Priceless (27 page)

“Even though it’s washing dishes?”

“Sure, why not? I realize more and more that I’m not super-
qualified for anything else.”

The waitress came over and delivered their tea. Charlotte thanked her, put honey in her cup, and stirred. A group of young people at another table burst out laughing, and Charlotte felt a twinge of envy.

The journalist took out his notebook. “Is it OK if I make notes?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not giving you an interview. This is off the record.”

Dan frowned. “I’m a journalist, Charlotte. My goal is to report the news, remember?”

“OK, but not today. We can talk a bit, and maybe we can do a proper interview later.” She raised her palms. “Or we can talk about the great restaurants here in New Orleans and the proper way to serve gumbo and part as friends.”

“No, no, we can just talk. But please think about giving me a real interview. People are still very interested in your dad’s case—they’re preparing a big civil suit now, you know?”

Charlotte looked at her plate. “Yeah, I heard. I doubt it will ever end, actually. We’ll probably spend whatever money we have left in legal fees until it’s all gone, and then the lawyers will settle.”

“Sounds as if you’re none too fond of the legal profession, either. It’s not just journalists you don’t like.”

Charlotte smiled wanly. “I don’t really know whom to trust anymore. I haven’t received a single call from any of my old friends in New York or from anywhere else. My dad is in jail. My mom is dead. My dad’s lawyer has his secretary call if he needs information or to let me know that they’re taking more money or something.” She laughed bitterly. “The bank won’t
even call me back. All I have in the world are the clothes I wear to work and the few new friends I’ve made here.”

“And your voice. I hear rumors you’re quite a talent.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, maybe if this hadn’t all happened, you never would have had the opportunity to sing in a band, right? Aren’t you supposed to be getting a degree from Yale?”

She nodded. “You’re an optimist, Mr. Robinson. I’m sure there is a silver lining here, and sometimes I can see it. Other times, I’m just tired of looking.”

Robinson looked at the beautiful girl across from him and smiled. He had to work out a way to get her to talk about her dad’s case. He was running out of time.

“Have you been able to talk to your dad very much?”

“No. He can make one call a week, and so far, it seems to have been to his lawyer. I’ve stopped taking calls, anyway. People are pissed off at me, I’ll tell you that for nothing. I wish I could tell them something positive.”

“I guess they want their money back.”

“It won’t make them happy.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Theirs was taken away from them.”

“So was mine.”

“They were duped by a con man.”

“So was I. He was my dad, which makes it a little more painful.”

Robinson sighed. “You’re starting to sound a little sorry for yourself.”

Charlotte sipped her tea and shrugged. “Ask me again tomorrow. I’m just trying to take it day by day.”

WHEN SHE LEFT
the café, Jackson and Kat were waiting for her.

“Did you two follow me?”

Kat grinned. “We did. It was fun. But you didn’t go very far, so we didn’t get to leap into a cab and say, ‘Follow that car,’ which was what I was hoping for.”

“I’ll try harder next time.” Charlotte was wry.

“Good. Did the guy get you to confess to anything?”

“Yes. I confessed to defacing the
Mona Lisa
, but I don’t think he believed me.”

Jackson took her hand. “Are you still mad at me? We don’t have to send any photos, you’re right. Let’s just go home and record the song and send it off and let fate take care of the rest, OK?”

Charlotte smiled at him. “I’m sorry I snapped at you both this morning, I’m feeling a little pressured. The Web site thing is upsetting me. The stalker thing is upsetting me. I wish I could be as blasé about it as you two are.”

He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “We understand, it’s OK.”

Kat walked off and then turned back. “Come on, you two, stop mooning at each other. Let’s go. I want to sit in on the recording part so I can get inspired for fabulous outfits you can wear when you move to L.A. and become famous.”

“This is the thing about you, Kat. You like to keep it real.”

Kat laughed. “Why on earth would I want to keep it real? Real life is usually very badly accessorized.”

The recording session went well, although it took much longer than Charlotte thought it would. In the end, they’d decided to go to Kat’s parents’ house to play, as their piano was so good. They set up a microphone on the piano and another for Charlotte, and Kat manned Jackson’s precious computer with its audio recording software.

“You realize I know nothing about sound recording, right?” She’d made a big thing about taking off her white gloves, finger by finger, in order to push the buttons more readily.

“All you need to do is hit record when we start and stop when we, you know, stop.” Jackson was laughing at her. “How you managed to graduate from high school I will never know.”

“The principal had a crush on me. Or hated me and couldn’t wait to see the back of me. Either way.”

“She liked you. She always referred to you as Kitty Karraby, like you were a character in a Jane Austen novel.”

“Whatever. Are you ready to go?”

Charlotte had been quietly watching them, enjoying the easy
friendship they had. When she and her friends got together in New York, they had usually ended up trashing whichever friend wasn’t there. She realized now that they doubtless trashed her when she was absent. These two teased each other, sure, but not with any real malice.

Jackson rubbed his hands together and played a few scales. “Yeah, we’re ready. Let’s run through it once and see how it sounds.”

Seven hours later, having sung it fifteen different ways with several different piano arrangements, Jackson pronounced himself satisfied.

“I think that’s it. Don’t you think, Charlotte?”

Charlotte was collapsed on a sofa. “Sure, whatever. The first take sounded fine to me hours ago. I trust your judgement.”

“Kat? What do you think?”

Kat, who still looked as fresh as a daisy, was playing with a Barbie she’d fetched from her room. “I think you should make a video. Nothing fancy. Just you two singing the song, maybe in the rehearsal place. Unless you want me to reenact it with Barbies, which I could totally do.”

Charlotte was shaking her head when Jackson spoke up. “Hey, why not? We can get Camille to film it. She’s really good at things like that.”

“She is?” Charlotte was doubtful. “I don’t know, guys, I’m feeling pretty exposed already.”

Kat clapped her hands together. “But that’s it! The goal is to promote the song, right? So let’s use all the weird press and interest in you to our advantage. We’ll make a video, put it on YouTube, and then e-mail that horrible Web site so they can mention it, too.”

“Why would we do that? They’ll just say crap about it.”

“How can they, when it’s going to rock?”

Charlotte still wasn’t sure. “Because the truth is irrelevant, Kat. They just say whatever they want to say, and they’ll be mean.”

Jackson had been watching her face. “How about we compromise? Let’s make a simple video, upload it to YouTube, and just see what happens. I can promote it on my band’s MySpace page, and we can make a MySpace band page for ourselves. We won’t mention your real name at all, just stick with Jack and Charlie, OK?” He came over and took her hands. “Look, Charlotte, if you want to make a living as a singer, you need to trust your talent enough to put it out there. The song is great, your voice is awesome, and I’m sure Kat can pretty us up for the video.”

Kat laughed. “She’s easy. You, I’m not so sure.”

He pulled out his phone and was dialing already. “I’ll see if Camille can do it tomorrow morning.”

Charlotte walked over to look out the window into the lush gardens that surrounded Kat’s family home. It felt so secure there. She was surrounded by new friends who knew her as she really was and who didn’t care about her dad. But the rest of the world still hated her. She thought of the guy who tried to kill her. The voice on the phone who
still
wanted to kill her. The woman who’d attacked her outside the courthouse. Did she really want to give them something else to take shots at?

Behind her, Jackson clicked his phone shut. “Great, we’re all set. Camille can do it tomorrow, so you’d better pull out some threads for us to wear, Kat Karraby. I’m going to go see about getting that old theater to film in, you know, where we rehearse.”
He ran over, kissed Charlotte on the back of the neck, and was gone.

OK, then
, Charlotte thought.
I guess we’re doing it. Better just get ready for the ride.

THAT EVENING, AFTER
her shift, she talked to Kat a little bit about her fears. Kat, as usual, was laid-back.

“Look, it’s easy for me to say not to worry, because no one launched themselves at my face in a nightclub or spat on me in public, but I’m still going to say it. Don’t worry. First, it was your dad who did something wrong, not you, and it won’t be long before people forget all about it. Second, if you spend your life worrying about what other people could take away from you, then you’ll be left with very little to take.”

Charlotte smiled. “You’re very wise, Obi Wan Karraby.”

“That is very true. It’s my Jedi training.”

“But you kind of talk like an inspirational poster.”

“Well, sure, but that’s because I’m Southern. We all talk like that, like warm molasses on the porch in August.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry.”

FOR THE VIDEO
, Kat had dressed them in several different outfits but ended up just putting them in simple men’s shirts and dress-suit pants. Camille had been straightforward and had moved the location back to Kat’s house.

“Look, this isn’t MTV, and we don’t have very much time or any budget at all. So let’s keep it simple and clean and tell a
story. You guys are kicking back at home on a Sunday morning, say. Jackson, you’re playing the piano. Charlotte, you’re reading the newspaper in this armchair, wearing your boyfriend’s shirt and not much else. Curl your lovely long legs under you like this … OK, good. And then Jackson, you just start singing. Charlotte, join in, and then if you feel like getting up and wandering over to join him, go ahead. I’ll shoot it as it comes.”

At first, it was hard for Charlotte to relax, and she was very aware of the camera. But then she looked over at Jackson, who was watching her with affection, looking as gorgeous and sexy and alive as anyone had ever looked, and she forgot herself in the music. She really did love the song, and without really thinking about it, she got up and went to lean on the piano and sing with Jackson. Camille smiled to herself behind the camera as the shirt dropped down just to cover Charlotte’s behind but highlighted the slender curves of her figure and the length of her legs. As Charlotte leaned on the piano, Camille moved around carefully to shoot across her brother’s profile, catching both his good looks and Charlotte’s tousled hair and smooth décolletage as she leaned on the top of the piano. It was simple, yes, but it was very sexy and very well shot. Camille was pleased, and so were they. After half a dozen more takes, Camille decided she was done and went off to edit it at home.