On the Brink of Paris by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel Page A

me and Mom. Go to Beverly Hills High. Everybody there is related to somebody famous.”
    â€œI detest Los Angeles,” Tim said.
    Yeah. Me too.
    â€œLindy e-mailed me that she was taking a few days off from filming and coming incognito to Paris. I figured we could meet up here, and nobody would be the wiser. AndI’m not even standing next to her ten minutes when, of course, some girl from school runs over.”
    It took me a moment to realize that some girl from school referred to me.
    â€œBut I won’t tell anybody,” I insisted.
    I’m not sure I actually believed that while the words were coming out of my mouth. I mean, this was LINDY SLOANE. Imagine the look on Charlotte’s face…on EVERYBODY’S face, when I told this story! And Tim, the Mysterious Tim, turning out to be Lindy’s little brother! It was the SCOOP OF THE DECADE. I would be mobbed back at Mulgrew; everybody would want to hear the details from my lips. And how brilliantly I would tell the story! How tantalizing its unfolding! I would hold court in the cafeteria, my audience eager and breathless as I related each—
    And then I realized something. I couldn’t tell anybody. Not even Charlotte. Not even Jake. This was Tim’s secret, not mine. And if I blabbed it all over Mulgrew Middle School, I would certainly increase my social standing and become Enormously Sought After and Astoundingly Popular, but Tim would have to leave school. At least that’s what he would feel he needed to do. By telling the story, I would totally mess up Tim’s life. And then I would be no better than the girl who’d stolen Lindy’s retainer and sold it on eBay. I would be no better thanPrincess Diana’s butler, who accepted her friendship and confidences, then blabbed about it in a book after she died. If I told everybody who Tim really was, I would be nothing but a Tell-All Girl.
    No. I couldn’t do that. It might practically kill me, but the only place this information was going was into my Mental Pool, where of course all names are changed to protect the innocent.
    â€œWhy should I believe you?” Tim asked. “I don’t even know you.”
    â€œBut you do know me now, Tim. I’m Lily Blennerhassett. I’m a Writer.”
    â€œI wrote a book,” said Lindy, examining her manicure. “It was easy. Sold two hundred thousand copies the first week.”
    For one very brief moment I entertained the idea of ripping Lindy Sloane’s hat and glasses off, then running into McDonald’s and revealing her immediate location to every tourist I could find. Because there is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, more irritating to me than a celebrity who decides to write a book and claims it’s “easy.” Houston Ramada had “written a book” too: a thinly veiled novel following her international celebutante adventures. About a month after it came out, the actual writer of the book came forward. She said she’d never even met Houston Ramada. She’d been hired byRamada’s publicist, written the whole thing herself, and e-mailed it to the publisher. Nobody cared, and the book stayed on the bestseller list for ages.
    But I digress.
    â€œYou’ll just have to wait and see, Tim. I’m not going to tell. This information is in the Vault.”
    Tim looked a little hopeful, but not too hopeful. It was the look of guarded optimism that can come only from a guy whose sister’s orthodontics were once purloined for profit.
    â€œPeople, we need to MOVE,” Lindy barked suddenly. “I’ve probably already been spotted. Star magazine has photographers that follow me on EVERY CONTINENT.”
    I wanted to ask Lindy to name all the continents, just for fun, but I restrained myself—because it seemed mean-spirited, if not also hysterically funny. Anyway, the mention of needing to move jolted me back to the Reality of My Plight. I looked at my watch. It