Jeez, who would have thought that Alan Manzone and Father Morris would share the same opinion of Rene? But they are both wrong. Rene is a true friend.

He studies me for a long time and after what feels like an eternity, he inches back from me. Then I see Rene closing in out of the corner of my eye.

He doesn’t look at her. “I just got out of Rehab. That story in print is true. I would appreciate it if you don’t forget your vial on my plane, and if you go to the bathroom one more time to powder your nose, I’ll have them touchdown at the first airport we reach and have you booted from the plane. What the fuck were you thinking, carrying that through airport security? Don’t you give a shit about your friend?”

Rene’s face is candy red and it betrays the truth. With that, Alan closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

* * *

“Chrissie. We’re in New York.”

Someone is trying to wake me. I don’t want to wake. I’m in a pleasant sleep, curled into something warm. There is sound all around me. I hear voices. His voice. Yes, I’m with Alan. I’d recognize his voice anywhere.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad,” says the co-pilot. “I don’t know how they knew we were landing in New York today.”

“Shut all the window shades. Make sure the car is ready before you lower the steps.”

Alan. He is angry. Why is he angry? The snap of the window shade beside my head jerks me out of grogginess. Alan unbuckles my seatbelt and climbs from the seat. I realize that the pleasant pillow beneath my cheek was his shoulder and it’s now gone. My eyelids slowly lift and I see Rene alertly watching the fast action around us.

I find Alan standing above me, tense, and his eyes a strange mixture of concern and apology.

He lowers until he’s at eye level with me. “Chrissie, we have a problem. About half the New York Press corps is on the tarmac. I need to get you from the plane to the car without anyone noticing you.”

I straighten up in my seat. “Why? What does it matter if they see me?”

He stills and his eyes widen. “The worst possible thing I could do to you is let the tabloids see you with me. I should never have let you travel to New York with me.”

Oh my…I know why he’s worried. For the last year he’s existed in nonstop tabloid ink. Just being near him can get you tarred in tabloid ink. Oh jeez, what will Jack think of that?

Alan looks determined and grim. It’s very sweet that he’s so worried about this, but it’s not exactly something new to me and I do know how to handle this.

I gaze up at him and smile. “Alan, I know how to be invisible. Trust me. Just let me get off the plane alone and no one will even notice me. This is something I am expert at.”

Alan shifts from the flight crew to face me. “If the tabloids realize who you are, Chrissie, it will turn into a shitstorm. I don’t ever want you hurt because of me.”

I stare at him, stunned. He spoke in an intense way, as though not hurting me really did matter to him, but then how could it matter? We hardly know each other. It makes no sense. As I climb from my seat, I realize there is a lot about Alan that doesn’t make sense.

I shrug. “It won’t be my first shitstorm, Alan. So don’t worry about it. It’s going to be all right.”

His mouth presses into a hard line, but then, almost reluctantly, he starts to laugh. “I’m sorry, but I’ve never heard anyone say shit quite the way you do, without the ‘t’ at the end and with lots of ‘shhhh.’”

My temper flares. “I’m a Disney character. Remember?” I mutter, in an overly dramatic way to hide the sting I feel from his criticism.

I make an exaggerated face and he rolls his eyes. “You are never going to forget that, are you?” he says in an aggravated way, before he turns to talk with the crew again.

“Here is what you are going to do, Chrissie,” he says firmly, but he seems less worried about everything. “You are going to step off this plane without me. If you have sunglasses, put them on. Look at no one. Answer no one. And you will walk, neither fast nor slow, to the car with Natalie. Don’t stop. And don’t look back. If we’re lucky the tabloids won’t notice you.”

I shrug. “It’s what I was going to do anyway.” The co-pilot hands me my cello.

“And what am I supposed to do?”

Rene’s voice startles me. I’d all but forgotten about her. She is curled on her seat like a cat, irritated at not being the center of attention.

“You will do exactly as I tell you,” Alan says, his gaze fixing on Rene. “Exactly as I tell you. And you will be silent.”

Alan walks to the cabin door with me, carefully stopping so as not to be seen. “I’m sorry, Chrissie.”

I shrug and Alan eases forward to push my sunglasses up from the tip of my nose until they are flush against my face.

“Say nothing.” Alan runs his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture I now realize.

I step into the open cabin door and the press below spring into action. I tense like you do when you expect something to hit you, a suspended moment, and then it passes. The cameras don’t flash, I notice Natalie the flight attendant at my side, and the voices below are still mute. I touch the metal steps and the press hardly even look at me.

I cross the tarmac toward the car, surrounded by a strange kind of heavy silence. The driver opens the car door and takes my cello as Natalie disappears toward the terminal. I’m about to slip into the seat, when something makes me jump and I look back.

The cameras explode all around. Alan starts to exit the plane, his arm carelessly draped over Rene’s shoulder and Rene has that self-satisfied, Cheshire cat smile on her face.

I sink into the backseat to wait. I can hear the shouting voices and every so often I hear Alan’s. Why is this taking so long? I try to look through the wall of press, but I can’t see anything. Hopefully, Rene is keeping her mouth shut. She never should have let Alan use her that way, and for a brief moment I am angry with him.

Moments later, Rene drops in a heavy bounce in the seat across from me, all bubbly and pretty with excitement. “God, Chrissie! That was incredible,” she exclaims, rummaging through the compartments in the car until she finds a bottle of water.

I shake my head in aggravation as she downs a third of the bottle. “You didn’t say anything, did you?” I ask.

“What? No. I don’t know.” Her eyes round. “It all happened so fast. It was all so intense. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

I lean forward into her. “Rene, think. You didn’t tell them your name, did you?”

Irritated, she pushes the hair back from her face. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know.” This time, I can see she is lying.

“Oh, Rene.”

She shrugs carelessly. “Someone asked me.” She pushes back into the leather seat and gives me that smile, the one I hate, half challenging and half superior. “What’s the big deal, Chrissie? God, are you jealous?”

I roll my eyes and clamp my mouth shut, but for a millisecond I am reminded of what it felt like to see them standing together, how right Alan and Rene looked, and how much it bothered me to see her hanging on his arm.

Rene frowns. “You have nothing to be jealous about,” she says in that generous way of the truly confident, “and I’m not dumb. Something was going on out there. He didn’t want anyone to know you were with him. Which is very strange. Why is he protective of you?”

I ignore the comment, but I do wonder: protective? He definitely is an entirely different guy when he deals with Rene, rude and acerbic and not likeable.

Rene raises her eyebrows.

“I think he really likes you, Chrissie. He’s a shit, but I think he really likes you. Spill everything. I’ve been dying since we boarded the plane keeping myself quiet. You spent the night with him last night, didn’t you? That’s where you were all night.”

I look out the window. “Yes. On the beach. We talked.”