Trophies, page 23
First, balance. Then raise left arm in defensive position…or was it right arm? Punch straight out, then retract. Repeat? And when did the death kick come in? Shit!
He needed a weapon. Keeping his eye on the advancing burglars, Ari bent down and frantically felt around for one of the dozen toys scattered at his feet. Unfortunately, he came up with a bald, naked Barbie. At least he could inflict some damage with the doll’s feet, which Maybelle had gnawed into dangerously sharp points. Ari assumed a balanced position, held the doll like a dagger ready to strike, and made an intimidating face.
“What have you done with my wife?” he demanded, in what he hoped was a terrifying baritone.
As if in answer to his query, Pepper popped her head over the upstairs landing. “Hey, Ari. Where’s your latest hidin’ place for the TV clicker? Maybelle wants to watch Kim Possible.”
Ari was still in his fighting stance as the men heaved the toilet past him.
“Do you remember?” Pepper continued. “’Cuz her punishment’s over today, and I wanted her to watch her half hour early so she could get to bed on time—”
“Who are these men, Pepper?!” Ari yowled. “What are they doing with that toilet?” He looked at the doll in his hand and dropped it like it was made of molten lava.
“Oh, that’s Jesús and Manuel,” she replied nonchalantly. “They’re movin’ that thing to your office. Don’t worry, it’s the one from my side.”
“That ‘thing’ cost twelve thousand dollars!” he sputtered. “I spent eight months on a waiting list!”
Pepper was unable to contain her guffaw. “Boy, they saw you comin’! Twelve thou’ apiece?”
“They are precision Swiss instruments!”
“Yeah, well, that ‘precision Swiss instrument’ makes me jump outta my skin every time it comes alive.”
“It only raises its lid, my baby!” Ari watched helplessly as the brown-skinned men settled the Swiss toilet into the back of Pepper’s hybrid Lexus SUV. “It has a movement sensor to recognize when someone intends to use it—”
“It looks like it’s gonna bite off my bum! Chencha feels the same way. Makes the evil eye every time she’s in the bathroom. Refuses ta clean either one a’ the damn things.”
“They’re self-cleaning,” he said feebly.
Pepper smiled down in pity. “It was a sweet gesture, hon, sharin’ your potty fetish with me, but personally, I wanna be euthanized if I ever get to the point where I can’t wipe m’ own ass an’ I definitely don’t want no spooky crapper doin’ it for me—even if it does squirt warm water. I put in a nice American Standard john an’ bidet in my bathroom. Ones that don’t squirt or salute without my say-so. Yours is still in your bath. An’ you’ll love the spooky crapper at your office. You’ll have the cleanest bum in showbiz. ’Course I wouldn’t hold m’ breath for the janitor ta clean it—”
“It’s self-cleaning!” Ari thundered. “You should have told me you wanted to replace it! That instrument has to be installed by a company technician! I flew two of them out from Switzerland just to—”
“Those guys were Swiss? The ones who messed up m’ drywall an’ spliced inta the light-switch wirin’? Hell, they really saw you comin’!”
“You cannot allow just any common plumber to disconnect—”
“Oh, Jesús an’ Manuel aren’t plumbers. I picked ’em up on the corner in front a’ Home Depot.” Pepper checked her watch. “An’ I better get goin’ on yer office so they can make their bus.”
Aghast, Ari stared out at the men. He looked up to let loose on his wife but she’d disappeared, and now Cooter’s head replaced hers over the upstairs landing.
“I always forget to wash my bum, Daddy,” he called. “Can I have a twelve-thousand-dollar toilet?”
“You can have a twelve-thousand-dollar whuppin’ if you don’t find the clicker for your sister,” said Pepper, appearing on the stairs with her purse and sunglasses. Cooter took off like a shot.
“Those men are day laborers!” Ari shouted. “Illegals! You’ve been alone with them and the children? This is madness, Pepper! Haven’t you been paying attention to Lyndy Wallert? The Bel Air burglaries? You could have been killed!”
Pepper chuckled and kissed him on the nose. “Don’t be silly, hon; I outweigh ’em both. Woulda done the job m’self but I just got a manicure. An’ Lyndy’s a paranoid freak. Now, we’ll take good care of your spooky crapper an’ we won’t make the same mess as the Swiss rip-offs. Take a nice hot shower, have some wine, and cuddle up with the boys an’ a play-off game on the big-screen. I’ll be back before eight.”
And she was gone. Jerry popped his head over the upstairs landing, and yelled, “If Cooter’s getting a twelve-thousand-dollar toilet, I want one too!”
“Too late. Mommy killed it,” whispered Ari as he slunk off to the living room.
Ari felt like a fool. In fact, he couldn’t recall a time when he hadn’t felt ridiculous and incompetent around his wife. Was he like that around all women? Ari fingered his Poseidon medal and began reviewing a lifetime of relationships: his mother, his nanny, his teachers, girlfriends, and his titanic first wife. All of them had made him their bitch. Even his secretary was a ballbuster, but…
He didn’t feel like a fool around Mariah.
The brief moments he’d spent with that enchanting girl had made him feel like a prince.
Like a man.
Everything about her was traditionally feminine: yielding, helpless, and impressed by his wisdom and wealth. Soft and round as a ripened fruit. Mysterious and gracious. Even her size was coquettishly petite.
Pepper had hands as big as a man.
Ari caught himself and felt ashamed. Pepper was his wife, for God’s sake. The mother of his children! He loved her. And as annoying as her love was, it was real. The woman had risked a lifetime in jail for high treason when she erased the U.S. government’s evidence against him. Ari doubted his own brothers would have considered doing him such a dangerous favor.
But perhaps that was just it. Perhaps he was so beholden to Pepper he’d let go of control. Let go of his manhood.
Maybe that was why he was the only one of the Papadopoulos brothers without a mistress. He used to think that it was because his brothers’ wives resembled bad-tempered camels compared to Pepper’s perfection or that one woman was pain in the ass enough, but maybe he just hadn’t met the right woman…
Most parts of Ari hated these musings. Most of his being worshipped Pepper and considered the mere notion of infidelity stupidly traitorous and wicked. But a tiny part of him reasoned that there was little harm in daydreaming. It wasn’t as if he was going to act on a fantasy.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t so tiny a part.
Ari’s erection was enormous.
As his children upstairs argued over whose turn it was to pee in “Daddy’s expensive butt-washer,” Ari looked outside his wall of glass at the endless lawn merging into the coral embers of clouds above the sea.
He’d place the statue where it could bask in that burning pink.
39
The Luckiest Girl on Earth
“No, this is not for her,” said the Italian representative for Lystrada couture, unzipping the back of the yellow-and-white corseted puff dress.
Claire no longer felt self-conscious when she was buck naked in front of strange men as she was now in the dressing room of the new Melrose Place flagship store. By now, her body was so personally trained, waxed, mud-packed, exfoliated, lasered, and fake-tanned that it looked more like a mannequin than something she recognized as her own. Besides, all that mattered was whether or not it pleased Billy and he seemed to like it fine, although lately he only saw her body in the dark.
She’d spent the past eight minutes struggling into the dress, but the Lystrada rep gave three rough tugs and it crunched down around her ankles.
“She makes it look like a boiled egg,” he pronounced.
Claire also no longer took the catty comments personally. She could wipe out almost any feeling with the champagne these fancy stores kept on hand.
“I’d lay off the bread and pasta for a while, Eddie,” said Craig, holding out a hand for her to balance as she stepped out of the dress. “I thought we’d have to grease your hips to get that off.”
“Can I get another glass of Cristal?”
“Certainly, Mrs. Price.”
Claire’s days with Craig had become routine.
First was morning maintenance, which meant hair, face, body, nails, or workout. Craig was always there to keep her company, usually getting a facial or massage for himself.
Second was shopping in increasingly new and obscure design houses or stores. Wearing clothes that no one had ever seen or heard of was a surefire way of getting your picture in party recap sections of local magazines, and Claire’s name was now preceded by the epithet “fashionista” in all the captions. How fortunate it was that Craig just happened to have publicity deals with almost every new designer they chose!
Third was a lunch at a see-and-be-seen restaurant where Craig always happened to run into a woman who wanted to sign Claire up for the “exclusive” dinner committee of a pet charity event. Being on a dinner committee meant she was responsible for raising ten thousand dollars through inviting her list of Los Angeles contacts to an event. Claire never understood why these women had recruited her since she was friendly only with Marion, Patti, Pepper, Maya, and Lyndy and they were already invited to everything in town. Luckily, the women always reassured her that she could personally donate the ten thousand dollars instead, if she didn’t want to keep pestering the same folks time after time.
Custody-on weeks, she went home in the afternoons to greet her stepchildren after school, and once or twice they had even greeted her back—if you could call “Don’t come in my room!” a greeting. Baby steps, she told herself. Even her own family back in Winomac had taken two years to accept her cousin’s Unitarian husband. And Claire wasn’t giving up on becoming accepted as a member of the Price family. Three six-hour orientation sessions had canceled the family probation at the girls’ school and she’d even remembered to wear jeans and one of Billy’s dirty T-shirts to Eva’s spelling bee. Claire felt so lucky that Billy’s ex-wife never seemed to be available for any of her daughters’ events. Neither was Billy, for that matter. Soon the girls would come to welcome and rely on Claire’s face as an island of loving support in a sea of nonfamily members.
Custody-off weeks, Claire either had more “maintenance” or went to private estate sales of vintage jewelry or clothes. Her latest purchase was an eight-pound gold-plated tortoiseshell that hung on a necklace made out of an old plastic jump rope. It hurt her neck like the dickens, but the photographers loved it and Anna Sui was rumored to be copying it for next year’s spring collection.
Around five, Claire would get ready for night action. She spent weekday cocktail hours being photographed at charity or designer-honoring events that her publicist, Walton, arranged for her to attend (with Craig) until dinner was served, because that was the hour Claire had to rush home to Billy. (Craig always stayed.) The only soul Claire ever knew at these events was Patti Fink, who had an even busier social schedule than her own, except Patti managed to eat when and where she wanted because she always had her husband, Lou, in tow. Claire promised herself that if anything ever happened to Billy, her next husband would be available at night and on wheels.
Back home, she was usually too tired to cook. If she had dinner at all, it was cold no-salt chicken broth (from the can) and an extra apple, snack bar, or a juice from the sack lunches Katia allowed her to prepare for the girls.
And she always dined alone. Billy was currently engaged in both “prep” and “postproduction” on two different projects. As his deadlines grew nearer, he started grabbing take-out dinners in the editing room or office, coming home later and later each night. There was little time left over for Claire. Even their sex seemed squeezed in. She’d tried to counteract this phenomenon by greeting him at the door in fantastically expensive lingerie, but so far it hadn’t worked. After Billy fell asleep, she’d spend a few minutes on the phone with Craig to get her schedule for the next day and then about an hour on nighttime applications of all her new mysterious skin remedies before she dumped into bed.
But was she complaining? Heck no! If it wasn’t for Billy, Claire would still be in Winamac, ridiculously pleased and confident about her dowdy-nobody little fashion-ignorant self. To think, she used to wear J. Crew! And took pleasure in attending Lions Club dances or harvest festivals! That sitting on the little dock of her uncle’s fishing lodge with a football player and a fresh-roasted wienie, dipping her toes and watching the summer sunset turn the lake into gold, used to be the height of her day!
Thank goodness she’d been whisked away from that life. She had to be the luckiest girl on earth!
At that moment the Lystrada representative broke her reverie as he returned to the dressing room carrying a fresh glass of champagne, pointy pumps, white gloves, and what looked to be a classic navy shift with some ostrich plumes tacked onto the back, just below the curve of the ass.
“She can’t possibly, possibly fuck this up,” he sneered, holding the frock for her to wriggle into. “See?”
He threw down the shoes and Claire stepped into them while Craig forced the gloves onto her hands.
“See?” said the rep.
Craig gathered a fistful of Claire’s now-blondish hair and held it on top of her head for “the look.” Claire thought she looked like a Princess Grace impersonator farting feathers, but knew that her opinion was better left unsaid. And the champagne was cold.
“We’ll take it,” said Craig. “Oh, by the way, Eddie, Billy left a message when I was using your phone. You’re giving a dinner party next Friday for Aubrey.”
The Lystrada representative didn’t appreciate getting an impromptu Cristal facial, but Claire couldn’t help spraying the champagne she was drinking. “Aubrey? Aubrey Dutton?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. Are we sure about the shoes with that toe cleavage?”
“Lord Aubrey Dutton?” Claire cried, realizing the gravity of her situation. “Oh, this is terrible! Billy needs Aubrey Dutton for his new movie. The studio is insisting my husband include him in the cast because he’s an auto-Oscar and they want lots of Oscars to impress their stockholders.”
“If Dutton lives until the ceremony. He’s like a hundred years old,” Craig said, frowning and studying Claire’s feet.
“I thought he was already dead,” interjected the Lystrada representative. He eyed Claire sympathetically. “I don’t blame you for being upset. I too am repulsed by the old.”
“No, you don’t understand! Billy said Dutton is like the classiest actor in the world. He runs around with Prince Andrew and Elton John. The Queen made him one of her knights! He probably eats at her house all the time with William and Harry and the Spice soccer wife! I’m not ready for that level of entertaining!”
Claire wanted to kick herself. She’d spent all her energy on her looks without a thought to the fact that as Billy’s new wife, she’d have A-list hostess duties. A-list people were accustomed to gourmet meals and elegant table settings. They used fish knives! And then there was dinner-table conversation, which would surely be about fine art or European history with lots of ironic quips. A-list people expected their hostesses to be witty. Now she had less than a week to learn and prepare!
Claire ripped off her new feather-farting dress and clawed for the clothes she’d arrived in. She had to get to work! She needed to locate the nearest supermarket and get her hands on an In Style!
“Calm down, Eddie! I pulled a few strings, and at this moment Lamare le Quinne is pulling into your driveway.”
“Who’s Lamar Lay-kin?” she asked, wincing as she caught her rib skin in her zipper.
“Le Quinne. Only the hottest personal-dwelling makeover artist of the moment. Careful with that zipper, girl. People will think you’re cutting again.”
“I’ve seen Lamar remake entire homes in one television episode,” said the Lystrada representative, impressed.
“Six days to transform your dining tragedy will be child’s play,” Craig concluded.
“What’s wrong with my dining room?” asked Claire, who thought the pearl-gray walls, hand-painted murals, crystal light fixtures, and walnut coffered ceiling made it the loveliest room in the house. Her dining set was Chippendale!
Craig only chuckled and handed her the remains of her champagne. “And before you hightail it to Hickory Farms, I booked you Geoffre-the-chef. You won’t greet your guests wearing a dirty apron and a shiny red face.”
“Did someone say they needed help with a dinner party?”
All three heads turned in unison as Patti Fink pulled the curtain back from the adjoining dressing room and Claire grew tearful with relief. She didn’t even care that the boiled-egg dress actually looked chic on Patti. A fairy godmother was rescuing the Rainbow Princess!
“Oh, Patti, would you?” Claire supplicated.
Patti rubbed her hands together with project-embarking pleasure. “We’ll start with a theme: I’m envisioning English colonial exotic,” she began.
40
Poison Pics
“You know, from your face, I can tell you’re about to call this whole thing off,” said Watson-the-private-detective, fiddling with the locks on a shabby briefcase that to Richard’s dismay, he’d tossed on the bed. There was something thuggish about him that cut through the haze of Richard’s nightly Ambien, setting off his inner alarms and making him glad that Gary and Carter were on the property. Even though the hand-woven Italian linen curtains were drawn in the guesthouse living room, it had felt too exposed for such company.
