“I see the pills are already starting to take effect. C’mon, I have to go get dressed. The awards ceremony starts in just a couple of hours.”
“Oh, girl, we’ll need way more than a couple of hours to get this mess cleaned up,” he said, circling her face with his finger. “Don’t worry, though, the Virgo is on the case.”
Twelve
The Hideous Color Purple
Bailey was at home waiting for Graham Shore to call. He’d said he was going to call at 7:00 P.M. sharp, and it was 6:55. As much as she hated being one of those girls who waited by the phone, he was on a mountain in Alaska, so this was an exception. Plus, he was always very punctual. She looked at her cell to make sure it was on Ring and not Silent, but just as she picked it up to check, it rang, showing an unknown number. Wow, Graham was early. Maybe he was as excited to talk to her as she was to talk to him, she thought.
“Hello, lovah,” she started.
“Ummm…. Miss Warfield?” the voice said.
“Oy! Yes.” Oh, god. Bailey was mortified. It wasn’t Graham.
“This is Detective Rob Casey. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
“Well, I am waiting for another call,” she said, cringing.
“Oh, so you don’t answer your phone like that all the time,” he said jokingly.
“Yes…. I mean no. What can I do for you, Detective?”
“I need to close your case, and I had a few follow-up questions—”
She interrupted him. “Yes, I got your message. Listen, I have to get off the line, so why don’t you come over here in about an hour and we can fill out whatever paperwork and you can ask me whatever questions you have, okay?”
“Tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, is that okay? I’m leaving for L.A. in the morning, so if not tonight it’ll have to wait until the end of next week.”
“Okay, I can swing by,” he said, purposefully. Code for “I can’t stay too long.”
“I have to go.” She had call waiting, of course, but she was just too anxious to stay on the phone with someone who wasn’t Graham, so she hung up. It was 6:59.
By 7:50 she was in shambles. She was not good at relationships, and this was a great example of why. The truth was, Bailey may have been magnificent to look at, wildly successful, from an amazing, charitable family, and she was exceedingly good at her job— but she was terrible with men.
Sure, to an outsider she appeared to be a skilled puppeteer who controlled every aspect of her life with poise. Yet she just couldn’t transfer that confidence into her relationships. She was a ball of insecurity who still, at age thirty-seven, analyzed every little aspect of her relations.
A typical call to a friend went like this: “Jennifer, listen, it’s me, Bailey. Do me a favor, listen to this message…. What?…. No, it’s Zander. He left me that today, then he didn’t call by four when he said he would. … No, no, listen again. There, where he says he needs some rest. What’s up with that? Should I call him?”
Other times she would describe a date in full detail for diagnostic purposes. Her friends were disturbed by this characteristic of hers.
“Bailey, listen. Maybe you should just relax and let some time pass. Not every single thing a guy says has meaning. You’re probably driving the guy nuts.”
“Driving him nuts? How? He should be fucking overjoyed to have me. Fuck him!” It didn’t take many of these calls before her “friends” would stop answering the phone.
Bailey focused so much on her relationships with men that she really didn’t actually develop her relationships with women; they ended up being just sounding boards. In fact, she had only one woman whom she called a friend, her roommate from college, who now lived in Seattle.
When asked about her intense insecurity, Bailey would dismiss it, saying it was merely “an occupational hazard,” which might have been the case were she an investigative reporter, but she wasn’t. The truth was that she did have an occupational hazard that affected her in a much more tangible way. Since she had spent so much time in the world of celebrity and entertainment, she was all too familiar with the desultory nature of celebrity relationships, narcissistic personalities, the lack of loyalty, and, in many cases, the complete lack of character. Her prolonged exposure to this lifestyle was more of a problem than she realized.
Not only did she report on affairs but she had them. So why on earth would she trust a man she was with to be loyal? She’d learned her lesson early. When she was eighteen, she met Matt Damon at Harvard, the only school anyone in her family was allowed to attend, especially after the library’s Warfield wing had been erected. She had an all-consuming relationship with the handsome young English major, who spent most of the school year jetting off to L.A. to make movies. His parents had divorced early on in his life, prompting him to say rather often how much he liked her family’s stability and how he longed to be a part of it; they frequently talked of their future together. But when Hollywood began to become his, he called less frequently, saying he was too busy; and he stopped making plans for their future, rightfully provoking her paranoia. She finally decided to fly out to California to surprise him, only to discover that he had been having a torrid affair with the actress Annabeth Gish, whom he’d met on the set of Mystic Pizza. Bailey was crushed. At that moment she decided she was never again going to let a powerful man overpower her—well, emotionally anyway. Sexually, she didn’t mind at all. So began her career as paramour to the stars, in which she never actually became attached to any particular one.
Eight P.M. rolled around, and she still hadn’t heard from Graham. Because most of her acquaintances were sick of hearing her go on about yet another man who didn’t do the right thing, she grabbed her phone and decided to call Coco, a fresh ear. Just then, the doorbell rang. Her parents were out for the night, and there was nobody to greet the guest at the door, so she moped her way downstairs wearing an oversize man’s shirt, not really caring whether she was presentable. Being Bailey, she actually looked pretty hot, but she didn’t care.
“Of course! Detective Casey,” she said in sudden realization as she approached the door.
Rob Casey stood on the front step looking as handsome as ever, wearing slim-fit, dark denim jeans that made his waist look small yet gathered in all the right places, with a steel blue, nicely fitted utility shirt that showed off his perfectly defined pecs, under a double-breasted twill peacoat, which revealed a pair of robust and ready shoulders. When Bailey opened the door, she exhaled softly. He was as beautiful as she was.
Bailey didn’t know that he was dressed for Olivia, not her; it simply didn’t occur to her. All she could think about was him standing there in front of her. She was sad about Graham, feeling lonely and abandoned, and it was as if the gods of heartbreak had sent her this hunk of man meat as a consolation prize. Not one to waste any time, Bailey dashed through the art of seduction by pulling him inside with one hand while unbuttoning her shirt to the navel with the other. Then she sidled up to him, grabbed his face, and kissed him wildly.
Rob was completely taken by surprise, just as any man would have been upon being ravaged by a seemingly untouchable, hot-as-hell, half-naked woman. His immediate reaction was to pull her to him, feeling her incredible, pert breasts rubbing along his shirt as she kissed his neck and rubbed her hand along his immediately rock-hard visitor through his jeans. It had been so long since he’d had any sex, let alone with a woman who looked like this. And, though he wasn’t bound to anyone in particular, he recovered his senses momentarily and held her by the shoulders, pushing her back a step and examining her delicious body.
“Good lord, Ms. Warfield. I, uh. Wow, you’re amazing. You’re beautiful, and you feel incredible, but I’m really sorry. I can’t.”
Bailey stopped, stunned.
“What.” She didn’t say it as a question. What. What the fuck? No man had ever done that to her. She was flabbergasted.
“I just…. I’m here on official business. I’m afraid it would be comp
letely inappropriate, as nice as I’m sure it would be. Please. Pardon me.”
Quick to recover and regain her pride, Bailey countered, “No, no. Pardon me. I don’t know what came over me. I was just dozing. I thought—I guess I thought you were someone else. I’d been expecting…. Never mind. Forget it ever happened.”
“Okay, good. I, I almost forgot the reason I came here to begin with.” He reached into his coat pocket. “Would you mind signing this for me?”
“Oh, sure,” she said as she reached for the pen he was handing her. She felt like an ass, and now they had nothing more to say to each other. She wanted him to leave as fast as he could so she could go inside and cry.
Just then, Bailey’s phone rang. Thank god, she thought. She signed, handed the paper to Rob, and waved as she closed the door while answering her phone.
“Hi, baby,” the soft, sexy, yet masculine voice on the phone said. “We were in a place on the mountain where the satellite phones weren’t working. I’m so sorry I’m late calling you. You good?”
It was Graham. Damn, why had she been so fucking insecure?
Coco stared into the mirror, watching CJ trying to make up her face. He was a terrible gay, knew nothing about makeup. He hesitantly dusted her cheeks with blush but was timid with the eye shadow, and he looked blankly at a pencil of some kind that was flesh-colored. “I don’t know what this is,” he said. Then, addressing the pencil, “What are you? Where do you go?”
He knew she looked ghastly, but he just didn’t know how to fix her.
“Hang on a second. You looked amazing at the Halloween party. You can do Sarah Palin but you can’t do anything else?” Coco asked.
“I didn’t do that,” he admitted. “They put me together at work. I’m one of the few gays you’ll meet who never did drag, and I know nothing about makeup. I just know what looks good. I’m good with men’s fashion, but that’s where I draw the line.”
“You have amazing style!” Coco said, comforting him.
“I can put an outfit together for me, I’m just not a cliché gay.”
“Well, thank the lord for that,” she said. “It’s not all Will and Grace, you know.”
“True. Oh, but let me call Dajuan,” he said, reaching for his phone.
Dajuan was an amazing makeup artist at the Rachael Ray show, and CJ realized he might be able to save the day.
“Baby doll, we have got one serious fashion emergency here,” CJ said when Dajuan finally picked up. Knowing full well that CJ’s strengths were in other areas, Dajuan took over immediately. He suggested they photograph Coco’s face, all the makeup, and all possible outfit combinations, and text the photos to him. Coco had brought only a few outfits, so they had to be creative.
“Damn, I wish we had Skype,” CJ said as he snapped away. Once the photos were sent, they put Dajuan on speaker-phone.
“What on earth did you try to do with that pencil, CJ?” he admonished. “Uh-uh. We’re starting all over here. That’s not makeup, that’s throw-up.”
Dajuan had incredible style and had been working in fashion for a long time. He and CJ worked on her for the next hour, and, in the end, Coco looked stunning. CJ was so proud of himself that he took photos of her from every possible angle so that Dajuan could see his work.
“That’s it, baby! Dajuan can work his magic in-ter-state!” crowed his voice on the speaker.
“Let’s open up some champagne,” CJ suggested, walking to the minibar. “We’ll need a social lubricant for tonight’s activities.”
“Good idea,” Coco replied.
“Oh, I’ve had mine. I got started as soon as I got on the call,” said Dajuan.
They thanked their savior of the evening, promised a night out when they got back to town, and hung up.
Champagne in hand, CJ turned to Coco. “Honey, I have to ask why your man isn’t here with you. When you left, I assumed that because it was a business trip you couldn’t bring him along. So on the way here I was wondering why you called me and not him.”
“Because I never told him about the mayor or what we saw. I didn’t want to get him involved, whereas you already are. It seemed like the right move.”
“Well, if that’s all it is, I won’t pry. Okay, who am I kidding? I have to know, what’s the deal with the two of you? Why aren’t you married?”
“Really? From a gay man in Greenwich of all places, I’m getting the Speech?”
“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? Nobody in Greenwich society would be unmarried for this long. I’m sure everyone wonders about you two. I mean…. you are a pretty butch girl. If he’s a beard, just say so.”
“Ha, ha, very funny. But since you asked, the marriage issue has been a sticking point. He proposes every year, and every year I say no because I never understood the meeting, dating, getting married thing. A wedding should be a celebration of a couple’s real bond, something you can’t actually have with someone until you’ve been together for a while. I think a couple shouldn’t get married until they’ve been together ten years. That’s when they can legitimately celebrate a connection and a life together. I don’t think a wedding should cele-brate some haphazard, lustful romantic notion that usually happens when two people barely know each other’s names. I’ve never understood that.”
“Okay. So, how long have you been with Sam then?” CJ asked.
“Almost ten years.”
“So?”
“Well, that’s why we’re having issues. He knows how I feel—and basically agrees—so he wants to get married this year, and I’m…. thinking it over.”
“Why just ‘thinking it over’ and not jumping right into it after all these years?” CJ asked, looking into her eyes. “Oh no, it’s sex, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not sex. It’s the fact that he’s glumming around because he was forced out of his company. Which is being made worse by those goddamned phony documents,” Coco said flatly. “But now that you mention it, our sex life could be better. Whose couldn’t? I can’t even talk to him about it. I asked him ‘Why is it all we ever do is missionary and girl on top? Don’t you want to be adventurous?’ And he said no, that’s who he was, a boring sex guy, take it or leave it.”
“Yikes. Nothing worse than going to Disneyland and only one ride is working, honey.”
“Exactly. But he’s happy with the way things are. Sam’s idea of experimenting is seeing if he can get it up while Nancy Grace is on.”
“Oooh. Oh, honey, you two definitely need to start experimenting. Just try one new thing and see how it goes.”
“I don’t know. We’ve been together a long, long time. After a while sex just stops being adventurous, I suppose. I should probably just get over it.”
“No it doesn’t, not for everyone.”
“For most people,” she said, hoping that was true and she wasn’t missing out.
“Not for my grandparents or Nanny. They all still have wild sex.”
She looked at him with a worried expression. “I’m afraid to ask. Do you mean together?”
“Oh, god, no…. no! No, no, no. But they might. My grandparents are pretty out there.” He laughed. “And before you ask, I know because I visit them and stay the night all the time. So, trust me. I know.”
“So sex in your golden years, huh? Must be nice. What are they into?”
“I don’t know what they’re into, I just know they do it and that my grandma wears a diaper, but those ideas aren’t related. No golden showers in the golden years, I guess.”
“That’s gross.”
“Anyway, I say get married so I can buy a hat.”
“Oh, crap, look at the time. I was supposed to call Rory twenty minutes ago.”
CJ looked at her with wide eyes and said, “You know who knows everything about everybody? My aunt Lois. We have a huge resource there that we need to tap into tonight. She practically runs Greenwich.”
“Can I put you in charge of that? You’re better at getting information out of people. You’re li
ke the gay Gestapo.” She dialed the phone, but before it rang through she put her hand over the receiver and said, “And you are calling Malcolm and apologizing. We need him, too. …. Rory! Hi.”
As she spoke to Rory, there was a knock on the door. Coco motioned to CJ to answer it, thinking it was room service, she hoped with more champagne. Instead, it was the handsome, windswept Jordan Ainsworth with the champagne.
“I intercepted the guy on the way up. May I come in?” He was so smug.
“Oh, yes!” CJ was suckered in right away. “C’mon in, gorgeous.”
For Olivia, eagerness turned to acrimony with every minute Rob was late. She started thinking that maybe this wasn’t a date since he hadn’t shown up on time. Then he nonchalantly called to say he had a late-running case, something no date of hers had ever done. She was under the impression that hers was his biggest case at the moment and the reason he was coming over. Nothing made sense, but it was made even worse because she didn’t know if this was a date or not. If it wasn’t a date, fine. She would just hear what he’d found about her mother and the forged documents. If it was a date, then, she wondered, should she give him the lameness-of-lateness speech? Olivia didn’t believe in being fashionably late for anything, since she was neither fashionable nor late. Ever.
But when Rob finally arrived, Olivia was just so happy to see his handsome face she forgot completely that she might be angry. Instinctually, she wanted to run up and hug him, but she channeled Joan Harris again and kept cool, as if she hadn’t even noticed the time.
“Oh, hi,” she said.
“Sorry I’m so late. I was closing another case and had some unexpected issues arise,” he said, without a glimmer of self-consciousness.
“No problem. I have so much work to do that I didn’t actually notice the time.”
“Oh, really? What are you working on?” He was in a particularly jovial mood.
“I worked on a study last year, and we just got the results back, so I’m writing it up for my colleagues. I’m still publishing academically,” she said reluctantly, since she didn’t think he could possibly be interested in her life outside his police work.
The Yoga Club Page 18