The Rock Star’s Fake Fiancee - Kenzie Reed Page 0,56
ears. She runs a no-kill animal shelter and she’s always bringing her work home with her.
“Not one of you is dying,” I say when I get my breath back. I fan myself with my hand.
“She sounds so disappointed,” Harper observes. “Are we offended? I’m offended.”
“Long time no see, Cal-lie,” Daisy says, deliberately pronouncing the “lie” part of my name.
“Like an hour now? Hour and a half? Not long enough, Daised and Confused.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I gave you a very nice apology along with baby cuddle therapy, and you repay me by keeping secrets from me. I’m usually the one with all the secrets. What are you hiding?”
“My plans to run away and join a circus, so I can finally see what normal looks like. Oops, secret’s out. By the way, has Chase forgiven you for your questionable taste in teen crushes?”
She smirks. “He will tonight.”
I recoil. “Your baby is only three weeks old! How can you even…? No, don’t tell me. No details. I am literally begging you.”
She ignores my fervent pleas. “I can do certain things.”
I need to change the subject immediately, before she tells me things I can never unhear. “What was the emergency? Why did I run all the way here?”
Harper holds the tablet up and shows me. “Check this out. Mimi has reached peak crazy.”
Terra Jones has interviewed Mimi, splashing her smirking face across the Make Noize blog.
“Mimi is claiming that she’s the mystery fiancée and that’s why the band is in Swampy Bottom County.”
Daisy purses her lips in thought. “Well, it could be true. It is kind of random that they came to stay here of all places. Could she have disguised herself with a wig and stage makeup?”
Yikes. She’s getting uncomfortably close to the truth.
“Gross,” Savannah says. “Okay, Crash talks to those guys a lot, since they’re planning out their security details for the Tricentennial. I’m going to make him pass the word on about Mimi. Sebastian seems like a nice guy. He’s way too good for her. I wonder how they met?”
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions now,” I protest.
Why am I arguing? I should absolutely let them think that it’s Mimi. It directs attention away from me.
“I’m adding her to my list,” Harper says. She has a notebook open next to the iPad. She starts scribbling in the notebook and nodding to herself. “She looks to be about five eight. That fits with Mimi. She may have a tattoo on her right arm, although it could have been a temporary tattoo, because she’s been seen without the tattoo also. So it was either covered with makeup that one time, or… Where was I? Anyway. Long black hair, could be a wig. Kind of olive-complexioned, I’d say.” She scrolls on her tablet and holds it up to show an alarmingly clear paparazzi photo of me in my disguise. “What do you think, Callie? Does she look familiar at all?”
We now have the attention of everyone in the room. Cora Lee Smythe, who’s teaching the summer art classes, is having lunch with Sandy Sue at the table next to ours. They both swivel towards us.
“Mimi’s butt’s bigger than that,” Cora Lee decides.
“Definitely,” Mayor Culpepper pipes up from the booth behind us. Then he glances at his wife Jolene. “Not that I was paying close attention,” he assures her.
“No, no, you’re right,” Jolene nods supportively. “She’s broader in the beam than the girl in those pictures.” Then she wrinkles her forehead. “Well, I think so, anyway. Let me have a look-see.”
She and her husband get up and come to our table to look at the picture. She examines the picture with a frown. “No, that’s definitely not Mimi Applebottom’s caboose.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she’s wearing really good support hose in the picture?” Sandy Sue suggests. “Or that kind of underwear that lifts and separates? You can’t buy it here in town, but you can get it from a catalog.”
She and Cora Lee both get up from their table and walk over. They’re all crowded around the table, jostling to get a closer look at the mystery fiancée’s butt.
Which is actually my butt.
The mayor is checking out my butt. Everybody is looking at my butt.
“This was your emergency?” I splutter.
“The fact that we might have finally solved the Mystery of the Monroe Fiancée?” Harper looks mildly offended. “Of course that’s an emergency, and I thought you’d want to be a part of it.”
“‘Mystery of the Monroe Fiancée’,” Savannah muses. “Is that what