“Doesn’t Uncle George deserve a big hug? I gave you the baby to keep and saved the concert tour for you.”

“What an ingenious plan.” She forced a smile. “For the first time, someone is saying I can keep Lulu. But the details are fuzzy. What’s the time frame for this exchange?”

“Not an ‘exchange.’ The pandas and Lulu will be traveling together.”

“And where will I be? In first class with the baby or in the cage with the pandas?”

He laughed, but did not reply.

“For all I know, things can ‘accidentally’ go wrong just as she and I are ready to leave the country,” Nola said. “Did you see the gift the Minister of Culture tried to give me? They are on the warpath with me.”

“Who cares?” Mauriello wiggled his finger at her. “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”

“Sorry. I want a foolproof plan. What if the Chinese break the deal after my last concert?”

“What do you suggest?”

She had never thought she would say this. “I want Lulu in the States within twenty-four hours. Someone from my staff will fly home with her while I finish my tour.”

She had no clue who, in an entourage of more than a hundred, would take a bullet for her and Lulu. All were Wade's stooges.

Mauriello raised a magnificent arched eyebrow. “The baby may be ready for the trip, but the pandas are not. Prepping them and making the physical transport arrangements takes time. We don’t want them dying in transit.”

“No deal, then.” Her plan would mean six days without her baby, but that was the best she could think of. Ten feet away, Leslie was playing peek-a-boo with Lulu. Both were laughing.

“I’ve just explained about the transportation problem,” Mauriello said.

She got up. “So Lulu and the pandas won’t make the same flight. You can still keep all the fanfare.”

He sighed. “Make it forty-eight hours, then. Anything to make our diva happy.”

“One last question: What have you offered in return?”

His smile was a crocodile’s. “That, my dear, as they say, is none of your business.”

If there were such a thing as blood curdling, that was what Nola felt happening in her veins. A corporation owned her, and Mauriello was collecting his fee.

CHAPTER 27 (1990)

Her hand on the doorknob of the middle school principal’s office, Nola swallowed a glob of saliva. As a student here, her dealings with the principal had been limited to her singing Christmas carols over the PA system. Now, even as she took in the familiar, comforting odors of sweaty socks, stale cafeteria food, and linoleum polish, she dreaded hearing about yet another Jenna problem.