Chapter Nine
On Tuesday, my mom uses her lunch hour to go with me to the Via del Governo Vecchio to look for a dress for Luca’s charity gala.
“Story,” she says to me as we poke through my favorite shops, “these women are going to be wearing gowns that cost thousands of dollars. Our budget is, um, a bit less.”
“Luca knows we don’t have that kind of money,” I say, scanning some racks. “I just need to fit in enough so that people don’t talk about me. But I still want to look classic.”
“Well, I’ve got to get back to work. If you don’t find anything, then take Anna Maria to Monti tomorrow. They have some trickle-down shops that are sure to have something.”
“Thanks,” I say as she hands me ten euros for lunch.
I don’t begin my volunteer work until next week, but I’m starting to worry that being Luca’s rent-a-girlfriend may be like having a full-time job. Hodges emailed our schedule for the next two weeks, and there’s at least one thing every day. This Scot is definitely popular.
I don’t find a dress, so I head home. Luca calls me as I slip in the door.
“Story, you’re in.”
“In what?”
“In with the tabloids. They think you are, and I’m quoting here, ‘adorable.’?”
“Oh, that’s awesome. Now, I can forget about college and live my dream of being professional arm candy.”
“Look, I get that you have higher aspirations than being Luca Kinnaird’s latest, which, honestly, is refreshing, but the point is that if the tabs love you, then you’re a lot safer in allthis.”
“You’re right, I get it. But you do know how full of yourself you sounded just now, right?”
“You shouldn’t take it that way. It’s not me they’re after. I could be anyone with my name and bank account, and they’d still want to date me. Most women are drawn to money and power. Look at all the weird-looking rock stars and dumb athletes who still marry bonnie wives, or at least women who are way out of their league.”
“You have a point.”
“Believe me, I’m not naive enough to think that Jasmine would want to be with me if I weren’t Luca Kinnaird.”
I want to tell him that maybe he should look for someone who would still want to be with him, but it’s not my business.
“All right, I’ve got to go,” he says. “Jasmine is just finishing rehearsal for the Berlin leg of shows, which start on Sunday. She leaves Saturday afternoon. I’ll pick you up at six-thirty tomorrow.”
“Ciao.”
I open my computer and search for the tabloids. I don’t even know what any of them are called. But when I click through, I’m in them. Leaving school with Luca, on the Jamie Talon red carpet, daring the Bocca della Verità, and leaving a baroque ensemble concert we went to yesterday afternoon. They’ve figured out my mom works for the embassy as an attorney. They say I hail from Maine, although my mom and I would say DC. They say I’m Princeton-bound, and that makes me worry they might dig up dirt on my dad. That’s something I hadn’t considered. I really don’t need my dad’s memory getting dragged because of tabloids linking me to a fake boyfriend.
Ever since this started, I haven’t really processed it. Somehow, there’s been a disconnect between the paparazzi following Luca around and all this information about me being splashed across the internet. I guess I thought it would mostly be about Luca, and I’d just be some obscure accessory he carried about, like a Pomeranian in a backpack. Instead, who I am and how I dress has become a topic of interest as everyone tries to figure out what Luca could possibly see in an “ordinary girl.” The reality is, Luca Kinnaird would never have glanced at me if I hadn’t been a convenient cover in the wrong gelateria at the right time. But now that I’m supposedly with him, I’m somehow different and newsworthy to them. It’s all so fake.
I don’t want some tabloid catching me without makeup and speculating if I’m sick or need rehab. Or telling the world who they think I am. Especially when I’m pretending to be something I’m not. My breath gets tight just thinking about it. I retreat to my room and pick at chords on my guitar to refocus. My fingers hover over my keyboard to Google Luca, but I stop myself. Whatever these tabloids say is probably lies anyway, and I don’t want to know anything that would make me feel worse about helping him and Jasmine pull this off. If I need to be friendly with the guy for the next two months, I should at least judge him on how he acts and not what some gossip column says about him. And, honestly, he’s been nicer than I expected him to be. I can’t get sucked into this nonsense of what’s real and what’s not online.
This will be over in a couple of months. The tabloids will forget all about me. Everything will go back to normal, except there’ll be a scholarship in my dad’s name. Maybe the reason we should break up is that I don’t enjoy the attention. It wouldn’t be a lie, and it shouldn’t make either one of us look like a bad guy.
My phone dings with a text from Jack.
Kelsey and Guin are going nuts. You’re on all those stupid sites they follow.
I know. It’s so weird.
Doesn’t seem like your scene.
It’s not. I hate it.
Then you must really like this guy.
I have no idea how to respond. My fingers hover over the keyboard before I type, He’s nice. It’s just summer fun.
That’s good. He’s a player, Story. Don’t get hurt.
I won’t.
Are you doing anything now?
Just waiting for my mom to get home.
Wanna go to the bookstore on Urbana with me?
Jack and I don’t usually hang out, but we have texted sometimes about school assignments or to complain about our AP Physics teacher, and once we grabbed pizza after working on a project we had to do together. But I wouldn’t call us friends. If he had asked me to go to the bookstore with him before all this started, I probably would have said no. But maybe Jack’s finally getting out from under Patrick’s shadow before college. And maybe it’s not a bad idea to have a friend going into school.
Sure.
Jack lives at the embassy, so he walks down to my apartment, which is on the way to Via Urbana. I meet him outside. He’s wearing his khaki school shorts and a plain gray T-shirt. He’s wearing a ball cap backward, and his dark hair is just long enough to be a little dangerous.
“Hey,” he says when he gets close.
“Hey,” I say, and fall into step with him. We both smile enough to be polite. “So, what are we buying?”
“My mom’s birthday is tomorrow, and I want to get her a cookbook. She doesn’t really cook much, but she collects them anyway.” He shrugs as if he doesn’t get it, but it doesn’t matter because it’s for her, not him.
I laugh. “I can see your mom doing that.” She’s the trophy-wife type, though she’s always super nice to everyone. I don’t know how she birthed Patrick. He could be Medusa’s child.
“I figured you were probably the type of person who couldn’t say no to a bookstore.”
“Possibly,” I say, and he smiles. It’s only about fifteen minutes away, in an area that’s not very touristy even though it’s in walking distance to the Colosseum. There are a lot of restaurants along the way, and the smell of tomato sauce and roasted meat is everywhere. We pass a small groceria with stands on the sidewalk brimming with bright purple plums and strawberries still sparkling from being misted with water. A motorcycle roars past us. The long afternoon sun stretches to reach the other side of the street.
The shop is tiny, but there are all the sections needed for a proper bookstore. My mom and I come here more than we probably should. I help Jack pick his present, and we browse a bit. He makes jokes about some of the more serious or boring titles, holding up The Living Dante and making an excited face, or commenting, “Story, you need this book,” when he comes across an illustrated guide to bonsai balcony gardening. He’s funnier than I ever realized, but he also surprises me when he remembers something I said about poetry in English class way back in winter term. I never thought he paid attention to anything I said. I see a poetry book I wouldn’t mind getting, but I need to save my money for the wardrobe budget for the Luca Kinnaird blockbuster I’m suddenly starring in.
Jack and I leave the bookstore and cross the street to get cold drinks from a shop that’s just a little stall in the wall. I pick a strawberry drink while Jack gets iced lemonade. “It’s on me,” he says as he pulls out his wallet, “as a thank-you for helping me.”
“Thanks. So how come Patrick didn’t go shopping with you?” I take a sip, and we head back up the hill.
“His present is that he’s going to the opera tomorrow because my mom wants us to go. He thinks that’s enough of a present.”
“Sounds very Patricky,” I say, and we laugh. “Luca and I are going, too.”
“Oh, cool, I’ll probably see you, then.”
We reach my apartment. Jack stops while I get my keys out. “Thanks for coming with me. I had fun.”
“Yeah, me too,” I reply, and we clink our plastic glasses together.
“I’ll be sure to look for you tomorrow night.”
“Okay, see you.”
I slip inside and take the stairs to the fourth floor to avoid anyone at the elevators. I’m glad I’ve made peace with Jack. It’s definitely going to be better, for the first time, to already have a friend at the start of school. My whole life has been one giant new-girl syndrome. I just have to survive these next two months, and then I can start fresh at Princeton, and no one but Jack will have the faintest memory that I supposedly dated Luca. But first, I have to sail past the paparazzi tomorrow night, and that now means worrying about Patrick being Patrick and trying to ingratiate himself with Luca while he embarrasses me.