Not in the Script (31 page)

Everyone on set snaps their heads over to look at me, including Emma. My response is much more delayed, hesitating as McGregor and I have a staring contest.

Finally, I give him a rigid nod and pull off my shirt.

McGregor seems pleased as he walks away, but he suddenly
spins back. “On second thought,” he tells me, “this episode plays during November sweeps—you know how important
those
ratings are. So let's have you do this whole scene
au naturale
!”

Everyone cracks up, and Brett takes off like a bullet—he obviously told McGregor about my dream. I shout one threat after another as I chase Brett down and tackle him to the grass. McGregor's laugh is the loudest. “Costumes, makeup, and hair again! Go!”

Kimmi and I drive separately and meet in the courtyard at
La Encantada
, an open-air mall with upscale shops and cozy boutiques. Typical for Tucson, the two-level buildings are earthy colors and blocky, but softened by wide arches over entrances and pathways. The shopping plaza is in the resort area of the Catalina foothills, not far from where I live.

We're mostly inside while we shop, so my sunglasses and big floppy hat would only raise suspicion. I've gone to my Plan B of disguises today: a baseball cap with a ponytail sticking out the back, and small reading-type glasses with tinted rectangular lenses. I've also taken off most of my makeup on the way here. People rarely recognize me this way, and I pay with cash whenever possible so no one sees my name.

The stone walkways of
La Encantada
weave from one store to another, and Kimmi and I make our way through nearly all of
them. We spend a good hour just swinging handbags around in front of mirrors, and then see who can walk best in the highest pair of heels. I doubt that
friend
is a label Kimmi wants me to slap on her, but at the moment, she kind of feels like one.

She's even asking my opinion about what she should wear to the junket. This is a shocker in itself, but Kimmi really surprises me when we're in a very girly boutique, and she holds up a light-pink baby doll dress. “Is this
America's Sweetheart
enough?” she says. “Or do I need to cover up entirely?”

“I love it!” I reply. “It has a shy and innocent feel, but it's flirtatious at the same time.” I actually like the dress so much that if she doesn't buy it, I will. The bottom flares out just a little and hits right above the knee—several inches longer than what Kimmi usually wears—and the top has a scalloped neckline with capped sleeves. A whisper-thin lace covers the silk shell. Kimmi has already considered dozens of dresses and skirts, but everything she's tried on has all been very non-Kimmi-like. “Don't take this wrong,” I add, “but why are you worried about looking so …”

“Chaste? Prim? Completely opposite of what everyone expects?”

“I was thinking of a word closer to
modest
,” I reply. Kimmi gives me her usual roll of the eyes, and I finally catch on and laugh. “That's why you wanted
me
to go shopping with you, isn't it? You need my expert, prudish opinion.”

Kimmi drapes the dress over her arm and strolls off to a changing room. “Just to make things clear,” she says, “I don't need fashion advice from anyone.” She steps into a stall and closes the door. “It's just that the tabloids are
wrong
about me being a ‘tantrum-throwing tramp,' so I need to change a few million opinions. Immediately.”

“Oh.”

“Tahoe was such a joke,” she says. “Sure, I might've been a little too flirtatious with a few guys, and been a
bit
too vocal when I confronted Payton, but I wasn't about to hide under a table like someone else I know and cry my eyes out. Because who cares if he brought along the Laker Girls for his own entertainment?”

A part of me wants to say, “I know how it feels to be cast aside like that,” but it's hard to imagine having a serious conversation with Kimmi. Still, I allow myself a moment of empathy. The only time I've ever seen a glimmer of light in her eyes—before we went shopping, at least—is when I last saw her with Payton. She had liked him a lot.

“Does that surprise you?” Kimmi goes on. “That I'm … well,
usually
not a wounded, raging, blood-sucking skank?”

Those insults didn't come from the tabloids. “Not at all,” I say through the stall door. “I'm just shocked that you'd confide in me. That you're talking to me at all, really.”

Kimmi opens the door, looking even better than I imagined she would in the pink dress. “What do you mean?” she asks. “We talk all the time.”

“No, we
speak
. And you
tell
me things, like how pathetic I am.”

She walks around me and strikes a red carpet pose in front of a full-length mirror. “But look how much good I've done for you. You wouldn't have been so blunt a few months ago.”

“Maybe not, but if you want the truth, you've never scared me.” Both our tones are matter-of-fact, not snippy or defensive. We could just as well be talking about different brands of designer jeans. “You look great in that dress, by the way.”

“I know,” Kimmi says and blows a kiss to her reflection. “But
you
should
be afraid of me. Care to guess how many reporters have asked me for dirt on you? And I happen to know a super juicy secret that I could twist into making you look however I want to.”

It's obvious that she knows Jake and I spend more time together than we let on, but I'm not about to admit it. “The tabloids tell plenty of lies about me. One more wouldn't matter.”

“Oh, but this isn't a lie, so it could hurt you even more.” Kimmi turns to see how the back of her looks. “Super hot, right? All I need is some killer heels.” She returns to her stall. “What do goody-two-shoes girls like you wear on their feet these days?”

“Whatever we want,” I say. “I bare it all, every single toe.”

Kimmi peeks out from behind the door and gives me a smile, a real one. “Good comeback, Barbie. See what hanging around me will do for you?” Her large brown eyes disappear as she slips back into the changing room. “And now, for keeping my mouth shut, you owe me. I need to know how to be cute and bubbly, and utterly darling at the junket. Then you need to tell me how to make the press believe that the Tahoe stories were only a faulty attack on my upstanding character.” When I just laugh at her, she adds, “Oh, I see. First, you want
me
to spill what I know about
you
.”

I glance around the store, rechecking for anyone close enough to hear us. “Okay, I'll take your bait,” I whisper. “Why haven't you dished out the dirt you think you have on me?”

Kimmi opens the door and motions for me to join her in the stall. She only has on a skirt and bra, but this isn't much less than what she typically wears. “Besides the fact that I know McGregor would likely fire me,” she says, “you're a hard person to hate, and that's incredibly irritating. If it wasn't for all your ‘Hey, Kimmi! How was your weekend?' crap. And daily kissing up, like, ‘Oh
my gawwwwwsh! I totally love your earrings!' Then I would've already told everyone you were hooking up with Jake. Like, months ago.”

I keep my expression as blank as possible.

She pulls on her shirt. “Brett is suspicious too, I can tell. So if an idiot like him can figure it out, it won't be long until
everyone
knows. Just thought you'd want a heads-up.”

My mind fills with a whole lot of cursing.

“You and Jake are about to cause all sorts of fallout,” she says. “You already know about Miss Texas, right? Because she has every Tri Delta house in the country talking about their date, and I doubt she'll back down quietly.”

A vision of Jake with a gorgeous, big-haired blonde in cutoff shorts flashes through my mind. Ugh. “I'm sure any girl who's ever dated Jake is bragging about it right now,” I say, my voice barely holding steady. “To her sorority sisters and anyone else she knows.”

There's a pause. “Your naïveté astounds me,” Kimmi says, then her snide tone disappears. “Jake didn't date her in the
past
. He met her on a flight from New York last weekend, and they're meeting up in Texas this Monday.”

I sit on the chair behind me.

“Didn't you hear Jake today?” Kimmi adds. “Making sure he still has Monday off?”

Jake did double-check his schedule today, but there's no way he would go out with someone else, not when we're so close to dating—for real now.

“Kimmi. Jake and I … we're not
together
. Okay? He can date whoever he wants to.”

She's quiet again as she studies me. The truth of what I've just
said, as well as the sting of it, is probably evident on my flushed face. Jake and I really
aren't
together—not officially. We've never even talked about being exclusive, and … maybe he's been going out with other girls all along. How would I know? We hardly ever have a day off together, and his weekends are usually spent in New York, surrounded by models. Hot,
gorgeous
models.

And beauty queens, apparently.

“Whether you're a couple or not, you like him—that's obvious,” Kimmi says. “And his eyes follow you across every room you enter, which is why I don't get this Miss Texas thing. Most guys are scummy, two-timing pigs, but Jake seemed different.” She shrugs. “Guess not.”

With barely a wisp of air in my lungs, I reply, “How did you hear about … her?”

Kimmi swings her handbag over a shoulder and steps into her shoes. “I have tons of friends who are Tri Delts, and news travels fast when a fellow sister is dating a celebrity.”

“Right.” But … wait. I've fallen for this sort of story before. I can't believe anything about Jake without talking to him first. He's definitely given me enough chances to explain my own version of rumors.

What if this
isn't
just a rumor, though? What if it's true, and Jake really did ask another girl out, and likes her enough to fly to Texas to see her again? Technically, he wouldn't be doing anything wrong, not when I've been so clear about us not getting serious until I'm ready. And didn't he once tell me that you can't cheat on someone if you're not even
together
?

As Kimmi pays for her dress, I stay in the changing room and try to think logically. Do I feel betrayed … yes, no … maybe a
little? It's probably jealousy, more than anything. I may not be ready for a real relationship, but I sure as heck don't want anyone else having Jake. And I know him well enough to realize that Miss Texas, or any other girl he'd be interested in, must be worth his time. So, what it really comes down to is this … I may have competition.

What am I going to do about that?