Chapter 110
Luke hurried out of the kitchen with Laura right behind him. “What is it Cowboy?” he asked, worried that something was wrong.
Lucky turned to his little sister and smiled. “Lulu, why don’t you go upstairs for a little bit? We need to talk to Mom and Dad for a few minutes.”
“But...” she started to protest.
“Please, Lulu? I promise, we’ll come back tomorrow and spend the whole day with you.” He looked at her pointedly, hoping she would just go and not argue. Finally, she sighed and stood up. “That’s my girl.” They watched as she disappeared up the stairs, then Luke turned back to his son in confusion.
“All right, what’s going on?”
Lucky sighed and squeezed Liz’s hand discreetly, praying she would see what he was about to do and go along with it. “We have something to tell you guys.”
“Okay...” Luke started, glancing over at Laura. Were they finally going to come clean and admit that, up until last night, their marriage was just a drunken mistake?
Lucky looked over at Liz for a moment, meeting her eyes in an attempt to silently communicate with her. She squeezed his hand back, sensing that he was about to do something unplanned and probably completely crazy.
“We’re getting a divorce,” he said simply, trying not to smile at the astonished expressions on his parents’ faces. Liz squeezed his hand again, understanding what he was doing, and trying to keep a straight face as well.
“What?” Laura sputtered. “But you... you’re in love!”
Lucky shook his head. “I’m sorry Mom, but it was all a lie. We only did it to give my career some good publicity.”
“Publicity? No, that can’t be..” she insisted, looking at her husband for help.
“Hang on a minute, Cowboy. Just start from the top, okay?” He could sense something was up, and figured the best way to find out was to let Lucky talk. Maybe he could figure out what he was doing that way.
Lucky took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. “Well, we decided it would help my sales and stuff if I had some kind of romance to boost my likeability to the public. I don’t really understand the whole thing, but my managers were convinced that’s what I needed. Anyway, when Elizabeth and I were stuck in New Jersey, I brought up the idea to her. She was against it at first, of course, but after a while, I managed to convince her that it would only be temporary, and that it would come with a nice paycheck in the end.” He hid a small smile at that little touch, wondering what Liz was thinking.
“Paycheck?” Laura asked, looking over at Liz. “Are you saying he paid you to marry him? This doesn’t make any sense, you...”
“Go on, son,” Luke cut in, afraid Laura would say something about their scheming.
“Well, we flew to Vegas, got married, let it slip to the rags, had those pictures sent to Kelly’s, knowing you’d intercept them,” he flashed a smile to his father before continuing, “then came home. I have to say, though, the party was a nice touch. We weren’t prepared for that one. Still, I think we did a pretty convincing newlywed routine, don’t you?”
Luke and Laura merely nodded, trying to process the story. Most of the details matched what they already knew, but what about them getting drunk? What about the whole conversation they had at the Outback the previous night?
“So, we moved into Elizabeth’s house, then realized we couldn’t just keep pretending like that without the chance of getting caught. That’s why the tour got set up so quickly. Originally, Elizabeth wasn’t going to go with me, but when you guys suggested it, we figured it would be too suspicious if we didn’t agree.”
“What about Charisma?” Luke asked suddenly, finally realizing what was off about the whole thing. “Did she know about this?”
Lucky nodded. “Oh yeah, it was her idea.” He grinned, almost losing control and laughing at the shocked expression on his father’s face. “Come on, Dad, why else would we have let her move in with us like that? Or the tour? If we were real newlyweds, do you honestly think I would have agreed to a month-long tour so soon after the wedding?”
Luke stammered for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. “But, she... she never said anything about it!”
Trying to look confused, Lucky cocked his head to the side and frowned. “Why would she? The whole point was to make everyone think we were married for real. I didn’t even know you knew her that well.”
“We’ve, um, spoken on occasion.” He was trying to make sense of everything, to understand what Lucky was saying. If Charisma was behind this plan, why would she have been helping them with theirs, to get them together for real, without saying anything? It didn’t add up right, but then again, he didn’t know her that well, so he couldn’t read her like he could most people.
“Anyway,” Lucky continued, “we kept up appearances on the tour for a week until Elizabeth could come back here. I wrote a love song during the rest of that time, figuring it would help sales and such, since it’s the one thing I haven’t done yet, musically. I sang it at the Outback last night as a sort of test-run. After we got back to her house, we talked and decided it had been long enough, that we could move on to the next phase of the plan, orchestrating the break-up and finally, the divorce.”
“Wait a minute,” Laura said suddenly, ignoring the glare she was getting from Luke. “Before you left, you gave some torn-up papers to Alexis. What was that?”
Lucky smiled a little. He was breaking them down, but they weren’t falling into the trap as fast as he had expected. He was sure his mother was about to admit something, but she had kept her cool. “The first draft of the divorce papers. There was an error on them, so we gave them back.”
“Torn up?” Luke asked.
“That was my fault,” Liz cut in, figuring it was about time she gave Lucky some help. “I thought she had her own draft, and that we had to destroy ours if we weren’t going to sign them.”
Laura shook her head. “I don’t believe it. You two are in love, it’s so obvious...”
“I’m sorry Mom, I know this is a shock, but it was all just for show. I guess we’re just really good actors, that’s all.” He turned to smile briefly at Liz, but had to look away before he burst out laughing.
Trying a new angle, she turned to Liz. “Why would you go along with this? You hated him, why marry him?”
She shrugged. “The money, I guess. Gram’s house is expensive to take care of, and my art supplies cost a lot as well. Don’t get me wrong, I love running Kelly’s, but it wasn’t enough. Besides, it’s not like it was a permanent thing.”
Lucky was brimming with pride at her excuse. She certainly was a true Spencer!
Laura shook her head, still not buying it. “No, that can’t be. That night we went out to dinner, you were sitting close together, you were holding hands and everything... why do that if there was no one there yet to be acting for?”
“We saw you come in,” he explained quickly with a shrug, trying to hide his surprise that they had seen them.
“But you said...” Laura started, slamming her mouth shut as Luke nudged her roughly with his knee.
“Said what?” Lucky prompted, waiting for her to crack.
“Nothing,” she mumbled, looking down at her lap. Luke sighed in relief, but then Laura’s head shot up again. “No, it isn’t nothing. You said you weren’t getting divorced last night!” As much as she wanted to keep them from finding out what they had done, her need to get to the bottom of Lucky’s story was greater, even if it meant telling him they were all scheming against him and Liz.
“I don’t remember ever saying that, do you?” he asked, turning to look quizzically at Liz. She smiled slightly and shook her head.
“No, me neither.”
“Oh come on, we heard you!” Laura argued. Luke lowered his head into his hands and covered his face. She was about to blow the whole thing, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.
“Heard us?” Lucky asked. “When? Where?”
She sighed. “In your dressing room, after the show. We were listening at the door,” she said quietly, ashamed. “Luke heard you talking about the divorce, and how you weren’t going to do it, then you tore up the papers. We heard you say you loved each other, you can’t deny that!”
Lucky shrugged again, trying desperately to remain cool. “Is that what you heard, or just what Dad said he heard, because he has a way of twisting things around...”
Laura shook her head. “No, you said all of that, it wasn’t twisted around!”
“We did say that,” Liz said suddenly, getting an idea. Lucky glanced over at her, wondering what she was doing. It had been going so well... “We knew you were out there,” she continued. “We could hear you outside the door, so we decided to, you know, give you something to listen to. We were afraid you didn’t believe us, that you didn’t think the marriage was real from the beginning. That way, you’d think that you were right, but that we finally fell in love, and you’d all stop watching us so closely.”
Afraid he wouldn’t be able to contain his laughter any longer, Lucky stood up, pulling Liz with him. “Come on, we better get going. We have to go check out the new draft of the divorce papers.”
“Right,” she said, following him to the door, snickering quietly.
They stopped at the door and turned back to Luke and Laura. “I’m sorry again for this, I know you were both hoping it was real. Some things just weren’t meant to be.” Lucky smiled sympathetically, then turned the doorknob. “Tell Lulu we’ll be back tomorrow to see her.”
“Sure,” Laura whispered, still in shock.
“Bye,” Liz called out, following Lucky outside. They walked halfway down the sidewalk before he stopped and turned to her. “Now what do we do?” she asked.
“Wait a second. They’ll come to the window in a minute to watch us leave.”
“And?”
Lucky saw the curtains move out of the corner of his eye and quickly grabbed her, pulling her into a passionate kiss. It didn’t take long for her to respond, even though she wasn’t sure what he was up to this time. Any excuse to kiss Lucky was enough for her!
Inside, Luke and Laura watched the couple kiss and frowned. “I knew there was something fishy about all of that,” Luke grumbled, hurrying to the door. He swung it open as Laura came up behind him, and stepped outside. “A-ha!” he shouted triumphantly, causing the two young lovers to break apart.
“If it was all an act, why were you just kissing?” Laura challenged.
“That whole story about getting married on purpose was a lie, wasn’t it? “Luke asked, walking closer to them. “I knew it had to be. We know you did it because you were drunk! Charisma had nothing to do with it, or else she wouldn’t have been helping us!”
“Helping you?” Lucky asked innocently. “With what?”
“With getting you two to stay married. And it worked, because what we heard in that dressing room last night wasn’t acting! It was the real thing. I don’t know why you just told us that whole story, but it didn’t work.”
Lucky grinned and wrapped his arm around Liz’s shoulders. She smiled and laid her head against him. “Yeah, Dad, it did work. Now you know what it feels like to be manipulated. How did you like it?”
