"Excuse me?"

"Girls with a reputation for being promiscuous. I mean, my rep is bigger. More people know about it. Every day, though, girls show up to school-or don't-because they're too embarra.s.sed. People judge them."

"Was that your experience in school?"

"Yes."

I can feel everyone's antic.i.p.ation in the air-it's almost palpable. Any minute now, they think I'm going to break down and whine and fill the hour with an entertaining sob story that will get me ripped to shreds. I know the next question. Kimberly's going to ask me how I feel about being the victim my whole life.

"How's that make you feel now, looking back on that?"

Yeah, enough of her fishing for pity, I think. Time to switch it up. "You mean, was their perception accurate?" I ask. "Did I sleep around and do all those things?"

"That's not exactly my question, but do you want to answer that one?" She's nervous now. We're right on the brink of Questions Not Allowed, and Jason could have my handlers pull me at any second. Which would be sensational. People would talk about it. I'm sure the show has a backup guest and program just in case, or maybe they'd just move to some kind of news desk interaction where opinion columnists from around the country could discuss my tantrum and bring it firmly out of tabloid reporting and into serious news.

This transition to mainstream news will happen only on my terms.

"Let's just say for the sake of argument that I did deserve my reputation," I say. "I'm not going to say yes or no because it's no one else's business. But a.s.sume that I have done everything people have said about me."

"All right," says Kimberly, going along.

I wonder if she notices I'm now in control of the interview. I'll a.s.sume she does, and that means I don't have the degree of control I think I do. She can s.n.a.t.c.h this back at any time.

I maintain eye contact and say, "None of that would give me the power to break up Triple Cross. It just provides a lot of gossip and distraction, which people seem really into."

Kimberly takes my bait and goes for the meat of the issue. "So it isn't your fault that Triple Cross broke up?"

I think carefully. Whatever I say next is likely going to be THE sound bite of the evening since it answers THE question of the moment. This is my one chance to get it right or flub it up royally. I wait, which I know builds dramatic tension, but I really am scrabbling to collect my thoughts. It's not an intentional ploy. I discard yes and no answers-nothing beyond the first word of those would make it into the sound bite. I discard diplomatic answers, like, "It depends on your perspective." I need to get this right. I've rehea.r.s.ed a million possible ways to address this, but they all seem flawed. I need to make sure I push this conversation in the exact direction I want to go.

So I decide not to strategize. I show my hand. "Imagine that I'm fourteen years old," I say.

"But you're not-"

"-or younger, even, and that I've had a lot of s.e.xual partners-"

"That's not the question-"

"-and that everyone at school and around town is saying I broke up everyone's favorite band. A little garage band, right? All teenagers."

"That isn't the question," says Kimberly. She's not happy with me talking over her.

I don't care. "Yeah, it is basically. Because when you accuse me of this, forget about what it does to me. I'm older and I've got the best family there is-"

"I am asking you-"

"When you ask me that question, if the band breaking up was my fault, you are saying to the world that it's okay to blame me, even though the band is made up of mature adults able to think for themselves who had some deep creative differences. You're saying that my colorful s.e.xual past is something that I deserve public shaming for. Think about why some young girls sleep around and ask yourself, do you want to contribute to their feelings of guilt and worthlessness, to the perception they deserve to be judged? By making an example out of me?"

"This isn't about anyone but you," says Kimberly.

"Um, I'm on prime time television. If this was just about Kyra Armijo, eighteen-year-old girl from New Mexico, I wouldn't be here."

"Well, it's also about Triple Cross, one of the top selling musical acts of all time." She knows how to make a good, solid grab for control. "It seems to me that you're pulling in the topic of young, s.e.xually promiscuous girls as a shield to hide behind. You're saying, 'Think of them and ignore me.'"

"People do not have to ignore me," I say. "Photographers and reporters have been following me around ever since this blew up and I don't tell them to leave me alone or get lost anymore. If people think I'm so interesting, going to the grocery store and stuff, fine. I don't care. I mean, it's hard to park my car sometimes, but..." I shrug. "I'm not hiding."

"So what is your strategy here?" Kimberly must be a little fl.u.s.tered to use a bald term like "strategy." I don't think we're supposed to admit this is part of any strategy, us being here, even though the world knows it is.

"I've got two things to say." I look her straight in the eye.

She stares back.

And I wait. I wait for her to open the door and give me a soapbox or slam it in my face and heckle me for the rest of the hour. I have played the best hand I knew how.

"Okay," she says.

It takes me a minute to realize she's yielded. She's silent. I can talk now.

"First of all," I say, "I don't owe the world any details about my s.e.x life. That's personal. I'm not dating the public. I'm not leading the public on in any misperceptions of me. The only people who have a right to know about my history are people I date. People I might be intimate with."

"Did Zach Wechsler know about your reputation?"

"He did not."

"Why not?"

"Because I didn't realize at first that our friendship might go that way. He has a lot of female fans. I thought he was just flirting sometimes. I didn't know that he had genuine feelings for me. And then once I did know..." I take a deep breath. I'm about to break one of Jason's rules and divulge a very personal detail. I just pray he'll hold his horses and not call for his people to end this interview. "I didn't want it to end, and I was afraid that once he knew the truth about me, he'd ditch me, so I didn't tell. Which was wrong of me. I lied to him and I am sorry."

Kimberly blinks, and I watch as she considers her next words. "Was Zach a good boyfriend to you?"

It's an odd question to answer, given Zach and I were only together for a matter of hours. "Yeah," I admit. "The best. Everything his fangirls dream of, and he's real about it. It's no act."

"What about Ben?"

"I don't know him as well," I say. "We never really talked much."

"Did he try to pressure you into having s.e.x with him?" That question is definitely out of bounds.

But no one shouts out to end the interview, and I'm glad. I can handle this. I shrug. "He never made me uncomfortable. I don't really have anything more to say about that."

"So his reputation for drugs and partying-"

"Yeah, speaking as someone with a reputation myself, I'm not gonna throw fuel on the fire there. People don't know him, and that's just the way it goes. Most will never know how much of all that is made-up hype and how much is fact. That's how the celebrity thing works."

"And you're not going to enlighten anyone?"

"My words would just get put through the media spin process, so nothing I say would enlighten anyone."

"Touche," says Kimberly.

"I guess I'm supposed to say 'Present company excepted' or whatever."

Much to my surprise, she laughs. "Well let's hope so, for this interview at least. We're live. I don't know how much spin we could add tonight."

I'm not sure I've read her right, but she doesn't seem to mind my accusations at all. "True," is how I answer her.

"All right, you said you had two things to say. What's the second one?"

"That I know what it's like to be the girl everyone hates and to feel worthless. Like you've given away so much of yourself that there's nothing left. And I just want to say to any person who feels that way that you're not worthless. You're not trash. Any guy, or any person, who would be ashamed to be with you isn't worth your time. There's something Chloe Vanderholt, Jason's wife, said to me once."

"What's that?"

"Having standards is a great jerk filter, but the downside is that there are a lot of jerks out there. She'd tell me about the long dry periods she had while dating and, I mean, look at how the media treats her because she's too busy worrying about details like saving lives through her job rather than whether or not the paparazzi get her good side? Her standards show and people don't like it."

"She does have a reputation for being a little bit of a cold fish."

"And why would Jason Vanderholt marry a cold fish? Obviously there's more to her. But people don't see it and that's the way the world is, and that's why it's hard sometimes to be yourself. I know this fear, but I also know now that it's worth it. Not that being true to yourself always gets you a proposal from Jason Vanderholt or anything-"

"Or a date with Zach Wechsler," Kimberly adds. "Is your point that having standards enabled you to date someone like Zach?"

I examine that question from every paranoid angle I can and decide it's a softball. "Yeah, it let me believe that I could talk to Zach Wechsler, that if he laughed at me I could think less of him for it rather than less of myself. I didn't think it'd lead to dating, but...yeah, it opened up the opportunity."

"And what if he'd known about your past?" Not a softball question.

But I'm ready. "I don't know. I never gave him the chance to decide, but I wasn't trying to hide it. I mean, Zach Wechsler sending me text messages wasn't enough to make me think he was smitten with me or anything."

"Text messages?"

"Yeah. We'd text."

"How often?"

"Oh...uh...I'm gonna look clueless here, aren't I?"

"Yes, sweetie, you just might."

But we're both laughing now. "Okay, so I didn't figure out how that all works in high school. It was my first real relationship in some ways, and I'll always treasure it. I'm just sorry for how it ended."

"Have you had the chance to tell him that?"

"I haven't, no."

"So maybe he'll hear you say it here."

"I hope so. I really do."

Kimberly sits back. Now it's her turn to pause and think. She's back in control of the interview, and I hope for the best. "Okay," she says, "so we're going to imagine the whole audience out there is young girls who feel like the world hates them. Whether they've slept around or they have a parent who puts them down or they didn't get the grades they wanted, whatever. What do you want to say to them?"

Talk about being given a soapbox. I take a moment to consider that, because I can. Because I'm not in enemy territory now. We're two women talking about an issue that means something to us.

"That it's never too late. You can always wake up tomorrow and decide to be someone else. If the rest of the world doesn't get on board? Ignore them."

"That's tough to do," says Kimberly. "I mean, I've been allowed to broadcast my opinion and cultivate my own image for decades, and it's still hard some days to say, 'This is who I am,' and ignore people who want to say differently."

Motion catches the corner of my eye. I don't look, but all the same I see Jason's publicist is pumping his fist in the air. I did it.

Tonight, at least. Tomorrow I'll be back to getting out of bed, a.s.serting my own ident.i.ty, and probably having to ignore what the rest of the world has to say about it.

But tonight, I did everything I came here to do. I seal the deal when Kimberly asks me, "Are you still the girl who feels worthless because of what people say about you?"

"No," I say. "I am not. Not anymore. Never again. People can say what they want. I'm just gonna live my life."

Even Kimberly smiles at that one.

I just wonder if Zach is watching.

WHEN I get backstage, I'm not terribly surprised to find my father waiting for me in the green room. It's just his style to stay out of sight so I wouldn't be nervous about him watching, but to be there to catch me the moment I fall. He's grinning from ear to ear, and as I make my way over to hug him, various crew members give me thumbs ups and high-fives and shouts of, "Well done!"

Kimberly comes back, her cell phone pressed to her ear. "I want at least ten minutes. More if possible. I want to do a post interview piece and I want to get an idea of how it played tonight. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." She puts her phone to her chest. "You interested in being on-"

"No." I cut her off. "This was it. I go back to being just Kyra now."

"No," she repeats into the phone. "She's done with interviews. Yeah, you do that." She hangs up and turns to me. "You weren't what I expected at all."

I shrug, not sure how to take that. To smile would be to a.s.sume she means it in a good way, and that would probably look conceited. So I agonize about how to look grateful but not presumptuous.

She puts me out of my misery with a pat of her bony hand on my forearm. "You ever want a career in journalism or publicity, you call me, all right?"

"Oh...um...thank you."

"That your planned career?"

"I really don't know. I'm going to Chapman University."

"Great school."

"And I'm undecided still. I'll see what I like."

"Good plan. This your father?" She turns to shake my father's hand.

"Yeah," I say.

"She won't let me beat the paparazzi with a baseball bat like I want to," he says.

"I hear that. I think she's got the situation under control, though."

As nice as it would be to bask in the praise, I let it slide over me. Tonight everyone's on a high. Tomorrow is another day.

THE MEDIA fallout is divided between people who say I am amazing, people who think Kimberly Gregg fell down on the job, and people who think it's all more media trickery and spin and BS. Offers flood in-for me to be a columnist, for me to give more interviews, for me to audition to be a spokesperson for a women's weight loss company. (Yeah, I thought that one was weird too.) With the help of Jason, Dave, and Jason's publicist, I craft careful answers. "Thank you for the ego boost, but right now I just want to go to college and get on with my life," is my message. Jason's publicist explains to me that his usual advice is to capitalize on any publicity. Extend your influence.