My Double Life by Janette Rallison Read Free Book Online

to their concerts.
    “I love singing, performing, doing the stuff that’s scripted—but crowds are a bunch of people watching you, and taking pictures of you, and just waiting for you to mess up so they can laugh at you. I’ve said a couple things that were blown way out of proportion, and everyone made fun of me and now I . . .” She wiped her hands against her jeans. “I freeze up when reporters point cameras at me. I don’t want to be in front of people for a while. But you’re so smart, you wouldn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing.”
    And then I felt bad because I’d made fun of her when I’d seen those clips too. Not once had I ever wondered how it had affected her or how hard it must be to mess up in front of the entire world.
    I said, “Everyone says the wrong thing sometimes. It doesn’t mean you’re not smart.”
    A knock sounded on the door. Ms. Pomeroy stood up, but Kari was closer. “There’s the food.” As she walked toward the door, she added, “Thank goodness they’re fast.”
    That had been fast. For a moment I worried that when Kari opened the door it would actually be my mother, her hands on her hips, chewing me out in Spanish, like she did whenever she was angry.
    But it wasn’t. When the door swung open, Don, one of the older waiters, stood behind a dining cart. “Your Caesar salad, fettuccine Alfredo, and bacon cheeseburger, well done.”
    “Thanks.” Kari pulled the cart into the room and then went to shut the door.
    Don held out a clipboard and a pen to her. “If I could get you to sign this—”
    Kari huffed out an exasperated sigh and put one hand on her hip. “Don’t you people know when to stop? Really, there are times to leave celebrities alone, and this is one of them.”
    She shut the door with a thud.
    “Kari,” Ms. Pomeroy said, getting to her feet again, “he was asking you to sign for the food.”
    A blush spread across Kari’s face. “Oh.”
    The knock came at the door again.
    This time Ms. Pomeroy opened it. Don still stood there, clipboard held out in his hand. She took it from him and scrawled a signature on the paper while Kari took her fettuccine Alfredo off the cart. Kari cast Don another glance. “You should have told me you needed my signature for the food .”
    “Sorry, miss.” He looked over at me while Ms. Pomeroy handed him the clipboard back. His eyebrows rose when he saw me, but he didn’t say anything else.
    Ms. Pomeroy shut the door and brought my plate to me. I wished I hadn’t ordered anything. I didn’t want to stay here with them after I’d already told them no, and my resolve was slipping. I could see why Kari didn’t want to be in front of reporters who could broadcast every mistake she made to millions of viewers.
    As Kari handed me my cheeseburger, I said, “Isn’t there some other way you could make money? You know, maybe some product endorsements?”
    Ms. Pomeroy took the lid off her salad and sifted through it with her fork. “Kari actually lost a product endorsement after her MTV awards speech. What she needs is to get her next CD out, and that won’t happen unless she has time to work on it.”
    Kari cut into her pasta and her voice took on a bitter tone. “My father could help me, but he won’t.”
    Something else we had in common, apparently. That same sentence had run through my mind during my mother’s talk about college expenses. “Why not?” I asked.
    “We’re not really on speaking terms. Mostly because he doesn’t speak, he lectures.” She shrugged as though it didn’t matter, but the tenseness didn’t leave her face. “He doesn’t like my spending habits, but I don’t see why he cares so much. He doesn’t need the money. He actually turns down product endorsements.”
    I picked a french fry off my plate and nibbled at it. “Your father gets asked to do endorsements? Because he’s your father?”
    Ms. Pomeroy leaned toward me like a teacher explaining directions on a test.