No Strings Attached (50 page)

“I didn't go to school this summer, but I learned a pretty big life lesson. And I hope that counts for something. I'm no hero, and I suck at school—but I do have talent, and I know this business, show business. I live and breathe it. And I … Dad, I found a screenplay. …”

“This is a joke, right?”

Five heads shook in unison. Jared, Lindsay, Sara, Eliot, and Nick were serious as a heart attack. Naomi had been in the bedroom, sitting in the window seat (imagine!) reading a book, minding her own business, when they ambushed her, just flung open the door, brandishing a dozen long-stemmed red roses, a bottle of champagne, and a proposition—one at which they assumed she'd jump.

She stood still. “Guys, this is so sweet. But there are other ways to say thanks. You don't have to offer me a part in a movie. It's overcompensating.”

“Asking you to star in
Hide in Plain Sight
has nothing to do with gratitude,” Jared assured her. “It's—”

“Bra
sheet
,” Lindsay interrupted. “That's Jewish for ‘It's meant to be.'”

“It's Yiddish,” Jared corrected, “and it's pronounced
beshert
.”

“It's ber
serk
,” Naomi told them with finality.

Had it only been Jared or Lindsay pushing this insane idea, it would've been easy to dismiss them. But they had allies—Eliot, Nick, and Sara—and she was feeling seriously ganged up on, under pressure to explain herself. 'Cause no way, no how, not ever would she consider their beyond-ridiculous proposal.

Nick put a friendly arm around her. “This is a big movie, Naomi. Most people would think they've died and gone to heaven, to be asked to star in it.”

Most people—did she really need to point it out?—were not her.

“A month ago, Lindsay and I would've fought you for it!” Sara exclaimed.

“And so would Naomi Watts, and Reese Witherspoon, and any of the Kates—Bosworth, Beckinsale, Blanchett, Winslet, Hudson—you name 'em,” Lindsay put in.

Naomi rolled her eyes. Had they all gone bonkers? Was she the only sane one in the room? And how had everything suddenly moved into warp speed? Listening to them made Naomi dizzy.

Just a few days ago, Sara had asked Jared to read
Hide in Plain Sight
. In the span of seventy-two hours, he'd read it and taken it to his father, who'd agreed that the screenplay was pretty wonderful. Galaxy quickly secured the rights from an overjoyed Officer Ortega—now, officially, a screenwriter! Because there are no secrets in Hollywood, word got out quickly, and the whole showbiz community sniffed out the new “buzz-worthy” screenplay. In swift succession, a producer and director signed up. Paramount Pictures snapped it up, and
Hide in Plain Sight
got “greenlit”—Hollywood-speak for happening. The casting process was about to begin.

Jared refused to allow any actresses to audition for the starring role until Naomi took a shot at it. Which she stubbornly refused to do.

“You read the script,” Sara reminded her. “And somewhere deep inside, you know you're perfect for the part of Moxie.”

“Why don't you want to even try out?” Eliot asked.

“Hello? Not an actress—remember? Or did the earthquake give you all amnesia? Girl from the streets. Sara's stray. A homeless ho,” Naomi fired back.

“Ooops.” Lindsay genuinely blushed. “You heard that, huh?”

Naomi narrowed her eyes at Jared. “Just two months ago you thought I was a crackhead killer. Now you think I'm a movie star. Make up your mind.”

“Who said you couldn't be both? They're not mutually exclusive.”

It was Lindsay's quip, but Jared elbowed her in the ribs. “A lot can happen in two months,” he said. “A lot did happen. I was exposed as the jerk, the asshole, any horrible thing you can think of: Fill in the blank. But I'm still an opportunist, and if it helps you to see it that way, go for it.”

“What he's saying—” Lindsay started, but Sara stopped her.

“He doesn't need you to interpret. What Jared means is, if you agree to read for the role and things work out, Jared wins too. It makes him look good to his father and raises his stock in the biz. It's win-win, Naomi.”

Naomi arched her eyebrows. Sara on Jared's side? What had the summer come to?

“It's totally quid pro quo,” Lindsay put in. “You saved our lives. We give you a part in a movie where you'll earn millions. The movie makes billions, we save Jared's dad's company. We're all heroes. It's so Hollywood! See?”

Naomi did not see. Their idea was harebrained, insane. And impossible. What were they thinking? This wasn't some fantasy, and she wasn't their own Eliza Dolittle, or Julia Roberts in
Pretty Woman
. The homeless waif from the streets becomes a rich movie star? That only happens in the movies. Not in real life, and certainly not in
her
real life.

After the quake, when Eliot had guessed she was a survivor, she'd told them about her past. The version she gave them was abridged. If she went along with the crazy idea to read for the role in the movie, and if she actually got it? Too much info would surface. She couldn't take that chance.

For the first time since Sara had taken her in, Naomi felt caged. She pressed her back against the window-seat wall. “As much as I want to help you look good, Jared, I can't do this.”

“Can't? Or won't?” Eliot said it gently.

“I can't! I can't be famous. I'm an under-the-radar person.”

“That's in the past. Everything's changed now,” Sara said soothingly.

“How do you even know I'd be good?” Naomi challenged. “Just because the role calls for a kid who runs away and ends up on the streets? If that's the criteria, why not go to Hollywood Boulevard, pick up any homeless girl, and offer her the part?

“Eeeww!” Lindsay couldn't help herself.

“Only you can play this part,” Sara said. “You have so much soul. You look like you've seen so much sadness, like you're wise beyond your years. It comes across in your eyes. That, and your fierce determination—we saw that during the earthquake. It's like you were someone else. You were born to play Moxie.”

“And,” Lindsay noted, “you'd come cheap.”

Jared shot darts at her.

“Well, she wouldn't cost what a Cami Diaz would, or Reese, or Charlize. Even a TV star—God forbid!—would charge more. That's meaningful to the studio.”

“How 'bout you don't say any more,” Nick suggested.

Lindsay furrowed her brow, then turned to Naomi. “Wait a minute. I get it. You don't want to do the role because you think people will find out you were really homeless? And look down on you?”

“Gee, Lindsay, I wonder why she'd think that?” Eliot said sarcastically.

“You're so not seeing the big picture, Naomi. Rags-to-riches stories are classic—they never go out of style, they're totally on trend. It's the cover of
People
. You'll be America's sweetheart.”

Naomi shuddered.

A light went on in Jared's head. “Oh, crap, there's more, isn't there? You haven't told us the whole story.”

“She doesn't have to tell us any more than she wants to.” Sara fell right into default mode, defending Naomi.

Thoughtfully, Jared said, “Not to sound like more of a jerk than you already think I am, but, Naomi, whatever it is, whatever you're hiding that you think is so terrible it would keep you from this—I bet I can fix it. Spin it so it's a good thing, not a bad thing.”

“That's what's so sick. You really believe that.” Naomi's laugh was bitter.

Jared took no offense. “I'm not Superman. But there are things I can do, places where I have influence. Let me—”

“Save me? Let you save me like I saved Lindsay? Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't need saving? Maybe I've been saved one time too many.”

A plunging sadness gripped her as she packed her few belongings. She finally got them off her back by agreeing to think about trying out for the role.

She'd lied. Naomi didn't need to think. None of them would ever, ever understand what her life had been like, that to have people know her name—to be in the spotlight, to be exposed? It was unthinkable.

The days after the 1994 earthquake were a blur. She'd gone in and out of consciousness; all she remembered was waking in a strange place, asking her sister Annie where Mom and Dad were. She'd come to understand she was in a motel with Annie, saved by Mr. Knepper, the tall, kindly man who lived in the apartment above theirs. Annie was eleven; she was nine.

Over the next several weeks, Mr. Knepper explained what'd happened. The earthquake had demolished most of the apartment complex, and many of the people who lived there, including their parents, had perished. For a long time, Naomi
was incapable of comprehending more. She'd never see her parents again. That was too big; it blotted out everything else.

The story Mr. Knepper told the girls got worse. The apartment, he alleged, wasn't even theirs legally. “Your folks weren't paying rent; they were squatting. Their name was never on any bills. So it's not like you gals can make a claim or anything.” He told them if they tried to contact the police, everything would be exposed. Their parents would have died criminals, and they themselves would go to jail, to juvie.

Annie and Naomi believed him. They were kids, just dumb, terrified kids who, in the blink of an eye, were orphaned. They didn't have other relatives they knew of—they'd spent most of their lives on the road with their parents. They didn't know how to search for potential kin. Mr. Knepper saved their lives, dragged them out of the rubble, he said, fed and sheltered them. They thought they were safe with him; that's what he told them.

When he asked about school, they told him the truth: They'd been home-schooled. He vowed to continue their training, right there in the motel.

They rarely left the motel. They didn't know they could. When he told them he'd always wanted daughters and he felt like a father to them—that's when the sisters began to be uneasy in his presence.

They knew it was wrong when he began to act more than
paternally toward them. Annie hatched a plan. Naomi never knew exactly what her sister had done to immobilize Mr. Knepper, how she'd gathered food, some clothes, stolen some money—planned their escape.

They made up different names, different birthdays. They'd stayed in Griffith Park for a while but were soon picked up by the LAPD. Having no identification, no one to claim them, no one who had filed a missing persons report, they were turned over to child services.

It wasn't until they landed in foster homes that they were separated. “Never tell,” Annie had tearfully warned her. “Never tell what happened. We'll get in bad trouble.”

“Why?” Naomi had asked. “We didn't do anything wrong.”

“I did,” Annie said. “I had to. Swear you won't tell. If anyone finds out what I did, I'll go to jail. Or worse.”

Naomi swore. She believed that, one day, after they were out of foster care, they'd live together, be a family again. But that's not how it worked out. Naomi ended up in a string of foster homes, and eventually she ran away for good, never finding Annie. A part of her believed that if she stayed on the streets, Annie would find her. It'd been years now. Still, she clung to that belief.

And now here comes Jared Superstar. A rich kid with resources, money. Giving her this hooey about making her a star—and maybe he could. Maybe Annie would find her. But
if she went public, Annie's secret—Naomi now believed Annie may have done something bad to Knepper—it would come out. She'd go to jail.

“She's gone!” Sara scurried down the elaborate staircase of the Larson mansion, calling out to the others. “Naomi bolted.”

“What do you mean, she's gone? Gone where?” Jared appeared at the bottom of the steps, Lindsay, Nick, and Eliot on his heels.

“Her room's empty, bed's made—like no one ever used it,” Sara reported.

“Did she leave a note?” Nick asked

“She's not suicidal, you dunce. Jared just scared her away,” Eliot declared. “You moved too fast, you overwhelmed her. Of course she ran.”

“Who made you the expert on all things Naomi?” Jared demanded. “When's the last time someone got offered a movie role and reacted by running away? Get real, Eliot.”

“You shouldn't have come on so strong, man.” Eliot looked at Lindsay and Sara. “You either.”

“Enough, all of you. We have to find her,” Sara decided.

“Hopefully, she didn't get too far—if she's on foot, we should be able to catch her. If she took a taxi, that's another story,” Jared calculated. “I'll get the car. We'll go after her.”

“No!” Lindsay crossed her arms.

“No what? We don't try to find her?” Nick asked.

“Not you guys. Sara and I will go. We'll have a better chance of finding her, 'cause we're smarter than you, and when we do, she'll open up to Sara.”

Jared handed Lindsay the keys to the Lexus. The girls made a left out of the long, winding driveway, keeping their eyes peeled for a small, thin girl with choppy black hair and huge violet eyes.

“I think she'd probably head for the main road,” Sara opined after they'd circled the area a few times. “She's more likely to find a taxi there.”

Lindsay turned right, toward Sunset Boulevard. “I hope she isn't trying to hitch a ride. You never know what kind of jerks are on the road.”

Sara pressed her lips together, her eyes darting left and right as Lindsay drove—remembering her first day in Los Angeles, when those sleazy guys tried to lure her into their car. If
she
had enough sense not to go with them, Naomi surely would resist, no matter how desperate she was.