Tapping her ballpoint pen relentlessly against her journal, the young girl made a noise of frustration and flung herself backwards onto the soft but slightly creaky mattress. Renee wasn't a grumpy person by nature… not that she was all sunshine and roses, but she never saw the point wasting her energy when it would get her nowhere… having said that, it really had been one of those days. Her whole body felt like partially cooked spaghetti – not totally limp but not far from it. With colossal amounts of effort she could throw her arms above her head, leaving the journal sprawled open on her stomach and the pen to slip off and fall onto her sheets where she would later find a small blue ink stain. That was about as much movement as she could manage though.

Life really sucked for Renee. Nothing was going the way she wanted lately, not anything. It seemed like very little in her life really went her way. Maybe she could nab the last cookie from her big sister on occasion but when it came to the important stuff, it all just seemed bad. That was a problem for her – because she didn’t get outwardly grumpy, she dwelled on it all in her head and that never went well. Thoughts could travel a long distance in a short space of time, and they could find connections between the most unrelated of memories, events and ideas.

Twisting over in her bed, making the journal slump to the floor too, she did a lot of dwelling in her mind as she twisted a strand of mousy coloured hair around her index finger. It all started with the awful day she’d had. The guy she had been sort of but not quite seeing had dropped her like a stone for some blonde girl. Renee didn’t know her but her best friend had assured her Dan could only be going for the unnaturally pert and disproportionately large boobs. Yet it brought no consolation as she deeply suspected that everything said was without foundation and purely to make her feel better, as she often did when Kristi was talking.

Her talk with the careers advisor had been even better. She didn’t see the point anyway. What was there to say? She was majoring in English, all of her credit classes were as close to English as she could get them and stay within the requirements. Then after college she’d go to post grad school or training scheme or whatever it was her high school advisor had told her to do and get qualified as a teacher. She was sure there were plenty of places she could do that. She would wind up just like her mother, just like her mother had hoped. Never pushed too hard for, but encouraged and hoped. Once upon a time there had been delusions of fame and singing and dancing in the spotlight with all eyes on her, but they had been rudely dissipated by high school and the realisation that she was a little too average and a little too plain. And again, she wasn't the kind of person who pursued something if she didn’t think she could take it all the way. What was the point? Why make all that effort to get yourself nowhere?

Plus, after giving up her singing lessons and choir and all of the rest of it, her voice wasn't up to scratch any more. It was a use it or lose it kind of deal and Renee hadn’t cared enough to keep it. Once upon a time, she used to go twice a week to dance classes and once a week to a vocal trainer with her then best friend Claire. That had stopped in freshman year after Claire had been killed crossing the street (a combination of the guy driving too fast and her not looking properly before stepping out). It had been too traumatic going without her, and by the time she was over it enough to start going back she had lost all motivation to do so anyway because as she had already thought to herself as she lay there in her Snoopy pyjamas, the dream had died.

Well, it hadn’t died. She’d still love to do it. Performing was a rush like no other and though she had never progressed to local talent shows or auditions for minor shows and stuff like that, she still remembered the adrenalin and the lights and the feeling it gave her. Her only real major audition had been the Mickey Mouse Club when she was eleven and after reaching the final five she had lost out to Christina Aguilera, like that didn’t haunt her every time she saw the woman on MTV or wherever. Closing her eyes tightly for a second, Renee really wished she hadn’t let her mind wander to the whole dancing thing because it inevitably led her back to Claire again which inevitably led her back to more brooding and being depressed. She often wondered if she would have given up had Claire lived.

“Come on girl get a grip, it was years ago.” Talking to herself and jumping off the bed, Renee shook her shoulders and arms out vigorously, desperately wanting to just stop the thought process. Thinking all of these morose and self-pitying thoughts wasn't helping anybody. She had her nice little college dorm room and her nice little college life of reading literature in coffee houses and discussing it with her friends, going to alcohol fuelled parties with her friends, and then whenever she went home her mom would have her room at home all made for her just the way she liked it, and she’d get spoiled with all her favourite food. Depression was a no-no and she needed to cheer up. Music would cheer her up. She still liked music. She had her favourite artists all over the walls of her room – John Mayer whose lyrics she loved, *NSYNC who she loved because of their harmonies and because they were all seriously hot, Christina because despite the slight ‘it could have been me’ jealousy she admired her for her outspokenness and independence, and the Smashing Pumpkins because they were just cool. The Beatles were also a college student staple; you had to have some cool retro Beatles poster on your wall.

“Who to pick though? Who to pick…” She pondered aloud. Rummaging through the mess on her desk, papers and books and photocopied pages from critical studies of Lord Byron, plus a few bottles of nail polish, she spotted Matchbox Twenty and figured that they were the way to go. Of course, clumsy her, she just had to knock a ton of papers flying behind her desk in the process, trapping them between the wall and the wood where she couldn’t reach them. Which meant pulling her whole desk out and getting on her hands and knees and getting dust bunnies up her nose.

Groaning, she managed to get her weight behind the desk and push it slowly, painfully out the way, For being the type of cheap, nasty, mass produced furniture dorms generally provided, it was surprisingly heavy. Groping through the small gap with her arms, she dragged her fingers along the bottom of the desk, hoping to scoop it all up and pull it out with the emotion of her arm. She wasn't expecting to hit the cool metal but was pleasantly surprised when she drew it out into the light and saw it for what it was.

A small piece of black onyx wrapped in delicate silver strands, hanging from a chain. A piece of jewellery she had been given by her grandmother, a family heirloom supposedly. Whatever, it was pretty and though she rarely wore it, she had been upset to discover it was missing. The metal now felt strangely warm in her hands as she played with it in her fingers, intrigued by the stone’s dark shine. Her grandmother was another person she missed, somebody who had always sat through her recitals and talent shows in proud delight, cursing any judge who dared place her anywhere but first. Sighing, Renee’s eyes caught the piercing stare of the Christina poster, pouting sexily down at her. She should have known she wasn't getting out of it that easily, the topic was sure to plague her just a little longer.

“You have no idea how lucky you are.” She told the poster, which naturally didn’t change its expression in response to the pyjama clad young woman rubbing the black stone idly between her fingers. “I wish I could be a singer and be rich and famous and have some huge celebrity boyfriend.” Then she smirked to herself as she turned her gaze slightly sideways to John and *NSYNC. “One of you guys would do. Preferably JC.” Sighing to herself again, she gave a little smile and placed the necklace down on the nightstand, coiling the chain around in a spiral before pulling back the covers of her bed and climbing beneath them. Her theory was she could sleep away her blues and be nice and rested for her writing class the next morning.

As she turned off the light and shut her eyes, she couldn’t have noticed the eerie blue glow that began emanating from her nightstand and the small piece of onyx resting there.

“Renee!”

The girl in question turned over in her bed and buried her face in the pillow with a grunt. This was not how she liked to be awoken. Not that she could see any kind of clock but her body and her heavy eyelids were telling her it was not time to get up.

“Later, Mom.”

“God you really are asleep.” Was it just her or was that voice decidedly unfamiliar? Her sleep filled brain was obviously not working this morning. It was weird; she’d slept like a log and her slumber had been dreamless, yet every bone in her body was tired.

“Renee Anderson you have precisely fifteen minutes in which to get up, get dressed and get downstairs, we’re on a tight schedule here.”

“What? We’re on what?” She turned over and was ever so slightly alarmed when she finally opened her eyes and light flooded into them. Not only was the woman towering over her a complete stranger, this wasn't even her bed. She bolted upright with a severely panicked look on her face. This was most definitely not her dorm room. It was three times the size with this huge bureau to the side, a huge closet and chest of drawers, a very expensive and plush looking carpet, not to mention that fact she was on what was possibly the biggest bed she’d ever seen. They were most definitely not in Kansas any more. Not that they had been in Kansas but this was most definitely not on any part of the campus she’d ever seen. What was going on? How in the world had she got here?

“Look, sweetie, I know that stupid launch party went on way too late last night but we have got precisely four days until the VMAs and we need to get your butt to rehearsals so I want you out of this bed and we are going to have you downstairs by quarter to or my name isn’t Marcia Jean Jones.” The older woman stated firmly, resolutely.

They had four days until the WHAT so they needed to get her butt to WHAT or her name wasn't WHO? Renee blinked rapidly. This was the weirdest dream she had ever had. It was… so real. It was textile. She could feel the sheets and smell the clogging scent of whatever nasty perfume the woman was wearing.

“Uhh… give me a minute.” She stuttered, closing her eyes and praying to wake up.

***

Needless to say, Renee didn’t ‘wake up’. Oh no, that would have been far too normal and sane and like she wasn't having vivid hallucinations. She was trying desperately to break through whatever shroud was over her mind and whatever trick was being played on her senses but this all felt so real. She was hot and sweaty and ready to collapse and being stared at by everybody around her like she had gone completely mental. Honestly, she understood that. She was taking their side on the matter. If she had been observing this, she would have thought she was a crazy person too. First she had woken up in what had turned out to be the penthouse suite of a very expensive hotel with some strange woman who appeared to be some kind of personal assistant or something. Marcia seemed nice and all but still she was watching for all signs of hidden cameras or perhaps axes, butcher knives, anything of the kind.

Then she had looked in the mirror and nearly screamed. Even her reflection wasn't right. It was still unmistakeably her. There was no question of that. But overnight her hair had turned Barbie blonde instead of its natural, non-descript shade. Her cheeks seemed to have sunken in, her cheekbones become more defined, and the eyebrows she had never been able to shape properly herself no matter how long she spent with the tweezers were now perfect arches. Even her body was different. She was the same height, but at least two dress sizes smaller and her hips had disappeared to be replaced by a slight protrusion in her skin where the bones jutted out. Her calves had shrunk too, and her collarbones seemed a little more obvious. Then she had noticed that while everything else got smaller, her chest looked kind of… well… undeniably bigger. Maybe not to the naked eye but then she had lived in that body for a while and she knew what it was supposed to look like and this wasn't it. After spending about ninety seconds in the mirror starting to reach for them and then pulling away feeling stupid numerous times, she had given them a quick squeeze and while she’d never felt breast implants before, she highly suspected she had them.

The real fun had been getting to her destination, led by Marcia and a group of scarily huge black men, to be dumped in the middle of a rehearsal room at a dance studio. Where she was then expected to rehearse a bump and grind routine with a bunch of people she had never seen before in her life but supposedly had been practising it with for two days. To a song bursting through the speakers that she didn’t recognise but had apparently recorded. That was where the real freak out had begun. The wake up freak out was just a practice run compared to this, which was the mother of all freaking out. This life, this body, whatever weird Twilight Zone she had woken up in – she was a star. She had gone to the CD player, picked up the case for the CD currently playing and seen her face on the cover. It was an album with her name on it. She was rehearsing for a VMA performance, being treated like royalty… and she sucked at it. She was out of sync, out of time, out of focus and naturally she had no idea what any of these dance moves were. So they’d given her a break and sent her to her own private dressing room where she was sat now, staring at the mirror, still disbelieving.

“You hit your head and forgot the moves? Jesus Christ was that the best you could come up with? Obviously I didn’t get here fast enough because dang girl you are beyond bad at this.” There had been no opening of the door, no reflection in the mirror, and yet a voice had sounded through the room, from right behind her. Renee had been alone and then a voice… slowly turning around, scared to death of what she was about to see, her eyes fell on a young woman, her own age.

“W-w-who are y-you?” She asked, scared. “How’d you get in here?”

“I’m hurt, Ren.” She stood with her hands on her hips, head tilting to the side. “It hasn’t been that long. I know I look a little older but I’m still…”

“Claire?” Renee began breathing deeply, sharply, yet never deep or fast enough. Now she knew she’d gone crazy.

“Okay honey I thought you’d grown out of these panic attacks… come on, inhale exhale, losing it now is not in your best interests.”

“You’re dead!” The newly blonde girl choked out, trying to take the advice. “You can’t… that’s not possible.”

“After all you’ve seen today, you’re still questioning the limits of possible?” Claire scoffed, tossing her hair behind her shoulder in the same way she always had in life. Renee was reeling. This woman certainly looked like an older version of her deceased best friend and she sure as hell acted like her – blunt, tactless, bossy.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Boy, somebody got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Well, more like got out of the wrong existence…” Claire asked softly, with a smirk. “What the hell is going on?” Renee repeated louder as she stood up and flailed her hands, beginning to look aggravated.

“Don’t you get it? Your wish came true, sweetie.”

“What wish?”

“Oh god, don’t tell me I have to fill in all the gaps.” The ghost… was she a ghost? She looked fairly solid. In any event, she spoke. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”

“I don’t have a lot of sanity here.” Renee finally managed to retort, clutching her stomach, which was uncharacteristically bared by the tearaway exercise pants and stomach revealing halter-top.

“Look, honey…” The brunette looked sympathetically at her childhood friend. “I know this is confusing but there’s a lot and they’ll be here any second… you found the necklace, right? The onyx one?”

“Right…” Renee said slowly, remembering.

“Well, funny thing about that little trinket, if you rub it while making a wish, it kinda comes true. Long story. Tell ya later.”

“I wished I was famous.” She muttered. “And now I am, right?”

“Hell yeah. Multi platinum, bigger than big, adored by millions, every guy in America lusting for you.”

“Me and my breast implants.” Her voice started rising in pitch as she felt the hysteria bubbling up inside her chest again. “And WHY am I singing Britney Spears’ songs?” She’d been more than a little surprised to see Boys and I’m A Slave 4 U on the track listing.

Claire winced. “Look, I’m just here to break you in real quick, we don’t have a lot of time and it’s a very complicated question. Let’s just say that in the whole karma cycle for you to be famous somebody has to fade back into obscurity in your place, and it was Britney. But hey,” she shrugged, “a lot of people would thank you for that. If they knew any better.”

“I’m Britney? I sing all her songs?” She looked disgusted. She had always imagined singing her own songs and even though technically they seemed to be hers in this dimension or reality or whatever, she felt like a bad cover artist.

“You’re not her and you don’t sing them all, just some.” Claire picked at her nails, a nervous habit that had always really annoyed Renee, who had a bit of a thing about trying to grow her own nails and keep them neat. She’d felt that perfectly good nails were being squandered. “Look, I can’t stay long, I just need to give you a warning. You need to start playing along with this a little better, babe. I know you’re in the deep end here but you’re making everybody think you’re nuts. Can you please just get through the day so I can come find you later and explain better?”

“How will you know where I am?” Renee responded desperately. She was taking a lot on faith here but if this apparition knew what was going on, even if it was a vision of her dead best friend, she’d take that. Hopefully the nice psychiatrist would bring her some drugs soon that would stop whatever chemical in her brain was making her imagine this whole thing. Obviously she must have been put in a mental hospital at some point. She couldn’t quite tell if she was in denial and this was real or if she was just insane.

“I’ll know.”

“Why can’t you just tell me now?”

“Well I need to go like right now and…” Claire smacked her forehead with her palm, yet the slapping sound never came. “Shit, that was another thing I need to mention Ren, ya see…”

“Hey baby.” Yet another voice had magically appeared in the room but Renee had barely had time to turn her body around to face the door, let alone open her mouth to ask who it was before thick, steel set arms had locked around her waist and strange lips were hungrily crushing themselves against hers. She attempted to yelp but it came out as more of a surprised squeak as her hands gripped the large set of biceps and tried to exert some force to push the body away from her. Claire stood behind the man’s back, slightly to the side, wincing. Finally he broke the kiss, pulling back yet holding her securely to him with one arm while brushing his thumb over her lip with his free hand.

“Yeah, he’s kind of your boyfriend and he can’t actually see or hear me anyway but that’s why I really need to go now.” Claire disappeared while the wide-eyed, startled young woman looked up into the face of the only person she’d met in this weird alternate reality or whatever it was who she actually recognised. She was highly temped to faint. It was starting to look like she really had turned into Britney Spears.

Except Justin Timberlake had broken up with Britney Spears two years ago and yet in the here and now had just launched himself at little ole Renee Anderson who until this morning had been an English major at Michigan who had a much bigger crush on JC.

“You miss me?”

“Uhh…” Renee was suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that she was revealing so much skin. Mostly because Justin’s hand was on the flat of her back and she could swear it was burning her. It was a little much to process at once and the one person around here who didn’t think she was some global megastar or whatever had just faded into thin air. Leaving her with a very over eager man seriously invading her personal bubble. “Like a hole in the head?”

“Oh you’re just full of laughs, baby.” Justin tapped her nose with an index finger. “I don’t see you for a month and you missed me like a hole in the head.”

“Well maybe I’d have a better welcome speech prepared if I’d known you were just gonna walk through the door and scare the crap out of me.” Squirming out of his embrace, Renee picked up the hooded sweater she’d tossed over the chair earlier and hurriedly put it on, zipping it up over her new improved body. She flashed him a smile, hoping it would have some effect. What effect she wasn't sure but having been thoroughly dumped last night by a guy she had only been casually seeing, discovering she was embroiled in what appeared to be a hot and heavy relationship with a guy she’d only seen on TV and in magazines before, she was going to have to feel her way through this. As long as said feeling didn’t mean literal feeling of him, which she didn’t think she could handle right now. “Ya know, a girl’s dressing room is her temple and sneaking up on her in it ain’t… good.” She finished lamely.

Justin arched an eyebrow at her. “Don’t recall you ever complaining before.”

She blushed crimson, tucking a lock of unfamiliarly blonde hair behind her ear. She hoped he didn’t mean what she thought he meant. All she needed right now was to find out that she was some kind of hussy in this dimension. God, she was even starting to think of it as a dimension, a real world; she needed to stop that. The first step to not being deluded was not wanting to be deluded… or something.

“Well ya know what it’s not been the greatest of days and I’m a little…”

“Schizo?” He offered as he began moving towards her and she immediately side stepped out of his way. Justin gave a slight frown, not pleased by the welcome he was receiving. Normally she was all over him if they’d been apart this long. She looked like a startled rabbit, her eyes were darting all over the room and she looked incredibly wound up.

“Quite possibly.” She muttered. “I’m sorry… uhh… Justin… I’m just a little distracted.” It was weird saying his name. Everything was weird but that was particularly weird, a small streak of tingles had shot through her stomach and they were not pleasant.

“How come? You wanna talk about it?” He asked, finally giving up and moving to sit on the plush couch she always requested in her dressing room. “Jason was bitching that you were like some kind of space cadet so something’s gotta be up. You never get like that in rehearsal.”

“Jason. Oh, yeah, choreographer.” Renee spoke almost inaudibly before remembering she had a (very pretty) set of blue eyes scrutinising her. “It’s nothing, really I just… I’m tired, I guess. I feel like I forgot everything I did in the last few days.”

“You having trouble with the choreography or something, Ren?” The guy was looking at her all concerned and gazing intently and it occurred to Renee that she was his girlfriend and so probably shouldn’t be the other side of the room. So she bit the inside of her cheek, steeled herself, and went to gingerly place herself beside him on the couch. Of course that got a little awkward when he immediately draped an arm over her shoulders.

“Yeah.”

“Really? I thought it was pretty simple. I mean I got it down and you’ve been in dance classes since you were like five…”

“Oh, you got it down?” What did he mean he’d got it down? Renee started pressing, trying to nonchalant. “It all went okay?”

“Yep. All good. Man I can’t wait to see their faces when I just show up on stage with you.”

“Be a surprise alright.” They were performing together? They were boyfriend and girlfriend and they were performing together? She had to suppress her gag reflex - could they be any tackier?

“Are you still worried about this? Is that what’s been getting at you in rehearsal?” Justin shifted, turning towards her and dropping a kiss on her hairline while Renee tried to act like this was something she was used to. “Baby, I know you don’t want us to look like we’re using ‘us’ to get attention…” Well at least even if she was a hussy her famous self hadn’t lost all shame and common sense. “But it’s not like we’re singing some lame ass sappy ballad. And you know I wouldn’t have let them talk me into this, or more to the point let them talk you into this if I didn’t think it’d be cool.”

“I…I…” there were a lot of pauses in her speech today. It was unnatural for her; she normally managed to fill in the gaps pretty easily. She just hoped maybe the Renee Justin thought he was talking to was a little less like that. “You know what, you’re right. I’m just a little spaced out today and it kind of got me thinking again.”

“Well quit worrying.” He smiled, leaning over and landing his lips on hers again for a moment. “We just go in there this afternoon and put your parts and my parts together, you shake that hot little booty of yours like you’re supposed to and it’ll be fine.”

“And if it’s not I’ll just blame you ‘cause you lied and said it would be and dish out some appropriate punishment.” There, she could do this; she could do the whole banter thing.

“Trust me, Renee, it’ll be fine.”

Unfortunately she had absolutely no excuse for just jumping away this time. He’d been sitting on the couch; she couldn’t just claim that he had startled her. So she had to give into the kiss and try and muster up some kind of appropriate response. He was hot, but it was just too bizarre and awkward for her – sure she’d had a crush on him before she’d sort of graduated to JC in that respect, so it wasn't like she found him repulsive but she just didn’t know the guy. Here she was sitting on some couch being all intimate and cosy with a guy who was to her a complete stranger. Yet still he had his lips on hers and his tongue in her mouth and then it was all she could do to keep from yelling ‘hands, HANDS!’ She clamped her own hand down on the one that had begun creeping up her thigh and looked –well, felt – suspiciously like it was headed for her derriere, and she pulled back from the kiss as naturally as she could.

“So, come on, tell me what the great Justin Timberlake’s been doing since our last phone call.”

This really was, no contest, the most freakish day she had ever lived through.

***

Claire sat on the plush armchair, checking out Renee’s hotel suite. It was definitely nice; she was impressed. She’d been told the wish had been granted and everything but she’d had absolutely no idea what that would actually mean in practical terms. It really was the whole enchilada that had been handed to the girl. It was a nice little deal: unlimited credit, free stuff, nice hotel rooms and all the best service, bodyguards, a hot boyfriend, disregarding any actual work type stuff. If Claire had actually been corporeal, she would so be instilling herself as Renee’s assistant or something, get in the entourage. As it was, the only thing she could physically do was sit down or walk around. She couldn’t pick things up or even open doors, it really kind of sucked. She was bored as hell waiting for Little Miss Pop Star to get back and she couldn’t even entertain herself because she couldn’t touch anything. Yet again she cursed herself for not looking both damn ways when she had crossed that one stupid street. Being dead was not fun.

So she folded her hands and smiled sweetly as the door finally opened and Renee walked through – followed by Justin Timberlake. Claire raised an eyebrow and smirked as Renee’s face drained of all colour again and took on the panicked glaze to which it had grown so accustomed to over the past twenty-four hours.

“Well, you have walked me to my room so I think your work here is done.” She told him with false brightness.

“I wish I could stay but when you gotta go on stupid chat shows you gotta go on stupid chat shows. I’ll come get you for breakfast before rehearsals tomorrow?”

“Uhh, sure.” Renee leaned forward and gave him a peck on the lips before placing a hand gently on his shoulder and pushing him back through the doorway in which he’d been lingering. “Now go, be that Timberlake guy.”

He made a slight groan before moving to kiss her again. “I love you.”

“You too.” She squeaked. “Bye now.” She hung in the doorway for a second as he moved off, and gave him a quick wave for appearance’s sake before hurriedly shutting the door behind her and turning to face Claire with a hard gleam in her eye.

“Well it looks like somebody’s been having fun.” Claire mused.

“No, no, no.” Renee growled. “Disneyland is fun. The beach is fun. Pigging out on ice cream and watching chick flicks with your roommate is fun. This is HELL, okay, HELL!”

“Man, if that’s hell I should’ve sold my soul while I still had the chance.”

“You need to explain this all to me because I have no idea what’s going on!” Renee started ranting, gesticulating wildly as she advanced on Claire who was extremely glad that any punches the girl threw would go straight through her, no harm no foul. “You turned me into Britney freaking Spears or something, you gave me her songs and her boyfriend and her life and you didn’t tell me how to do this or who any of these people are and I have no idea what I’m doing and I am seriously about to lose my mind here!”

“Okay, honey, take a deep breath and sit down for God’s sake.” The ghost -or spirit guide or whatever the heck she was - was telling her to be calm? Still, Renee did obey the request. “Where you want me to start?”

“I don’t know.” She collapsed onto the couch, kicking off her sneakers and sprawling out. “You just tell me from the beginning and I’ll butt in if you missed something I guess.”

“Okay then.” Claire stood up and began pacing the living area slowly. For some reason it always felt like she should be on her feet when she did stuff like this. “So… the necklace. The onyx one. Like I told you earlier, you rub it while you’re making a wish and it comes true.”

“Why didn’t Grandma tell me?” Already she was interrupting.

“Funny story.” She replied, folding her arms across her chest and looking directly at her conversation partner. “She didn’t know. Nobody did. I mean, think about it, if you didn’t know that the thing was magic and how it works, what are the odds of you rubbing while actually making a wish out loud? Besides, on the few occasions anybody ever did they didn’t wish for anything that big, like an extra five bucks or whatever.”

“And they didn’t notice they suddenly got five extra bucks?”

Claire shrugged. “You explain it away, put it down to luck. So anyway then you went and made this big huge wish and to make it come true… well, it brought you here. Which, before you ask, is an alternate reality. There’s like millions of them, ‘cause, you know, all choices have consequences and so when people make even little difference in choices it changes the whole course of their lives in unimaginable ways. Honestly, girl, I’ve seen it and it’s, like, mind blowing.”

“So what choice did I make here?” Renee asked.

“Well, here, you never gave up voice coach and dance class.” She recited, filling her in. “You kept entering shows and then you started auditioning and playing open mike nights and you got talent scouted by this guy… you know what, I’ll get you your official book and you can read the details but you wound up with a record deal.”

“And bleached hair, breast implants and anorexia? Why’d you turn me into Britney Spears?”

It was scary; the huff began just as it always had when she was alive. Renee got seriously freaked out watching it happen again. Claire’s face screwed up and she stomped her foot a little and tossed her hair with her hands on her hips. “I did NOT turn you into… you are not Britney damn Spears and I didn’t even do this, okay, some all magic thingamabob did. I’m just here because somebody on high realised what you did and how catastrophically bad it would be if you didn’t know what was going on and messed up the whole balance of existence behaving like yourself and making this reality’s Renee look like she went cuckoo!” Taking a deep breath, Claire began again. “Like I said, Britney Spears faded back into obscurity. She’s still in Louisiana being a kindergarten teacher. She just never made it big and you did. If you sing any of her songs I guess it’s just coincidence that the people still wrote them and shopped them to record companies or whatever.”

“Sorry.” The more alive of the two didn’t sound too contrite. After the day she’d had she was apologising for nothing and to nobody. “Go on.”

“You got a record deal and the hair… you just tried it and liked it. You’re thinner because you spend your whole life dancing and exercising and the implants, which you publicly deny having, you got because when you were looking for a deal you got this idea in your head they wanted a girl with bigger boobs. Sadly I think you were maybe onto something ‘cause the first company you went to after had already turned you down once and then they signed you.”

“And Justin?” Renee asked as Claire sat back down and threw her feet over the arm of the chair, crossing her ankles.

“You met him at the 2000 Billboard Awards, got on like a house on fire or whatever and he asked you out.”

“So he never dated Britney?” Doing the math in her head, she realised that was a good three years. Okay, so maybe she wasn't such a hussy if she’d been dating the man for three years. It would explain how touchy feely he was and obviously expected her to be.

“WHAT is your obsession with Britney Spears? NO he didn’t because she never got a record deal so she was never the opening act for his tour and he never really saw her again after MMC.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. God, she’d barely been dead a decade and Renee had turned into such a whiner. “Okay, now if you ask me about her just one more time I am going to abandon your ass and leave you to this whole new life of yours, alright? We clear? Good. So that’s basically it. You got this new album out and this song you’re premiering at the VMAs is the first single, except that Justin isn’t actually on the studio version, he’s just there for the performance.”

“What about my family and friends and everything, are they all the same?” She asked, suddenly panicked.

“All the same.” Claire reassured her. “You lost a few friends along the way but that’s the price of fame, you find out who your real friends are.”

“How do I do this?” Renee questioned quietly, hugging a sofa cushion to herself, wishing it could bring her even some small comfort. “I don’t know any of this. I don’t know the words to any of my songs, I don’t know my life story, how am I supposed to do interviews and stuff and learn these dances and crap?”

“You wing it.” This time there was at least some small amount of sympathy in her voice. “Like I said, I’ll leave you the albums and copies of the videos and everything and you can do some research but… you wanted this. You gotta work it out yourself. Look, I gotta run again, they only let me have so long with you at a time. You gonna be alright?”

“What happened to the old me? And to the me that’s supposed to be here?”

“I don’t know, exactly. There’ll be some other version of you in there, whether she’ll know what happened… I don’t know, they don’t tell me everything. It’s not as if you died though. Maybe they literally just switched you both over and she’s having a gay old time being normal again. You… she… whoever, there’s been some bitching about that lately in this world.”

“I mean, how do I get back there once I’m done here?”

“Done?” Claire paled. Well, okay, she would have paled had she not been dead and already possessing an ivory complexion. “I… it… you ripped open the cosmos and switched with yourself sweetie. It’s not like you click your heels three times and say there’s no place like home. That’s some serious mojo there, you can’t just…”

“What? You mean I’m STUCK HERE?” Renee rose from the couch, face ashen one second and turning swiftly purple with rage the next.

“You wanted a new life, Ren. They gave you one.”

“But you need to fix this!” The yelling began at what was an impressive decibel level. Obviously this singing career of hers had given her some serious lung capacity. “I can’t…”

“I gotta go, I’m sorry.” Claire looked kind of glad to be fading into oblivion.

“DAMN IT!”

Renee threw the cushion across the room and threw herself to her feet in an apoplectic rage. This was unbelievable. This was so unfair. Of all the people in the world who’d wished a million times that they could have been famous, she had to be the poor sucker who wished it out loud rubbing on a magic pendant? And now she was stuck here forever in some life that wasn't hers? Sure it’d be all well and good if she’d lived this life from the beginning but it really did feel like she was walking around in somebody else’s shoes. Who cared if they were physically… well, not physically what with the implants and stuff and all, but genetically identical and had been born to raised by the same people? At the end of the day, she hadn’t been the one who had worked for all this, she had no background and nothing to go on and she was supposed to step right into this life and live it well? How was that fair? She’d call Kristi but she couldn’t even do that because she had met Kristi at college and by the sounds of it this Renee had never been to college so Kristi had never met her before in her life.

She couldn’t even imagine being this person. This person… she’d had a breast enlargement and lied about it. She’d had cosmetic surgery to make herself more appealing or whatever… Renee couldn’t imagine ever selling herself out like that but obviously she had. Her normal life body hadn’t been particularly bad, she could have bared her belly if she wanted to but she never would, yet all the clothes in this Renee’s closet were slashed at the waist or neck or thighs and it was the kind of stuff she would consider hooker wear. This girl was apparently used to Justin Timberlake randomly attacking her in dressing rooms and would think absolutely nothing of giving him free rein to let his hands wander. Maybe that wasn't a hardship to some but honestly he was a lot grabbier than she would ever have imagined him to be from his TV appearances or whatever.

And yet the only thing that separated this person out from herself was a decision that her best friend’s death wasn't going to stop her singing and dancing. Less angry, more anxious now, Renee walked into the bedroom hoping that her famous alter ego at least had some comfy pyjamas she could crawl into. True to her word, Claire had magically or… well, whatever; somehow there was a big pile of videos, CDs and magazines on her bed. She presumed they must have interviews or something in them. She reached the pile and with a sad smile picked up a piece of Hello Kitty notepaper. That had always been Claire’s favourite.

Renata,

Videos, Making The Video, Leno, TRL appearances, Rosie O’Donnell, Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America and Punk’d, plus a tour documentary. It’s only the tip of the iceberg but it should help. I took the liberty of cutting the award shows down to just the parts where you’re on camera or Justin is accepting awards and confessing his undying love in the thank you speech (gag). Perks of being a ghostly spirit guide thing, I also cut out the ad breaks. There are some features and a few gossip column snippets in the reading material. Don’t try to watch them all at once.

Clara xx

There it was again.

Maybe if she kept ignoring it, it would go away.

No, obviously somebody was very persistent and wanted to see her that morning. An extremely bleary eyed Renee sat up on the bed and began rolling her head on a very stiff, sore neck. That was to say nothing of her cramped up shoulder and arm. Apparently she had fallen asleep over the magazine she’d been reading; she hadn’t even been by the pillows, so she had been lying outside the covers at the foot of the bed all night. No wonder she hurt. Still, it had been very informative. Apparently her TV persona in this reality was exceptionally perky, while in her written up interviews she was more insightful and deep. Whatever, she expected that some kind of publicist probably fed her half those answers anyway.

“Alright I’m coming!” She yelled, as the banging on the door got progressively louder. Padding her way across the living room. She reached the door and yanked it open to find Justin standing the other side of it, immaculately clad in combat pants and a sweater, looking her up and down with a raised eyebrow.

“Uhh, don’t take this the wrong way baby but you look like shit.”

“It’s early, I didn’t sleep good and you woke me and everybody in a ten block radius up with the damn banging on the door. What do you want?” Okay, she was bad in the morning. She was sure Justin’s Renee had been bad in the morning too. It wasn't a crime to be grouchy when you were tired.

“For you to actually be ready to go when I come pick you up for breakfast. One of these days…” He sighed before turning to the burly man behind him. “You mind waiting out here Mike while I go force her into some clothes?”

“Just make sure that this time you’re actually getting her in to clothes and not out of them. I ain’t got all day to wait around for your ass.” Mike replied pointedly as Justin flipped him the finger and shut the door in his face. Yet again Renee grimaced. It was beginning to appear that they were a highly sexed couple. This disturbed her on two fronts: one, she hadn’t had herself pegged as such a wench, and two, that would mean that at some point, he would probably expect her to sleep with him. The kissing was bad enough but sleeping with a guy she barely knew? While having to pull off the pretence that she had been sleeping with him for three years and was familiar with… well… him.

“Come on, Ren, let’s go get…”

“OWW!” She screeched as he gripped her bad shoulder. She hadn’t expected it to hurt that much.

“Jesus Christ woman don’t make me deaf! Are you okay?”

“Ahh…” She hissed, glaring at him before remembering herself. She had to be nice to him. She had to spend the whole day with him, again. If what Claire said was true and she couldn’t go back to her own life, she was going to be spending a lot of days with him, so learning to be nice might be an idea. “I’m sorry, I just slept in a really weird position and now everything hurts.”

“Seriously baby, you don’t look so great.” Justin tenderly tucked a lock of hair back out of her face. “Were you up late?”

“Kinda.” She confessed. Glancing at her watch, it told her she’d had a grand total of three hours’ sleep. “But we gotta go rehearse, right?”

“Right. But…” Gliding rather than moving, he was suddenly behind her and his fingers were kneading into her shoulder. The first contact really hurt and she was about to protest but then he really got to work and not only was it feeling better it was starting to feel really good. “Rumour has it if we get this thing down this morning, he’s gonna let us take the whole afternoon off.” She could hear the wicked grin in his voice and the seductive tones coupled with the massage were starting to make her wonder if really this gig wasn't going to be so bad. “And I’m thinking of all the things we could do in an afternoon off.”

“Could there be food?” She asked – after that one nice little ‘mmm’ moment she’d been dumped right back in ‘oh god he wants to have sex with me’ land. “And lots of it?”

“I think I could manage taking you to lunch.” He pressed his lips to her neck a couple of times before finally ceasing the rubbing motions with his hand and beginning to push her towards the bedroom. “If you promise me you’ll be washed up, dressed and ready to go within ten minutes.”

Justin made to follow her into the bedroom and she was quite happily letting him propel her movement (it saved her the effort) until she got into the room and saw the huge pile of tapes and magazines and knew there would be questions. In the middle of the doorway she stopped, forcing him to crash into her back. Turning, she pushed him back a couple of steps, barring him entrance to the room.

“Fifteen and you got a deal.”

She scooped up her research material and quickly shoved it in the bottom of one of her many suitcases before running into the bathroom.

***

“Claire? Claire!” Renee called out, fearfully watching her door all the while so nobody could surprise her this time. The last thing she needed was to be caught talking to herself, the people around her already thought she was on some weird little trip.

But she had a few things she wanted to discuss with her little spirit guide. Justin was firmly on the list. She figured even if Claire couldn’t give her some great cosmic answer, she had been her best friend for more than half her life and could at least be of some help. He was really driving her crazy. From what little time she’d spent with him so far, he seemed to be nauseatingly good as a boyfriend. There were little silly whispers in her ear and hugs and hand holding and all the rest of it, and that would be just great except for the fact that when it was a perfect stranger behaving that way to you, it was freaky and awkward and uncomfortable and even kind of annoying. Though she did kind of like the kissing part, admiring his technique on a purely objective basis. She just didn’t know how she could fast talk her way through the fact that she was supposed to have a three year history with him and she didn’t even know where they’d been on their first date or when his birthday was. Although come to think of it she could probably pick up a magazine and look the birthday up easily enough. That wasn’t the point though, she felt like a big fat fraud, like she was deceiving him. Which she was - in all technical senses, she was deceiving him. Renee was pretending to be someone that she wasn’t. It was the same as stealing somebody else’s ID and trying to get a passport with it, except this was even worse because she was literally trying to be this person.

On top of her raging boyfriend issues, she’d had yet another interesting experience today. Fresh from her absolute disaster of a rehearsal yesterday, she had been dreading coming back to the dance studio. It had been kind of nice to discover how limber and toned she was, and how moving her body was suddenly a mystical event. Everything felt fluid and easy and natural and even good. It was a feeling she remembered having when she was younger and in dance classes but obviously those extra few years had really added something to it because it was like a drug now, a really potent narcotic. That was all very well, but in terms of ability her mind was years behind her body and it had made things difficult. Honing the movement and remembering the sequences was the problem. She’d begun picking it up and making less of an idiot of herself – the choreographer had been pretty hot on her once he realised how badly she seemed to have lost it – but she was still nowhere near learning the whole routine. Yet this morning, she and Justin had entered the room, and Jason had come over to say hello and ask how they were doing and all the rest of it. And then he had put an arm around her shoulders to hug her and suddenly the world was black and white and she was standing in front of a mirror dancing her butt off. To the same song they’d worked on all yesterday, except she was actually good at it and knew what the steps were. And then she was back in the studio again, Technicolor, standing there looking blank while Jason and Justin talked over her.

And apparently the significance of this was that she had got into position to start the song and suddenly she had the routine down pat. Inexplicably knew what she was doing. Jason had practically jumped for joy on the spot, obviously putting the previous day down to a fluke or some off streak. Of course that had all fed back into her Justin issues when the choreography had required them to get close and she’d had to writhe and grind with the guy while he had his hands on her in an over familiar fashion. Maybe her mind and heart didn’t know Justin but her body obviously did and there had been tingles. There had also been something that she hoped was a gun in his pocket slightly pressing into the back of her. The whole experience so far though had been freaky and mentally taxing and she could use somebody to vent to right about now. Plus she wanted the whole weird flashback thing explained to her because if she was going to zone out like that again she wanted some warning.

“Claire? Claire!” She ventured a little louder. Still nothing changed. “Clara?” No, not even the childhood nickname was going to help. Apparently Claire couldn’t be called or summoned; she would just show up when she felt like it. Renee was just going to have to wing this one on her own.

That was not particularly convenient.

***

“Honestly, you’d think she’d never been shopping before.” Justin commented to Mike in awe as he watched his girlfriend of three years coo over some pair of stilettos in a store window.

“Renee? Come on, you know she’s like Miss World Shopper. Every consumer minute is precious.” The bodyguard commented. Technically, he was an employee of Justin but the fact was if you were looking after Justin then you spent half your time looking after Renee too. So he knew the woman pretty well. And anybody who knew the woman even a little knew that she was a serious shopping addict. Though he had to concur with his charge on that one, she did seem particularly enthused today, exclaiming over everything. There had also been a few funny reactions over price labels that he had found amusing. Renee was one of those starlets who had got out of the habit of even checking prices, she normally just handed over her credit card, so to see her face drain of all colour over a thousand dollar price tag – which by her standards was fairly reasonable – was hilarious. He wondered if she had been on the phone to her mother again, he seemed to recall some similar shopping trip a while ago where she complained she felt guilty spending after her mother had lectured her on saving.

“You know what, fine, if I’m annoying you that much you pick the next store. Then you can’t complain about it.” Okay, she admitted it, she was on kind of a shopping high but Justin had led her straight into all these designer stores and she’d barely even touched anything for fear of marking it and having to spend her entire college fund on it – and then she had remembered she was a celebrity now and lo and behold, she’d opened her wallet to find a multitude of platinum cards. So what if she’d gone a little nuts in Gucci?

“Oh come on baby, you know this trip was for you.” Justin slid his arm around her shoulders, placing a kiss on her cheek, and she could have sworn she saw another flash go off. Or maybe she was still seeing spots from the last mob of paparazzi they’d run into at the restaurant. She’d just been welcomed to the newest part of her life – the press. Honestly, she had her hair scraped back in a ponytail and she wasn't wearing the most chic outfit she could have, she was just walking down the street but still they kept snapping away. Good job they had three bodyguards surrounding them. “I’m glad you’re having fun melting your credit cards.”

“Well I have kind of been dictating our route here. Go on, you pick.” Renee admitted, feeling brave enough to put an arm around him in return. It had certainly been an interesting afternoon, getting to know him while trying to pretend she already did. So far he didn’t seem like the worst guy in the world. He was funny, though she wished he’d quit swearing every other sentence. And as far as she could gather, she was pulling off the act because while he’d made a couple of frowns when she had ‘forgotten’ something she really should have known, he didn’t seem to be putting it down to anything but absent minded distraction. Her only major slip up had been asking about the rest of the *NSYNC guys. Apparently she was not going to be meeting her big crush JC any time soon because the group barely spoke to each other. Oh well, it was probably best her new alternate reality boyfriend didn’t see her trying to molest his fellow band member. Whatever, he had looked at her extremely oddly, even like he was annoyed with her for asking; she’d had to back pedal and start up on a thing about being concerned he was still feeling bad about it. It had got her out of the hole, even though she had felt astonishingly guilty when he’d started pouring his heart out on the matter.

“Alrighty then…” Justin started looking up and down the street, looking for their next target. His eyes hit a familiar store and a grin spread across his face. “I seem to recall we haven’t graced the lovely ladies at AP with our patronage for a while.”

Renee’s heart sank when she looked around and the only store she saw with those initials was Agent Provocateur.

“You want us to go underwear shopping?”

“Well we went shopping for everything else already.” He scoffed before waggling his eyebrows at her. “You like buying your nice little lacy things or whatever and I like watching you try them on - everyone’s a winner.”

“Except the bodyguards who have to stand by the door and miss all the fun.” Dre retorted, reminding the couple that they were not alone.

“Look man I told you already, keep your eyes and hands off the goods ‘cause she’s mine.” Justin playfully slugged his guard in the arm. He held open the door for Renee whom had never been underwear shopping with anyone but her mom and sister before and who positively saw the photographer this time. Blushing crimson, praying to God for deliverance, she stepped into the store.

The bodyguards took up their position by the front door as the sales people (who seemed alarmingly familiar with the pair of them) immediately exclaimed over them and led them towards the newest lines and politely but firmly kicked all other customers out of the boutique. Renee nearly died of horror when Justin had pointed to a display of whips for sale, grinning suggestively. It had taken her a whole three minutes to realise that he was only joking, and then a further five to recover from the shock he’d given her. She’d already had to hold him off earlier by claiming that her bad night’s sleep had been worsened by the dance rehearsals and that she was too sore. She was amazed he’d accepted it so readily. Most men she knew would push their luck, or at the very least complain about the whole thing. Then again, she surmised, from the looks of things he was probably so used to her being willing and eager he could only assume she was being truthful if she made excuses.

Actually, that was probably a little unfair when she thought about it. He’d bought her lunch. He’d then gone without being asked into Starbucks and got her a mocha frappuccino. Happily, both famous and normal Renee shared their taste in beverages it seemed, but even so she thought it was cute how he didn’t have to ask. Then Justin had graciously and without complaint followed her into every clothing store possible, spending only minimal amounts of time in the men’s department. Yet for some reason all she could think of when she looked at him was some hormonal time bomb just waiting to jump her. She guessed she’d just never been with any guy long enough to get that comfortable about such things; it was certainly interesting watching him peruse racks of lingerie without any hint of the gawking teenage boy in his face. He kept pointing out stuff he thought she’d like. It was all a little lower cut and more transparent than she was used to but having had to thoroughly search through her closet and suitcases, it wasn't like he was pushing the limits; apparently she already owned this kind of stuff.

“Ooh, what ya got?” Justin asked as he noticed the growing pile of things she had collected in her hands without actually realising she was doing so. She took a glance down and was relieved to see she’d just picked up a few matching sets and a pretty innocent looking negligee. God help her still slightly crimson face if she had picked up anything more racy. Pulling them from her hands one at a time, Justin delivered his verdicts. “Nice… very nice… you better not be wearing that under any white shirts baby or you and I are gonna have problems… okay we have to get that one.”

“We?” She snapped back to attention. On the bright side it was a distraction from the blushing and the slight change of tack allowed her to look him in the face.

“I figure so far I took my girl shopping and let her pick up the tab and that ain’t right.” He placed an arm around Renee’s waist and pulled her towards him so he could drop a kiss on her upturned mouth. “Plus if I’m buying I figure that gives me a vested interest and you have to let me pick.” His voice took on a childish, devilish sing- song tone. “You wanna go try them on or what?”

“Umm… might as well.” She gulped, looking not entirely enamoured with the idea.

“You know those bras look a little small…” He pulled out a tag and looked down in surprise. “You do realise these are like two sizes too small baby?”

“They are?” She looked down puzzled, seeing her size on the tag… except of course that her usual size didn’t allow for breast implants. Wait, two sizes? She was a D cup? More to the point, Justin Timberlake knew her bust well enough to know her size and be able to spot by sight underwear that was too small? Silently, she once again cursed that stupid little piece of onyx and whichever idiot it was that made it magic. She wasn't sure how many more of these little revelations she could take – yet there had to be a lot more coming. “God I really wasn't paying attention. Maybe I shouldn’t have had that mocha.”

“Guess not. Well, come on, get moving girl, get the right ones and go change.”

Justin watched her do so and then followed her to stand outside her changing room, frowning the whole time. He knew he hadn’t seen her for a month previously but they’d kept in touch by phone as usual and she’d seemed fine. Renee had been her usual, giggly, bright self: occasionally a little grumpy or bitchy when overworked but otherwise business as normal. Yet he’d got here to see her and though he couldn’t put his finger on it, something was different. It was like her mind was elsewhere, even in her kiss. She forgot the silliest things, she spaced out at the weirdest times, and it was like half the time she didn’t even know where she was. And if his Renee was anything, it was a woman capable of absolute single-minded concentration. And maybe he was dreaming but he was sure she’d been looking hard enough at the underwear to be able to read the labels and realise she had picked up the wrong size not once but four or five times. And for another thing, why was she taking so long and why was she not modelling for him like she usually did?

“Ren? Are you okay in there?”

“Yeah.” That was a bold faced lie. Renee was staring at herself in the mirror and not recognising herself and it scared her. She’d spotted neatly hidden surgery scars under her breasts. She could feel her ribs if she applied just a little pressure. And she was wearing these skimpy little things and feeling incredibly exposed, even in front of the mirror. What was she going to do when she had to walk out half dressed in front of God only knew how many people at the VMAs, let alone when she had to spend the night with Justin, which she knew she couldn’t avoid forever? This body… it was nice but it wasn't hers and she didn’t know what to do with it, how was she going to do this?

“You coming out or what?”

“Why would I do that?”

Was it just him or did that sound less of a tease and more of a serious statement? “Because we go through this every time we’re in here and you always end up showing me so get out here. You know I’m only gonna see it later anyway.” Justin tried to kid but it came off flat. What was up with her? Normally she couldn’t wait to rile him up, she just loved getting him hot and bothered when they both knew this was not the time or place and then sauntering back off to get dressed.

“You know what, babe, I really don’t like this stuff.” She ventured nervously, trying to sound light. “I don’t think I’m in an underwear kind of mood.”

Justin opened the door to the cubicle and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Well it all looks good to me.” He shrugged. Not that he was checking her out or anything. Well, he was, but more to the point it was an interesting little reaction she’d just had. She looked nervy and lacking confidence. He had always told Renee that her confidence was the sexiest thing about her and obviously it was true because there was nothing the slightest bit sexy about spying her in her underwear when she looked miserable and unable to hide it. “So I’m afraid I’m gonna have to insist we buy that and the negligee too because if memory serves correctly you owe me a favour and I think that’s just the outfit for it.”

“Huh?”

Again she looked blankly at him and Justin had to fight to let his face remain neutral. What was with her today? They’d only talked about this on the phone the other day and she’d seemed to remember the promised lap dance extremely clearly then. He didn’t like this. Whatever trip she was on, he didn’t like it. She kept crossing her arms over her stomach and hunching her shoulders over and not looking at him. Why? He was Justin, her Justin. They’d got past this long ago yet suddenly all the comfort had vanished and she was acting like they’d barely known each other five minutes. Where were his usual hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’ and the smile and the silly jokes? Why was she acting like they’d never done this before? In the scheme of things he didn’t much care if he got a lap dance or not but he really did care about where his usually confident, happy girlfriend had disappeared to.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Renee pulled her glasses off with a weary sigh. She hadn’t even realised she needed reading glasses until she had tried to peruse the huge stack of papers Marcia had dumped on her and found she had to squint. She’d just assumed the glasses case in her purse was some pair of pop star shades or something – she certainly had a lot of those. Yet again she was too preoccupied with Justin, who had been plaguing her thoughts ever since he had walked into her dressing room unannounced and she had learnt he was her honey.

Maybe that was because Justin was the only one presenting her with any real problems. Her staff, while all nice enough, seemed to have this respectable distance thing going on, it was all very professional and provided she didn’t act like a crazy woman, they noticed nothing new except the odd spacey moment where she would forget something normally regarded as rudimentary in the life of Renee Anderson, mega star. She had finally plucked up the courage to phone her mom and had been so relieved to find that talking to her was just the same – it was only the ‘so what have you been up to’ answer that was really any different. So it was just Justin who had to know his girlfriend was behaving strangely on some level. Thankfully he hadn’t seemed to notice yet and he certainly wasn't treating her any differently, but unless she got her act together soon, he would be noticing.

“God damn you, Timberlake, why are you making this so difficult?” She pushed her hands through her hair – the colour of which she was amazingly enough starting to like – and sighed to herself.

“May I make a suggestion?”

Renee nearly fell off the bed in shock. She gave a slight yelp before managing to recover herself and sit back up straight. She looked in the direction of the voice to find an amused Claire leaning against the dresser. The woman really needed to stop popping up out of nowhere like that. Then again, it wasn't exactly like she could knock.

“And where were you when I needed you?”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry but it’s your life, you gotta live it and you just have to learn to… live and learn.” Claire shrugged. “Besides, I am not at your beck and call. Even if that was allowed, I wouldn’t do it because hey, I’m my own chica here.”

“Not allowed?” Renee asked, pulling her hair back into a ponytail and reaching for a hair tie to secure it.

“I’m dead, if you hadn’t noticed. I’m not supposed to be here and the only reason I am is to stop you completely screwing up. So, you got three guesses as to why I’m here.”

Groaning out loud and lightly smacking her hand against the comforter, Renee, rolled her eyes. “I’ll take Hot Musician Boyfriends for two hundred.”

Claire snorted, amused. If nothing else, she had always laughed with this girl. “Ding, ding, ding. I know you’re an upstanding kind of girl who doesn’t kiss on first dates and everything but you need to speed this up because pretty though he may be the man’s not stupid. That whole underwear thing was a disaster.”

“You saw that?”

“Heard of it.” Came the explanation. “I don’t see anything because that would mean watching your every move and no thank you. I just get told when you’re not doing so great and sent to fix it.”

“Okay.” The blonde sighed, not liking that plan. So that meant she’d only see her friend when she was lousing everything up. That was just great. “So, oh wise one, advise me.”

“Girl…” Claire shook her head, striding across the room to sit on the bed next to her. “You gotta loosen up. Come on, hit me with it.” She gestured with her hands, inviting the tirade. “What’s your issue?”

“God.” Renee flopped backwards, stretching out on the bed and knocking a few papers to the floor with her feet. “I just… I know I’m screwing it up Clara but I can’t help it, I don’t know how I’m supposed to act around him. Every time I do or say something I wonder if that’s how she would have said it and every time he touches me I get this weird feeling in my stomach and I don’t know how to react, like whether she’d kiss him or whatever and it’s just weird. I don’t even know him and I’m supposed to step into the shoes of this girl he went out with for three years?”

“But that’s you. She’s you. It’s all Renee Anderson.” Claire pointed out, frowning, not quite getting what Renee meant.

“She’s me up until freshman year of high school.” Renee said quietly, looking into her best friend’s eyes and it suddenly hitting her that this was the girl who had been dead and snatched from her life. Was there some alternate reality where that hadn’t happened? “Then we got all different.”

“But obviously it was something you both had in you, right?”

“I guess.” She sighed. “But I never even met Justin until a couple of days ago, how do I pull this off?”

“You’re real preoccupied with Justin.” Her ghostly companion noted shrewdly, narrowing her eyes at her. “I thought you’d be bugging me about dance routines or interview technique or your finances or something.”

“But I can find all that stuff out easy enough.” Renee shrugged. “I can dance and sing anyway and I can fake that but I can’t fake my entire personality and that’s what I gotta do with him. Speaking of which though, what the hell was that little black and white montage I had yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah, I checked that ‘cause I didn’t know what the heck that was all about either.” Claire disclosed. “It’s kind of like a little emergency thing the people on high do when you look like you’re really getting in trouble. It’s only emergency though. They’re just showing you the other Renee’s memories so that you don’t make some huge mistake or whatever.”

“Could they fill in the last three years of my so called relationship? ‘Cause that would be great.” The reply was gloomy and despairing.

“You know what I think?”

“No Clara, but you are my cosmic spirit guide or whatever so please tell me.”

“Oh no, this is a friend thing.” Renee felt a cold shiver flood through her when Claire reached up to stroke her hair. She couldn’t feel the movement but still she felt something strange and it made every last hair on her body stand on end. “If you need to get to know Justin, stop wasting your time trying to pretend you already do and get to know him. And stop pretending to be the other Renee. Just be you. I mean you have like fourteen, fifteen years in common, you can’t be that different right?”

“God I just had to go and make this stupid, irreversible wish, didn’t I?” She held her head in her hands. “Now all I wish is that I had my own life back. Compared to this mess, college is looking pretty good right now.”

“Oh shit, NOW?” Claire suddenly yelled up to the ceiling for no reason at all. “Crap. I hate you people.” She turned back to Renee. “I’m sorry sweetie I’m out, apparently I already told you everything you need to know.”

“Why can’t I just call you when I need you?”

A sad smile was her reply. “Because that’s not how it works. You’ll be fine, Ren, I promise. I’ll look around, figure out some way I can help.”

Before Renee could make any response, she’d dissolved again. She hated it when the girl did that. If you tried not to pay attention to the fact that she couldn’t touch things and that she walked through walls, you could almost forget that Claire wasn’t flesh and blood, living and breathing. But when she’d just go poof it kind of felt like she was being taken away from her all over again. That and of course, having her around more often would be a big help as far as her ‘oh my god this isn’t my life’ dilemma went.

Still… maybe she had a point. Whoever this person was, the woman she had become in this reality, she couldn’t be that different. And if she was… well… everybody changed, right? Maybe she didn’t have to fit completely into somebody else’s clothes. Maybe the clothes could be altered or maybe she could lose a little here and there and the whole wardrobe metaphor was already getting old in her head but still, maybe it was a thought worth having.

Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone and after checking her cell phone directory, dialled a number.

***

“Hey.” Well, he had to say that this was a little bit of a twist, the fact that he was now standing in Renee’s room after being let in by Quentin, her bodyguard. He’d found her sitting on the bed in her pyjamas, looking pretty cute actually. But she hadn’t called or made so much as a peep about the fact that he had split straight after rehearsal and Justin hadn’t exactly been expecting a request to come hang out with her. It seemed she hadn’t noticed he was kind of avoiding her a little. The idea had been to give her some space to realign whatever it was that was out of sync in her head and to give him a moment to step back and observe her, see if he could put his finger on what was making him feel so strange around her lately. “I gotta say baby the bed socks are hella sexy.”

“You like?” She looked up from whatever it was she was looking at. “They’re Agent Provocateur.” Renee poked her tongue out at him and despite himself he made a little chuckle.

“Okay I had that one coming but you know normally you like going in there.”

“As evidenced by the couple hundred pairs of panties I seem to have packed for my stay of a week.” She laughed too before launching into her pre-rehearsed story. “Nah, I just wasn't in an underwear zone and if you haven’t noticed I’ve been kinda blonde lately. My head’s all over the place.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Justin crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to her, kicking off his sneakers before picking up her hand and playing with her fingers. “Is everything okay?”

“I just got a lot going on.” She shrugged, hoping to gloss over it effectively enough to placate him. “I’m cool. I just need to get this performance over with and then back to business and I swear you’ll get your normal girlfriend back.”

“The one who’s sane?” He teased, giving her a smile. His eyes practically twinkled; she had never seen a human being do that before. God he was cute. She didn’t blame herself for her past crush on him because the boy was hot.

“Yeah. I hear she’s cool.” Renee dared to give his hand a squeeze back. This was okay; she was doing fine so far. She just needed to convince herself that she could do this and spend time with him and not feel horribly uncomfortable or like she was bringing Justin to the verge of dumping her. It had occurred to her that there was a possibility she would never feel like he was really her boyfriend and the spark that he and other Renee had wouldn’t be replicated with her, in which case she probably would have to break up with him but for now she just wanted to maintain the status quo and give everything in this new life of hers a chance before she went turning it upside down. After all, there was no way out of this little wish she’d made so she would have to live with the consequences. “In the mean time I’m weirdo girlfriend and you gotta put up with me for a bit.”

“So when you said hang out did you mean like actually hang out or what you usually mean when you ask me to hang out at this time of night?” Justin joked, half serious. “Because no offence baby but I’m dog tired and the only reason I didn’t tell you to fuck off when you called earlier is ‘cause you’re my girl. If you’d been Trace I would have reamed your ass out and gone to sleep.”

Renee really couldn’t help laughing, and considering that he’d just made a sex reference, that was progress. Of course that might have been because for once he wasn't seemingly suggesting that they should have it. “Burning hunk of love or whatever that you are, Justin, it’s late and I’m tired too; I just wanted to spend some time with you. Besides, if I was gonna seduce you this would not be my outfit of choice.”

“Birthday suit?” She slowly turned her head to look incredulously at him but he merely smiled innocently. “Just trying to give myself a visual here.”

“Well if you want a visual you can get your mind out of the gutter and help me choose this bunch of photos for the web site. I need ten.” She leaned over and poked him in the ribs with a finger before passing him various sheets of pictures. They had been top of the big pile of admin Marcia had so kindly dumped on her. There had been a bunch of glossy six by tens for her to autograph for a giveaway, she’d had to cast her eye over some itineraries and press statements, and apparently her web site was getting a new lay out and she needed to decide which of her latest publicity photos should be used.

“God… why do I get the feeling Playboy is going to see these and up their offer again?” Justin whined, looking at the pictures. Some of her in a not very long leather skirt, halter neck and boots, some of her in tight, low riding jeans and a slashed shirt, others of her in a short, backless dress. Of course he understood that sexiness was part of her image and everything but the girl didn’t wear a lot in some of the shots and Playboy were extremely persistent in their offers. Call him selfish or chauvinistic or territorial or whatever but as far as he was concerned the only man who should be seeing her naked was him. Okay, or a medical professional in exercising any necessary treatment on her, but that was the only concession he was making.

“First of all there is no way in the world they’re ever gonna come up with enough cash to make me do that and are the pictures really that bad?”

He looked up into Renee’s eyes and was slightly startled by the expression he saw there. It was the kind of vulnerability that Renee didn’t tend to show a lot, especially when it came to her career. She’d kind of developed an outer shell when it came to such things, passed it off, even though he knew it bothered her sometimes when people branded her image dirty or slutty. Now she looked… bothered. There was a concern there that he didn’t often see from her. She was usually so determined and single minded about everything… was it bad that he kind of liked this?

“No baby girl they’re great.” Justin brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed them. “You look beautiful. I’m just gonna kill anybody who even attempts to get you nekkid for a shoot. Or at all.” He added as an afterthought.

“Sure. You can have what’s left of them after I’m done.” Renee shuddered at the thought. “No nudity for me, thank you very much. So anyway, which ones do you like?”

“You could have like a mix of the jeans and the dress.” He mused. “Something more formal and something more casual.”

“I guess.” She made a face before pulling her glasses off of her face and tossing them on the nightstand. Justin watched her closely, enthralled. Maybe he was hallucinating but he even thought there was something a little different in the way she moved lately. He’d seen her do that a million times but somehow… no, he was being stupid. It was Renee, there was no deep connotation behind her taking off her glasses. “Remind me why I have to make these decisions?”

“Because you’re a pop star baby.” He grinned condescendingly at her.

“Like you’re not.”

“Hey! I’m RnB, woman, and don’t you mistake it.”

“Delude yourself all you want, darlin’.” Renee patted his knee in an equally patronising manner. In actual fact, she was not only doing fine, it was good even. She was having a conversation with him and God help her it was almost fun except for the small remaining edge of ‘for God’s sake don’t fuck up’. “You’re pop. Really cool edgy pop but pop all the same. Let’s face it; we’re both pawns in the game babe. Or maybe rooks or bishops or something but we ain’t King of the board.”

“If I wasn't so tired I would make you pay for that comment. I am not pop.” He sat up long enough to get his arms around her waist and pull her back with him as he flopped down again. “And I’m not a pawn in the game either sweetheart. Neither are you. We both know there’s gotta be some sacrifices sometimes and that you can’t always get your way against the record company or whoever but we’re in charge of our careers. I mean look at your first single off this album, right? Did they want you to release that song?”

“No…” That was a total guess.

“Exactly. But you went and kicked some ass and made it happen. That’s not a pawn, Ren.”

“I did kick some ass, huh?” She smirked falsely, having another slight moment of doubt after her big confidence hit. It was going better – it was definitely going better – but she wondered if she was ever going to learn to read him the way he seemed to be able to read her. Maybe Claire had been right and there was enough of the other Renee in her to give Justin a jump-start on the whole thing but she was playing trial by fire here. She just wondered if she should have known he’d start giving her a pep talk if she sounded down on herself for all of two seconds.

“You made me proud baby.”

Shifting on the mattress, Justin gave a large yawn and settled comfortably on the pillow, cheek resting on top of her head. Renee for her part was lying awkwardly in his arms, which seemed to be encircling her quite firmly and without escape. On the one hand it was kind of nice to be cuddled, especially by a guy. And as an added bonus he was wearing the same cologne her sister’s boyfriend did… well, presuming in this reality her sister still had a boyfriend, but it was cool because she’d always liked the smell – in fact she’d got into the tiniest bit of trouble one time for asking Louise if it was alright to sniff her boyfriend. Honestly, she didn’t know what was wrong with her though because obviously this was a nice if slightly too horny guy. You couldn’t exactly fail to notice that he was hot either, so what was wrong with this picture? Why wasn't she just enjoying this? Did she just worry too much or was there some important thing that she was missing here?

“You tired, J?”

“Like I said, I was about to be asleep when you called.”

“Sorry.” She drummed her fingers lightly on his chest by way of an apology.

“That’s alright. I can drag my butt out of bed to spend some time with my girl, I’m selfless like that.”

Renee gave a small, slightly worried but genuine smile. “You just like saying you were in some sexy blonde’s hotel room.”

“Karmic reward.” Justin lifted his head from hers and moved down to catch her lips with his in a small, sweet kiss. Renee returned it and then pulled her head back, hiding it back in his chest where he couldn’t see the look on her face. She could be read like a book and she knew it – it was a royal pain in the butt, she could hide absolutely nothing. That wasn't the greatest thing in the world when she was sitting on such a huge secret. “I’m all nice to you and then I get to brag that I’m dating an FHM 100 girl.”

“Really, you are?” She tried to be sarcastic but actually she was dying for details. People really thought she was hot? “Good for you. Which number?”

“Well she’s number three on the list and number one to me.”

“That was the worst line ever, Timberlake. Really. That even beats the whole ‘I was destined to marry a pop star and I’ve decided it’s you’ proposal that weirdo gave me this morning.” She rolled her eyes. Her first freaky fan encounter – why was she so sure it wouldn’t be her last?

“Last time I ever compliment you.” He yawned yet again. “Do you mind if I crash here baby? I’m falling asleep on you here.”

“Uhh… sure.” Renee realised she sounded a little too hesitant and really it wasn't like she should have to think about the answer, he was her boyfriend. “Not like I ever complained before.”

“Cool.”

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her head when he extricated himself from her, sat up and promptly removed his shirt to reveal a set of abs she had only seen on the cover of Rolling Stone and paparazzi pictures of him on the beach or by the pool or whatever. Trying not to drool was exceedingly difficult. She couldn’t even remember the last time a guy had been this naked in front of her. That went double for when he proceeded to pull off his socks and pants and climbed under the covers in his boxers, scooping up the remaining papers on the bed and dumping them on the floor by his side of the bed. He looked at her expectantly and she realised that she was actually supposed to climb in with him - that was kind of the presumption.

Pulling back the sheets on her side, Renee turned off the light and clambered in beside him. She rested her face in the pillow, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before shifting onto her side and sighing softly as she turned away from him.

“Hey…” Immediately he was scooting over and though she couldn’t see his face if the tone of voice was anything to go by he was looking needy. “Why so far? Where’s the love baby?”

“Me and the love are over here ‘cause it’s comfortable.” She informed him. That was true enough, she always tended to sleep on her side… except, as she recalled, with the previous boyfriend she’d shared a bed with. Then she’d always tended to lie on her front, body shifted towards his side of the bed and her face turned in his direction. Could she not even sleep how she wanted now? “You want love you’re gonna have to come get it because it ain’t coming to you.”

“You drive a hard bargain, sweetness.” Justin gave a chuckle before pressing himself against her back and throwing an arm over her, smiling as he pulled her body into his and kissed her shoulder, spooning her. This had been a hell of a lot better. He was still pretty sure something was up but it would only be a matter of time before she told him, obviously she was dealing with it her own way and he’d learnt not to interfere with that. For now they’d spent what for them classified as pretty normal couple time (though perhaps the conversation had been a little short because he really was tired) and he was more than happy with that. “Goodnight baby. I love you.”

Unexpectedly (for her anyway) Renee twisted her head around and kissed him, a lingering kiss that lasted a good few seconds and took his hands to pull the embrace a little tighter before resting her arm over his. “I love you too.” A protective, masculine, Justin scented aura wafted over her and she lay awake for a good while longer as she bathed in it, listening to the sounds of his steady breathing, feeling the regular puffs of breath on the back of her neck, and wondering what it all amounted to.

“Hey sweetness. Sorry to cut and run so early on ya but your sexy little self got me in some serious shit this morning when they went to pick me up and I wasn't there… I blame you. You’re a bad influence on me. Anyway I’ll see you in final rehearsal later but I figured I oughta call and explain myself before you completely overreact and dump me for ditching on you or whatever. Joking, joking… okay, I gotta bounce but love you babe, I’ll see you later.”

In actual fact Renee was kind of glad he hadn’t been there when she’d woken up. She’d had far more fun than was good for her snuggling with him last night and god only knew what kind of head spin waking up with him would have been. Granted, she couldn’t take it very slow when she was catching up on three years worth of relationship, but she was trying as best she could.

That and the pillow still smelled like Abercrombie Woods. She’d finally remembered what the smell was.

Apparently while Justin had some early morning pre-VMA appearance, she was getting off lightly and all she had to do today was the final rehearsal, the red carpet and the show itself. To say that she was a little nervous was kind of like saying that Napoleon was a little ambitious. From the moment she’d got up and realised it was VMA day she had been walking around looking like she was going to be executed at sunset. In all honesty, if the performance didn’t go well, that could (metaphorically speaking) be kind of true. She seriously needed to pull this off and she wasn't sure she could.

This was live. She had the dance steps down but she needed to give it some flair and she needed to hit the notes right because at the VMAs, nobody was allowed to lip synch. In fact back in her own reality she could have sworn that wasn't true – in fact every year she and Louise made a thing about distinguishing the live singers from the mime artists - but this was what she had been told. Possibly this was just a lie to make her sing live, but either way that’s what she had to do.

So she was now panicking about breathing techniques and trying to remember what little she could from her singing lessons way back when. Not to mention, she had to face the cameras. And somehow she had to smile and look like she was having fun. This was so not fair; normally she would have killed to attend the VMAs but this really wasn't looking like fun yet.

Reaching into her wardrobe, she had purposely found the most boring, plain, unrevealing outfit she could – that had ended up being a black turtleneck sweater and dark green combat pants. She had a feeling she was going to overdose on the celebrity tonight so she was going to try and be as normal as possible this morning. She only prayed she didn’t win the moon man she was up for, she’d have no idea who to thank.

She sighed as she sipped the sweet tea she had ordered from room service – she’d long finished the Apple Jacks – and reached for her glasses so she could read the huge stack of morning papers Marcia had brought in. Apparently Ms Renee liked to keep up with her press cuttings and so demanded pretty much every paper she could get her hands on that dealt in celebrity gossip.

She was appalled with her alternate self – she bet the silly woman didn’t even bother reading most of them. Then again, it was VMA day so she was guessing there would be lots of speculation on the night ahead. She wasn't proved wrong by the tabloids; there was lots of gossip. The problem was that not being in her own skin… well, she was and she wasn't… whatever, this wasn’t technically her life she was living so she had no idea if half the stuff printed about her was true or not.

With only one article did this become any kind of problem and with only one article did Renee start calling in vain for Claire even though she knew that the girl probably wouldn’t show up.

***

“Hey.” The soft voice sounded from behind her.

“Hey.” Her own reply was a lot blunter than she had intended it to be.

“Geez, what got up your butt?” Claire joked as she watched her childhood friend messing with her fringe in the mirror, making it sweep over one side of her face.

“You know what got up my butt.” Renee replied without any humour whatsoever. “Is it true?”

“I don’t know,” Claire admitted.

“What?” She turned around, disbelieving. “How could you not know?”

Claire drank in the sight before her and was a little freaked out. She’d never imagined this. They’d always talked when they were younger about being in videos on MTV but Renee had gone and done it. Avoiding the awkward questions of alternate realities, her best friend was getting ready to hit the red carpet at the VMAs and to perform and everything. That was huge.

“I’m not even supposed to be here. Any second they’re gonna realise I came without permission and…”

“Who are they?” Renee demanded irritably. “You know there’s a hell of a lot you still haven’t explained to me about all this and now my supposedly all knowing spirit guide can’t even tell me if my boyfriend is screwing around on me?”

“I can’t tell you what the deal is because it’s all mystical mysteries of the universe or whatever and I’m sorry but I couldn’t find out. I tried, I swear to God I asked every fucking soul in the cosmos who I thought might know but the only people who do know I can’t damn well ask because like I said I’m not supposed to be talking to you right now. This is life stuff; you’re supposed to work this out for yourself. Though I gotta say you seem awful bent out of shape about this.” The brunette eyed her quizzically, suspiciously.

“I have to go face a bunch of reporters and pretend I’ve been a celebrity the past four years and I know what the hell they’re talking to me about, I can’t even handle ‘what’s the album like’ kinda questions let alone deal with them all asking me about whether Justin’s keeping it in his damn pants!” She hissed in response, trying very hard not yell lest anybody hear her and wonder why she was yelling to nobody.

“And I have to go grind all over him on stage like nothing’s happened, so hell yes I’m awful bent out of frickin’ shape.” She spat as she stomped over to the bed and began pulling on her spike-heeled sandals. If she hadn’t been so angry she would have been squealing over the Prada label.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Claire replied, shaking her head and pushing a hand through her hair – not that she could feel herself doing so, what with not actually being a physical entity. For a second there she’d thought maybe Renee had been upset on a personal level, like maybe she was finally getting along properly with the boyfriend and was upset for herself and her feelings rather than just being pissed about media reaction. “Look, I don’t know. You just have to handle it as best you can like any other person would.”

Fastening her second sandal, Renee stood back up with a sigh. “Here goes nothing. Man I wish I never made that stupid wish, being famous was supposed to be all fun and glamour and hot guys and it’s been nothing but a royal pain in my ass and I’m stuck with it.”

“Listen, about… no, no, no not now!” Claire moaned as she started to shimmer in and out of the air and knew that she’d been caught and was being pulled back.

“Clara?”

“I think I know a way to send you back!” The whisper came through the air as Claire disappeared and Renee stared dumbfounded into the space she had left.

***

Renee sat dumbly in her dressing room in front of an array of fruit, various chocolates and numerous bottles of spring water, which was apparently what she always requested.

Not that she’d touched anything except the water.

Her head was a whirl of madness. Feelings collided in glorious Technicolor and trying to pull one individual thought out of the mess was like trying to grasp at a grain of sand – where one came so did a hundred others.

She hadn’t recognised herself tonight. There had been shaky moments but she had never thought she had it in her to put her nose in the air and strut around like she had, like she’d seen Britney or Christina or whoever do a million times on TV. She’d inexplicably gained the look that said maybe you tried to appear humble but you knew you were a star. It was the way everybody had treated her and fawned over her and screamed for her, all the photographers desperate for her to even glance their way; it was enough to make anybody giddy. It was intoxicating in the most malevolent yet wonderful way.

She’d walked the carpet in a Christian Dior champagne coloured satin and lace mini dress – that would be Christian Dior that she couldn’t even afford a tiny bottle of perfume from before but was now wearing a custom made free of charge outfit from. All the MTV people had been falling over themselves to get her on camera. It was incredible. She’d been a little nervous about answering the questions, stumbling a little over what should have been easy answers; she’d had to completely ignore anything she was asked about her possibly straying significant other but all in all it had been good.

Maybe the Justin rumour would even excuse her slightly distracted manner - maybe they’d assume she was just under stress.

They hadn’t been seated together; some MTV person had fawned over her practically begging for her forgiveness on their behalf but apparently it was the only way to make sure they kept various bitter rivals or ex couples from being seated near each other. She hadn’t cared much; she didn’t feel like talking to him. He’d looked uncharacteristically nervous when going to collect the best male award for a song called She Got Game, one she’d never heard in her own reality but had to admit was pretty damn good.

He’d thanked her and told her he loved her in the speech but it was hard to force a reaction: firstly because she was mad at him and secondly because she’d only known him about a week. It didn’t mean so much that he loved her.

They’d got ready separately for their little duet and had barely had a chance to say three words to each other before she’d had to go on. That had suited her fine. The song had gone fine, too. There were a couple of duff notes that she really should have hit but it was difficult trying to put energy into the dance and keep up with her breathing. She was going to have to try and casually ask Marcia or whoever to book her a few hours with a singing coach, somebody who could help her with that.

The really interesting part had been when Justin had made his entrance.

What would have been a bit of a surprise turned into the talking point of the night: what had Renee been trying to prove by having Justin perform with her after the rumours that had turned up that morning? Everybody was speculating on whether this meant they were still together or whether maybe she had been forced to carry on with the show.

Renee wondered herself what she had been trying to prove. With heavily lined, darkly made up eyes and an extremely skimpy red… she had to admit it, it wasn’t far from being a bra… and strategically low slung leather pants, she had got her bump and grind on with the guy for all it was worth. At the last second she’d made her already revealing outfit even more so (which for her, at least the real her and not the celebrity persona she’d had to adopt, was unheard of) and she had really gone to town. Even Justin had looked slightly shocked and it disturbed her.

Had she been trying to prove something? That she could do this or that she was sexy, that no matter what the papers had said the boy was hers… what? She’d pushed that much closer to him and gripped that much tighter and flaunted it that much more and it was the most uncharacteristic thing she had ever done. Was this what the proper singing Renee was like? Was she all sweet and innocent (well, maybe not that innocent) until she got onstage and turned into some smouldering vixen?

“Renee?” The door opened with a light knock and Marcia stepped in. “Are you ready to go back out?”

“Uhh… yeah, I guess.” She looked at herself in the mirror and she seemed to have suitably repaired her face and hair after changing into yet another outfit, this time a tight fitting pair of distressed and patched jeans and a hot pink tube top.

“You want me to go check if Justin’s ready so you can walk out together?”

“No need.” The voice that was becoming rapidly familiar sounded and she could see his shaved head come into view, a less than ecstatic expression on his face.

She was trying not to look at him and think that he was hot because she was still mad, but the khaki green shirt with it’s sewn on badges kind of showed off his biceps and emphasised the leanness of him and his jeans fit him pretty well too. More annoying was the fact that they probably made a pretty good looking couple right now.

“You ready to go, Ren? Trace had to go back to the hotel for some stuff so you can come sit with me, finally.” Justin attempted to smile at her but he had to know she’d read the article, she was sure he did.

“Lead the way.” She took his hand more for appearance’s sake than anything else.

The silence in the limo wasn't exactly stony. A tiny hint of gravel, perhaps, but it wasn't cold so much as exasperated and a little resigned.

They had steadfastly ignored every reporter that tried to approach the pair of them as they’d left the building. Between Mike and Dre, Justin’s guards, and Quentin, Kie and Derek, Renee’s, they’d been pretty well shielded but she was sure some pictures of Justin practically yanking her arm out of the socket trying to get her as fast as he could to the vehicle would show up in the papers and be routinely dissected by fans, body language experts and talk show hosts alike. Of course there had been a camera pointed in their faces for pretty much the whole ceremony after the performance but it was easy enough to appear focused on the events on stage and smile and laugh at appropriate times.

Award ceremonies were all well and good because you could watch and not talk to the person next to you but unfortunately for Renee they were alone in the… actually, she wasn't sure if it was a limo or not. If it was it wasn't stretch or anything. But it was a nice car and there was a privacy window between them and the driver so to her mind it counted.

Whatever, she was sat on one side with her legs crossed and her arms folded and Justin was sat on the other trying to look casual but given away by his constantly jiggling leg. That more than anything was what filled her with dread because he was looking fairly guilty. Maybe that was just what she wanted to see and she was twisting everything in her mind but still the silence was killing her. She would have broken it – if she had any idea of what to say to him.

“Sorry to disturb you folks but did you wanna hit Clive’s party or some place else?” The voice came over the intercom.

“Ren?” Justin asked softly, looking at her with what she imagined were probably big puppy dog eyes. She wouldn’t know however because she wasn't looking back.

“I don’t care.” She shrugged. “Not in the mood for partying.”

“You wanna just go back to the hotel?” He asked, obviously disappointed at the frosty response.

“Yeah.”

Justin leaned forward and hit the intercom button to speak. “Thanks but just head back to Renee’s.”

Well, it was just another celebrity party, right? She’d have the chance to attend plenty more. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t – in the high personal drama of everything that had gone on tonight she had almost forgotten Claire’s shock announcement. That in its own right was enough to completely mess with her head. Hadn’t Claire herself said it was impossible, that the wish couldn’t be undone, and that it would involve moving heaven and earth yet again?

A great tired frown marred her face and all she wanted was to be back at home in her own bed with her mom in the kitchen making hot chocolate and yelling up the stairs asking if she wanted one. For now she’d have to settle for going into her suite, scrubbing every last trace of make up off of her face and sinking into the bath, which she would not be calling the bath butler for. It was ridiculous; the hotel literally had a guy on call just to go draw baths for the guests. She could turn a faucet on all by her own damn self.

Justin, in contrast, was staring at Renee who was staring out of the window. He hoped to God that she wasn't going to order him out and make him go home because they really needed to talk. He’d known what this mood was for and he’d been too chicken to go to final rehearsal because he knew what kind of mood she would be in and he knew exactly why. She always got like this when she saw these rumours. Not the stupid groundless blurbs that appeared on Page Six, but the ones with pictures, the ones with some loose form of evidence.

As best he could figure, she knew from her own experience that tabloids made a lot of stuff up so she couldn’t blow up at him straight off the bat but she could get very distant, which was what she was doing now. He was desperate to talk to her but knew better than to start personal discussions when the driver was just hired and not one of their usual guys. If you didn’t know them, you didn’t trust them and you didn’t open your mouth and start shooting it off when there was any possibility they could hear.

The ringing of Renee’s cell phone disturbed them. She promptly answered, noting Louise’s number on the screen; she hadn’t spoken to her sister since this whole thing had started. “Hey Lou.”

“You were so robbed. Beyonce’s song was terrible and wearing that kind of orange get up should be a felony.”

Renee gave a slight giggle. “Wearing any orange should be a felony.”

“True. Loved the performance though, you guys rocked it. Though I think a couple of people are probably gonna rag on you for performing together at all.” Louise’s bright, chirpy voice was such a comfort to her right now, though the girl couldn’t possibly know it. It was something about listening to her big sister’s voice and her dissing the person who had beaten her out. She’d always used to do that at the talent shows too, Renee vaguely recalled.

“Like I give a shit.”

“Okay, somebody sounds grumpy, what’s up?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“You’re in the dressing room with him now aren’t you?”

“Car.”

“I’m sure it’s a bunch of crap, it always is honey.” Louise told her supportively. “You call me with the details when lover boy isn’t eavesdropping. Anyway are you still gonna be in Florida next week?”

“I think so.” She steadfastly ignored Justin who she knew was trying to decipher what they were talking about.

“Well it’s Ben’s birthday and we’re having a pool party so if you’re in the state then attendance is mandatory.” Renee noted that Louise was in fact still with her boyfriend in this reality – that was good. The more little things she found that hadn’t changed, like her family, the better she felt.

“I’ll check with Marcia. Anyway sweetie we’re just pulling up to the hotel so I’ll call you tomorrow or maybe later?”

Justin noticed the ‘later’ part and cringed. Obviously she wasn't planning on being busy… say with talking to her boyfriend.

***

Why had he bothered? The whole point of her silently getting out of the car and silently being ushered into the place and up to her suite was that she didn’t want to talk to him.

What she needed was to have a good long think about how she should handle this; the kind of think that today had prevented her from doing. The only thing on her schedule tomorrow was a lunch meeting with some of the record execs, presumably about the forthcoming album release. She could do that she was sure; she just had to let them do the talking. In actual fact she was glad of it because maybe then she would have a better idea of exactly how to work this whole gig.

As for her wants, what Renee really wanted was for Justin to give in quietly and leave, say he’d call her tomorrow or something. But no, he had followed her upstairs, probably feeling safe in the knowledge that she couldn’t do or say a thing to him until they were behind closed doors. Pulling out her earrings she pushed a hand through her hair, grimacing at the amount of products she could feel coming off on her hand. She needed to wash it as soon as humanly possible - she dreaded to think what the sprays were doing to her already chemically coloured hair.

Justin watched all this silently, giving the odd huff of a sigh to himself as he watched her proceed to run a brush through her hair, yank off her ridiculously high heels and toss them across the room. He almost laughed – she had to be pissed with him if she was throwing her precious Jimmy Choo or Manolo Blahnik or whatever shoes across the room. They kind of made a couple, shoe wise; his obsession was sneakers, hers was heels and stilettos and anything which would give her a little height.

“Are you even gonna talk to me?” He finally broke the silence, unable to take it any more.

“What do you want me to say?” Renee shot him a long-suffering expression.

“I know you saw that stupid article.”

“I know I did too,” came the snipe in return. “What do you want me to do, fill in the blanks and decide exactly what I’m pissed at you for and start yelling?”

“So you are pissed at me?” Justin pounced. He soon regretted it when she really did start looking angry.

“No shit Columbo.”

“Then tell me why?”

“Why don’t YOU go read some article in a paper accusing ME of cheating on YOU with photographic evidence of me taking some guy into my hotel room and tell ME why YOU’RE pissed!” she snapped, having had about enough. She was kind of surprised; it usually took a lot to get her worked up.

“I didn’t cheat on you, I swear!”

“Then you better tell me what the fuck you did because from where I’m standing it looks like cheating.”

She was standing over the coffee table with the article open and some picture of Justin and a Hispanic looking woman - a woman who would have been pretty attractive had she not insisted on wearing cheap, nasty clothing and far too much cheap, nasty gold jewellery. Renee refused to listen to the part of her brain that told her she would have thought the girl looked cheap and nasty even if she was wearing Tiffany jewellery and Gucci clothing; it was the first rule of the scorned woman that whoever the offending tramp was, she was clearly cheap and a slut. They looked just that little too close to be just friendly and in one picture, though she couldn’t be sure, it looked like they were kissing.

“Fuck.” Justin growled, running his hands over his face and shaved head. He had no more idea of what to say to her than she did to him, and he knew something she didn’t so technically he should have been able to talk.

“I mean God, we spent all frickin week together and you’re lying to my face telling me everything’s fine and then I open up a newspaper and it turns out you’re a cheating asshole. I bet this was only like the night before you came out here.”

“God… I… we were on a break!”

“Uhh…”

It was a gasp of disbelief. It was based on a few things: one that he could sound so much like an episode of Friends, two that she had most definitely not known they had even had any kind of break, thirdly that he most definitely had done something with this girl and then on top of that it had suddenly occurred to her that technically, he hadn’t even cheated on her. He’d cheated on his Renee. God, he wasn't even her boyfriend, at least not completely, morally speaking she couldn’t make a totally legitimate claim on that.

She’d known the guy for five days, why was she getting so angry?

“I think you better explain yourself and like now.” She muttered, sitting on the couch and taking a calming breath of air.

“That stupid fucking break we promised to never talk about ever again?” Justin began, breathing heavily with a strange mix of fear, a little annoyance and a lot of worry and haste in his voice. “The worst few weeks of my life? Me and Trace went and got drunk because I needed to go let loose and at least try and have a good time and I met this girl… I was wasted and she was coming on to me and you hadn’t called me back after I left like a dozen messages on your damn phone and it was like well at least somebody wanted me.”

“So you’re telling me you picked up some girl in a bar and slept with her because I didn’t call you back?” Renee asked calmly.

“I didn’t,” Justin replied, voice hollow as he stared at her. He couldn’t handle the way she was reacting. One minute she was all fire and fury and the next she was all quiet disappointment. “I swear, Ren. I mean… I took her back to the room and I think that was kind of what I expected to happen and what she definitely expected to happen but we got there and I… I kicked her out after like five minutes, baby, I swear. I didn’t even kiss her.”

“Good for you.”

“Damn it, Renee!” Her bland sarcasm felt exactly how he imagined a knife to the stomach would. “I screwed up! I’m sorry, but I was drunk and I was practically suicidal thinking you were never gonna talk to me ever again! I didn’t even sleep with her and even if I did we said we were on a break from us and that we weren’t gonna be together for a while! You stopped even talking to me and I thought you’d fucking broken up with me for good… I don’t even know why they brought up this shit now; it was like two months ago!”

Justin kicked at a trashcan and sent it rolling across the room, clattering as it went.

Her head was in a complete whirl as she stared up into his anguished face. She was now more confused than angry… this would have been a difficult enough situation if he had been her real boyfriend but yet again she had to account for the fact that she’d known this guy for five days and it hadn’t really been her that he’d hurt. It was a great big mess in her brain – on the one hand, she was telling herself that if they had been on a break then she had no right to get angry and also that it wasn't like she herself was in love with the guy. Looking at it like that, it really wasn't such a big deal.

There was, however, another part of her brain saying that being on a break was not a licence to go screwing anybody you wanted, and that even if she wasn't the original Renee Anderson… Justin Timberlake didn’t know that. He was supposed to be her boyfriend and into her and in love with her; he had no idea anything was different. Besides, if he’d missed her that much how did that explain him going after other women? How did running after somebody else show how much he wanted and missed her?

“Waiting for the opportune moment.” She muttered in answer to his question.

“Look, baby, I’m sorry.” Justin’s voice was cracking and he sounded strangely on the verge of both nervous breakdown and fury as he collapsed onto the couch next to her. “I didn’t tell you because we were on a break and nothing even happened and I didn’t think it mattered. But I swear to God I didn’t cheat on you. We talked in the room for five minutes and I sent her home because she wasn't you and I felt bad.”

Her silence at the end of his little speech was killing him. The eyes were glazed over, betraying little emotion and her body language told him nothing either. She seemed strangely devoid of reaction now, after her initial little fit.

“It’s fine,” she eventually muttered wearily.

“Fine?”

“Fine.” Renee gave in. It was a lovely little dilemma that she didn’t know him well enough to figure out. Technically she could see how there was an argument for him not being blameworthy in the matter and apart from anything else… she just didn’t care enough.

There was a still a weird, ticked off feeling in the pit of her stomach which was pretty inexplicable but was there much point in her getting angry and ending it or whatever you did when you convicted your boyfriend of such a transgression? She could live with this. Maybe if she had been the real pop star Renee and had dated him that long and knew all the details she’d react differently but this… making a thing of it seemed more hassle than it was worth. For all she knew she’d done something similar in this strange break of theirs, which she would have to grill Claire about next time the spook showed up.

“Really?” Justin asked, disbelieving. He couldn’t believe she’d let it go that easily. For a second a voice in his head asked indignantly why she wasn't more upset, if she didn’t care. He quashed it quickly.

“We were on a break,” she begrudgingly admitted. “We’ll just forget about it. You ever do it again I’m kicking your ass.”

“Thank God for that.” He breathed before throwing himself at her and squeezing her tightly to him. Hesitating for a second, Renee eventually reciprocated the embrace as Justin placed a kiss on her neck and then buried his face in it. “I love you baby.”

“I would too, I’m hot.” She joked lamely.

“You still love me?” No, she wasn't getting away with that, she was going to have to say it.

“Guess I do.”

“No, I don’t care what you do about it.” Renee spoke into the cell phone irritably. She actually had two cell phones - one was for business calls, one was for personal. One of them rang incessantly and unluckily for her it was the former.

“It’s all over the news this morning, Renee.” Marcia berated her at the other end.

Why they were having this conversation when Marcia was in a car on the way to the hotel already she wasn't quite sure but over the last few days it had been a regular occurrence. Back in the land of normal people, if somebody wanted her they could wait the extra five minutes to speak to her in person if they were practically on her doorstep. She’d just had to wish herself into Bizarre-o World.

“What? We went out for a few quiet drinks.”

“On VMA night when you’re expected to attend after parties. You put on that display at the ceremony, disappeared when everybody was waiting on you and then you turn up in some Irish bar the other side of the city with only one bodyguard between you!”

“Why does it sound like you’re chastising me right now?” Renee replied picking at her nails, disliking the colour she had put on them only last night. She was standing on the other side of the bedroom, leaving Justin to continue sleeping.

“Because I am! The papers are all over it because you’re behaving so strangely and with all those rumours that had started…”

“Marcia?” Before Renee could say another word, Justin had snatched the phone from her manicured hands and started speaking forcefully into it. She was quickly learning that he wasn't so great in the mornings. “Yes…” He appeared to be listening. “The rumours are bullshit, and excuse me if I didn’t wanna go kiss ass all night but we decided to go have a quiet drink. I’m a big boy and she’s a big girl, we’ll do whatever the hell we want. If you have a problem with it you can bite me.”

He had not only hung up on her but Justin had also turned the phone off completely. Nobody was getting through to Renee at all now because her personal phone hadn’t even been switched on in the first place. With a loud yawn, he stretched his arms above his head before letting them fall back down over his girlfriend’s shoulders. Resting his head on top of her unnaturally golden hair, he muttered something that to Renee’s ears could have been “good morning.” Either that or it was German.

She wasn't surprised he was incoherent; they had seriously been on the beer after they had decided that the night was still young and they wanted to do something before retiring. Of course that in itself had now got them in trouble because one pop star had woken up in another’s hotel suite in a whole different hotel where she really wasn't supposed to be.

“See that was what I wanted to say but I was trying to be polite.”

“Screw that.” Justin complained as her hands idly rubbed his back. “I still don’t know why you keep the bitch on the payroll. She hates me.”

“And you wonder why after you talk to her like that?” She smirked. She couldn’t say she liked Marcia that much either but apparently she needed her.

“Anybody tries to get between me and my woman they just gotta expect it.” He caught her lips with his and Renee swore she actually felt her knees buckle just a little tiny bit. Not enough to be noticeable to any but her but still she felt it. This whole kissing gig was getting easier as it went along.

And she felt a lot better about it after last night. Going drinking in a small bar somewhere was the first thing she had done since she’d woken up famous that felt real to her; they’d had to sign napkins for the owner to hang behind the bar but that had been it. Everybody had been perfectly nice but they’d kept their distance and she’d just spent the night sitting with Justin, drinking and laughing her head off. The whole emotional issue was no less confusing but playing her part was coming easier every time she saw him.

“Yeah, okay.” She pulled back reluctantly. “She’s coming up here to ream my ass out and probably yours so you might wanna be dressed for that.”

“I have other plans…” Justin smirked, lowering his head to her neck. “And neither of us are dressed in them.”

“She’s practically at the door, J, no.” She pushed him away.

How long was she going to be able to keep these excuses up? It was almost lucky they’d been so drunk when they got through the door because they’d made it to the bed, made it down to their underwear and somebody must have fallen asleep before it could go further. If they hadn’t, not only was Renee sure that he would have tried to seduce her or jump her or whatever she was pretty sure she would have co-operated.

“Fuck.” Justin groaned, reluctantly removing his lips from her skin. “If I had a dollar for every time that battle axe has stopped me getting laid…”

“Yeah, yeah, clothes.”

“Can’t we just refuse to answer the door?”

“I got crap to do today.”

“Me too, what’s your point?”

“My point… Justin!” Renee’s eyes opened wide in horror and her fingers immediately grabbed at his biceps, her knuckles white.

He would have indentations from her nails for a good couple of hours after but for now he turned to look behind him and let out a string of expletives as he pushed Renee behind him, backing up slowly with her. Where to he didn’t know but it was preferably as far away from the weird bearded guy in what looked like the hotel’s uniform but he knew for a fact was not - wrong colour by miles.

“Who are you and how the fuck did you get in here?”

“How long has he been standing there?” Renee whispered, horrified.

She felt indecent and exposed on two counts - like his mere presence wasn't enough the guy had seen Justin in his boxers and her standing there in a push up bra and sweatpants. Not even just a bra, a stupid push up bra that showed off the silicone enhanced assets which her celebrity alter ego was forever placing in tiny lacy bras like this while forever letting the whole world into her world. She had made herself public property to the point where this guy felt entitled to see her behind closed doors, see all of her.

“Baby just stay behind me, its okay… come on, answer me, what are you doing in here?” Justin’s eyes blazed but his hands trembled where they grasped Renee behind him.

“He’s so unworthy, Renee.” The strangely hollow voice sounded.

“Don’t you even fucking talk to her,” Justin snarled. His grip was now painfully tight but the shaking woman behind him actually welcomed the pain; the more it hurt the tighter he had her and the safer she was.

“Mike! Dre!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping the fact that they were in the bedroom of the suite and not the living room where the door was situated wouldn’t stop them hearing.

“He was trying to force you, he puts his hands on you and makes you dirty, and you shouldn’t be dirty, you’re beautiful…”

“Get the hell out of here before I call the cops. Mike!”

“You’re hurting her, you betrayed her…”

Renee hit the wall and there was nowhere else for her to go. Now her whole body was trembling behind Justin as his hands spread-eagled behind him, locking her in. She was terrified that the guy was going to pull out a knife or gun or something and hurt Justin; her mind hadn’t even allowed itself to think what the whack job would then do to her. She’d laughed at the young guy who had hung around outside and proposed a couple of times but suddenly the whole devoted fan thing didn’t seem so funny.

“MIKE!”

“Making her dirty, making our angel dirty…”

With nothing else to do, Renee had to make a desperate grab for the phone that was nearly out of her reach. Something about the movement made the intruder turn and run, which unfortunately for him took him straight out into the living room where Mike had come to investigate, having sworn he’d heard his name through the wall despite Dre’s mocking laugh. Neither of the two was prepared to actually move to go look but the yells from the other room told them well enough that there was a scuffle going on.

“Justin!” Mike yelled. “You guys okay?”

“Will be once you get him the fuck out of here!” Justin replied, still not moving.

“I got him…”

A door slammed somewhere, presumably the front door. Finally Justin rushed to the living area only to find it empty. Muttering expletives under his breath, he pushed his hands over his shaved head and locked them at the back of his cranium, inhaling deeply and trying to ignore the rapid beating of his chest. Staring at the pristine cream carpet, he was lost to the world until a loud retching came from behind him and he turned around to see Renee running into the bathroom with her hand clamped to her mouth.

Quickly turning on his heel and hurrying to her side, he crossed the bedroom and entered the pale marbled room. He found her slumped on the floor by the toilet, doing a fair impression of somebody whose normal residence was in padded rooms not presidential suites, having already emptied her stomach. The sound of the flush interrupted the silence as he moved to her and pulled her to her feet, him doing most of the work. Silently he held her hair back as Renee rinsed her mouth out, taking gulps of water and spitting into the sink until her mouth didn’t taste of bile.

“Are you okay?”

Hesitantly Justin’s hand went to her back, his instinct to hold her only confirmed when in slow motion her body seemed to automatically turn to his and she hid her face in his chest. Her arms locked tightly around his back as one of his encircled her waist and the other cradled her head, fingers tangled in the bed hair she hadn’t got around to brushing yet.

“I thought he was…”

“I wouldn’t have let him hurt you baby, I swear.”

“No, you, I thought he was going to… you.” Renee couldn’t form full sentences in her head before they got to her mouth.

“I’m going to kill Mike. How the hell did he get in here?”

“Justin…” came a sob.

“Shh. It’s okay, Ren, I promise.” He rocked with her. He was alarmed by the force with which her shoulders still shook and worried she was going to make herself sick again. “It’s all okay, baby.”

“Renee!” Came the shrill voice of Marcia from outside.

“I’m sorry, Renee, but does he really have to be here?”

“Yes,” came the unanimous response from both Justin and Renee, although neither of them actually bothered to glance up from the papers they were perusing to look Marcia in the face when they were answering her.

“I only got him for a few more hours so he’s staying where he is,” the blonde told her assistant firmly, shifting slightly in her boyfriend’s lap to get more comfortable.

She understood that it was a business meeting, Marcia and Justin didn’t get along well anyway and that really he didn’t need to be there, but ever since that whole little episode in the hotel room he had been her hero. Her feelings towards the man were extremely unclear even by her usual indecisive standards but the whole thing had freaked her out and just highlighted even more how she didn’t have a single friend around her. Justin was the only person in this new life of hers that she knew didn’t have some agenda with her and that she knew cared – at least until she got to Florida next week to see her family and she was seriously counting the days until that.

Technically of course she wasn't the person he thought he was caring about and the whole relationship wasn't what he thought it was, but she was more than willing to let him carry on in that little charade if it meant she could have something stable. A castle built on sand was better than no castle at all. In the mean time he was sitting nonchalantly on the chair, snapping his gum, face hidden under a baseball cap and the arm he’d draped casually across her lap was a kind of comfort zone, in a very strange way.

“Fine.” Marcia sighed. “We’re nearly done anyway. Only thing left is the stuff you want us to start looking into for you for next time…” she rifled through a large looking folder stuffed full of various letters and e-mail print outs and copies of phone messages. “Okay. We’re very sketchy on the details for most of these but give me a definite yes, no, or a look into it and you’ll give it some thought.”

“Fire away.” She groaned, twirling her pen around her fingers.

“MTV are looking to do a Diary episode.”

“Uhh… I don’t know…” Renee panicked. She’d always thought those were really cool and everything, she’d watched a lot of them but she really didn’t think she could pull off this act with cameras following her that closely, she was barely keeping it together as it was. “I mean I don’t mind them following for promotional stuff but for Diary they cut into your free time too… no.”

“Okay…” Marcia scribbled in red pen on the top of the letter and placed it to one side. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering to ask but I might as well… Playboy is offering five million.”

“NO.” Renee didn’t even look up and Justin had a really hard time keeping the smirk off his face. He’d made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like the idea of her doing even topless never mind naked shoots. Instead he made a quiet show of approval with a sneaky kiss to her jaw.

“I thought so. Now this one’s a little more interesting… we’re in LA after Florida for the video shoot and you’ve had an offer from the Pussycat Dolls.”

“Wait, I know this… that burlesque show? Gwen Stefani did it?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that.” Justin replied.

“Why am I not surprised?” Marcia muttered inaudibly before speaking at her usual volume. “It’s a small club setting and a Moulin Rouge kind of show with the outfits and the big band kind of numbers.”

“Umm… I don’t know…” She’d been about to ask if it was really her thing but considering that earlier she’d been looking at yet another round of provocative pictures, she was guessing it was at least in this life right up her alley.

“Hell I’d come watch.” He pinched her side playfully before resting his head on her shoulder, an action that she had come to realise meant that he was bored, disillusioned or fed up in some way.

“Put it on the maybe.”

“And last, Saturday Night Live is looking for you to host.”

“Oh you seriously gotta do that, baby, it’s a blast.”

“Hell it’s Saturday Night Live. I’ll do it.” Renee developed a sudden yet severe stutter, totally star struck.

“Okay then we’re done. You’re free until Timberlake’s people come to pick him up.” Marcia gathered up her things and strode out of the room with a slight air of superiority.

“You need to fire her.”

“I need a vacation. I thought being famous was supposed to be all glitz and glamour and some serious splurging in Dolce, nobody told me about all this crap.”

“You and me both.”

“Oh I think me a little more.” Renee mumbled. “What you wanna do?”

Justin shifted and brought his free arm off the table to wrap around her stomach. “I wanna go back to bed and pretend I’m not leaving you to get on a long ass flight to go do interviews and get asked the same damn questions all day. You’ll wanna get that baby.”

“What? Oh.” Renee realised that there was faint beeping coming from the bottom of her bag and she scrambled to reach her cell phone. “It’s Louise.”

“Say hi to her for me.” Justin settled his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. A little surprised at his lack of concern or movement – most people she knew would have got annoyed she had a call or left to give her privacy or at the very least got out of the chair – she answered.

“Hey Lou.”

“Hey honey. Did I get you at a bad time?” That was another thing that pissed her off – her own family automatically asked if it was a bad time.

“Nope. I’m just chilling with Justin. He says hi by the way.”

“Back at him.” Louise replied. “You know sweetie, I have to say I’m kind of surprised the way you two seem to have been this week, after all that talking you were doing about breaking it off and the way you’ve been complaining about it since you guys got back together. Guess that little cheating scare gave you a kick up the ass, huh?”

This was probably about the time she was expected to answer but she was dumbfounded. She’d been talking about breaking up with him? How could she not have found that out before now? How come Justin didn’t seem to be showing any signs of there being trouble before she got there? Where the hell was Claire when she really needed her?

“Yeah. Just a little blip, was all, it’s cool.” Nicely lied, she thought.

“Well good because I like that one. Better than that deadbeat you brought back while you were on break but I just remembered J’s in the room with you so I’ll just shut up about that.”

So Mr Timberlake hadn’t been the only one exploring his options, then. Oh this was just great.

***

Drumming his fingers on the armrest, Justin settled back into the plush leather seat and shook his head with a polite thank you when he was offered a drink. He had his CD player ready in front of him fully loaded with Eminem, or he had a stack of newspapers and magazines he’d been given to have a look through – all chosen because they were commenting on his upcoming album or because there was VMA reviews and gossip.

He gave a rueful smile to himself as he realised that these days it all managed to come back to Justin Timberlake and Renee Anderson. The label had even scheduled the album releases so that hers would come out just as he started to do promotion for his, so their biggest artists wouldn’t be competing. Sometimes he didn’t even feel like an individual entity any more.

That had been playing on his mind for a while – ever since they’d gone on that horrible, heart-wrenching break – but lately it took more of a different spin. He’d felt her pulling away from him… well, not so much pulling away but maintaining her distance after they’d made up. He was sure she had just been still processing her feelings and a little afraid of going through it again, she seemed fine now. Yet somehow… it felt different. She felt different.

For one thing she hadn’t been all over him like she usually was; he was extremely worried that he was turning into a woman but Justin had actually kind of liked that. Sure he liked getting his – and now he thought about it he hadn’t in a while which was kind of annoying – but he liked that she was just happy with his company. Sure she seemed to have gone nuts for a minute or two back there but lately she’d looked a lot more like the Renee he had first met.

That was partially the clothes… for some reason she wasn't flaunting it like usual… but mostly it was just her attitude. She’d left the celebrity face off for once and while he was still kind of concerned that she wasn't being her usual self and was being a little nervy, he was taking the whole thing as a positive.

Staring at a review of their performance but not really registering the words, he wondered if she was going to be okay. If she’d been nervy before, that whole hotel experience had completely freaked her out.

She hadn’t been the only one. He’d at least waited until she’d left that morning but once she had gone he’d had his own minor moment of losing it, although he’d done one better than her and managed to keep from throwing up. Funny how you could be fine in the face of some psycho nutcase yet lose it when you were safe and sound again. He’d been scared, the way he got scared when the two of them got mobbed: an experience he never relished and had found coming far too often lately. He felt claustrophobic and like he couldn’t breathe and all the time he was afraid somebody would break his grip on Renee - it was funny how that feeling could be multiplied so exponentially when it was just one man in a spacious hotel suite.

Running a finger over one of the pictures of her, he stared at the familiar set of eyes. As a couple they were difficult and they were complicated – she was a very complicated woman, especially of late – but for whatever reason he loved her and if that meant dealing with her weird mood swings and her constant oscillating between the sweet little Pittsburgh girl and the superstar attitude, then he’d just have to do it.

***

It was the first time Renee had ever watched Claire materialise in front of her. Previously she’d always done it behind her back or whatever and actually she’d preferred it that way. A dark cloud of black smoke started creeping up from the floor and it got bigger and denser until it started taking shape, gaining colour and becoming her dead best friend. She’d always imagined more of a twinkling lights kind of appearance; the black looked ominous and it gave her the creeps.

“Hey.” Claire looked perfectly groomed, as she always had in life - she’d always been fussy about her make up and her nails and everything even from a young age - but she looked stressed. Renee felt kind of guilty; the poor girl should have been resting in peace.

“Hey. Are you allowed to be here this time?”

“Yep. So you wanna know what I found out about you going back?”

“Yeah.”

“I was right. They did a straight swap between you and this reality’s Renee. She’s living your life. But yeah, so it’s possible to put you back after all. I didn’t think it could be done but turns out the bastards misled me about the whole rearranging the universe deal. It’s actually pretty easy.”

“How easy?” Renee asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer. Apart from anything else she was being picked up in fifteen minutes to do a small performance at a club.

“Find the necklace.”

“There’s a necklace here too?”

“Yep. Shame you won’t have as easy a time finding it as she did, you swapped bodies so she was still sleeping next to the damn thing.”

“How come she hasn’t wished us back? Doesn’t she want all her money and stuff back? And how do you hear this stuff?”

“Heavenly grapevine. And she did try to wish you back once her guide told her the deal.” Claire said grimly. “But it was your wish so you control the whole deal. If anybody’s putting it all back it’s you. Besides, after all that bitching she did, now she seems to be having plenty…”

Renee narrowed her eyes as the brunette inexplicably clamped up. “Plenty of what, Clara? What’s she doing with my life?”

Claire sighed, cursing herself for letting it slip. “She had a few diva moments when she realised she was broke and without her entourage but she’s now kinda loving the freedom. She’s quite the party girl on campus; she’s got every guy in the place after her.”

“If I went back would it be back to when I made the wish or back after everything she’s done?” Renee thought in horror, terrified that after all she’d found out today the other Renee was turning her into a wench.

“Yeah, after everything.” Claire nodded. “But if you want that to happen you have to find the necklace and fast. I don’t know what lame ass moron made it up but some weird cosmic rule says you only have three weeks to switch it back or the necklace won’t reverse the wish. And you already lost a week.”

“Crap.” Renee sat down on the bed and put her head in her hands. She’d probably smudged her make up but then she was sure some make up artist would attack her again before she got to the venue. “God I…”

“Do you want to go back?” Claire asked.

“I don’t know, I mean it’s not just me it’s my family and my college friends and… Justin.” Her face really did drain of all blood this time. “Shit, Justin.”

“What?” Claire asked.

“Your cosmic grapevine didn’t tell you that Renee cheated on him during their break and that she’s been threatening to break up to him to her… my…. whatever, Louise, big sister.” She finished the sentence badly, once again unable to deal with the grammatical problems of talking about herself yet not herself. “And if she’s been having all this fun whoring herself around in my world, she’s not gonna… she’ll break up with him if she comes back here.”

“Well yeah, I guess if she’s been…” Damn it all, none of her spirit guide knowledge had prepared her for this - and she’d been told a lot of useful stuff, learnt a ton of secrets of the universe to get this gig. It was so unfair, this was her best friend and she had no idea how to help. “But that wouldn’t be your problem.”

“It’d break his heart… but I don’t wanna leave her running around screwing up my old life… fuck what I am supposed to do?”

“I don’t know Ren, it’s your decision sweetie.”

She really did wish she could say something more useful but one thing she had been told was that she was not to unduly influence, free choice and all that. It had been a long and annoying lecturing session by her boss – he seemed fond of doing that.

“But if I were you… I’d track down that necklace as fast as you can. If you can’t find it you won’t even have a choice.”

“This is like the plot of a really bad fantasy novel.” Renee grouched.

“I know but that’s the breaks. I gotta run; you need anything else?”

“Not really. Can you get me a quiet life?”

Claire smiled sadly, and yet again did that weird thing where she’d reach out to touch her living friend yet neither of them could really feel it. In a bizarre way it was a comfort to them both and in another it was a stark reminder of the unsettling nature of their meeting.

“Look at what you’ve done sweetie. Look at what this Renee’s done. If there’s one thing you should be learning it’s that you were never destined for a quiet life.”

Claire faded silently from sight as Renee yet again buried her head in her hands and wondered how the hell she was even supposed to begin to make a decision of this magnitude.

“So Miss Sleepy Head finally wakes up. Morning honey.”

Faith Anderson briefly placed a hand on her younger daughter’s messy hair as she sat down at the breakfast table, before heading back to the stove to deal with the pancakes.

“Morning Mom,” Renee mumbled, brushing hair out of her eyes and reaching almost blindly for the orange juice, which Louise actually had to slide across the table to her.

“Marcia called for you.”

“Did you tell her I’m not here?” She groaned, taking a sip of the tangy liquid and yanking down the hem of the baggy t-shirt that constituted her pyjama top.

“I told her I haven’t seen you in a month.” Her mother shook her head slightly, not appreciating the fact that she’d had to lie on her daughter’s behalf. “You know you really should call her.”

“And have her trace the damn thing and track me down like she’s the FBI and drag my butt to God knows where? No. The note told her I was taking a break and not dead or whatever and it’s not like I had anything important to do anyway.”

Louise tried not to laugh at Renee’s little over-dramatisation – although she actually wouldn’t put it past Marcia to do that – but still she had to snicker. “Hell yes you do. You are coming with me and helping me shop for Ben’s birthday.”

“God do I have to?” Renee started picking at a slice of toast her mother offered her. “I hate shopping for men, I never know what to get.”

“Hey, after Justin ‘I own more crap than God’ Timberlake Ben should be easy.” Her sister lightly slapped her around the head, to which Renee just had to poke her in the side, to which Louise just had to give her a shove.

“Honestly girls, you’d think you were both still five.” Their mother shook her head before placing a stack of pancakes on the table that both sisters started attacking eagerly. “Speaking of Justin though he called for you honey.”

“Did you tell him I’m not here too?” Renee asked – not that she minded Justin knowing where she was, she just wondered how many people her mom had lied to in the all of twelve hours since she’d got to their home in Florida.

Apparently they’d moved out of Pittsburgh when she got big and they had a nice little suburban home in Kissimmee, which Renee had actually had to look up in her alter ego’s address book. Hell, she’d had to look her own California address up in her alter ego’s address book. It wasn't huge but it was quite big enough for the three of them. That had been another nasty little surprise – her parents were apparently divorced and her father had stayed back home while her mom and sister swapped states.

“I tried but he just laughed and asked what time you’d got in last night. That boy knows you far too well.”

“Aww, little Ren and Justy-Wusty,” Louise said in a baby voice to which she was replied with a banana peel flung at her plate. Renee’s aim was a little off; it had been meant for her head.

“Louise your sister has been here less than twenty four hours, do you think you could knock it off and give her a few hours’ grace?” Faith scolded her eldest daughter with a light tug at her short dark hair. “I’m just glad you two worked everything out, I was worried I was going to lose my chosen son in law for a second there.”

“Mom!” Renee whined, pushing a slice of pancake around her plate with her fork, drenching it in syrup.

“I still remember her coming home from those stupid awards…” Louise paused to take a sip of coffee. “I thought she was going to be all full of herself because she’d met JC but nope, she’d gone all junior high over the idiot with the fro.”

“I am going to hurt you one of these days.”

“Bring it on sister dear. Quentin ain’t here to protect you now.”

“Hey I don’t need a bodyguard to kick your ass, alright, I can do it all by myself.”

Finally sitting down at the table with her daughters, Faith sighed and picked up the newspaper. Every time – she imagined she’d have her two daughters back under the same roof and they’d have a nice, adult family gathering, but no... every time they morphed straight back into pre-teens.

***

“You know I really wish they’d stop closing off stores for you.” Louise muttered under her breath as she flipped through a rack of polo shirts, one steady eye on the over eager assistant who was hovering close by.

She always hated it when they were the young males; they spent their whole time staring open mouthed at her baby sister. She didn’t even look like “the” Renee Anderson – it was a pair of cargo pants and a denim jacket, and if the guy hadn’t done the double take and peered under the baseball cap he wouldn’t have even realised they were anything but normal shoppers. She could only thank God that it wasn't the weekend when all the school kids would be on the loose.

“Kind of attention drawing isn’t it?” Renee muttered.

“Just a little.”

“This makes what, third store today?”

“Fourth if you count the guy at the drive thru who offered to clear out the restaurant for you.”

“He doesn’t count, there was only like one old couple in there anyway.” Renee scrutinised a red shirt before deciding that it wasn't really Ben’s colour. “Throwing fifty people out of Gap on the other hand… I just want to do my damn shopping.”

“I’m just worried you haven’t got security.” Louise bit her lip lightly. “Are you sure you don’t want to just go home?”

“I’m not putting myself under house arrest, Lou.”

“I’m just worried about you darlin’. I mean if some nutcase can get into your hotel room…”

“Never ever mention that again in my presence.” She gave a slight shudder. That had been the whole reason for this stupid trip. Well, obviously she’d wanted to check up on her family and see how fame had affected them, and she needed to get back in touch with her grandma and do some detective work on the necklace, but mostly she’d just wanted to go home where her mommy would keep her safe. “What does Ben think of yellow?”

“Hates it.” Louise replied succinctly.

“Maybe not then.” She replaced the shirt on the rack. “We got cologne, we got him that stupid radio car that he is way too old to be asking for… I don’t know. Do we need shirts?”

“He’s got like fifty pairs of jeans and barely enough shirts to last a week.” Her big sister informed her. “We are getting him shirts.”

“Lou? Do you ever wonder what it’d be like if I never got famous and they just treated us like normal people?”

“They only treat me special when I’m with you, honey.” Louise laughed. “Any other time I’m just part of the common crowd. Besides, there was no way you were ever gonna be anything but some huge star.”

“I was that much of a brat about it?”

“No…” She paused to look at the blonde next to her, narrowing her eyes a little.

This was very unlike Renee. She always seemed to glow in the little privileges of being famous, and she never seemed to look back to her life before. She’d always been so forward focussed. Come to think of it, Renee wasn't normally so calm; she was kind of a whirlwind. You could see why she was if you spent even a second with her on promotion – she’d just got too used to living her life that way. She wondered idly what had brought it all on.

“That’s not what I mean. You just always lived for singing and dancing and we all just knew that was what you should do with your life is all. That’s why we all got behind you.”

“You don’t get annoyed that you’re just my sister to guys like that?” Renee briefly nodded her head in the assistant’s direction. His attentions hadn’t escaped her notice either.

“Hell you can keep guys like that, I can do without the pimple squad,” Louise whispered evilly and Renee let out a small giggle. “And sure it bugs me on occasion but, you know, it’s not a big deal. I know I’m a hell of a lot more than just your sister.”

“You are also the anti-Christ.” There was a sharp elbow to the ribs from elder sister to younger.

“Shut up or I’m telling him you’ll kiss him.”

“Ben like green?”

***

Well, she had hung around in her room for a whole hour now, hoping that Claire would take the opportunity to catch her alone. It hadn’t happened, so Renee could only assume that she was at least for the moment on her own. She really wished she wasn’t – she had a lot of thoughts roaming around her head and nobody to discuss them with.

In a weird way, coming home to people who were so familiar was even more of a head spinner than being dumped in the middle of an entourage she’d never met before.

It seemed like her mother was constantly worried about her, asking if she was okay to go out by herself and if she’d been sleeping well and piling food on her plate at meals. A phone call to her father had revealed him to be having the time of his life in Pittsburgh with one of his personal assistants, and a trip on the internet had wielded a number of rumours that her father had divorced her mother because she took so much more of a business hand in Renee’s career than he did which meant she was never home. There were also a couple about cheating, but unfortunately for Renee she couldn’t really ask anybody who would actually know because they all assumed that she’d lived through it and knew.

It was food for thought, however. Her mother was constantly worried about her. The stress of having a famous daughter had split up her parents, who in her own reality were still together and seemingly fine. And she couldn’t get Louise’s statement out of her head – that she was no one special unless she was with her starlet sibling. That was horrible, she hated the thought that Louise would be disregarded just as ‘the sister’. On the one hand she wasn't sure she could live with that, knowing that she was the cause of all their strain and stress and their worry about her even stepping outside without security.

If she went back to obscurity, she could avoid all that.

On the other hand she then thought that they would still be living it, these people in this reality. It would still be their problem; they’d just have a different Renee - apparently a sleazier and ever so slightly more flamboyant one. Maybe it would be easier for them to have a new Renee, the quieter one who could appreciate from a different perspective how much their lives had changed. When she thought about it from that angle, she wondered if coming home to her family had done anything except screw with her already overloaded mind.

Technically they weren’t ‘her’ family but still… it was her mom and it was Louise. How was she supposed to leave them in such a huge mess? But how did she know what mess the other Renee might have got her own parents into?

That was before she even started on the Justin problem. It transpired that her mother loved him, her sister treated him like an annoying little brother though not without some affection, and her father really didn’t like him so much. What that meant for her and him she didn’t know, but it was yet another confusing thought to add to the ever-growing stockpile.

Apparently her grandmother was alive and well and still living in Maryland. So she could plausibly go and visit her and try to hunt out the necklace while she was there. When she would get to do that she didn’t know, especially seeing as once she got back within Marcia’s clutches she had a feeling she’d be watched like a hawk. It was like living in a goldfish bowl. She had her little miniature castle that she could hide in but she had to leave it some time and as soon as she did… it was all too confusing.

She really didn’t know what to do and her indecision wasn’t exactly a huge motivation to go after the stupid little piece of onyx that had caused her all the trouble in the first place. But Claire had had a point, she needed to find it so she could make the choice, not some cosmic stopwatch that said her time was up and it was deciding for her.

“Ren!” Came the distinctive yell of her sister from the living room. “Lover boy on the phone!”

Forcing herself up from the bed Renee quickly passed into the living room, glared at Louise, and took the cordless telephone out onto the patio where she could sit by the pool. “Hey.”

“Lover boy? Is that what you call me when my back’s turned?”

“No that’s just her being annoying. You’re so lucky you were raised an only child.”

“Excuse me? Little brothers here?”

“Yeah but you had a good few years without them when it was all about you.” She pointed out.

“True.” Justin chuckled. “So you wanna tell me why you skipped out and I got the Bitch from Hell cussing me out because she thinks I kidnapped you?”

“Did you tell her to fuck off?” Renee groaned.

“This is me, Justin, I hate her remember? I said way worse.”

“Good.” She sat on the edge of the pool and began rolling her pant legs up so she could put her feet in the water. “I was just getting pissed off with the promotion and with you gone I was by myself half the time anyway so I just wanted to come home. I was coming back for Ben’s birthday anyway.”

“By yourself? With an entourage that big you couldn’t find anyone to hang with?”

“Some of us don’t have a Trace on call. You don’t have to be alone to be lonely you know.”

“Hell yes I know. Are you okay baby? Seriously, I’m a little worried over here.”

“Join the club. I think my mom and Lou are already running it but I’m sure you could wangle yourself a junior committee position.”

“I know I already told Marcia you weren’t here but you know if you need to you could come out here with me.”

“No thanks, J.” Renee gave a soft smile. That actually didn’t seem like a terrible prospect but she’d come home for a reason. “You’ve got your circus going on right now and I think I need some quiet.”

“Well it’s an open offer babe, you know that,” he told her softly. “Listen I really shouldn’t have stopped to call you so are you gonna be at your momma’s all week?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll call you first chance I get but I gotta get my ass in gear. I love you, baby.”

“You too.”

The tone in her ear signalled that the connection had been severed and she clicked off the phone, slowly kicking her legs through the water and staring at the ripples like they could tell her why a basic five-minute conversation was now weighing so heavily on her. It just bothered her that he cared; she didn’t know why.

She didn’t know what, she didn’t know why; she knew a big fat nothing.

“God, this is the life. Sitting outside in the nice warm sun, tanning.”

“Except for the part where you can’t tan.”

“Or feel anything at all but that’s what I get for not looking both ways when I crossed the damn street.” Claire snorted as she tilted her head back, as if to experience the warm heat of the sun’s rays. It wasn't really the tanning time of year but it was still quite warm enough to sit out.

“We are so lucky my mom’s backyard is so set back from anybody else’s because if I got caught talking to thin air I’d get locked up so fast.” Renee shifted lazily in her sun lounge, adjusting a very expensive pair of Gucci sunglasses. She’d had a pair just like them in her own life, only they’d been cheap knock offs.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to get you by yourself?” Claire grouched. “Honestly, you were never that close with Lou before.”

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed,” Renee replied grimly, twisting a lock of hair around her finger and grimacing at how dry it felt. Between colouring, chlorine water and the sun, she needed to go buy some seriously intensive conditioning treatments. “Neither of them will leave me alone. And after yesterday Mom is threatening to call Quentin and make him stay here, but if she calls the bodyguard he’ll call the damn personal assistant.”

“Marcia?” The brunette shuddered. “I don’t know about personal assistant. I think she sees her job more as Fuhrer.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Don’t need to, you’re the poor sucker living through it.”

“So come on, enough with the chit chat, what did you show up here for?”

“Checking on you.” The ghostly apparition shrugged, a gesture that Renee had seen a million times before but still found exceptionally strange.

Having said that – well, thought it – Claire was starting to freak her out less and less. She actually kind of liked it this way; she had her best friend back. It would never be quite the same but it was the best she could do and a lot more than most people got when somebody close to them died.

“You had any more ideas on whether you want to stay or go?”

“Every time I think up a reason to stay I find a counter argument why I should go.” She groaned, whining. “I feel bad for Mom and Lou so I don’t want to leave them here but then I think of my parents back home and I don’t wanna leave them either. And then I think that I like the performing and stuff but then I think how the whole publicity thing just sucks.”

“Yeah, I saw that mob you got into this morning.” Claire winced. “I’m amazed you didn’t lose more than your hat.”

Renee had made the cardinal error of assuming that because she and Louise had managed the mall by themselves that she could step out to the grocery store with her mom. That had been a mistake of epic proportions; her mom had then needed to go pick up her dry cleaning and they had hit the boulevard only to find there were tons of people around. A few girls had started screaming that it was Renee and from then on the crowd of people surging towards them had only got bigger – the police had eventually had to stop traffic to get them out of there. Then the officer in charge had made some terrible excuse about needing their witness statements so he could take her down to the station to sign five million autographs for his colleagues and their various kids.

“I hate it. So much. And I hate how this Renee is… I mean I know I never met her but from everything I find out about her she’s like this completely career obsessed hooker outfit wearing…” She trailed off, running out of words to describe the contempt she felt for her alter ego, however unfair that might be.

“You don’t want to leave her back home but you don’t want to leave her here where she has power and money,” Claire sympathised. “God help Justin. I feel sort of sorry for the dude; I mean stupid blindness aside, he seems to care about her. You. Her… help me out here.”

“I think I remind him of how she used to be,” Renee said quietly, staring into the pool.

“Huh? That was deep and meaningful, what the hell do you mean?”

“It’s like… I think the fame and stuff screwed with her head, but before she was the same way I am… and she was that way when they met and I think I remind him.”

“You know…” her companion mused thoughtfully, “that could explain why he was so willing to shut his eyes to the weird way you’ve been acting.”

“Gee, thanks, Clara.”

“You know what I mean Ren… he’s clutching at straws.”

“Yeah,” she conceded. “I just… I don’t get how he hadn’t realised she was getting ready to break up with him. I don’t even get why she was. I mean, he’s a bit of an ass but he’s sweet.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “Is someone warming up to Mr Timberlake? L-O-V-E love in the air?”

“No.” Renee glared at her. “I don’t love him. I like him but I’m not in love with him. I just don’t want to leave him to get dumped as soon as she gets back, you know? He’s been nice to me.”

“Man it must suck to be you right now.” The brunette shook her head sadly, staring at the best friend who in the space of just over a week seemed to have aged about ten years.

“God, I just… how did she end up like that?” Renee spat out, throwing her hands up in the air. “I mean am I really just the kind of stupid bitch who’d get all caught up in being famous and shit? I mean it’s like you said, she’s basically me at the core… I mean God, would that seriously happen? Would I eventually wind up like that if I stayed here? I mean, if this is what I end up like then I’m glad I gave up the stupid piano and crap.” She blathered on in her little rant, oblivious to the light dawning on Claire’s face. “I mean so many times I thought about picking it back up or getting back into music but I’m glad I didn’t now. What the hell do you look so happy about?”

“I got it.”

“Got what?”

“What this is all about.” Claire reached a hand behind Renee’s head and gave her a triumphant kiss on the forehead, to which Renee gave a violent shudder.

“God will you quit doing that? You’re a ghost, remember, it’s freaky!” She ran her fingers over the spot, rubbing vigorously to try and get rid of the cold feeling.

“Don’t you get it?” She grinned broadly. “This is why you’re here. And there was me thinking you’d just screwed with the cosmos but all along it was meant to be…”

“You are making the kind of sense that doesn’t.” Renee replied crossly, confused.

“You were wondering why she got famous and you didn’t, why you quit and she didn’t, why she’s become what she is and if you’d do the same. That’s the question you’re here to answer sweetie. That’s why they sent the necklace your way and not hers. I think. I’ll have to ask the boss but I think that’s why they set this up… don’t you get it?”

“Thought you said it was just destiny?” If she’d been a little unsure before, she was totally lost and bewildered now.

“It is. And you’re here to find yours,” Claire whispered. “I think I’m done here. Just go find that necklace and keep thinking on it.”

Unlike her usual fading into thin air, she disappeared with a flourish and a plume of bright smoke. It was the fastest of all the disappearances Renee had seen her do. It was also the most confounding, bizarre and infuriating.

***

With a deep frown, Justin clicked off the phone.

He felt strangely hollow.

In some ways he thought he should be crying, screaming, throwing things across the room or just getting violent at something. In some ways he thought he should be sitting somewhere in quiet dignity, with a trembling mouth but his chin held high. It wasn't so often you got a phone call like that: The kind that could rock your world to its very foundations within the space of about ten minutes.

And he knew it couldn’t have been made lightly. Trace had obviously had reason to believe the astonishing catalogue of Chinese Whispers he’d recited back to his best friend as he sat in the plush setting of his Chicago hotel, unable to believe what he was hearing.

It sounded like a bad tabloid story – was apparently due to become a bad tabloid story if what Trace had heard was true. The grapevine had been talking and a solitary grape had figured he could make a few bucks turning the tables and making some cold, hard cash while he was at it; the world thought Justin Timberlake had cheated on Renee Anderson when in fact it was the opposite way around. If cheating while on a break counted - he really wasn't too sure of the rules.

Then again, was that why Renee had been so willing to let his little indiscretion slide… because she’d made a far bigger one?

The story went that after they’d had their little spat – one due to months of being away from each other too often and fighting every time they did manage to spend time together – Renee had taken the taste of freedom she’d so craved when she’d yelled at him that she was sick of him holding her back. She’d gone out, had some fun with various guys and then gone ahead and started an actual thing with some dancer guy she’d worked with. A guy she’d dumped the second Justin had called her to say he wanted to work it out.

That wasn't the part he hated so much. He didn’t like it very much but if she had dumped the dancer and come running immediately back to him that wasn't so bad, right? The bad part was the rumour that had started saying that Renee was regretting her decision and had got back into contact with the guy, merely biding her time until ditching her boyfriend for good.

He really hated that part.

More than anything it confused the hell out of him – in the month they’d been apart she might perhaps have been a little distant, but that was to be expected when they were just working it back out after a bad fight. She’d been extremely strange when they’d met back up for the VMAs but then she had been so sweet, like a changed person almost. They’d done more talking than they had in almost a year; it was like they were getting to start over. And now he heard this?

The distinct tones of N.E.R.D began from his cell phone and as far as he could recall the particular song meant it was either Pharrell or his momma. A glance at the caller ID told him it was the latter.

“Hey Mom.”

“Hey baby, how you doing?”

“I’m okay.” He shrugged, not that she could see him.

“No you’re not, what’s up?” Lynn knew, as she always did. Why was it always the few days she took to go back to Tennessee instead of travelling with him that he chose to have some problem that would worry her to death?

“Just a couple press issues, nothing to worry about,” he told her. “So are you still coming out day after tomorrow?”

“Actually that was why I was calling… how much do you love your mother?”

“Fishing for compliments, I see how it is… fine. I love my momma more than anybody else in the whole world. That good for you?”

“Could have done with some enthusiasm but alright.” Her southern tones rang in his ear. “I arranged for your next round of promotion to be in Florida. Thought you could do with sleeping in your own house, and I hear a whisper that Renee’s hiding out at her mother’s so maybe you could go see her and she’ll cheer you up.”

Well that was certainly interesting. “Thanks, Momma, you’re the best.”

“I know. I’ll fly out there and meet you there, how does that sound?”

“Great.” It was just great. He was going to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Renee Anderson. He was going to figure out what was up with her - he swore it. And the opportunity had just fallen right into his lap.

“Are we entirely sure that this is a good idea?” Renee asked sceptically as she stepped out of the car and surreptitiously pulled her trucker hat lower over her face.

She had worn more caps and hats and sunglasses in the last few days than she ever had before in her life. She now knew and understood why celebrities considered them such vital accessories. She got recognised enough when they were on - when they were off even for a few seconds all hell had the potential to break loose. It had: pictures of the traffic stopping moment had got to the national media and suddenly they all knew that Renee Anderson was mysteriously hanging in Florida for some reason, having blown off a bunch of commitments.

They couldn’t, however, figure out where she was hiding; her mom and sister’s address was kept unlisted, the move had been kept very quiet. If Renee wasn't in some fancy hotel or at Justin’s Orlando residence, then they had no idea where she was hanging her hat - but all it took was one reporter to recognise her and follow her home.

Worst of all, Marcia had found her. Louise had tried to lie, say Renee had only stopped over for one night, but Marcia was just not that stupid. As a result, she’d had to listen to her personal assistant reaming her out over the phone. Renee had particularly resented that - after all, wasn't she supposed to be the employer and Marcia the assistant? It was good for her she supposed to have somebody checking up on her and giving her a kick up the ass if necessary, but the Fascist routine was getting very old very fast. This was one thing she would certainly not miss if she eventually decided to go home.

“It’s Donna, she’s known you since you were eleven; she’s not going to rat you out, and nobody’s followed us. Come on, it’ll be fun. We haven’t taken a dance class together since…”

“Forever,” Renee finished, but still glanced over her shoulder uneasily as she walked into the building. “But she’s your friend, not mine. And since when did you get into dance?” They had both started dance and music classes together but Louise had given up long before her little sister had, even in the world where Renee was Jane Doe and not national singing sensation.

“Since she offered to let me in free of charge and I saw how nice and flat your stomach looks all the damn time. Lucky bitch.”

“Hey, you wanna trade in the stomach for not getting crushed to death by a mob every time I walk out the door? I’ll take that deal.” Renee strode through the reception.

“For those abs, I will make the sacrifice. It’s studio two, Ren.”

Following her sister’s instructions, Renee walked through the door only to become incredibly embarrassed. Donna was certainly there; the hair was a very interesting shade of red that it had never been naturally but she still recognised the face. There was also a line of eleven to thirteen year olds (or so she would estimate) doing a hip hop routine to the song she’d sung at the VMAs. Flushing crimson, she mouthed a ‘sorry’ at Donna for the interruption and turned to go before Louise pushed her back in and headed over to a spot at the side of the room by Donna’s stuff; obviously she did this a lot and it was expected she’d arrive early.

“And hold it there.” Donna, looking like an archetypical dancer in a cropped sports vest and tearaway exercise pants, stopped the music - much to Renee’s relief. “Looks great girls. And Michael.” She added as though this was something they often went through with only one boy in the class and she expected him to protest any second. “We’ll go through the routine one more time and then y’all can go find your folks.”

“Hi Louise.” One of the youngest looking kids waved at her sister.

“Hi Alyssa.” She waggled her fingers at the little girl and Renee tried to keep her face at an angle where she wasn’t so noticeable.

“Alright girls, we got an audience so let’s impress, okay?”

“Who’s your friend?” Another of the girls asked.

“Oh, this is my sister.” Louise replied and collective shock went around the room, gasps being heard and Renee caught the ‘oh my god it’s a pop star’ stare on many faces.

“You told them?” She was smiling at the kids but out of the corner of her mouth she was muttering in a very unpleasant tone to her sibling.

“I didn’t. I guess Donna must’ve mentioned you were my sister one time or something, I know she didn’t tell them you’d be here.” Louise muttered back.

“But we can’t do it while Renee’s here.” One little girl turned to Donna and sounded practically on the verge of tears and she felt even worse.

“Sure you can honey.” All the kids were gaping as though the word of God had been spoken. “Y’all looked fantastic before. It’s only me, that doesn’t make a difference.”

“Yeah.” Louise piped up with a sideways glance at Renee who finally gave up on the trucker hat. “Honestly, you guys are way better than her. TV makes her look good but really she’s a terrible dancer.”

Renee elbowed Louise in the ribs before continuing. “You guys looked good; I wanna see the whole thing. Please, for me?”

There was a scrambling to get back to their places and Donna smirked in the sisters’ direction before continuing with the class.

“You’re signing twenty autographs now, you know that?” Louise whispered in her ear, giggling.

“Oh yeah.”

***

“It’s been a while since I was here. The place looks great, Faith.”

Justin and Renee had long ago got over calling each other’s moms by ‘Mrs’ and were on first name basis now. The only slight difference was that Renee was on a first name basis with both his father and his stepfather; Justin would never dare call Nathan Anderson by anything less than his full name or ‘sir’. Her father really didn’t like him, and as Justin peered at the numerous pictures on the wall in the living room he noticed the lack of Mr Anderson’s presence although grandparents, cousins and of course the two sisters were all over the place.

Most of it looked like any family room but one set of shelving was like a shrine to Renee: her first talent shows, a picture of her with her freshly signed record deal, in the studio, awards ceremonies, her first covers for Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone, framed album reviews, even a few of her award statuettes.

“God, last time you were here it was a wonder we had flooring.” She chuckled as she returned from the kitchen with soda for both of them. “Here you go honey.”

“Thank you,” he replied politely as he accepted it. “So what have you gals been up to the past few days?”

“As little as possible,” Faith said, sitting down on the armchair opposite. “Honestly that girl looks burned out. She’s always so busy and I know she’s been worrying about security after that nasty business in the hotel.”

“Yeah.” Justin grimaced as he remembered. “My security got doubled after that: like I didn’t have enough big black dudes following me around before. Oh well, best thing for her is to be back home with Momma looking after her.”

“Are you kidding? I’ve barely seen those girls since she got here.” Faith laughed, taking a sip of lemonade. “It was shopping for Ben’s birthday and then it was the movies and now it’s a dance class with Lou’s friend… I keep telling her that you’re meant to relax on vacation. That was what she skipped work for after all.”

“I just couldn’t believe she skipped out,” Justin said casually, trying to remain nonchalant. “It’s real unlike her.”

“I think it was long overdue. Between all the pressure she was under for the album and all the fighting between her and the label over songs and then that nasty fight you two had…” She patted his arm. “I’m amazed this didn’t happen sooner. I think it’s been good for her, she seems so much more like her old self.”

“Quieter.” He nodded as if he was agreeing when in actual fact it was more of a question.

“I prefer it this way,” Faith told him. “Much as I don’t like to see worry lines on a face that young, at least she’s facing up to it instead of plastering a smile on like usual.”

“It was a big turn around.” He made a bolder venture. “Kind of overnight, almost.”

“I suppose it was.” A frown passed over the older woman’s face. “Well now you put it that way…” She was interrupted by the sound of a key in the front door and the thought apparently evaporated. Justin cursed inwardly to himself; he’d planned to do much more digging than that.

“Mom! We’re home! And we brought dinner!” Louise called in from the kitchen where she and Renee were opening various cartons of Thai food and squabbling over who was getting what from their usual order.

“Hope you brought enough for four!” She called back.

“Four? Who makes four?” Renee asked as she grabbed another plate. It was lucky they always got far more than they ended up eating - although sadly this time they would not be following their tradition of leftovers for lunch the next day.

“It’s rude to yell, come in here and greet our guest properly, Renee.” Faith winked at Justin.

“Yes mother.” She sounded polite yet rolled her eyes as she exited the room and traipsed down the hall to the next room.

Walking in, she was about to play her polite little daughter routine until she actually clapped eyes on the lean figure reclining on the sofa. A slightly surprised noise escaped from her as Justin raised himself to his feet. Automatically she stepped towards him and initiated a hug. She couldn’t help but take a sniff, just to see if he was wearing any cologne. He wasn't but he’d apparently showered recently because he smelt good.

“God, J, what are you doing here? I thought you were in LA.” She gave him a squeeze and a quick peck on the lips, a genuine smile on her face.

“They rearranged my next round of promotion to be here.” He shrugged, kissing her back. It wasn't the usual passion fuelled make out session they’d normally have if they hadn’t seen each other in forever (as they’d had meeting up at VMA rehearsals), but her mother was after all in the room. “So I thought I’d stop by and steal you.”

“Okay, you said nothing about stealing my daughter,” Faith jokingly scolded.

“Not until after dinner, I promise.”

“You’re stealing her daughter and eating her food, which makes it worse not better Justin.” Louise entered the room with a stack of plates (take out was not a table kind of food in the Anderson house) and with her free hand smacked Justin upside his head lightly.

“Okay, I was nice and helped you buy stuff for your boyfriend Lou so be nice to mine.” Renee hugged him around the waist again. “God it’s good to see you. Thai okay with you babe?”

“Great.” Justin squeezed her back before she extracted herself to run back into the kitchen for the food.

Now he was really confused. After the weird reticence he had been sensing from her lately, the hot and cold signals she had been giving him… she had seemed honestly pleased to see him. Certainly not like somebody who was bored and planning to dump him for some stud she’d bedded during the break.

Yep, now was definitely the winter of his discontent.

Faith hadn’t seemed that concerned about her strange change in personality. Now here was Renee being all buddy with her big sister - who he knew she got on well with but had never spent huge amounts of time with when she was home - and instead of being even the slightest bit off with him as he’d expected she was all hugs and smiles. He’d come here to play detective and find answers, not to get more confused than he had been already.

***

“Oww!” Renee giggled as she walked straight into Justin’s dresser. “So next time I get offered a shooter all I gotta do is just say no.”

That set her off into more stupid giggles. It had become the joke of the evening that Renee seemed perfectly able to handle her liquor except for the fact that she kept walking into things. She didn’t stumble, didn’t slur her speech, she could walk in a straight line, yet her depth perception seemed to have become non-existent.

“I told you Louise was trying to get you drunk.” Justin shrugged with an amiable smile on his face.

They’d had dinner and then called Louise’s boyfriend Ben to meet them at some jazz bar they both frequented, though neither Renee nor Justin had ever been there. It was one of those dimly lit, smoky places where you could be anonymous; you just sat in a corner, got drunk, listened to music and laughed. And they had laughed. He’d only met Ben two or three times before but he seemed cool enough, and Renee and Louise had been on top form.

That had confused him even more. For some reason, his girlfriend had flipped into reverse mode or something. Normally it was the business stuff that she excelled at and the skill of just hanging out that eluded her; she wasn’t anti-social but she lived for work. But over the last two weeks he had seen her completely space out on a dance routine, get snotty with Marcia (something she never did), and she’d even skipped out on work commitments. They hadn’t been big or important ones but it was out of character. Then tonight she’d been all smiles and happy and precisely the girl he’d fallen for.

This woman was going to make his head implode someday, he was sure of it.

“I think she succeeded. And come on, you had a ton of beers so don’t tell me you’re not buzzed.”

“Just a little.”

He grabbed her hand and spun her towards him in a very Fred Astaire move. It would have come off perfectly if she hadn’t stumbled half way through the turn, In her defence, that was because she’d tripped on a dirty shirt that was incongruously lying on the floor of his otherwise neat room, it wasn't a result of intoxication.

They’d come back to his house purely because it was closer - or at least she had. Justin purely wanted to spend as much time as possible with her, convince himself that he was being completely ridiculous about the whole thing. If he was honest, he was trying to somehow prove she wasn't cheating on him, though how bringing her home could do that he didn’t know.

“That was real slick until you tripped me up.”

“I did not trip you up.”

“Your shirt did.”

“Clothes do not make the man, baby.”

“Clothes are an expression of you.”

“Clothes are just an outward appearance that makes people jump to conclusions about you.” Justin countered, wondering how they were having this conversation but unable to help chuckling as she giggled. Neither of them found it particularly funny but the absurdity of it was amusing and then when they saw each other laughing…

“Wow. So clothes are bad things. Who knew?”

“We should rid the world of clothes.”

“And run around naked?”

“Sounds kind of fun,” Justin whispered dirtily into her ear as she broke into giggles (which unlike the tripping up were a result of alcohol) and latched her arms around his waist.

“Thought that was why you said you didn’t want me stripping for Playboy, ‘cause the world would see me nude.”

“Well maybe you could just strip for me.” Alcohol was not leaving Justin unaffected either - he had either completely forgotten about his issues with the woman in front of him or he had miraculously glossed over them. “You do still owe me a lap dance you know.”

“Well maybe…”

Renee trailed off when Justin’s lips met hers and the whole talking thing just seemed far less important just then. Had she not been drunk she might have noticed that it was the longest she had ever kissed him for and she probably would have noticed hands wandering up the back of her shirt.

She would have most definitely noticed that they’d hit the foot of the bed.

“Okay, can you tell me what the hell got up his ass today?” Mike muttered murderously as he watched Justin stomp around his dressing room. “If he’s like this when his momma shows up…”

“I have no idea. I know he went over to Renee’s…”

“Lover’s tiff?”

“He said they were fine.” Trace shrugged, eyeing his best friend warily.

It wasn't like Justin had been a complete asshole or anything - he just hadn’t been his usual self. He’d disappeared inside of himself and wasn't talking so much; a bad aura just emanated from him. The less than cheery mood was more than evident and he couldn’t imagine it getting any better if Lynn got there and started calling him on it, which she inevitably would.

“I thought you said she was cheating on him.”

“Might be. I said might be. But he’s still with her so I guess it hasn’t been proved either way.”

“Or he’s proved she didn’t?” Mike asked.

“If he’d proved that she didn’t we wouldn’t be having this conversation because he’d be walking round here like he was the shit.”

“Good point.”

“Trace man did you see my Coldplay album anywhere?” Justin finally spoke with a frown on his face.

“Think you left it in the car yesterday,” he said mildly.

“Okay then. Let’s move; I wanna get this crap over with.”

“It’s only a couple radio stations.” Trace clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture but fell extremely flat.

“Dude if they start with me today I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Justin stormed out of the room ahead of his friend and bodyguard, leaving Mike to hurriedly scoop up any remaining stuff from the counter and hurry after his young charge. Trace was forced to jog to catch up, wondering what the hell had got into him.

***

“Renee…”

Claire stood over her best friend, not sure how long she could keep this up. She wasn't corporeal - she had absolutely no way to wake the girl up other than to keep yelling at her. She seemed extremely dead to the world. It had always been that way, even at their sleepovers in middle school; Claire would always be up long before Renee had even stirred.

This was all well and good except that she seriously needed to talk to the woman and she was as always on the clock; though Renee seemed to have forgotten that she was on the clock too. Apart from anything else, without a body Claire couldn’t pick up and read the note on the pillow next to the blonde’s head. She was dying of curiosity, but she also needed to know if it was anything important.

“Fine. You asked for it.” She sighed before reaching out and letting her hand pass straight through her friend’s skull. Renee practically bolted upright with a violent shudder.

“What the… Claire? Did you just do that?” She whined as she spotted her ghostly pal and connected the dots.

“I’ve been yelling at you for five straight minutes, you left me no choice. Besides, it’s like one in the afternoon; you need to get your butt out of bed. Now, first you’re gonna read the note on the pillow next to you and then you’re going to tell me why I found you naked in Justin Timberlake’s bed. I’m pretty sure I know already but I just gotta check.”

“Oh God…” Renee pushed a hand through her knotted and tangled hair, wincing slightly as her fingers hit snags and she remembered the events of the previous night. Grabbing up the note, she unfolded it to find that it was pretty brief.

Ren;

Didn’t want to wake you but I got interviews. There’s coffee and cereal in the kitchen.

Later, J

“Well. Not exactly a profession of undying love, is it?” Claire snorted. “Were you that bad in bed?”

“CLAIRE!” Renee raised her voice, sounding so pissed off that Claire actually took note and dropped the sarcasm.

“Sorry. You just kind of threw me for a loop here. Last time I checked you were trying to avoid sleeping with him.”

“I was drunk and he was pretty.” It was the only lame defence she could come up with on her own behalf.

“I knew it.” Claire stood up and began pacing the room. She would have been chewing her fingernails, were that physically possible. “I thought you said you weren’t in love with him.”

“I’m not!” Renee protested before trailing off into thought. “God I just made me sound like such a…”

“Slut? Yeah.” The reply was completely unsympathetic. “I don’t get it, Ren. What the hell happened?”

“Like I said… I was drunk, we’d had a nice time and we started kissing and boom.”

“Yeah, you have got pretty cosy with him lately.” She couldn’t help snorting again.

“What? I thought you wanted me to start thinking about my decision… maybe he’s part of my decision.” Renee narrowed her eyes as she pulled the sheets around herself and got up to locate her clothing. “Unless you know which decision I’m supposed to make and that’s why you’re pissed, because I did something I shouldn’t.”

“Your destiny is something for you to find, not for me to know and tell you,” the brunette replied irritably. “I’m just worried that you’ve gone and complicated this for yourself.”

“It’s not like I’ve gone and fallen desperately in love with him overnight, Clara.”

“Then why did you sleep with him?”

That was a fairly good question, and one she had to think about for a few moments before she answered. In the second where she’d crossed the line with him, she could explain all that. Mostly it came down to her being drunk and him being very good with his hands. Why did anybody sleep with anybody on the spur of the moment? They’d both been turned on and it had happened. She got that part.

The only thing she didn’t quite understand was the part where it had been him. She’d been in college - those kinds of situations with that kind of potential for sex had come up quite a few times before and she’d mostly resisted them. So logically something about Justin must have been what made her succumb to temptation this time; if it wasn't love then what was it?

“I guess… it’s like…” She struggled to explain while putting her underwear on beneath the sheet. “I feel like I’m friends with Justin now. Like he’s a really close friend. He’s just been so caring and… I don’t know. I guess I kind of got used to kissing him and stuff and now it’s like that’s just how we show affection, you know?”

“Like you’ve de-sexualised it?” Claire asked, trying to understand what she meant.

“Sort of. Not completely, but kind of like it’s not as big a deal with him as it would be any my normal guy friends back home.”

“Basically you’ve got used to acting like his girlfriend.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were drunk.”

“Most emphatically.”

“God…” Claire sighed. “So you’ve definitely decided you’re not gonna fall hopelessly in love with him?”

“I don’t know…”

Renee sighed as she struggled to do up her bra one handed; she didn’t mind getting changed in front of Claire - they’d done it a million times when they were younger - but full nudity was too much, she needed her underwear on first. Thankfully it was front fastening; otherwise it would have been completely impossible.

“I feel… you know how you’re in the first few weeks with a guy and you’re just kind of dating and you know you like him but you’re not sure exactly how it’s gonna go?”

“No, actually.” The first hint of resentment cracked Claire’s voice. “I kinda died before I had the chance. But I get what you’re saying.”

“I think if I stuck around I could fall for him. I’m nowhere near that yet but…”

“You could. It’s in the realm of possibility.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you regret it?”

“I probably should…” She trailed off before giving a mild smirk. “Hell no. He’s hot. And obviously all that dancing does something for ya ‘cause the boy’s got skills. Almost enough to make me choose to stay just for that.”

“Well you better hurry up and get your ass in gear and choose.” Having been taken wildly off point, Claire steered the conversation back around to the reason for her little visit. “The bigwigs have been sensing a disturbance in the Force, so to speak.”

“First of all, please don’t use crappy Star Wars phrases when you’re giving me bad news and second, what the fuck do you mean?” Renee yanked on her pants, looking almost as panicked as she had when she’d first been dumped into this whole mess.

“I don’t know exactly… some shift. It’s hard to explain if you’re not a celestial being with all the knowledge of the universe like they are. I don’t get it exactly but crux of it is something’s happened and they’re not sure why, but they really don’t like it.”

“So why you telling me?”

“Because you need to get your damn ass in gear and find that necklace.” Claire replied grimly. “There are only two possible explanations for this. One, the cosmos is realising that you’re running out of time and shifting to make the wish permanent, or something’s happened that wasn't supposed to. But we knew the first one was going to happen and it shouldn’t have created that kind of… of… whatever it did.”

“By any chance did the… thing… whatever, did it happen last night?” Renee asked grimly.

“Come on sweetie, maybe you made the Earth move for him but you’re not that good.”

“Fuck it, Claire, I’m being serious.”

“Well… last night, this morning, some time like that.” Claire paused for thought as Renee hurriedly buttoned up her shirt. “Ren… you haven’t made anybody suspicious, have you?”

“If I pulled off the VM freaking As why would they get suspicious now?” She hissed, beginning to seriously panic. “I don’t know… my mom started on this riff about how nice it was to see me back to my old self.”

“You mean like you actually put your family over work for once? No. She might’ve been surprised but that can’t be enough. Still, this is all I can figure it’d be; I don’t know what else would cause that kind of ripple.”

Claire began pacing as Renee sat on the bed and held her head in her hands, trying to breathe deeply. She really didn’t want to wind up in a nuthouse - which was where she would wind up if she had to try and explain this all to anybody who realised that something weird was going on.

“Renee?” A voice called that was most definitely not Claire’s.

“Shit, he’s home.” Now was the time she panicked.

“You still here?” Justin’s voice sounded again, only marginally closer this time.

“Uhh… up here!” Renee yelled back before turning to Claire. “You gotta go.”

“I can’t. We still need to talk and once I go back up there I have to stay until they let me go again.” She spoke in a rush. “You just get rid of him or get out of here as fast as you can, it’s not like he can see me anyway.”

“You in the bedroom, Ren?” Justin called out as he strode along the upstairs landing to the familiar door. “I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah.” She yelled out to him nervously, turning away from Claire. It was easier to pretend she wasn't there if she couldn’t see her.

“Okay…” he said grimly as he passed through the door and met his girlfriend’s eyes. Stopping short of where she stood in the centre of the room, his eyes passed over the place. The bed hadn’t been made - a sure sign she’d not been long out of it. Renee looked kind of nervous, too. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She made a pitiful attempt at the smile. Justin made an equally poor expression back at her and then turned slightly to Renee’s left.

“Umm… not meaning to be rude but who the fuck are you and why are you in my bedroom with my girlfriend?”

Renee’s eyes widened when she turned around and saw that Justin was staring right at Claire.

Claire looked incredulously at Justin. The moment seemed to freeze, hung endlessly in time.

He was staring at her with a question in his eyes, Renee was staring at both of them with her mouth wide open and Claire just really did not know where to look. Her eyes darted endlessly around the room, deep in confusion. For the first time since she’d literally reappeared in Renee’s life, it was her turn to look severely panicked. This was seriously not supposed to be happening.

Only Renee could see her - that was the whole deal. She’d been in a room with Justin once before and he had seen nothing. Why had the invisibility worn off?

“Uhh…”

“Claire,” Renee butted in suddenly. “This is my friend Claire. Justin, Claire, Claire, Justin.”

“So that answers my first question but not my second,” Justin informed his girlfriend, eyes narrowing as he spotted how flustered she looked. “No offence, Claire, but I didn’t have the greatest day today.”

“Bad interview?”

“Yeah but don’t change the subject, Ren. Why is she here?”

“Having some girl talk, hanging out. Not a lot.” Claire covered up.

“In my bedroom?”

“We were touring the house.” Renee quickly covered up, really not knowing what to do. “But you’re home and you said you needed to talk so we can catch up later, Clara?”

“Didn’t your friend Claire die when you were like fourteen?” Justin suddenly piped up, brow furrowed. He seemed to recall a night long past that she’d spent crying in his arms because some reporter had dug that up and asked her about it.

“Well there’s more than one Claire in the world.” Renee giggled before turning her face from Justin’s view and mouthing obscenities at her dead friend. “You feeling blonde today babe?”

“Ren don’t start with me, please.”

“Okay, okay. Claire I’m sorry but you really have to go.” Much as they apparently still needed to chat about whatever cosmic crisis was going on Justin was not going to be fobbed off, especially now that he could inexplicably see ghosts.

“You girls say your goodbyes; I’ll be out in a second. Nice to meet you Claire,” Justin muttered before heading to the bathroom.

Renee immediately turned on Claire with her voice hushed as low as she could make it and still be audible.

“Shit, shit, crap.”

“Yeah, what got up his butt?”

“Clara! Why the hell can he see you?”

“I don’t know!”

“Do you think…” the blonde replied in a slow, mocking tone, “That this is maybe something to do with that ripple thing you were going on about?”

“I don’t know, only you’re supposed to be able to see me!”

“Yeah I got that part!” Renee stomped her foot lightly on the plush carpet, hands held firmly to her hips and exasperation written on her face. “But obviously somebody changed the rules! What am I supposed to say to him?”

“I see dead people?” Claire threw her hands in the air, wondering why she was taking the heat for this when she was just the lowly messenger. It wasn't like she made up the rules.

“You are so lucky your ass ain’t solid because I would so be kicking it right now.”

“I don’t know… I don’t get it, I appeared right in front of your sister and she didn’t see me. I don’t know why he suddenly can. Just stick with the hanging idea, say you got lonely and I called to tell you I was in town for a few hours, and I’ll go find out what I can. Can you handle this?”

“I’m gonna have to… just get gone, alright?”

Of course the bathroom door had to open just as Claire was about to do her vanishing act, which firmly put the nix on that idea. Justin walked back out, rubbing his hands lightly on the legs of his pants. He looked at both of them warily, not about to be the first one to talk yet wanting desperately to quiz his girlfriend on exactly why she was in his bedroom with some strange woman. Renee gave him a tight smile but he refused to return the expression, instead letting his face remain blank. This was, with the exception of the previous night, the weirdest thing yet on his list of ‘Reasons Why My Girlfriend’s Gone Mental.’

“So I’ll see you soon?” Claire asked Renee in as casual a tone as she could muster.

“Yeah. I’ll show you out.”

The girls communicated silently, a look that said they both knew there was unfinished business from their conversation but that there was no way they could deal with it now. It went equally unspoken yet understood that they were both in some serious trouble now that Claire had been spotted. Apart from the inevitable questions about who she was, it now left the pair open to discovery any time Justin happened to walk in at a bad time. That was assuming, of course, that he was the only one who was now immune to the whole invisibility thing.

All this passed between them as they both headed for the door. Justin had helpfully shut the thing behind him so Renee actually had to open it for her spirit friend or there would have been some major explaining to do. And that would have gone really well for them if Renee hadn’t proceeded to trip once again on the shirt that still hadn’t been picked up from the previous night.

That in itself wasn't much of a give away - it was the part where Renee fell straight through Claire which was the killer.

It extracted a very loud string of profanity from Justin as Renee lay on the floor gasping and trying to get over the sick, cold feeling that was running through her body. This was more than just a hand, she’d gone straight through her and she was reeling from it. She felt physically sick, and every hair on her body was on end.

They were in some serious trouble now.

“What kind of weird shit is this?”

“Justin…”

“Tell me that I did NOT just see you fall straight through her, whoever the fuck she is.”

“I told you, Claire,” she replied quietly.

“I don’t fucking care, I don’t… I knew there was some strange shit happening with you, I knew it!” He yelled at the top of his lungs, pacing across the room and running his hands repeatedly over his stubble of hair.

“I can explain…” Renee replied weakly as Claire was frozen in spot, seriously unable to think what to do.

She didn’t think leaving the room was good, especially seeing as she’d have to vanish into thin air or walk through walls to do it. She didn’t particularly want to keep standing there either but somehow she just didn’t think she should talk right now.

“Explain what? How weird you’ve been over the past few weeks? The total schizo you pulled at VMA rehearsals and when we went shopping, the part where you were practically afraid to touch me? The part where you did a one eighty and for no reason cancelled a bunch of work when we all know Renee Anderson lives to work? The rumours I’m hearing about you sleeping around while we were on break and that you wanna get back to whichever asshole you were screwing then? The fact that you touched me like a completely different person when…” He trailed off. He’d already aired a lot of dirty laundry in front of some strange woman but he had his limits. “Me finding you in my bedroom with some weird chick who isn’t fucking solid?”

“Call this a hunch but I think that’s your suspicious party.” Claire muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

She was grimly surmising that Justin had realised on some level that he hadn’t slept with the same girl he’d been sleeping with for three years. It shouldn’t have made a difference if there was a nagging feeling in the back of his head somewhere that something wasn’t right – in fact, it hadn’t up until this point. But if on a significantly conscious enough level he was actually thinking she was a different person that would certainly explain a few things on the cosmic disturbance front; he was certainly not supposed to be even thinking there was something that wrong with Renee. Maybe the loss of invisibility was just a literal after effect of the figurative cloak falling from his eyes.

“Justin, I can explain, I swear.” It wasn't as desperate as she thought it would be - it was resigned.

“Renata…”

“Claire, give it up.”

“You better explain this to me. NOW,” Justin snapped, glaring viciously at both girls in turn, not sure whom he was angrier at. He eventually settled on Renee because he didn’t even know the other girl. Somehow he was pretty sure his trust had been betrayed here, although he had absolutely no idea how. He’d been pretty sure it was another man involved, not a woman.

“You were right.” Claire finally said, looking at the ground. “She only knows one Claire. I died when I was fourteen, I’m a ghost.”

He stared incredulously for a minute and then inexplicably began laughing. “Come on I got Punk’d already, no fair getting me twice.”

“You saw me fall through her.” Renee said quietly, finally beginning to rise from the floor.

“Is… is this why you suddenly went crazy?” Justin asked. “You started seeing her? We need to get you help baby, you shouldn’t be seeing your dead best friend, I’ll get you a doctor…” He began reaching for the phone but Renee got there first, grabbing his wrists and yanking him away, clutching him in an iron grip unexpected from her small hands.

“If I’m crazy why are you seeing her too?” She asked quietly.

“What? I…” He looked wildly around him, not wanting to think about that. “I don’t understand.”

“You wanna know why I was weird? Why I don’t seem the same person lately?”

“Renee this is NOT a good idea.” Claire butted in, sounding slightly panicked.

“Yeah. I do.” Justin replied, staring her straight in the eyes and ignoring whoever the hell the brunette woman was.

“It’ll sound insane. You won’t believe me.”

“I saw you fall through a person. Try me.” He said grimly, clutching at her arms while she clutched at his.

“You’re right. I am a different person. I’m a different Renee. From… another dimension.” She winced, knowing how ridiculous that sounded even before she read it in his face how utterly insane she was coming off right now. “I was never famous before two weeks ago. I got given this necklace and it turns out the thing was magic or something because I made this stupid, offhand remark about wishing I was famous and suddenly I was here.”

“You… what?” Justin looked completely dumbfounded, distrustful, disbelieving… a lot of D words.

“I made a wish. And then from a college dorm in Michigan I’m in a dressing room at rehearsals for the VMAs, and my dead best friend is standing in front of me telling me I swapped bodies with some alternate version of myself who became famous because she didn’t give up dance and singing like I did. And I’m with you.”

There was a long moment of silence where Justin was desperately trying to read behind his girlfriend’s eyes, trying to wrap his head around what she was telling him. Everything in him was screaming that she’d gone mental and needed help. She sounded ludicrous, what she was saying was impossible… and yet he kept coming up against the fact that he’d seen her pass through this Claire person like she hadn’t even been standing there.

“Oh come on NOW?” Claire suddenly started yelling at the ceiling, diverting their attention.

Justin stared with a dropped jaw and eyes open achingly wide as he watched the woman turn into some kind of weird black mist and just disappear. He stared at the empty spot where she had stood for a minute, dropping Renee’s wrists and stepping back away from her.

He could tell himself Renee hadn’t really fallen through her and that his eyes had just deceived him for a second. That he could explain away to himself somehow and just believe that both these women were crazy, thinking one of them was dead and a ghost. However, people did not just dissolve into smoke before your eyes and disappear. They could not do that, it was not possible. So, as absolutely insane as what she was telling him sounded… it had to be true.

Because he knew he hadn’t taken any hallucinogens today.

“I knew you were different.” He began muttering as he continued moving backwards, away. “I knew.”

“Justin…”

“I fucking KNEW. And there was me thinking you just picked up some new trick from your damn boy toy when it turns out you’re not even my girlfriend!”

“Justin, please, let me…”

“What? Use me again?” He began raging, violently gesticulating with his hands, an apoplectic fury making his eyes bug out and a vein bulge slightly in his forehead. “You impersonated my girlfriend and made me look after you and spend money on you and fucking SLEEP with you when the whole time you’re some absolute stranger! And the worst part is I KNEW! I knew there was something wrong, and here was naïve little me thinking if I loved you enough I could help you and all the damn time you’re playing me and making some kind of joke out of my real relationship!”

Another thought suddenly occurred to him and he changed tack, racing towards her and grabbing her roughly by the arms, making her give a small cry of pain. “What did you do with my girlfriend?”

“Justin…” Renee began sobbing. She hadn’t expected him to get so angry or to think that she’d been using him.

“You used her, too, you ever think of that? All her hard work and you just…”

“Waltzed in and got all the benefits, I know.” She cried harder, tears falling heavily down her face, taking last night’s still not removed eyeliner with it. “I didn’t mean any of this, I swear. I had no idea what was going to happen, but then I was just here and what else was I supposed to do? I know I didn’t earn this but…” She wrenched herself from his grip, rubbing roughly at her eyes, trying to get a hold on herself again. “Claire said it was a straight swap, I took her body, and she took mine. Claire… only I was supposed to be able to see her, she came here to tell me what happened and help me through it, help me…”

“Help you deceive me,” he snapped harshly, glaring at her in what looked like hatred.

“And what would you have done if I came to you two weeks ago and told you I was from an alternate reality and I wasn't really your girlfriend, huh?” She snapped back, desperate to defend herself. “You’d have had me locked up just like you wanted to five minutes ago, the only reason you believe me now is because you saw Claire. I didn’t want to upset anything she’s worked for and I didn’t want to upset you so I played along.”

“Pretended you cared.”

“I do care!” She yelled. “You’re a nice guy and I realise how good you’ve been to me and don’t you damn well tell me I don’t care when this whole time I’ve been busting my ass trying to be her for you. I’m sorry, I tried, I just don’t know how to be her, I haven’t been through all the crap she has and you know what? I’m glad. Because no offence but your girlfriend thinks about nothing but her career and you really aren’t as high on her list as you should be. Or that high at all.”

“You know nothing about my girlfriend.” He growled at her, looking like he wanted to hit her and her gender was the only thing stopping him - that and no matter what she was still wearing the face of the woman he loved.

“We have exactly the same memories until we were about fifteen.” She countered. “You forget I’m living her life - even the parts that don’t involve you. I see stuff you don’t.”

“Bitch.” Justin spat back at her, but he jammed his hands uncomfortably in his pockets as he realised that she actually had a point about that; hadn’t he come here because of rumours he’d heard about what she’d been up to behind his back? That was the worst part - she wasn't wrong.

“Look…” Renee took a few deep breaths and began pacing the room. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this. But it happened.”

“I can’t believe I slept with somebody who wasn’t my girlfriend.” He muttered.

“Because most guys ask the woman who looks like his girl if she’s actually from an alternate universe. It’s not like you did anything wrong.” She replied, a hint of her usual sarcasm coming back. “Look… I’m sorry about last night, I’ve been trying not to go that far with you but I was drunk and you…” She couldn’t fill in the gap.

“I what?”

“I meant it when I said I care. Obviously not the way a girlfriend of three years would…” She trailed off, unable to look him in the face. “But I think you’re a real nice guy and I think you’re cool and I honestly wanted you to be happy. I’m sorry I had to lie but you gotta understand I had to.”

“I knew you were different.” Justin sat down on the mattress, holding his head in his hands and speaking from behind his palms, muffling his voice. “I think I knew the whole time. You acted different, you walked different, it was like… and then last night you touched me completely different to how she does and then I really knew.”

“I’m sorry.” She wanted to cry again but there was little else she could say.

“You’re telling me she’s gone?” Justin’s eyes welled up with tears that he refused to let fall in front of this stranger who had masqueraded as the woman he loved.

Renee stared at him, somehow feeling in her gut how upset he was yet knowing also that she had no idea how deep it ran. Maybe she didn’t like her alter ego so much and maybe she thought that she was only going to break Justin’s heart. Maybe she was pretty sure of that, actually. But whatever else he obviously loved her; maybe he’d had a right to find that out for himself, the proper way. Maybe it wasn't her job to protect him from that, much as she wanted to. Maybe she’d been going about this whole making the choice thing the wrong way.

“Maybe not.” She said quietly, and Justin’s head immediately raised itself to look at her. “Claire said that if I find the necklace again, I could reverse the wish and put us back. But I’ve only got like another week or it becomes permanent. I was supposed to make a choice about whether I wanted to stay or go.”

“Quick ride to being famous, huh?” He said spitefully. “Bet I know what you decided.”

“Justin… it’s complicated. Besides from the fact while I love singing I don’t actually like being a celebrity that much, you gotta remember that I now know what happens either way, in both lives. And I know what that does to my family, what it does to you as well as me. And in some ways I know more about what’s been happening with Renee lately than you.” Renee pleaded with him to understand, though she didn’t really feel a sympathetic vibe coming from him just then. “I have a lot of people to think about. I mean had.”

“Had? You made a decision then?” He snorted. “You’re staying rich?”

“You choose.”

“What?

“It’s only fair. I hurt you, I didn’t mean to but I did and I took your girlfriend away. So you pick.”

It was futile leaving him either option and she knew that. She doubted that in this state of mind he’d even stopped to consider that maybe her mother would like it better if she had a Renee that stayed a little closer to home or that her sister would prefer somebody who would stay lower key. She couldn’t tell him Renee had cheated, she’d done enough damage for the day and besides she doubted that he would believe her after all of this. He didn’t exactly trust her any more. However… this was the best apology she could come up with.

“Where’s this necklace and how fast can we get you to it?” He replied, his jaw set and his eyes glittering harshly at her.

“We?”

“You think I’m trusting you to actually do this thing? Your promises mean shit to me.”

“Fair enough,” Renee replied quietly, a dull ache forming in her stomach as she looked at the lean, handsome figure sitting on the bed in jeans and a polo shirt. She’d seen what it looked like under there and he was beautiful.

More to the point he was a genuinely beautiful person once you got to the core of him. She’d seen that beneath the exterior of mild cocky ass he liked to front. It felt bad that she’d so obviously hurt him and worse that he hated her.

“I don’t know where it is exactly, but in my world I got sent it by my grandma. We could start there.”

“I’ll get us first flights I can manage.” Justin got off the bed and went to start making calls. “But you’re staying here. I’m not having you skip out and leave me stuck.”

“Not an issue but whatever makes you feel better.” She said to his retreating back as he stalked out of the room.

It was a nice private little jet that they’d chartered to take them to Maryland. It was nice and quiet - no other passengers, and a door shut them off from the flight deck and the pilots. They had wanted absolute privacy. This whole trip needed to be nothing but absolute quiet and private.

Renee, with only the vaguest of farewells to her mother and sister, had skipped out again. Justin was skipping out for the first time and was too afraid to even turn his cell phone on for fear of hearing what his mother would have to say to him. He’d had promotion to do but he considered this far more important; he fully intended on getting his real girlfriend back.

It astounded him how quickly he had come to accept the fantastical story as fact but the more he thought about it the more it made sense to him.

“Jason was bitching that you were like some kind of space cadet so something’s gotta be up. You never get like that in rehearsal.”

“Honestly, you’d think she’d never been shopping before.”

It was like her mind was elsewhere, even in her kiss. She forgot the silliest things, she spaced out at the weirdest times, and it was like half the time she didn’t even know where she was.

Whatever trip she was on, he didn’t like it. She kept crossing her arms over her stomach and hunching her shoulders over and not looking at him. Why? He was Justin, her Justin. They’d got past this long ago yet suddenly all the comfort had vanished and she was acting like they’d barely known each other five minutes. Where were his usual hugs and kisses and ‘I love you’ and the smile and the silly jokes? Why was she acting like they’d never done this before?

Maybe he was hallucinating but he even thought there was something a little different in the way she moved lately.

“It was a big turn around. Kind of overnight, almost.”

He might as well have mistaken Renee Anderson for Christina Aguilera; the differences were that pronounced. Emotions fought a perpetual battle inside his stomach - on the one hand he felt horribly guilty. He felt like he’d cheated on his girlfriend. Shouldn’t something somewhere inside of him have known that the person behind the face just was not the same?

Worse, had something somewhere inside of him known and he’d just turned a blind eye to it because he’d kind of liked that he was getting more attention out of it? Liked it because this Renee was focussed more on him than the work? That was horrible. It was just wrong. He’d at least known the difference in intimate touch, Justin had to give himself credit for that, but shouldn’t he have figured it out from the way she talked or walked or more to the point simply kissed? By all accounts it had been two weeks before he’d come to his senses.

That was the voice telling him that maybe he should be being nicer to her than he was right now, giving her the silent treatment. The voice telling him that at least to some extent he had participated in the making of the charade. And then the other voice in his head, the one that was really angry at this Renee, kept asking how the hell he was supposed to have come to the conclusion that because his girlfriend was acting oddly she must have switched bodies with an alternate reality version of herself.

That one said that physically speaking he hadn’t cheated at all - he had slept with Renee Anderson. He had honestly thought she was his girlfriend so why should it be a problem? Sex was only sex, even if it was good sex, right? His conscience told him quite clearly that of the two this was not the voice to be listening to but Justin was finding its message a lot more comforting as they sat in heavy silence on the flight.

The part he really hated was the part where she had been right about Renee - his Renee anyway. His Renee was the real Renee as far as he was concerned. He didn’t care about some far off place where she’d never been famous; he cared about the world he had to live in. But even in that world he’d been suspecting her of the worst kind of betrayal, a continuing betrayal at that. And the impostor was right about at least one thing: she had access to parts of his girlfriend’s life that he had no clue about.

Justin liked to kid himself that his woman told him everything but he knew it wasn't true. He never told her absolutely everything. The fake had told him that Renee didn’t put him where he belonged in her priorities, nowhere even close. As much as it killed him to face it, for all he knew that could be true. He wished to God he could quiz her on the whole thing and what she knew that he didn’t but he refused to show her that she’d put doubts in his mind.

She’d put a few other questions there too. Justin stole a glance over at her as she stared out of the window. He tried not to think that she looked cute in her grey turtleneck and faded jeans - he wasn't allowed to think the impersonator was cute, even if she was wearing his girlfriend’s face. She looked more miserable than he’d seen anybody in a long time. He hadn’t been that harsh, had he?

Quickly shaking the thought off, his mind wandered to all the other things she’d said. His girlfriend was now in a world where she’d never been famous. What was that like? She was an English major in college? He couldn’t imagine that. What had the phoney meant when she said she knew how the change in worlds affected her family? What did she mean by that? Were Louise and Faith and the dreaded Mr Anderson different in that reality?

And who was Justin Timberlake if he’d never met Renee Anderson? He’d only met her at the Billboards so by his calculation they couldn’t be together in her world… and that was enough to make him talk.

“What happens to me?”

“Huh?” She blinked suddenly and turned her head to him, apparently amazed that he’d spoken to her. “What do you mean?”

“Where you come from,” he said impatiently, trying to keep his voice low. Maybe the door was shut but he had no idea how soundproof it was.

“Umm… well…” She had a think about it. “You’re still huge, still came out of *NSYNC to go solo… but your music is different, the songs are.”

“How?” Justin tilted his head, peering curiously at her.

“In my world, when you wrote your first solo album you just came out of this really bad break up with Britney Spears.”

“Britney Spears?” That name sounded familiar, and he had to wrack his brain for it. “Wait, Mouse Club Britney?”

“Yeah.” Renee nodded, and Justin was kind of knocked for six. He hadn’t spoken to the girl in years, had no idea what she was doing now. “Claire said it was a karma thing… for me… sorry, your Renee to be famous in this world, somebody else had to be just a regular person. Britney’s a superstar in my world. But you guys broke up and you wrote all this really sad, angry music. It was good stuff.” She added lamely, not sure what else to say. “And you’d just finished touring the album and were shooting some movie when I made the wish.”

“Do…” He hesitated, not wanting to seem so eager or dependent on her for information. “Do I still talk to the guys where you are? The *NSYNC guys?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “JC sat with your mom while you performed at the Grammys and everything. You all went on hiatus and you’re waiting to go back into the studio together.”

“I was at the Grammys?” Justin piped up, a little excitement betrayed in his voice. He’d always had trouble getting respect from those people, even after he went solo. They still saw him as some little Pop Prince with his Pop Princess girlfriend. They treated him like he was still nineteen and working the fro.

“Hell yeah. You won a couple.” Renee told him, not knowing that he hadn’t done so here too.

“I won?”

“Yeah.”

That was who he was without Renee? Justin Timberlake was a Grammy award winner? He still had his brothers - they weren’t estranged? A gnawing ache hit the pit of his stomach and spread upwards through his chest and throat, making oxygen an issue. He turned back away from her without another word, staring wide-eyed through the window at the endlessly blue sky and the few puffs of cloud that floated by.

Joey had always called Renee ‘Yoko.’ They had hated the way he’d suddenly drop everything because she sent him a message saying she wanted to see him. They hated how when she was on tour with them he practically disappeared until it was time to go on stage every night. She and Chris had always got on badly, JC had never liked her much either.

But he had got a Grammy… that was gold.

That was… that was respect. It was musical credibility in mantelpiece ornament form. So he’d given up four friends who were tantamount to brothers and the kind of recognition he’d been fighting for his whole career - fighting against the horribly restrictive and unfair title of ‘boy band pretty one’ - for the love of a girl who he wasn’t entirely sure had been true to him.

He tried very hard not to look like he wanted to be sick.

***

“Look…” Renee finally said after they had been sitting in the hotel room for well over an hour without even the slightest word being passed between the two of them. Apart from hating the idea that he hated her, the silence was driving her nuts. “Would you feel better if I got a separate room?”

“Yes but you can’t,” Justin replied, not even looking in her direction but continuing to place shirts and sweaters on the wooden hangers provided in the closet.

“Uhh… why?” She asked after a few moments’ silence where it appeared he was declining to elaborate.

“Because if people got wind of it they’d ask what was wrong, the media would pick up on it.” Justin told her through gritted teeth, severely irritated by what seemed to him like a stupid question. “When Renee gets back I don’t want her to think there’s something wrong and I don’t want her to have to deal with any shit you leave behind.”

“That makes sense. I’m sorry; I guess I’m not used to this media crap. You guys get a really raw deal.”

She replied so quietly that it almost made Justin feel a little sorry for her - soften a little towards her. If nothing else she at least got that it wasn't all sunshine and roses, and for a second that made him feel bad that she’d suddenly been dumped into the kind of frenzy that he’d spent years being trained for and still didn’t know how to cope with. Maybe in a weird way it had a positive - his own Renee had got a break, a real break, the kind they could never get when they were known in every household in the country.

As he pondered that, he shook off the tiny sympathy he’d had. She didn’t deserve it. But pausing in what he was doing, it did make a thought occur to him.

“Wait, does she come back here, now? Or does it all switch back to when you made the wish or whatever? Will we remember this?”

“It won’t switch back to when I made the wish, but I don’t know what she or you will remember.” Renee sat at the desk provided and doodled absently on the hotel stationery. “I’ll ask Claire next time she shows up.”

“Well call her then.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” He asked impatiently, pouting furiously and ready to let a few choice curses fly at her.

“That’s not how it works, for some lame reason. I wish I could just call for her but I can’t control when she shows up.”

“Oh.”

He turned back to what he was doing and Renee couldn’t take it any more. Standing up, she strode over to his suitcase and began pulling things out and folding them. He attempted to snatch back his favourite jeans from her grasp but she held on, looking exasperatedly at him.

“Look, Justin. I know you’re really hurt. I know I lied to you and that I’ve basically been acting like your girlfriend…” She trailed off, cheeks flushing at the memory of their brief intimacy. “But this isn’t my fault. I didn’t know that the damn necklace would do this, and it wasn't like I really had a choice in pretending to be her. Would you rather I skipped out on everything and wrecked her career and your relationship with her?”

“I’d rather…” He had been about to say that he’d have preferred her honesty but that was absurd. She was right; he’d have had her locked up if she had tried to tell him this stuff without the ghostly demonstration. “I’d rather I had my girlfriend back.”

“I was trying to keep everything together for her so that if I found a way to switch back, she’d still have her life intact. And I hope she’s doing the same for me.”

“Do you know how she is?” Justin asked quietly, hoping blindly that the answer would be something along the lines of ‘she’s homesick for the boyfriend she worships.’

“Just that she’s okay.” She replied equally softly, choosing to ‘forget’ what Claire had said about the other Renee turning her into the campus party animal. “Look, Justin… I’m sorry I lied to you. But you know now. And I don’t have to pretend now because now you don’t have to hold anything I did against her. So can we please… I know I have no right but I was starting to feel like you were my friend.”

“Friend?” He scoffed automatically before actually considering it, really thinking on it.

“I knew nothing about you,” she told him earnestly. “I’d seen *NSYNC twice in concert and that was as close as I’d ever got to you. But I think you’re a great guy and I felt like you were a friend. And I know that’s twisted when you were treating me like your girlfriend and I was pretending to be…”

“It’s more than twisted,” Justin said to her, before finally meeting her eyes. “But I guess in a weird way it’s kind of… least you weren’t secretly hating me behind my back while you were sleeping with me.”

Well it was a start. “I only slept with you once and honestly I didn’t mean to so can we please pretend that never happened?”

“Agreed.” He answered her far too quickly while a voice in the back of his head told him he didn’t want to forget because after three years of the same woman the change had been almost welcome - it was a nasty little voice but it kind of had a point.

“Can we just… start over? At least be civil? Please?” Renee begged.

Justin made the mistake of glancing up at her and she was pulling exactly the same face his Renee did when they’d had a fight and she wanted to make up. It was creepy, knowing that these two women had so much in common; it was confusing to look at her and see the same face and the same expression and yet know that it was a different person under there.

“Alright.” She breathed a sigh of relief and he had to confess that a little of the tension in his back went away. “I’m still mad but this’ll just be easier if we’re… talking, at least.”

“Okay.”

“Okay then.”

Renee was silent as Justin drove the rental car. The only time she bothered piping up was to give him directions to her grandmother’s house; lucky for her she still lived in exactly the same place so that really wasn't a problem.

Part of her silence could be attributed to the still exceptionally awkward relationship she was now enjoying with Justin. It was in some ways no more difficult than the pretence had been. In others, she was relieved that she didn’t have to hide any more; it was easier when she didn’t have to watch everything she said and did. Yet at the same time it was infinitely harder; he was a stranger to her now.

She had vainly hoped that some part of him would have got to know her, the real her in the last two weeks - not totally but at least enough to make them easy with each other. It was not to be, he’d reverted straight back to stranger status and had crawled back within his shell. Maybe he wasn't being outright mean but he had been distant, unforthcoming and awkward with her. She was finding that the reflex to kiss him or hug him had developed faster than she could have ever thought it would - she’d got too used to the girlfriend act and it was almost weird not behaving that way towards him.

The main reason for the silence, however, was less to do with him. Actually that was a lie - she didn’t want to talk because he kept yawning and he had bags under his eyes and she knew that was because he’d slept on the couch. Justin had refused point blank to share a bed with her - understandably - but the couch in the room was simply not made to substitute. And his manners dictated that he let the lady have the bed, even if he wasn’t so fond of said lady just then. She felt horribly guilty.

The official excuse for the silence, at least the one she was giving to herself, was that she was desperately trying to think of some reason why she was springing herself and her boyfriend so unexpectedly on her grandmother. For one thing, she had a nagging suspicion the other Renee wouldn’t have seen her for a while.

The question that was causing the most trouble however, and thus the quiet, was exactly how to get the stupid necklace back from her grandma: presuming of course that she still had it. If she remembered correctly, she herself had been sent it because her grandmother had been having a spring clean and thought she might like it, but a thorough check of the jewellery she’d taken travelling with her and the jewellery she had left at both Justin’s house and her mother’s had shown that it wasn't there.

Justin had speculated that if it had been there the other Renee would have known about the whole wish deal anyway; if she hadn’t been walking on eggshells with him she could have argued that point. After all she’d had the necklace for a while before she found out what it could do. But she didn’t have time to fly all over the country looking for it at various residences of both pop stars so she was hoping her grandmother had it.

Of course she would need not only to find it in her grandma’s stuff, but also to find some excuse to take it without the elderly woman thinking she was just trying to grab it. Before anything she would need to find some natural way to get it into the conversation.

Trepidation filled her stomach as they pulled up to the small split - level house her dear Granny inhabited.

***

“I still remember the first talent show you ever did.” Rosemary Hayes smiled at her granddaughter, fondly recalling her as a nine year old. “You and Claire…”

“Dressed up as Oliver and the Artful Dodger.” Renee finished with an embarrassed smile as Justin tried not to smirk. He’d seen the footage on some documentary and it was kind of amusing.

“And then when you won you were both blushing on stage and being modest but the second you got into the car to come home you were both talking about how you were the best in there by miles and it was unfair on all the other contestants to have to live up to your performance.”

“You were a showbiz brat?” Justin asked before realising that he was talking to the wrong Renee.

As soon as he thought that, he remembered that until fourteen years of age the two women were one and the same, so both of them had done everything Mrs Hayes was describing. That was infinitely strange to him. Then again, every single minute of the last few days had been infinitely strange to him; it was almost becoming the norm.

“Oh she was until she lost for the first time.” The old woman laughed brightly. Justin had never met the lady and was surprised at how sprightly she was for her years. “Knocked some sense into her. Especially when the winner called her second best.”

“Yeah and where is she now?” Renee asked before remembering that technically only this reality’s Renee had a claim to that kind of retort.

She gripped (unnecessarily tightly) her cup of raspberry tea. Her grandma really was the only thing in this life so far that she really couldn’t see any difference in, right down to the fact that she refused to drink coffee or even normal tea because caffeine was the devil.

“Oh no, it was the Mickey Mouse Club that really did it. We all expected you to come home saying it wasn't fair but you just sat there and said that the girl… girl… what was her name?”

“Christina Aguilera,” Renee supplied.

“That’s it. Knew it was something Spanish sounding. You just sat there and said that she was really good and she beat you fair and square. See that’s when I knew you’d be alright, kid.” Rosemary reached out and pinched her granddaughter’s cheek affectionately. “For a while there I was worried.”

“Well who was it who was always calling the judges idiots if they didn’t score me high? You complained louder than I did if I didn’t win.”

Justin on his part was sitting there puzzled, and for what was perhaps only the fourth or fifth time in the whole conversation (and they’d been there an hour) spoke up. “You auditioned for MMC?”

“Yeah. When I was twelve. Did sh… I never tell you?” She cringed at the almost slip.

“No.”

“Oh. Well, I did. Got down to the last five and Christina beat me out.”

“Yes, because you were on that show, weren’t you Justin?” Rosemary asked politely.

“Yes, I was.”

He smiled politely at her but inside yet another piece of confusing information forced its way into his already overcrowded brain. Justin was amazed that such a thing had never got out, with the amount of research that people did into the backgrounds of people as successful as them. He couldn’t believe Renee had never mentioned it to him; he knew he’d shared MMC stories with her a dozen or more times. Surely that was the kind of thing she would have thought to mention?

“You know I’m glad Renee’s finally brought you over to meet me.” Rosemary cast a glance at her granddaughter. “All my friends keep asking about you two and I can only tell them what I read in the papers.”

“I don’t come over enough do I?” Renee asked. To anybody else it might have sounded like a rhetorical question - but two out of three people in the room knew that she was actually digging for information.

“You’re a busy young lady.” She cupped Renee’s cheek before standing up to take her glass back into the kitchen. “Would either of you like another drink?”

“No thanks, Grandma.”

“No thank you Mrs Hayes.”

“Rosemary I believe that was.”

“Rosemary.” Justin flashed his best smile. He was being on his best behaviour - hopefully he was going to have cause to see this woman again once he got his real girlfriend back, and he still needed to make a good impression.

“Oh!” The old lady suddenly declared, a frown passing over her face. “Well wouldn’t you just know it? I hold onto it for you an age and then get rid of it just before you come to see me.”

“What, Grandma?” Renee exchanged glances with Justin as her grandma was in the next room, apparently fixing herself a glass of water from the sound of it.

“I was cleaning out my things…” A sinking feeling started to set in two young stomachs. Both had a horrible feeling where this was going. “And I had a few little things I thought you or Louise might want. Just little trinkets, you know. A little music box, some jewellery, photos and that sort of thing: I was cleaning out the attic, you know I how I let rubbish accumulate up there. I hoard too much stuff. But it was sat out for so long and last time I meant to go visit your mom I got ill so I didn’t go and a couple of weeks ago I just got rid of it, gave it to an antique store.”

She walked back in and sat down in her chair again.

“I hope you didn’t get rid of those pearls, you know Lou’s had her eye on them since she was like five.” She ventured cautiously as a joke, trying to prompt a description of what had been given away.

“Oh no, it was nothing so good as that, I kept the valuable stuff.” She laughed. “Let me think… it was all costume jewellery really. Some strings of beads… those looked like they were coming back into fashion so I kept hold of them for you… some earrings, a few bangles and beaded bracelets… only thing in there looked remotely valuable was this silver necklace with some black stone in it, but the guy in the store said it was only worth twenty or thirty bucks. You know I keep anything nice for you girls though. You should come up and have a look, see if there’s anything you’d like.”

“Sure thing Grandma.” Renee replied as her mind screamed profanities. She could only imagine what kind of murderous thoughts were going through Justin’s head. They had better hope that whatever store she’d sold the thing to hadn’t let go of it yet or she was in some serious trouble.

***

“Come on…” Renee looked at Justin nervously as he finally looked up from the telephone directory they’d requested from reception. “What’s the damage?”

“How many fucking antique stores does this tiny place need?” He asked.

“That bad?”

“There’s about nine within a ten mile radius. More if she took them further out.”

“Why would she take them further out?” She asked, biting her nails. That wasn't normally a habit of hers but honestly she just felt like it right now.

“Maybe if she’d had to go out there for something else and it was just convenient? Or maybe just because the world’s out to screw us? I don’t know.” He tossed the book onto the stand behind the phone and let out an exasperated growl.

Renee immediately reached for it and the stationery provided by the hotel. “Well we’ll make a list of the close ones.”

“Why does shit always happen to me?”

“Pity party of one at Casa Timberlake.”

“Bite me.”

“I hate to tell you this Justin but a lot of shit happens to a lot of people everyday. And considering the kind of blessings you’ve had in life, your shit pales in comparison.”

“What would you know?”

Renee snorted as she kept copying addresses. “In my world I owe the last three rent cheques, electricity, plus I got a bunch of stuff on my credit card to pay off. But I can’t take on any more shifts because they’d start clashing with classes and I have to have some off time to do assignments. Not to mention the huge tuition fees I have to start paying off the second I get out of school. My parents re-mortgaged the house to put Lou and me through college but I figure with your kind of salary you probably have more than all that combined just in your checking account. I just hope your girl didn’t get me fired, I doubt she’s ever worked in a restaurant before. In fact…” Her eyebrows furrowed and a worried expression came on her face. “I don’t suppose by any chance she’s a Lord Byron fanatic, is she?”

“Uhh… no.”

“Well I hope she did a decent job on that essay because it’s a quarter of my grade.”

Justin watched her thoughtfully, pondering on that. “I guess you have no idea what you’re going back to, do you? Like, people she’s talked to or things she’s done or any problems that happened.”

“Yeah.” Renee shifted uncomfortably, trying not to think about that too much before it started giving her ideas about not going through with it. Justin wanted her gone and she owed him that much. “Well that’s not even going to be an issue if we don’t find the damn necklace.” She muttered.

“Why’d you quit?” He blurted out. She turned to look at him, eyeing him warily.

“Quit what?”

“Music.”

Her eyes darted straight back to her list, the movement of the rest of her head taking a little longer. Taking a breath, she thought about how to answer his question in some way that would sate his curiosity but wouldn’t involve too much raking up of painful memories. She’d started complying with any request he made of her in an attempt to win back some favour with him, futile though it might be.

“You notice how nearly every story my grandma told had Claire in it?”

“I guess.” Well, he did now.

“We were going to be famous together. We did dance class together, we had vocal coach together, and we were going to learn piano together. And then she died and I… I couldn’t do it without her.” She finished there and went straight back to her list. She was pretty sure Justin was waiting for more but that was as much as he was going to get. Cliff Notes versions were as good as any.

“Didn’t want to.”

“Excuse me?” She refused to look at him but her voice betrayed some mild affront.

“Obviously you could do it without her. If my girl did it you could have done it. You just didn’t want to, got scared or something.”

Scraping back her chair Renee stood up and turned to look at him, a cold glint in her eye that he hadn’t seen of her in the couple of weeks she’d been there.

“You know what, Justin? You know fuck about me. Like you keep saying, I’m not your Renee, I’m not the person you’ve been dating for three years, I’m some stranger to you. So don’t presume to psychoanalyse my life and my choices like you know me because you have no fucking idea.”

Having abandoned the list, she grabbed her jacket from where she’d left it on the bed and stomped out of the suite, slamming the door behind her before he could stop her. Groaning, Justin pushed his head into his hands and tried to take a few deep breaths. It surprised him how much it stung, hearing her throw his words back in his face like that.

And it surprised him how concerned he was about her: both the fact that she seemed so upset by just the mere mention of the whole thing and the fact that she had just stomped out by herself into a not entirely familiar city which would find her all too familiar. Grabbing his own jacket, he pocketed the room key before running out after her, hoping to catch her before she got too far.

Yet again she’d tried to argue with him about who took the couch and yet again she had lost, though he might as well have taken the damn bed for all the sleep she was getting. Instead she was out here, sitting in a chair with her knees hugged tightly to her chest, the cold caress of the night breeze chilling her slowly down to the bone.

It was any number of things keeping her awake. She’d had insomnia a few times before but only on those really lazy days when she’d done nothing and simply hadn’t tired herself out enough to sleep; now she just had too many thoughts fighting for attention in her brain. The day had been extremely fruitless. They’d only managed to get to two or three stores and none of them had yielded the prize. On a positive note, it was a few places crossed off the list of possibilities.

The really infuriating thing was that they probably would have managed to do at least twice the number of stops if it hadn’t been for the fact that everywhere they went they attracted attention. Renee had always scoffed at celebrities in interviews when they insisted that they just couldn’t stay incognito in public. She had looked at the designer clothing and the huge entourages and the bodyguards that did more to draw interest than deter it and thought that maybe if they went out looking like normal people then they wouldn’t have that problem.

They had gone out looking as normal as anybody - him in jeans and a t-shirt, her in a sweater and combat pants, both hiding beneath baseball caps. They looked like anybody she would see on campus at Michigan any day of the week and she had thought nobody would look twice at them. She had been very wrong. They attracted stares and whispers, people wondering if it really was them but not able to take a close enough look. Every time that had happened she and Justin had to start some very elaborate evasive manoeuvres and then had to lay low and it had completely loused up everything.

They didn’t have time for that: especially if the necklace had been sold on already. She’d done the counting and they had four days left. Only four days to find the thing and reverse the wish, or she was stuck here, and she wasn't sure she could cope with this life full time. She hated the whole stupid thing where she couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing her face. She hated the people surrounding her in her career. She hated the idea that her grandmother had to read what her granddaughter was doing in the gossip pages. She hated the idea that her success had split her parents up and sent her father into some mid life crisis where he went and hooked up with his secretary who wasn't that much older than Louise.

But then she remembered how much fun she’d had learning choreography - once she’d got over her initial ‘where the hell am I and what is this’ panic. She’d missed dancing more than she realised, even after a number of years. Being on stage at the VMAs had been the most terrifying thing she’d ever done; yet the rush was the most exhilarating thing she could ever have imagined. Disapproving as she was of the track listing, she had liked putting a CD in the stereo and hearing her own voice, and watching herself on the interviews and the Making The Videos… she’d looked like she was having fun.

Justin would hate her though. He hated her enough as it was for all she’d done to him and if through her earlier indecision and failure to start looking for the necklace he lost his real girlfriend… she didn’t think he’d ever forgive her. He’d found her before she managed to leave the hotel, apologised for overstepping his bounds and convinced her to come back up to the room before anybody realised she was there. Of course the hotel manager knew but Justin had promised him a hefty amount of cash if he kept his mouth shut about their presence and kept even the hotel staff away from their room.

Renee felt really bad about Justin. Not only about him, for him. She herself had caused him some pain, but she was terrified that after all he was going through to get the other Renee back he was going to be sorely disappointed. Who knew, maybe she’d come back more appreciative of him. Or maybe not: she certainly didn’t think so, not after what she’d seen that day.

Renee had had her second flashback. Why, she didn’t quite understand, not from what Claire had said their purpose was – that purpose being to save her from any huge foul ups. But she had seen everything - she’d seen a frustrated pop star who wanted to stretch her wings tell her boyfriend that she wanted a break. She had seen that pop star at some dive of a bar basking in the attention of those few males brave enough to approach the unattainable pin up girl. She had seen one dark haired, Mediterranean looking guy getting really lucky. She had seen Renee falling back into Justin’s arms. Then she’d seen the Mediterranean guy again. For some reason, she knew his name was Marc. And she knew that her alter ego had cheated.

Worse, she knew why, and contrary to the usual disgust she’d been feeling as she discovered more about the other woman… she kind of understood.

She felt the loneliness, the frustration and the confines of the gilded cage, and she felt the sudden need to rebel against it, to push back. She understood the need to have the attention and even the most false of affections on call when what she really wanted was perpetually out of reach and on promotion. Of course she didn’t understand why the hell if you loved the person you were with you were cheating on him with some guy who was strictly a booty call and who you didn’t even like all that much… hence she really couldn’t bring herself to believe that this trip to normality would bring the other Renee back a changed woman.

“Penny for them.”

Renee looked up and saw Claire had materialised quietly in the chair beside her. “I’m confused. Nothing new.”

“How’s it going with Old Blue Eyes in there?”

“I think he hates me.”

“Now I know that’s not true.” Claire stretched out: not that she could feel her muscles any more but the habits of the living didn’t die so easy. “He’s just having trouble dealing.”

“Because he hates me for lying to him.”

“No. Because you’re forcing him to open his eyes and he hates himself for being so voluntarily blind.”

“She didn’t even tell him that I… she… we auditioned for Mouse Club.” Renee had some trouble finding the appropriate term. “I don’t get it. She cheats on him when I know she loves him, I had…”

“Another flashback, they told me.” Claire nodded and pushed a phantom piece of hair behind her ear. “You gonna tell him?”

“What’s the point?” Renee answered her tone nothing short of morose. “I doubt he’d believe me. Besides, all it’ll do is hurt him and you know I just… I feel like I’ve been dealing with enough of her stuff, trying to keep it all together just the way she left it… maybe I’m being selfish but I feel like if he’s gonna get hurt it should come from her and she should get the fallout because she’s the one who did it, not me. I don’t wanna hurt him any more. Even if he didn’t believe me, which I seriously don’t think he would… it’d still fuck with his head and it hurts me doing nothing but hurting everybody. My parents, Lou, my grandma… enough already.”

“I feel now is the time to inform you that the kid you gave an autograph to at that kiddie dance class, the little boy? He gets so badly picked on for dancing that he was considering suicide and you telling him he was talented actually saved his life.”

Renee’s jaw dropped in shock. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. So don’t tell me you do nothing but hurt everybody.” She changed the subject because technically she probably shouldn’t have divulged that information. “But back to the point, your flashback.”

“I just… it seems so stupid. She wants Justin, so she sleeps with some very bad possibly Greek substitute. And it seems like there’s so much stuff she keeps from him, Grandma, MMC… I can’t explain any of it. It just… I don’t get it and you know my DNA is identical to hers so if I don’t get it…”

“The cheating I can’t explain but the Mouse Club… you know she gets a lot of crap about Christina?”

“She does?”

“Yep,” she replied. “Another thing you and Britney have in common. A lot of people like to say that Renee Anderson is a poor man’s Christina Aguilera and no matter how many concert tickets she sells or how many more albums she pushes than Christina that never seems to go away. My guess is she didn’t want to give people an excuse to say that Christina was always better. That and it’s got to be embarrassing when your boyfriend and his band mate and half his showbiz buddies all got on the show and she didn’t.”

“When you put it like that it does sound kinda like me.” Renee said slowly, thoughtfully, playing with the ends of her ponytail with one hand and hugging her knees a little tighter with the other.

“Like fifth grade when we were all getting our ears pierced and you said you never liked earrings but actually your mom just wouldn’t let you?”

“That was dumb.”

“That’s you. You never liked admitting you couldn’t do stuff.”

“I guess I don’t.” She laid her head on her knee and shut her eyes, remembering her first ever college assignment and the big fat D she had got on it because she’d been too nervous to go ask the professor about it. “Don’t suppose your guys up there got a lock on that necklace, do they? I want this over with. Sooner I get home the happier I’ll be.”

“Will you?” Claire asked softly, causing Renee’s head to jerk back up sharply.

“What? You mean I’m supposed to stay here? I thought you said it was my choice?”

“Exactly, Ren,” the brunette pounced. “It’s your choice. Don’t let Justin make it for you. I’m not saying that you should go or that you should stay but if you let him choose then all you’re doing is abdicating responsibility and missing the whole point of why they sent you here. You can’t let somebody else make your destiny for you.”

“God.” Renee bit back, not sure what to say, feeling remarkably stung. “They make you swallow a dictionary in life after death?”

“Hey. I know secrets of existence now; I’m allowed a better vocabulary.”

“Speaking of which… which religion is right?”

Claire was about to laugh before she realised that Justin was not far away; since he could see and hear her now, she could wake up him. “Naughty, naughty. I can’t tell you that, you’re supposed to keep your own faith.”

“Spoil my fun.”

“A good person is a good person, Ren.” She smiled softly. “No matter who they are or what they believe or what mistakes they make - it’s all the same underneath everything.”

“Well lucky for me I get the chance to rectify my mistake.” Renee replied. “I find that stupid necklace, wish it all back, and then Justin can have his girlfriend back and he’ll be happy and I can forget this ever happened.”

Claire sighed deeply. Much as she loved the blonde girl sitting next to her, she felt like smacking her upside her head. It wouldn’t do her any good though, seeing as neither of them would feel it. Renee had entirely missed the point of everything she’d said; she didn’t think she’d even been particularly subtle on the last part.

“I gotta go; this wasn't supposed to be a long trip. You okay?”

“If you could find that necklace and put everything back so everybody’s all happy and he doesn’t hate me any more I would be.” Renee mumbled miserably.

Resisting the urge to put an arm around her friend’s shoulder, Claire decided that she might as well go before she was dragged away. Somehow, something in the pit of her stomach (figuratively speaking, anyway) told her that this was going to be the last time and it had to be easier to live with if she walked away on her own. She wished she didn’t have go, wished she could sit and stay with Renee as long as she needed her, she wished they still had a life time together. But her time was up, had been up for a long time. This had just been a temporary reprieve and she had to go before it hurt too much to go.

“Just remember what I said, sweetie. Don’t try to make everybody else happy, ‘cause you’ll never do it. Believe me, I know. Be who you choose to be.”

“Clara?”

“Yeah?”

“When did you get all wise and crap?”

Claire chuckled, trying not to cry. She wouldn’t feel the tears but somehow she’d still feel the pain. “About the time you got all smart ass and crap. I’ll be seeing you, Ren. Go inside before you freeze to death, alright?”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” She disappeared with a light sniffle.

Renee, still staring out at the sky, was too caught up in her thoughts to really register the sound. Giving a light shiver, she rubbed her arms and hugged herself tightly before realising that the onset of hypothermia wouldn’t exactly be great for the whole mission they were on. Quietly she got up and slipped back through the door, as silently as she could.

She had only just got her second foot into the room when the light came on. The glare hit her eyes and instinctively she squeezed them shut, turning from the brightness. Opening them back up as quickly as she could stand to her eyes fell upon the tall stature of Justin, who stood there in a pair of extremely rumpled boxers.

“What were you doing out there?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you?”

“I’d need to be asleep before you could wake me up,” he admitted wryly. “I’m sorry, I was about to come in here and wake you up anyways.”

“Is everything okay?” She asked, mildly worried - you didn’t wake people up at that time of the morning for good things.

Justin caught the concerned look on her face and wasn't quite sure how he felt about it: guilty, mostly, especially since she hadn’t registered that the door hadn’t been open when she’d gone outside. It was difficult for him to have her still being nice to him when he’d been so perfectly happy to blame her for absolutely everything without considering anybody else’s part in the whole thing, including his own. He had completely ignored the possibility that maybe she wasn't having the easiest time of it either.

“Umm… I just… I don’t normally like to take things back but can I take back the thing about sleeping on the sofa?” He finally managed to articulate his original problem. “I think a midget would have trouble stretching out on that thing.”

“Sure.” Renee fluffed the pile of pillows she’d arranged on the bed and straightened out the comforter. “I told you I’d be better off out there than you.”

“No.” Justin grabbed her wrist as she went to leave. “I don’t wanna kick you out either… it’s… it’s a big bed,” he finished weakly. “And we’ve shared before so we know we don’t snore, right?”

She gave him a small smile. “You talk in your sleep.”

“Mom says she can have whole conversations with me.” He smiled back, feeling sheepish and kind of stupid. This woman made him extremely uncomfortable but at the same time she had a strange calming effect - it was really confusing being around her. “But please, you won’t sleep any better out there than me and… it’s a big bed.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. “You wanna get the light?”

“Sure.”

He obliged as she split the pillows into two separate piles from where she had arranged them for one in the middle of the bed. They both climbed in together and Justin had to keep from groaning in pleasure at the softness of the mattress beneath him. He turned onto his side and began to snuggle himself in when he wondered which way she was facing. Was it at him or at the wall? He wasn't sure he would feel comfortable facing her, even though there was a respectable gap between them. Then again did it make a difference? Why was he even thinking about it - who cared? It wasn't like he could even see her in the dark and he’d be asleep any way.

Flipping onto his front, he hugged the covers to his body and turned his head to the wall.

“I’m out of ideas.”

Justin finally threw both the map and the nearly exhausted list of addresses into the back seat and picked up his coffee from the cup holder. A stressed looking Renee in the passenger seat had been clutching her frappuccino the whole time, reading over his shoulder.

“The only thing I can think of is that when she said antique store maybe it was a jewellery specialist. I mean it was only jewellery she threw out, right?”

“We’ve got until tomorrow night. It took us this long just to get through these, if we have to go through every jewellery store in the area…” Justin shook his head before taking a sip.

“Maybe if we tried calling instead.”

“Because that worked so well last time.”

“But if it is jewellery specific rather than just some huge store that has everything under the sun… especially if it was something they’d only got recently?”

Renee grasped desperately at straws, unable to understand why Claire couldn’t just tell them where it was. Was this supposed to be yet another lesson for her to learn? How to drive to antiques stores and practically turn them upside down looking?

“I don’t think so, Ren.” He shook his head before pushing it back onto the headrest in exasperation. “I mean those antiques stores only had like one case of jewellery and they couldn’t remember what was in there, in a whole jewellery store?”

“Point taken,” she said miserably. “I can’t believe this.”

“Well I guess we just gotta keep trying.” He glanced out of the car window and saw that thankfully nobody was really giving them a second glance. They hadn’t wanted to risk staying in Starbucks so they had grabbed their drinks as fast as humanly possible and then driven for a few minutes to find a fairly empty parking lot.

“If I hadn’t sworn off wishing, I’d wish I’d never made that wish.” She muttered, causing an involuntary snort of amusement from beneath Justin’s Von Dutch cap.

“You still got one more to make if we actually manage to find the thing.”

“And if I don’t?”

The question which both had been so careful not to ask hung in the air. Justin’s face fell and he turned to look at her, though she was still staring at the wall they’d parked in front of. They’d talked like it was guaranteed she’d find the thing, but now with only just over twenty four hours to go until the deadline, it was becoming a very real possibility that they would fail. Renee could only think of how unfair that was – the stupid necklace was still going to grant wishes, so why couldn’t it still let her fix this?

“Well I guess it could be Pauly Shore stuck in my girlfriend’s body.”

“That’s not funny.” Her eyes flicked sideways to him and he saw that any humour was going to be lost on her.

“I just mean that you’re not so bad.” He gave her a tight smile.

“Really, ‘cause that’s not what…”

“I was saying before, I know,” Justin finished off for her, biting the inside of his own cheek. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you have the right.” Renee pulled off her own cap and pushed a weary hand through her bleached hair. “I lied.”

“You had to.”

Glancing sideways and seeing some genuine understanding in his eyes Renee gave him a tight, sad smile. Nice as this little moment was, and relieved as she was that he apparently didn’t hate her after all, it didn’t change the fact that maybe it turned out her destiny was to get stuck here. If it was, then why had Claire been going on and on at her about finding the stupid necklace and making the choice for herself? It didn’t feel right that this was where the story ended; why push her so hard if the decision was going to end up out of her hands?

“That’s quite the turn around, Mr Timberlake.”

“I was a little freaked; can you blame me for doing my nut?”

She chuckled. “You and me both. Well, I guess it’s a good thing you’ve decided maybe I’m okay after all because I think you’re getting stuck with me.”

Turning away from her and gripping his now empty coffee tightly in his hand, Justin thought about that for a second. How was it going to feel knowing that the woman he’d dated for three years was never coming back? What would he have to do about that: did he keep dating this Renee for the cameras, did he try and actually date her, or did they have an amicable split and keep in contact? What was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to deal with all the things he had found out from her, all the questions he needed answering?

“If I’m getting stuck with you… then I guess we need a clean slate.”

“Huh?” She twisted in her seat towards him, looking a little lost.

“Can we… do this somewhere else?” He asked, shifting uncomfortably.

“Sure.” Renee nodded and went to put her seatbelt on again, wondering exactly what ‘this’ was.

***

The talk they were supposed to be having had of course been put off the second they had got back to the room. Justin had muttered something about calling his mother – a complete lie, as he was terrified of calling his mother after the disappearing act he’d pulled – and Renee had taken the excuse to go take a shower which had to date lasted about forty five minutes. It was to the point where steam was beginning to permeate the door and he could catch a slight whiff of the scented gels and lotions she used.

Those were the things that were all the same. The perfume, her favourite foods, her early morning habits, those things hadn’t changed one single bit. He could look at her and watch her do those things and it was like she was the same person.

However, as their most recent experiences had testified she really wasn't the same person and he couldn’t hide from that even when he tried to turn a blind eye. Justin had to admit that he had done so, before the whole thing with seeing her dead best friend, but the fact was that this Renee Anderson was a very different one to the one he knew. No better or worse (perhaps a little more together emotionally speaking but then she hadn’t had to deal with spending the most significant maturing period of her life under the glare of stage lighting and camera flashes) but she was a different person.

That was the part he couldn’t deal with. He saw so much of his girlfriend in her; so much of what he had originally fallen for.

The Renee he had met at Billboard had been a girl who had an aura of calm. It wasn’t that she never got nervous or upset but at the core of her she was fairly together, could deal with most things and keep her head. The girlfriend he knew now dealt with work by throwing herself into it and everything else by putting a rain check on it. She hid from people. Maybe not physically, but mentally she hid from people - had been hiding from Justin for a while when up until then he had been the only person she truly communicated with.

The girl who had just walked into the room in loose sweatpants and a tank with soaking wet hair hanging in loose curls around her face that she would blow dry straight in a second, she was still that calm. A little less daring than his Renee and a lot more likely to play it safe than to take the risk, but in his head he was suddenly starting to wonder if it would be so bad, her sticking around.

Maybe he could start again, fix what had gone wrong with his Renee with her. They were the same in many ways; he knew he could love her. Despite the nasty stuff he had said, he really did like her. It was nice to think that as the prospect of loosing his actual girlfriend loomed and he faced the fact that maybe his relationship was gone and that all the heart and soul he had put into trying to fix what had led to that stupid break was for nothing. It was comforting.

“So… what did you want to talk about?” Apparently she wasn't going to blow dry.

“Umm… I just… I need to get something off my chest.” He shifted on the edge of the bed and let her sit down next to him.

“Okay.”

“And… you know what you said about not wanting to tell me stuff that was her business not yours?”

“Uh huh.” Renee nodded slowly, having a horrible idea where this was going.

“I think if you’re staying here anyway maybe you should just tell me ‘cause I can’t…” He rubbed his nose awkwardly. “I need to know and I can’t ask her. I can’t not know.”

“Okay.”

“You know she does that too.” His face scrunched up like he was about to laugh but then thought better of it. “She makes that face at me… you remind me so much of her.”

“I’ve been told we look alike.”

“I wasn't talking about that.”

“I know,” she replied grimly. “Let’s not go there, okay?”

“Okay.” Justin took the deepest breath of his life, wondering how to tell her what he wanted to say but unable to think of anything more sophisticated or subtle than just blurting it out. “I heard you and Claire the other night.”

“You… what did you hear?” Renee’s face drained of all colour. Normally she’d get pissed that he’d been eavesdropping but right now she was far more concerned with the fact that he had been listening to a conversation that had involved discussion of his girlfriend cheating on him.

“Not everything. Claire was saying Renee gets a lot of crap about Christina and that’s why she lied about MMC.”

Her mind was in overdrive, trying to gauge exactly what he must have heard from that point, until she looked up at Justin and saw the mournful expression on his face and just had to put an arm around his shoulders.

“I should’ve figured. I can’t believe my girlfriend had to feel embarrassed and second best and I never even realised. I was always dragging her over to Christina at award shows and stuff; I never noticed she was uncomfortable.”

“If she’s anything like me she doesn’t mind so much.” Renee attempted to comfort him. “I mean sometimes I got a little depressed about it but generally I just figure that maybe I wasn't quite what they were looking for but that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own talent. The last five out of how many thousand ain’t so bad, right? I mean I own Christina’s CDs. Maybe she just knew what people would say and didn’t want to have to keep dwelling on it.”

“I guess…”

“And this Renee… she made it. Maybe she didn’t get MMC but she made it anyway. I figure that’s got to help her cope better than me sitting in my dorm room with a ton of assignments.”

“True.” Justin could feel the tension in his muscles and knew he had to get to the part he really wanted to ask about. “So how much do you know about her cheating on me?”

Renee dropped her arm from his shoulders instantly and buried her face in her hands. “Oh God…”

“I need to know.” He felt like he should be crying but instead the world-weary voice expressed all emotion for him. He needed an excuse, any excuse to forgive her. Normally cheating on him was an automatic deal breaker but this was Renee, he didn’t want to believe that she could have done that to him.

“On the break,” she replied dully, not wanting to have to tell him this. “She met this guy in a bar and they went out a few times.”

“Did she sleep with him?”

“Justin…”

“Did she?” His voice rose.

“Yes.” She could barely choke it out.

“Is she still sleeping with him? I mean, was she when you…”

“No.” She gave a firm answer. “She broke it off the second you guys made up.”

“Well that makes me feel better.”

He wasn't quite sure if he was being sarcastic or not. The image had immediately burned itself into his brain – some other guy touching her, touching his woman. On the other hand, they had been on a break and he had nearly done the same when he hadn’t even been the one who wanted freedom. Maybe he should have expected it. Maybe it wasn't exactly a breaking up kind of misdemeanour but it hurt like hell. He didn’t know; he needed more.

“Why?”

“I don’t know everything.”

“What do you know?” He continued pressing as he stared at the carpet, unable to look at her and see his girlfriend. He’d get angry with her if he had to but she was telling him one way or another.

“She was lonely.” Renee shrugged, as uncomfortable as she’d ever been in her life. “She was having a hard time dealing with you always being away and feeling like her job was ruling her life and she had no-one she could turn to about it and she just… rebelled, I guess.”

“Rebelled against me?” A hot tear sprang from his eye.

“Not you,” she said, slowly realising. “Her whole life. She broke up with you because she couldn’t deal with missing you and then the whole… love, sex, whatever, that was the only thing left she could control. I think… I’m not sure… he was there and he was paying her attention.”

“Because I never did?” He retorted angrily.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“That’s what she meant.”

“No, Justin, it’s not.” Her defence of the woman was somewhat surprising in its forcefulness. “She never thought it was your fault you… you just couldn’t physically be there. But when you’re that lonely I think anything starts looking like a good idea.”

“What about after we got back together?” He sniffled, fighting the tears. “Was she planning on dumping me again? Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I…I’m sorry, I… I don’t know.”

With that he actually started crying and she ran out of all words except blind reassurances that it would be okay. She had no belief in that sentiment; she had no idea if it would be okay if pop star Renee ever got back, or even if she would. As he cried into her shoulder, clinging to her as if she were life, all she could do was hug him back and keep saying ‘shh’. It was a pathetic effort but she really just didn’t know what else to say.

***

The sound of the bathroom door opening and shutting raised Renee from her dazed state. She had been stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to think of some way to heal Justin’s pain and also to find the stupid necklace. They had until midnight tomorrow and then it was done whether she was prepared or not. Justin, once he had decided to stop crying, had taken the opportunity to go take a shower that had been almost as long as hers. She had figured he needed his space and hadn’t bothered pressing him any further.

“Hey. All clean?” She cursed herself for the stupidity of the greeting.

“Yep. Nothin’ like getting clean to make you feel better.”

He raised the towel around his neck in mock salute and Renee tried very hard not to look at the bare chest. Thankfully the pressure was slightly eased by the presence of sweatpants rather than the customary towel over his bottom half, because the whole naked issue was still a weird one. She’d played his girlfriend to the point where she had even slept with him and seen him in his natural state, but it was awkward

“Good.” She smiled softly at him, not wanting to elaborate on anything. They both knew what he was talking about and there was no need to incite the waterworks again.

It was awkward watching a grown man cry. As much as she liked to tell her male friends back at college to be more sensitive and in tune and everything, there was just something disconcerting about men crying. She was sure her sociology professor would have something to say on that point about the social construction of gender roles but at this juncture she really didn’t care.

“What you been doing?”

“Wondering how I’m finding the necklace in just over twenty four hours.” It was truthful but just not elaborative.

“You know… that was the other part I overheard.” Losing the towel, Justin sat on the other side of the bed and then scooted over to sit next to her. “What Claire said about me making your decision for you.”

“Justin…”

He placed a finger to her lips to silence her. “She was right. I got mad and I pressured you, I’m sorry. She’s right; you can’t let me make your choices for you. This is your destiny, didn’t she say that?”

“Something like that,” she answered wryly, chuckling. She had heard that word way too many times lately. “If you find the necklace… don’t just go back because I asked you to, okay?”

“It’s more complicated than that…” Renee began to protest.

“Exactly.” He stopped her firmly. “It’s more complicated than you just trying to placate me when I’m being an asshole. So you need to make your own decision.”

“Uhh…” She tried to retaliate but she was lost for words as she realised that she’d just landed herself right back at square one – she really was going to have to choose, wasn't she? “Okay.”

“I mean it.” Justin replied firmly. “If you want to stay, stay. Don’t just go because of me. Though having said that, I don’t think I’d mind so much if you did stay.”

Alarm bells went off in Renee’s head as he finished speaking and leaned over to kiss her forehead. Something inside was screaming that he was having avoidance issues and just didn’t want to deal with the other Renee and what had happened to their relationship when she got back.

“Don’t just say that.” It was the only lame answer she could come up with which didn’t actually repeat what she was thinking – she seriously didn’t need him to go mental on her again.

“I’m not just saying that. You’re a good person, Renee. I like ya.” He misinterpreted.

“Justin…”

“I mean it. You’re sweet, and you’re funny, and okay I’m not so hot about the part where you lied to me but you had a good reason and you’re a good listener and you let me offload all this crap on you and you’ve been so nice to me, even when I was being a bastard to you… you really cared about me.”

It had started off as a huge outburst of speed talking but had got slower and slower and his stare was getting more and more intense as he looked at her and she was actually beginning to get uncomfortable under his blue eyed gaze.

“Justin…”

Yet again he cut her off but this time it was through him cutting the space between them and landing his lips on hers. She was so shocked that for a few seconds all she could do was let it happen before she came back to her senses and pushed him away.

“Let’s just forget you did that.” Renee let out, breathing a little heavy.

“Why?”

Okay, now she was panicking. Dark blue eyes stared intently at her and he looked all smouldering and Byronic and this was just not good. “Because you’re only doing it because you’re needy and hurting and this is not a good idea Justin. You’re only kissing me because I look like…”

“But you’re not.” He pre-empted her, knowing exactly whom she was about to refer to. “You’re not her.”

With that he re-launched his attack, only this time with more persistence. Renee tried vainly to push a hand against his chest but the problem with that was that the skin contact with the hot guy who was trying to kiss the hell out of her was more of a distraction than a good escape plan. Justin’s lips moved pleadingly against hers and his words rang through her head.

The whole time she had been with him before, guilt had plagued her because he thought she was somebody else; he knew exactly who she was now. Yet he was still cupping his hands behind her head and burying them in her hair and trying to make her respond to his kisses - which she was starting to do. Justin Timberlake knew that the woman he was kissing was really a college student with barely a dime to her name and he still wanted her. It had a fairly potent effect and made resistance nigh on impossible.

As the thought flashed through her mind that this was going to create even more trouble, she pushed it aside and slid her hands over Justin’s back as his mouth started trailing along her neck.

Renee fully remembered the very first time she had woken up in Justin Timberlake’s arms. The night before had been much more innocent than it was this time around, but the overall experience had been something of a guilty pleasure. It had been nice to wake up all warm and cosy and snuggled up next to a guy.

This time it was all of the guilt and none of the pleasure.

She was mentally screaming profanities at herself, wondering why the hell she had been stupid enough to sleep with him again. The guy had been wounded and needy and had only come onto her because she was some supposedly purer version of his actual girlfriend and what had she done? Put up a pitiful fight and succumbed to temptation at record speed. Now she was too afraid to move because while he wasn’t all over her and didn’t have his arm around her or anything, the sleeping Justin was fairly close and it would be fairly easy to wake him up.

Renee really didn’t want to wake him up. Waking him up would mean having to talk to him. It was an incredibly awkward situation and emotionally it was very complex. The easiest thing for her predicament would be if he were to just apologise and say that he’d been a little overwrought and in need of some cold comfort and that they should forget it - except that wouldn’t be so great for her ego, being told she was the sexual equivalent of somebody’s baby blanket and mom’s chicken soup.

If he’d actually meant any of last night it was going to create hugely huge problems, yet even more guilt complexes, and she was way too young to be getting worry lines. They certainly had chemistry but everything in her was telling her that acting upon it last night had been a terrible decision. Renee was beginning to feel a migraine coming on.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Renee stiffened slightly as the mattress shifted beneath her, signalling movement to go with the sleepy voice that had just greeted her. Justin’s mouth met the back of her neck, oblivious to the tension in her muscles.

“How’re you feeling?” He asked her as his arm slipped over her stomach. Apparently he wasn't having the same difficulty she was with the situation.

“I’m okay.” That was as positive as she could make her answer. “You?”

“I’m good.” He squeezed her in a hug and she could feel his upper body against her back. “You wore me out.”

“Eh-heh…” It was as lame a laugh as she could muster. This was not good; he was talking like they were a couple in some movie having morning after sex flirty talk.

“You really okay?” He smoothed her hair back from her face and his hand trailed over the back of her head as he did so.

Renee was officially in hell. If this had been the morning after any of her previous conquests she would have been ecstatically happy – the college guys she’d been with had a tendency to drop the romance and the tender stuff once they got laid. That was not to say that all of them were all about getting laid and that they dropped her as soon as they scored, but there was a serious downhill turn in the handholding and cuddles and stuff.

However, none of those guys had technically been dating somebody else when they’d hooked up and none of those guys were having girlfriend identity issues. Then again, on the other hand, none of those guys were Justin Timberlake with the hot body and the beautiful blue eyes. She was confused. It was confusing.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She lied, turning over to finally face him. “I just… wasn't expecting that.”

“Me neither.” Justin chuckled before his face relaxed and looked a little more serious. “I’m not sorry though.”

“Oh.” The word ‘oh’ was wonderfully vague - was it a question or just a statement? God, did she have to psychoanalyse every other thing she said for fear of what he might take from it?

“It was…” He searched for an appropriate word to express himself. How did you tell a girl it was good without being crude and how did you tell her you liked your time with her without being sappy? “Nice. I really… I mean that, Ren.”

“It was nice.” She smiled tightly at him. Yep, it had been nice; it was the fallout crap that was the problem. She didn’t know what to think right now.

“You know maybe…” Okay, she was sure she hadn’t had any hair in her face that time. “Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t find the necklace. Maybe… maybe we weren’t supposed to.”

“You really think that?” She stuttered.

“I just… I really like you, Ren. And I mean you, the real you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.” Justin smiled at her before picking up her hand and letting his fingers play with hers. “I know I started out being an asshole but I’ve really liked spending time with you these last couple days. And I like it when you talk to me about college and your family and that weird girl Kristi and whoever. You make me feel real, y’know?”

“Wow.” She bit her lip slightly, focussing on his chin and the slight stubble beginning to make itself known there. He had to go and be sweet, didn’t he?

“You make me feel the way I used to feel,” he whispered to her. “And I haven’t felt that in a really long time.”

Hhe had to go and spill his guts too: all while looking abnormally perfect for a guy who had only just woken up after not enough sleep. Sighing deeply, Renee moved over a little on the bed and slung an arm over his chest, laying her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes as she felt his hand glide over her back so he could hold her too. Her blonde hair hid most of her face but Justin pushed it back, leaving it to splay over the pillow behind her.

She really didn’t know what else to do. He was being so sweet to her and what he said had meant more than she cared to admit, and all she could do in return was just to hug him, as if that small gesture could tell him how much she appreciated everything he’d just said.

It didn’t take him long to fall back to sleep; she could tell by his steady breathing, even though she hadn’t brought her face up to look at him. It was just so much easier and more comforting to hide her face in his skin while the thoughts whirled around her brain. And she did have some serious thinking to do.

Saying that Justin was somewhat confused and more than a little worried was kind of like describing him as a little famous – a severe understatement.

If he put aside his own selfish issues for a moment, he was concerned for her safety. Maybe at the core she was some everyday college girl but as far as anybody but they and the ghost of her best friend knew, she was the Renee Anderson. Going out without security was a huge risk, especially in a strange city. She could get mobbed or she could get lost or some drunk pervert could set upon her; anything could happen. It was eleven thirty at night and he was really starting to get worried. Justin hadn’t been able to reach her on her cell phone and he had absolutely no idea where she could have gone.

He’d already ascertained it was nowhere in the hotel and before he could go out to the rental car, the hotel manager had approached him and tipped him off that somebody had come in asking some out of place questions about whether they’d ever had any famous guests. (Justin had tipped him an awful lot of money in advance to inform him of any such happenings and the guy had kept his end of the bargain). So leaving the safety of his room was out of the question, which meant that getting in the car to cruise the streets looking for her was out too.

On his own behalf, he was a little confused and a little hurt. Having decided for himself that he was not going to feel guilty about last night, his own Renee had cheated on him and was never coming back anyway, Justin had actually felt pretty good about the whole thing when he’d woken up with her. This time, rather than being disturbed by it, he had relished the fact that she felt completely different to her alter ego.

The more he got to know the real her, the more he liked her. She was everything his girlfriend used to be before the fame had screwed with her head. Before he’d always looked at her as a fairly grounded person: now, with the comparison and the revelations of what she’d really been up to the past few months, he was seeing her in a different, less angelic, less ‘has it all together’ light.

The new Renee had become very appealing once he’d got his head out of his ass and stopped blaming her for all the problems she’d made him open his eyes to. Now he thought about it, he supposed she hadn’t exactly turned around and confessed any of her own feelings towards him after he’d said his piece to her but she’d turned over and snuggled up to him, that said things too.

It said things which suggested that she was going to stick around rather than mysteriously go MIA while he was asleep, and he was a little pissed with her about that.

Finally he heard the loud click of the door that meant a key card had been swiped through. In the same instance relief and annoyance washed through him. He stood stiffly with his arms folded and what he hoped was a suitably pissed expression on his face, not stopping to think that the boxers and the wife beater with his skinny legs on show kind of put a damper on the whole righteously miffed motif he was going for – pyjamas weren’t exactly power clothing.

Stepping through the door her face half hidden behind a bucket hat and clad in a fairly innocuous jeans and shirt get up was one Renee Anderson, who was herself giving off some very anxious vibes.

“I never thought I’d see the day when I slept with somebody who skipped out on me. This is wrong, I feel like a woman.”

“I woke up with you. It doesn’t count as skipping out.” Renee’s reply was unconvincing as she was pulling off the hat but still not looking at him.

“I’m not sure whether I wanna know where you were or why you left first.” Steel eyes bored into her and she felt very uncomfortable in her skin, which prickled under the heat of his stare.

“I just needed to do some thinking. You… I… we kinda threw me for a loop here. I just wanted to go clear my head. I’m sorry if you were worried.”

“You could have called,” Justin told her accusingly.

“You would have asked where I was and stuff and I just wasn't ready to come back. I’m sorry.” She seemed earnest in her apology and he relaxed a little bit. Not much, but a little was better than nothing.

“You okay? All in one piece, didn’t get attacked by rabid fans or nothin?”

“All good.” She smiled tightly.

“Okay. I’m still pissed though.”

“Got it.” Renee smirked a little as the angry expression vacated his features and he visibly relaxed. “You’re pissed.”

“You can make it up to me later.” Justin watched the blood drain from her face and didn’t like the reaction. “It was a joke Ren. You know, joke, j-o… what’s that?”

Oh the expression was back in record time. “What?” She mumbled.

“The big black thing around your neck.” Justin’s voice shook as he stuck an index finger in the direction of the offending item. He knew what it was. Somehow he just knew.

Renee cursed inwardly, her fingers immediately flying to the piece of onyx wrapped in a delicate cage of silver. She’d hidden it under her shirt but it must have popped out. Momentarily she thought of lying but he was too obviously angry to fall for such a weak falsehood. Quietly, she opened her mouth.

“We should have known it was always gonna be the last place on the list.”

“You went looking for it again?”

“Tonight’s our deadline. It was now or never.”

“I thought we decided never!” Justin yelled pacing over a couple of square feet of the carpet, unable to believe what was happening to him.

“You decided.” Renee sniffled before suddenly the floodgates burst and she physically couldn’t shut her mouth. “You decided we were gonna come find the thing in the first place and then you decided you liked me so you decided we should sleep together and then you decided that that made us… I don’t know… a couple, something, I don’t fucking know! You said it yourself, Justin, I have to make my own decision!”

“Well you better hurry the fuck up because you got fifteen minutes!” He shouted right back at her, glancing at his watch before pushing his hands over his shaved head. “I don’t believe this. I can’t believe I was feeling good about this. You felt good about this, you were next to me and…”

“No I didn’t.” She said it painfully quietly and he looked up, stunned and more than a little hurt. He didn’t recall any girl having ever told him that in his life – he was Justin Timberlake.

“What?” He blurted, utterly bewildered.

“I’m sorry, J…” She rubbed her nose, blinking back tears that threatened to spill. “I… I know we both were in the moment last night but this morning… I just had this feeling we made a mistake, and then you woke up and you were being so sweet to me and I got so confused…”

“So you cuddle up to me and lead me on?” He asked hoarsely.

“I didn’t mean to… it meant a lot, what you said.” Renee pleaded with him.

“So why the hell did you go looking for the necklace?” Justin took the steps towards her with deep confusion written on his face.

“Because something just wasn't feeling right,” she admitted. “It didn’t feel right when you started kissing me but I just couldn’t believe you’d… I felt like it was really me you were focussed on and then this morning you were telling me you liked me and I wanted to believe it so bad but it just felt wrong…”

“You thought I was lying to you?” Justin asked incredulously. He knew she’d only known him a few weeks but didn’t she know him better than that after he’d been so intimate with his feelings with her?

“You’re not lying to me, Justin.” Renee put a shaky hand to his face and stroked his cheek. “You’re lying to yourself.”

“What?” Boy he was saying that a lot. He didn’t like it; it was a bad, bad word.

“This was never about me.” Her face screwed up in an effort to keep the sobs in. She didn’t want to do this, but she knew she had to. “This was her. It’s always about her for you.”

“NO!” He yelled, pushing her back. “I’m done with her!”

“No you’re not.” Okay, here came the waterworks, why fight them? She pushed her still trembling hand to her nose, rubbing it. “You were only with me to start with because you were deluding yourself I was her even when you had doubts about me. You got angry with me because I made you face up to things about her. Now you’re with me because you think I’m some past version of her that you can fix your mistakes with.”

“That’s not true! I like you because…”

“I remind you of how she used to be.” Renee sniffled. The words stopped Justin in his tracks and she knew he knew it too. “You’re not feeling something new and different for me, you’re just trying to go back to when you knew things were fine with her. You can’t do that Justin!” Words only came between gasps of breath and sniffles and sobs but she was getting them out slowly. “She’s changed but you’ve changed too. You can’t go back, it has to be forward.”

“And what do you know about it?” Tears slipped down his face but being a man he was much more quiet and less physical with his crying, His shoulders didn’t shake like hers did but his throat constricted just the same. “What makes you the authority?”

“This was it Justin.” She grabbed hold of the pendant, displaying it to him. “This was the whole fucking point! I can’t look back either. I was looking backward and wondering what my life should have been and I forgot what I could make it into! And I didn’t even see it until I left this morning and I spent all day wandering around with this thing trying to figure out whether to use it or not… you were right about something, Justin.” She continued as he could only watch helplessly, not believing that he was listening to the speech he was listening to.

“And what was that?”

“I remind you of her because we’re so similar… and we are. I got here and I wanted to pretend she was a totally different person but she’s not. I’m capable of everything she is. I proved it, I was her and I pulled it off and obviously something deep had to be the same enough for me to fool everybody. But I got so confused because I didn’t wanna stay here and be her, be this person who never visits her grandma and who has all these horrible people around her everyday and who neglects her family and who… hurt you. And that’s it. That’s IT.”

“I don’t understand, Renee! Make me understand!” Justin begged as he sat on the bed with his head in his hands, his brain swimming in bewilderment.

“I can do everything she did,” she said. “I thought I couldn’t, that I wasn't good enough to make MMC or to do dance classes without Claire, thought that I was the sidekick and she had the talent. But I can. I can do everything your Renee did. I just don’t wanna do it the way she did, and that’s why I’m here.” She took a deep breath and wiped at her eyes. “So any time I start getting my priorities wrong or compromising myself or thinking about getting a frickin’ boob job for a record deal I can remember her and how bad I felt being her.”

“You think she’s such a terrible person?” Justin started to cry a little more as he finally allowed himself to think of his girlfriend.

“Claire told me that a good person is a good person despite their choices.” She sat down next to him and pushed her forehead to his, stroking the back of his head as she talked. “I think she’s just a little lost. And I think she needs you and that’s why I gotta leave. Not just for me but… this isn’t just about my destiny. I’m not your destiny, Justin, or I wouldn’t have had to wish myself into this place. She is, and whatever you decide to do it has to be with her, not me.”

“But I really do like you, Ren.” He sniffled. “I don’t… I want you around. You listen to me.”

“I know.” She cried yet again, just when she thought she was going to stop. “I feel for you, I really do but… it’s just wrong somehow. And you know it too. She’s the one you were meant to be with and for her to stay I have to go.”

“I don’t know if I want you to go.” Justin reached forwards and grabbed her into a tight hug, holding her tightly before looking up at the clock and seeing that it was three minutes until midnight. “I don’t know if maybe everything you said was right or if maybe Renee got put back in the real world so she could fix what fame did to her and you’re supposed to stay here for me or… I need more fucking time!”

Renee too had to look at the clock; her eyes widened as she saw it and clutched Justin back just as tightly.

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” She cried. “I’m still not sure… fuck, can’t I have like ten more minutes?”

Even after everything she’d said and all the thinking and working things out she’d done that day, she still didn’t want to leave him, it still felt wrong to leave him. Thinking about it made her heart rip in two, it really did. It was enough to make her question all the good work she’d done in making everything make sense - was that just as strong a sign that she should stay?

With her face in his hands and a few strands of her hair twisted in his fingers, Justin leaned in and kissed her furiously - desperate to figure it out and not seeing any other way but to kiss her and see how it felt. Renee kissed him back, clutching at her shirt with his fingers and it still felt bittersweet to him.

Then as her nose brushed his he finally understood what he had said to her previously but hadn’t actually registered before – this was her decision and he couldn’t make it for her. He couldn’t tell her how it felt, she had to feel it, and he couldn’t look at it as whether he needed her to stay. Pulling back, tears brimming his eyes again, he looked down at the ominous piece of onyx and then up at her. He ran his fingers over her face, the same face of his girlfriend, the one behind which lay so many different things he couldn’t tell anything apart any more.

“If you’re gonna do it…” He choked out as her fingers latched around his, holding them to her cheek. “You have to do it right now.”

Their eyes met yet again, both equally full of emotion and apprehension, not knowing what the next sixty seconds would bring.

Renee scratched the itchy spot at the back of her neck, wishing she had brought something to tie her hair up with. Drumming one set of fingers awkwardly on the edge of her swivel chair, in the other hand she was tapping the pan rapidly against the pad. The problem was desperately trying to think up a decent rhyme for the word scheming. Technically any ‘ing’ word would probably do but nothing seemed to sound right.

After a lot of practice she thought she was getting pretty decent at writing lyrics now but on the odd occasion she would just get seriously stuck. Then she would sit there in front of the sound board like this for a good ten minutes while Brian McKnight sat at the controls, messing around with the melody she’d started off for him. She still couldn’t believe that – Brian McKnight. That was Brian McKnight and she was working with him. On a song she was writing and going to sing. It left butterflies in her stomach.

“Ooh, girl, what did I tell you about cell phones and my studio?” He wagged his finger at her and she smiled sheepishly.

“Will you kill me if I talk to my sister?” Her hands made the prayer position at him and he waved her off.

“Five minutes and then I wanna take a look at what you got; I need to mess around with the key a little.”

“Hey Lou.” Renee answered the phone brightly before mouthing ‘thank you’ at him.

“Mom wants to know if you got her his autograph yet.”

“Later, I swear, later.” There was no way she was going to pull the whole swooning fan thing until after they finished the song. Then it would be a favour for a colleague and not her going gooey over him: which she was in fact doing but was managing to disguise fairly well.

“So how’s the studio?” Louise asked excitedly.

“Oh my God, it’s like… whoa. This is some professional shit!” Unknown to Renee, her famous producer was smirking to himself, having heard that. “I feel like a fraud.”

“Don’t say that Ren!” Her big sister scolded her. “This is so colossally huge, you deserve it! I still can’t believe they hooked you up with Brian McKnight!”

“You can’t believe it? Remember where I am right now, dumb ass.”

“Oh shut up. I just… oh my god. That’s a huge thing, you haven’t even released a single yet and they’re getting the big guns in! Are they trying to turn you into RnB Britney or something?”

“Hey, I could do worse than be an RnB Britney,” Renee chuckled. “She sells, and I need to sell if they’re gonna take the option for the second album.”

“Come on, every time you’ve ever got on stage from… well, ever, they always love you. You know Grandma’s already clearing shelves for the Grammy you’re gonna win for her.”

“Jinx me why dontcha.”

She winced, twisting nervously in her chair and glancing at the hugely successful producer that Jive had gone to great lengths to procure for her. Mostly she was working with lesser-known people, as any first time artist could expect, but they wanted a big ballad and apparently Brian was ‘the man who can’. She believed it too. Her mom loved him, had all his albums, but then so did she. That had to count for something.

“Let’s not get ahead of me.”

“Whatever. My little sister is song writing with Brian McKnight right now, I’m happy.”

“Speaking of which, how’s Mom?”

She could practically hear Louise wincing. Renee had thought that when she’d made the wish to return to her own reality (with all of about thirty seconds to go) that she’d returned to her family unit. As it turned out, her parents wound up divorced here too; it just took a while longer. Shamefully, it made her feel a little better when she realised the whole fame thing had been a catalyst, not a cause – it just speeded the whole thing up. It had been incredibly painful but after all the fighting her parents had done she was just glad it was over; the divorce was being finalised that very day.

In some ways the two worlds were moving closer more than she’d thought they ever could or would. After spending so much time dancing, she was shrinking to the same kind of size her superstar alter ego had been. She’d got far too fond of being blonde and had got into the whole bleaching thing – although she was still a few shades darker, trying to keep it just a tad more natural. More was the same than she would ever have cared to admit but she liked the way it was all going.

“Teary, but okay. It’s not like she regrets it, I think it’s just real now.”

“And you?”

“I’m okay.” Louise shrugged, though Renee couldn’t see. “It’s better all round if they split up.”

“Okay my five minutes are up hon but I’ll call if we’re not done too late here, okay?”

“Kay. Go write me a winner, baby.” Louise joked.

“Bye!”

Shutting her phone and dropping it back in her bag, Renee glanced at the piece of paper again, figured it wasn't getting any further and handed it over to Brian, who studied it thoughtfully, nodding his head and smiling in a couple of places, which she thought was good. She hoped it was good, she needed some real stand out tracks on this CD, she needed the record company to be behind the singles and they wouldn’t be if she didn’t deliver.

After quitting college – something her father had been extremely unhappy about but had now come to terms with – she had spent every waking minute in dance classes or at her vocal coach’s house or working to pay for said classes and vocal coach. With college debts outstanding she had had to move back in with her parents while she worked non-stop. The fact was that this whole struggling musician thing was extremely stressful in the financial department.

Musically however, she felt good about it. Her sound was nothing like her other self’s; it was far more her. She got the impression the other Renee had looked for a deal and then looked for a sound – and ended up with the one that the label picked for her. This time she’d done her research, found the music she liked, picked it apart and studied what made it work, made sure she got to play in a whole bunch of different places. She still regretted the jazz bar, which had gone badly and had been very embarrassing.

Of course the label was still pushing and she had to defer judgment a lot but it was kind of RnB and kind of soul and just a little pop, very guitar based. She liked it, anyway. She hoped other people did too or she was sunk. They’d signed her on for one album with an option for two more; the deal was if this album did well she’d be automatically contracted to them and they’d take her on for another two. If it sucked, they dropped her.

Renee really didn’t want that to happen. She’d made a pretty huge decision to get here, and it wasn't like she could take it back – apart from anything else she had buried the necklace in the attic, never wanting to see the thing again.

God or whoever was running the joint had given her a huge push in this direction; she’d been shown that she could do this. Renee knew what she was capable of now and she wanted to achieve it. She wanted to go one better and she wanted to do it all her own way, no neglected families or pushy Marcia types involved. Justin’s attitude had kind of rubbed off on her in that respect. He’d been a huge inspiration to her; in a way it was comforting to think that she’d taken something of him with her.

She seriously missed him, had hated leaving him. It still felt bad to have done that. They’d both been crying and she hated feeling like maybe she’d opened him up to getting crushed when his girlfriend got back – after all, who knew what had happened to her while she’d been college girl? She hadn’t exactly been able to find out.

Positively, Kristi hadn’t seemed to have treated her any differently or mentioned anything terrible, so that was a plus. For the first few weeks she had thought about him every second. She still wondered what he was doing - mostly if he’d fixed his relationship with the other Renee. It was kind of weird but in a way she wanted him to and in another way it hurt like hell thinking of him with somebody else, even her other self.

Well, she was here now, she was doing her thing and going out and going for her dream and she thoroughly believed now that it was her destiny. Maybe she’d make it this way, maybe she wouldn’t but she had to go for it, she knew that now. That meant coming up with the goods on this song and anxiously chewing her thumbnail while her producer was looking it over.

“Okay, got it.” Brian handed her the sheet back.

“What do we think?” She asked nervously.

“I think that bridge wants to be snappier.” He leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. “It runs on a little, too many words crammed into the beat, know what I’m saying?” She nodded fervently. “Cut it down a little. But I love it, girl. You’re growing, it’s good.”

“Really?” She bit her lip, blushing.

“I said it didn’t I?” He winked. “Now write.”

***

Finally, after three straight hours of recording vocals, Brian had let her go take a break to go get a drink. He hadn’t wanted to stop and neither had she, she’d managed to hit her stride and they seemed to be getting it how they wanted it to be.

She loved the fact that it was ‘they’ and not ‘he’; she actually felt like she was working with him on the whole thing and she was so excited. She felt good about this song in a way she had about only two others of the ten or so tracks she’d laid down. They were going to be working late, she knew, but the fact was that her voice was going to deteriorate very rapidly if she didn’t get something down her throat and so she had gone to get a cup of tea, into which Brian had instructed her to put some honey. It was apparently good for the vocal chords - she just thought it was disgustingly sweet but if it helped she wasn't going to knock it.

Now she was sitting in the kitchenette among the vending machines and the various gold and platinum discs, feeling a little overawed. Mostly she was staring at the Backstreet Boys and Britney and the huge sales figures engraved on the little plaques. If she’d really wanted to be impressed by numbers she would have turned around but she wasn't sure she could cope with seeing Justin’s face on the *NSYNC records.

It had been difficult with all the media concentration on him, but she had thoroughly avoided all mention of the guy (though she’d paid far too much attention when he had split up with his girlfriend). He wasn't the Justin she knew so technically she could separate them out in her head, but at the same time it was weird to think that they were essentially the same person except with a few different life experiences – now she knew how her so called boyfriend had felt on learning who she was.

Then she really wished she hadn’t got on that thought train because she really missed how supportive he had been (apart from those few days when he hated her). Gulping down the rest of the horrible tea, she got up and left the room to go back to Brian. Humming her song quietly to herself, trying to get back into the groove, she stopped in the corridor trying to remember whether it was left or right when in the corner of her eye she caught the outline of a figure and looked up.

“Claire?”

She gasped in disbelief but the figure had already turned and started walking away, hiding her face.

Hurriedly Renee began to follow. Briefly in the back of her head it occurred to her that this was beyond insane and that she was being ridiculous but still she hurried after her, wanting to know whether it was a real person or she’d hallucinated. Seeing the head finally disappear through a door, she rushed to it and burst through, ready to corner her.

But she couldn’t corner her because she wasn't there. The only person in the room had been sitting at the sound desk and had turned around in surprise, gazing at her with a very familiar set of cobalt eyes. Renee’s breath caught in her throat, the sudden onslaught of emotional issues and good old-fashioned embarrassment a little much.

“Uhh… you’re not Brian.”

“Nope.” Justin Timberlake smiled bemusedly, interestedly at her as she cringed inwardly at the lamest of lame opening lines she had just come out with.

Oh this was strange. She knew him but he didn’t know her - except she didn’t know him because he wasn't the same guy. This wasn't going to get at all confusing...

“I’m Justin. And you are?”

“Really sorry I just burst in on you like that, I’m totally lost… and Renee.” Not knowing what else to do she stuck out her hand, a giddy nervous churning beginning in her stomach as he shook it.

“Wait… Anderson, right?” Now she was even more shocked.

“Wow. You psychic?” Her heart pounded. Was this some weird cross-dimensional thing?

“I heard your name on the old Jive grapevine. Plus I bumped into Brian earlier and he told me he was working with you.” Justin told her brightly, smiling in a welcoming fashion. “He’s cool, isn’t he?”

Renee was almost a little disappointed – yet also thoroughly disgusted with herself for the melodramatic, romanticised idea of reaching out across dimensions that she’d just had. “He’s amazing. I’m learning so much, it’s been really cool. He’s really into the team thing, whereas a couple of the other producers I’ve been working with are kinda…”

“Overbearing?” He nodded knowingly.

“Dictator-ish was the word I was looking for but yeah.”

She hated how the butterflies flew up in her rib cage as he laughed. Justin kept looking at her and meeting her eyes, which she seemed to recall him saying he wasn't very good at with people he just met. It wasn't something she was normally good at either, but it was like there was some magnetic pull and she just had to. He did look good; maybe it was just her hormones.

“It’s just cool to be really working with somebody instead of just being directed, you know?” She filled the couple seconds’ silence, which had felt more like eternity.

“Yeah, I know.” There was the smile again. And there was another second of eye contact. “So I gotta get back to work but it was nice meeting you Renee.”

“You too. Uhh… don’t suppose you can direct me to studio 2 can ya? So I don’t burst in on anybody else?” Renee smiled at Justin and he liked the way it was kind of lop-sided. She seemed like a nice girl.

“Left at the end of the hall, then take your first right. You working with Brian for the next couple of days?”

“I only got Brian for today but I’m back tomorrow with Scott Storch.”

Justin nodded, apparently knowing who that was. Ironically enough (at least for Renee), this guy had worked with Christina. It’d be interesting.

“So I guess I’ll see you round then.”

“Guess so.”

Renee turned around and opened the door, waggling her fingers in his direction before passing through it and letting it click shut behind her. Looking at the wood as if he had x-ray vision and could see through it, Justin stared for a minute, one corner of his mouth turning slowly upwards. She was cute. He remembered when he’d been that new to the game and overawed with everything. She’d been pretty cool with him though, hadn’t gone all star struck. He liked that.

If nothing else, he wouldn’t have to avoid seeing her in the hall like he had the last new chick Jive signed.