Lethally Blonde

by Nancy Bartholomew

  I don’t believe a word of it, but two weeks later, after personal trainers and coaches have done their best to work me over and prepare me for anything, I’m actually relieved to be leaving town. So what if my assignment isn’t exactly dangerous? No matter how it turns out, it’ll still be better than riding the endless party circuit and listening to dull stories told by dull people. I’ll actually have a life, even if I can’t tell anyone about it!

  The night before I am due to leave Renee calls me into her study and tells me all about my assignment.

  “Jeremy Reins, the actor, says someone’s trying to kill him,” Renee says. “But the evidence indicates it’s just another one of his publicity stunts.”

  She tells me this right after I come in from a grueling sparring match with her self-defense expert, Jimmy “The Heartbreaker” Valentine. I’ve broken four nails, had half my extensions pulled out and have the beginnings of a nasty bruise forming under my right eye. And here is Renee, telling me she doesn’t think it’s even a true assignment?

  “So, why not blow the idiot off?” I ask. “It’s not like he’s really anybody. Besides, he’s been getting himself into a lot of trouble lately. The talk is that he has an attraction for kinky sex with very young men.” I shrug. “He’s just an actor.”

  “Just an actor?” she says raising that eyebrow of hers.

  “Okay, okay, so he’s golden at the box office, but who cares? I mean, if he’s faking it, why not just let him hire extra bodyguards?”

  Renee shrugs. “The Governess feels he’s a national treasure and Jeremy’s agent, Mark Lowenstein, is married to a woman who has done us many favors in the past. Andrea Lowenstein is saying she feels a stalker or even a terrorist could be behind these attacks. Reins has done several commando, patriotic, action-adventure films in the past and could be the object of a terrorist vendetta. The Governess feels Andrea Lowenstein’s concern is credible. Anyway, it’s just not good to ignore such a visible and beloved member of the public. If something really did happen, it would make the rest of the country uneasy. We don’t need to take that chance.”

  She smiles at me, like I’m going to fall for it, and says, “We have you. With your training in clinical psychology, you’ll be perfectly capable of discerning the threat level and letting us know if we need to send a team of more seasoned agents out to eliminate the issue.”

  Seasoned agents, right! I’m sure the entire thing is just a publicity stunt. But I have to admit the idea is somewhat enticing, especially with the rumors I’ve heard on the circuit that Jeremy is gay. I like knowing the real scoop and this will certainly be the way to find out. Renee doesn’t wait for me to accept. She assumes I will do her bidding and continues talking.

  “You’ll be Jeremy’s date for the Oscars and he’ll be yours for CeCe Goldberg’s post-Oscar charity party. That’s your cover, a budding romance and your charity work,” she says. “All the Roses have special charities they support. Yours is the Miller Children’s Home. CeCe Goldberg, as I’m sure you know, is not only a world renowned investigative reporter, she is also director Spiro Goldberg’s wife and quite active with children’s charities. You’ll be the celebrity co-host of the post-Oscar event for a new children’s home attached to Miller Children’s Hospital. Andrea Lowenstein will be the only one who knows your true reason for staying at Paradise Ranch. Jeremy will be only too happy to have you as his guest because he doesn’t want the rumors about his sexuality spreading and destroying his box office appeal. You have both the name and the, er, reputation to dispel any and all doubts the public may have. I’m sure he’ll be only too happy to stick to you like glue and show you all around Paradise Ranch, as well as the rest of L.A.”

  I ignore the comment about my reputation and instead roll my eyes at the mention of Jeremy’s estate—Paradise Ranch, how nouveau riche.

  “Has he hired extra security?” I ask.

  Renee smiles. “You’re catching on, I see. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t. He says he doesn’t want his attacker to think he’s scared.”

  Great. A wild-goose chase. But then, who else would get a shot at analyzing Hollywood’s bad boy? Oh, Renee Dalton-Sinclair is good, all right. She doles out just enough information to pique my curiosity and ensure that I am willing to undergo all kinds of crash courses in self-defense and investigation, then turns me loose and says it’s probably nothing at all.

  “You know,” she says, “with your almost photographic memory and your graduate level course work in clinical psychology, you could be most useful to the Gotham Roses, should things go well with this assignment.”

  Good old Renee, dangling that golden carrot in front of me. I can only become a permanent fixture in her elite undercover organization if I prove to be successful in my mission in Los Angeles. If I wind up blowing it, I’ll be useless to the Roses. Of course, I am not about to blow it; sneaking around spying into the secret lives of my fellow rich and famous sure beats attending boring theory courses in psychology at the New School. This is where the real fun is.

  “What about the press?” I ask. “I mean, will they accept that Jeremy and I are an item? We’ve never been seen together in public before now.”

  Renee smiles. “Oh, but you have. Andrea and I have taken care of that on both coasts. Just read In The Know. Rubi Cho’s mentioned the two of you at least three times in her gossip column for the New York Reporter this week. And Andrea’s had Jeremy’s publicist vehemently denying any blossoming romance between the two of you. That should be enough right there to spark a paparazzi feeding frenzy.”

  When I wake up in the morning, I pack and prepare for the long trip to L.A. and my new action-packed life. As I walk out to Renee’s waiting limo, her fifteen-year-old daughter, Haley, comes running up behind me.

  “Hey!” she calls. Then, when I keep walking, she says it again. “Hey!”

  I stop and turn to look back over my shoulder, surprised because the little twit’s made a point of ignoring me for the entire time I’ve been a guest in her home. She’s standing there in her school uniform, looking like a runaway Playmate with her long, straight blond hair, her huge, gray eyes and that innocent, pouty mouth older women pay big bucks for at the plastic surgeon’s office.

  I think she’s talking to the driver until she zeroes in on me and says, “Mind if I ride along to the airport?”

  I figure it’s Marlena who’s garnered her interest so I say, “She bites.”

  “What?”

  That’s when I realize Haley hasn’t even noticed Marlena wrapped around my neck like a fur scarf.

  “You need a ride to school?”

  Haley shakes her head and starts walking toward the car like she owns it, which I suppose, technically, she does. She breezes past me, clambers into the back seat of the limo and before I can even sit down says, “Are you really Jeremy Reins’s girlfriend? So, what’s he like in bed?”

  “What?”

  I look at Renee’s princess daughter and know my mouth is hanging open. I reach forward, hit the button to slide the privacy glass up between us and the driver and then turn to give the little twit a piece of my mind.

  “Listen, where I come from we don’t kiss and tell—and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell a kid like you about something like that! What is wrong with you?”

  Haley leans back against the seat and looks at me and I realize she’s completely unfazed by my attempt to chastise her.

  “You’re a prude, aren’t you?” she says, like it’s a matter-of-fact thing and not a slur on my good name.

  “No,” I say, wishing Marlena would wake up and bite the little shit. “I am just wise enough to know when to keep my mouth shut.”

  “Oh, come on!” Haley says, pouting.

  “Does your mother know where you are?” I say, and immediately want to shoot myself for sounding like my own mother.

  “Can I bum a cigarette?”

  “I don’t smoke,” I say, and realize, too late, that Haley is right in the middle of Mahler’s s
eparation-individuation process and doesn’t really mean what she’s saying. So I remember my training and attempt to be therapeutic; after all, this is the first day of my new life.

  “Haley, in order to break away from your mother and become your own person, it is perfectly normal for you to rebel and do things that your mother would disapprove of,” I say. “But smoking will kill you.”

  “Oh, blow me!” Haley says. Then she sits up and starts rummaging through the drawers of the wet bar until at last she retrieves a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  “Don’t even think about lighting one of those things!” I command. “Marlena is allergic to smoke.”

  Haley gives Marlena a look, like she’s trying to size her up, and finally tosses the pack of unfiltered cigarettes back into the drawer.

  “What is he like?” she asks, reverting to Jeremy.

  “Spoiled,” I answer.

  “Does he love you?”

  I give up and decide to enjoy my new role as Jeremy Reins’s fictitious girlfriend. I smile slyly and raise my eyebrows, and then lean in close, like I’m actually going to share a secret with this hellion.

  “He’s mad for me,” I say, and giggle. “He fills my tub every night with champagne heated to a perfect ninety-eight degrees, and then he floats rose petals on the water, and not the red ones, either. He knows I abhor red roses, so he has pale yellow and orange ones flown in from his farm in Florida.”

  Haley’s eyes are practically popping out of her head and I continue, completely into the lie now.

  “He once took a slim silver dagger and sliced a thin line down the center of his chest. When it bled he looked at me, with tears in his eyes….”

  “Because it hurt?” she says, interrupting.

  I shake my head. “No, it was the depth of his emotional attachment to me that made him cry. He said ‘I would cut my heart out for you, for our love.’”

  Haley sucks in her breath. “But like, wouldn’t he be dead then?”

  I close my eyes and shake my head slowly back and forth. “No, idiot, he meant it as a gesture and as a way of saying that our love would transcend our current earthly incarnations and last for all eternity.”

  “Oh, man!” Haley sighs. “I want to be loved like that!”

  Don’t we all, I thought, and am relieved to see the airport come into view. How had Haley learned about my mission anyway? Was her mother careless? What if this had been a really dangerous assignment? But when I ask Haley about it, she shrugs and smiles coyly.

  “I’m not the only sneaky person in the family,” she says. “I have my ways.”

  I make a mental note to take this up with Renee upon my return. Perhaps the bond between mother and daughter could be repaired with stricter generational boundaries; at least, that’s the family systems theory. I personally think a good smack is in order.

  “Please, please, please get his autograph for me,” Haley begs as I get out of the limo and start for the private concourse. Then, apparently thinking this uncool, she shakes her head vigorously. “No, don’t do that! Bring me a pair of his underwear instead. Used.”

  I don’t think this even warrants a response. I leave her there, staring after me and walk away as fast as I can. I breeze past the security checkpoint and to where a private plane waits for me. For once in my life, I’m glad to be leaving New York. L.A. and Jeremy Reins seem like a vacation compared to the rigorous two weeks I’ve had training to be a Gotham Rose.

  I toy with the idea of calling my mother, but just as quickly decide not to. She and Victor have been in England for three weeks now and I try to forget the argument we had before they left. Parents just have a hard time letting their adult children lead their own lives. Mama was just mad because I bought a penthouse in the West Village instead of living with them.

  The flight is so long! It seems to be taking forever to reach L.A. and maybe that’s just fine with me because I can’t decide if I’m nervous about the next week or just sick of flying.

  “Miss Rothschild, we are making our approach to LAX,” Tim, the pilot says over the intercom finally. The stewardess emerges from the cockpit, somewhat disheveled from her attempt at keeping her balance while we pitched and rolled, takes her seat and buckles herself in for the landing.

  I look out the window and then over at Marlena in the seat beside me. She’s curled up, sleeping, looking like a tiny snowdrift of white fur except for the itty-bitty black satin eyeshades I had made for her. She likes them. The moment I put them on, she settles down and goes to sleep. Before the eyeshades, I had to sedate her when we traveled. I figured, what a ferret can’t see, a ferret won’t worry about, and I was right.

  The runway comes up to smack the plane tires and we land with a little bump that shakes Marlena awake. I reach over and take off her blindfold.

  “We’re here, sleepyhead,” I say. Marlena yawns, showing a mouthful of pearly, sharp teeth, and I lean down to kiss her nose. “We’re going to Paradise.”

  I gather up Marlena and my purse, and begin making my way to the front of the plane and stop when I see Tim, the pilot, standing by the doorway. This isn’t unusual—in fact, it’s expected—but something about Tim is different, and before I can even consciously figure out what is wrong with the picture, I find myself feeling irritated.

  He stifles a yawn, tries to cover it with by smiling, and says, “Hope you had a good flight, Miss Rothschild.”

  I feel a tiny frown wrinkle its way across my forehead and try to smile back, but I’m thinking Since when have I been Miss Rothschild to you and not Porsche? And a visual memory cue plays its way across the movie screen inside my head and I see Tim and I clinging to each other and laughing one sweltering hot night on a beach just south of Rio de Janeiro and realize that even months after that mistake of an encounter, I was still Porsche, so what’s changed? And then I notice that the zipper on Tim’s pants is not quite fully zipped and I see the tiniest smear of pink on Tim’s collar. It is the same shade of pink lipstick the new stewardess, Dorothy, is wearing. I feel my face start to color.

  I nod to Tim, but it’s frosty. I continue on past him, down the steps toward Dorothy, and I am so intent on my mission that I almost fail to notice three people walking across the tarmac toward the plane, two men and a brunette.

  Then I see something else, a brief flash of silver glinting in the sunlight of a bright L.A. afternoon. When I glance in that direction, I see two men driving a baggage cart toward the plane, which would be fine if my Hawker jet were a commercial carrier, but completely out of place now, especially as the cart has the words “Amazon Airlines” emblazoned on the front grill.

  I start to turn my head back toward Dorothy, and stop as something distracts me. I squint, narrowing my eyes and trying to force my 20/60 vision to do more with the far-off object I see held in the man’s free hand. A gun? Certainly not. But the cart picks up speed and seems not to notice the three people in its path mere yards away.

  I’m on the bottom step when something—instinct—takes over and I shove Marlena into Dorothy’s surprised arms and take off running.

  “Look out!” I yell, not sure if I’m warning the three people in harm’s way, or the unaware driver.

  I am running faster than I have in years and I have the advantage because I’m closer to my greeting party than the cart is, but it has a motor and I’m wearing Manolo Blahniks with a three-inch heel.

  “Look out!” I scream.

  The brunette is the only one who hears me. She looks up, sees me running and does a double-take as she sees the baggage cart heading right for her. I am close enough to see the fright in her eyes, to hear the whine of the engine as the maniacal driver stomps on the accelerator and bears down on his waiting victims.

  The brunette swings left, stiff arms the man on her right and I see them both fly backward. I launch myself toward the other man and feel my body soar into the path of the oncoming vehicle.

  I hit Jeremy Reins midchest, hear the whoosh of breath leaving his b
ody as we fall. I smell hot exhaust fumes and hear the cart’s engine rush past us, missing us by inches, it seems. The cart squeals to a stop, backs up and then the guy turns the cart around. He is actually heading back in our direction. At first I assume he is coming to check on us, but with a shock I realize this is not the case.

  “He’s got a camera!” the brunette cries.

  A camera? Not a gun, but a camera?

  Two other guys come running out from the concourse building onto the gray tarmac—big, burly men wearing suits and carrying guns. They waste no time. They fire and the driver takes off, circles wide and veers away from us, but his passenger just keeps snapping away, apparently oblivious to the fact that he’s being shot at! Beneath me, Jeremy Reins is recovering his composure.

  “Hel-lo, darling!” he drawls. “Come to Daddy!”

  I look down at him and see dark eyes, black, curly long hair, and realize this fool is smirking at me. I am lying directly on top of him and I realize something else at the same time; contrary to popular belief, Jeremy Reins is not only not gay, he is quite happy to meet me.

  He brings his hands up, cups my bottom and gives me, Porsche Rothschild, a firm double-handed squeeze! I draw back and am about to slap him, when his eyes darken, his grip tightens, and he says through gritted teeth and a completely phony smile, “Watch it, lovey, the press has its eye on us!”

  I plaster an equally fake smile on my face, dart a quick glance to the right through my dark Versace sunglasses and see the swell of photographers lining the upper windows of the concourse. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking, and I am resisting the ridiculous urge to cry—all signs, I’m sure, of my leftover adrenaline rush and the near miss with the baggage cart.

  Jeremy pulls me down into a long, slipped-tongue kiss of welcome, which I resist for all I’m worth. “Lovey, now, play along!” he cajoles.

  I ignore him and push away just as the two men with guns arrive, accompanied by the brunette and a man I assume must be Jeremy’s agent, Mark Lowenstein.