"Weren't you even going to tell we?"
The sentence was so abrupt, so unexpected, that Julia might have wondered who had called her by mistake if Nina Anders hadn't sounded like a chain smoker since the second grade. No one on earth could impersonate her well enough to fool Julia.
"Hello to you, too," Julia said, a little put off with her best friend.
"Don't you change the subject on me! Who is he?" -
"Who is who?" Julia asked.
"The hunk!" Nina yelled just as Julia flipped on the TV and saw her own smiling face staring back at her. First she saw her book's jacket photo, then some news footage of her making the media rounds, and finally, a scene from the day before as she left FAO Schwarz, Lance Collins trailing dutifully behind. Julia fumbled with the remote control and turned up the volume in time to hear the anchorwoman say, "The popular author and aspiring actor are all the buzz in the entertainment industry. No word yet on how they met, but spokespeople from the Collins camp do confirm that the couple is deliriously happy."
Lance woke up in a good mood. There had been some big tippers at the bar the night before and, for the first time in a long time, it looked like he was going to make rent without any help from his mother. He crawled out of bed at ten forty-five and checked his messages. He pressed "play" and listened to the automated voice tell him, "You have thirty-two new messages."
What the . . . Lance thought just as Tammy's voice came blaring out of the speakers. "Lance, it's Tammy. I just want you to know I'm fine with it." A long pause, and then, as if berating herself, she snapped, "Never date an actor! Anyhow, Calvin Klein is sending some clothes for you, and we'll have a car there to pick you up at five. Bye." Calvin Klein clothes? Car service? Then he heard the next message.
"Hey, stud. Richard Stone here. Martin and Steven just called looking for you, champ. Everyone wants Lance Collins! You're the hottest ticket on two coasts, kid, so give me a call on my private line." He gave the number.
The messages played on, one right after the other, each a little more surreal. If they hadn't referred to him by name, Lance would have sworn that the phone company had made a mistake. But no. People he didn't even know kept calling him darling and sweetheart and champ, and there was no surer sign that somehow he'd made it big in show business.
A banging drew him away from the machine. He unbolted the door and opened it, revealing a team of people who gave the words "high fashion" a whole new meaning. There was a man who was so tall and thin and dressed so elaborately that he reminded Lance of Mr. Peanut, all that was missing was the top hat and monocle. Flanking him were three women dressed in black who wore their hair pulled back so tightly that they looked like victims of botched face-lifts.
"Well," Mr. Peanut said, "do we have our work cut out for us here?"
He pushed into the apartment, his sirens in tow, and the four of them began undressing Lance, running fingers through his hair, inspecting his hands and nails. Meanwhile, the messages just kept playing. Amid the chorus of strangers pretending to be friends, Lance heard one voice he recognized.
"Mr. Collins. Julia James here. We . . . no, strike that. You have a big problem. Expect a call from my attorney."
"Attorney?" the fashionable man said. "Do I hear prenuptial?"
The women squealed, and then they pounced on Lance like lionesses on prey.
Chapter Five
WAY #12: Build a support system.
People who are happily single are that way because they're happily independent. But everyone has to know their own limitations and when to staff things out. By surrounding yourself with people you can trust, life will be immeasurably easier.
—from 707 Ways to Cheat at Solitaire
" Wow, darling, relax. We're on this. It's taken care of," Candon Jeffries soothed, but Julia didn't sit. She paced IM the conference room and ignored its palatial views. The Manhattan skyline had never held so little appeal to her. All she could think was that Lance Collins was out there somewhere, loose in the city. He had used her like a scratch-off lottery ticket, trading her in for fifteen minutes of fame, and Julia wanted to make sure he wouldn't get a minute more.
"Come on," her editor went on. "Sit down. Drink some tea. Relax."
"Relax!" she yelled in a voice so high that she was lucky the windows didn't shatter and fall thirty-six floors to the street below. "I'm supposed to relax? My face is plastered across every sleazy rag in the country, with me looking like the world's biggest hypocrite! I can't believe you'd offer me tea. Do I look like I need caffeine? Plus"—Julia softened, sank into a seat at the table, and felt tears rush to the surface—"it's a really bad picture. I've got this whole"—she motioned to the makings of a double chin—"thing going on. "I look like a hypocrite. A fat hypocrite with a shopping disorder."
Candon slid into the seat beside her, saying, "I think it's a wonderful picture."
"Where's Harvey?" Julia asked abruptly. She picked up her cell phone and held it toward the windows as if there, in the middle of Manhattan, she might not have a signal. "Has Harvey called you?"
"I'm sure he'll call."
"I want my credibility back, Candon. I want it back, and I want it back now."
"We don't know it's been damaged. Let's look at the numbers and see."
"I don't care what the numbers say." She stood and slammed the newspaper, photo up, onto the table in front of him. "A picture's worth a thousand words."
***
Lance's eyes were starting to adjust to the dark shades that he didn't dare take off. He'd passed no fewer than ten newsstands, each one overflowing with pictures of him and a woman he barely knew. After the third person congratulated him on "getting some of that," he'd darted into a market and bought cheap sunglasses and a NY baseball cap. But even in the elevator alone, Lance couldn't remove his disguise. He didn't like the person he'd become overnight. That morning, his grin was on every newsstand in America, but Lance didn't feel like smiling.
The elevator doors opened to reveal the usual purgatory outside the office of Poindexter-Stone. Eager actors lined the walls, so Lance pulled the cap lower and turned up the collar of his jacket and tried to bolt toward the door, hoping to fly by so quickly that none of his compatriots could aim and fire. He wasn't ten feet away from the elevator when he heard the first whoop.