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  I try his cell. Armand is the only person who can possibly relate to what I’m experiencing, to the fears marching through my mind, to the voice in my head saying we brought this on ourselves.

  His phone is turned off.

  I rack my brain, but besides Armand, I don’t really have anyone to call. Once you’re famous locally you may as well be Lady Gaga because everywhere you go people point and stare. It’s not exactly conducive to starting casual friendships, and dating is impossible when you’re supposedly happily married. Even among those who work for So Perfect, I’ve had to be wary to uphold the confidentiality clauses in my contract. I put down my phone and sigh, realizing that I’ve waried myself down to no one.

  My phone rings and I see a name that promises to round out one of the worst mornings I’ve ever had. My sister Megan has always been oil in my water, hair on my toothbrush, onions in my milkshake. At least I can be glad that she’s not in Scenic to witness the local scandal.

  “Good morning, Megan.”

  “Is it?” she snaps.

  “Isn’t it?” I ask, wishing I sounded tougher. I notice a smear of aquamarine paint on the distressed leather sofa and break out in a cold sweat.

  “I’m taking Dad to the hospital.” Megan’s tone implies that it’s my fault.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask, closing my eyes tight and hoping it’s something small. He dropped a can of soup on his foot. He cut his finger. Not his heart again. Don’t let it be his heart.

  “Let’s see… Oh, that’s right. His heart palpitations began when he saw you on the news.”

  “I’m on the news there, too?” So it is my fault.

  “Yes. Isn’t that lovely? My colleagues, Dad’s friends, my kids’ teachers, in short, everyone can see your filthy laundry aired on television.”

  “Is Dad okay?” I ask.

  “He was in a complete panic when he called me. Apparently he never minded that you were a fake until everyone else found out! He screamed himself blue and now he’s slumped in his chair like a petulant child. I called his cardiologist and he’s going to meet us at the hospital,” she whispers quickly, and I imagine her with her shoulders hunched, turned away from my dad.

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “No. You aren’t going to get off with a few words on the phone, Gwen! Not this time. You have to get your ass down here! I booked you a flight that leaves at noon. You need to take some responsibility for this mess!”

  “Gwennie?” It’s my dad on the line. He sounds horrible. Weak. “Come on home and see your old man.”

  I fill an overnight bag first, then change my mind and pack a big suitcase. I’m not sure how long I’ll need to be away. I don’t have time for a proper shower so I toss on some clothes, wash my face, and put on ChapStick and sunscreen. I rip out my scrunchy, along with several long, wavy hairs that had wound themselves around it.

  I haul my suitcase toward the garage. In the kitchen I pause to write a note about where I’m going, but I don’t know whom to address. I think of Alejandra and Miguel and hope they’re not in trouble with Trey for telling the truth. I think of Armand, hiding out from the scandal somewhere in New York City.

  I think of my Dad and how he asked me to come home. I haven’t thought of Riveredge, Michigan that way in ten years.

  I check the time. That’s it, I’ve got to leave right now or I’ll miss my flight. I dread having to pass the cameraman on my way out, and I certainly don’t want to see Megan when I get there. I hate my sister sometimes! Especially when she tells me that I’m a screw up.

  Especially when she’s right.

  Chapter Two

  Armand

  My mama always says that liquor is the devil himself. She says everything with a swaggering religious zeal, and if it’s still not enough to convince you, she backs it up with two hundred plus pounds of whoop-ass. At thirty-one years old I’m still as afraid of her as I ever was.

  Because I barely ever allow myself to enjoy a nice strong cocktail, I’m not used to hangovers. Lucky for me, my head pounds less as my shower goes on, and on, and on this morning. I love hotel showers because you never run out of hot water.

  I don’t recall all the details of last night, but enough comes back to me so that I’m smiling by the time I turn off the faucet. And lo and behold, when I open the curtain, Norman is standing there. He’s taller than my six feet, and he’s got a shaved head, brown eyes, and a body so ripped he’s got muscles on his muscles. He has the kind of smile that could sell just about anything—it wouldn’t matter if you needed it or not because you’d want it so bad. He hands me a cup of coffee as I step out and I think I could get used to this. I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen a man so handsome.

  “It’s a shame it’s a slow news day,” he says.

  I wonder what in heaven the expression on his face means. He looks like he either just heard a good joke or he has a big surprise in store. I can’t decide which it is; maybe it’s both. I sip coffee while I watch him. It’s dark and strong, just like Norman. “Slow news day?”

  “It sure is,” Norman says.

  He leads the way out of the bathroom. I follow behind, trying harder to recall the details of last night. I stop when Norman points to the TV.

  “Your wife is attempting to pull out of your garage, but the television van is blocking her. They’re showing it live.” He turns back to me, grinning.

  I close my eyes and rattle off a silent Our Father before I ask, “Why?”

  “This might explain it.” Norman picks up a newspaper from the nightstand and offers me the Entertainment page.

  Oh Lord. There I am kissing Norman!

  We’re standing outside the nightclub waiting for a cab, a few hours after we’d met.

  Normally I go by the name Sebastian when I’m stepping out, and I always wear one of my disguises. I’m never recognized unless I want to be. I wonder how in God’s name this happened!

  More memories of last night come back. It was dark in the club, and I’d had three naughtily-named drinks by the time I met Norman. He wanted to see my eyes better so I took off my sunglasses. He wanted to see my new haircut so I took off my cap. I guess someone recognized me from So Perfect, someone who was well connected enough to put my picture in the paper. I can’t believe that we’re on the news, too!

  I sit down hard in an overstuffed chair and wonder if there is any way possible to keep this news from reaching my mother. I hear a siren outside and imagine her speeding right up here in an avenging Saviormobile, bent on whisking me off for a stint in homo detox.

  I’d feel bad for Norman getting caught up in this mess if he weren’t staring at the television like he just won a jackpot. I turn back to the paper and wince at the headline: SO PERFECT?

  “I’m sorry, kid,” I say to the screen.

  Gwendolyn maneuvers the black Lexus SUV I picked out for her past a news van and a little crowd. She hasn’t brushed her hair, she’s wearing a very ugly beige t-shirt under a ratty sweater I thought I’d thrown away months ago, and she’s bawling her head off. Her eyes get weirdly huge when she’s upset, like a slow loris. Now she’s all eyes and stringy hair on national TV. And it’s all my fault.

  “Bad luck, huh?” Norman asks, sounding pleased as Punch about it. He doesn’t take his eyes from the screen. “You should have told me who you are! I had to read all about the real you in the paper. At least we look great.”

  My hangover has returned like a guilty conscience, and I feel clammy and sick to my stomach. I round up all my things and put them in the bathroom. “Will you please get out of here?” I ask Norman before locking myself inside, too.

  Norman coaxes and pleads on the other side of the door. “You’re transferring your anger, Armand Leopold. You know I could be angry with you for putting me in this situation, but I’m not. I’m happy to walk right out of here with you, arm in arm.”

  I run the water so I don’t have to listen. Norman is the least of
my worries, though. I’m outed on a grand scale, I made my best friend cry her slow loris eyes out on television, and my mother is going to blow her stack.

  “Come on out, Armand! I like you, and we had fun last night. I don’t mind a little limelight, either.”

  “You just want to use me!” I yell, though I told myself not to say anything at all, just to wait him out.

  “You really want to claim the moral high ground this morning?” Norman laughs. “The way I see it, we’re both opportunists, plain and simple.”

  That hits me like a sucker punch.

  I had grabbed the chance to be the creative force behind So Perfect with both hands. I guess the only thing I inherited from my mother was some of her swagger, because I talked to the investors like together we were gonna conquer the world. I hadn’t really known what was possible, but I talked like I did. I don’t think the head honcho Trey Hammond had glimpsed the full potential in the beginning either, but I could tell he liked ambition. He had it too, and our ambitions lined up.

  He had brought me on to make a home decorating catalog that would include cookware and recipes. I don’t recall Trey’s name for it, but whatever it was, it was all wrong. I had liked So Perfect and got my way. I also talked Trey into letting me renovate an old southern belle of a house I’d had my eye on. It would be our headquarters, and provide a fabulous backdrop that would show our products to their full advantage.

  I soon found out that Trey couldn’t go up, down, or turn around without first consulting a blessed focus group. I wish I had thrown my head back and howled the first time I heard the idea, but that would’ve only gotten me kicked out right at the beginning. I wanted the job bad enough to listen to feedback, even though it was sometimes just about as pleasant as swallowing Brussels sprouts whole.

  Trey and his opinionated groups had decided we needed a woman on board to pose with our products and personalize the company, someone accessible and non-judgmental, that our demographic would relate to. She had to be attractive, but not in a standoffish way, had to seem confident but not cold, had to do this while not doing that… the list went on and on and it gave me a headache. I suggested some former decorating pals and even paged through modeling agency and aspiring actress photos. I did these things, though I thought the idea that we needed a woman on board was downright silly.

  I heft up my suitcase and set it on the long vanity. I take out my carefully folded new jeans and my heavenly soft favorite sweater and put them on. Mirrors don’t lie, and this one’s saying that it’s sort of a crime I won’t be seen out and about in NYC today. I think of poor Gwendolyn again and shake my head.

  By the time Trey discovered her, I had either designed or chosen every product and recipe for So Perfect. I had overseen the jigsaw puzzle of the headquarters house, making sure the right pieces were taken apart and put back together correctly, while others were simply polished up and fitted into place. And though I admittedly don’t tan well, my hair recedes a fraction of an inch every year, and my thighs are too big for most jeans that I love, I knew I looked good enough to pose with my products without a woman in the picture.

  But that wasn’t the point. The focus groups had wanted a woman, and Trey found Gwendolyn.

  I agreed she looked great with the right makeup and wardrobe—certainly not left to her own devices like today. The focus groups loved Gwendolyn. Too much, actually, because it turned out they loved her far more than they loved me.

  When I was told I’d have to be more of a behind-the-scenes guy, I was so crushed I had me a full bottle of the devil. I soon sobered up and knew it was still the best gig I’d ever had. It beat wedding planning, interior decorating, landscape design, and running a restaurant—all jobs I’d had, but had grown bored with after a few years.

  That was all before I knew I’d have to pretend to be married, mind you. If I had known what was in store from the beginning, maybe I would have done a perfect military about-face and marched away without looking back. But who am I kidding? Once I’d had a taste of So Perfect I couldn’t leave until I’d eaten the whole buffet.

  “Are you still in there?” Norman calls.

  I sit on the closed toilet seat, all dress up with nowhere to go. “No!” I shout.

  Trey had picked Gwendolyn for So Perfect like he was giving her a grand prize, but she didn’t just sign on the bottom line when he waved his checkbook. She worried about having to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, so Trey gave her examples of marketing campaigns that had been built around spokespeople. He said it was a “perfectly valid marketing approach.” Plenty of catalogs and websites personify their products, he said, and this was nothing new. Our Gwendolyn, though, she wasn’t sold right away.

  Trey took it as a challenge to sign up Gwendolyn. I don’t think he’d been told “no” much in his life. When swaying her with money didn’t work, he found her Achilles heel—her art. As soon as Trey discovered that Gwendolyn’s lifelong dream was to become a self-supporting artist, he changed his strategy and courted her to create art for the So Perfect brand, and still pose for the catalog, of course. Then it was easy as pie!

  Believing that she was wanted for her artistic talent made Gwendolyn feel validated as a painter. Her identity as an artist was so tied up in her identity as a person, I think she just felt validated period. Before we found her, Gwendolyn sort of lived in her own little world, with paintbrushes for friends, and canvases to talk to. I thought of her as a tragic fairy princess we were leading to her happily ever after.

  Gwendolyn believed her role with So Perfect was a quality judgment on her work, not her looks and manner, not what the focus groups perceived as her easygoing style. I feel bad now, thinking back to how naïve Gwen was.

  Is.

  Probably the same reason Trey couldn’t understand the word “no,” because he’d never been taught it, Gwendolyn hadn’t learned to fret about where her next rent payment would come from, because her daddy always helped when she was short.

  This line of thinking makes me so nervous; I feel like I’m back in the broom closet at school with Lenny Nelson, and we hear the football team coming up the hall. I don’t like to spend much time thinking about why people are the way they are… it hits a little too close to home. And then I start wondering, what if I had asked myself which of the things my mama said were true and which were nonsense a good long time ago? Maybe I wouldn’t have been so willing to pretend to be someone I’m not. Maybe I wouldn’t be the latest bloomer on the planet, hiding out from the world in a hotel bathroom.

  Norman has finally gone. I tuck the phone number he left lying on the table into my pocket, just in case.

  There’s no sign of my story on the television any more. I’m shocked it got network coverage at all. While our catalog is now well known across the country, I wouldn’t consider us national celebrities. We sometimes do segments that air on syndicated shows, but none of them have high ratings. It must be like Norman said, a slow news day, and we just caught someone’s attention. I don’t know what hits and what doesn’t. If I did, I’d have made myself known on the world stage long before now, and I wouldn’t have dragged my friend Gwendolyn down to do it.

  I wonder where she was headed. The kid barely ever leaves the house without me or one of the staff. Some fairy tale we put her in—she’s been locked in an ivy-covered tower.

  I’d like to turn my mama on Stuart Bolder for walking on my grass, and I want to know who in God’s name let him through the front gate! Maybe he snuck in the side that has a fussy latch? I wouldn’t put it past him to climb over the fence.

  The Grand Dame near the Cape Fear River was the first house where I actually felt at home. She wasn’t perfect when I fell in love with her, but maybe that’s partly why I was head over heels. I saw every botched restoration effort and cut corner as an opportunity to take her back to how she used to be, before her owners changed her, as if she hadn’t been perfect to begin with. I didn’t want to make her fit into a mold
. I wanted her to be herself.

  The hotel telephone rings. It’s the concierge. “Good morning, Mr. Leopold.” He has a British accent and sounds like a butler forced to take care of stinky business that’s really beneath him. “I’m calling to inform you that a gaggle of reporters are flocked outside the door like nuisance pigeons. When you’re ready to go, we’ll escort you out a back way and have a taxi waiting.”

  “Oh. Thanks,” I say.

  “Will you be leaving soon, sir?” he prompts.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Very well then.” He sounds extremely disappointed. “Simply call down when you’ve made up your mind.”

  I gather up all my things and notice that my cell phone has been off. I turn it on to find that I’ve missed twenty calls. Ten from Trey—no surprise there—he likes to give my So Perfect leash a good hard yank every time I misstep. Two calls from Gwendolyn, the poor kid. And I don’t know the other numbers, except one. Seeing my mama’s name on my list of missed calls, I feel like ducking for cover.

  Chapter Three

  Smith

  Taylor enters my office quickly and quietly, stirring the closed-in air like a healthy breeze. I can’t remember if I always appreciated the grace with which he moves, or if it’s only in contrast to how cumbersome and uncooperative my own body has become. He places a neat stack of mail on the corner of my wide oak desk and pats the newspaper on top, which has already been taken out of its bag and folded over once.

  My youngest brother is conscientious, careful, and very smart. The fact that Taylor looks up to me almost like a father—a role I’ve been playing since our dad died when he was thirteen—might make me a bit biased. I admit that. But everyone who meets Taylor seems to agree with my assessment that he’s pretty special.