Chapter 10
TEN
Rochelle
She lay on the table, glad that this was one procedure for which she could remain dressed.
“Could you move up a little higher, toward the pillow?”
Rochelle sighed. Damn. Even the aesthetician was giving her directions.
An actress without a part; that’s what she was. Blondes fade fast, baby. That’s what Jesse always said.
Rochelle scootched her ass up along the narrow table, careful to keep the source of the scootching out of view.
“I love, love, love this place,” she said. “No one in Hollywood loves anything anymore. Now we have to love, love, love it.” She expected a laugh, at least a chuckle. Maybe even a tad of something that resembled respect. Didn’t get zip.
“Enough,” the woman said. “Now can you slide down just a bit?”
“Is this brain surgery, or what?”
“Sorry.” The woman flushed, and Rochelle could tell she didn’t like it. So, let her. She wasn’t dealing with just anyone.
“Close your eyes, please.”
She did as she was told, focusing for a moment on the aesthetician’s lack of expression, her curly red hair. There was a tightness to her lips she hadn’t noticed before, though. Rochelle was way too old for attitude, but this was the land of attitude. Getting worse all the time.
“Your eyes, Miss McArthur. You need to close them.”
“Okay, okay.”
Maybe she should have waited a day, gotten in with the girl who did her hair. But Bobbo was calling the shots, and Bobbo made it clear they’d better be ready for the interview by Friday. She couldn’t do it with granny-gray eyebrows.
“Is it going to hurt? Just tell me if it is.”
“Of course not.”
“My husband says it does.”
“Is he one of our clients?”
“No, he goes to someone closer to where we live in the Hollywood Hills.”
“There might be some tingling.” A taut fingertip pressed between her eyebrows. “A little sting, and that’s it. The results are very natural.”
Was that a dig? Rochelle looked up, but the woman’s expression remained calm, focused on her work.
“Close your eyes, please.”
Damn, what she did in the name of beauty ! Her eyes still burned from the extender that puffed extra fibers into her lashes while her mascara was still wet. She couldn’t put it on without getting stray fiber on her cheeks or in her eyes. Now this.
The procedure proved painless, the way a mask felt when being peeled from the face.
This woman—wasn’t her name Elizabeth?—was good.
Why hadn’t she thought to do this sooner?
But she knew why, of course. What woman, what star, wants to admit she is so old she has to have her eyebrows dyed?
And why were brows so different from hair?
Because everyone, every age, dyed their hair, that’s why.
“I got some new contacts, so I need a better match with the brows,” Rochelle said.
“I mixed taupe and brown. If you want it darker, I can do another application.”
The process was over in minutes. Just the warm application of a cloth, no odor whatsoever, and Elizabeth said, “That’s it.”
“I hope you did a good job.” Rochelle used her best haughty voice, but it fell a little flat in the small room. She was better in front of a camera, or would be, if she could ever get in front of one again.
“Take a look and let me know.”
The woman lowered a hand mirror at an angle that knocked off ten years from Rochelle’s chin alone. The eyebrows curved and gleamed. Take off another five years, and that got her down to—what? Twenty-five, maybe? She’d lied so long she could no longer do the math in her head.
“It’s great. I mean, I’m great.”
“Guess you’ve got to be, right?”
“What do you mean?” Rochelle slammed the mirror on the table and spun around, facing her. “Are you talking about the television interview Friday?”
Their gazes held for a moment, then the older woman smiled. “One moment,” she said.
She’d never been treated with this kind of disregard in the past. Just a year or two ago, the woman would be slavering, comping her the job, just so she could boast that she had Rochelle McArthur for a client.
She picked up the mirror again, looking directly into her face this time, seeing her bumpy chin, her eyes of distrust. Only the eyebrows perfect, as if she’d borrowed them from someone else, pasted them on.
In spite of her rudeness, the woman, Elizabeth, had done a good job.
Now, if Rochelle could just force the rest of herself to match.
This was how it began. The people who were supposed to serve you began to sneer, first behind your back, then to your face.
It spread from bottom to top, up and out.
Then, unless you had the luck of someone like Julie Larimore, you were history.
She’d deal with it the same way she’d dealt with everything else, head first and balls out.
Rochelle yanked off the terry-cloth wrap, pulled on her blouse and was ready to get out of there. She almost collided with Elizabeth at the door to the lobby.
“I left the money on the table,” she said.
The bitch didn’t budge.
“You have a problem?”
“No, my dear.” The woman handed her a newspaper and smiled again. “But maybe you do.”
She did have a problem. The reporter from the party, Rikki Fitzpatrick, had written an article so damning Rochelle felt faint just reading it.
The bitch had labeled the three of them, Princess Gabby, herself and Tania Marie, the Perfect Fit, the Near Fit and the Misfit, and that was just the beginning.
Rochelle could barely walk outside to find a cab.
But she didn’t need a cab. Jesse sat in the Lexus at the curb.
She jumped in and waved the paper at him.
“You’re not going to believe this.”
He didn’t look at her, sharp features pointed straight ahead as he drove. “Oh, I believe it, all right. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”
She looked down at the article again. “What can we do about it?” She began to read it aloud, trying to convince herself the words weren’t as horrible as they sounded.
“Julie Larimore may be missing, but that hasn’t stopped Killer Body, Inc.
from recruiting her replacement. Not a replacement, exactly, says Killer Body founder and former Mr. Universe, Bobby Warren. ‘An enhancement.’”
“I read it,” Jesse said. “At least it makes it clear you’re in the running.”
“Yes, but as what? ‘The Near Fit’?”
“Better than Tania Marie.”
“The Misfit. That one’s right on the money, at least. I wouldn’t have called Princess Gabby the Perfect Fit, but it gets pretty nasty about her, too.”
“I wouldn’t be calling the kettle black,” Jesse said. “At least that hick reporter didn’t call Gabby over-the-hill.”
“That phony royal pain in the ass should look so good when she’s my age.”
“She’s supposed to be your age, remember?” He pulled onto Colorado and slowed down, looking for the street that would lead to their hotel. “I think I took the wrong turnoff.”
He had absolutely the worst sense of direction of anyone she had ever known.
“I thought driving was genetic with men, part of the package, like balls.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? There’s no one listening. You mind turning off Rochelle the Bitch?”
“That’s what got me where I am. You can’t be a woman in this business and be anything else.”
“So why take it out on me?”
What did she say to that? That she’d seen more than polite interest in his eyes when he’d talked to Princess Gabby at Bobbo’s party? That she’d been treated like shit by a woman whose job it was to make her feel good about herself?
“I’m just tired,” she said.
“Me, too, but we need to come up with something, a plan.”
“That’s your job,” she said.
He turned and gave her one of the smiles that used to matter to her more than anything in the world, Hollywood included. “I think I have one.”
Gabriella
Because she needed to get up early for the newest Killer Body grand opening, they ended up staying at the Westin in Pasadena that Thursday.
Respectable for the money, Christopher said, and Christopher never lied.
That was something her soon-to-be-ex husband didn’t understand when he insisted that she kept Christopher around only because he kissed her ass.
Being kind when one told the truth did not make one an ass-kisser.
The room was small in a cute, San Francisco kind of way, with a sectional sofa that stretched the entire width of it.
Christopher dismissed its peach-and-olive pattern with the same brief yet nonjudgmental frown he’d passed over the fake verdigris lighting fixtures.
“See there,” he said. “If you travel with three very small people, you can place them end to end on that.”
“You paid for the room, Christopher. You get the bed. It’s only fair.”
“Princess Gabby is not sleeping on anything that narrow. You wouldn’t be able to sit up straight tomorrow at the Killer Body opening, let alone walk.”
She looked at their remaining options: a queen-size, white-comforter-clad bed, a striped club chair right out of the fifties, a couple of small, round tables, that faux verdigris again.
“If I can do anything, I can stand up straight, let me assure you.”
She did just that as she spoke, feeling that thread that pulled her up from these momentary setbacks into what she knew she really was.
“I’m having a drink later with my friend Frank,” Christopher said. “I could probably stay at his place.”
“I don’t feel right about that.”
“Frank’s okay. Not my type, but I can count on him.”
“And we can all count on you,” she said. “Why can’t I find a straight man at least half as decent as you are?”
“Because when they made me, they broke the mold?”
She sat down on the sofa, still concentrating on her posture. “The blush becomes you,” she said. “Don’t feel you have to stay at Frank’s if it doesn’t work out.”
“I won’t, but it will.”
“Oh, Christopher.” In the secret language they shared, it was her way of asking him what she was going to do.
He sat down beside her, and his eyes told her he’d heard the real question. “Your accent is slipping.”
“It always does when I’m worried. You know he’s going to have the other two at that opening tomorrow. I won’t be the only one being interviewed.”
“I wish I could do something.” He laughed. “And I wish I weren’t so damned co-dependent.”
“At least you know you are. It’s better, isn’t it, when you know what’s wrong with you?”
He gave her a sad smile and a big hug. “You’re wonderful, you know that?”
“You think I ought to just call my soon-to-be ex and demand what I have coming?”
“Probably wouldn’t do any good.” He squeezed her arm. “Give him time. That’s all he needs, all you both need. He’s not going to let you starve.”
“I wouldn’t starve, anyway, not as long as there’s a single french fry and an ounce of Baileys and a simple little Frostie left in Southern California.”
It was brave talk for the humiliating poverty that sucked the pride from her at a soul level. How could anything in one’s life feel right when one didn’t have enough money?
“If I get this Killer Body job…” she began.
“I know.” Christopher stood and picked up the newspaper, grinning like a Buddha, his shaved head glistening in the light of the gaudy floor lamp. “According to this Rikki Fitzpatrick, you, my dear, are the Perfect Fit.”
The Perfect Fit. Christopher made her feel that way.
And if she could just convince Bobby Warren, if she did a good job at the opening of his Pasadena Killer Body tomorrow and on the television interview after, she’d be able to support herself, get her own talk show.
Lord knew, she’d been raked over the coals on enough of them that she’d be comfortable in charge, and she’d be kind to her guests, too.
She’d never want to be a Rochelle McArthur, not even to get out of her financial trap.
Rochelle was her only competition, unless someone else surfaced at the last minute. Everyone knew Tania Marie didn’t stand a chance. If the situation were different, she’d tell the poor thing how she lost her weight, not that the headstrong girl would listen to her or anyone.
Christopher had been gone less than ten minutes when the phone rang. She recognized Jesse McArthur’s scratchy, way-too-sexy voice at once but couldn’t imagine why he’d be ringing her up.
“How’d you know I was here?” The question sounded more abrupt than she’d intended, rude almost.
“Lucas Morrison told me.”
Of course. She’d left her contact information with his assistant at Killer Body.
All at once, she felt uncomfortable. Jesse was one of the most attractive men she’d ever met, so attractive and attentive she’d been thinking about him far too frequently.
She’d done married once, talked about it on national television.
She’d die before she did it again, especially with Rochelle McArthur’s husband.
She aimed her acquired accent straight at the phone, a princess all the way. “What can I do for you, Mr. McArthur?”
“For starters, call me Jesse. And meet me for a little toddy.”
“A drink? With you and Rochelle?”
“Just me. It could be important.”
“But hardly proper.”
“I understand how much you value propriety.” Was that a ripple of humor in his voice? “But this is business. Important business.”
Money, he seemed to be saying. Gabriella’s mouth went dry.
“I will meet with you,” she said, “but I won’t drink alcohol.”
“Whatever works.”
“And my driver’s out for the night.”
“I’d be happy to pick you up.”
There was something about the way that he said it, in spite of the tone of respect, that made her feel exposed, as if he knew a secret, all of her secrets.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll make arrangements.”
For a moment, she considered ringing up Christopher on his cell phone.
No, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t the only co-dependent one in this happy little circle of two.
He deserved a night in the company of friends.
A night when he wasn’t focused on trying to take care of her.
She could deal with Jesse McArthur. She’d better.