by Mimi Strong
“Many movie stars,” the driver said, eyeing me warily in the rear view mirror. “You’re not stalking someone, are you?”
I laughed, probably too loud, in the exact manner of a stalker trying to sound casual.
“Just my boyfriend,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, crinkling deeply at the corners. “Does he know he is your boyfriend?”
I crossed my legs and glared out the window, wishing we were in a fancy car, with the glass between us.
“Just teasing,” he called back over his shoulder. “I can tell a stalker right away. You don’t seem like one.”
“I’m not a stalker. If you must know, I’m here for a modeling contract.”
He frowned as he reached over to turn up the volume of music. “Music okay? Light rock?”
“Sure.” I sat back in the seat, my arms crossed.
Business cards. I would have to get some business cards printed up, to give to people who didn’t believe me. What would the cards say?
I ran through some options:
Peaches Monroe, Bookstore Manager, Plus-size Underwear Model, and Fashion Consultant.
Peaches Monroe, Girlfriend of Dalton Deangelo and Veteran Airplane Traveller.
I’m Peaches. My Business is None of Your Fucking Business.
~
We pulled up in front of Dalton’s next-door neighbor’s home, where I was to get a key and a quick tutorial on how to turn off the alarm system.
After the rude taxi driver, Dalton’s neighbor was as pleasant as sweet tea on a hot day. She looked about seventy, and fit, wearing a trim suit that if I had to guess I’d say was Chanel.
“How was the flight?” she asked as she closed the thick wooden door to her house and waved for me to follow her around the side of the house. She had a thick yellow envelope in one hand, which I assumed might be some of Dalton’s mail.
“Bumpier than expected, but the pilot was good, and he didn’t leave anyone up there.”
She turned back to give me a smile, perfect teeth visible between her pale-lipsticked lips.
“I can see why he’s so fond of you,” she said.
She opened a gate and led me through from her backyard into Dalton’s garden. “These two houses were built at the same time, back in nineteen sixty four. The husband, a well-paid but not very famous director, lived on one side, with the children, and his wife lived in the other house, with her lovers. The gate was so the children could slip back and forth easily.”
“Which side was the woman’s?”
The platinum-haired neighbor lady, whose name was Jessica, smirked at me. “Spend the night, and in the morning, you tell me.” She stepped carefully up some stone steps, then waited for me, smiling the way someone does while you’re unwrapping a birthday present they’re particularly proud of.
“Oh!” I said when I got to where she was. We were now above the tree line, and LA lay in one direction, stretching out of sight across the valley. In the other direction, a wall of glass stood like a cliff face, overlooking a shimmering swimming pool. Unlike the hot spring I’d skinny dipped in with Dalton, this pool was clearly man-made, lined with sparkling, teal-blue tiles. The landscaping all around was lush, with leafy palm fronds, blossoming flowers, and at least three spots set up with chairs for comfortable lounging.
Jessica asked, “Do you have gardens like this in Beaverdale?”
“Gardens, yes. Not like this. I mean, I have some geraniums. Red, in terra cotta pots, of course.”
“Of course,” she said, nodding. “Shall we?”
I followed Jessica as she showed me how to use the remote control button to disarm the security and unlock the doors. It wasn’t nearly as complicated as Dalton had made it sound, but I appreciated having Jessica there with me.
As she took me on a tour of the house, I asked her if she was an actress herself.
“I was a continuity girl for many years. They call it a script supervisor these days. It was my job to notice the details.”
“Sounds like a cool job. Noticing things. I try to keep my eyes open, but it’s work.”
“Noticing is a good skill to have. One day I noticed that the producer had stopped wearing his wedding ring. And that is how I came to live next door.”
I grinned, unsure of the appropriate verbal response. That usually doesn’t stop me from saying something, but Jessica was so refined, and so gracious, I didn’t want to offend her.
She turned to look at her house from a small window at the side of the room. “We were the second owners. New kitchen in nineteen ninety-eight, but other than that, it’s all original. Gorgeous spanish tiles everywhere.”
I looked around the room we were standing in, with the polished concrete floor, high ceilings, and giant ceiling fans that looked like airplane propellers.
“I’m guessing this house has been renovated a time or two.”
She lay the yellow envelope on a glass coffee table in front of a white, leather sectional.
She winked at me. “Like many gorgeous things in LA, this home’s had a little work.”
I thanked her again for making me feel at home, and then walked her out. After my exciting journey, I was feeling the after-effects of the cucumber gin and tonics from the night before.
As soon as I was alone, I sent Dalton a cute photo of myself nearly naked and about to get into his soaker tub overlooking the valley. The photo was cropped, showing me only from the shoulders up.
He messaged me back immediately, demanding to see “the rest of the photo.”
Me: I’m feeling shy now, so I guess you’ll have to hurry home soon.
Dalton: Did you like Jessica? She’s hilarious, right?
Me: She’s very nice. I guess we both have good neighbors.
Dalton: Send me a picture of your sweet peaches.
Me: You first.
A moment later, I received a photo of a nipple, surrounded by a few short, dark hairs. Honestly, I was relieved it wasn’t a photo of his wang. His was truly gorgeous, but, like food, you need to know how to photograph that stuff so it looks appealing.
I returned his message with a shot of my cleavage, my breasts cupped by the red satin of my bra.
Dalton: No wonder you’re a model. I would buy exactly one million of those bras.
I blushed, pressing my hand to my cheek. Who knew you could get flustered and embarrassed like that, even when nobody was around to see it?
We exchanged a few more messages about the weather, and then he had to get back to filming.
I climbed into the soaker tub and had the hottest and greatest bath of my adult life.
After, I dried off with the fluffiest, softest towel I’d ever touched. The experience was not unlike being gently patted dry by a hundred fluffy white bunnies. In other words, in case you’re not picking up on my subtext here, a girl could get used to this kind of luxury.
The food situation was equally appealing. Dalton had arranged for his housekeeper to stock the kitchen with “a few simple meals” for me. Apparently to Dalton and the housekeeper, this meant a refrigerator jammed full of beautiful cheeses, salads, a half-dozen steaks, desserts, and a basket full of fruit so exotic, I didn’t know the names of half of them.
I made myself dinner in the palatial kitchen, with Shayla on speakerphone the whole time, so I didn’t feel lonely.
As I described the food and the house itself, she played along and described our kitchen back in Beaverdale, trying to put a positive spin on everything.
“I just found at least one third of a cucumber,” she cooed. “It’s been out on the counter all night since the party, but I think if I cut off the wrinkled end, I could use the crumbled potato chips from the bottom of this bowl and make some fancy hoover-doovers.”
(Hoover-doovers is our term for hors d’oeuvres. I know, pretty cute, right? Try not to barf in your mouth over our cuteness.)
“Girl, we are living it up!”
“Tell me something,” she said. “When you turn the kitchen tap off, does it st
op right away?”
Giggling, I tested the tap. “Oh my god. The stream stops immediately. No dribbling. And there’s no water leaking out of the base.”
“I’m so jealous,” she moaned. “Okay, finish up dinner so we can go snooping around.”
“I can’t violate Dalton’s space.”
“Sure you can. It’s easy. Just think about where you would hide your good stuff if you lived there.” She gasped. “What if he asks you to move in with him? I can’t pay the rent here by myself.”
“Hang on. Don’t jump on the train to Crazy Town yet. I’ve known the guy two weeks.”
“I should have been nicer to him so he would be generous to his girlfriend’s bestie. I should have screamed when he tried to scare me with his vampire teeth. Shit! Shitting mothershit!”
“Calm down. One shit at a time, Shay.”
“Okay.” She sniffed. “I’m totally not crying.”
“Change is scary.”
“I love you, P.”
“I love you more.”
She sniffed again.
“Time for a little light snooping,” I said.
I picked up the phone, took it off speakerphone to conserve battery, and started wandering around the house, giving her the tour.
I opened a door to what I expected was a closet, but discovered a set of stairs going down. Here I thought I was on the bottom floor, but apparently the house had a basement.
CHAPTER 26
I climbed down the narrow stairs, lights flicking on overhead on their own. “Must be motion sensors,” I said.
“The house is aliiiiiive,” she joked.
“I’m opening a door.”
“Probably a wine cellar.”
Lights flicked on overhead automatically. “You’re not wrong!”
“How’s the spider situation?”
“I’m not screaming, am I?”
“How many bottles of wine?”
I counted the number of bottles in the row, and then the column. “At least four hundred, plus there’s—OHMYGOD.”
“What?”
I took a closer look at the framed art along the cool, cement wall. The pictures were Polaroid photos, from the sixties and seventies by the look of the hairstyles and clothes. The same woman was in all the photos, usually naked. She was voluptuous, with long, heavy breasts falling to either side of a softly protruding stomach. Her blond hair was teased up, and in the seventies-era photos, she wore thick black eyeliner and lurid blue eyeshadow.
I recognized the view in the outdoor photos, as well as the placement of the pool. These photos had been taken in and around the house I stood in. The woman was kissing or hugging about five different men, plus one woman, in the dozen framed pictures.
Shayla howled in frustration for me to tell her what was going on, so I took some pictures with my phone and sent them to her.
“Holy fuck, that chick looks like you,” she said.
“No way.” I giggled. “Her bush is five times bigger than mine.”
She snorted. “Two birds could live in that bush and never meet.”
“Olden days look so fun.” I sighed. “This must be exactly what Dalton’s neighbor Jessica was teasing me about finding. Apparently this house was where the wife and her lovers lived.”
“If you tell her you know, then she’ll know you snooped.”
“This isn’t snooping.” The thick yellow envelope waiting on the coffee table upstairs popped into my mind.
Shayla yawned audibly, then said, “My ear’s hot, which means this phone call is giving me a brain tumor. Gotta go, toots.”
We said goodbye and ended the call.
I thought about bringing one of the wine bottles upstairs with me, but a car was coming to pick me up in the morning, early. My first official underwear modelling photo shoot would be challenging enough without a hangover.
Then again, a glass or two might help me sleep.
I selected a bottle from the middle of the wall, careful to leave the really dusty ones undisturbed. I was no wine aficionado, but I did know wine collectors loved the dust, and that those bottles were for special occasions only.
Back up in the master bedroom, I finished my glass of wine as I checked email and whatnot on my laptop, using the wireless password Jessica gave me during the tour. I was pleased to see Dalton’s network was named Paradise, because it really suited the home.
One of his neighbors had a network called Free Kittens and Candy in 218, and another had For The Love of Decency Please Draw Your Curtains. A third one, Big Guns Tight Buns, made me giggle.
After I’d exhausted my usual internet haunts, I shut everything down and snuggled into the enormous bed to get some sleep. Dalton had requested I sleep naked, so naked I was.
Half an hour later, I still couldn’t sleep. I flicked on a light, poured another glass of wine, and pulled on a fluffy robe to go in search of the library.
I didn’t get to the books, though, because the fat yellow envelope on the coffee table called me with its siren lure. It wasn’t sealed or labeled, and I shook out a thick stack of paper.
A movie script.
The Post-It note on top read:
What a wonderful project! I can’t wait to come to the premiere. - Jessica
This had to be the script for the movie Dalton had been so tight-lipped about. The second page described the setting as a small town in Washington.
For all of about half a second, I worried Dalton would be cross at me for reading the script, but then my curiosity took over and said surely it was fine.
I padded back to the bedroom with the manuscript and settled in for a good read.
The title was We Are Made of Stardust, which made me laugh out loud. Dalton had said all those corny things to me when we first met, about us being…
Actually, there it was, right on page five. Word for word, exactly what he’d said to me. In the script, the main character’s name was David.
~
David: Let's just be two souls tonight. Two souls who are made of stardust, and found their way back to each other, the way they were destined to.
Harper: You left me here. You wouldn’t have had to find your way back if you hadn’t left in the first place.
David pulls Harper into a passionate embrace.
David: Kiss me like I’m dangerous.
Harper: Up to your old tricks?
David: Kiss me like I’m bad for you.
~
I put the script down and stared at the blotchy abstract art on the wall in Dalton’s palatial bedroom.
The second part was exactly what he’d said to me the night we had dinner at DeNirro’s. Our dates had been scripted. Well, his side had been.
This unsettled me, but not enough to stop reading.
I read on, and I lied to myself and said it was just a good story, and that was why.
The truth is, every page was cutting me. Deeply. My sorrow grew with every line I read, that I’d also heard come from Dalton’s lying lips.
Line after line he’d fed me, and I’d gobbled it down.
The character, David, had returned to his hometown and discovered the love of his life dating his estranged brother, and sporting an extra fifty pounds. He still felt something for her, but… it hurt so bad for me to read his dialog with his friend… he didn’t know if he could be physically attracted to Harper anymore. He was a wealthy tech company owner, and used to dating, in his words, “hotties.”
Later in the script, he told his friend that maybe fucking a fat girl wasn’t so bad after all. That if he closed his eyes, there was so much of her, that it was like having a threesome.
I read all the way to the end, which included the Happy Ending. Also known as the Fucking Stupidest Fucking Ending for Any Movie, Ever.
Harper hired a personal trainer and got her ass skinny enough to climb back into her prom dress, and she and Dalton—I mean, David—attended their high school reunion.
And they lived Happily Ever Fucking Afte
r like Fucking Douchebags.
If I’d had a knife nearby, I would have stabbed it through the manuscript, the way it had stabbed through my heart.
These were all the actions and words of fictional characters, but I read Dave's words as though every word was coming from Dalton's lips. I'd already heard so many of the lines.
I heard horrible sounds, like a woman howling in pain, and I realized it was me.
It was four in the morning.
The darkest hour for the human soul.
~
THE END of Book 1
To be continued in “Peaches on Top,” Book #2 of the Peaches Monroe series. Coming fall 2013.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
Thank you for taking a chance on a new series! I hope you enjoyed Book 1, and as of the release date, I'm already working on the next novel, due out in fall 2013.
I don't know what I can say about Peaches that she hasn't already said for herself, so I'll share a little back story about how this novel happened.
The first three chapters were written in February 2013 and posted to Wattpad under the title Peaches on Top. Then I got distracted by another project, and Peaches got put on hold because I only work on one novel at a time. I published a stand-alone novel, For You in April 2013, and it went on to become a USA Today bestseller. Yay! I had a lot of options for what to write next, and Peaches promised to be the most fun, so I went for it.
Most of my work to date has been erotic serials or stand-alone novels, but in response to my readers' requests for longer stories, Peaches was designed to have a much bigger story that can cross multiple novels. How many? I don't know. You guys tell me!
Here are some fun facts:
1. Beaverdale, Washington, is not a real town. I made it up so I can have absolute creativity. I've written fantasy before, and I love the world-building aspect as an author. As a reader, I love when a great setting becomes a character. I grew up in a small town in northern British Columbia, so that's one of my inspirations for the town. I live in the Pacific Northwest now, so I'm quite familiar with the weather.
2. I have an aunt named Dorothy who just bought a convertible, and her bumper sticker says, "If the sun's up, the top's down." She told me that during the time I was penning the first draft, and so the character of Dottie Simpkins was inspired by her.