“No, you didn’t. I was being an ass.”
“A bit testy, perhaps. I didn’t mean to criticize, and your point is well taken. But if you do want this job—”
“You know I don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. It’ll go to you because you deserve it, or Old Fake Tits because she traded Mr. Warren for a lifetime of blow jobs.”
“You may be right.” Princess Gabby lowered her voice, and Tania Marie realized she was trying to spare her driver the gory details of the conversation. “As you’ve perhaps discovered, those alliances don’t always guarantee one woman any more power than the next. Just don’t be your own worst enemy, dear. That’s all I’m suggesting.”
Something about her manner made Tania Marie feel like crying. She was taking time with her. No one, not even Virginia, had ever done that.
“By swearing?”
Gabby straightened her lips into a line that was a little too wise. “The F-word, in particular.”
“It helps me blow off steam. My life’s really…” She paused. “Really F’ed up right now. Is that better?”
“Still a bit coarse.” The princess gave her a weak smile. “Sometimes I sayfreakingor evenflipping,and undertremendous pressurefrigging,but never in public, of course. It’s a release for me. Maybe that would work for you.”
“You have any kids, Gabby?” Now, what in hell made her ask that?
“We were trying before.” Her eyes blanked out all emotion, and her accent became more pronounced. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I think you’d be a hell of a mom.”
“Well, thank you very much, Tania Marie.” Her expression softened. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we? In the meantime, think about what I said. I can’t imagine Bobby Warren would give the job to Rochelle, especially when he finds out that her husband tried to get you to drop out of the running.”
“She calls him Bobbo, for Christ’s sake,” Tania Marie said. “How the hell can anyone calltheBobby Warren Bobbo?”
“That’s a bit extreme. But why do you, who swear like a stevedore, insist on calling himMr. Warren?”
“I don’t know.” She didn’t know how to explain it. But she remembered hearing on some TV show that the early Mouseketeers called Walt DisneyMr. Disney.It made sense to her. When you’re the one in mouse ears out there doing the step-shuffle-step, you don’t pretend it’s an even playing field. And you don’t call the man who can make it all happen for youUncle Walt.Or Bobbo.
The princess wouldn’t have understood it. Besides, they had arrived at the studio, and they didn’t have much time. She wanted to hug Princess Gabby. She wanted to bawl her guts out. Most of all, she wanted to be thin, with big tits, fake or not, like that bitch Rochelle. How horrible was that as a life goal? Thin? Big tits? Rochelle?
Before she could think about it, the driver opened her door, and she stepped out into the studio lot. It looked like any other lot, blending into the monochromatics of the city.
“Thank you, Christopher,” she said.
He took her arm, placed it in his and patted it. “Let me get the princess,” he said.
There they stood, the three of them, facing the studio, which looked far less threatening from its parking lot.
“Ladies?”
Christopher squeezed her arm, as she knew he must be squeezing Princess Gabby’s, as well. Tania Marie couldn’t speak, but Gabby did it for her. “Let’s go get the bloody bastards,” she said.
“Hey,” Tania Marie called around Christopher’s slender frame to her. “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk like this.”
“We aren’t,” the princess called back, her limp hair like strands of ribbon one curled at Christmas with a pair of scissors.
They waited for the show to begin, the three of them, shoved like sausages on a stupid little sofa. Tania Marie knew she dragged down her end like a bag of cement in the back of a canoe.
Next to her, she could feel Princess Gabby’s warm presence.
“This will be fine,” Gabby whispered in her ear. “But please try not to curse.”
Then it was lights, camera, Crosby.
At least John Crosby wasn’t a nasty interviewer, not with most of the people on his show, at least. She tended to bring out the worst in people. She hoped this one would be different.
