everything changed. I didn’t really understand what happened between them. Just that James had upset her so much she’d yelled at him on television.

  After that, Gigi sold her house and moved to New York City without telling anyone, calling my parents weeks later to let them know she’d settled into a town house in Manhattan. She said she was tired of living in Hollywood, of paparazzi following her around, wanting to know what happened between her and James. So she got her peace and quiet, and New York was where I spent my summers. But as time went on, Gigi became more secluded, to the point that she barely left her house at all. Her constant companions were Esther, Frank, and me whenever I came to visit. My mom tried to get Gigi to move in with us back in California, but Gigi insisted she was fine and just wanted her own space.

  Then I started at McKibben, a
nd my parents took a break from filmmaking to settle in LA until I was old enough to be home alone. Once school got underway, I stopped spending every summer with Gigi because there were always acting intensives and shows I wanted to do. Our long summers were condensed to holidays, where we would travel to see Gigi. It was never the other way around. Now she’s decided to finally leave at the worst time possible.

  And what is it about Candice’s gala that’s so appealing to her? It’s all the way in Brooklyn. It’s hard to believe that Gigi would go that far when she doesn’t even walk around the corner to the grocery store.

  I need space. I need to be alone. Completely.

  Brooklyn does, indeed, put a lot of space between us.

  I take a step back from her desk and scan the room, pausing at the entrance to her walk-in closet, where she stores her vintage dresses and all the outfit pieces she’s kept from movie sets.

  Her closet is almost half the size of her bedroom, and when I step inside, I’m suddenly eleven again. It’s my birthday, and Gigi’s gift to me is a special photo shoot she’s set up with Candice Tevin. She’s helping me try on outfits.

  “You should wear this, Evie Marie,” she says, handing me a brown leather high-waisted miniskirt. It’s the same skirt that Diane Tyler wears in Every Time We Meet.

  I slip my skinny body into the skirt, and it falls down to my ankles.

  Gigi laughs and pins the skirt so it stays in place. “You’ll get the hips for it in a few years.”

  She lets me try on her designer stilettos, and I walk across the floor on wobbly legs. I stop and stand in front of the mirror and pose, pretending I’m on a red carpet. I smile serenely like I’ve seen Gigi do hundreds of times.

  “Chin up,” she says, coming to stand behind me. “When you hold up your chin, it elongates your neck. Remember that, all right? It’s time to go.”

  She leads me downstairs to her living room, where Candice is waiting. A white backdrop and lights are already set up. Chaka Khan’s “Sweet Thing” is playing on Gigi’s record player.