I’ve played it safe in my jeans, a soft lavender shell and a violet suede coat Lisa bought me at Christmas. Our last Christmas. I’m a reporter, not a contender, and I can dress any way I damn well please.
I slip into the room, unnoticed, and I just stand there at the bar, grabbing a drink I don’t want, some kind of liqueur that, although it tastes like rotten peaches, won’t matter the moment it numbs me into a less painful state than this.
My interview with Princess Gabby yesterday didn’t reveal anything that wasn’t in the press kit. I’d come on too strong, and she appeared to be rattled, distracted.
I look around and realize that, for all its elegance, this is an old man’s home, a home maintained by paid help. If it were not for the paintings, which may or may not be real, and the sweeping view of the city below, it could be one of the sprawling farmhouses that dotted the central California valley where I was raised.
For a quiet gathering, which Bobby Warren’s marketing man told me this was going to be, there’s plenty of noise, most of itcoming from a frenetic African-American man at a baby grand. He has a strong, Broadway kind of voice, enough to attract the attention away from the tiny knots of conversation sprouting up around him.
A good-looking man with too-short dark hair and a New York-formal suit stands with a winsome blonde by the door to the balcony. They appear in unsmiling conversation with Robert Warren—Bobby W to his friends, and he appears to have many of them. He also appears to have aged since the last time I saw him on television.
Rochelle McArthur slides next to the piano man. Damn, I hope she’s not going to sing. Maybe not. Maybe she’s just flirting with him. Her husband-slash-agent seems to be hitting it off just fine with Princess Gabby.
Behind me, I hear Gabby telling him and two other men about a play she saw last week in Pasadena.
“It’ssoCalifornia,” she says in her accent without a country, and I wonder where the hell the lady in the most California patchwork-quilt ensemble this side of Rodeo Drive thinks she is.
I hold in my rage, grateful for anonymity and whatever I’m imbibing, which has slowly become friendlier to my palate and my brain. I’m thinking I’m safely incognito, trying to continue my eavesdropping. Then someone grabs my arm.
“You’re the reporter, aren’t you?”
I turn around and just cannot believe the childlike face shining up into mine. In spite of the cobalt-blue John Lennon glasses, the short, heavily gelled black-cherry flip, and the baby bangs that had to be cut with two fingers above her eyebrow, this chubby little thing is so innocent-looking that she almost glows.
“Tania Marie?” That’s who this creature in the flowing black silk pants and white jacket and vest must be. Tania Marie, the honey bee. Marshall Cameron’s nickname for her was almost as embarrassing as her confiding the fact to too many people shethought she could trust. How the hell did she get in here, and what is she trying to prove? “How can I help you?” I manage to ask.
“You’re writing about all of us, aren’t you?”
“All of who?” No, it can’t be. Killer Body, Inc. couldn’t be so cruel as to make this poor baby believe she has a chance against the others.
“Well,us.Bobby Warren’s picks.”
“You’re in the running for Killer Body’s spokesmodel position?”
She takes off the glasses and nails me with her cool blue-green gaze. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Good question. I was just—”
“I know what you werejust.I don’t know how you media people sleep at night, you know that?”
You don’t sleep at night when your cousin drops dead, when your aunt, the woman who raised you, more or less demands that you find out why. You don’t sleep at all.
I could tell Tania Marie all of that and more, including how rotten I feel about the way I tore into Princess Gabby. But I am not sure if I can say it without tears. And besides, Tania Marie is a documented bimbo, a psycho chick who tried to bring down one of the most respected news commentators in the country. What can she ever understand about anything?
I dig up my reporter voice from the attic of my mind. “I am just a little surprised. And, yes, I do hope to interview the finalists for Julie Larimore’s job.”
“It’s notherjob.”
“No one’s clarified that for me.”
“It’s just not.” Her gaze holds mine then drifts, bouncing over my shoulder, past me, for anyone to rescue her. “Not one of us wants anything that belongs to Julie. But there’s room for more than one Killer Body on the planet.” She smooths limp whitehands down her shantung-covered hips, as if hoping her touch will melt away the fat there.
“What do you think it takes to be a Killer Body, Tania Marie?”
“Passionate desire. That’s more important than anything, the passion.” I’ve already gotten down her answer when she slams her hand over her mouth. “You know what I mean about desire, not that it’s sexual or anything.Driveis probably closer to what I meant to say.”
“Drive?”
“Yes. To be the best. And Killer Body is the best. It helps people metamorphosis.”
