Page 89 of Devil in Disguise
“Nobody’s going to recognize you,” Annabelle said. “You looked too bad.” And despite everything, Dyma had to laugh.
Besides, Owen wanted her here, right? Enough to arrange last-minute tickets for her and Annabelle, who was skipping her last day of school before Christmas break to come. Annabelle deserved something fun, and maybe Owen had wanted Dyma to have company, too, “since Harlan and I won’t have much time with you guys.” She might have done that whole interview exactly wrong and embarrassed him with his teammates and his family and the wholeworld,but he’d still reacted to all of it by asking her to come out to New Orleans for his game instead of just going home from college to Portland. That had to mean something.
Unless, of course, he was planning to break up with her, and Annabelle was here to cushion the blow and pick up the pieces. You couldn’t exactly break up with somebody in her mom’s house, not if you were Owen. In your bestfriend’shouse, too. Talk about awkward.
It’s not that she thought itwouldhappen. It’s just that she thought itcouldhappen.
She’d always believed, underneath it all, that she was awesome. No matter how many times she was suspended or what anybody said about her, she realized now that she’d thought so. For the first time, she was wondering if it was actually true. If she was awesome, or if she was just … weirdly clueless. And incredibly arrogant, thinking that life would just fall into her lap, because she was smart and mouthy and, yes, maybe because she was pretty, too.
They got to baggage claim at last, and Annabelle said, “There.”
A guy in a black chauffeur’s uniform, holding up a sign that saidD. Cardello.They headed over there, and he said, “Welcome to New Orleans, ladies. Point out your bags, and I’ll grab ‘em for you.”
On the way to the hotel, Dyma learned forward and said, “Excuse me. Sir?”
“Yes, ma’am?” the driver asked, with a little extra grin in his voice. She guessed you weren’t supposed to call the driver “Sir,” but wouldn’t it be rude to just say, “Hey, you?” It wasn’t like she’d ever done anything special enough to merit being called “ma’am.” Not at nineteen, she hadn’t.
“Do you think you could point out where things are?” she asked. “Famous things, I mean? My friend’s brother used to live here, but she only visited a couple times, and I’ve never been here at all. We only have two days here, so …”
“Harlan Kristiansen,” the driver said.
“Well, yeah,” Dyma said. “My … Owen told you that?”
“Yes, ma’am. He sure did. Told me to take real good care of you two. Now, I probably shouldn’t do that, seeing as I’m a Saints fan. On the other hand, Kristiansen was a Saint himself once, so … Yeah, you could call that a dilemma.”
He laughed, a big, rich sound, and Dyma asked, “Also, do you have any music that’s, like, authentic? I mean,The Little Drummer Boyis nice and all—except it’s not, it’s actually pretty horrible—but I want to feel like I’mhere.Do you know what I mean?”
“I sure do,” the driver said. “Now, if you want authentic, yougotto be talking about Mr. Louis Armstrong. And, hey, you want the sunroof open? It’s pretty nice outside. Might as well do this New Orleans style.”
Dyma sighed and said, “Yes, please.” Which was why they drove the crowded streets with the sun roof and all the windows open and Louis Armstrong and his golden trumpet and his rich, gravelly voice coming over the speakers, swaying and singing along and clapping a little like they had some semblance of rhythm. And Dyma felt the past few days finally start to recede. The interview, the TV show, the stares and whispers, the driving, freezing rain, and the Electromagnetics final she’d struggled to finish after an impossibly broken night of not nearly enough sleep.
She’d dreamed of her face in the mirror, and of the horror of the face that looked back at her. A face that was so much like her own, except that everything about it was exactly wrong. She’d woken up, in the dark hours of the night when every fear seemed worse and every flaw seemed fatal, wondering if there was more than a physical resemblance. If her confidence was actually egotism, her fearlessness callousness, her sense of justice merely aggression.
How much she was her father’s daughter.
Snatches of notes from her Genetics class, coming back to her.Extroversion: mostly genetic. Happiness: 50 percent genetic.
And the worst one.
Antisocial/psychopathic behavior: mostly genetic.
The knowledge that Pavani’s parents had seen that program, too, and, always, Owen and what she’d done to him.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, though. Maybe this kind of thing happened all the time. You heard about scandals every day, right? You didn’t necessarily remember all of them.
Maybe he could forgive this.
Another lurch of her heart even as she clapped and sang.
Please, let him forgive this.
Finally, they were walking through the doors and into a stone-flagged hotel lobby, extravagantly decorated for Christmas, with a huge tree at one end swathed in ornaments of gold and crystal and twinkling with white lights, and Dyma’s heart was beating even faster, because somebody was standing up from the chairs near the entrance.
Well, a bunch of people, actually, but she was only looking at one. She started hurrying so fast, her suitcase fell over on its side and her duffel slipped off her shoulder, but it didn’t matter, because Owen was there. Picking her up, his big arms wrapped all the way around her, holding on.
The lump rose in her throat, and the tears pricked behind her eyes. She tried to breathe it out, to will them back, and she couldn’t.
She almost never cried. She was crying anyway, her shoulders shaking, the emotion welling up and spilling over with no control at all. She tried to hide it, but Owen was saying, “Hey. Hey, baby. What’s wrong?” His hands so gentle on her, and his voice, too, and that was making her cry even more.
