Moving in Reverse (22 page)

“
I can’t,” I said, as if
he didn’t already know the answer.

He didn’t skip a beat. “Fine, then
just invite me over.”

“
You’re impossible,” I
sighed. “Come over anytime you want. I have a very important
meeting all afternoon, so I’ll be gone.” I leaned back in my chair,
away from the laptop.

“
Liar.”

He was right. I was lying.

“
You might be my only
friend in Los Angeles—” I caught myself mid-sentence, biting my
lip.

Blake was off-limits, but by now
Tanner had probably guessed that there was some reason I was living
in a hotel suite instead of Blake’s house. I’d purposefully steered
us away from discussing it. It sat in the air between us, and I
felt the conversation go suddenly awkward.

“
Well,” he sighed.
“Except.”

“
Yeah,” I clicked on
People’s photo of me, voting my outfit up. I was in the lead by a
small margin, which was so weird I almost couldn’t comprehend it.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said lightly. “Listen, I should go get
in the shower.”

He groaned. “Seriously? Now I’m
definitely coming over.”

I rolled my eyes, feeling things go
back to normal. “I’m really hanging up this time.”

“
I’ll believe it when it
happens.”

I laughed, hitting the button to end
the call before I could hesitate.

Talking with Tanner was kind of like
the magazine photos. Like this mist sprayed over all my problems,
making the flaws fade away.

That’s the thing, though, about
covering things up. Everything might look prettier, but the flaws
are still there. Nothing changes but the surface.

Chapter
Thirty-Three

By the next night, I found myself
wondering why I hadn’t been doing this all along. While I’d been
dressing up like a debutante at Rush parties, I could have been
eating at trendy restaurants, wearing free clothes and getting
photographed for magazines.

When I explained it that way on the
phone to Madison, she started laughing so hard I thought she’d
choked.

“
No shit, Casey,” she
laughed, finally catching her breath. “Why did you think everyone
was so jealous of you last summer?”

“
Um... because I was
dating Blake?”

She laughed again. “Ok, fair point.
But not every girl is quite as fan-girl crazy obsessed with Blake
Parker,” she said, making what I guessed was a valid point. “A lot
of them would take Tanner Cole as an acceptable
substitute.”

“
Not funny,
Madison.”

Despite my efforts to keep a low
profile, the tabloids continued to claim I was dating Tanner.
They’d take photos of us individually and use them side-by-side,
with fake sources describing how he’d sneak into my hotel room
through back entrances in unmarked cars. I’d complained to Lauren,
but she said we couldn’t choose what stories they’d run, we could
just try to place as many hand-picked pieces as we
could.

“
You still haven’t heard
from Blake?” Madison asked, her voice turning serious.

“
Nope,” I said, trying not
to let my voice show the desperation I was starting to
feel.

“
Do you think...” Madison
trailed off, but I knew what she was trying to ask. Maybe me
getting myself a ton of publicity was backfiring. I’d been so sure
that Blake would call by now.

“
I don’t know,” I said.
“Crying in his house for three days didn’t help, this didn’t help.
I don’t know what’s going to do it.”

Madison’s voice was soft and caring,
and I was grateful, for about the millionth time, that she was my
best friend. “Case... I know you love Blake, but he’s—” she paused,
as if searching for the courage to say the words. “He’s treating
you pretty badly right now.”

“
I lied to him,” I
whispered, defending him. “All our problems came from me lying, and
I did it again.”
And again, and
again
, I thought to myself.

“
He slept with a virgin
and then dumped her an hour later.” Madison said, her voice rushed
like she was trying to get the words out before she chickened
out.

I shook my head, dismissing it. “It
was my fault.”

She backed down. “No, I get it, Case.
You fucked up. But I think you deserve more than radio silence,
after everything you and he have gone through.”

I sighed. “I do too,” I said,
hopelessly. “But it’s not exactly my call, is it?”

I heard someone’s muffled voice in the
background. “Hey, Case, I gotta go, okay?” Madison said. “Call me
later? After your dinner?”

“
It’s going to be like two
in the morning, your time,” I warned her. Lauren had set up a
dinner for me with some representatives from one of the brands she
worked with, to talk about maybe doing a modeling
campaign.

“
Are you kidding? You
think I’m going to be able to sleep without knowing how it
goes?”

I giggled. “Okay,” I conceded. “Talk
to you then.”

I hung up my phone, setting it back
down on the table. Absently, I scanned the missed call list for
Blake’s number, but there was no one but Madison, Tanner, Lauren
and my parents for the last four days. I scowled at the
phone.

If all else fails, I thought to
myself, at least he’d show up for the plane ride back to New
York.

Wouldn’t he?

Chapter
Thirty-Four

I ordered steak.

Around the dinner table sat Lauren, a
middle-aged man who’d introduced himself as the marketing director
of a denim line, and a younger, curly-haired girl, a
fresh-out-of-business-school junior-executive type from the
company.

“
Always good to see a
model eating steak,” said the man, who’d introduced himself as
Dale. He grinned at me as the food arrived.

“
I’m not a—” I started to
say, and I felt Lauren catch my eye and give her head a quick,
almost imperceptible shake. Phrases like ‘I’m not a model’ had been
banished from my vocabulary.

“
Who’d want to hire a
model that didn’t even think she’s a model?” Lauren had prepped me
this afternoon. “Casey, you’re beautiful, you’re famous. People
take pictures of you all the time. You’re a model.”

“
But I’m —”

She cut me off. “If you bring up the
height thing one more time, I’m throwing you out the window. Rachel
Bilson is 5’2”. Emma Watson is your same height. Would you kick
either of those girls off a campaign for some unknown Ukrainian
twelve-year-old?”

I sighed. “Ok. You got it — I’m a
model.”

It was funny how sometimes you could
just say something and then it was true. Sort of the opposite of
lying, where the meaning of the words was flexible enough. ‘I’m a
model.’ I said it, and all of a sudden, I was.

Dale was looking at me strangely, and
I realized I hadn’t finished my sentence.

“
I’m not a... I’m not a
big meat eater, but sometimes I just really love a good steak,” I
covered.

“
Cheers to that,” he said,
lifting his glass of red wine a few inches into the air. I’d
ordered a glass of champagne, and I was starting to think to myself
that this dinner was
way
more fun than all the business meetings my mom
talked about.

The appetizers arrived, a half dozen
plates spread out on the table. Dale had ordered just about
everything on the menu, shiny bright tuna tartare, salads with
apples and bacon, crisp, lumpy crab cakes that smelled decadent and
delicious.

“
So how do you like Los
Angeles?” the curly-haired girl asked, Becky or Brittany, I
couldn’t remember which.

It was the kind of loaded
question that I just had to grit my teeth and skim over.
Well, last time I was here my boyfriend broke up
with me in front of basically everyone in the music industry, and
this time, at least he did it in private?

I stifled a giggle. I must really be
losing my mind if this was all suddenly funny, I thought to myself,
or maybe it was the champagne? I vowed to slow down.

“
It’s amazing,” I said,
hoping my words didn’t sound fake. “Compared to New York in
November? It feels like I’m on vacation,” I gave a big smile that I
hoped seemed sincere.

“
Well, hopefully we’ll be
getting you back here pretty regularly this winter,” Dale matched
my smile with his own. “I honestly think that no one should ever go
through an entire New York winter without some California
breaks.”

“
Double cheers to that,”
Lauren chimed in, raising her glass again. I took a small sip and
realized my glass was empty, but in a second, the waiter was
filling it up again.

We sat our glasses down, and I
suddenly felt the conversation take a business turn. I was glad
Lauren was there — after spending the last few days coordinating my
every move, she was the closest thing I had to a friend in
California.

Except Tanner. And I
obviously could
not
have brought Tanner.

But he was on speed-dial so I could
sneak into the bathroom and ask him any questions
mid-process.

“
So, we’re launching a new
line of distressed jean shorts — kind of sixties-era, the shorts
that you wish your mom had saved from her trip to Woodstock, since
they were bound to come back into style.”

I smiled politely. I was pretty sure
that my mom hadn’t even turned her head in the direction of
Woodstock at any point between her birth and the
present.

“
The price point is under
a hundred dollars, so they’re maybe a little bit out of the tween
range, but perfect for younger fashionistas like
yourself.”

I was a fashionista? That was maybe
even weirder than being called a model. Did he realize that every
piece of clothing I’d worn this week had come from Blake or Lauren,
and every outfit I’d worn last summer had come from
Sophie?

Focus,
Casey
, I forced myself to take a sip of
water. “So what would you,” I paused, unsure. “What would I be
doing?”

Dale laughed, slapping his hand down
on the table a little too loudly. “Well, Casey Snow, we’d like you
to be the face of the line. You’d model a few key outfits in our
lookbook, we’d use your face for advertising, we’d hope that you’d
wear the line in your everyday life, get placement in the
magazines, talk them up where you can. We’d really like you to be
as involved in the line as you’d want to be. Maybe we can even have
a special, limited edition pair that you design yourself? We could
auction it off for charity.” He was speaking so fast I was starting
to wonder if he could breathe. Fortunately, before he turned blue,
Becky or Brittany took over.

“
Look, Casey, we love you,
and we think this could be the start of a really great
relationship. We’d obviously have a lot to do from here — you have
to see the product, we’ll talk financials, but this dinner was just
to have us all meet, get to know each other, and get a sense of
whether this is something you might be interested in.”

I felt like my eyes were saucers. I
could hardly trust my voice. “Yeah,” I whispered, nodding my head
with a big grin that seemed to spread to everyone at the table.
“I’m interested. Definitely.”

Two hours and another glass of
champagne later, I was stuffed full of delicious filet mignon and
flourless chocolate cake, and waiting for Lauren to get her car
from the valet to drive me home.

I walked over to one of the stools at
the bar and perched on it lightly. The bartender motioned to give
me a menu, but I shook my head, smiling. I was stuffed and happy
and didn’t need to add drunk to the mix.

Twice, during dinner, girls had walked
over to our table, recognizing me. It used to drive Blake nuts when
mobs of girls spotted him, but it was still new to me and pretty
exciting. Each time, I stood up, talked with them for a few
minutes, and posed for a quick camera-phone picture.

So it wasn’t exactly surprising when
the girl sitting at the bar next to me started looking at me
intently. I met her eyes and smiled, and then looked down at a
napkin that someone had left in front of me on the bar.

“
Aren’t you Casey
Snow?”

I felt another smile creep onto my
lips. “Yeah, that’s me,” I said, looking up again at the girl. She
was drinking something pink in a tall glass, and wearing a dark
maroon a-line dress, like she’d just gotten off of work or
something. Not exactly the usual look for Blake’s screaming
fans.

“
So you, like, dated Blake
Parker?”

I smiled at her, not wanting to seem
uncertain. The tense thing was a problem. Had I dated Blake Parker?
Was I currently dating Blake Parker? It wasn’t exactly clear, nor
was it a conversation that I wanted to have with a complete
stranger.

“
Something like that,” I
murmured, and then sat up a little straighter. “Nice to meet you,”
I said, giving her what I hoped was a sincere smile. I held out my
hand to shake.