The Golden Arches.
The Blennerha.s.setts are not, as a rule, a McDonald"s family. We go only once a year, as an elaborate staged "accident," on the way to our lake house when my dad pretends to get lost. But right now it looked like home. I trotted toward it with desperation.
There was a guy standing outside the door, talking to a girl in a large floppy hat and enormous sungla.s.ses. I did a cla.s.sic double take, unable to believe my eyes. The sad slouch and hands thrust deep in pockets were unmistakable. It was the Mysterious Tim, not looking sick to his stomach at all. The Mysterious Tim, big as life right there outside Mickey Dees, chez Paris. Why or how he had got there was the least of my concerns. Perhaps no one had ever heard him speak, but the chances were excellent that he could, and that when he did, it would be in ENGLISH!
I took off in a sprint toward him.
"TIM!" I bellowed. He turned and looked at me right away. When he saw me, his jaw dropped, and he took a step backward. I skidded to a stop inches before knocking him down.
"Tim, thank G.o.d!" I yelled. "I"m lost and I"m supposed to be at the Louvre right now and I don"t know how to get there and Lewis is covering for me but Madame Chavotte is going to figure it out when I don"t come back from the bathroom and everyone will be expelled because of me and I"ve got to get there fast but I have no idea how far it is and if I should get back on the train or try to get a cab which I don"t even know how to DO in French and you"ve GOT to help me!"
I only stopped because I needed to breathe. Between heaving gasps, I heard the girl say something, possibly in Italian. Did NO ONE in this town speak English?
"Of course she"s not paparazzi," Tim said to her. "She"s a girl from my cla.s.s."
Paparazzi?
In spite of my plight, I turned to check the girl out. You know. For my Mental Pool. And I beheld the face of the very last person I ever expected to see on This Planet or Any Other.
Lindy Sloane.
Seven.
It was like one of those standoffs in an old western movie. Slack-jawed, I stared at Lindy. She stared back at me, face dwarfed behind the giant, buglike gla.s.ses. The two of us just stood there, neither taking her eyes off the other. If Clint Eastwood were here, he"d put two fingers on his holster and say, "Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaw."
But Clint Eastwood was not here.
"Why are you staring at me?" asked Lindy Sloane.
Why was I staring at her? Let"s review the top five reasons: She was on the cover of every magazine except The Economist that had been published in the last six months.
Already this year she had made two movies, launched her own pajama design line, released a signature collection of edible hair products, been given the key to Tulsa, Oklahoma, appeared on her own MTV reality show to doc.u.ment the making of her new CD, endorsed a series of experimental hybrid SUV convertibles, written a children"s book, guest hosted American Idol, been engaged to and subsequently dumped the lead singer of Savage Karma, and caused a near riot in the Mall of America.
She was worshiped and revered by a bizarre group of teenagers calling themselves the Sloane Rangers, who spent hours on the Internet discussing her every move. They copied her clothes, hair, and mannerisms, and had even been known to paint freckles on their shoulders in the same places Lindy Sloane had freckles.
She was close personal friends with Houston Ramada, celebutante and internationally photographed bad girl.
I had absolutely nothing like her in my Mental Pool.
Okay. That was reason enough.
"Why are you staring at me?" Lindy Sloane repeated impatiently.
"Phletamgah."
Sorry, but that"s what came out of my mouth. Strangely, Lindy gave a small nod, as if I"d inadvertently stumbled upon the correct pa.s.sword.
"What are you doing here?" asked Tim.
I looked at him in astonishment. Hearing the Mysterious Tim speaking in regular sentences was going to take some getting used to. It didn"t feel right. I kept expecting bats to fly out of his mouth, or something.
"What are YOU doing here?" I asked him. "I thought you had to stay behind at the VEI because you were sick."
"I asked you first," Tim said.
Ah. Shrewd.
I needed to forget for the moment that I was standing outside McDonald"s chez Paris with Lindy Sloane and provide Tim with some information so I could get some out of him.
"I got on the Wrong Train," I said. "Before I realized what was happening, I was being whisked away, and Bonnie and Charlotte and Janet were still standing on the platform. Now I"m trying meet them at the Louvre before Madame Chavotte realizes I"m missing. Because if she finds out I got Separated from the Group, everybody"s going to get in big trouble. But I have no idea how to get there. Your turn."
Tim kind of glowered at me silently.
"Look, Tim, I"ve already seen you here, so I know you"re playing hooky. If you get caught, we all get in trouble. I"m not going to tell on you, and I"m sure you have no intention of telling on me. But I told you my story."
"Yeah, all right," he said. "I faked being sick."
There was a long pause.
"And you are here because?" I prompted.
Tim gave a deep sigh and rubbed the top of his head. "Because I needed to see my sister."
I looked around. "Did you find her?"
Tim looked at me like he"d just noticed the word stupid written across my forehead.
"This IS my sister," he said, gesturing toward Lindy Sloane, who was applying lip gloss with a tube that appeared to have her picture on it.
Wait.
WHAT?.
It was bizarre, ridiculous, and highly improbable. n.o.body could keep a secret like THAT. But even as I was starting to roll my eyes, I took a closer look at Tim. And then I saw it. If you dyed Lindy"s hair brown, removed the makeup, made her eat a few sandwiches, stuck her in a dark T-shirt, and removed some freckles...well, they weren"t exactly twins, but I could see the family resemblance.
"But that"s-that"s-"
"Lindy Sloane," said Lindy Sloane. "Duh."
"How? Why? How?" I demanded. "Tim, this is simply unreal!"
"Slick, T," Lindy said. "You"re going to have to change schools again." She pulled off her big hat, shook her newly blond curls dramatically, and plopped the hat back onto her head. I tried not to look, but this was the closest I"d ever been to Hollywood glamour, and I didn"t want to miss anything.
"Change schools?" I asked.
Tim sighed.
"Last year, right after Lindy hit it big, some kids at my old school figured out she was my sister. I"d only been there a year."
"I was eighteen. I already had my own condo in L.A.," Lindy said, making a pouty, camera-friendly face.
"And the word got out, and I was, like, mobbed," Tim continued.
"Sloane Rangers?" I asked, using a concerned look favored by famous television reporters.
"Yeah, they were the worst. Suddenly everyone wanted to be my best friend. Everyone followed me around. All these girls called me. They stopped by unannounced. It was all, like, Lindy this and Lindy that. These people didn"t even have tact, man. They didn"t even try to pretend they weren"t using me to get to Lindy."
"Until-" Lindy interjected, possibly because it was not her nature to stray from center stage for too long.
"Until the straw that broke the camel"s back," Tim said. "One day these three girls stopped by, you know, like they"re interested in me. And one of them sneaks upstairs into the bathroom and opens the linen closet, and she steals this old retainer of Lindy"s that"s still in there with her name printed on the case. And I found out about it three days later when the thing comes up for auction on eBay! Lindy Sloane"s retainer, orthodontist verified."
Ouch.
"Starting bid was seventy-five dollars," Lindy said. "It sold for two hundred and twenty."
"Same thing happened at sailing camp that summer," Tim continued. "This is all the way up in Maine, okay, so I figured n.o.body knew who I was. But somehow the word got out, and the next thing I know, somebody rips off two letters from my mother-my mother! And they set up this little booth and charged a buck a pop for kids to see the actual handwriting of Lindy Sloane"s mom. A buck fifty if you wanted to hold the letter yourself."
"Over one hundred customers, and more turned away," Lindy added.
"So...your last name is Sloane?" I asked Tim.
"No, and neither is hers," Tim said. "Her real name is Linda Mildred Dorfman."
"Shut up, worm!" Lindy shouted, swatting Tim on the arm with her enormous Balenciaga purse. For the first time they actually acted like siblings. But only for a minute. Then Lindy regained her star composure, whipped off her gigantic sungla.s.ses, and stared at me with intense, heavily made-up eyes.
"Well, you know, I don"t have to tell anyone," I said.
Wait. I didn"t? What was I saying?
"Yeah, right," said Tim.
"Is this why you"re so...I mean, you never, ever talk to anybody. It"s like this big mystery at school. That you never, you know, speak."
"Talking leads to conversations, which lead to questions, which lead to people figuring out who my sister is, which leads to the ruination of my life," said Tim. "It"s better just not to know anyone at all."
Gee, he was actually opening up a little.
"I keep telling you to move to L.A. with me and Mom. Go to Beverly Hills High. Everybody there is related to somebody famous."
"I detest Los Angeles," Tim said.
Yeah. Me too.
"Lindy e-mailed me that she was taking a few days off from filming and coming incognito to Paris. I figured we could meet up here, and n.o.body would be the wiser. And I"m not even standing next to her ten minutes when, of course, some girl from school runs over."
It took me a moment to realize that some girl from school referred to me.
"But I won"t tell anybody," I insisted.
I"m not sure I actually believed that while the words were coming out of my mouth. I mean, this was LINDY SLOANE. Imagine the look on Charlotte"s face...on EVERYBODY"S face, when I told this story! And Tim, the Mysterious Tim, turning out to be Lindy"s little brother! It was the SCOOP OF THE DECADE. I would be mobbed back at Mulgrew; everybody would want to hear the details from my lips. And how brilliantly I would tell the story! How tantalizing its unfolding! I would hold court in the cafeteria, my audience eager and breathless as I related each- And then I realized something. I couldn"t tell anybody. Not even Charlotte. Not even Jake. This was Tim"s secret, not mine. And if I blabbed it all over Mulgrew Middle School, I would certainly increase my social standing and become Enormously Sought After and Astoundingly Popular, but Tim would have to leave school. At least that"s what he would feel he needed to do. By telling the story, I would totally mess up Tim"s life. And then I would be no better than the girl who"d stolen Lindy"s retainer and sold it on eBay. I would be no better than Princess Diana"s butler, who accepted her friendship and confidences, then blabbed about it in a book after she died. If I told everybody who Tim really was, I would be nothing but a Tell-All Girl.
No. I couldn"t do that. It might practically kill me, but the only place this information was going was into my Mental Pool, where of course all names are changed to protect the innocent.
"Why should I believe you?" Tim asked. "I don"t even know you."
"But you do know me now, Tim. I"m Lily Blennerha.s.sett. I"m a Writer."
"I wrote a book," said Lindy, examining her manicure. "It was easy. Sold two hundred thousand copies the first week."
For one very brief moment I entertained the idea of ripping Lindy Sloane"s hat and gla.s.ses off, then running into McDonald"s and revealing her immediate location to every tourist I could find. Because there is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, more irritating to me than a celebrity who decides to write a book and claims it"s "easy." Houston Ramada had "written a book" too: a thinly veiled novel following her international celebutante adventures. About a month after it came out, the actual writer of the book came forward. She said she"d never even met Houston Ramada. She"d been hired by Ramada"s publicist, written the whole thing herself, and e-mailed it to the publisher. n.o.body cared, and the book stayed on the bestseller list for ages.
But I digress.
"You"ll just have to wait and see, Tim. I"m not going to tell. This information is in the Vault."
Tim looked a little hopeful, but not too hopeful. It was the look of guarded optimism that can come only from a guy whose sister"s orthodontics were once purloined for profit.
"People, we need to MOVE," Lindy barked suddenly. "I"ve probably already been spotted. Star magazine has photographers that follow me on EVERY CONTINENT."
I wanted to ask Lindy to name all the continents, just for fun, but I restrained myself-because it seemed mean-spirited, if not also hysterically funny. Anyway, the mention of needing to move jolted me back to the Reality of My Plight. I looked at my watch. It was one fifteen.
"Oh my G.o.d! I"ve got to get to the Louvre! Tim, do you have any idea where it is?"
"Not really," he replied. "Sorry. I didn"t think I was going to need to know."
"I know where the Louvre is," said Lindy, in the same tone that she"d used to tell me she"d written a book.
I swallowed.
"Really? Honestly?" I asked. "Like, not just where it is, but where it is in relation to here? And where here is? And how to get there?"
Lindy sighed and adjusted the oh-so-wide belt on her oh-so-low-riding jeans.
"Darling, I know Paris like the back of my hand," she said. "And I did a photo shoot at the Louvre last month for Milk of Human Kindness International."
"Really?" I asked.
Lindy looked bored.
"It"s down the Champs-Elysees and over to the Rue de Rivoli. Past the Jardin des Tuileries."
It did not escape my notice that Lindy Sloane had a perfect French accent.