Authors: Allison Rushby
“Hold on,” Jake sits up straight. “You haven’t sold them?
And you haven’t sent them to anyone?”
“No.”
Jake shakes his head. “Look, I’m not quite sure what’s going on. How this is all working. Is my dad paying you directly to be here, or what?”
Over the next few minutes, as Jake wolfs down his baked potato (and, yes, extra bacon bits), I fi ll him in on the whole Melissa– Matthew Hartnett deal. Jake whistles when he hears how much I’m being paid.
“Wow! That is some amount. You must be pretty good, huh?”
I do a quick sweep of my body with one hand. “Like you mentioned, I have an advantage. And I charge for it. They could hardly have sent some forty- year- old hairy- faced pap in, could they?”
“I guess not.”
Silence.
“So, um, you’re not angry at me?” I eventually ask.
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Across the table, Jake thinks about my question for a while.
Then he shrugs. “To be fair, what you said was true— I’ve told you as many lies as you’ve told me, you just had a little more insider info about what was really going on. Plus, you’re cute.” I try to act cool about this. “I guess you’re right. On both counts.”
Jake laughs. “You know, if we want to be smart about this, we should probably turn our energy to being angry at the people who’ve been lying to us from the beginning.” I consider his words. “That makes a lot of sense.” I watch as Jake looks down at his plate, then dives in to take the last bite of his baked potato. “You know, I really should have paid more attention when the guy was making that. It’s probably going to be my next job.”
“Taking shots of baked potatoes? Do you want to get into food photography or something?”
I laugh. “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant because I’m going to be making them. Or fl ipping burgers. Or something similar. ‘Sure you don’t want fries with that, sir?’ ” Jake laughs. “You don’t want to be the queen of super-sizing? So what do you really want to do then?”
“Well, probably what I was hinting at the other night. The change I want to make— it’s school. I’m saving so I can study portrait photography. That’s why I took this job.”
“Until my dad messed it up for you,” Jake hmpfs. “Sorry he had to weasel his way into your life, too.” I shrug.
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“Wait a second, I just got an idea.” Jake holds up a hand, and there’s silence as he pauses and thinks for a minute or two. Finally, he looks me straight in the eye. “You’ve still got the shots of me, right? You didn’t delete them. And you’re not a fan of this Melissa chick, right?” I shake my head. Then nod, not sure of the right answer to the question. “What I’m saying is, yes, I have the shots.
And no, I’m defi nitely not a fan of this Melissa chick.”
“And I’m not a fan of what my dad’s been up to.” I snort. “Me neither.”
Jake pauses again, then grins. “We’re two reasonably smart people, yes?”
“I know I am. I’m not sure about you and your bacon bit obsession, though.”
“Very funny. Maybe I can prove it to you. How about if we found a solution to both our problems? I make sure Ned gets the treatment he really needs, not this quick patch- up and cover- up that I never wanted to be part of in the fi rst place, and you get the money you need to pay for your classes, without having to turn into baked potato girl.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Okay then, let’s get planning. First step, those shots.
Show me what you’ve got . . .”
★ ★ ★
Naturally, Jake isn’t all that impressed with my shots. Especially the one where his fi nger has taken on a life of its own.
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“I was so not picking my nose!” he says loudly, making at least three or four tables surrounding us turn and stare.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “But I wasn’t.” He decides he’s going to leave stardom to his more photogenic, less itchy-nosed brother from now on.
Finally it’s time to board the plane. Jake and I get settled, then almost immediately get upgraded to business class when he pulls off his baseball cap and a fl ight attendant thinks he’s Ned.
Kind of ironic, but neither of us exactly rushes to correct her.
It takes us less than half an hour to come up with a simple plan that covers the three key goals we’re most concerned about:
1. We protect Ned through all of this. He needs his treatment and both of us are
going to make sure he gets it;
2. I get out of this without papping
another day. There will need to be
money involved somehow, and it will have to be enough to meet the cost of
school; and
3. Jake finds his own treatment for the
bacon bit thing (he adds in this extra
point after having to loosen his belt a
notch post–
baked potato).
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With our plan formulated, I then spend the rest of the fl ight quizzing Jake about Ned. Neither of us wants to lie anymore, but we both know that for money to be involved, there will need to be shots of Ned. The real Ned, that is.
And that’s part of the plan— Jake asks me to take them. But if I want to take good ones— great ones— I need to know everything about Ned.
Everything.
So Jake sets out to tell me. And we talk and talk and talk all the long way back to LA.
We’re sitting in our seats devouring breakfast when Jake pauses for a moment and turns to me. “You know, I think we could actually pull this off,” he says, shock in his voice.
“Me, too.” I glance out of the window. “Hey, look.” I touch Jake on the arm.
“Dawn,” he says, spotting the very fi rst rays of sun in the sky. “A new day,” he says slowly.
I glance at him for a second. “Yep, a new day.” I nod, knowing exactly what he means. And it’s in this moment, looking at Jake, realizing that this is it—
this is my new
life, my new way of living, my new everything— that I know what I have to do.
I have to return Matthew Hartnett’s money.
All of it. Every last cent.
I hadn’t told Jake that his father had already paid me part of the money for this job. I don’t know why— force of habit, I suppose. I’m not used to full disclosure (when I think 219
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this, Seth’s face pops into my head and says, “Trust issues, much?”). But the thing is, those shots— I know that by keeping Matthew Hartnett’s money, they’re really his. And even if we take better shots of Ned and manage to pull off our plan, you never know with Matthew Hartnett. If he gets hold of those other shots (most likely by siccing his lawyers on me), he’ll hand them straight over to Melissa, who’ll run the worst ones. Maybe even before we get a chance to put our plan into action.
Melissa wouldn’t hesitate to run the shots of Jake making a fool of himself at circus school, falling off the low wire, spinning plates with a confused expression on his face, juggling badly with balls bouncing off his head. Or the one of him shoveling bacon bits in his mouth as if he’s on a food bender. Or the not very fl attering one of him concentrating, his tongue sticking out of his mouth slightly, in pottery class. It wouldn’t matter to her that by doing this she’d be jeopardizing the real Ned’s future.
I am so over being controlled like a puppet by the Melissas and Matthews of the world. Just this once, I am going to control how this plays out. I am going to say who runs my shots, when they run them, and how they run them. No one is going to get played or screwed over or lied to. Not Ned.
Not me. And not Jake, either. So, Matthew Hartnett wants these shots plastered all over the papers? Well, just for once, he isn’t going to get what he wants. He’s going to get what his son needs, instead. Ned is going to get what he 220
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needs— treatment for his phobia without having to lie about it. I am going to get what I need— getting out of this game and starting to work on what I really love. And Jake is going to get what he needs— exiting all this ridiculousness with his pride intact.
The only problem is . . .
. . . pulling it all off.
I turn my head away from Jake and pretend I’m looking out the window, but I’m not. I’m staring at my refl ection instead, my anger dissipating by the second. I just don’t see how I can afford to give Matthew Hartnett’s money back. I mean, we’ll be able to make some money on the new shots, but probably not as much as I’ll need for school.
Then again, I don’t see how I can afford not to give the money back. My new start won’t be much of a new start if I know it’s based on lies and cheating and falsehood and doing the wrong thing by people I care about.
So close, yet so far.
As I stare out the window, tears well up in my eyes. I just want to get out now. Why does it have to be so crazily hard?
I remember Mannie’s advice about keeping my emotions out of all this, but I can’t do it. This isn’t business anymore.
It’s about people I know. People I like. And respect. Or one person, anyway. And I must sniff or something at this point of wallowing in my own misery, because Jake reaches out for my hand.
“Jo? You okay?”
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I glance at him for just a second before I lean back on my headrest and close my eyes. “I’m just tired, Jake.” And that’s the truth— I’m so very, very tired. Not just physically but emo-tionally as well. I’m so very, very tired of lying and hiding and cheating and pretending. I’m tired of my whole life.
I keep holding on to his hand. I grasp it tight, hoping he’ll never ask me to let go.
★ ★ ★
Jake and I manage to get an hour or so of sleep before the plane lands. In the cab back to my place, we go over our delegated duties again. And it’s not a lot, but it will take some planning, a few phone calls, and a whole lot of luck.
By the time we get to my apartment, we think we have it all covered. We’ve developed a plan.
A foolproof one, we hope.
Still, even if it isn’t foolproof (I expect nothing can be when Matthew Hartnett is involved), I’m pretty sure we can do this.
There’s only one little thing that could mess it up. Something I
haven’t told Jake about, though I’m preparing to spring it on him as soon as we get to my apartment.
“Just over there,” I say to the driver as we make our way up my street. “Number two twenty- seven.” He swings over to the curb.
“I guess this is you,” Jake says.
“Um, can you come up for a second?” I say, then blush.
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“Um, that sounded bad. I mean, just for a second. I have to . . . show you something. I mean, do something. That I want you to see.” Oh man. Could that have sounded worse?
“Sure,” Jake says. “Should I get the cab to wait?” I nod. “It’ll only take a minute or two. Really.” Just as we’re making our way upstairs in the dawn light, I see Wendy locking her front door. I’d texted her as soon as our plane landed to tell her I was back at LAX, and she’d texted back to say she’d be on her way out there herself. It looks like we’ve just caught her.
“Hi, lovely cuz!” she calls out from upstairs as she parks her small bag beside her, snapping the handle down smartly.
“Good timing!” She walks over to the top of the stairs to meet me in the half- dark, her heels clicking as she goes.
“Oh, hello.” She nods when we get up to the landing and she fi nally sees Jake standing next to me. Even though Jake is tall, Wendy seems to tower above him in her high heels and her streamlined camel- colored uniform, her French twist and pillbox hat on top of her head elongating her neck and making her look even taller.
“Wendy, this is Jake. Jake, my cousin Wendy.” Wendy gives me an odd look and a raised eyebrow.
Because I know her so well, I know exactly what she’s saying to me without her uttering a word. “Um, hun,” her eyebrow tells me, “this isn’t Jake. This is Ned Hartnett. Have you bumped your head on the pavement again to night?
Need me to take you to the emergency room? And, by the 223
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way, would you care to explain why you have a male of the species entering your apartment at this hour of the morning? Hmmm?”
“It’s okay,” I half laugh at her. “His name really is Jake.
And the other thing’s okay, too.”
Now Wendy frowns as if to say, “Did they give you a lobotomy at that retreat?”
I sigh. “To be more exact, Jake Hartnett. Ned Hartnett’s brother.”
Jake laughs and lifts up the bottom of his shirt slightly.
“See? No scar!”
“Riiiiight,” Wendy nods and says, “I see.”
“It’s a long story, Wendy,” I say, turning my key in the lock and pushing the front door open. “A long, long, long, long story.” I turn around to see her cross her arms.
“In which you’re still sixteen and it’s”— she checks her watch—“not yet six in the morning.”
I shoot her a look. “It’s all fi ne, Wendy, like I said.” Jake nods at her. “I’m a good guy. No funny business.” Wendy pauses, then laughs. “Sure, because I haven’t
heard that one before!”
“Come in with us then,” I say to Wendy as I enter the apartment.
She pauses and checks her watch. “Well, okay. I have a few minutes.”