Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Tania Marie
Word of the day: Chagrin: Mortification, vexation, disappointment
“Didn’t I tell you it would work?” Jay Rossi surveyed the dolman top and pants, and nodded a smug smile. “Bet they use this as a cover shot.”
“It’ 11 be a cold day in hell before I’m on the cover of any publication that doesn’t smell like ink and rub off on your hands.”
She’d insisted they take her car, but Rossi said only if he could drive.
Now here they were, carrying in garment bags for the photo shoot.
They told her they wanted her in her own clothes, so readers could see the real her.
Rossi had said that was good, that the last thing she needed was the long-gloves and feathered-hat routine.
She couldn’t believe she’d allowed him to accompany her, but it was easier to let him come along than to try to stop him.
“Woman magazine is no tabloid,” he said.
“That’s why you won’t see my smiling face or any other part of me gracing the cover. But that creep who recognized me at the tequila bar’s probably already sold his photos. I don’t know what I would have done without Rochelle and Gabby.”
“At least you three aren’t dead set on destroying each other anymore.”
“No. We check in on one another every day. No more threats, so far. Rochelle’s daughter’s here from college.”
“You don’t think they were involved with what happened to you in the sauna?”
She’d gone over it in her head. She’d been deceived before. She’d been betrayed by the most trustworthy man in America. She wasn’t exactly a human lie detector, but she believed these women.
“No,” she said. “You should have seen how they backed me when that creep came after me.”
“I wish I’d been there. I would’ve kicked his ass.”
He said it with pride. For a moment, she thought of Marshall, who would never dream of uttering anything so crass, but who would carry on one affair after another while conveying an image of trust and dignity to the public. She’d bet Jay Rossi wasn’t a cheater.
“You’re wearing the right shoes for it.” She looked down at his shit-kickers and couldn’t help giggling.
“Hey, now,” he said. “I want you to know I did my share of brawling back in my drinking days.”
“Did you like it?”
“Good question.” He checked the address of a building with only a glass door and a gold-embossed number. “Come on.”
In the elevator, she asked again, “So did you like fighting?”
“It was a high at the moment, because, of course, I was drunk. But no, there’s nothing satisfying about breaking another human’s flesh with your fist. That’s one of the reasons I quit drinking.”
“You were doing okay with that zin the other night.”
He stood back, sizing her up, his secretive smile like that of a man remembering a fine meal. “It was a good night, and that had nothing to do with the zin.”
She tried to look away, but there was only the reflection of her in the elevator’s glossy interior. She couldn’t deal with that much reality right now, so she gave him the little-girl Tania Maria smile and said, “I had a good time, too.”
“And I would have kicked that guy’s ass. I mean it.” The elevator stopped. They walked out onto the polished tile. Tania Marie’s shoes dug into the tile like brakes, screeching her to a halt.
“Oh, shit,” she said.
“What’s the problem?”
“I can’t do this.”
“You are doing it.”
“I’m not sure, Rossi. I’ve been screwed over too many times.”
“And if you don’t do it, right now, today, you’ll never believe you can.”
His eyes were so fierce that she couldn’t turn away. She needed to grab some of that ferocity for herself if she were going to survive this session.
“So who appointed you lame-ass cheerleader of the month?”
His eyes didn’t change, but a weak little smile replaced the street-fighter scowl. “I appointed my lame-ass self. Now, let’s find this photographer before he changes his lame-ass mind.”
Gabriella
“Don’t get mad, okay?”
There was only one reason that would cause Christopher to initiate an exchange in such a fashion. Now she knew why he’d driven to the television studio in silence.
“If this is what I think it is, please don’t tell me until after I meet with John Crosby.”
Christopher gave her a sad smile. His shaved head glinted in the sun, and in his white linen shirt, wrinkled as only good linen can, he looked as if he were already the writer he aspired to be.
He’d do it, too, working days at the clothing store and nights on his novel.
The universe couldn’t ignore his kind of dedication.
Neither could she.
She touched his cheek. “Tell me I look okay, dear, and we’ll talk as soon as I get out of this meeting.”
“Princess Gabby looks wonderful.”
He ought to know. He’d helped her pick out the white denim skirt with its asymmetrical raw hem, that not only slenderized but created an off-center V-shape when she walked, revealing her legs.
He’d also found the wedges—large X’s of cognac-colored leather, so soft she could dance in them if she had to.
The crochet halter, with its built-in bra, was her find, however. Its vivid cantaloupe hue made the rest of the ensemble stand out in a way that was well planned without looking that way.
She didn’t have to lean up to hug him. The shoes were higher than they felt. “Now then, give me a kiss for luck.”
“Just don’t get mad, okay?”
“I know you did it again, Christopher. You talked to Alain, didn’t you?”
He sighed and looked down. “Worse than that.”
“Worse?”
“I saw him.”
“You can’t mean he’s here?” She saw the truth in his eyes. “He’s in Los Angeles?”
Christopher nodded. “I’m supposed to take you to his hotel when you’re finished tonight.”
Rochelle
She had to hear about it from Jesse. She wished there’d been an easier way.
“You know this for a fact?”
She kept her voice low. Megan was asleep—she hoped—in her bedroom down the hall.
Propped up on three pillows, stark naked on the bed, he channel-surfed a silent television screen, pausing only at pom movies and sporting events. In her next life, she would not marry an insomniac.
“I talked to John Crosby’s press agent,” he said.
Rochelle decided to go for a little test. “So what did she have to say?” It would be a she, that nameless press agent; Rochelle knew it.
Jesse didn’t notice. He’d just found a multiracial ménage on the screen. He reached down, not for her, but for himself.
“She said Crosby’s interested in helping Princess Gabby. He likes her. Gabby told me he’s going to ask her to sit in while he’s on vacation. If that goes as he thinks it will, he’s going to lobby for her to have her own show. Wonder how many blow jobs that took.”
“Not a one.” She was startled at the anger his words elicited. That wasn’t an emotion she allowed to surface very often. The bitch routine often dispelled any true emotions. “Gabby’s amazing, and she deserves her own show. Why can’t you just give her that?”
“She is amazing. You’re right there.”
She poked his arm, trying to nudge his attention back from his friend under the covers to her. “Besides, if she gets the talk show, she won’t want anything to do with Killer Body. I don’t think she ever did, anyway.”
He clicked off the television, right in the middle of an act that would have left even the media’s cartoonish version of Tania Marie gasping for breath. They sat together in the darkness. Husband and wife. Agent and client. Rochelle had never felt more alone.
“Which means you’ll have it for sure.”
“Exactly.” Why didn’t she feel more victorious?
She slid down under the comforter, which left her feeling anything but comforted. “I guess I’ll try to sleep now.”
She rolled over, away from him.
“So you see all of this as a positive?” She couldn’t identify what bothered her about his voice.
“About Gabby? Sure. I’m happy for her, and I hope it works out.”
“Even if I’m her agent?”
Her body froze on the bed. “What are you talking about? You’re not her agent.”
“I offered to be, if you’ll recall. After I talked to the press agent, I got in touch with Gabby and told her I hoped she was still considering my offer.”
His glib response was too pat, rehearsed. She rolled over again, studied his profile, hoping even now that she was wrong about him. “But you offered only to get her to withdraw from the Killer Body competition. You weren’t serious about wanting to be her agent, were you?”
“I was, and I am.”
She felt control slipping away from her, like a thin string she could no longer continue to grasp.
“And she accepted your offer?”
“Yes.” He patted her hip. “Take it easy, baby. She’ll have her talk show and you’ll have Killer Body. Everybody wins.”
“You son of a bitch,” she said.
“Baby.” He reached out to pat her again.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Don’t talk to me. Don’t anything me.” She couldn’t control the words, the anger that had been banked too long.
Jesse must have heard the difference in her voice. He backed away to the opposite edge of the bed and turned from her without another word.
Once she was sure Megan was okay, once this stupid Killer Body competition was over, she was going to have to figure out what to do about her life. She couldn’t go on like this.
The Interview
What were your goals prior to Killer Body?
I remember watching a tape of an interview Barbara Walters did with Barbra Streisand.
Walters asked her if when she was a child, she knew she was going to be Barbra Streisand one day.
And Streisand, looking on the brink of tears, said it was the only thing that could have happened, the only way it could have been.
I understand that.
When I was a child, I knew I was someone special, that I wasn’t like the others. Some of us are born with the knowledge. That’s what I believe.
I was never a child, not really. I was waiting for time to pass, for this. And now that I have it, in these moments of clarity between the darkness and the pain, my only goal is to keep it, no matter what.