I rub my eyes and try to stand. I make my way to the bathroom. I take a quick shower to help wake me up, but it’s not enough. I need coffee. I quickly check my laptop and find a missed message from Stacia.

  Babe, I’m so sorry about last night. I know you love me and you would never do anything to hurt me. Please forgive me.

  I’m still a little mad, but I do love her. I type a quick response: I love you, babe. Don’t worry. I have lots of meetings today, so I won’t be able to contact you until later tonight. Just remember, it’s you and me against the world.

  I close the laptop before I even give her a chance to respond. She’s going to have to learn to trust me.

  I grab the things I’m going to need for the day and open my front door. On the doorstep in front of me is another red box tied with a white bow. “What the hell is this about?” I mumble under my breath.

  I pick it up and bring it inside, setting it next to the other one and open it. Inside is a small dolphin figurine. There is no note on this one, just the figurine. This is so weird. Why would somebody give me a dolphin? I need to figure out who’s sending these because if Stacia finds out, we’re going to have more trouble. I guarantee it.

  I leave the dolphin on the desk and head back out the door.

  First stop, coffee.

  I find a big pot of coffee in the main lobby and pour myself a cup. I like my coffee black; all that other stuff just dulls it for me. I take a deep sniff; its earthy aroma immediately awakens my senses. I take a sip. Not too bad. I’ve had worse. It’s definitely not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but it’ll do.

  I walk over to the front desk. There’s no one in line and a single clerk stands behind the desk.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Yeah, can I speak to Mary, please?”

  “Let me see if she’s in her office. Just one moment.”

  I nod and take another sip of my coffee. Several minutes later, Mary walks out.

  A smile is plastered on her face as she greets me. “Jake, how can I help you?”

  “Yeah, I’ve been receiving some very strange gifts in my room,” I start to explain.

  She looks confused. “In your room?” She asks. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yesterday, there was a gift in my room on my kitchen counter and today I found another one outside of my door. They’re anonymous, but they contain some very strange items. Do you know anything about these gifts?”

  “Hold on a second; let me look.” She types on her terminal for a few seconds. “We have no record of anyone dropping any gifts off at your unit. They’re not from us, or at least no one used us to deliver them.”

  “Then how did one end up inside of my hotel room?” I question, feeling frustrated.

  “I have no idea, sir. I’m so sorry. Would you like me to check the cameras?”

  “Yes, please. I would appreciate that. They’re causing issues with my fiance; I need them to stop.”

  “Yes, of course, I will do that for you, sir. Just so you’re aware, the cameras don’t point directly at your door, so I may not be able to see who brought them.”

  “Any help you can give me would be appreciated.”

  She smiles and assures me that she will do everything she can to figure out what’s going on.

  I thank her profusely, then walk outside to drink my coffee in the cool morning air and wander the grounds, trying to wrack my brain about who could be sending me these gifts. Maybe it’s somebody on my team trying to play a prank on me? I’ve only been with this job for a few months and I haven’t really made any close friends yet. It kind of seems weird that one of them would find it funny to play a joke on me.

  It’s definitely not Tim; that man doesn’t have an evil bone in his body.

  Who could they be from? It’s obviously someone who knew me as a kid. I want to tell Stacia about the most recent gift, but I know it will only cause problems. I just need to find out who’s doing it. I hope Mary can find something on those cameras so I can make it stop.

  11

  CHLOE

  I crack my eyes open as light streams through the windows, making the dust dance in the beams. My head hurts from last night, but I don’t regret it. It was so much fun. I’m so glad Tawni dragged me out. I needed a night out. For a few hours, I was able to forget about the stresses of my life and the loss of my dad.

  The smell of coffee awakens my senses. Tawni must already be up. I slowly get out of bed and make my way to the kitchen.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Tawni says cheerfully. Her long brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail and she’s wearing a swimsuit and a cover-up.

  “How are you so chipper after last night?” I ask.

  “We are in paradise. I don’t want to waste a second of it.” She grabs the pot of coffee and pours me a cup. “Cream and sugar, right?”

  I nod. “Thank you.” She knows me well.

  She mixes the cream and the sugar into the cup and then hands it to me. “This will help,” she says. “We’ve got a big day planned. I need you on your A-game.”

  “What are we doing?” I ask suspiciously.

  “Oh, you know, hanging out by the pool, surfing…”

  “Surfing?” I interrupt.

  “Yeah, I signed us up for lessons. We meet our instructor in an hour.”

  “What happened to not doing death-defying things?”

  “Yeah, but have you seen those instructors? They’re worth the risk.”

  I roll my eyes. “At least you didn’t plan it for seven,” I mutter.

  She gives me a pleading look.

  “Fine. I’ll go surfing,” I say.

  “You better. You promised me we’d have a good time on this trip.”

  “I know and last night was amazing. Thank you for making me go.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” She reflects. “It was magical. You could have even gotten a date out of it if you’d wanted.”

  “I know. I was unkind to that guy. If I see him again, I need to apologize. I didn’t treat him fairly.”

  “Well, if you do see him again and you guys make up, I will allow you to go out with him one of the nights that we’re here. I can entertain myself for a night.”

  “Geez, thanks,” I say sarcastically.

  “Maybe I’ll even find my own guy to hang out with.”

  “There’s plenty around here to look at.”

  “I know,” she says, almost sinisterly.

  “You’re so weird,” I say back to her.

  “You love me,” she says. “Hey, are you gonna ever open that thing?” She points to the red box.

  “I guess now’s as good of a time as any,” I say, grabbing the box. I carefully open the white bow and take the lid off. As soon as I do, my heart stops. Inside is a CD of Junipera, my alter ego, on top of a post-it note that reads, You’ve come a long way. The color drains from my face.

  “What is it?” Tawni asks. She grabs it from me and looks inside.

  “My God, isn’t that Junipera? The Popstar? What do you think it means?

  I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

  “That’s so weird. They must have put it in the wrong room. Is Junipera here on the island?” Tawni speculates.

  “I doubt it,” I say, hoping that my face doesn’t betray me. “That would just be too much of a coincidence.”

  “So strange,” she muses.

  “It’s not strange, Tawni. It’s freaky. Someone left me this gift... inside our room. How come you’re not a little bit more freaked out about this than I am?”

  “Because I think it’s a mistake, Chloe. It clearly wasn’t meant for you.”

  “But it had my name on it. What the heck could it mean?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s not that big a deal. Just let it go.”

  “I can’t,” I retort. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She looks at me strangely. “Why are you mad at me?”

  “Because you just don’t get it. Someone is stalking me.”

  “Why would someone be stalking you? You’re nobody.”

  “Like that, really?”

  “Come on. You know what I mean.”

  I sigh. “Yeah, well, they are stalking me.” I can’t tell her who I am. If I tell her now, after twenty years, she’s going to question our friendship and wonder if I’ve ever told her the truth about anything. Plus, she has a huge mouth. If she knows that I’m Junipera, she’s going to tell everybody and then my secret will be out. No more anonymity. No more being able to walk into a restaurant without paparazzi following me or fans wanting my autograph. I don’t have what it takes to live that kind of life.

  I can’t tell her, but I want to so badly. But, if she knew about me, she would understand that this is not okay.

  “Look, Chloe, you need to calm down. We’re here to have fun. You need to just let it go.”

  “Fine. I’ll try to drop it. But trust me, something weird is happening here. I can’t explain what or how, but someone is following me.”

  “Whatever, Chloe. Just go get dressed. I’d like to lay out by the beach for a few minutes before the surfing lesson.”

  I take a long sip of my coffee and then grudgingly stand up. I need to have a better attitude for Tawni. She’s gone to a lot of work to try and make me happy and here I am, yelling at her again for the second day in a row.

  I put on my swimsuit and a cover-up, then grab my big pair of sunglasses and a large hat. If someone does know who I am, maybe they won’t recognize me wearing this stuff.

  I walk back into the kitchen. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Finally,” she says and gives me an unexpected hug. “I know you’ve been through a lot, especially in the last couple of months. But I’m your friend. I’m on your side. You don’t need to take things out on me.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just still reeling from the loss of my dad and everything else,” I say, trying to pacify her. I need to get ahold of my agent and make sure she’s not the one sending me these weird gifts.

  Tawni links my arm and leads me to the door. “Let’s go have some fun.”

  Once we open the door, my jaw drops. Sitting on the front step is another red box.

  “What in the actual hell?” I say.

  Tawni just stares at me. “Don’t worry about this now. We’ll open it later.”

  She grabs the box and brings it inside, putting it on the counter next to the other one. I just stare at her and the two boxes standing side by side.

  “Let’s have a good day. You can worry about it when we come back.”

  I nod, but I can’t shake the feeling that something’s terribly wrong.

  12

  JERRY

  I’m getting too old for this, I say to myself as I walk towards the same unit I was in the other day, a ladder under my arm. The last time I was there, I realized that the air conditioning unit had a part that was about to go out and needed to be replaced. The replacement part came in this morning. Instead of calling the guest and scheduling some time, I decided that I could probably get in and out of there while they were on an excursion during the day without them even noticing.

  If I call them, they’ll just try to pencil me in two to three days from now and with my luck, the air conditioning unit will break between now and then. Of course, they’ll be mad about the broken unit and then Mary will yell at me. Nope, I’m just gonna avoid all that and do it now. If I’m careful, no one will even know that I was there.

  As the room comes into view, I hesitate. Maybe this is a bad idea. I’m already on thin ice with Mary. A complaint from a customer right now might be the end of my job. And then what will I do? Sell my house? Move in with my daughter? Give up every single ounce of freedom that I have left? I don’t know; that seems like a lot to risk just to avoid a customer being mad.

  When I’m about one hundred yards from the building, I stop and watch the front door of the room open. Out walks two women dressed in bathing suits, sunglasses and hats. They’re chatting with each other about something, but I can’t quite tell what they are saying from this distance. As they walk away, I get out my camera and take a few shots of them walking towards the beach.

  I love studying people, especially on film. Learning how people interact with others fascinates me. I’ve never been good at interacting with people myself, but I’ve learned a lot from the photos that I take.

  As soon as they’re out of sight, I walk towards the door again. This time, I’m not nervous as I know that their room is empty. All I need to do is get in and get out as fast as possible. I knock on the front door just to make sure, there’s no response. Once I’m certain I’m alone, I use my keycard to let myself in.

  I set the ladder up under the air conditioning unit and climb to the top. I’ve been doing this for so long that it’s mind-numbingly easy work. My fingers act as if they’re on autopilot most of the time, while my brain is sometimes a million miles away.

  I’m so lost in my own thoughts that I don’t even hear the door open and someone coming into the room.

  Suddenly, I hear a high-pitched scream. The noise startles me and I stumble, not even able to catch myself before I fall. Thankfully, I land on the couch.

  “Oh, my leg!” I yell. Searing pain rips through my right leg. I look over and notice blood seeping out of my pant leg and the coffee table cracked in half.

  “Who the hell are you?” I hear a high-pitched voice saying to me.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I say as I attempt to get up.

  She doesn’t let me even finish my sentence. “You’re the one who’s been leaving the gifts, aren’t you?”

  “Gifts? What gifts?” I respond, confused.

  “Don’t deny it! You have a key to my room, you’re in here unannounced, you’re doing who knows what up there on our ceiling!”

  “I’m just here to fix the air conditioning unit,” I say defensively.

  “The air conditioning unit is not broken! That is a complete lie.”

  “No, ma’am, I promise. There’s a faulty part; I needed to fix it.”

  “I’m calling the front desk. You better get out of here and you better hope and pray that you don’t get blackballed from working anywhere on this island when I’m done with you.”

  “I swear, Miss, I was just doing my job. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you I was coming in.”

  “Yeah, isn’t that the policy? To inform guests that you’re going to be in their room?” She interjects.

  “Yes, ma’am, I skipped that part. I saw you leaving, so I thought I had time. I’m so sorry; I should have told you.”

  “You were watching me?” She yells even louder.

  “What?” I say, then realize she thinks I’m stalking her. “No, no, nothing like that. You just left the room right before I got here and I saw you leave,” I say, hoping she believes me.

  “And why are you leaving these gifts?” She demands, putting her hands on her hips.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, ma’am.”

  “Those red boxes over there! Why are you leaving them?” She says, pointing to the red boxes on the counter.

  “It’s not me, I promise, ma’am. I have no idea what those are.”

  “Sure you don’t,” she says, her tone rising again. “Just get out of my hotel room! I’m calling the front desk and you’d best not be here when I do.”

  She walks over to the phone and picks up the receiver. I grab my ladder and gingerly take a step. Pain shoots through my leg once again, but it doesn’t seem broken; I can still walk on it.

  I don’t even look her in the face as I exit the building, hoping that if she doesn’t really pay attention to what I look like, she won’t be able to describe me. Not that it’s going to matter. I’m the only maintenance man older than thirty-five, so I will be easy to identify. It’s then that I remember that my shirt says my name in bold black letters: Jerry. There’s no hope for me now.

  13

  CHLOE

  I watch as the man hobbles out of my room, closing the door behind him. I’m filled with a mixture of fear and anger. Who just comes into somebody else’s room without warning? I don’t care if he actually was the maintenance person fixing the air conditioning unit; it’s only right to give somebody notice before barging into their space uninvited.

  I look down at my hands and notice that they are shaking. I take several deep breaths. “Calm down, Chloe. Everything’s gonna be okay,” I tell myself, but I’m not sure that it is. Part of me wonders if I’m just being paranoid, that these gifts and strange things that are happening are all in my head.

  I’m no stranger to living in fear. Back home, I’m constantly afraid that somebody is going to find out that I’m Junipera. In those moments where I allow myself to contemplate what would happen, my mind always jumps to the worst-case scenario, which would be a complete destruction of my career and everything I’ve worked so hard to create. As a result, I’ve been censoring my words and my actions for so long now, just to protect my identity.

  I don’t know what I would do if I was able to just speak freely about who I am. It would probably be liberating, but also terrifying. Trips like this without a bodyguard would be impossible if people found out who I was. Even with protection, I would not be allowed to just relax and enjoy myself.

  Even though I have to lie to nearly every person in my life, it’s better this way. I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s almost become second nature. The lies come so easily now. Sometimes, I feel bad about it, but anytime I see another music artist being surrounded by cameras and fans, it grips me with anxiety. I don’t think I’m strong enough to deal with that.

  At least when the cameras and fans are around me, it’s temporary. They don’t follow me to the grocery store or to the gym. The only time I’m followed is when I’m coming in and out of public engagements and I’m dressed as Junipera. The rest of my life I get to live as a regular person. I value that about my current life, despite all the lies I have to tell to maintain it.