Read Online I So Don't Do Famous by Barrie Summy - Free Book Online

installed.”
    â€œYou asked to say a personal word to our viewers. Would you like to do that now?” Katie Scott hands the mic to Dear Elle.
    Dear Elle looks straight into the camera with big doelike brown eyes. “Whoever took this purse, this symbol of love, please return it.” She pauses. “Diamonds are forever. Just like love.”
    A drawing of the purse fills the screen. A fat 800 number flashes across it, while the anchor’s voice instructs all the viewers to keep an eye open and call the number with any leads.
    A commercial for car insurance comes on.
    I shake my sad little head. “I can’t believe I was atthe scene and didn’t have a clue that a crime was going down.”
    â€œDid you see anything weird?” Junie asks.
    â€œNothing. I was in a cloud. A celebrity cloud. I’m the girl who doesn’t recall scarfing down three desserts.”
    â€œI can kind of remember the purse hanging on the back of her chair when she was signing.” Junie’s eyes are closed while she tries to re-create the scene.
    â€œThe thing with purses is that you pick them up, set them down, take stuff out of them, shove stuff into them. All on automatic pilot.” I twirl a few strands of hair around my index finger. “Dear Elle could easily have unhooked her purse, thrown it over her shoulder and carried it to the signing table. All on autopilot.”
    â€œLike my mom and the garage door,” Junie says. “She always thinks she forgot to close it. But every time we go back, it’s closed.”
    Junie and I sit in silence. A commercial for a new camera comes on.
    We snap to attention.
    Thanks to Junie, we have about a million shots of the evening. Maybe even one of the thief stealing the purse.

chapter
ten

    J unie zips to the desk, grabs her laptop and hustles back to the couch.
    We huddle side by side, eyes on the dark screen coming to life.
    â€œWhere are our minds at?” I say. “That we didn’t think of your photos?”
    â€œSeriously.” Junie presses a bunch of buttons. “I pretty much chronicled the entire evening.”
    â€œWow, Junie.” I gape at her gajillion thumbnails. “That’s a boatload of photos.”
    Junie starts scrolling. “I got a new memory card for the trip.”
    I touch the screen. “Stop there.” I’m looking atseveral photos, practically identical, taken almost right in a row.
    â€œYeah, I was practicing with the sports mode. Where I hold down the shutter release button and pop off a bunch of shots fast.” She points to me on the screen. “Like here. I’d moved away from the table, so I had a clear view of you. I held down the shutter button and started clicking to make sure I got you on the way to the podium.”
    â€œAw, thanks.” I squint. “So, at the side of these shots, you caught Dear Elle pulling the purse off the hook and opening it. Then you missed part of the sequence.”
    â€œSorry. I was trying to find a different place to kneel, I think,” Junie says. “My focus was on you, not on Dear Elle redoing her makeup.”
    â€œIn this picture”—I tap Dear Elle’s mouth—“her lips are all red. So she’s finished with her lipstick.”
    About ten more shots in, a photo shows the handle of the purse hanging from the hook.
    Then there are several shots of me pushing back my chair, walking to the podium, talking. A few good ones, a lot that need to be trashed forever. I point out one particularly ugly picture where I’m leaning toward the crowd, distorted beyond belief, with a nose longer than Pinocchio’s. “Can we delete this now?”
    Junie sighs. “We’ll go through them later.” Shescrolls some more. Then there’s a ton of photos of the signing.
    â€œSo, you took these from off to the side of Dear Elle?”
    â€œYeah, I was trying to get different