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.