Palm Springs Heat

by DC Thome

  “The other day being yesterday?”

  Tiffany nodded with exuberance, her Lhasa apso hair bobbing all around her face.

  “I guess that explains a lot. But why did you wake me up at five-thirty?”

  “Oh, well, you see,” Tiffany moved briskly to Lara’s side of the bed while manipulating the phone’s touch screen, “I saw that you like to work out every day, and, really, this is the only time you’ll have for that today. So I thought you might—” She froze when she noticed Lara looking down with a furrowed brow and pursed lips. “That’s cool, right, Miss D?”

  “What?”

  “That I woke you up so you could work out.”

  “Huh?” Lara stared at Tiffany’s legs until Tiffany looked down at her silver spray-painted army boots and tattered fence-net pantyhose that ended just above her knees.

  “What, the pantyhose?”

  And the boots. Lara nodded.

  “I just snipped them off with a scissors.” Tiffany tugged at the ragged tops. “And sewed in some elastic so they’d stay up. They’re boss, right?”

  “They’re different.”

  “Thank you. That’s so sweet. Is there anything else for now?”

  “No, I think I’m fine.”

  “Cool. See you L eight R, Miss D.” Tiffany bounced toward the door.

  “Tiffany?”

  “L eight R, like when people text and they mean ‘later.’”

  “I got that. Why do you keep calling me ‘Miss D’?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “No, it’s fine. It’s just that no one ever called me that.”

  “Oh. It’s what people do around here.”

  “So I should call you Miss T?”

  “Oh, no. Definitely not. I’m not, like, a personage.”

  “A personage?”

  “You know. Like you and Ms. V and Mr. C.”

  “So, what should I call you?”

  “Tiffany.”

  “Right.” Lara smiled. “It was cool to wake me up at five-thirty so I could work out. Very good thinking.”

  Tiffany let out a sigh of relief.

  “But,” Lara continued, “is there any time in the schedule for me to get a little breakfast?”

  * * *

  Breakfast was a short stack of whole grain pancakes done exactly the way Lara liked them—crispy around the edges, pleasantly spongy in the middle—served with a medley of fruit, including the biggest, sweetest blackberries Lara had ever seen or tasted. The gym had all the latest equipment and a massage therapist named Gretchen who gave Lara a vigorous rubdown in a steam bath fit for a Roman palace. Everything at Heat, like everything associated with Fast Lane, was top-notch.

  Afterward, Lara showered in the waterfall. Tiffany helped her pick out “traveling clothes,” a simple black shift and comfy sandals. Two of Chartre’s assistants packed the rest of Lara’s mountain of new clothes onto the helicopter. Tiffany assured Lara that anything else she might need or want would be available at the ICE House.

  Lara and her new girl Friday boarded Elway at eight forty-five. Twenty minutes into the flight, Lara looked out a window and marveled at the way humans had managed to colonize every nook and cranny of the Los Angeles basin. Even the slopes and tops of those mountains that bisected it all were crisscrossed with roads—roads that Lara, lamentably, had so seldom taken advantage of. She wondered how many people there were like her who felt alone in the midst of an almost endless cityscape. Had clinging to Van Nuys been a shrinking violet’s way of avoiding novelty and adventure?

  Van Nuys. I wish. When’s the last time I told someone I grew up in Reseda?

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it, how spread out it is?” Tiffany looked through the window over Lara’s shoulder. “It’s so great, though, how easy it is to, you know, just hop onto the freeway and live whatever dream you feel like having that day. Your bio says you’re from the valley?”

  “I grew up in Van Nuys,” Lara said.

  “That is so awesome.”

  Van Nuys is better than Reseda. But awesome?

  “When I was in high school,” Tiffany chirruped, “my friends and I would just drive until we saw something cool. One time we hit this unbelievable farmers market in Encino that had all these wild veggies and things, like kohlrabi and champagne grapes and this spicy Vietnamese paste that we didn’t even know what you were supposed to do with it, and we ordered these unbelievable fish tacos. Sometimes we’d randomly stop at some restaurant—they have the best Mexican restaurants in the valley. Authentic. Not like the bullshit ones on the West Side.”

  “You don’t like any restaurants on the West Side?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “Some. But the valley is, like, real, you know?”

  “I’ve been to the farmers market you’re talking about,” Lara said. “Never tried the fish tacos. Which restaurant do you mean?”

  “It was…si. Si something.”

  “Si Maria?”

  “Is that a real restaurant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, no. It was more like solly.”

  “Sol y Luna?”

  “That’s it! Wow!”

  “I must’ve eaten there a hundred times growing up.”

  “Get out!”

  “They have the best chili rellenos.”

  “Are they like heaven?” Tiffany gazed off into the ether.

  Lara nodded.

  “I had a combo platter, because, you know, that way, you can try lots of different things,” Tiffany said.

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Silver Lake.”

  “But you hung out in the valley?”

  “I hung out everywhere. Hollywood. Korea Town. Tarzana. I mean, there’s so many awesome places. Not like I have to tell you.” She sat in the seat next to Lara and checked her phone. “I’m totally stoked that we’re talking like, you know, BFFs, but there’s still some business to cover. It’s cool, right? To talk business?”

  “We don’t have to hate each other to talk business.”

  “Oh, right. That’s awesome, because we’ll be in Malibu in ten.”

  Tiffany went over the schedule again. Lara tried to pay attention, but she figured the schedule would change and people would herd her around all day, so there was no reason to memorize anything. Instead, she thought about how much Tiffany’s view of the world differed from her own. If she had approached life with that much gusto, might she never have gotten mixed up with her asshole ex-husband? And was it possible that, instead of being on a mission to avenge the wronged women of the world, she would be happily married somewhere? Or working as a publicist for A-list stars who made A-list movies?

  What would I be doing right now? Not flying into Malibu to meet a bunch of people whose livelihood I’m secretly trying to destroy.

  * * *

  As the chopper approached its destination, Lara marveled at the size of the ICE House compound. The house jutted from the cliff, leaving plenty of room for tennis, basketball and jai alai courts, a pool, a smattering of spas and a serpentine dirt track that ran in and around and through everything else.

  “Sometimes Mr. C and other people get into these little go-kart things and race them around the track,” Tiffany explained. “And that massive building over there? That’s where he keeps all his totally boss old cars.”

  “Wow.” Lara wasn’t thinking about go-karts or antique cars. She was thinking about selling her ruse, starting with the two incumbents of The Rotation. What if Taequanda and Corynne don’t like me? What if they can tell I’m a fraud?

  “So,” Tiffany said, “are you nervous about today?”

  Oh, shit, she can tell. But wouldn’t anyone be nervous in my position?

  “Should I be?”

  “Not really. I mean, anyone would. But you’re going to like the other girls. And they’re going to like you.”

  “That’s reassuring.” Truly.

  “Then there’s Spike.”

  “What is Spike? A guard dog?�
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  “The photog. He does look like a dog, though.”

  “A mean one?”

  “A snippy one. That likes biting your pants leg.”

  “I see,” Lara said, though she didn’t really.

  Elway touched down.

  “He’ll probably take like a million shots of you right as we get off the copter,” Tiffany warned. “He’ll expect you to look natural, like you’re not even aware that he’s there, so don’t try to look glamorous or whatnot.”

  Lara nodded. “Gotcha. Look natural.”

  “Just be you.” Tiffany said. The chopper’s doors flew open.

  The first thing Lara saw was the piercing flash of a camera. The first thing she heard was a high-pitched, somewhat male, sing-song voice blaring, “Gotch-aaaaa!”

  Lara blinked away the flash to see a hedge of silver hair. Not gray. Not white. Silver. The singsong voice came out of a mouth below a pair of glasses with the thickest, blackest rims Lara had ever seen, and it said, “I lu-uv that. Every new girl…always the same!”

  “Now I know what you mean about Spike.” Lara had to talk over the roar of the engine and beating of the blades. She moved forward, but Tiffany grabbed her arm until an assistant put down a step.

  “A little to the left,” Tiffany said into Lara’s ear.

  One instance where I don’t mind being herded.

  “Spike, you are such a fucking asshole,” said a statuesque black woman with angled cheekbones and sumptuous purple lips. She held out her hand and smiled at Lara. “Take my hand, honey. I’m Taequanda.”

  She wore a dress similar to Lara’s, but while Lara could feel where hers tugged and bunched, Taequanda’s looked and moved like it was part of her body.

  “I’m Lara.”

  “Everyone knows who you are,” Corynne said as she put an arm around Lara’s waist. “I’m Corynne.”

  The experienced Rotation members flanked Lara and guided her toward the house. With the flashes and the sun and the Santa Anas blowing her hair into her face, Lara worked hard to appear natural. The other two, on the other hand, simply looked natural. Such poise.

  “Okay-yee!” Spike wailed. “Let’s get inside, pee-pull! Grande-double-latte to do today!”

  Lara screwed up her face. What?

  “What he’s saying is he’s a pompous ass,” Taequanda said. “Hey, Spike—how about talking in a language familiar to humans?”

  Lara winced as Spike unexpectedly snapped a shot just inches from her face. No matter where she looked, she saw nothing but purple dots.

  “That should look natural,” she said.

  “Don’t let his bullshit get to you,” Taequanda said as she and Corynne led Lara to the door. “Don’t let any of this bullshit get to you.”

  * * *

  Inside hummed like a beehive. Assistants worshipping their phones and gaffers and grips lugging poles and dollies and lamps danced in a frenzied ballet up and down the halls and into and out of the various rooms.

  “How many rooms does this place have?” Lara asked.

  “Sixty-nine,” Corynne said.

  “Sixty—?”

  “You got it,” Taequanda chimed in, shaking her head. “That’s what happens when men get a say in things.”

  “It looks like we’re having our pictures taken in every one of them.” Lara dodged a grunt who raced down the hall with a stack of boxes.

  Taequanda glared at the grunt. “Hey!”

  The grunt stopped cold and looked around the boxes at Taequanda. “Sorry.”

  “Damn right, you are.” She turned to Lara. “Everybody knows that kind of thing doesn’t fly with Tae-Q.”

  “Girlfriends!” Spike’s annoying soprano surfed above the clamor. He clapped twice. The crowd parted and he sailed toward the three women.

  He looks like a Disney character. Aladdin, but with spiky metal hair.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Corynne said. “He’s a bit over-the-top, but he actually knows what he’s doing.”

  “Just don’t ever let him think you think he does,” Taequanda said.

  Spike stopped a few feet away, put his hands on his hips, leaned back and gave them the once-over. Multiple times. “My, but are-ent oui altogether a vision of eeee-ternity!”

  Lara’s eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out what he meant, why he had said “we” like oui but with an H in front of it so it sounded like “hwee.” And why does every sentence he says seem to end in an exclamation point?

  “Can the flattery,” Taequanda said. “We know we’re too hot for the Mojave. But we’re here to work.”

  “Oh, that you are,” Spike said, eyeing Taequanda head to toe. “And, baby, I love to watch you work!”

  He winked at Lara, then turned on his heels and sped away, throwing an arm in the air and pointing ahead.

  “That means he expects us to follow,” Taequanda explained.

  “He’s quite a…”

  “Yes he is.”

  “Just don’t let him cop a feel when he’s supposed to be positioning you,” Corynne added.

  “He’s going to cop a feel?”

  Taequanda and Corynne looked at each other and laughed.

  “Whatever it may seem like, Spike likes tail,” Taequanda said. “The feminine variety.”

  Lara must have looked confused, because Taequanda put an arm around her in sisterly fashion. “I know, it’s like Alice in Wonderland around here,” she said. “Nothing is the way you think it should be, so just chill and take it all in. We’ll run interference for you.”

  Taequanda and Corynne did a hand-bump and held it, signaling with their eyes for Lara to join them.

  “The ‘girlfriends’ got to stick together,” Taequanda said.

  * * *

  The three trailed Spike into a room decorated as a Roman dining hall, with reclining benches surrounding a large central table piled high with brightly colored fake food.

  “The hell is this?” Taequanda said.

  “I thought it would be fun to go with a salacious bacchanal theme,” Spike said. “After all, you are a feast.”

  “I feel like chocolate cookie dough in a tube squeezed into this instrument of torture.” Taequanda tugged on her dress.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Spike reached out to touch Taequanda, but she grabbed his wrist and looked at him with one eyebrow raised before letting go. “As I was saying: We’ll start with formal shots, then come back here for some fun, then do the swimsuit shots on the rocks. Va bene?”

  He did another about-face, put his hand over his head again, snapped his fingers and forged ahead.

  “Aren’t we going to have a session with Clay?” Lara asked, too late for Spike to hear.

  “There will be a session with Clay when the time comes for a session with Clay,” Sushma said from just behind Lara.

  How does she do that? Lara whipped around. “Oh, I didn’t see—”

  “Tiffany,” Sushma said. Lara had almost forgotten about Tiffany. Like everyone else around here, though, the girl had the ability to materialize out of thin air.

  “Yes, Ms. V.”

  “I believe I said Miss Dixon was to wear the Chan Luu.”

  “Yes, right. I suggested it, like you said, but she tried it on and decided the Love Moschino was…”

  She mumbled the last words.

  “I am sorry?”

  “More comfortable?”

  “I hope that’s not a problem,” Lara said.

  Sushma eyed her like a displeased schoolmarm. “As difficult as it is for me to believe that either dress would be uncomfortable, the point is for you to look good and to appear to be comfortable. Whether you are comfortable is not an issue.”

  I see.

  “Chartre picked out both dresses, did he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then both dresses are equally comfortable.”

  Sushma turned to Tiffany. “When I ask for Chan Luu, I expect to see Chan Luu.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”


  “It’s not her fault—” Lara began, but Sushma had already turned on her five-inch heels and vanished into the crowd.

  Lara looked at Tiffany. Tiffany looked at the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Lara said. “I’ll tell her later it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I should have been more emphatic about which dress you were supposed to wear,” Tiffany countered.

  “Can you tell the difference between this dress and the other one?”

  “Totally. I mean, this one is a little longer in through here,” Tiffany ran her hands down her own hips, “and smoothing along here.” She clenched her own waist.

  “So, this was the wrong choice?”

  “Oh, no!” Tiffany looked around, then put her face up to Lara’s ear. “You have a great figure, and this one does a way more excellent job of showing it off. I mean—OMG, you won’t tell Ms. V that?”

  “No. Strictly a between-girls thing.”

  “If neither of you tell her, I sure will.” Taequanda nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah. That dress is having its lucky day. It never looked as good as it does right now.”

  “Thanks, both of you.”

  “Don’t thank us. Thank the all-knowing Lady who rules from on high—and I do not mean Ms. V. Plus the fact that you’re obviously well-acquainted with Mr. Arman Curl.” Taequanda pumped her arms.

  Lara smiled. Looking natural sure is a lot of work.

  * * *

  It became even more work when Lara, Taequanda and Corynne were supposed to pose as patricians lounging around in stolas as they enjoyed a sumptuous feast of faux food. Lara just couldn’t get comfortable. The generous folds and pleats of her garment kept getting stuck underneath her.

  Spike sighed conspicuously and let his camera drop into the hands of a dutiful assistant.

  “I’m sorry,” Lara said. “It’s just that—I don’t know.”

  “Oh, my god, girlfriend,” he said, “this is not rocket science. All you have to do is sit there and look gorgeous.”

  I’m not stupid—I’ve just never done any modeling.

  “Excuse me?” Taequanda had not said spoken loudly, but the room went dead quiet.

  “I wasn’t talking to you, Q.” The look in Spike’s eyes said he knew he was walking on eggs.