Tainted Love

by Melody Mayer

  Esme was touched. “Thanks.”

  “You are more than welcome. If I lived two lifetimes, I could not do enough to pay you back.”

  “I told you,” Esme insisted, “Diane is the one who—”

  “But it was you who gave her the idea,” Tarshea pointed out. “I love Jamaica. It's my home. But …” Her eyes flicked back to the window. “You are an American. So you don't know what it's like. To feel that you are stuck in poverty, to feel that no matter what you do, you can do nothing to change your circumstances.”

  How ironic. Tarshea assumed that because Esme was American she was at least modestly wealthy herself. That doors were open to her. That anything was possible, when the truth was that Esme had more in common with the Jamaican girl than she did with the Goldhagens.

  “Is their home very beautiful?” Tarshea asked eagerly.

  Esme laughed. “That's an understatement.”

  “My home is two rooms,” Tarshea explained. “For me, my parents, my two sisters and brother. We must go down to the well for water. Our bathroom we share with six other families. It is a ways from our house.”

  God. Esme couldn't even imagine that.

  “At the Goldhagens’ at my— our—guesthouse, we have our own bathroom and it's gorgeous. You'll have your own bedroom. And I'll introduce you to my friends. We're going to meet them for lunch now, in fact. Over at a movie studio. Warner Brothers.”

  Tears literally came to Tarshea's eyes. “I cannot imagine.”

  “Well, whatever you could imagine, the reality is even better.”

  They finally passed the mess of the collision and started to speed up. Tarshea shook her head. “It's a dream. …”

  Esme smiled, thrilled for her new friend. “No. It's real. Your dream is about to come true.”

  Kiley stood on line with the three other girls at the entrance to the bustling commissary on the ground floor of the Warner Brothers office building on Riverside Drive. Located outside the main studio compound, the building held the writers’ offices of many WB Studios shows, including Steven's new one about the medical interns. Though the new TV season was still six weeks away, everything was in full production, which meant the commissary was jammed with workers.

  Instead of playing spot-the-celebrity, Kiley's eyes were on Tarshea, who looked both overjoyed and bewildered. It wasn't surprising, since Tarshea had told them much about her life in Jamaica on the ride from Bel Air to Burbank.

  What would it be like to get on a plane in that world and land in this one, where a chauffeured limousine picked you up at the airport, where you rode through streets and boulevards lined with mansions and ended up at lunch at a famous studio commissary with three American girls? It had to be overwhelming.

  “This is … it's …” Tarshea couldn't seem to find any words.

  “Usually we just eat with our kids,” Kiley told her, lest the girl think that a midday reprieve like this was a daily thing.

  “You'll be amazed how quick you can get used to living the high life,” Lydia added.

  “I—I don't know …,” Tarshea stammered.

  Esme touched her arm. “Hey, it's okay.”

  Kiley nodded. “You're with three friends now.”

  Two gorgeous, skinny girls—one blond, one brunette— strode past them. Each had long, straight hair gleaming with highlights. The blonde wore a tiny yellow plaid stretch-cotton skirt, a tangerine tank, and snakeskin cowboy boots. The brunette was in Lucky Brand denim capris, a shrunken pink lace jacket, and rhinestone flip-flops. Laminated Warner Brothers picture IDs hung around their necks.

  Their eyes flicked disdainfully at Tarshea, and then away.

  Tarshea smoothed her cheap skirt self-consciously. “My clothes …”

  “Your clothes are fine,” Esme reassured her.

  Tarshea didn't look convinced. Kiley didn't blame her. There was a difference between dressed-like-you've-fallen-out-of-bed and threadbare. She, Esme, and Lydia were all wearing variations on the jeans/tank top/T-shirt/work shirt thing. Yet everything was new enough to fit in. Not like the Jamaican girl.

  “Her clothes are not fine and we all know it,” Lydia corrected. “Let's just call an ugly ol’ outfit like it is.” She looped an arm through Tarshea's. “But not to worry, sweet pea. Until recently I had to machete my own fashions. We'll burn what you're wearing and get you all new stuff. Shopping is one of my life talents.”

  Kiley found this comment amazingly insensitive. Undoubtedly Tarshea was broke. She couldn't afford to shop, especially not at any store that Lydia would deem shopworthy.

  Finally, the line moved ahead enough for them to get close to the food. “So what do I do, Esme?” Tarshea asked hesitantly.

  “Get in any of the lines.” Esme pointed to a half dozen stations to their left. “There's a pasta line—you can pick from like six different kinds of pasta and then invent your own sauce. Then there's two hot food areas—the daily specials are on that whiteboard over there. And in the center of the room is a giant salad bar so you can make your own salad. Forget about the price. Steven and Diane are paying.”

  Tarshea nodded, but her eyes seemed wary.

  “After you get what you want, go to the cashier. She'll ring everything up, and I'll sign for it. The seats are through that passageway to the right. Simple.”

  “I wish my family could see this. All this food!” Tarshea shook her head in wonderment. “Okay. No problem, mon. I'll just follow you all, if you don't mind.”

  They opted for pasta. After Kiley ordered penne with garlic, butter, anchovy paste, and freshly grated Parmesan, Tarshea said she'd have the same. Then they built themselves huge spinach and mushroom salads, picked up drinks, and finally got in line for the cashier. When they went through, Esme simply signed for all the food.

  “Hello! Vacating at two o'clock,” Kiley called. She cocked her head toward a round table to her right where four guys in suits stood up to leave.

  “Agents,” Lydia said knowingly, as one of the suits caught her eye and gave her the kind of appreciative male look that Lydia always seemed to generate. “They're the only ones who ever wear suits.”

  “How do you know?” Kiley wondered.

  “I read it in Entertainment Weekly,” Lydia replied, brushing her choppy hair off her face. She unwrapped her straw and stuck it into her bottle of Dasani Raspberry just as Kiley's cell rang.

  She fished in her jeans for her cell. The call was from her home in La Crosse—the number was right there on caller ID. “Hello?”

  “Kiley, sweetie … it's your mother.”

  “Hi, Mom!”

  “How are you?”

  Kiley could barely hear her. “Just a sec, I'm going to find someplace quieter to talk. I'm at the Warners commissary. It's a madhouse.”

  “I'll hold on.”

  Kiley excused herself, but not before Lydia threatened to finish both their lunches if she wasn't back soon. Through the window, she saw a broad exterior patio where people were standing around either smoking or talking on their cells. A moment or two later, she was out there too, leaning against a large concrete planter that held a profusion of pansies.

  “I'm here, Mom.”

  “How are you? How's every little thing? How are things at that rock star's house?”

  “Fine, Mom. Her brother-in-law is still in charge.”

  “That's good. He seems like a very nice man.”

  There was a large electronic clock inside the glass doors that led to the main entrance of the building; Kiley saw that it was 1:11 p.m. “Hey, what are you doing calling me from home? Shouldn't you be at the Derby?”

  “Umm … yes. I guess I should,” her mother admitted. “This has been a hard day for me. Two prisoners escaped from the prison in Chippewa Falls.”

  Kiley groaned inwardly as she figured out why her mother had called her. She'd had a panic attack because of these escaped prisoners. It had been so bad she couldn't even bring herself to go to work. She'd be trapped at home watching the news
until the men were captured.

  Kiley couldn't imagine what it would be like to live like that. Or to be her mom. So horrible. The worst thing in the world.

  “Mom?” Kiley tried to be reassuring. Now was not the time to come down on her mom. “It's okay. I'm glad you called me. Do you feel safe in the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don't go out. I'm sure you have plenty of sick days saved up.”

  “I do.”

  “Then you did the right thing.” Kiley was adamant, knowing that was what her mother needed to hear. In the middle of her mom's panic attacks, often Kiley was the only person who could keep her on the right side of sanity. “You call me if you need me, okay?”

  “Okay, Kiley.” Her mother's voice sounded like a child's, which gave Kiley the uneasy sensation of being a mother to her own mother. “I'm going to watch the news again.”

  “Bye, Mom. Call me if you need me,” Kiley repeated.

  She heard her mother hang up, and snapped her cell shut, feeling very sad.

  A few minutes later, Kiley was back at the table in the commissary, coming in on a conversation about finding Tarshea a job. Fortunately, Lydia had left her lunch intact, so she dug into her pasta.

  “So Tarshea, we need to find you a job, right?”

  “I am hoping to find one, yes,” Tarshea said shyly. She sat very straight and smoothed her napkin on her lap. “I hope that Esme's employers can help me, too.”

  “But like I told you, Tarshea is an artist,” Esme put in, forking some angel hair pasta into her mouth. “She wants to go to art school.”

  “Well, I want to have sex with Orlando Bloom, but that's not gonna happen overnight, either,” Lydia quipped.

  Kiley rolled her eyes. Evidently Lydia's cheating-on-Billy-that-didn't-count-because-she-was-drunk hadn't taught her much about fidelity.

  “Oh, wipe that look off your face,” Lydia told Kiley with a chuckle. “I'm joking. Unless, of course, I happen to meet Orlando and then I might have to let nature take its course. Back to you, Tarshea. A game plan is in order. Once upon a time, the three of us wanted to run a nanny placement service. But it was more trouble than it was worth. So maybe we should just get you poached at the country club.”

  “Poached … like an egg?” Tarshea ventured.

  “Not exactly.” Esme gave her a brief explanation of the concept of nanny poaching at the country club, but Tarshea didn't look as if she was tracking.

  “How about if we give Tarshea a few days to settle in?” Kiley suggested. “Everything must be so new and strange.”

  Tarshea speared a spinach leaf and chewed it thoughtfully. “In a way yes, but in a way no. It is new in my own experience but I've seen it on television. We get all the American shows. Also some from Cuba.”

  “Don't think most Americans live like this,” Esme advised.

  Tarshea smiled. “You three do.”

  “Only because we work for rich people.” Kiley bit into the pasta. It was heavenly—as good as anything she'd eaten anywhere in Los Angeles.

  “In that case, I think I would like to work for rich people very—Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Tarshea gasped, then peered obviously across the room. “ Coo yah! Is that Tom Welling?”

  Kiley followed Tarshea's gaze. A tall, incredibly handsome guy with dark brown hair and a day's worth of stubble on his chin was deep in conversation with a beautiful, petite woman with Asian features.

  “I think so,” Esme said. “The Smallville offices are here. He might be in for meetings.”

  “That is my favorite show!” Tarshea exclaimed. “All my friends, we all meet to watch it on our church TV.”

  “Dang, no wonder everyone says that Billy looks like him,” Lydia commented, checking Tom out in person. He was sitting down to eat with an older woman, probably a reporter. “Billy's my boyfriend,” she added for Tarshea's benefit.

  Tarshea was in a state of shock. “I am in the same room as Tom Welling. Everything cook and curry!”

  “Everything cook and … ?” Kiley raised her eyebrows.

  Tarshea grinned. “Just an expression from Jamaica. It means everything is just great.”

  Lydia sipped her drink. “Oh, there're all kinds of stars in here. I saw Alexis Bledel over at the salad bar. You know, from Gilmore Girls? And the cute guys from E.R. were ahead of us at the cashier. The white guy is Shane West and the hot black guy is Mekhi Phifer.”

  “How do you know these things?” Kiley wondered.

  “ Entertainment Weekly,” Esme guessed.

  “Nope. The Star.”

  Tarshea shook her head. “So much … so much everything.” She picked up her fork, but then put it down again; her plate of pasta was still untouched. “I have a friend from church, Marie—she is a social director at one of the large resorts. That is a job everyone wants but they are impossible to get unless you are very well connected. She told me stories about the rich Americans at the resort, how they look, what they wear, how they act … and I thought … America can't be like that, really.”

  “It isn't,” Esme insisted.

  “But Esme,” Tarshea objected. “Just look around. For some people, it really is.”

  “Y'all, there is nothing noble about poverty.” Lydia hoisted her empty bottle into the air. “So here's to all of us becoming filthy rich.”

  Kiley hesitated to raise her bottle, and noticed that Esme wasn't quick to join the toast, either. The whole thing was more complicated than that. Money was important, yes. But she'd take her own messed-up lower-middle-class family over Platinum's super-messed-up rich one any day of the week.

  She never got the chance to say any of that. Because before she could object, Tarshea was raising her bottle to Lydia. “Yah, mon. Filthy rich. I like the sound of that. With streets that are paved with gold.”

  “And boyfriends that make other girls drool, and designer wardrobes to die for.” Lydia grinned at Tarshea and clinked their bottles together. “Welcome to America.”

  “I have blond hair and blue eyes. My mom is a famus fashion designer who is very pretty and my dad is a famus heart surgeen like the ones you see on TV. I don't want to brag too bad but I am very popular and not just because we are very rich. My friends say I am very cute and skinny and petite. I don't say that even if it's true because it would be stuck-up. Remember that modeling job I told you about that I did with Dakota Fanning? It was so fun. We both love modeling—”

  “What are you doing?”

  Martina jumped and tried to use her computer mouse to position the cursor so that she could erase the e-mail she'd been writing. It was too late, though. Lydia had already read it over her shoulder.

  “Nothing.”

  Lydia sat on the edge of the girl's bed closest to her desk. “You know you can tell me, sweet pea.”

  Martina shook her head and stared at her plush wall-to-wall pale pink carpeting.

  “Some kind of story?” Lydia prompted.

  “You'll tell,” Martina whispered. She peeked through her veil of dank hair. “You'll tell Momma Anya. I'm already in trouble with her.”

  “About what?”

  “It doesn't matter.”

  It could be one of a dozen things. From the moment that Lydia joined Aunt Kat and her partner, Anya had ridden Martina mercilessly. Most recently, she'd put her chunky daughter on a food and exercise plan worthy of the Dallas Cowboys training camp. Every morning, Lydia would come to breakfast to find a detailed note ordering the food that Martina was permitted to eat and the physical activities that she had to do under Lydia's watchful eye.

  Yes, the girl was in better shape than before, but she had been blessed by God with one of those frames that exercise made stronger instead of slimmer. She still hid her body under the baggiest clothes she could find.

  “No I won't, baby girl,” Lydia insisted. She tipped Martina's chin upward so that their eyes met. “You know I don't lie to you, right?”

  Martina nodded, but looked miserable. “There's a boy.”


  Martina had met a boy? When? And where? Oh no. What if it was one of those Internet things? A girl like Martina would drop into a load of crap faster than a wild boar into a deadfall.

  “What boy?”

  “Kevin. His name is Kevin.”

  “Kevin who?”

  “Covington.” Martina bit at a fingernail that had already been nibbled into near nonexistence. “Well, see, he's going to my school in the fall. He moved here from England.”

  That was a relief. At least he was a real kid her age.

  “When did you meet him?”

  Martina bit her lower lip. “I kind of didn't. Remember when that letter came from Crossroads about fifth grade next year and Momma Anya told you to open it and report back to her but you never did?”

  Oops. Now that Martina mentioned it …Lydia had left the letter on Martina's dresser and forgotten all about it. She'd have to tend to that later.

  “I kind of read it too. Don't be mad.”

  “I'm not, sweetie,” Lydia assured her, sneaking a glance at the Hello Kitty clock on the pink far wall. Already ten o'clock. Though she'd had a relatively easy day the day before when she'd met that girl Tarshea for lunch at the Warners lot, this particular Wednesday was shaping up to be a bear. Lydia still had to get Martina through her computer Russian lesson (Anya would test her), out to the tennis court for her hitting session with the pro (who would write a formal progress report), and then make sure that Martina ate her healthy and nutritious four-hundred-calorie lunch. Though the moms’ new chef, Paisley, was talented, it was impossible for even her to make tofu, romaine salad without dressing, one quarter cup of brown rice, and organic apple slices taste decent.

  The afternoon would be no better. There was an Anya-generated list of activities for Martina a mile long, including an hour-long aerobic workout. As least she didn't have to worry about Jimmy, who was at the country club with Kat.

  “Well, see, the letter said this boy was starting in our class in the fall,” Martina went on. “And it said he wanted e-mail buddies before he comes and it gave his e-mail address and stuff. So I wrote to him and he wrote back.”