Your Perfect Life

“Yes, I am. Sorry, but I can’t really talk about this here,” I say as the roving cameraman positions his camera in front of me. I stay sitting tall even though I want to jolt backward, still not feeling completely comfortable with a camera so close to my crow’s-feet.

“Oh, is that so? You certainly didn’t have any problem gallivanting around town with Charlie and suddenly you want to be discreet? Everyone knows you were out canoodling with him, even if they’re pretending they don’t. They’ve all seen the picture. This is my professional reputation at stake here. Don’t you realize that? Are you trying to ruin my career?”

I shuffle the blue cards in my hand, reading over the questions Destiny typed up from the notes I carefully wrote out after my conversation with Daisy last night. I look around the New York studio rented just for this interview. I did this. I made Ryan McKnight cry. I got Daisy to agree to an interview. I’m the reason Casey Lee is on the cover of People magazine.

“Last time I checked, I revived it,” I say, raising my voice, causing the stage manager and the supermodel PA to spin around and look my way. Fiona’s eyes widen and her signature scowl crosses her face, and Destiny, who was walking toward me with a stack of research I’d asked for, stops dead in her tracks and gives me a look as if to ask, are you okay? I nod my head yes, even though I’m not. Not by a long shot.

There’s a long pause on the other end of the line and for a moment I wonder if Casey has hung up. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. I was that mad.

Casey finally speaks, this time her voice more controlled but still icy. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, Rachel, but you’re married. You have children. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this whole Hollywood thing has really gone to your head and you are on your way to following in your new BFF’s, Ryan McKnight’s, footsteps. And P.S., you’re not the one Charlie’s falling for here. Don’t forget he thinks you’re me.”





CHAPTER 21



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casey

I hang up on Rachel and throw the phone onto the bed. “Damn it!”

Charlotte looks up from her blocks in surprise at my angry tone. “Your mommy is really effing things up.” I pick her up and squeeze her, trying to get the images of Rachel and Charlie doing their best Skating with the Stars impression out of my head.

Charlie. I got an instant migraine when I pulled up PerezHilton.com this morning, shocked to discover my own face staring back at me. In another circumstance, I might have been thrilled to grace the gossip giant’s Web page, as long as it didn’t involve a sex tape. But this was different. Rachel was cavorting with a man I had cared about. Probably the only man I’d ever cared about. I’d never told anyone what had happened between us, and even now, thinking about it made my heart hurt. And here comes Rachel, having no clue the Pandora’s box that she’s opening, showing me (and the rest of the country!) the play-by-play of what Charlie and I could have had, even after I asked her to stay away from him. It doesn’t escape me that not only is she eclipsing my career in just a few short weeks, she’s also trumping me in the love department as well.

And that’s pretty ironic, considering her love life seemed DOA when I got here. John barely even looked at me the first week, and I had to practically force any details about his day out of him at the dinner table, making me wonder how long they had been eating in silence. And she wasn’t kidding when she said he wouldn’t try to have sex with me. It almost felt as if Rachel and John had been living separate lives in the same house, something that both surprised and saddened me. I’d always put their relationship on a pedestal, so finding out it was far from perfect, that it was downright lousy, was beyond disappointing. Why hadn’t she confided in me? Had I really become so caught up in my own life that I didn’t even know my best friend anymore? I glance again at the picture of her beaming and leaning against Charlie’s chest and wonder how long she’s been unhappy in her real life.

“Mom?” Audrey interrupts my thoughts. “Does this look okay?” She does a small, insecure twirl, her dress spinning like a top around her long legs.

“You look beautiful.” Since her first date with Chris, I’ve suddenly become her fashion guru and we’re becoming closer than ever. At the end of their date she’d bounded in the front door, on time and sober (I’d done one too many segments on binge-drinking celebrity teens), and bursting with excitement that he’d asked her to the formal dance. Her happiness was contagious, and soon John and I found ourselves jumping up and down, holding hands and celebrating with her. I did my very best to brush away the inner voice inside my head that made me wonder if Chris was all that he appeared.

“Oh my God, is that Aunt Casey?” She points to the computer screen.

“Yes,” I say flatly.

“What is she doing?”

“Something she shouldn’t be,” I answer and close the laptop. “She’s acting like an idiot!”

Liz Fenton , Lisa Steinke's books