“Bull to the shit,” Isabel said. “She just wanted selfies.”
This could not be happening. This wasn’t an actual conversation we were having. I snatched Apple’s phone out of her hands, ignoring her cry of protest, and clicked on the gallery icon. I just wanted to be proved wrong. There could not be pictures of Apple posing with our kidnappee.
There were a dozen pictures of Apple posing with our kidnappee.
She was sitting in his lap in all the pictures, sometimes throwing her head back so her auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders, other times bowing her head toward him, trying to manipulate an intimate scene. Pic after pic, Rupert P. looked utterly unamused. Actually, in the first few pictures he looked enraged and even panicked, but by the time I got to the final few he was just dejected, rolling his eyes in some. And in all of the pictures, Apple had her shirt off.
“Apple, what is wrong with you?”
“Everything,” Isabel chimed in.
Unbelievably, just by the way her face fell, I could tell that Apple was expecting me to congratulate her on how good she looked in the pictures. “I did it … for science,” she said.
“Why is your shirt off in all of these?”
“Wardrobe malfunction.” She took the phone from me.
“Delete them!” I said. “Delete them immediately!”
“No way. I wasn’t going to post any of them anyway.”
“Sure you weren’t. Just like you didn’t post that Vine of you gyrating against that Rupert P. life-size pillow, despite all common sense and better judgment.”
“That pillow and me looked really good together!”
“If you Instagram any of those I will kill you,” I said. “I will peel you, I will slice you, and I will bake you in a pie, Apple. That is not hyperbole!”
“How dare you talk to me like that?” Apple said. “You’re taking your frustrations out on me because you know you can’t talk to your dear Erin like that. And Isabel is too scary to talk to like that. But just because I’m the normal one in this group doesn’t mean everyone gets to walk all over me!”
“You’re the normal one? You’ve been trying to sexually molest Rupert P. since you dragged him in here by the ankle!”
“Semantics!” Apple said. “I love that boy! Look at how precious he is!”
I looked over at Rupert P. He was drooling.
“How can you deny all the sexual tension between us!” Apple said. “This might be the greatest day of my life and you’re ruining it.”
“The greatest day of your life involves a guy tied to a chair?”
“You’re purposefully choosing to focus on the negative!”
“Isabel, she’s acting schizo,” I said. “Back me up!”
But Isabel didn’t say anything. She was too busy trying not to drop the two phones in her hands. Rupert P.’s phone didn’t stop vibrating. “He keeps getting messages wanting to know where he is,” Isabel said.
“They want to know where I am because the television special is starting soon,” Rupert P. said from his chair. “What time is it?”
“The time is 7:53!” said Isabel’s watch.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Rupert P. muttered.
“Hey, Isabel,” I said. “Did you know that when Rupert L. looks at a watch face his eyes cross?”
She really did not find that one funny. Perhaps it wasn’t the best time for a Rupert L. watch joke.
“Listen to this.” Isabel clicked on one of his voice mails and put it on speaker.
“Where are you?!” A man’s voice, gruff and agitated. I could tell by their expressions that neither Apple nor Isabel knew who he was either. Maybe he was The Ruperts’ manager, Larry Lee. We’d never heard his voice before, but we’d seen his picture tons. He was balding and overweight and looked like someone who always sounded gruff and agitated. “There are screaming girls waiting, do you hear me?!”
As soon as that message ended Isabel clicked another.
“Twenty bloody minutes to show!” The same man. I tried to picture him, and he was pink all over with steam comically coming out of his ears. “You’re not at the hotel, you’re not here. Michelle doesn’t know where you are and neither does Griffin. Yes—we resorted to asking Griffin. He’s not much of a secret when the shit hits the fan like this. A secret we’ve been keeping for you, and this is how you repay us, you little shit!”
That message finished, and then a new voice came on. “Hullo, Rupert.” I knew that voice. I would recognize it anywhere. “It’s me, Rupert … Rupert K…. obviously. Listen, mate, where are you? The lads are going a bit mad. I’m trying to sort them out but they won’t listen. This is a big show, you know that. I’ll talk to them, though. We won’t do anything until you get here. Just call me back, alright? Right.”
End of messages.