8. Lorde
Lorde
D id that happen? Did I finger Daisy DeMonte in plain sight? Furthermore, did she give me a few complimentary touches for my diligent efforts?
Ho, boy.
It takes about five seconds to realize she’s run out on me. Well, me and my unzipped pants, which I quickly fix so I won’t embarrass myself when I race after her. Which I do, by the way. I catch glimpses of her brown hair and pink dress as it disappears around corners and past guards.
“Daisy!” She never responds. “Hey! Wait a sec! Let’s talk!”
Me? Talk? I must be high on her pheromones because Lorde Sheen doesn’t talk unless it’s dirty foreplay.
Daisy bursts into the lobby and stalls outside the main entrance. She probably doesn’t know where to go or if she should contact someone.
As I’m about to approach her and suggest we find somewhere private to talk, I bump into the one person I was hoping to avoid for a while.
“Lorde! Well, fancy that!”
I grimace, eyes darting between Daisy’s faraway figure and the woman now standing between us. “Mother,” I say with a sour grin.
Daisy turns around, gasping at the sight of my movie star mother and me conversing not too far away. I count my lucky stars that she’s not running away in terror.
“So good to see you here again.” My mother pats my arm and catches where I’m staring. “Who’s that? Some charming friend of yours?”
My throat is so dry that it feels like swallowing sandpaper whenever I try to speak.
Here’s the thing: I have never, ever brought a girl home for my mother to meet.
I have never voluntarily introduced her to a girl I’m sleeping with, or even casually dating.
Nope. Not ever. It’s never been any of her business.
Besides, I don’t want to get her hopes up.
She would never understand that the women I’m with are nothing more than temporary acquaintances.
Sure, she knows that I have quite a voracious appetite and reputation.
She’s even bumped into some of the girls I’ve dated and had flings with, but I’ve never introduced her to a girl I’m currently pursuing, let alone the girl I just fingered.
Hopefully, she can’t tell what I’ve been up to. I would die.
“Mom,” I try to stay gracious as I suck Daisy into this terrifying fold.
“This is Daisy DeMonte, of the department store chain.” I step aside, and my mother instantly gravitates toward the woman I would call my date.
Run, Daisy. Why did you ever stop running?
“Daisy, this is my mother… Camilla Sheen.”
Daisy shakily raises her hand for a friendly greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Sheen. I love your work.”
“No, pleased to meet you, sweetheart.” My mother’s eyes narrow as she scrutinizes Daisy’s appearance, from her coifed brown hair to her powdery pink dress.
What ensues is one of the most awkward minutes I’ve ever endured around my mother.
This is a woman who has read all about my exploits in the tabloids and I’m sure has heard some naughty things on the grapevine.
My mother is sexually liberal – how else do you think I came about?
– but it can’t be pleasant to hear these things about your flesh and blood that you birthed during the peak of your acting career.
What’s killing me is that Daisy isn’t anything like the other girls I’ve dated.
There’s no reason for my mother to tear her apart with a mere glance.
Yet here we are, and all I can do is rehearse how I’m going to apologize to Daisy later. If she’ll even talk to me, that is.
“I like your style, Ms. DeMonte,” the venerable Camilla Sheen says after that agonizing minute. “Fresh, but elegant.”
I sigh in relief. Daisy manages a small smile of appreciation. She has no idea what bullet she’s dodged by not making my mother think she’s some flashy heiress who barely knows how to slap together an outfit.
“Thank you so much, Ms. Sheen.” Daisy regains her feisty countenance now that she has my mother’s approval. Great. Now they’re going to gang up against me, aren’t they? “You’re stunning as well. Are you wearing Cartier?”
A delicate hand flutters to my mother’s neck, where a thick necklace encrusted with diamonds rests. “Indeed, I am. You have a good eye.”
So much relief right now. I was expecting the absolute worst with my mother, having never introduced her to someone before… and considering the state Daisy was in when she ran away from me, I had no idea how she would have handled this on the fly.
My good mood may have come too soon, though, because my mother suddenly bursts into a slew of questions, the first of which I can’t answer.
“So!” She glances around the theater lobby, probably searching for some cameramen to flash a smile to.
Or, God forbid, grab Daisy and me into a motherly embrace so we can look picture-perfect for tomorrow’s gossip columns.
Or maybe I’ll be shoved out of the way entirely so she and Daisy can hit the “HOT” lists on the fashion pages.
I wouldn’t put it past her. My mother loves her exposure. “Did you enjoy the movie?”
Daisy blushes such a deep crimson that she almost turns purple. I, on the other hand, am used to playing this game with my mother and can give her my opinions uncensored.
“Loved it, Mom,” I say. “Although, I think Daisy may have liked it even more than I did. Every time I looked at her, she was flushed and fanning herself through the sex scenes.”
Daisy gasps. “There were sex scenes?” she whispers in my direction. Uh, duh. Did she miss the part where my mother walked into the professor’s office and ripped off their clothes?
I laugh. Daisy looks like she wants the earth to swallow her whole, but not before she smacks her satchel against my arm. As always, I appreciate getting a rise out of Daisy DeMonte. Not that it’s hard or anything.
My mother is more than shell-shocked over this playful exchange between us. That’s right. This is something not even the tabloids have been able to capture between girls and me. Anytime we played for the cameras it was always so forced and posed that my media-savvy mother must have noticed.
Her perplexity is soon replaced with a dreamy smile. “Yes, that was done quite artistically, don’t you think?”
Let me tell you, I had the great misfortune of seeing my mother’s cleavage pop out of her blouse before she disappeared beneath that desk, and nothing about any of it screamed artistic to me.
But I can’t resist the opportunity to torment my sweet Daisy even more.
“Indeed,” I say, somber. “Daisy is artistic herself. That’s probably why she got so into them. I swear I caught her panting at one point.”
Daisy’s pretty pink lips drop open. My mother laughs, although is shortly interrupted by a loud photographer calling out her name. She politely excuses herself to tend to the world at large, leaving me with my date who looks like she wants to slaughter me.
“Wasn’t that good fun?”
I don’t get the reaction I thought I would.
No playful banter. No light slug to the arm again. I don’t even get a joke at my expense.
What I get is hot tears of humiliation and a snarl in her throat.
Before I can react, her hand hits my face with a crackling smack. Daisy spins around and storms off for the women’s room while I’m left to stand here and nurse the burning sensation spreading through my cheek. That slap still echoes in my ears!
“Trouble in paradise, Lorde?” a photographer shouts at me. Of course, this whole debacle has been caught on camera.
It’s all I can do to not send them a million daggers from my eyes and shout back, “How’s that for a hot story!”