“Bathroom,” he yelled. I knew him and his daily routine well enough to know that at this time of the day, he’d be gone for a while.
I grabbed his cell phone off the kitchen table and quickly toggled through his stored numbers looking for listings for Matt and Scott. He had quite a few girls’ names in his phone, which bothered me to see. Amy, Brandy, Cheryl, Gina, Heather; the list went on and on. The twinge of jealously worsened when I passed Lauren Delaney’s cell number.
I was hoping that he’d never want or need to call any of those numbers ever again. It would be so easy for me to delete them all, but that would be wrong. Back to the task at hand… there were a few choices for the name Scott but only one listing for Matt. I quickly wrote his number down on a piece of paper and shoved it in my purse.
I looked at the FedEx package. It was overnighted from California and addressed to William Bailey, c/o Mitchell’s Pub. I noticed that Pete wrote a note on the back to let us know he signed for the package.
“Do you know a William Bailey?” I asked, handing the package to Ryan.
“Yep. That’s me.”
I must have looked confused.
“What’s my middle name?” he asked.
“William.”
“What was my dog’s name?”
“Bailey.” It made sense now. “Okay, I get the connection but why the alias? What’s that about?”
“It’s my secret name. Well, one of them,” he admitted. “I can’t use my real name on anything. If fans or whoever see Ryan Christensen printed on things - it disappears or becomes public knowledge. It’s also one of the names I use when I check into hotels and stuff.”
“I noticed your luggage had ‘Shell-B Enterprises’ on it. Is that an alias too?”
“Yeah, well, that’s my company name,” he sighed, scratching his forehead. “You have no idea the lengths people go through to dig up private information.” He pulled out his wallet and showed me his credit card.
“This has my real name on it ‘cause that’s who I am, but see – underneath my name – there’s my company name. My credit card bills, my cell phone number, are all listed under my company name. It’s the way things have to be to keep records private. If my luggage gets lost, no one knows it’s mine. My bags would get shipped to California to my manager.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” I said, but still curious. “Shell-B? Where did that come from?”He laughed. “That’s a mixture of a couple of things. First of all it was my dream car, which I now own. Sitting in my dad’s garage is a 2008
Shelby GT500 KR. Blue with silver stripes. Two hundred and eight original miles on her. The other reason for the name, well, do you remember our conversation about the shell game?”
I nodded, remembering that time in the shower fondly.
“Why not make finding me a shell game too?” His face glowed with his secret. “Whenever you travel now, you’ll have a fake name on your luggage. We’ll have to take a look at what you have your name on. People can hack into shit on the Internet like you wouldn’t believe.”
I was twirling my cell phone under my fingers while we were talking. I was curious about something completely different from what we were talking about. I punched a few buttons and waited.
Ryan’s phone started to play. The music was familiar, but I didn’t know the artist.
“Why are you calling me?” He laughed.
“Just curious,” I admitted. “That’s my ringtone? Who is that?”
He twitched his lips and smiled. “It’s an oldie. Did you ever hear of Cream?”
I nodded. He picked his phone up but I stopped him.
“No, wait! Just let it play. I want to hear it! Sunshine of your love? Is that the name of the song?”
“Yep. It’s a cool song, but I never get to hear it ‘cause somebody you and I know has issues about calling me.” He gently kicked my foot under the table.
Ryan ripped open the tab on the FedEx package and pulled out three packs of paper. Each pack was an inch or two thick.
“What’s all that?” I asked while I dumped the mail out of the garbage bag onto the table.
“Scripts. More scripts. What the hell is all of that?” he yelled.
I gasped when I saw multiple 4x6 glossy pictures of Ryan and our stalker, Angelica, from the day that he posed with her in my pub. There were also glossy pictures of Ryan alone; mostly side shots of him entering through the back door of the pub. The scariest of all the photos was a picture of Ryan and me walking down the sidewalk. Angel had scribbled out my face with a black magic marker and drew a target on my chest. I almost passed out at the table.