Chapter 90 Cara
NINETY
CARA
To those who say you never get a second chance to make a good first impression, I say: REbrAND.
—@margiesmarketingmecca
Taylor hadn’t formally apologized to Cara, but she did send word through Aunt Evelyn that she had no plans to list the house. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway.
For now, that was more than enough.
Cara had a place to live rent free, even if she couldn’t foresee living there very long.
There were too many memories—wonderful, nightmarish, and bittersweet—to sleep soundly.
Not to mention the lookie-loos driving by at all hours of the day and night.
Some left flowers, stuffed animals, or notes wishing her well.
Others shouted her name, hoping she would appear in the window.
A carful of fraternity pledges had even piled out of their Jeep and onto her front steps to belt out the refrain of Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”
The video went viral instantly.
After the charges were formally dropped and Cara’s phone was returned, she began to read her endless messages. Almost all of them were left by former friends proclaiming they’d believed you all along, that she’d been unimaginably brave, and they were proud to call her a friend.
Stephanie—who’d approached Porsche corporate in the hope of leveraging her experience as the driver of the Beverly Hills getaway car into an endorsement deal—didn’t need to pretend.
Nor did the throngs of strangers who sent DMs on every account Cara had ever created, even LinkedIn.
Some messages were rebukes: this woulda never happened if you weren’t ho’in in the first place.
Others were praising: I’m nine months pregnant and I’m naming her after you!
Cara liked the messages with advice the most: Don’t disband. Rebrand.
Reading each and every message and thanking its sender for reaching out proved oddly therapeutic.
Cara was about to compose a polite thanks, but no thanks, to someone named Clyde who’d written, I’ve got money and I’ve had some legal troubles, but I was exonerated, too. Want to meet? when her doorbell rang.
Through the glass she saw Alan Segura, the producer who lived at the end of the cul-de-sac.
“I’m really sorry about all the people driving by,” she said as she opened the door, assuming he’d come by to complain. “I hope it will die down soon. If it doesn’t I’ll—”
“I have a dynamite idea,” he said, straightening his Moscot glasses. “For a project about you.”
“As a gold digger, a wrongly convicted murderer, a prisoner, or an escaped convict racing to solve her husband’s murder?”
“We’ll have to hire a writer to flesh it out, but all of the above.”
Cara laughed out loud.