Imposter (11 page)

AN HOUR LATER, I ARRIVE BACK
in my room. Gant's working on my laptop. Dad is on his too, trawling through job listings while he listens to a piece of soothing classical music. When he realizes that I'm watching, he hides the browser window.

“How d-did it go?” he asks.

Images run through my mind, of leering students, an intrusive crowd, and a scandalous photo of Sabrina and me.

“Fine,” I say.

“Who were you w-with this time?”

“Huh?”

“Which girl?”

His left eye is twitching even more than usual. I don't ask if he has seen the new photo—it's obvious he has.

“Annaleigh,” I say.

He purses his lips, but they continue to twitch. “Be a . . . a good man, Seth.”

Before I can reply, he resumes his online job hunting. Maybe it's just as well. After the scene at the Chinese Theatre, I don't know what a good man is supposed to do.

Over at the desk, Gant is taking in the newest photo of Sabrina and me. I join him there.

“Looks like someone hit the jackpot,” he says.

“Not you as well. I already told Dad—”

“I'm not talking about you, Seth. I'm talking about whoever took it.”

“Oh.” I crouch next to him. The photo is clearer on my computer screen: Sabrina and me framed perfectly, her lips parted against mine. “It was only a couple seconds.”

“Well, kudos to the photographer, then. This is much higher quality than the beach photo. When was it taken?”

“At the Machinus party a few days ago.”

“A few
days
ago?” He studies the image again. It feels skeevy the way he's staring at me, mid-kiss, but something's clearly bothering him.

“What's wrong?”

“You know those photos I took of
Romeo and Juliet
? Even though I worked on them the first chance I got, someone uploaded footage to YouTube before I was done.”

“Yeah. I remember.”

“Lesson is: If you have something valuable, don't sit on it. Most paparazzi would want to sell quickly, while you two are big news.”

“Paparazzi are freaking parasites.”

Gant bristles. “No way. They're artists, producing stuff on the fly.”

“Not this one. It was just a guy with a cell phone. Left the party straight after he took this shot. He's been stalking me ever since I got here.”

Gant's mouth hangs open. “Someone's been
stalking
you?”

I check that Dad didn't hear, and shoot Gant a warning look. “Not just me. Sabrina too. She says it comes with the territory.”

“When did she say that?”

“When we were on the beach. There was a guy with a camera there too. Really long lens.”

“And she stuck around and let him shoot anyway? That's pretty weird behavior for a celebrity. Normally they're fighting paparazzi off like flies.” He resumes looking at the party photo—Sabrina and me, lip-locked. “Something's not right here.”

“Apart from the invasion of privacy, you mean.”

“No. The shot . . . the way it's framed, the lighting, the resolution—you don't get that by holding a cell phone in the air and crossing your fingers.”

“Well, no one else was around. I would've noticed if there was another photographer.”

He taps the screen at the exact place that our lips are joined. “You sure about that? You look kind of busy.” He chews the inside of his cheek methodically. “All I'm saying is, your stalker guy didn't take this photo with a cell phone. So who did?”

I don't have an answer for that. “Seems like you know a lot about this stuff.”

“Photography's my thing.”

He leans back like a self-satisfied attorney, evidence presented, reasonable doubt established. But if he's right, he's missing an even bigger point: If our stalker isn't in the business of selling photos, why is he following Sabrina and me at all?

RYDER CALLS JUST BEFORE LUNCH THE
next day. “Good news,” he says. “I've got tickets for the Lakers-Clippers game this evening.” I wait for him to mention the new photo of Sabrina and me—he must have an opinion about it—but he doesn't. “They're prime seats. I was going to offer one to Sabrina, but she's not answering her phone.”

“I'd prefer to go with Annaleigh.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Do you think Annaleigh wants to go?”

“I guess we'll find out,” he says.

Apparently Annaleigh wants to go. It's just her and me, a private chauffeur, and a too-large limo. Ryder's all in favor of the grand gesture, but sometimes I wish he'd stick to a taxi.

I wear black jeans and a plain white shirt so I can blend in. Annaleigh counters with a flower-print halter top and beret combo that's so cute I figure she'll own every eye in the arena.

The seats aren't courtside, but are close enough to get an awesome view of the action, the sweat, the dunks, and the floor
burns. Close enough to notice every time the TV cameras turn to us for a reaction shot.

“Look,” I say, “about that photo.”

Annaleigh tilts her head and watches me closely. She's wearing more makeup than usual, her blue eyes accented with liner and mascara, as if she's veering toward Sabrina territory. “Hooking up with a movie star doesn't make you a player, Seth.”

“Yeah, but—”

“It was before you found out about Kris getting back in the movie. You never would've kissed her if you knew what Sabrina was up to.” Having provided me with an excuse, she smiles.

She's wrong—the photo was taken
after
I knew about Kris—but I smile too. Annaleigh wants to move on, and that's fine by me.

A cheer goes up from the crowd. “So which team are we supporting?” Annaleigh shouts.

“The one from L.A.”

“Aren't they both from L.A.?”

“Yeah. I think our team is going to win tonight.”

She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling too. “Oh, we're up.” She elbows me in the ribs.

As the players leave the court for a time-out, she points at the jumbotron. An image of us fills the screen, along with the words
kiss cam
. It takes me a moment to catch up with what's happening, but only a split second more to turn bright red.

Annaleigh bites her lip and shrinks down like a turtle hiding in its shell. Then, fixing her eyes on me, she reaches behind my head and pulls me toward her. Gives me a full-on movie kiss—lots
of lips on lips, and hands gliding over skin, and mouths slightly open so that I can feel her short breaths punching the air.

The crowd grows louder, crazier than at any point during the game, but I shut them out. With Sabrina, I had no idea what our kiss meant. With Annaleigh, I know exactly where things stand—we're acting, and we have an audience of eighteen thousand. It ought to feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't. It feels good.

When we stop, people continue to whoop and shout. One section gives us a standing ovation. Annaleigh doesn't miss a beat. She drags me off my seat and leads me in a low bow as every remaining TV camera turns toward us. By the time we sit down, several hundred cell phones are turned in our direction. People who aren't taking photos are texting friends. For a few minutes after play resumes, the game is an afterthought.

Kris told me that news travels fast. Seeing that wall of cameras, I finally grasp
how
a situation can take on a life of its own. The sum of my achievements—acted in a couple commercials and a bunch of plays—cannot explain what I'm seeing. I'm just a creation, an unproven actor in a movie with no director and a fluctuating cast. It's like I've reversed the natural order of celebrity.

Or maybe I'm missing the point. The crowd isn't seeing Seth Crane. They're watching the boy who appeared as Sabrina's sidekick in two now-famous photos. And who, a few days later, is making out with Annaleigh on a kiss cam.

I'm so distracted it takes me a moment to realize that Annaleigh's hand is resting on my leg. Probably has been ever since we sat down. There's something comforting about it, kind of like the way she gazes at me. There's nothing unfocused about that look,
and nothing mercurial about her behavior. Annaleigh is my partner in a way that Sabrina can never be, because I trust her.

“This is pretty freaking crazy, huh?” I say.

“I don't know,” she says. “I think I could kind of get used to it.”

“What? Seats to Lakers games?”

She shakes her head. “Going out with you.”

People shove cell phones in our faces as we leave our row and head for the exit. It's like a receiving line, and no one is respecting our personal space.

“Seth! Seth!” A heavyset guy with a cue-ball head yells my name as he takes photo after photo. His camera is expensive, his attitude confrontational. “Is it over between you and Sabrina?”

I take Annaleigh's hand and move faster.

“Annaleigh!” Another photographer barrels through the crowd. His momentum carries him straight into her, and for a moment, she loses her balance and our hands disconnect.

It's like we're fighting a riptide. I need to get back to her. I don't even push the guy hard, but one moment he's standing, the next he's on his butt, asking for witnesses.

Witnesses
. It's a joke, but like the incident at the Chinese Theatre, there's nothing funny about this situation. I grasp Annaleigh's hand and we run. Photographers hound us, but I'm with a natural-born runner. The fight-or-flight instinct carries us all the way to the waiting limo.

I slam the door behind us. “Go!” I shout.

The driver throws us into heavy traffic. Two cars tail us.

On the Santa Monica Freeway, one of the vehicles draws
alongside us on the outside lane, perfectly matching our speed. When I peer over, a camera flashes.

There's no way anyone can get a decent picture through tinted glass. This is harassment.

I scoot away from the window and bump into Annaleigh. “Why are they doing this?” she asks.

The limo driver growls something unintelligible and leans on the gas. Horns sound, but the noise is muted by the car's plush interior.

My cell phone chimes—an incoming text from Ryder. He must know we're busy, so I figure it's important. I click on the link.

Now I know why we're being pursued.

An entertainment website has published a gallery of photos of Sabrina and me, all of them from the Machinus party. It's like looking at the individual frames of a movie, as Sabrina coils her leg around me, and we come together, and kiss. I shut it down, but not before Annaleigh sees it too.

As enthusiastically as he used the gas, now the driver brakes. We careen across lanes as the pursuing cars fly by, and peel off at La Cienega.

The first traffic signal is red. No one is following us. Annaleigh stares straight ahead, fingertips teasing her hair into sweaty spikes.

“I lost my beret,” she murmurs.

We hang a left on Wilshire. At the hotel, we thank the driver and head inside. Don't stop until the main doors close behind us.

We ride the elevator to Annaleigh's floor in silence. I walk her
to her room. Earlier, I felt like we'd reached a kind of quiet understanding. Now everything is messed up again.

“Can we talk, Annaleigh?”

“Okay.”

She opens the door and kicks off her platform shoes. Sits on the bed and rubs her feet.

“You were running in
those?
” I ask.

“I save my Nikes for special occasions. You can sit down if you want.” She pats the space beside her.

I join her. Even though this is a perfect copy of my room, it feels different—larger, or maybe just emptier.

She turns the video camera on the nightstand so that it's facing us.

“You're really doing that?” I say.

“If I can face a camera feeling like I do now, I can do it anytime.” She presses a key, and a tiny light comes on. “So, you want to talk.”

Yes, I do. But not like this. Not with the camera on, and only a few inches of bed between us. Trouble is, silence is uncomfortable too.

“Those photos Ryder sent me all came from the same party,” I explain. “From the same moment, practically.”

She looks bored, like she wishes this would all just go away. “I know,” she says.

“It was a mistake.”

“A
mistake
?”

“Sabrina wasn't even my first choice for a hookup.”

Annaleigh hesitates. “She wasn't?”

“No. But Kris was already taken.”

She hits me with a pillow, but she's kind of laughing too. “You're such an idiot.”

“Yeah, I am.”

She looks at our hands, side by side on the bed. “When we showed up on the kiss cam tonight, that was crazy.”

“Kind of, yeah . . . being so public and all. But nice too.” It comes out sounding like a question.

“Definitely nice.” Annaleigh gives a tight-lipped smile. “You're being very agreeable tonight.”

“Uh-huh.”

She moves her hand so that our fingertips touch. Every fiber of my body, every nerve ending feels like it's being redirected to that one place.

“I guess we should get some sleep,” she whispers. “After all the camera flashes we just saw, tomorrow's pictures might be hard to take.”

I don't want to move, but I have to. Annaleigh and I were costars and acquaintances. Now we're partners and friends. I need her to see that she can trust me. That I'm everything she thinks I should be.

I stop beside the door. “We're going to be okay. I really believe that.”

She nods, but her expression is serious. “I hope you're right.”

I WAKE EARLY. GANT IS FAST
asleep on the other side of the bed. Kind of a bummer that the first time I share a fancy bed with someone, it's my brother.

Dad opted to sleep on the sofa, but he's up too. He's even showered and dressed already. He leans against the sofa, his battered duffel bag packed beside him.

“Where are you going?” I ask him.

“Interview,” he says.

I'm about to remind him that he doesn't need to put himself through this—I get fifty grand in less than a week—but he looks different than usual. He's smiling, for one thing. More than that, he seems confident.

I throw on some clothes and head out with him.

In the foyer he picks up a complimentary newspaper. “I-I've been reading things,” he says, waving it.

“It's just stupid stuff, Dad. Comes with the territory.”

He nods, but doesn't smile. “You'd t-tell me if something was . . . wrong.”

“Yeah. I'm just finding my way still.”

Now he smiles. “You and me both, son.”

We walk toward the main entrance. It's early, but several people are milling around.

“So,” he says. “K-kiss cam, hmm?”

I try to laugh it off.

“Y-you were one of
SportsCenter
's Top Ten Plays.”

“What?”

He ruffles my hair. “Just kidding. Annale-leigh is nice, though. Your mother . . . she would've liked her.”

Two paparazzi hover on the street outside the hotel. The first gets up in our faces as soon as we hit the sidewalk. He's like a school bully, invading our personal space, daring us to push back.

Dad, visibly uncomfortable, climbs into a taxi. I want to hug him and wish him good luck, but there's nothing personal about this moment anymore. Even as I wave good-bye, I feel observed.

“Want to make a comment, Seth?” says the second paparazzo, microphone in hand.

“About what?”

“Annaleigh.”

“What about her?”

He acts like I'm joking. Then, as it dawns on him that I'm serious, he tosses a newspaper to me.

I glance at the front page, and freeze.

There are two photographs. The first is of Annaleigh, but she looks different—long hair, and baggy sweatshirt that hangs off one shoulder. The second is of a middle-aged guy with short hair and thick wire glasses, and it's no ordinary photograph.

It's a mug shot.

The two guys photograph my reaction, so I turn away. Inside
the hotel, I continue reading. Words leap off the page, a laundry list of indictments that set my heart pounding: father . . . stolen goods . . . repeat offender . . . awaiting sentencing. But all of them fade away as soon as I read the phrase
first-degree assault
.

Annaleigh's family has distanced themselves from him, according to the report, but none of their neighbors has anything good to say about either parent. Even Annaleigh's boyfriend is quoted as saying that her father is better off behind bars.

Of all the words on the page,
boyfriend
should be the least problematic for me. I can't stop reading it, though.

There are two more photographs at the bottom of the page, both of Annaleigh and me. One is of the kiss cam. In the other, we're walking along Rodeo Drive on Christmas Day. The pictures feel tagged on, irrelevant, but they bring me into Annaleigh's story—make me a character in a drama that I didn't even know existed.

I thought I knew her, this girl I kissed in front of eighteen thousand witnesses.

Turns out, I don't know anything.

I'm early for the rehearsal, but I'm not the first to arrive. Brian welcomes me with half a nod and a whole frown, and I head back to the rehearsal room.

The door is closed, but I can make out Annaleigh's voice. Sabrina's too. They're keeping the volume low, but there's no doubt they're arguing. I stay outside and try to catch a little of their conversation.

“No need to wait,” says Ryder, joining me. “We may as well get started.”

The argument stops as soon as I open the door. Annaleigh sinks lower in her chair. Sabrina returns to her place on the opposite side of the table.

For a while, we focus on the new script, complete with expanded role for Andrew's
best friend
. But no one's in the mood to improvise and the scripted dialogue sounds trite against the backdrop of Annaleigh's truly dramatic home life.

Thirty minutes in, Annaleigh's phone rings. She rummages in her bag and pulls out two phones—one old, one new. The old one is ringing. She looks at the number on the screen, and at us. I can't tell if she wants permission to answer it, or for someone to tell her to turn it off. Which would be kinder?

She takes the call as we pretend not to listen. The woman's voice on the other end is loud and insistent. When there's a break, Annaleigh doesn't offer a word in self-defense, so the woman resumes yelling.

Finally Annaleigh speaks up. “I didn't tell anyone, Mom,” she says quietly. “I don't know how they found out.”

Her mother takes over again. This isn't supposed to be a conversation. This is judgment and punishment in one.

“In case you haven't noticed,” Annaleigh fights back, “Dad's charges aren't exactly the kind of publicity we want right now!”

For a few seconds Annaleigh keeps the phone pressed against her ear, but it's clear her mother has hung up. Then she stands abruptly and leaves the room. Ryder follows her.

I push my chair back.

“Let her go,” says Sabrina.

“She's freaking out.”

“Ryder can handle it.”

“So can I.”

I head along the corridor and out into the sun-smog L.A. air. When she sees me, Annaleigh wraps her arms around me and buries her face in my chest.

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“This isn't your fault.”

She doesn't say anything after that, just holds on to me, her whole body shaking.

“Let's get you back to the hotel,” says Ryder gently. Then, turning to me, he adds, “Stay here. Work on those new scenes.”

What he means are the scenes with my new best friend, Sabrina. He's several days too late for that relationship to ring true.

Annaleigh slopes toward his car like she's sleepwalking, and Ryder follows, seemingly as dazed as she is. He's probably calculating how much this news will affect the movie. Hard to put a positive spin on a story like this.

The car pulls away. I can't see Annaleigh through the glare on the windshield, but I imagine her sitting inside, quiet and pensive. I feel like I did when Maggie leaked the story about Kris and Tamara—worried and frustrated and lost. Difference is, there's no one to blame this time, and I really want to blame someone.

A door closes behind me. Sabrina leans against the wall, lighting a cigarette. She blows a stream of smoke high into the air.

“How's she doing?” she asks.

“How do you think?”

“Well, it was an intense scene, but all things considered, she did pretty good.” She takes a long drag on the cigarette. “I'd give
her seven out of ten. Timing's a little off, but the instincts are there. Probably just needs practice.”

I never thought that Sabrina could say something so cruel.

“She must've known this would come out, right?” Sabrina murmurs. “That's a lot of time to prepare a reaction.”

“Not everyone prepares for bad news.”

“Then she's crazy. Or delusional. And I don't think she's either.”

I want to fight back. I want to say how unfair it is that Sabrina emerges from her dysfunctional home life stronger than ever while Annaleigh suffers for her father's crimes. But I can feel the entire movie hanging in the balance. It's no secret that Sabrina and Annaleigh aren't getting along. One angry word from me, and Sabrina might pull out completely. Without her, who knows if there'll be any movie left at all?