Chapter 23 #2
The rest of the drive had been frosty, as her grandmother would have said. She loved Christopher dearly, but she was happy to get out of the car and let her anger dissipate in the cool Santa Monica breeze.
Rochelle walked up to meet her, wearing a pair of low-cut jeans and a shirt that appeared to have shrunk along with her rib cage.
She seemed to be growing thinner all the time, all except her chest, that is.
Thank goodness for flowing fabrics. Gabriella might not have much up there, but at least hers was real.
She still couldn’t believe Christopher had talked to Alain, not to mention asked him for money. She couldn’t bear the thought of Alain knowing she was destitute, convinced that she’d gotten what she deserved.
“Well, isn’t this cheery?” Rochelle said. “Tania Marie the honey bee insisted on neutral territory, but this is pushing it, I’d say.”
“Is she here yet?”
“I haven’t seen her. Thought I’d wait out here and decide if I really want to meet with you. My daughter just flew in from school, and I’m too busy to play Tania Marie’s little whacked-out games.”
“Try to be nice to her,” Gabriella said. “She’s not a bad sort. What she’s been through would finish most women.”
“Oh, it’s finished her, all right.” Rochelle did a terrible imitation of Gabriella’s accent. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
A mini SUV pulled up across from Gabriella’s town car. She spotted the straw hat and dark glasses behind the wheel. “Here she comes.”
“Good,” Rochelle said. “Maybe we can settle it right here. The last thing I want is a walk on the beach with you two.”
“You have something against the beach?” Gabriella asked.
“I have something against wasting my time.”
“You needn’t be unpleasant.”
Gabriella started toward Tania Marie. Unlike Rochelle, she looked better each time Gabriella saw her. Trimmer. The wind had tossed her short little flip into something softer and less funky, and from the tiny blue sunglasses to the tattoo on her ankle, she looked—well, jaunty.
In spite of the floppy hat, knee-length pants and jungle-print top, closer fitting than usual, Tania Marie’s manner was serious.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said.
Rochelle made a huffing sound and unknotted her sweater from around her waist. “I should have my head examined for it after what you two pulled on Crosby’s show.”
“We had a point to make, and we made it.” Tania Marie slipped her macramé bag over her shoulder and began to walk toward the beach. “In fact, that’s what I want to talk about today.”
Rochelle sighed and she wrapped the sweater around her, looking as if she needed all of the warmth she could get. “I knew it. If this meeting is another excuse to knock my husband, you can go to hell, both of you.”
“I agree with her, Tania Marie,” Gabriella put in. “We said what we had to on the Crosby show. I have no desire to cause more problems for Jesse.”
“Big of you.” Instead of appreciating her support, Rochelle struck back as sudden as a snake. “I’ll be sure to let him know that you don’t want to cause any more problems for him.”
“Back off.” Gabriella had just about had it. “All I meant was Jesse’s a nice man, and he’s been kind to me.”
“I know what you meant.” Rochelle’s face had gone dry and tight in the sun. Gabriella felt her own cheeks burn. “Too bad for you he likes big tits.”
“Big ones or fake ones?” she inquired. “Only a very insecure woman would be this threatened by someone who means her no harm.”
“I thought it was the insecure women who went after the married men.”
The heat in her cheeks burned through Gabriella’s entire face. “How dare you suggest—”
“Cut the crap.” Tania Marie stopped on the sand, facing both of them. “Listen, you bitches. Don’t you see this is what they want? The only way we’re going to get out of this is to stick together.”
The harshness of Tania Marie’s command stopped the retort on Gabriella’s tongue. Heart slamming, she stood face-to-face with Rochelle, humiliated at what she’d been engaging in. “They?” she managed. “Who?”
“Whoever’s doing these things to us. Gabby’s hotel room. My thing in the sauna, a threat to my mom.” She sat down on the bench, removed her glasses and gazed up at Rochelle with those wide blue-green eyes. “We can’t be the only ones. Something has happened to you, too.”
Gabriella expected Rochelle to fly into a fury again, but instead, she sank down on the bench beside Tania Marie. “You say someone sent a threat to your mother?” she asked.
“Yes. A picture of me torn up, and a postcard with Julie Larimore’s photo on it.”
Rochelle’s hand flew to her sunglasses. “Oh, my God,” she said.
Tania Marie
They ended up at a bar, with a menu offering one page of tacos and three pages of tequila.
Tania Marie would have preferred tacos to booze, but she wasn’t about to start that again.
What had Annie said at the last meeting?
Nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Tequila it was, and damned if they didn’t serve it with chips.
Sitting on tall stools around a small, round table, they all avoided looking at the basket in front of them and pretended not to notice the salty fried-corn smell wafting from it. Tania Marie had wussed out with a margarita, but the other two had straight shots.
“The tequila bar must be to Southern California what the martini bar is to San Francisco.” She sucked the tart liquid through the way-too-small straw, giving herself an instant headache.
Rochelle hadn’t spoken. After her outburst on the beach, she had shrunk inside herself and moved almost zombielike. Now she reached for her shot glass and, ignoring the ritual of lime and salt, drained it.
“I thought it was you,” she said to Princess Gabby.
“I thought it was you.”
“That’s ridiculous. How would I be able to lock Tania Marie in a sauna, let alone stage that fiasco at the hotel?”
“You seemed like the one with the most to lose,” the princess said.
Tania Marie pushed away her drink. “Let’s face it. We all have a lot to lose.”
“Indeed.” The princess nodded. “But if it isn’t one of us, who is it?”
“That’s what we have to find out,” Tania Marie said. “We need to stick together instead of trying to screw one another over at every turn.”
“I’ve never—” Princess Gabby huffed.
“You know what I mean. We have to keep in touch with one another. We need to report anything unusual to one another, even if it seems minor. And we need to tell what we know about Julie. She’s the only thing we all have in common.”
“Who should we tell it to?” Rochelle caught the server’s eye and pointed at her empty glass.
“The police aren’t all that interested. They don’t even think there’s foul play involved.
When I reported getting that threat in the mail, they didn’t even send anyone out.
They took the information over the phone. ”
“What about the reporter?” the princess asked.
“I don’t trust her. She doesn’t care about what happens to us.”
“She was nice to me,” Tania Marie said. “She saved me from the nightmare inside the gym that night.”
“But then she wrote that story about us.” Rochelle’s second tequila arrived, and she lifted it to the light, studying its amber glow. “Let’s toast,” she said, and with a harsh laugh, “You’ve got to want the body.”
They shrieked, then clinked glasses. Rochelle swallowed, then turned to Tania Marie. “You’re the last person who ought to trust the press.”
Tania Marie felt herself flush. She slammed her sunglasses back on, indoors or not.
“True. But I think we should talk to Rikki Fitzpatrick, and I think we should talk to Mr. Warren, too.”
“That’ll be a cold day in hell,” Rochelle said. “If Bobbo thinks there’s a chance of bad publicity involved, he’ll call off the competition.”
“Have you ever thought—” Princess Gabby paused, staring down at her untouched glass.
“Thought what?”
“Have you ever thought that perhaps Mr. Warren should do just that?”
Before they could respond, Tania Marie was aware of voices behind her.
“Don’t look around,” the princess whispered above the din. “There’s a guy behind you with a camera.”
“Oh, shit.” Tania Marie felt the familiar flush of humiliation that blossomed into full-blown fear.
What was the point in trying to do the right thing when you got the same results as when you didn’t?
She should have eaten the damned cotton candy, the tacos.
She would, by God. She’d get out of here right now, run for it, then eat every taco in the whole damned town.
Rochelle drained her shot glass. “Let’s just leave. You get in the middle, Tania Marie.” She slid off the stool gracefully, as if she’d rehearsed the movement dozens of times.
“Hey, Tania Marie.” A bald man with a sunburned face and wrinkled tan slacks brandished a camera as if it were a weapon.
“That is you, isn’t it, Tania Marie?” He looked more tourist than paparazzo, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.
The tabloids would buy from any bastard who could find the shutter release.
She shoved her hat over her head, turning away from the tiny red light that blinked at her.
“Could you hold it a moment, Tania Marie? Don’t move.” The bastard had his nerve.
“Fuck off.”
She jerked past him, squeezing between the tables, the princess to her right, Rochelle to her left.
The man stepped behind her. How many times had photographers shot pictures of her ass and thighs?
Tears choked her. This was so unfair. “I’m going to make a run for it,” she managed to whisper to the others.
Princess Gabby linked arms with her. “Take the high road,” she said. “Don’t let anyone dictate your exit. The photographs will be there, anyway, whether you run or walk or curse. That’s how I finally had to come to think of it. Either that, or go crazy.”
“She’s right.” Rochelle reached for her other arm. “Just pretend we’re going out for a shopping spree. There’s no reason to run from that weasel.”
“Except that he’s photographing my fucking ass from behind.”
“Asses are the worst.” Rochelle squeezed tighter.
“At least he’s not getting the satisfaction of seeing you run from him,” Gabby said under her breath.
The man caught up with them on the sidewalk. “Come on, Tania Marie. Smile for the camera.”
The asshole’s own snakelike smirk radiated so much self-love that it was almost lewd. Tania Marie made the mistake of looking directly at him. The neatly trimmed little strip of colorless hair beneath his nose sickened her. Marshall would have called it a metaphor.
Marshall thought everything was a metaphor for something else. If she wore a black thong instead of a red thong, it was a metaphor for her mourning their relationship. If she wore a fucking red thong, it was a metaphor of her sexuality and her anger.
If she forgot a thong in his car, that was a metaphor for her hoping they’d be caught, as, of course, they ultimately were, meta-fucking-phor or not.
Now this bastard and his spiky little moustache. It was a metaphor, but of what? That the trenches kept getting lower and lower, perhaps?
“Excuse us, please,” the princess said in a crisp but pleasant voice that probably took years of voice training to achieve.
And they—all three of them—fueled by Princess Gabby’s voice, walked briskly past him.
The princess retrieved a cell phone from her straw handbag and pushed a button.
“Christopher, dear, my friends and I need your assistance,” she said, her voice as sweet and delicate as the flowered dress she wore.
“We’re just leaving the beach, the tequila and tacos place.
Wonderful. There you are. Can you see us, dear? ”
Tania Marie sighed with relief as the sedan swung around the corner and pulled to a stop. The three of them scurried in, leaving the bald asshole standing on the sidewalk, clicking away.
“They say everyone in this godforsaken place is a wannabe actor or writer,” Princess Gabby said once she slammed the door behind her. “I’d wager there are as many wannabe paparazzi, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure,” Rochelle answered. “Cameras are a hell of a lot cheaper than acting lessons, and you don’t have to put up with the cattle calls.”
“Fucking bastard.” Tania Marie knew the princess hated that kind of talk, but that’s what the bald pig was, damn it. Tears started coursing down her face. Tomorrow there’d be another story about her yo-yoing weight. But at least she was safe now, thanks to Princess Gabby and her driver.
She took comfort from that and settled back in the seat, feeling strangely at peace between these two women who were supposed to be her rivals.
Maybe she wouldn’t need the tacos, after all.
Maybe she still had time to make the Weight Watchers meeting.
Yes, before she resorted to anything more drastic, she’d at least check out the meeting.
And she’d call Jay Rossi.
Knowing someone would listen to her and care about what happened today softened her still-raw fear. The fact that it was the first time in a long time—maybe forever—that anyone had cared, caused her to sob with even greater vehemence.
Rochelle reached in her bag and handed her a neatly folded tissue. “Don’t do that, honey. It’s not worth it.”
“I know, but I can’t help it. I can’t.” Tania Marie wiped her eyes. “Those photos are going to be all over the fucking tabloids tomorrow.”
The princess cleared her throat and shot her a pained look.
Tania Marie returned it. “The F-ing tabloids,” she said.