thirteen

When Kori and I would hang out at my house, we’d go through Mom’s self-help books. At Cole’s house we would read Vogue and do the quizzes out of Cosmo. Lexi always put Audrey Hepburn movies on. And at Kori’s, we gave each other Rolling Stone interviews.

Liza Wicked was Kori’s rock star name. Cole’s was Siouxie Chainsaw, I was Aimee Killz, and Lexi was Luz Noir. But I don’t think you could really call Luz a rock star, since the only instrument she played was the Norwegian flute.

AIMEE: Your voice has been compared to that of an angel in a blender. Liza, your thoughts?

LIZA: I owe my unique voice to my parents. Mother was a sword swallower and Father was a hypochondriac who gargled Dove soap to cure his [makes finger quotes] cancer.

AIMEE: The combination certainly works for you. Some are saying your hit “Girl Fight” is a loosely veiled comment on your much speculated feud with Fergie. What do you have to say about it?

LIZA: Fergie and I are great friends. Nothing but respect. “Girl Fight” is more of a comment on the feminist guilty pleasure of mud wrestling.

AIMEE: Is it true you wrote it while staying at a nudist colony?

LIZA: It’s true I stayed at a nudist colony. [laughs demurely] But I don’t think I got very much work done while I was there. I found inner peace by looking outside of myself. The scenery there was unlike any other. So many peaks, so many valleys. Our flutist, Luz Noir, talked me into going.

AIMEE: A nudist-flutist. Fascinating. What can you tell us about the controversial Maxim photo shoot? Was the black light your idea?

LIZA: I wish I could take credit for it, but it was the brainchild of the amazingly brilliant Zeke Lagerfeld. [gives peace sign]

AIMEE: Are the rumors about you and Zeke true? Everyone’s talking.

LIZA: [winks] Don’t believe everything you’ve heard about me, darling.

The Liza Wicked persona was not so far off from the real Kori. Rumors seemed to abound around both, and in the end you never knew what was real, what to believe.

Sitting in the Mini Mart parking lot watching a black Yukon Denali pull up, I had a feeling I was finally going to get to the truth.

Through the tinted glass, I could barely make out the driver.

I studied it for any signs that it might be Shay. I’d done the same with every car that had pulled up in the past hour.

“I don’t think he’s coming,” Lexi said. Her expression was a mixture of relief and joy, which annoyed the hell out of me.

“This might be him.”