by Holly Rayner
So much for being Ohio’s next great singing sensation. I couldn’t even get the fans to care about my music. My star had ebbed before it even rose.
“I wish dating weren’t so complicated,” said Ginger, flipping through a book on soulmates. “I think it was probably easier in the pre-internet era.”
“Why do you think that? It was so much harder to connect with people.”
“Yes, but also we had fewer options. The dating pool was pretty much limited to whoever lived in your hometown. You found someone you didn’t mind going to the movies with and you settled down. Nowadays, you have the whole world to choose from.”
“Is that why you’re so reluctant to date anyone?” I asked.
Ginger replaced the soulmates book with a look of exasperation. “Jaleel could stop ignoring me any day now and we wouldn’t be having this problem!” Ginger had long-nursed a crush on Jaleel Warner, a physics PhD student at a university in Columbus who had stopped returning her calls. “I’m cute, I’m thoughtful, I can be quite funny when the mood strikes.”
“If he doesn’t see it, then maybe he’s not worth it,” I suggested gently. “Maybe it’s time you found some other boy.”
Ginger blew out her cheeks; the thought of having to make even the most minor life changes always made her anxious. “There are so many boys, though,” she said, “and I liked that one.”
“I know, but there are bound to be better ones.”
“Maybe, but how many of them have a ’fro like that?”
We left the paranormal section and made our way to the register. The cashier, a young man named Ari who wore a pale blue cardigan and red wire-framed glasses, asked us if we’d found what we were looking for.
“I was actually looking for book on legends and ghosts of Ohio,” said Ginger, “but I couldn’t find any in the paranormal section.”
“You sure? I remember us having one back there.” Ari did a quick search on his computer. “It looks like we have one in stock, but we’ll have to order it.”
“I don’t mind waiting a week or two.” Ginger gave him her email address and phone number and together we hurried out of the store through the rain to the shelter of my car. After spending a week in Sabah, I was still shocked by how much cooler the air was here in Woodfell.
Over flautas and quesadillas at the local Mexican restaurant, I told Ginger about the kiss I had shared with Umar, followed by his refusal to sabotage my career by going out with me.
“You kind of dug yourself into a hole there,” Ginger said, dipping the end of one quesadilla into the salsa verde. “If he’d known you don’t really have a career to speak of, he might have been more willing to go out with you.”
I resented the assertion that I didn’t really have a career, but that was Ginger for you: the speaker of hard truths. “I wish I’d told him the truth from the very beginning.”
“Well, at least you learned from your mistakes. The next time a handsome, kind and considerate sheikh invites you to play a gig in his palace, you’ll know not to lie to him.”
“But if I hadn’t lied, I might never have gotten the gig in the first place,” I pointed out. “It’s a catch-22. Either way this was never going to end happily.”
Suddenly, the conversation was interrupted. One of the patrons at the table seated next to us, who had been assiduously reading her menu this whole time, suddenly lowered it to reveal the last face I had expected to see here. Katie Rees-Howells grinned with malicious relish as she tossed her blue hair back and said in a taunting voice, “I always said you were nothing but an old fraud, and now here’s the proof!”
Shock gave way to anger as I realized Katie had overheard our whole conversation. Suddenly furious and not caring who knew it, I leaned over and hissed, “You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about!”
“Don’t I?” said Katie, smugly sipping her lemonade. Privately, I searched my memories to recall if I had said anything incriminating. “It sure sounds like you’ve been taking advantage of a naïve young man’s generosity. Just when were you planning to tell him you’re nothing but a washed-up wannabe icon?”
“Shannon, don’t!” whispered Ginny. “She’s just trying to get you riled up!”
“Well, it’s working!” I hissed. By now we were drawing stares from all across the restaurant. “Kate, didn’t your parents ever tell you not to go sticking your nose into other people’s business?”
“Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to lie to strangers?” returned Katie. Turning to her friend seated at the opposite end of the table, she added, “Are you getting all this?”
“Every word,” the friend said in a chirpy tone. She had bleached hair so blond it was nearly white and was wearing a red sweater with buttons the size of a silver half-dollar—this despite the fact that it was nearly summer. “If I can get this typed up by five, we might even land the front page again!”
“Again?” Even though we had never met before it suddenly struck me who she was. “Wait a minute, I know you—you’re that potatoes-for-brains reporter who’s been printing lies about me in the Beacon!”
“You can call me Adele,” she said, looking delighted at having been recognized. “Shannon, what do you say to the allegations that you’ve been bedding foreign money-men in the hopes of reviving your own flagging career?”
“I haven’t been bedding anyone,” I said angrily.
A waiter in a crisp white uniform came striding over from the kitchen, carrying a glass pitcher of lemonade in one hand. “Is there a problem here, ladies?” he asked, his tone false and chipper.
“NO!” we both shouted in unison. Without another word, the waiter went scurrying back to the kitchen.
Katie, meanwhile, had taken a compact from her purse and begun applying powder to both cheeks. “If I were you, I’d be grateful for the exposure,” she said in her sultriest prima donna voice. “You were never going to land on the cover of Rolling Stone. For some people, the Beacon is the best they can hope for.”
“If I were you, I would be thrilled,” said Adele, glassy-eyed. “Sordid tales of sexual deception and backroom dealings—it has all the makings of a pulpy paperback. If your diabolical deceits and sensational seductions capture the imagination of the public, it might even revive interest in your music.”
I couldn’t believe the gall of these women. They really thought they were doing me a favor, or at least Adele did. There was no telling what Katie wanted—just to ruin me, I suppose, because I had been luckier and more successful, and because even in failure I was genuinely happy with my life.
“Maybe you should interview Katie,” I said to Adele, “and ask her why she’s so jealous that she’s going out of her way to destroy the reputation of someone who’s never done anything to her. My one regret about moving to LA is that I never got to see the furious look on your face when my song was all over the radio and all over TV and you couldn’t escape it.”
“Get over it, will you?” said Katie, returning the angry stares of several other patrons, some of whom were beginning to get up and leave. “That was a year ago and you’re only as good as your last album. I’m not qualified to judge how good that was, because, like the rest of the world, I never listened to it!”
“All along, you were expecting me to fail,” I said, my voice rising, “and I succeeded beyond your wildest nightmares!”
“You wrote one song,’ said Katie, her calm façade slipping. “A trained monkey could have done better. You’re like that circus horse that could count sums by tapping his hooves—a no-talent one-hit-wonder whose fifteen minutes of fame ended the moment the novelty wore off.”
“You’re the one who needs to get over it,” said Ginger. For much of the conversation she had been sitting there in stunned silence, but now seemed to have finally found her voice. “You’re petty, and small, and shallow, and it isn’t Katie’s fault that no one likes you.”
Coming from Ginger, this was something of a shock. She had trouble standing up for herself
, let alone other people. Even Katie looked momentarily taken aback, but she rallied quickly.
“Is this the sort of person you get to defend you?” she asked snidely. “A girl who chases UFOs and thinks her parents’ summer home is haunted by the ghost of a Civil War soldier?”
“He was a Revolutionary War soldier, not a Civil War soldier!” Ginger shot back—realizing only too late that she had fallen into Katie’s trap.
Katie grinned with a look of malign satisfaction. “Real reliable character witness you’ve got there,” she said with a laugh. “You ought to hire her to be your press agent. Too bad you don’t have a career anymore, oops.”
“Let’s go, Ginny.” I rose from the table, leaving my last quesadilla untouched. “We don’t have to sit here and continue to listen to this. Let them write whatever they want in the paper—no one reads that rag anyway.”
“But I wasn’t done eating!” Ginger cried with a look of horror, grabbing two of the flautas off her plate and rolling them into a paper napkin. Together, we stalked out of the restaurant into the driving rain.
“Just what is her obsession with me?” I demanded as we pulled out of the strip mall. “I know suing the paper would be tricky, but I can’t believe the law would leave me helpless in a situation like this. She’s like a deranged fan, stalking, spying, eavesdropping…”
“I do wish she would leave you alone,” said Ginger. She had taken over driving while I struggled to calm down. “It’s infuriating, really. But mostly, I just think it’s sad.”
“Why?”
“Because she really has nothing better to do than to write hit pieces about you in the local paper—a paper with a circulation of about 250 people. I think even those of us who hated Katie in school thought she had bigger things ahead for herself. She was even voted ‘most likely to need her own bodyguards’ in our senior yearbook.”
“That’s because so many people were trying to murder her,” I pointed out. But the thought gave me some satisfaction. Katie was pathetic and small and it was long past time I stopped worrying about what she thought of me. The Beacon was a fading institution only read by a handful of people, most of them in their sixties and over.
“The people who matter to you,” she said, reaching over and taking my hand, “know better than to pay any heed to that old rag. Katie is raving and everyone knows it. She’s just embarrassing herself even further the longer this vendetta goes on. And if you retaliate you run the risk of sinking to her level.”
“Yeah, but what am I supposed to do?” I said.
“Maybe wait and ask me that question when I don’t want to throw flautas at her,” said Ginger. “If I were in your position, I’d want revenge, too—I can’t tell you you’re wrong for wanting that. I’m more worried about optics.”
“But surely everyone knows she’s the one harassing me.”
“Your family and friends do, yes, but I’m not sure the whole town would see it like that. If you respond in kind, it might end up playing to her advantage by putting her in the role of the poor small-town girl being attacked by the big city celeb. You don’t ever want to end up on the wrong side of a David vs. Goliath narrative.”
“Crap, you’re right.” I stared glumly out the window at the hills dotted with cypresses and now caked in mud. “I wish I could afford a lawyer.”
“Surely a lawyer doesn’t cost more than $200,000?” Ginger smiled. “Or did you forget you had all that money?”
I had forgotten for a minute. That was something Katie didn’t have. “I guess I’m so used to being poor that I sometimes forget I’m sort of rich and sort of famous.”
Ginger’s smile broadened as we pulled up into the long driveway leading to her house. “I think a lawyer would be a wise investment. And maybe it’s time you got yourself a real agent, while you’re at it. I love you, Shanny, but I can only do so much.”
Chapter 15
Shannon
The next morning, something happened that completely took my mind off of the machinations of Katie Rees-Howells. I was eating breakfast with Brian at our parents’ house when I got an email from Umar:
Shannon,
I hope you won’t think this an imposition, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since our trip and I think I would really like to see you again.
Attraction is a mysterious and tricky thing. As hard as I’ve tried, I can’t get over what we shared when you were here, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the only solution is to see as much of you as I can. I won’t ask you to fly back out here, not after you just left. But I would be more than happy to cancel all my engagements for a week or two and come visit. I didn’t even get to meet your family last time I was in Woodfell, and I’d like to rectify that. You know so much about me and I feel like I know hardly anything about you, or where you come from.
I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me again. I haven’t forgotten our last conversation, and I know it would be difficult to make this work in practice, but I’m willing to try if you are. If not, let me know now and you won’t hear from me again. But if you’re willing, and if you can fit me into your busy schedule, I’ll be on the next flight out of here. It’s up to you.
“Yikes.” I set down the phone and read the email back over again, half-wondering if he was pulling a prank. Surely he couldn’t want to see me again that badly? As badly as I had been wanting to see him since I left?
“What’s wrong?” asked Brian from behind the rim of his milk glass.
“I just got an email from Umar. He wants to fly down for a visit. Or fly up, or over, or whatever.”
“As in, fly here to Woodfell?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Yikes. What are you going to tell him?”
“I mean, I can’t say no to that, can I?”
“You can if you don’t want him flying down here,” said Brian.
But it wasn’t a question of not wanting him. If I could have had my way, one of us would have been in the other’s country every day. The only reason I hadn’t tried to contact him since the trip was because I didn’t think he wanted to hear from me. I thought he was trying to get over me.
But if not, then there was nothing to prevent us from being together. Nothing except the forces that had been keeping us apart in the first place.
While Brian rinsed our dishes I typed out a quick response:
Umar,
I would absolutely love for you to come visit. As it happens, I’m taking a mini-vacation at the end of this week and will be traveling through Woodfell to see friends and family—so it’ll be a perfect opportunity for you to meet them! My family are all clamoring to meet you. We’ll bring out the fatted calf.
I’ll think of some fun things we can do in town while you’re here. There’s a park that I’d really like to show you, since it’s probably my favorite place in Woodfell. Don’t worry about booking a hotel, you can stay in one of the guest rooms at the mansion.
I’m excited, Umar.
Love,
Shannon
I was so giddy at hearing from him that I didn’t even read over what I’d written before I clicked “send” with a thrill of anticipation and waited for his reply.
It wasn’t until afterward, as I sat at the kitchen table sipping the last of my coffee, that I realized what I had promised him.
“So what did you tell him?” asked Brian, who was methodically removing twenty pies from the refrigerator and placing them onto the counter. He and Rita had spent the entire last night baking in preparation for a party at her record label.
“I’m probably going to need to ask Dad if I can borrow the mansion again,” I said slowly. “Because I just promised Umar that he can sleep there while he’s in town.”
“Again?” said Brian. “The parks department had to jump through all sorts of hoops just to rent it to you for an hour last time. Do you really think they’ll let you use it for a whole weekend?”
“I mean, I don’t see why not. They always rent it out for the h
aunted house challenge.”
“Yeah, which no one has ever won,” Brian pointed out. I bristled at the disapproving tone of his voice. “I don’t know why you promised Umar he could spend the night there when no one has ever managed to spend an entire night there in the history of Woodfell.”
“Well, you know what? Maybe he’ll be the first.” I threw up my hands in resignation, nearly spilling my coffee in the process. “Maybe he’ll win the ten thousand dollars.”
“Then you’ll have to explain why the classic rock station is giving him ten thousand dollars for having spent the night at your house,” Brian replied.
“Does Umar even really need ten thousand dollars?” I asked. “Maybe we just won’t tell him about the prize money. We can agree to keep that between us.”
Brian shook his head and returned to stacking the pies. “Good luck getting out of this one, Shanny.”
“I’m glad you have so much faith in me, Brian.”
I wasn’t about to concede that his arguments were valid. Though the more I thought about it, the more I felt he was probably underestimating the amount of trouble I had just talked myself into. Umar was going to be here for at least three days—more than enough time for him to meet my parents, friends, and various acquaintances who didn’t know they were supposed to be lying on my behalf.
“I wish I’d never sent that email,” I said in despair, taking my mug and walking into the living room. It was a gray, sunless morning and the world seemed to have been flung into a permanent twilight. In the distance I could hear the steady pneumatic hiss of a school bus.
“You can’t back out now,” said Brian. “That would raise too many questions.”
“Introducing him to you guys will raise too many questions,” I retorted. Returning to the kitchen, I set my empty mug down on the counter. “Unless there was some way I could convince everyone in town to pretend that I’m a celebrity for just three days.”