Indie Girl (20 page)

“We will be breaking the news, a worldwide exclusive,” she said proudly.

“But how?” Gerardo asked.

Aaralyn looked at me. Because she had opened up to me so much earlier, I figured that she would have no qualms telling her potential investors that the story had come through me. I straightened my posture, getting ready to finally be noticed by them.

“Oh, let’s just say I have my ways,” she said, turning away from me.

A cool chill came over me.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I can assure you that this scoop will put my magazine back on top. By Friday afternoon, all the entertainment shows will be calling me. Everyone will be talking about
Celebrity Style.

The two Italians looked at each other. Gerardo reached into his briefcase and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers.

“Well, then,” he said, taking a slow sip of his coffee. “Maybe we have a deal.”

Given my career-saving coup, I was hoping that Aaralyn would at least upgrade me to first class, that even though she obviously had trouble giving recognition to anyone other than herself, she could at least thank me privately.

But there was no such thing on her part.

Instead, Aaralyn, Kyle, and I sat in near silence in the first-class lounge before our flight. And once we got on board, she went her way, and Kyle and I went ours.

Aldo wasn’t at the airport, surprisingly. Instead, there was another driver, Jimmy, who told us that Aldo was sick. He was going to first whisk Aaralyn and Kyle to their home, and then me back to mine. In Aaralyn’s bag was a copy of the contract that the Italians had handed her. She was going to show it to her lawyers and send it back. But as she had said to them before leaving, there was no reason the deal wouldn’t go through.

I got home exhausted. My mother flung her arms around me as if I had been missing for six years, and my father’s first question was how I had been treated by Aaralyn.

“Fine, Dad,” I said. “It was amazing,” not pointing out that today was June 15. The day I was once so sure I’d get a phone call from
Celebrity Style.

After giving me a day to recover, they asked me about my plans for the rest of the summer.

“Mohit’s daughters are still keen that you go with them. They’re leaving for India in two weeks. We can apply for your visa tomorrow,” my father said.

“But Dad,” I started to protest.

He didn’t want to hear it, holding up his hand to tell me so.

“Indie, need I remind you that you made a promise before you left? You told me that if I let you go to Italy, that you would give up on these crazy ideas and do something more useful with your summer,” he said. “Can you imagine how it will look on your application to Harvard, when you mention that you spent two months in India serving the poor and destitute?”

He was right. I
had
promised. And being the good Indian girl I was, a promise had to be kept.

The cover was beautiful. Across the whole front page of
Celebrity Style
was a recent photograph of Chiara Baird,
wearing a Luca Berlutti bias-cut chiffon gown. Underneath it was a large white caption:
LUCA BERLUTTI’S FIVE MILLION DOLLAR GIRL.

I turned to the inside page, which said FULL STORY. All the details were there, everything I’d overheard in the bathroom in Milan that day, plus background that a staff writer had put together. I narrowed my eyes and peered at the bottom of the page. Sometimes, these stories came with an “Additional reporting by” byline. I thought that perhaps, in some bizarre showing of good grace on her part, Aaralyn might have put my name there. But there was nothing. I tried to tell myself that I had had a wonderful free trip to Milan, as a companion to a woman I had admired from afar for years. I tried to tell myself that it had all been worth it.

But there was a feeling gnawing away inside me that contradicted that. I felt used and disrespected. Honestly, I thought to myself: That’s the last time I help out Aaralyn Taylor. Ever.

The “inkys” and I were flying to Calcutta on the afternoon of June 30, the day before the internship job would actually start. I wondered who it was that had landed it, assuming it was probably Brooke. I had been so numb about everything that had happened lately that I didn’t even care anymore. It was really over.

Plus, I couldn’t think about that now. I had a twenty-two-hour flight in front me, with changes in Tokyo and
Bangkok, with the “inkys” for company. I had to steel myself. I had to pack plenty of reading material. I had to psych myself up to go off and do something that, in my heart of hearts, I just didn’t want to do.

As I was drowning in a mountain of clothes, trying to figure out what to take, my mother came in with a cup of freshly brewed chai, a cinnamon stick protruding from the creamy beige liquid.

“Here,” she said, handing it over. “Need any help?” she continued, looking over at the mounds of garments on my bed.

“No, Mom, thanks. I just want to make sure I have enough. Two months is a long time.”

“Yes, it is, my darling,” she said, her head cocked to one side, her eyes wistful. “We shall miss you tremendously.”

“Oh, I just remembered something,” she said, suddenly straightening up. “I found something while you were gone. I thought this was very interesting.” She led me to my computer, sat down at the chair, and logged on to a website.

“What are you doing, Mom?” I asked, astonished, as she typed in the words GossipAddict.com. “Since when are you interested in that kind of thing? How did you even know about it?”

“Oh,” she said, turning around to look up at me. “You know, the day after you left for Milan, I was doing Google
to find a remedy for my chapped lips. They were very dry. Do you remember?”

I shook my head inattentively.

“But I saw you had just been on some GossipAddict.com site. So even I thought I would see what it was. I found something very interesting on there.”

She went to a link on the home page under “Who We Are.” She opened it up and showed me a photograph. Two women, who had given themselves the pen names Patsy and Edina. As in
Absolutely Fabulous.
They were sisters who had the much more ordinary real-life names of Emma and Tracy. One was a former television writer, another a beauty editor, but realized their “love for gossip overpowered all else.” They were seated at desks in what looked like a busy office, some people milling around behind them. I would never have given it a second thought.

“Look,” said my mother, pointing to a shadowy figure in the background.

I gasped.

“Oh my God, Mom,” I said. “Do you know what you’ve found? It all makes sense now.”

I pressed
PRINT
on my computer.

My mother had loaded me down with so much luggage that I looked like a coolie. She figured that just because I was the only one in the family going to India didn’t mean that I
couldn’t carry a colossal amount of gifts for relatives there.

The night before, right after my mother had shown me what she had discovered, I picked up the phone to call Aaralyn. I wanted to tell her that my mother had recognized Aldo in the background of a photograph on the GossipAddict.com site, that my mother remembered him from when he had come to pick me up on the day we had flown to Milan. She had trusted him all this time and he had betrayed her. He had driven her around, listening to all her phone conversations, and fed the information to a competing news source.

But before I dialed her number, I stopped. Why should I bother? She had certainly expressed no gratitude or appreciation so far for anything else I’d done for her in the past. She had met my attempts at goodwill, at showing her my concern, with a stony self-absorption. Maybe I should just let her go down.

If I were anybody else, that’s exactly what I would have done.

But I wasn’t anybody else. I was just me, Indira Rajiv Konkipuddi, the daughter of a neurosurgeon and a homemaker (and sometime detective). I was a girl who loved fashion and was conflicted about so many things.

I recalled my grandfather telling me once on my last trip to India that one of the core teachings in the Hindu scriptures was of a “sincere desire to be of service to others.”

“Do something because it is the right and honorable
thing to do, not for any reward you might receive as a result,” he said, stroking my head. “In most instances in your life, you will find that performing acts of kindness and mercy bring their own rewards.”

Until today, I had never really understood what he was trying to tell me. But at least now, I knew this: Whatever Aaralyn chose to do with the information was her responsibility. I couldn’t control if or how she thanked me. This wasn’t about recognition. It was about being a dutiful person. And I, Indira Konkipuddi, was all about duty.

So I called her.

“He’s been working for me for two years,” she said, once I relayed what my mother had discovered. “I can’t believe it.”

She paused. “Well, thanks for letting me know.” And she hung up.

“You have everything
beta?
” my father asked. I checked my tote to make sure all my water purification tablets and Power Bars were in there. Eight weeks with the “inkys” were going to be hard enough without having to endure Delhi-belly.

Kim had come over to see me off, and she and I stood on the pavement outside my house, saying good-bye. She had also come to tell me that she and Brett had broken up. She didn’t seem too distraught over it, though.

“I guess the fantasy Brett was better than the real Brett,” she said, laughing. “I’ve downloaded a new ring tone, by the way.”

As my father loaded the last of my luggage into his car, a BMW pulled up.

To my astonishment, out stepped Aaralyn. She reached into the backseat and pulled out Kyle. He lunged for me when he saw me.

“Dindy,” he squealed.
“Dindy!”
Aaralyn was holding him, but he was looking straight at me.

“Indie, I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said, walking up the driveway. “I’m glad I caught you.”

“Oh, sorry, Aaralyn. I’ve just been so busy preparing for this trip to India that I haven’t checked my voice mail since yesterday, and before that …”

My father interjected.

“You must be Miss Taylor. It is a pleasure to meet you at last,” he said, extending his hand to her. “But I’m afraid your timing is somewhat faulty. Indie here will miss her flight. Departure is on schedule.”

I could tell by the way he spoke that he was nervous and that made me feel suddenly sympathetic and strangely loyal. For all his medical degrees and professional success, my father was an unassuming man, and I could see that Aaralyn unnerved him.

“How did you even know I was leaving today?” I asked.

“You told me in Milan that you had promised your
dad you would spend the summer in India if he let you accompany me. Don’t you remember? You said you would have exactly two weeks back before having to fly off again. I didn’t get to where I am by easily forgetting things. I called last night on your home number. Your father told me you were flying out today. Didn’t he give you the message?”

I spun my head around to look at my father, who had a rather sheepish expression on his face.

“Sorry, Indie,” he said. “I knew you were busy preparing for your trip and didn’t want to distract you.”

I knew my father was lying. He had been so thrilled when I had agreed to go away to India for the summer, that he must have been terrified that a single phone call from Aaralyn was going to demolish all that. He figured that all she would have to do was beckon me and I would go running to her. A few weeks ago, he might have been right. But I didn’t want to be Aaralyn’s puppet anymore.

I think the look in my eyes told her as much. We all stood there awkwardly, wondering what Aaralyn was going to say next. I still had no idea why she was here. But I wasn’t about to ask her. I had made enough overtures to her in the past. Now, it was her turn.

I set my bag down. I cast a thoughtful look her way, just the faintest glimmer of a smile on my face, wanting to dilute any tension. A small part of me wanted to say something to her—to remind her of all I had done for her
and the fact that I had never really been thanked for it. Not even once. I wanted to tell her how upset I had been, how my self-confidence had been shattered. I wanted to share with her that she had been my idol for years, that I aspired to be like her when I grew up, but I saw now that she wasn’t the woman I had created in the fantasy fashion land that had occupied my head.

But of course I knew I wouldn’t say any of this. Not only was confrontation of any sort just not my thing, but my parents were standing by, monitoring every word, every inflection. I just didn’t want to embarrass myself in their eyes.

“Indie,” Aaralyn said finally, taking a step toward me. “I know when we first met, the day you ran after my limo, you wanted that internship at my magazine,” she said.

I felt my stomach lurching, as if I were being flung forward in a fast car. My heart was pounding. This was the first time she had ever even brought up the subject of the internship. My immediate thought was that she had realized the error of her ways, that she had dismissed me too early. The deadline had passed, but maybe she was going to give it to me, anyway—in person.

“I said then I couldn’t give it to you,” Aaralyn continued, biting her bottom lip, something that made her look suddenly fragile and vulnerable. “And I’m sorry, Indie, but I’m saying the same thing today. It’s gone to Brooke.”

Everything around me suddenly came screeching to
a halt. The blood rose to my cheeks. How stupid I continued to be! When would I ever learn?

“That’s okay, Aaralyn,” I said. “It was something I really, really wanted, but I think I knew a long time ago that you would never give it to me. I mean, I’m not really the kind of person who could ever get a job at your magazine, am I?”

We were standing next to a busy bougainvillea plant, its bright fuchsia blooms contrasting with Aaralyn’s dove-gray dress. That was the only thing I could focus on, the only stopping me from crying in front of her.