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“My name hadn’t gotten out at that point, but a few people had put the whole thing together. Someone must have told the photographers where I lived.”
“Are you serious?” he asks, coming to a dead stop in front of me with a suitcase in each hand. I can’t help but notice the way his biceps flex. Not for you, Elle. “But you were totally innocent in the whole thing.”
“Yes,” I sigh. “But no one believes that.”
“Why the hell would anyone believe you wanted to sleep with Edward Ferris?” he asks.
“I guess because he’s famous. Or the whole intern-sleeps-her-way-to-the-top thing.”
“But you already had that kind of access, because of your father. Even people who don’t know you should be able to figure that out.”
I raise a shoulder. “It makes a better story this way, though, doesn’t it?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, earnestly. “The whole situation just sucks.”
“On the bright side,” I laugh, “I guess I'm about to finally get the little sister I always wanted.”
“Is your dad marrying that girl?” he asks. “What’s her name?”
“Holly,” I say bitterly. “I have no idea. Probably.”
“She’s young, right?”
“24,” I say. “Younger than you.”
“Inconceivable,” he says with a small grin.
I laugh. I kind of can’t believe he remembered. I quote the movie’s rejoinder back to him, and his answering smile is almost shy.
“Did he have anything to say for himself?”
“Yes,” I say. “He told me ‘the heart wants what the heart wants’.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I said, ‘My heart wants you to keep it in your pants’. He wasn’t amused.”
James’s laugh is surprised. It echoes off the cement steps of the front landing, into the dark night. “I’m really sorry,” he says. “I can’t believe he had so little self-control.”
Chapter 6
The next day, Ginny is working so Kristy takes me into The Pink Pelican, an open-air bar/restaurant about a mile from our house that does a decent lunch business and a massive Friday/Saturday drinking business.
She introduces me to Brian, who is every bit as gross and pervy as she warned me he’d be. “We definitely have room for you,” he grins. “Let me have you fill out some paperwork.”
“If he gives you an option,” whispers Kristy, “ask for a shirt at least one size up from what you’d normally wear. I think he buys them at a children’s clothing store.”
Brian, however, must be onto this trick. “You look like a small,” he says when he returns, handing me a t-shirt. The rest of my uniform, apparently, is to be a pair of cut-off jean shorts and heels. Classy.
This uniform will be a trial for me in particular. I don’t mind looking like my mother, but I’ve always loathed the kind of cross-contamination that seems to accompany it. I’m not the girl whose picture hangs on a million bedroom walls, but sometimes it seems I’ll have to spend the rest of my life proving it. I’ve never worn a bikini or a skirt more than an inch above my knees in my life. Though with the current media portrayal of me as some kind of teenage Lolita-style seductress, it looks like I should have spared myself the trouble.
Ginny comes home from work early and takes me into her favorite store on Rehoboth Avenue. It’s full of the kind of clothes I don’t wear — like the cut-off denim shorts I’m here to purchase.
“Wow,” says Ginny, pulling a dress off the rack. “How cute is this?”
“It’s cute,” I agree. “You should get it.”
“Not for me,” she says. “For you.”
