by DC Thome
“Lucky for him he came here. Where else could he get a video of your vomit-inducing brother fucking me doggy-style?”
“You fucked my brother?”
“You fucked his brother?” the blonde said, crinkling her nose.
“Doggy-style?” the redhead said, making the same face as the blonde.
“She is a whore,” the blonde concluded.
The redhead nodded. “I’ve never fucked someone’s brother.”
“What about the football twins from UCLA?”
“It doesn’t count when both brothers are right there.”
“Good point.”
Lara slapped the toaster. “Sushma?”
“Okay, okay. Let me get out of the tub so we can go inside and talk this over.”
“I kind of like you as toast.” Lara looked at the bimbos. “How ’bout it, ladies?”
“Lara?”
She grinned and let go of the toaster.
* * *
Kyle frantically looked through files on his computer with Lara looking over his shoulder. “It would have been nice to let me at least throw a towel around myself.”
“You should be grateful I didn’t let the toaster hit the water.”
“Yeah, well, it came fucking close. What if you misjudged how long the cord was?”
“You’d be dead. Which wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Here it is.” Kyle clicked on a file of Lara and him having sex.
“This isn’t what I saw,” Lara said.
Kyle clicked on another file. The woman with him in this scene wasn’t Lara. The same was true of the next file he opened. And the next.
“All these are from four years ago?”
“They’re arranged chronologically.”
“Jesus—how many women did you fuck when you were married to me?”
Kyle shrugged. “How many women are there?”
“Keep clicking,” Lara said through clenched teeth. Finally, the scene she had viewed in Sushma’s office came up. “This is what I saw…except it was Drake instead of you.” She shuddered.
“I’m sorry about that,” Kyle said. “I mean…Drake.”
“Did you give the private eye any other footage? Something with Drake in it?”
“No. Just this.”
“Then how did his face get plastered onto your body?”
“I don’t know. Real estate guy. His face is everywhere.”
Kyle clicked the mouse a few times to burn a DVD for Lara. She leaned on his desk and drummed her fingers. Oh, for Christ’s sake! “Are you peeking down my dress?” Lara stood up. “You’re such an asshole!”
“What? I’ve seen them before.”
“You don’t get to anymore.”
“It’s just that, from this angle, it doesn’t look like, you know.” Kyle cupped his hands at his chest again.
“I look different to you?” Lara asked in an irritated voice.
“Yeah. I gather it’s not your boobs.”
“Look at my hair, Kyle.”
“You’ve got more of this showing?” He flicked his fingers on his own forehead. “It looks nice that way.”
Seven fucking years of “cover your forehead, Lara.”
“It’s brown,” she said
“It used to be a different color?”
Luckily for Kyle, the DVD tray popped open with Lara’s copy of his home movies.
“You are just unbelievable,” Lara said. “You have no trouble noticing the most miniscule details about any piece of ass that comes within a hundred feet of you—but after being married to me for seven years, you can’t even say what color my hair was.”
“Lighter brown! Right? With reddish streaks.”
“Pathetic,” Lara said. “You may continue your orgy now.” She snatched the DVD and stormed into the backyard. The bimbos were still naked, reclining on lounge chairs and smoking cigarettes while waiting dutifully for Kyle.
“Bye, ladies,” she said. “Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.”
“Whore,” the redhead said.
Lara stopped. “You realize, don’t you,” she said, “that he’s filming everything you do in that hot tub.”
“No fucking way!” the blonde responded.
Lara went up to a hanging planter, ripped out a microcam and tossed it in the bimbos’ direction.
“No fucking way!” the redhead said.
“My guess is that if you look hard enough, you’ll find two or three more stashed around the yard. He likes to catch every possible angle.”
Lara squeezed back through the space between the fence and the house. Her car looked just as pathetic as before, but this time the noises she heard from the backyard made her smile.
21
An hour later, Lara sat at a table under a sun-bleached umbrella in the midst of the bustling Encino Farmers Market. She laid out a paper napkin and arranged her lunch: a fish taco, a baseball-size cluster of champagne grapes and a slushy flavored with passion fruit and guava.
Sushma came to the table with a cup of fruit topped with a clear plastic dome. “I cannot believe you would pick such a place for our meeting.”
“See anyone you know here?”
“In this godforsaken place? Do not be obscene.”
Lara took a long pull of slushy through her straw and looked all around. Families. Teenagers. Senior citizens. Not exactly Malibu or
Rodeo Drive, but a pretty nice place for lunch on a Sunday. “This is really good,” Lara said between slurps of her slushy. “You should try one.”
“I would not put such a thing into my mouth.”
“Why not? It’s mostly fruit and ice.”
Sushma didn’t respond. She had managed to remove the plastic dome from the fruit cup and jabbed at chunks of pineapple, mango, grapefruit and apple before pushing the cup aside.
“Not hungry?” Lara asked.
“I am not in the mood for being in this place. Or for whatever game it is you are playing.”
“I’m playing games?”
“If you are not, then explain to me why you showed me what you wrote for Virginia Warren.”
“I wanted you to see that I can tell the truth.”
“Your article is accurate. But one can be accurate and still not tell the truth.”
Lara washed down the last bit of taco with a gulp of slushy. “So, we’re on the same page. At least about that.”
“This is exactly what I am not in the mood for. You apparently believe you know a great deal more than you are letting on, so why not simply say so?”
Lara put her new phone on the table so Sushma could see Kyle’s footage playing on the screen. “Recognize this?”
“Of course I do.”
“Look closer.”
Sushma remained expressionless. “What is the point of this?”
“Is there a point to be made?”
Sushma stood up. “If you are insinuating that I or that anyone at Fast Lane altered this footage—”
“I’m not insinuating anything.”
“This is absurd! Tell it to the attorneys.”
“Tell them what? That you had this footage altered for the same reason you do everything else at Fast Lane?”
Sushma strode off. Lara grabbed the phone and followed. “You altered the footage for the same reason that you brought Taequanda into The Rotation.”
“I brought Taequanda into The Rotation because she is beautiful and intelligent.”
“And completely uninterested in Clay romantically.”
Sushma walked faster. Lara kept pace.
“And you brought Corynne into The Rotation because you knew that Clay would have no interest in her, either.”
“Do not be ridiculous. Why would any man not be interested in a woman such as Corynne?”
“Any man, sure—but not Clay.”
“And why not?”
“Because she’s twenty-three, shallow and self-absorbed—exactly the kind of woman Clay is no longer interested in. He’s almost forty
years old!”
“What difference does it make what age he is? Many men prefer younger women.”
“Even so, don’t you think he’s old enough to pick out a woman for himself?”
Sushma waved dismissively. “You are making no sense.”
“Does it make sense that no member of The Rotation since Gina—not one—has been blond?”
“Blondes represent a small minority of the world’s population.”
“Or even had light-brown hair?”
Lara got waylaid when Sushma darted between an older couple. This is what Clay meant about love and war—and you can’t stop me from taking my shots. “And why did every woman since Gina have a boob job?”
The woman, who was generously endowed, gave Lara a dirty look.
“Those are real,” the man said.
“I didn’t mean her. Sorry.” Lara slipped in between them and caught up to Sushma.
“This is Los Angeles,” Sushma said. “Every woman has had a boob job.”
“Not Gina.”
“Stop following me, or I shall inform a police officer that I am being hounded by a disgruntled ex-employee.”
“You said The Rotation is a business proposition. You said Clay isn’t very good at business. You said the women who join The Rotation are usually thoroughly vetted.”
Sushma walked even faster despite her four-inch heels.
“You are the one who does the vetting,” Lara continued. “You decide who gets to be in The Rotation.”
“Someone has to do it. Otherwise, there would be no quality control. Any gold digger or tramp or…or…”
“Or woman Clay might get attached to?”
Sushma stopped in her tracks. “Of course. If he should become attached, as you say, The Rotation would be threatened. And The Rotation is Fast Lane’s bread and butter. I choose women according to what is best for the company.”
“You don’t do what’s best for the company. You do what’s best for you.” Lara pointed at Sushma, stopping just short of touching her. “Gina—Virginia Warren—is everything you’re not: Tall, blond—”
“And flat-chested?” Sushma spat out a laugh. “You are sounding more and more like a crazy person.”
Sushma tried to brush past Lara and cross the street, but Lara grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back around.
“What do you think you are doing?” Sushma said, horrified.
“You love Clay,” Lara said.
“Let go of me!”
“I only got into The Rotation so you could keep tabs on me while you figured out how to make me go away forever.”
“I said let go!”
“You did the same thing with Gina!”
“I am warning you that I will scream!”
“Clay fell in love with Gina, flat chest and all, and you decided she had to go. What did you do—fake some dirty pictures of her? Or did you have some other trick up your sleeve?”
“You must be a crazy person. How else could you have come up with such insane assertions?”
“It was in the media after you kicked her out: Clay brought her back to the ICE House after Elton John’s Oscar party.”
“Clay meets hundreds of women at those parties.”
“But with Gina he skipped a step, didn’t he? He skipped the step where you get to grill the girl to make sure there’s no chance Clay will fall for her.”
Sushma tugged harder to break free. “You do not know what you are talking about.”
“The evidence is there. Every woman since Gina. A religious freak. An ultra-right-winger. A lesbian.”
“I SAID—”
“You didn’t find Gina. Clay did. And when it looked like they were getting too cozy, you stepped in with your ‘dutiful C.O.O.’ thing. And when Clay found me—”
Sushma yanked so hard, she broke Lara’s grip and tumbled to the pavement. Lara stood over her with her fists and jaw clenched, air heaving in and out of her lungs. Get up so I can knock you down myself, bitch.
But Sushma did not get up. She remained seated on the hard concrete. Sobbing.
“All right! All right!” Sushma sat awkwardly with one leg underneath her. Her knees were scuffed and tears streamed down her face. “Everything you are saying is true! What of it?”
“I’ll tell you what of it,” Lara said, pointing an accusing finger in Sushma’s face. “You had no right. You had no right to interfere in Clay’s love life that way. No one has that right. Not even a chief operating officer.”
“But I wanted him.”
“Well, you couldn’t have him. And it wasn’t just because of your hair color or your height or even your stupid fake boobs. For whatever reasons, he loved Gina. And he loved me. Don’t ask me why. I don’t meet the Fast Lane ideal. I’m an unemployed divorced woman who grew up a nobody in the valley. And every minute he’s known me I’ve done nothing but lie to him. But for some reason, some reason we’ll probably never know, he loved me. And you had no right to wreck that.”
“He would have found out the truth about you eventually.”
“Yes, but then we could have dealt with it. Him and me. Two people work things out. Or they don’t. That’s how it’s supposed to happen.”
Lara straightened and took a deep breath. “You may have stopped Gina and me from having Clay, but you’ll never have him, either. Whatever he wants, you don’t have.”
Lara turned to walk away. She stopped when Sushma sobbed, “Am I not beautiful? Am I not desirable? You came with your common valley upbringing and your failed marriage and your joke of a career—and your long legs and blond hair.”
Lara touched her hair.
“That is right,” Sushma continued. “Did you think I would not find out about that?”
“Magda wouldn’t—”
“I did not learn it from Magda. It is my business to know such things. You may think I am stupid, but I saved Clayton from becoming a laughingstock. I made his company great and increased his wealth a hundredfold. Am I not deserving of his love? More so than you?”
“He should love you because you made him rich?”
“There is more to it than that. I was, after all, a member of The Rotation.”
“You’re proud of that.”
“Why would I not be? Only the most alluring, most cultured, most exciting women in the world get to be a part of The Rotation. Intelligent women who are charming and sexy and strong. For six years I have tried so hard to make him see me over all of the others. What is it? What is it that you have that I do not possess? Long legs and yellow hair?”
Unrequited love. I know how that feels.
Lara sat on the concrete next to Sushma. “I don’t know if it is anything anyone can possess,” she said. “It just…seems to happen.”
Her lips still quivering, Sushma looked up. “You could tell how I felt about him from how I looked the other day. My eyes betrayed me.”
“I could tell before that. Way before that.”
“I thought some day he would grow up and see.” Sushma sighed. “He is such a contradiction. The ultimate man of the world, and yet such a child.”
“They’re all a little like that, you know.”
“Yes, I do know it. But, still, I kept hoping.” Sushma rubbed one of her scraped knees. “I wanted to be his lover, but he saw me more like a mother. Sushma Vishnuveda, the stern Ms. V. The mother hen, clucking around, trying to work her stupid lovesick schemes. It is truly pathetic.”
A shadow fell across Lara’s face. She looked up to see a circle of onlookers. Oh, my god! How much have these people heard?
“Um, like, is everything cool?” asked a girl who reminded Lara of herself as a teenager.
“We’ll be okay, but thanks,” Lara said to the girl. Then, to everyone, she said, “Really. We’ll be all right.”
The crowd dispersed. Lara helped Sushma to her feet.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I have been such a fool. I feel so worthless.”
“You
shouldn’t think that way. You single-handedly saved Fast Lane. Everybody in the organization respects you.”
“They do?”
“Sure.”
“Even those who refer to me as Ms. V-for-Viper?”
You know about that? “I suppose. Deep down.”
“Even you?”
“Of course!”
She looked away. “I have treated you very badly.”
“Yes, you have. I kind of deserved it.”
“Yes, you did.” She looked at Lara. “However, I am sorry for one thing.”
“Oh?”
“That business about Drake Lobo. I read about him on the Internet. He seems to be quite an asshole. I feel I should make it up to you in some way.”
Lara studied Sushma’s face. Show me you mean it. “Will you do something for me?”
Sushma swallowed hard. “I said I would, and I keep my word.”
“Tell Clay I’ll be hanging with Sol this evening.”
“What does it mean, ‘Hanging with Sol?’”
“He’ll know what I mean.”
Sushma nodded. “I will tell him.”
“You’re okay otherwise?”
“So-so. But a nice, strong cup of tea will work wonders.”
Lara smiled. They nodded to each other, then walked off in opposite directions.
22
Clay slumped in a chair on the Upper Deck. The sun hung in the haze over the water, but Clay wasn’t looking at the sun or the water. He wasn’t looking at anything.
Sushma came onto the deck and leaned against the railing facing the water.
“What’s up, Shush?”
Sushma didn’t say or do anything. This can’t be good.
“Shush?”
Sushma sat in a chair next to Clay, putting them eye to eye. Clay shifted in his seat. This really can’t be good.
“Clayton,” Sushma said in a softer voice than Clay was used to. “I wanted to ask you something.”
Clay waited expectantly for several seconds. “Yes?”
Looking directly into his amber irises, she said, “What do you see in Lara Dixon?”
He jumped to his feet. “You mean what did I see?”
Sushma remained seated. She looks so small from up here. Are those tears?