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vaguely aware of her desperate subconscious need to please her father, but she was fine with that. It was fairly non-self-destructive and actually a pretty good motivator, so why mess with it?
    And then her dad was hit and killed by a school bus on his way out for a morning jog. Things sort of started to unravel after that as Brittany began questioning every aspect of her life.
    What am I doing spending my weekends chasing down kidnappers? Is saving innocent people and making the world a better place all there is to life? I wonder if I should try out for American Idol ? What if I make it to the Hollywood round and have to perform a Motown song with someone who can’t dance and they screw it up for me? Why didn’t I use my flexible spending account to get Lasik?
    It was about that time that her grandmother started becoming a burden.
    The loss of her son was too much of an opportunity for Lola Marinakos to pass up. Life had always revolved around Lola, even when it involved other people’s tragedies. Well, they say your attitude is the most important thing when you’re fighting the cancer. By the way, if you’re not going to be using your ski house this winter . . . She wasn’t mean, rather, in her mind, realistic.
    The phone calls began on the way home from the wake and were soon lighting up Brittany’s cell phone five times a day, maybe more. It wasn’t long before most of them went to voice mail, but Brittany’s sense of family wouldn’t let them go unreturned. So every day, she dialed up Lola and listened to her complain about how depressed and lonely she was in between the details of fabu shopping sprees and catty gossip about her bridge friends. Occasionally, Lola would ask how the whole father-loss thing was going with Brittany, but that mainly served as a transition to some other Lola-related subject of conversation.
    Had Lola maintained her usual all-about-me behavior instead of ratcheting it up to Defcon 1 levels, Brittany might have never started therapy to deal with her guilt over hating her grandmother, hating her like she was Bernie Madoff talking behind her in a movie theater. And she would have never told her analyst about her relationship with her father. And she would have never faced up to how unhealthy it was to live her life to impress someone who wasn’t even around anymore and who didn’t care when he was here. And the good doctor would have never asked her the questions that made her wonder what she was doing with her life. And she would have never considered leaving her job.
    But she did. That was three years ago. Since then it had been thirty-six months of writing various GOOD DAY, SIR. ISAIDGOODDAY! versions of her resignation letter in her head as she pounded away on the elliptical machine. When she’d finally had enough, she acted. Only rather than impulsively tendering a tear-laden, emotionally charged, take-this-job-and-shove-it speech, she made the decision to do something sensible. She called in sick, opened a tub of cake icing, and watched Wendy Williams. And that’s when it hit her.
    Being famous would be awesome.
    Ah, but how? That was the issue. Why would anyone care about her? If nothing else, Brittany was practical, even within her flights of fancy. What did she have to offer the Perez Hiltons of the world? Why would Entertainment Tonight want to find out her secrets to staying in shape? What assets did she have that were marketable to the American public?
    She made a list. She wasn’t bad looking. At twenty-seven, still young-ish. Kind of funny. Decent voice when she remembered to breathe from her diaphragm and act like Angelina Jolie in Salt . She had a cool job.
    Ooh. That was it. Her job.
    Americans love cops. Yes, perfect. What if she could become some sort of law enforcement consultant to CNN or MSNBC or Lifetime? What if she had an interviewer position at a network or a series in syndication? What if she hosted a talk show