Chapter 14: Tu Parle Francais?

 

By the time we reached the airport, there was a crowd about a mile wide. Teenagers, grown women, grown men, all of them following our walk and snapping pictures with whatever they had.

“I can practically see the headlines,” Syla tittered. “Mystery look alike accompanies worldwide designer Akira DeLeona through Italy’s streets: Who is she?” She giggled, “And the best part is that they’ll never know. You’re so mysterious that they don’t even know where either of us live, let alone our private lives. The only thing they know is California, and California is a big state.”

I snorted, “California won’t be big enough for long. It’ll only work as long as I keep being out and about, not at home. This means more work for you and Kyle.” Kyle was her boyfriend that just happened to look enough like Thrasher that if they were seen out, and from a distance, no one would know.

“Oh, he loves it,” She gushed, “He and I have both always wanted to be famous. We’re grateful to you for the opportunity, not to mention the free designer clothes.” Her smile seemed like it was about to fall off of her face it was so huge. We were now at the airport, where more than just a plane waited for us. Outside of the doors was a massive flood of reporters, each one nearly breaking his neck to talk to one of us. I put my arm around her protectively, though I knew she’d been through this plenty of times.

“Just go with it. Maybe it’ll make the story of you being my twin sister more believable. They all know how protective I can get.” I got a nod in return from Syla. When one of the reporters got right up in our faces, I nearly bit off the guy’s head. “Just leave us alone for a while okay?! God, can’t a girl even go out with her sister anymore!” I stomped around him, making sure to look extra protective and wild eyed. Syla made me proud as her freaked expression and diminutive demeanor made her look like an entirely different person.

I burst through the doors and into the safety of the guarded lobby, fighting to keep a smile off of my face as the airport security shut the doors on the faces of the newscasters. I heard Syla sigh.

“I don’t know how you can stand it, sis,” I saw her lip twitch as she said sis, “All of those people…” I tightened my arm around her as we walked and prepared to give one of the most important impromptu acts I’d ever done.

“I know it’s a lot, at first,” I reassured her, feeling my face soften appropriately, “I guess I just got used to it. I forgot how perfectly vicious they could be.” We were now farther in and the people who had tickets were staring at us. The customary one news crew was waiting in front of our air terminal. Fortunately, it was always the same crew. It had gotten so that I knew I could trust them.

“What’s up, Alexis?”

“The same old same old, Akira. Just trying to make a living,” The lively blonde smiled, her perfectly made up face lighting up.

“As always,” Jed, the camera man, agreed, “And still failing, too.” Alexis whacked him with her microphone.

“We’re not failing, not anymore anyways.” She winked at me and I smiled. “Who’s the double, girly?” I smiled mischievously before answering.

“This is my good friend Syla, Alexis. She’s my very, very good friend.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Syla. Any friend of Akira’s is a friend of mine.” She smiled and shook her hand before tossing a question at me. “How’d you meet? There’s no way this was chance and no one noticed.”

“Well,” Syla responded, “It’s a rather funny story, actually. We were both at the same restaurant at the same time.” She would have continued, but I stopped her.

“Alexis, if you’d like to hear the story, I’m sure I can pull some strings to get some tickets, but otherwise…” I looked at the flood that was going into the terminal.

“Oh right, right,” She flapped her hand back and forth, “I totally forgot. If you think you can pull off two more first class tickets, I’d love to hear the story, recorded or not.”

 “I’m sure I can pull it off.” I smiled.

I walked casually up to the desk.

“Tell me, is there any chance that we can pull two more seats for media staff?” I smiled in my trademark way, my head cocked to the side and only one canine showing.

“Oh my god!” the girl at the counter looked like she was about to stroke out, which was kind of scary. “It’s DeLeona!”

“The one and only,” I replied, the irony making my smile widen. She shook herself off, remembering that she was working.

“Of course we have room, Madam! You’re the only one in First Class this early.”

“The early bird gets the worm,” I said brightly as she handed me two tickets. I bowed my head slightly as I took them from the counter. “Merci, ma cherie.”

And, with that, we were off.

 

 

“Now, continue if you will, Syla.” I was relaxing in a comfy chair, luxuriating in the quiet solitude of the First Class cabin. We’d already taken off, so I didn’t even have the seatbelt to worry about.

“I think I will, if you don’t mind.” She rolled her eyes before she went on. “Anyways, like I said, we were both at the same Chinese place at the same time. When I got up to go the bathroom, I thought that there was a mirror above the booth that I was in, so I didn’t think much of a red head that looked just like me walking the same way that I was. I didn’t even think anything of the blond guy; I just thought it was my boyfriend, Kyle.”

“Ditto me, but I thought that Kyle was Thrasher in the mirror.” I added. “We were even dressed the same.”

“True,” Syla agreed, “Weren’t we both wearing your pinstriped suit and fedora?”

“No, not the pinstripes,” I thought for a second before continuing, “I believe it was the white one with the blue satin.”

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about that. We both moved to the bathrooms, right next to each other and completely oblivious. We didn’t notice each other until after we’d come back out of the stalls and were washing our hands. We knew that there was no way that there could be two of us side to side in the mirror. We looked at each other, she squeaked, I squawked, and then we went back out and moved to the same table.”

“Man I love that Chinese place. The people never call the paparazzi on me.” I saw her smile as we looked at each other.

“Me neither. We’ll have to remember to thank them someday.”

“Well, that’s some story,” Jed looked impressed. “Some luck, too.”

“No doubt,” Alexis looked über excited, but at the same time disappointed. I knew she wanted to record this really bad.

“So, is it time for my one allowed media link?” I said brightly.

“Yep. I’m assuming that we aren’t telling them who she really is?” she phrased it like a question instead of a statement.

“You assume correctly, love.”

“Okay, Jed. Fire her up; we have a job to do!”

“I’m going,” He said as he pressed buttons and then hauled it professionally onto his shoulder. “I got it, Alex, we’re ready.” He had his eye to the eyepiece and his thumb up in a positive sign. She got up and dusted off while Syla and I stood behind her. She nodded quickly when she was done, causing Jed to hit the record button.

“Hello from your favorite newscaster, back on the scene once again with Akira DeLeona,” I saw the camera angle widen to include Syla and I as Alexis moved to the side. She put out her microphone towards me. “Miss Leona, we all know about your shoot in Rome, how did it go?” She had a bright smile on her face like all reporters, but she wasn’t as pushy.

“Well, it was okay.” I smiled, “But it was infinitely better in the second half than the first.”

“Why was that?”

“My sister came to see me.” I smiled in Syla’s direction. “I can’t think of anything that would have made it better than that.”

“Aww,” Syla pushed me a little bit, a blush and a smile on her face. “You sentimental thing. I knew it’d come to this.”

“That’s why you came,” I teased.

“Ah,” She laughed, “I’m hurt.” I saw Alexis turn to Syla.

“And what’s your name?” I could see the laughter in her eyes as she asked. She thought this was just great.

“Syla. Syla Ann Leona.”

“Ah, so I see. How close are you to your sister.”

“Very,” She smirked, “It’s a twin thing, you see.”

“So you’re twins?”

“Yep,” We both said it at the same time and then looked at each other with a grin.

“So what do you do, Syla? Do you design clothes too?”

“Oh, gosh no,” She giggled, “I leave that stuff to my sister. She’s the creative one. No, I’m more like a micromanager, a secretary of sorts. If sis needs something, I’m there to make sure she has it.”

“Aww, well that’s nice.”

“Sure is.” I commented. “I barely start thinking ‘man, I could use some coffee right now’, and there she is with a fresh cuppa.” I said this with complete honesty because it was true.

“More of the twin thing?” Alexis asked with a smile.

“Probably.” Syla and I answered at the same time again. This was just too much fun.

“Whoa. That was amazing. So what do you plan on doing now?”

“Well,” I stepped in, “Syla and I were planning on taking a vacation for a while. A little sibling time away from everyone, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Syla continued as if on the same train of thought. “This is the first time I’ve been out of the states, so she’s going to show me around her favorite places.”

“And where’s that?” She’d just asked the same question that I was sure a lot of people were thinking. I giggled and saw Jeb widen the camera focus to show the plane were on.

“France, of course.” I smiled my signature crooked grin, “The lights are amazing and so is the food. There just isn’t anywhere else quite as good to go right after Rome.”I shrugged. Alexis turned back to the camera as Jeb refocused on her.

“And there you have it, folks, Akira and her sister are on her way, and so am I. Until next time…” She kept up her quiet until Jeb put down the camera and then she started laughing raucously. It was so infectious that soon we were all giggling.

“Oh, that was great,” Alexis said as she wiped her eyes. “I am so glad you let me in on this. I’ve needed a case of the giggles like that for a while.”

“Me too,” I replied, catching a nod from Syla from the corner of my eye as we moved towards the seats again. We continued talking until we were about 15 minutes from the airport. I smiled as we buckled our seatbelts for the descent.

“What?” Syla asked curiously.

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?” She prompted.

“You wouldn’t get it. Unless…” I thought for a moment and then replied with a bright smile.

“Tu parle français?”

Author's Note

If you REALLY want to, you could leave me some criticism... :D