Chapter 3 #2
“I’ll give you some exercise.”
“I mean it, Jesse.”
“I was just kidding about your ass.”
“That has nothing to do with it.” Damn, he was irritating today. She put on the shorts against her smooth skin. Yes, it was still smooth where the tan abruptly went white. And there was nothing wrong with her ass.
“Then, come back here.”
“Later.”
She sat on the bed and started putting on her shoes. Jesse stood before her. “You’re really sensitive about your looks lately.”
“You’d be, too, if your looks were the way you made a living.”
“Your looks are the way I make a living, but you don’t see me all jittery.”
“No, not jittery.” Critical, she felt like saying, judging, but she wasn’t sure about that.
Maybe the insecurity she felt lately didn’t come from Jesse but from within.
A run on the beach, and she’d feel better.
That’s what she needed. Maybe skip dinner.
She wasn’t hungry, anyway. “I’m just tired,” she said.
She looked up at the television set. Julie Larimore’s photograph smiled back at her.
It was a coy pose—head tilted, one arm crossed in front of her, blond-streaked hair lit from behind.
The Killer Body pendant—a red-enameled woman’s silhouette on a silver chain—hung from her neck.
“This whole Julie Larimore thing has me freaked.”
“It could be the best thing that ever happened to your career, so why do you care about her?”
“I don’t know. She lived this perfect life. No scandals, no secrets, no enemies.”
“Everyone in this business has enemies. Secrets, too.”
Julie’s face left the screen, and the television camera swept a tree-lined condominium complex. “That must be where she lived.” A shiver fluttered through her.
Jesse reached for the remote and flicked the television off.
“Hey, I was watching that.”
“I thought you wanted to go run.” His gaze dropped ever so slightly. Checking out her ass, she’d bet on it. She stood abruptly and brushed past him on her way to the door. She could still see Julie Larimore’s face, her barely there smile.
“How does someone just disappear in San Diego, of all places?”
“Stop being morbid.” Jesse swatted her on the ass. “And try not to be so nervous. You’ll get the job. The old man still digs you.”
“We’ll see Friday night. He’s invited me to a party.”
“So, we have to stay here until Friday?”
“I do.”
“Maybe I’ll go back to L.A. Unless you need me at the party.”
He flipped on the television again, this time with sound.
“…no sign of a disturbance,” the announcer said. “Larimore was believed to have been visiting friends in San Diego, according to her housekeeper.”
Rochelle stopped, her hand on the doorknob.
“Jesse,” she said. “Do you have a cigarette?”
The Interview
You and Rochelle McArthur are old friends, aren’t you, Julie?
Indeed, we are. Rochelle knew me when, a whole lot of whens.
How do you feel about her as a spokesmodel for exercise equipment?
I’m thrilled for her, and I think Rochelle will get whatever she wants. She always has. I respect her drive.
Conversely, I don’t know that I’d choose a youth-driven product such as exercise equipment. Plastic surgery, perhaps, breast augmentation, or any of the many areas that would inspire people in her age group might be an easier match.
Old friends? Right. Spokesmodel? Right. Exercise equipment? Even a small scrap of my job? Right, Rochelle. I’d die first.
Lucas
“You didn’t.”
Bobby W had been bleary-eyed since noon. Now he just sat in the boat’s galley, sitting straight up as if he thought someone was photographing him.
“We have to go forward. She’d want us to do that.”
“But a contest to replace a woman who might be dead, Bobby?”
The ocean between Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands never looked as luxuriant, never felt as endless.
Ellen Homer had tried to invite herself along.
Now Lucas wondered if he should have included her.
Somehow, he couldn’t picture Ellen’s perfect little black-and-white awning jacket awash with seawater.
More than that, he needed to have a heart-to-heart with his boss.
Bobby W tried to stand, and the moment he did, a wave hit and he crashed back into his seat. He slammed his hand over his glass just in time.
“Bobby?”
“Keep the fuck away from me.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t need help.” He pulled himself to his feet, and Lucas forced himself to stay put.
“Talk to me,” he said.
“I’m talking.”
“Then tell me how to explain to the media that we’re replacing Julie less than a week after she disappeared.”
“We’re not replacing her. We’re enhancing her. Tell them that.”
“Enhancing is a euphemism,” Lucas said. “The media will know that.”
“Euphemism, huh?” His eyes, the part of him that had stayed miraculously young, lit from within. “That’s why I have a smart, well-educated man such as yourself working for me, so that you can separate the euphemisms from the bullshit.”
With that, Bobby navigated his way to the galley, where he kept his Killer Body supplements.
His gait was stiff. Lucas winced in sympathy.
Stubborn old bastard, but who could judge him?
How easy is it for any man, especially one who has been a fitness legend, to admit to himself that walking would be less painful if he used a cane?
“Great stuff.” Bobby began counting out the tablets and gel caps. “If you can’t live longer, you can still live better. Are you taking yours?”
“Whenever I remember.”
“Not good enough.” The old lion’s roar, familiar from all of those television commercials, was only slightly diluted by age and the sounds of the sea. “I don’t have to tell you that good health should be your number-one priority.”
“I know.” He sighed. “So, what shall we tell the media, Bobby?”
“The truth.” He looked up from the pills he was shaking into his palm, as if to say he was insulted to be asked.
“Which is?”
“That we’re looking for a second spokesmodel to enhance, or whatever you want to call it, Julie’s efforts in our weight-loss clinics. Someone to represent all we hope to achieve with the Ass Blaster.” Bobby W gave him a look of disappointment, his eyes glistening.
“Why don’t you just hire Rochelle and get it over with?”
“You don’t have any idea why I’m really doing this, do you?”
“Apparently, I don’t, so why don’t you tell me?”
“Friday, my house.” It was the voice he used when Lucas had gone too far, a voice he didn’t use on anyone else, because when anyone else went too far, he simply fired them.
“Friday,” he repeated. Then he placed the pills in his mouth and swallowed them with his bourbon and water.