Sweet Harmonies (37 page)

“
Oh, God...” she groaned, “It's Bernie.
People have been tweeting that we're here.”

The manager of the restaurant came over to
the knot of people and loudly insisted that if they had a table at
the restaurant, they needed to return to it, and if not, they
needed to leave. The crowd – which was growing – ignored him
entirely. He repeated the same instructions, even more loudly and
insistently. He was again ignored.

The manager reached out and laid his hand on
one woman's shoulder to get her attention and attempt to get her to
move, but the woman whirled on him, shaking off his hand.

“
Don't touch me!” she shrieked, a note
of hysteria in her voice, “Get your hands off of me!”

The manager looked startled to say the least
at this manic, out of proportion response. He looked again at the
crowd surrounding the table and, deciding this was more than he
could take on himself, announced loudly, “I'm calling the police.
Anyone without business here had better be gone by the time they
get here.”

With that, he marched away toward the back of
the restaurant.

This incensed the knot of fervent people
surrounding Karina. They began to yell at her not to call the
police, that they just wanted to talk to her, and didn't she have
any respect for her fans at all?

Ryan was getting more and more agitated,
feeling the situation spinning out of control right before his
eyes, and completely unsure what to do about it. However, when a
couple of the people standing closest to Karina started grabbing at
her arms and hair, causing her to cry out in pain or panic or both,
Ryan had had enough.

He jumped up from the table, grabbing her
purse in one hand and using the opposite arm to scoop her up out of
her chair.

He sheltered her in the nook of his arm and
shoulder, extending the hand that held her purse out in front of
him to block the crowding bodies and clear a path for them. He all
but sprinted with her toward the front door, and frantically handed
the valet their ticket.

“
Please hurry,” he said
urgently.

As they stood waiting for the valet to bring
their car, bright flashbulbs began to go off, one right after the
other, right in their eyes. Ryan squinted away and held his hand up
in front of his face. Karina elbowed him gently and leaned in.

“
It's paparazzi. Don't do that unless
you want to end up on the cover of Us Weekly looking like a serial
killer. Just try to smile as naturally as possible.”

He looked down at her, thinking she must be
joking, but no. He was amazed to see her smiling and waving, quite
cavalierly, to the shouting photographers across the street.

He tried to tune in to what they were
saying.

“
Karina, is your new writing partner
more than just a professional fling? Karina, aren't you seeing Kyle
Austen Reed? Karina, are you cheating? Karina, how do you feel
about getting caught cheating?”

Ryan was incensed. How dare they disrespect
her like that! He didn't even think about the wicked scowl that
must be building on his face until Karina elbowed him again, harder
this time.

“
Ryan, I’m serious, look pleasant,” she
hissed through smiling lips and clenched teeth. He did his best,
but he was pretty sure that all he managed was “blank.”

He saw his truck approaching and his arm
tightened around Karina's shoulder in preparation. When the valet
pulled up, Ryan tore open the passenger door and bundled her
inside. He ran around to the driver's side, shoved a twenty dollar
bill into the valet's hand, and jumped in the still-running truck,
immediately taking off down the twisting road that led to the
exclusive restaurant.

He looked behind him several times, worried
that some of the crazily insistent paparazzi would have piled into
their cars and given chase up the mountain. But, after about five
minutes of driving in solitude and seeing no headlights appear
behind him, he breathed a sigh of relief. “I think we lost them,”
he said shakily.

Karina, staring out the window, did not
respond.

“
Are you OK?” he asked, after another
moment of silence.

Still no answer.

The silence stretched on. He didn't know what
to say, or whether saying nothing was the best course of
action.

Finally, she said, in a flat, lifeless voice,
“You said you told them we were coming.”

“
Yeah. I mean, I made a reservation...”
he responded, bewildered.

“
But you didn't tell them it was for
me,” her voice was still without affect, “You didn't tell them a
celebrity was coming so that they could make
arrangements.”

“
Arrangements?” Ryan asked. He felt
like a complete idiot.

“
Seating us in a secluded corner.
Having a back entrance and exit prepared, and parking your car
right next to it. Letting the staff know ahead of time not to
publicize our appearance while we're still there. This isn't LA,
Ryan. People aren't as used to seeing celebrities here. What just
happened? Could have been a lot worse.”

Ryan didn't respond. He was still trying to
process how this wonderful, carefully planned evening that he had
been so proud of arranging could possibly have spiraled into a
chaotic shitpile within the space of about 20 minutes. He just
couldn't wrap his mind around it.

“
Oh, shit!” he suddenly exclaimed,
“They still have your credit card!”

She shrugged, still not having torn her gaze
away from what was apparently a mesmerizing view out the passenger
side window.

“
I'll call tomorrow and apologize for
tonight. Lauren will go with me to go pick it up.”

“
Don't be silly,” Ryan protested, “I
was the one who got you into this, I'll take you!”

“
Don't worry about it, Lauren will,”
Karina said in a tone that let him know that she wasn't worried
about inconveniencing him. She just didn't want him
there.

“
OK,” he said quietly.

They rode for the next half hour in silence.
At one point, Ryan did try to start a conversation. He said,
“Karina, I'm really sorry for how this went down. I just didn't
know. But, I mean...I know you’re mad at me. But, we'll work this
out, right?”

She said nothing for a long beat before
replying dully, “How about let's just not talk right now, OK?”

He nodded, and they rode the rest of the way
to her house in silence. When they pulled up in her driveway, he
started to get out of the truck to come around to her side and open
the door for her like he always did, but before he had even gotten
the door halfway open, she had jumped down and started running up
the walkway to her front door, without a word to him.

He saw her pull her keys out of her clutch
and fumble with the lock. He sat in the truck, watching her. Even
if she hated him, there was no way he was leaving before he saw
that she was safely inside.

When she finally wrestled the door open and
the light from her entryway shone on her face, Ryan could see that
she was crying. Before he could decide, what – if anything – to do
about that, however, she had disappeared inside the house, slamming
the front door behind her.

Ryan sat in his office, again unable to concentrate on
QuickBooks, and again because he couldn't stop himself from
constantly tabbing over to a screen where he had pulled up photos
of Karina.

However, this bout of distraction was not
caused by joy, as the last one had been, but despair.

It had been a full week since the disaster in
Lake Tahoe. Ryan had called Karina numerous times and she wouldn't
pick up the phone. He'd gone to her house, but she had installed a
security system with a camera, so she could see who was at the
front door, and she wouldn't open up for him.

Bernie and Davis had been by to see him every
day and were getting increasingly impatient for him to sign the
documents that they continued to put in front of him, however, he
firmly told them again and again that he wouldn't sign anything
until he spoke with Karina.

Hell, he told himself, if she won't speak
with me by tonight, I'm just going to go camp out on her
doorstep.

Just as he was starting to plan out the
logistics of that move, he heard a rustling of fabric in his
doorway and his nose picked up the aroma of perfume. He looked up
expectantly, hoping he would see her standing there, but was
surprised to see the other three members of the Fabulous Four
instead.

“
Wow,” he said, sitting up straighter,
“Hi, ladies! I'm surprised to see you here.”

He gestured to the two visitor chairs across
from his desk and popped up to go find a third.

Lauren stopped him, “That's OK, Ryan, I'll
stand.”

“
So, are you three here to reiterate to
me what an idiot I am?” Ryan asked sheepishly.

To his astonishment, the girls honestly
seemed to have no idea what he was talking about.

“
What do you mean, what an idiot you
are? You don't think that whole Lake Tahoe fiasco was your fault,
do you?” Amanda asked.

He barked out a bitter laugh, “I don't think
it matters what I think. Karina's made it pretty clear that SHE
thinks it was my fault. That's all that matters.”

Sam's jaw dropped, “She doesn't think it was
your fault!”

Ryan's brow furrowed, “Seriously? I
mean...she barely spoke to me on the way home. She won't return my
calls...I thought she was completely through with me!”

Amanda shook her head vigorously. “No, no!
See? This is why it was a good idea to come and talk to you face to
face. I was hoping it would be some kind of misunderstanding like
this.”

“
What misunderstanding?” Ryan said
eagerly, wanting with everything inside him to believe that it was
true.

“
She's not mad, she's depressed,”
Lauren informed him, “She thinks that you got a glimpse the other
night of what being with her is really like. What it entails. She
thinks you'd be crazy to want that, and you're only calling and
showing up because you want to dump her. She thinks that's why you
haven't been leaving messages. She hasn't been picking up because
she feels too depressed to deal with it right now.

“
Also, she keeps hearing from Bernie
and Davis that there's some papers you refuse to sign? And I guess
they have something to do with working with her. So she thinks you
don't want to anymore.”

Ryan shook his head, trying to incorporate
this new information into his understanding of the situation.

“
But,” he protested, “She actually went
and bought a security camera for her front door so she could know
when not to answer it because I was there!”

“
Wow, egocentric much?” Lauren teased,
“That camera – that whole security system – is because she's afraid
the whole Lake Tahoe debacle will follow her here to Hope Falls,
via some diligent and investigatively-talented paparazzi or fan.
The other night scared her a little. She just wants to be
safe.”

Ryan leaned back in his chair, breathing
deeply. It was really the first free, deep breath he had been able
to draw since Karina hadn't been speaking to him. “So, that's why
you all are here? To try to patch things up between us?”

Amanda nodded, “Not to give you too big a
head or anything, but we all agree that getting the two of you back
together is the only thing that is going to pull Karina out of her
funk, and we just can't stand to see her so miserable anymore. Now
we just need to get her to talk to you. Any ideas?”

Ryan smiled, a twinkle in his eye.

“
There is one idea. I've been batting
it around for awhile. It's a little crazy, and it will take a lot
of work. But I think it will be really special. Are you guys
in?”

Sam smiled, “A little crazy, a lot of work,
and really special are right up our alley. What do you have in
mind?”

--- ~ ---

Karina heard the doorbell peal loudly from
where she lay, upstairs in her bed, and continued to stare straight
ahead as if it hadn't rung. It rang a second time, still provoking
no response. After it rang a third time, she sighed reluctantly and
pulled herself out of bed. She trudged over to the security
camera's monitor to see who was so unwilling to leave her front
door.

When she saw who it was, she groaned. Sam,
Amanda, and Lauren all stood on her front stoop looking straight
into the camera expectantly. She hadn't groaned because she wasn't
happy to see them, though. On the contrary, even the sight of them
on her doorstep had raised her spirits ever so slightly. She
groaned because they were three of just the tiny handful of people
in the world that she couldn't just ignore. She groaned because
their presence on her doorstep meant she actually did have to get
her butt up out of bed.

Karina pressed the intercom button and let
them know she was on her way, then made a point of taking her sweet
time coming down the stairs and across the entryway. She knew she
was being petulant. She didn't care.

She opened the door and the three women filed
in, arms full of garment bags, makeup kits and888 bags of hair
products and tools slung over their shoulders.

“
What's going on?” asked Karina,
surveying everything they carried through narrowed eyes. It all
looked suspiciously like things they might try to use to drag her
into some sort of interactions with the outside world, and that was
the farthest thing from her mind right now.

“
Well,” said Amanda brightly, “We
thought that it might be fun to play fashion show, like we did when
we were kids.”