Sweet Harmonies (39 page)

Karina closed her eyes. As soon as Ryan spoke
the words, of course, the memory came rushing back to her. But up
until that point? It had entirely slipped her mind.

She slapped her palm to her forehead, “Oh,
Ryan, God! The Winter Festival is in a week!”

Ryan nodded, “Exactly. That's why I wanted to
talk to you about it. Are we still playing? What do you think?”

Karina shook her head, “God, I don't know.
This couldn't come at a worse time, with Bernie and Davis in town.
This will just be one more excuse for them to pressure me about
speeding up the contract negotiations.”

Ryan nodded, “Yeah, I know, they've been
talking to me a lot about singing contracts, too. I told them I
wouldn't sign anything until I talked to you.”

Karina nodded miserably. Ryan didn't know,
and she didn't ever want him to know, that he was being used by
Davis as a pawn in Spintown's negotiations with her. If he had been
hardened and calloused by many years of dealing with wheelers and
dealers, it wouldn't have come as a shock. But Ryan wasn't like
that. He was naïve and sincere. He took peoples' word at face
value. And damn it, call her selfish, but she'd like to keep it
that way for as long as possible.

She looked up at him and asked slowly, “So,
you're on board, then? You want to go forward with the deal?”

He nodded enthusiastically, “Oh, yeah! I
mean, sure, of course. An opportunity to play music and get paid
for it, plus I get to work with you all the time? Sign me up!”

She nodded, smiling encouragingly, but with
the sinking feeling that her smile was not reaching all the way to
her eyes. This suspicion was confirmed when Ryan tilted his head,
looking at her face with an expression of concern, “What's wrong?
You're not sure about the deal?”

She smiled, doubling her efforts to look and
sound enthusiastic, “Oh my God, yes! For all the reasons you just
said. It's just, you know, a complicated contracts thing. Bernie'll
get it worked out for me, he always does.”

He nodded, seeming still to be
unconvinced.

“
OK,” he said slowly, “If that's really
all it is...”

She nodded, smiling, and he surprised her by
whirling her around in his arms and dipping her. She laughed with
glee, the feeling of being embraced and supported by his strong,
powerful arms making her feel utterly carefree.

--- ~ ---

When Karina walked up to the refreshments
table later that evening, she was surprised to see Renata serving
the punch.

“
Grandmother!” she exclaimed, shocked,
“What are you doing here?”

“
Chaperoning,” her grandmother
replied.

Karina tilted her head and adopted a 'gimme a
break' expression.

“
School dances need chaperones,” Renata
reiterated. A tad defensively, Karina thought.

“
Uh, huh,” Karina replied, unconvinced,
taking the cup of punch her grandmother handed to her.

Then, in a completely nonchalant tone meant
to convey exactly how little thought she had put into the matter,
Renata said, “I'm surprised that your manager isn't here.”

Karina shook her head, setting the punch down
on the table, “And there it is. Grandmother, are you saying that
you're interested in Bernie?”
Renata looked shocked, “That was an offhand comment. Couldn't you
tell by my tone?”

“
And what about the fact that you made
the very unlikely decision to come and chaperone this
evening?”

Renata gestured at Sue Ann, who was working
at the other end of the table, handing out snacks, “I'm not the
only one. Sue Ann's here, as well.”

Hearing her name, Sue Ann bustled over
cheerfully, coming around the table to greet Karina with a hug.

“
How do you like your party,
sweetheart?” she asked.

“
I love it!” Karina grinned, “I can't
believe Ryan went to all this trouble just for me.”

“
Well, lots of us chipped in to help,”
Sue Ann said.

“
Oh, good,” Karina said, relieved, “I
mean, even just the food alone must have cost a
fortune...”

“
Oh, no,” Sue Ann corrected, “I meant,
we all worked on decorating and putting the word out and what have
you. Ryan paid for all of this.”

“
Oh,” Karina said miserably, “I hate
that he got stuck with all of it. I know that can't be
easy.”

Sue Ann looked at her, puzzled, “Well, he's
got plenty of money, sweetheart.”

Karina rushed to explain, “Oh, no, Sue Ann, I
didn't mean anything by it! I'm sure the cafe does really
well!”

Sue Ann snorted, “It's got nothing to do with
the cafe. Ryan won't take a penny of my money for helping me out.
No, when his parents sold their ranch, they split the money up
between them and Ryan, since it would have gone to him if they
hadn't sold it. They considered it his legacy.”

Karina smiled, “Oh, that's nice, then! He has
a little nest egg!”

Sue Ann laughed again, and as she walked back
to her side of the table to continue working, she said over her
shoulder, “If you consider a few million dollars a 'little nest
egg' then, yes, that's what it is.”

Karina and Renata exchanged startled
looks.

Karina couldn't seem to process the
information. Ryan was rich? How was that possible?

She found him where he was sitting on the
bleachers talking to Justin and the guys. She asked to speak with
him and they went out into the corridor.

When they were in the corridor and out of
earshot of the crowd, Karina turned to him and took a deep breath,
then said slowly, “I'm making good on my brand new resolution to
talk to you about things instead of letting them fester, and
avoiding.”

Ryan looked confused, “Man, did I mess up
again so soon? Crap! What did I do?”

She shook her head, “Why didn't you ever tell
me you were rich?”

He let out a startled laugh, “What?”

“
Your grandmother just told me that you
have, like, millions in the bank from the sale of your parents
farm.”

“
Ranch,” he corrected.

“
Seriously? Now?”

He smiled, “Sorry. Reflex response. But,
honestly, Karina, does it matter?”

She shrugged, “It shouldn't, probably. But I
just feel a little off-balance that you never said anything about
it.”
He shook his head, “I doubt you go around telling people your bank
balance, either.”

She nodded. It was a fair point.

Just then, Bernie burst through the doors
from the gym, shattering the moment by exclaiming, “There you are!
I've been trying to reach you. Have you seen this, kiddo?”

With that, he thrust the latest issue of
People Magazine at her. She took it in her hands and looked down at
it. Across the top of the cover was emblazoned the bold headline,
“Who Will She Choose?”

The photo was a split-screen take of two
photos side by side. The first was a screenshot of the quick kiss
between her and Kyle Austen Reed captured in the YouTube video. The
second was a paparazzi shot of her and Ryan leaving the Lake Tahoe
restaurant.

Karina was suddenly inordinately angry. She
threw the magazine on the ground and cried, “Damn it! They can't
just leave me alone to live my life!”

Bernie nodded sympathetically, “Yeah, I know,
it's the pits. So what d'ya wanna tell 'em?”

She sighed and tried to gather her thoughts,
“OK. Just tell them that Ryan and I are collaborating on my next
album. And give them a 'no comment' on Kyle Austen Reed.”

Bernie nodded, “Will do, kid.”

He waggled his eyebrows then and did his best
Groucho Marx impersonation, “Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta go
see a lady about some punch...” and exited back into the gym.

Karina turned to Ryan incredulously, “Can you
believe that?”

Ryan shrugged, “I mean, they're a celebrity
gossip magazine, what do you expect?”

“
Oh, yeah. I was actually talking about
Bernie and my grandmother, but, yeah. The magazine cover,
too.”

Ryan looked at her evenly, “So, is that the
whole story, then? We're collaborating on your next album?”

Karina was taken aback, “That's the story for
the public. It has nothing to do with our real life.”

Ryan laughed bitterly. He picked up the
magazine and looked at the cover.

“
Karina, maybe that's the problem.
You've been living two lives for so long, you don't even know which
one is real. The super star ‘Karina Black’ version for the public,
or the low-key ‘Karina Blackstone’ version you try to live here. Is
that what really bothers you about my money? When you thought I was
just a poor little country bumpkin, I fit nicely into your hometown
fantasy. Now that you know I have money, that illusion doesn't
quite fit anymore. Is that why you don't want to sign the papers
and go out on tour with me? Because in your mind, I was just your
little small town boy toy, and you don't want to take me out of
that realm?”

Not knowing how to reply to this line of
questioning, Karina just stood speechless, stunned by the
accusations Ryan was throwing at her.

He shook his head sadly, handing the magazine
back to her, “You need to choose, Karina. You need to decide what
you want out of life. If it's a simple, small town life with me
here, I'm good with that. If it's for you and I to go out on tour
together, I'm on board with that, as well. If it's to leave me
behind entirely, I'll hate it, but I can deal with that, too.

“
The one thing I can't deal with, and
won't deal with, is this constant limbo. Whatever you want out of
life, you need to decide. I can't make you happy with your life,
Karina. Only you can do that for yourself. You need to
choose.”

Ryan turned on his heel and walked away down
the corridor – probably, she thought, wanting to avoid the crowd of
people back in the gym. She wouldn't mind doing that herself, she
thought, but she couldn't very well just trail after him like a
little puppy.

Karina turned reluctantly to head back into
the party, and saw that Kyle Austen Reed was standing in the
doorway looking at her with a sad, almost sympathetic look on his
face. It was the closest she had ever seen him to looking utterly
sincere, with hardly a trace of his trademark dramatic flair on
display.

Pulling herself together quickly, Karina
said, “Hey, Kyle. How long have you been standing there?”

Kyle smiled sweetly and extended his hand to
her, “Not long. Come on, darling, we need to go in. They're just
about to announce us as Prom King and Queen.”

Karina took his hand, laughing, and walked
back into the gym with him. She asked, “How do you know it's going
to be us?”

He looked at her like she was crazy, and
didn't even bother to address the question.

When, moments later, they were indeed
announced as the Prom King and Queen, he smiled at her brilliantly,
as if to show her how silly it had been to question whether the
honor could have gone to anyone else.

Karina followed Kyle up onto the small
platform at one end of the gym, the most glamorous function that it
was previously used for being to host the candidates for student
government as they gave their short and nervous speeches. Karina
didn't imagine that those teenage potential student council reps
could have felt any more nervous and exposed than she did at that
moment.

Kyle put his hands up to quiet the cheering
crowd, and they happily obeyed, looking at Kyle expectantly,
waiting in breathless anticipation for the opportunity to hang on
his every word.

He reached over and took the magazine out of
her hands. She looked at him, startled, suddenly terrified to hear
what might next come out of his mouth.

Kyle adopted a grave air, and hung his head
for a moment, making a show of collecting his thoughts. The tension
in the crowd grew until Kyle had everyone in the large gym eating
out of his hands, and he hadn't even spoken a word yet.

Damn, she told herself, say what you want
about Kyle Austen Reed, but dude is GOOD at his job!

Finally, he raised his head to look at the
crowd. Karina inwardly groaned when she saw that he had tears in
his eyes. Not a good sign, she said grimly to herself.

“
I have an announcement to make,” he
began, “And it's something that I think may be shocking and
possibly even traumatic for many people in this room.

The crowd's attention remained rapt, focused
on him. They were spellbound.

Kyle held the magazine aloft.

“
I think most of you have already seen
this,” he continued, “and, since you've seen it, I think most of
you have probably been waiting in almost intolerable suspense, as I
have, to learn what the outcome of our lovely Karina's decision
will be. As the cover so aptly inquires...who will she choose? Who,
indeed?”

Kyle paused for effect, looked down, and then
up again two beats later.

--- ~ ---

“
Now, this tragic love triangle has
been the source of tremendous emotion, drama, and heartbreak for
all involved. But, I have to tell you,” Kyle concluded, “That out
in the hall I just witnessed a scene which touched my heart and
soul, and helped me to come to a very important, though difficult,
decision. I witnessed Ryan and Karina having an argument, over this
very article. I didn't hear all of it, but what I did hear was Ryan
ending by telling Karina, 'You have to choose.'

“
And, ladies and gentlemen, when she
turned around and I saw her face, I saw one thing clearly. She
already had, although I'm sure she hasn't been able to acknowledge
it to herself.”

Kyle Austen Reed snaked his arm around
Karina's shoulder and pulled her close, “Karina, my darling, my
love...I want nothing more than for you to be happy. I know this is
a shattering choice for you. I know you feel torn between two great
loves. I know you feel as if your heart is being torn right in
two.