Page 53 of Paparazzi

“I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll like it,” Lilly suggests as we all turn and look at her. She’s got that enthusiastic, persuasive smile on her face that almost makes my skin crawl. That girl, behind the sweet and innocent facade, could drag you into anything. Lucky for Damian—and us too—there’s not a shred of evil in her. Compared to us, she’s a lamb in a pack of lions.

*

How Evan agreed to this, I don’t know. I think he’s with our press office right now writing a press release to try and save Damian and Lilly from what they volunteered to do for me. I’m in front of Iris’s door, my heart pumping furiously in my chest, and I feel the urge to get out of here quickly. I’m worried this isn’t such a good idea anymore. I’m afraid this time she really will kick me out of her apartment and call the police. I have no time to change my mind because the door to her apartment suddenly opens before I can even knock.

“You’re getting creepier and creepier, you know that?” she says with a half-smile at my dazed face.

“How the hell did you know I was here? I didn’t knock...did I?” I ask for confirmation with a puzzled raised eyebrow.

Iris’s lips widen into an amused smile. “No, you didn’t knock.” It reassures me somewhat to hear these words. “I noticed Dexter nervously pacing back and forth in front of the door. I came to look through the peephole, and I found you with a terrified expression,” she explains.

“I don’t look terrified,” I say, pretending to be shocked.

Iris lets me in while she giggles. “Yes, I can assure you that you look terrified, and you’re usually like this when you have to tell me something I won’t like.” She crosses her arms on her chest and raises an inquisitory eyebrow.

I never knew what performance anxiety was until I met this woman. “This time, I’m sure you’ll like it.”

Her non-answer, and the eyebrow that arches even more, weakens my confidence, so I hasten to add an explanation. “I won’t offer you money or try to pay for something you don’t want.”

“But?” she’s too smart to believe it’s that simple.

“But youcanmake a lot of money from it,” I explain proudly, realizing that, given Iris’s perplexed face, I didn’t explain anything at all.

She sits at the table stool in the center of the kitchen and looks at me carefully. “Why is it every time you come up with one of your ideas, I get the feeling that I’m going to get mad at you?” Her question is slightly mocking, but she doesn’t seem particularly angry.

“No, I swear that this time it is organized well and thought out. I can give you the story you’re looking for on Damian and Lilly.”

I get her full attention, her face lighting up with hope, concern, perplexity. “And you would sell your friends out like that?” she asks doubtfully.

I smile and shake my head. “Actually, it was Lilly’s idea,” I admit almost proudly because this time, I didn’t act impulsively or alone; I ran it by my friends before I offered it to her or did it behind her back. I’m getting better, given my record.

“Okay, this thing is getting more and more surreal. Who’s involved, exactly?” she asks me halfway between incredulous and amused.

“All my bandmates, Lilly and even Evan, who’s working with the press office,” I say as if it were the greatest idea ever, and I take in Iris’s face, first amused, then puzzled, then incredulous.

“So you involved everyone?” her tone is almost shrill.

“I called a meeting tonight. Simon even came back from Connecticut.”

“You’re completely out of your mind,” she says with a smile that makes me hope she’s not mad. She’s not going to kick me out of her apartment, or attack me screaming like she did at the clinic. It’s a huge step forward.

Iris inhales deeply as if she’s undecided about what to say. “Well, what is it? You haven’t explained it to me yet.”

“You’ll find out when we get there. You have to get your camera and come with me.”

Iris’s face darkens. “I can’t take pictures with this shoulder.”

I smile at her and pound a hand on my chest. “That’s why you have an assistant. You tell me what to do, and I shoot in silence,” I say as she bursts into laughter.

“I knew you were crazy, but I didn’t think you were this crazy. You’ve completely lost it.”

She’s right, and what makes me the most nervous is that I’ve never done anything like this, not since I got out of prison, at least. Since keeping on the straight and narrow, I’ve become someone who never lets himself get carried away by emotions, who thinks before he acts, who calculates every move. Now, I’m feeling like a little boy on his first adventure.

“So you’re in?” I ask for confirmation.

“At this point, I’m curious to know just how far you’ve gone,” she confesses before turning around and going to get her camera bag which I offer to carry.

*

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