“It was a gift from a very stylish, generous benefactor.”
“And what was wrong with the JujuBee one you already had?”
“Everything,” I say, and we both laugh while Charlie and Destiny eye us warily.
“Listen,” Charlie interrupts and puts his hand on Rachel’s back, and my stomach drops. “We’ve got to get Casey to set.” Then looks at me. “Are you guys staying for the taping?”
I nod, even though a part of me wants to leave.
“Destiny, can you get Rachel set up in the control room so she can watch?”
“Sure, I’ll take you guys there.” Destiny points her finger toward the hallway I’d walked a million times. “This way.”
“Thanks,” I say and try to ignore the pang in my heart. Watching Rachel and Charlie together hurts more than it should.
Later, after Destiny has introduced me to the people I’ve worked with for years, I can tell they are trying to put on a happy face despite having to share such a tight space with a babbling baby.
As Rachel throws to a tape of an interview she did with Jennifer Garner, I watch her carefully, trying to figure out what she’s doing differently than me. And I decide that there’s a warmness to her that I’ve never had. In the clip, she’s playing with Jennifer’s kids, something I wouldn’t have thought to do. When I interviewed Rebecca Romijn last year I made sure her twins were nowhere in sight—I didn’t want her to be distracted. But as I hold Charlotte tight, I wonder if in my scramble to the top, I’d failed to see what’s most important to the people I’m interviewing. Which is what should be most important to me.
Destiny arrives at the control room promptly at the end of the show and escorts me down to the set. “What’d you think?” Rachel asks brightly as I walk up, but she already knows the answer. She was awesome.
“You were fantastic,” I say, and mean it.
“Thanks.” She tilts her head self-consciously and I find myself thinking how odd it is to watch myself do it. It’s always been a quirk of Rachel’s. In high school, after each football game, she’d bound up to me, breathless, tilting her head and asking what I’d thought of her halftime performance.
“So, New York, huh?” I ask, pulling her aside. “When were you planning on telling me?”
“We just found out, I was going to tell you today, promise,” she answers sheepishly and looks away.
“Right.”
“I was, I swear. Are you pissed?”
“No, of course not,” I answer too quickly, not wanting her to know that I am in fact a little pissed. Because if I admit it, I’ll just end up looking petty. I lean in and whisper, “I’d just like fair warning if my body is leaving the state, thank you very much.”
She smiles at my attempt at a joke. “Are you at least happy for me?”
“Yes!” I answer with more enthusiasm than I feel. “And more important, I’m happy for me. This could mean big things.”
“Yes it could,” she answers simply, leaving me wondering if she knows more than she’s letting on.
“But you have to do me one favor. And it’s a big one.”
“What?”
I touch her lips with my finger. “Promise me fettuccini Alfredo will never pass through these ever again.”
CHAPTER 18
* * *
rachel
I white-knuckle the armrests as our plane lifts away from Los Angeles, the girls, John—my life.
The panic I’m feeling now is worse than any I’ve experienced this past couple of weeks, which means I’m very close to hyperventilating. If this plane crashes, no one will ever know what happened, will ever know that I died in Casey’s body. God, that sounds so terrible. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block it out. Sure, Casey will try to convince John that we switched bodies, she’d swear on our friendship, on my grave, on anything, but he’d just give her a sympathetic look, chalking up her behavior to that of a grieving best friend, never knowing that his real wife went down with the rest of Flight 2525.
“You’re gripping those armrests so tightly it looks painful.” Charlie’s voice jars me out of my panic. I’ve noticed Charlie has that way about him, always knowing what to do or say to make me feel better, even if he doesn’t realize I need to feel better. It can be as simple as paying me a compliment after, unbeknownst to him, the makeup girl has given me a total complex earlier that morning. Has Casey noticed that he has this quality? It’s one I’ve craved from John for as long as I can remember. The feeling that I’m supported no matter what.
“Sorry, slight fear of flying,” I lie, wishing that I could confide in him. That I could tell him everything. That I’m not Casey. That I’m an ordinary girl with love handles, three daughters, a husband, even a book club. Yes, in that order.