by Laura Levine
“Yes.”
“Well, all it takes is one quick phone call and the Tahitian animal control authorities will be on your four-footed monster faster than mustard on pastrami.”
“Are you telling me that if I don’t go on another date with Konga, Prozac will be locked up in quarantine?”
“For six whole months,” he replied with a genial smile.
Can you believe it? The low-down cigar-chomping cheapskate was actually blackmailing me!
“Okay, I’ll go,” I snapped.
Then I stomped out of the room, muttering a stream of X-rated curses.
Where was Suma and her Spear of Death when I needed her?
Chapter 29
Not content with pimping me out to Konga, after lunch Manny actually expected me to work on his idiotic mothers-in-law show. Refusing to lift even a pinkie to help him, I faked a migraine and spent the rest of the day holed up with Prozac in Sauna Central.
Which, I might add, was almost as bad as a migraine.
Prozac insisted that the fan be aimed directly at her, and every time I tried to adjust it to get some of the air, too, she began yowling like a banshee.
And so I lay next to her in bed, beads of sweat spronging all over my body, making do with Prozac’s leftover breezes. So hot and lethargic was I, I didn’t even bat an eye when I saw Godzilla strolling around the room, no doubt looking for some trinket to filch.
Eventually I drifted off to sleep and dreamed I was swimming in a sea of Chunky Monkey, nibbling on stray banana bits as I swam.
Really most delightful.
Needless to say, it was quite a letdown to wake up back in Sauna Central, awash in sweat, Prozac’s tail draped over my nose.
Checking my watch, I saw that I was late for dinner, so I stumbled into my bathroom, splashed some tepid water on my face, and headed down to join the others on the patio.
As I grabbed a seat, I saw Manny and Dallas, feasting on filet mignon, while the rest of us peasants were saddled with rubberized chicken.
Dallas was the center of attention, talking about her time in jail.
“I’m thinking about writing my memoirs: Unjustly Accused: My Four Days in a Third World Prison.
“It was quite an ordeal,” she added with a deep sigh, “but somehow I found a core of inner strength that kept me going.”
An ordeal? What a crock! I almost choked on my rubber chicken when I thought about how pampered she’d been, with her hammock and foot rubs and coconut rum drinks.
As Dallas yakked away, Spencer stared down at his plate, avoiding all eye contact with her, probably embarrassed about the way he’d so unceremoniously dumped her for Hope.
But the others at the table seemed mesmerized by her tale, no doubt hoping to get hired if her memoirs were made into a major motion picture.
Next to me, Polly had the splitting headache I’d been faking all day. It seems she’d spent the entire afternoon tracking down Manny’s shipment of pastrami, which was still lost somewhere over the Pacific.
“My God,” she said. “The fuss that man is making over that pastrami. You’d think the Titanic had just sunk.”
“He’s impossible,” I agreed.
Then I told her how Manny was blackmailing me into going to Konga’s tribal ceremony.
“You poor thing,” she tsked.
“Would you mind driving me there and waiting for me to make sure I’m okay?” I asked. “Konga’s wife threatened to kill me if I ever went near him again.”
“Of course, honey,” she said. “Not a problem.”
After dinner, Polly went to her cabin to nurse her headache, while I headed down to the basement for my nightly round of Vending Machine Roulette. That night I scored a particularly stale Three Musketeers bar, no doubt manufactured sometime during the Carter administration.
I took a bite, eager to get rid of the taste of rubber chicken in my mouth, but the stuff was like granite, and, refusing to risk losing a tooth, gave up and tossed it in the trash.
Unable to face the prospect of returning to Sauna Central, I began strolling around the grounds of the mansion. It was a balmy night, with actual breezes wafting through the air. I breathed in the heady aroma of gardenias and gazed up at the night sky ablaze with stars.
For once, Paratito Island really did seem like a bit of paradise.
I was walking along, thinking about the glories of nature, the mysteries of the universe, and how I’d sell my soul for a decent dessert, when I approached the gazebo and saw two people locked in a steamy embrace.
You know what a snoop I am. I simply couldn’t resist creeping closer to the gazebo and hiding behind a hibiscus bush to get a better look at the lovers.
I almost bust a gut when I saw who they were—Spencer and Dallas!
What the what?
What happened to the brokenhearted lover I’d spoken to the other day, moaning about losing his precious Hope, the love of his life?
Right now Hope was the last thing on his mind as he held Dallas in his arms, his lips locked on hers. When they finally came up for air, Spencer said: “It’s you I loved all along, Dallas. It’s you I wanted to marry.”
“Then why did you choose Hope?” Dallas asked.
Good question.
“Manny forced me to,” Spencer said. “He insisted that marrying Hope would be good for the ratings and threatened to sue me if I didn’t go along with his plans. Said I’d be in breach of my contract.”
Are you buying any of this? I sure wasn’t.
Never once did I hear Manny talk about wanting Spencer to choose Hope. Why would Manny care who Spencer chose when he already knew his show was dead in the water? And what about all that bilge Spencer had fed me, about how he’d been head over heels in love with Hope, and that he dumped Dallas because he feared she’d be a bossy shrew like his mom?
None of this was making sense.
But apparently Dallas was buying it, because soon they were sealed in another lip-lock, sucking face with wild abandon.
Having had enough of this mushfest, I tiptoed away, heading back to the mansion, my brain abuzz with questions.
If Spencer truly loved Dallas, why had he chosen Hope to be his bride?
And suddenly I remembered how Hope had been bribing Brianna, threatening to tell the world about her past as a man. If Hope had been blackmailing Brianna, who’s to say she wasn’t blackmailing Spencer, too?
Did Hope have some hold on Spencer? Was that why she’d been so certain he was going to choose her as his bride? Had she unearthed some deep, dark royal secret and used it as leverage to get him to marry her?
And had the desperate nobleman killed her to shut her up? These were the thoughts buzzing in my brain when I heard someone call my name.
I looked up and saw Tai getting out of his Jeep and hurrying toward me.
“Wait up, Jaine!” he called out as I headed up the steps to the verandah. “I need to talk to you.”
I watched as he ran across the lawn, his muscles rippling in the moonlight. There was a time when those muscles would have reduced me to a puddle of goo, but not anymore. Now he was just a doofus with a hot bod.
“I’ve come to apologize,” he said, looking down, abashed, at the wooden decking. “I realize you may have thought I was asking you out on a date that night I asked you to dinner at my village.”
Ya think?
“I should have told you it was a set up to introduce you to my father.”
Damn straight he should have.
I was all set to give him a stern lecture on the ethics of dating Do’s and Don’ts when I happened to glance into Manny’s office window and groaned in dismay. There was Prozac, perched on top of Manny’s fish tank, her paw in the water, trolling for an exotic snack.
The little minx had broken out of Sauna Central again!
“Can’t talk now,” I said. “Gotta run.”
With that, I made a frantic dash for the front door.
“But wait!” Tai cried. “There’s so
mething I’ve got to tell you about the ceremony tomorrow night!”
But I couldn’t stand there blabbing about tribal ceremonies.
Abandoning Tai, I scurried into the mansion and made a beeline for Manny’s fish tank, where Prozac was thisclose to nabbing a spectacular rainbow-colored beauty.
With a bounding leap across the room, I managed to snatch her away from her colorful prey.
Prozac wriggled in my arms, indignant.
What a buzzkill! I swear, one of these days I’m going to put you up for adoption.
Prozac could sulk all she wanted. No way was I about to allow her to snack on one of Manny’s tropical fish.
On the other hand, I saw no reason why she couldn’t snack on Manny’s tuna salad, a tub of which I grabbed from his mini-fridge on my way out the door.
PS. It was dee-lish. And so was the Dove Bar I’d snatched for dessert.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL!
TAMPA VISTAS GAZETTE.COM
Eiffel Tower Collapses; Ronald McDonald Hijacked to Orlando
During a freak accident at the Tampa Vistas Evening in Paris gala, a seven-foot-tall papier-mâché Eiffel Tower collapsed onto Edna Lindstrom’s magnificent egg salad replica of the Arch of Triumph. Details are sketchy, but witnesses say it all started when the button on Hank Austen’s tuxedo popped off his jacket, almost poking a fellow dancer’s eye out.
In related news, Alonzo Vega, dance instructor and part-time Ronald McDonald, who was supposed to dance at last night’s gala, was instead driven to Disney World, lured by the promise of a job from a man pretending to be a producer on Dancing with the Stars.
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: So Mad I Could Spit!
I’m so mad I could spit! The Evening in Paris gala was ruined, and all because of Daddy!
Daddy actually had the gall to lure Alonzo away from the gala, pretending to be a producer from Dancing with the Stars, and roping in poor Ed Nivens to drive Alonzo all the way to Disney World so he’d miss the gala. Daddy said he only did it because he wanted to dance with me. Which, I must admit, melts my heart just a tad. But I simply can’t forgive him for what happened at the gala.
Daddy lied and said Alonzo banned Lydia from performing. But Lydia wasn’t about to bow out from the show. Luckily, she was able to recruit her brother, Lester, who was in town for the gala, to be her partner. Lester happens to be a marvelous dancer. And with the right partner guiding her, Lydia did a terrific job. She and Lester were sailing along like true pros, while I was struggling with Daddy, trying to keep him from stomping all over my beautiful new baby blue satin pumps (only $69.82, plus expedited shipping and handling). At first, everything was going along fine. (Except for the shoe stomping thing.)
All of us were doing the waltz just as Alonzo taught us, dancing in a circle: Edna and Roger, Stan and Audrey Rothman, Lydia and her brother, me and Daddy, and Nick and Gina Roulakis. There we were, whirling around beneath the Eiffel Tower in three-quarter time.
Then, just as the dance was almost over, when the men were supposed to swing their arms back in a graceful arc, Daddy hurled his arm back with all the force of an Olympic discus thrower.
And just as I feared all along, the stress on his poor tux was too much. The button on his tummy popped right off and went flying in the air, bonking Lydia’s brother Lester on his forehead, thisclose to his eye! Thank God Lester wasn’t seriously hurt. But he was so taken aback, he stumbled onto Edna and Roger, who stumbled onto the Rothmans, who stumbled onto Gina and Nick, like a bunch of dancing dominos, until finally Nick, the former linebacker, went hurtling into the papier-mâché Eiffel Tower and sent it crashing down onto Edna’s egg salad Arch of Triumph. The gala was a shambles. All because Daddy refused to rent a tux!
I may never speak to him again.
Can’t write any more. In desperate need of Oreo Therapy—
XOXO,
Mom
PS. Alonzo is threatening to sue Daddy for unlawful abduction.
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: In the Doghouse
I suppose Mom told you what happened at the gala. I can’t understand why everybody’s blaming me for what happened. After all, I wasn’t the one who crashed into that silly papier-mâché Eiffel Tower. Nick Roulakis did.
True, I never should have made that call to Alonzo, but I was so sick at the thought of him dancing with your mother, I couldn’t stop myself. Can I help it if I love her so much, I want to be the only one to hold her in my arms?
Now I’ve been banned from the clubhouse for six months, and Mom’s serving Lean Cuisine for dinner tonight.
There’s only one way out of this mess. It’ll be hell on wheels, but I’m going to have to do it.
Wish me luck, Lambchop!
Love ’n’ snuggles from your
shunned by one and all,
DaddyO
To: Jausten
From: Shoptillyoudrop
Subject: Change of Heart
You know I can’t stay mad at your daddy for long. After all, when you think about it, he went to an awful lot of trouble just to dance with me.
Today he bought me the most beautiful bouquet of roses, and tonight he’s taking me to dinner at Tampa Vistas’ most elegant restaurant, Le Chateaubriand.
And most important, sweetheart, he’s agreed to go on Lydia’s tour of Colonial Williamsburg! Isn’t that marvelous?
XOXO,
Mom
PS. More good news: One of the real producers of Dancing with the Stars read about what happened to Alonzo and has invited him to audition for the show. Alonzo’s so happy, he’s agreed not to press charges against Daddy.
WWW.TAMPA VISTAS GAZETTE.COM
Most Graceful Couple
Before the collapse of the Eiffel Tower at the Evening in Paris gala, attendees were asked to vote on the Most Graceful Couple in the Gala Waltz. The results are in and the winners are Lydia Pinkus and her brother, Lester.
To: Jausten
From: DaddyO
Subject: Arggggh!
Dearest Lambchop—
Please see attached story from the Tampa Vistas Gazette.
Life’s just not fair, is it?
Take care, love bug. I’m off to find where your mom hides her Oreos.
Love ’n’ hugs
From
DaddyO
To: Jausten
From: SirLancelot
Subject: Utter Tragedy!
Tragedy. Utter tragedy. Brett did not ask me to marry him. On the contrary, he took me to dinner to tell me he’d fallen for one of the mechanics at Senor Picasso’s, the idiot who set fire to your engine. It seems the mechanic is an aspiring actor, and Brett wants him to star in his stupid play.
And it turns out Senor Picasso made a big fuss when I told him I expected him to buy you a new engine. But as you well know, I can be pretty darn intimidating when I want to be, and so I threatened to call my attorney, Raoul (“No Case Too Big or Too Small”) Duvernois. I guess Senor Picasso must have heard of Raoul’s reputation (he’s got ads on buses all over town), because eventually Picasso agreed to replace your engine for free, and he’s not even charging you the original $39.95 for the paint job. All you’ve got to do is drive around town with Senor Picasso’s One-Day Auto Paint Job logo on the sides of your car. What fun, right? You should see the way it pops against the sunshine yellow background. Even better, they’re still going to throw in those free floor mats!
Ciao for now!
Lance
Chapter 30
Those of you who have been biting your nails, wondering if Manny’s pastrami ever made it safely across the Pacific, will be pleased to know that it showed up the next afternoon. Manny picked it up himself from the Paratito Airport and brought it back to the mansion, cradling the package in his arms like a proud papa carrying home his newborn from the hospital.
Honestly, the way he was gazing at the package, you’d think it was the Hope Diam
ond. Or a crate of Chunky Monkey.
While Manny had been off at the airport pastrami-wrangling, I’d foolishly read the latest batch of emails from back home. (You’d think that by now, in the interests of my psychic well-being, I’d be smart enough to ignore them.) Leave it to Daddy to single-handedly ruin the Tampa Vistas’ Evening in Paris gala! And how on earth was I going to drive around town with Senor Picasso’s logo plastered all over my car?
With thumbs flying, I zapped Lance a scathing text, venting my fury at being stuck with Senor Picasso’s logo and reminding him to mist my Boston fern.
But upset as I was, it was hard to stay focused on my email horror stories.
My mind kept drifting back to Spencer and Dallas and their smoochfest at the gazebo last night.
Spencer claimed Manny had forced him to choose Hope as his bride-to-be. But I wasn’t buying it. I felt certain Hope had been blackmailing Spencer, just as she’d blackmailed Brianna.
But about what?
I wracked my brains, trying to figure out what sort of hold Hope had over Spencer.