Tainted Love

by Melody Mayer

  Oh, so that was what this was all about. Very innocent. Except for the minor detail that when Kevin what's-his-name showed up at Martina's school in four weeks, he was going to find that nothing she'd written to him was the truth.

  Fair enough, Lydia thought. Four weeks to repair the damage.

  “Let's get to your Russian,” Lydia suggested. “You don't want to be late for tennis.”

  “Yes I do.”

  Lydia contemplated bribing the tennis pro so that Martina could skip it. She doubted that it would work, though. The tennis pro was Anya's close, personal friend, meaning she was in the gay sports mafia, a closed-circuit world of top lesbian athletes who dated, mated, and recreated together, and even occasionally procreated with the assistance of modern medical science. A hetero nanny didn't stand a chance against that.

  “Well, how about if we come back and finish the Russian this afternoon after your workout? We have a half hour before tennis. We can do whatever you want to—”

  Her cell rang. She extracted it from the back pocket of a pair of white Seven skinny-legged jeans she'd rummaged from the lost-and-found at the country club.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Lydia, Billy.”

  Billy. She loved the deep sound of his voice. It did things to her. Things she'd rather have done by him in person, and soon, the better to erase Luis from her memory.

  “Hey, Billy,” she greeted him, holding up a “just a sec” finger to Martina. “What's up?”

  “I saw a beautiful woman walk by a few minutes ago in the most amazing sari,” he explained. “Violet and red—right out of a Picasso—gave me quite a hankering for some Indian food. You up for it?”

  Lydia had to smile. Another guy would be fantasizing about unwrapping said sari and exploring the woman underneath, but Billy wasn't like that. Oh, he was quite experienced. But now, older and wiser, he was holding out on her. How unfair was that?

  “Maybe. Depends on where you have in mind. Bombay would be a little hard to get to. Where are you now?”

  “The Universal lot,” he reported. “Working on a set with Eduardo for the new Ron Howard movie. So we on for, say, seven?”

  “Love to,” Lydia agreed. Kat had mentioned something about taking Martina and Jimmy to visit friends down in Rancho Palos Verdes this evening, which meant Lydia might have a night of freedom. She and Billy hadn't spent much time together lately. For the last several weeks, he'd been up in the Bay Area, working on this same feature film. Called Golden State, it featured Jeff Bridges as a scientist hunting a mysterious creature that allegedly lived beneath the waters of San Francisco Bay.

  Frankly, Lydia hadn't minded Billy's absence. Not because her feelings were cooling off, but because the whole Luis thing still niggled at her. Billy was such an honest guy. She knew her silence about Luis was deceitful. Now that she'd returned Luis's car and they'd had that talk on his doorstep, she and Billy could—and definitely should—move full steam ahead. In fact, the sooner she could get Billy undressed and doing what she'd wanted him to do, but which he supposedly wouldn't do, the better.

  Lydia turned away from Martina and kept her voice low. “Oh, Billy.”

  “Oh, what?”

  “You might get lucky tonight. Hint-hint.”

  Billy laughed. “Maybe I'll take that hint. But only if you can spend the night. Because I will need time.”

  What? Had he changed his mind about doing the deed with her? Her skin felt all tingly.

  “Time?”

  “Absolutely. What I plan cannot be rushed.”

  Oh yeah. As they said their goodbyes, she decided she definitely would be asking her aunt for the night off.

  “Who was that?” Martina demanded.

  “A friend.”

  “Who?”

  Lydia scrunched her forehead. “You want me to give you some space with this guy Kevin? You give me some space with my friends. Fair's fair. Okay?”

  Martina looked embarrassed. “Okay. I'm sorry.”

  Instantly, Lydia felt a little ashamed. “Look, I don't mean to be harsh. Want me to get you out of tennis?”

  “How?” Martina challenged.

  “Maybe we can wrap your ankle in an ACE bandage and say you sprained it doing jumping jacks for warm-up.”

  “Won't work. Momma Anya will check when we see her at the country club.”

  “Well, it'll get better fast,” Lydia decided. “I'll say you wanted to do your tennis lesson but I insisted that you skip it, just to be on the safe side. You'll be totally off the hook.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Lydia was proud of herself for coming up with such an excellent fib. It really was an art form. “Then you can do whatever you want until it's time for lunch.”

  “Forget lunch. I'm not eating lunch.” Martina looped some stringy hair behind her ear.

  “I know the food sucks,” Lydia acknowledged. “Back in Amazonia, no one would even feed it to their pigs. But I don't think we can get around mealtime. Paisley's in there, and you know how she watches every bite you eat. How about if I sneak you a bag of chips to go with it?”

  “I meant I'm not eating lunch at all,” Martina clarified. “I just decided.”

  Lydia sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Why not?”

  Martina nibbled another ragged cuticle. “That was your boyfriend who just called, right?”

  “Right.”

  Martina nodded. “He wouldn't like you if you were a big lump like me.”

  Oh Lord. Lydia patted the bed next to her. Martina sat. Lydia put an arm around her.

  “First of all, you are not a ‘lump.’ You just need a chance to grow into your beauty. Second of all, my boyfriend would like me no matter what I looked like.”

  Lydia doubted very much if this was actually true, but knew this was another lie told for an excellent cause. American standards of beauty might be very different from Ama standards of beauty, but they were equally specific. Even a boy of Billy's fine character couldn't will himself to be attracted to a girl because she was beautiful on the inside.

  Hot was hot. Not was not. Yet there was no need to impart that lesson to a girl about to enter the fifth grade.

  Martina folded her arms. “You're lying.”

  Busted. Even a ten-year-old knew the truth, especially a ten-year-old in Beverly Hills.

  “That's true. But you have to eat, sweet pea,” Lydia insisted.

  “No, I don't.” Martina went to the wall calendar that hung next to her pink bulletin board. She put her finger on August twenty-fifth. “That's when school starts, in four weeks,” she reported. “I have to lose fifteen pounds by then. I've made up all these excuses why I can't send Kevin a picture. But on the first day of school, he'll know the truth. For sure.”

  “If you exercise—” Lydia began.

  “I've been exercising,” Martina insisted. “I can do dumbbell curls with fifteen pounds, but I'm not any skinnier.” She sagged back against her pink pillows. “I lied to Kevin Covington. About what I look like.”

  “I know.”

  “Here. Look at him!” Martina went back to the computer and pushed a few keys. A photo of a spectacularly handsome boy filled the screen. He had long dark hair and dimples—a boy whom fifth-grade girls would swoon over. “His friends call him KC. Isn't that cool?” she added dreamily.

  “He's very cute.”

  “He won't like me fat.”

  “You're not fat,” Lydia insisted. “Besides, you can't not eat just because you want a boy to think you're cute.”

  “Why not? Half of Hollywood does. And I want to bleach my hair and get those colored contact lens thingies so that my eyes are green instead of blue.”

  “Martina, Momma Anya and Momma Kat are not going to let you bleach your hair or get contacts, sweetie. You're ten.”

  “I don't want to be the stupid, ugly fat girl anymore.”

  “You're not—”

  “I am fat and ugly. Momma Anya thinks so! You said you're on my si
de. If you mean it, you'll help me. If not, then … then I'll tell Momma Anya all the stuff you've tried to do with me that's against the rules and they'll fire you.”

  Lydia's jaw fell open. Had her little cousin just threatened her?

  “Martina, sweetie—”

  “Not listening! Not listening!” Martina put her hands over her ears. “And I'm not eating, either. And there's nothing you can do to make me!”

  Under a crystal blue noonday sky, Kiley and Susan— Platinum's older sister—were lying out together on the pool deck at the Brentwood Hills Country Club. Susan's husband, Richard, was out on the golf course in a foursome, consisting of Anya Kuriakova, a well-known Czech cinematographer, and the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers (who loved to play the country club course on his off days).

  Kiley was enjoying a moment of relative freedom, since Sid and Serenity had gone to the restaurant for a burger—the colonel heartily approved of red meat for growing children. She wore the more-than-modest blue racing swimsuit purchased for her by Platinum Nanny.

  She glanced over at Susan, who was rubbing SPF 50 sun-block into her white, freckled legs. If anything, Susan's swimsuit was even more modest than her own, and the opposite of anything Susan's rock star sister would wear. It was kelly green with yellow piping around the boy-cut legs and neckline.

  Save for her excellent cheekbones and azure blue eyes, it was hard to believe that Susan had any genetic relationship to Platinum. Her chin-length blond hair was styled in a flip that Kiley suspected not even gale-force winds could budge. This style never varied, except for various color-coordinated head-bands or bows that often matched her kneesocks. Yes, the woman often wore kneesocks.

  Kiley raised herself up on one elbow. It was the perfect opportunity to ask a question she'd wondered about since Susan and her husband had arrived at Platinum's estate to take charge of the children.

  “Mrs. Jones?”

  Susan put the sunblock back into her green and yellow straw tote bag and smiled. “If my husband isn't around, you can call me Susan, okay?”

  “Okay. Susan.” Kiley hesitated. “It's just that the colonel can be a bit …”

  “Intimidating? Commanding? Overbearing?”

  “Something like that,” Kiley agreed.

  “Did you ever see The Great Santini?”

  Kiley shook her head. “What is it?”

  “A movie. From a long time ago,” Susan acknowledged. “The seventies. See if we can get it from Netflix. It'll tell you a lot about him.” She dug a pair of yellow-rimmed sunglasses out of her bag and slipped them on. “When you take away all that marines stuff, you'll find an amazing man. I've never met anyone smarter. Or more loyal to his kids. To me. Or more loving, in his own way. Of course, Rhonda hated him from the first time they met.”

  “Rhon—oh, you mean Platinum.” Kiley laughed. She still couldn't get used to how Susan called Platinum by her given name instead of the stage name that the whole world used. As hard as she tried, imagining Platinum as a Rhonda was a stretch. On the other hand, Susan had just given Kiley the perfect opening to ask the question she'd been dying to ask. “If you wouldn't mind telling me … you and your younger sister are so different from each other. I was just wondering …”

  “What happened?” Susan prompted.

  Kiley nodded. As Susan tapped a contemplative short-nailed, polish-free finger against her lips, Kiley watched a girl from a MTV reality show stroll by in a bikini approximately the size of three postage stamps. Kiley knew that one of the strict country club regulations was that no photographs could be taken, which meant that guests didn't have to worry about whether paparazzi—professional or amateur—would be recording their bad hair days and/or inebriation at the nineteenth hole for posterity or a scandal sheet. The girl joined a cute guy in surfer Jams covered by a marijuana leaf pattern. Clearly wanting as much attention as possible, she squealed loudly as the boy tickled her. Then they locked lips. And pretty much everything else.

  “Well … was Platinum like that when she was a teenager?” Kiley asked.

  “Like what?” Susan asked.

  “Like that girl over there,” Kiley explained. “A show-off.”

  “Not exactly. First off, Rhonda is two years older than I am.”

  “ Older?” Kiley couldn't believe it. “But all the bios I read—”

  “I know.” Susan shrugged. “Her PR people are really good at rewriting history, and the press is really good about repeating the rewrites. I know it's hard to believe.”

  True. Platinum looked a good decade younger than Susan. It was amazing what good hair, makeup, skin care, and Dr. Barry Weintraub's skills as a plastic surgeon could do.

  “Anyway,” Susan continued, “we were both born in Michigan, but after that we moved around a lot, and ended up in San Francisco in the seventies. We went to Catholic school there. I loved it but Rhonda hated it. She cut all the time and got into punk, which was just starting to be big. She was friends with Jello Biafra, Rocky Graham from the Symptoms, the guys from Eye Protection, the Mutants, the deejays at KSAN and then at KUSF—”

  “How can you even remember all that?” Kiley asked.

  Susan grinned conspiratorially. “I was the little sister. I knew them all, too.”

  Whoa. There was a whole hidden side to the colonel's wife that Kiley never could have imagined. “So they were your friends?”

  “Not really. But they fascinated me. Rhonda brought them home sometimes. Even I wanted to be friends with them. … Well, I guess I just don't have the rebel gene. I was just a lot more studious than Rhonda. And religious. I worshipped the nuns. She worshipped the hardest of hard-core punk. Of course, we were just teens then. That was before she became a rock star in the eighties.”

  “So she started singing and you—?”

  “Went to college in San Diego. To the University of San Diego. It's a Jesuit school—perfect for me.” She drew her pale knees up to her chest. “That wasn't my dream, though. What I really wanted to do was go to Scripps.”

  No way. Impossible.

  “Did you say … Scripps?” Kiley queried. “The oceanography institute?”

  Susan nodded. “It's in La Jolla—”

  Kiley sat up. “That's where I want to go! That's why I auditioned for your sister's TV show—so I could establish California state residency and get in-state tuition. If I get in, of course. This is just so amazing!”

  Susan smiled. “I wanted to work with dolphins. How about you?”

  “I don't know yet,” Kiley admitted. “There's just something about the ocean …I can't explain it. Why didn't you go to Scripps?”

  “I didn't get in.”

  Kiley felt a physical pang, as if the rejection was happening to her. “That must have been so hard.”

  Susan nodded. “I was devastated. Anyway, I ended up studying elementary education instead.”

  Kiley couldn't get over it. What were the odds that she and Susan would have Scripps in common?

  “So, go on,” she urged, liking Susan more by the minute. “How did you meet the colonel?”

  “At a church function.” She looked into the distance, her eyes dreamy. “He was so responsible—an actual marine at Camp Pendleton and a practicing Catholic like me. I knew I could always depend on Richard.” Her gaze went back to Kiley. “So, that's it. We got married, had our children, and I became a marine wife. Not something I necessarily recommend—hold on.” She cocked her chin toward the far end of the pool deck, where the colonel and Anya, still dressed for golf, were approaching, laughing together about something. “I'll tell you more later,” she added quickly.

  “I'd like that.”

  A moment or two later, the colonel and Anya joined Kiley and Susan, unslinging their golf bags and plopping heavily down on two deck chairs.

  “How did you play, dear?” Susan asked, reverting instantly to marine-wife mold.

  “Like Tiger Woods!” the colonel boomed. He was tall and thin, with the perfect posture of a career mil
itary man, close-cropped gray hair, and a chiseled chin. He wore bright blue golf pants with a knife pleat and a white golf shirt with the Marine Corps logo emblazoned on the left chest.

  “Like Tiger Woods on bad day with blindfold!” Anya hooted in her Russian accent.

  To Kiley's shock, the colonel laughed heartily at Anya's dis.

  “I shot an eighty-five,” he admitted.

  “And me eighty-three,” Anya added proudly. “I beat him. Lucky for him we were not playing streep poker!”

  “The actress?” the colonel joshed. “Meryl Streep poker?”

  “Very funny joke!” Anya slapped him on the back and grinned broadly.

  “You're a card, Anya,” said the colonel. “Streep poker? A card? Get it?”

  Anya roared with laughter. “A card? Like joker? You very funny man!”

  Kiley stared at them in amazement. Not only was it the first time she'd ever seen Lydia's dour employer laugh, but it was also the first time she'd ever heard the colonel make anything approaching a joke.

  He looked at his wife. “We're going to go get a beer. Susan, can you join us? Kiley, where are the children?”

  “You should see them in the restaurant. They went in for a hamburger about fifteen minutes ago.”

  The colonel smiled, and winked at Anya. “Very good. If they're eating contraband, it's seven years in the stockade for them.”

  Anya roared with laughter again. Kiley looked at Susan, who wore a stiff smile as she slid off the chaise lounge and put on a terry cloth cover-up.

  Anya clasped her hands together. “As your past president once said to our past president, ‘Doveryay, no proveryay.' ”

  “Trust, but verify!” the colonel translated.

  Anya clapped him on the back again. “You are smart man.” She turned to Kiley. “If you see Kat—she is on putting green— you tell where we are.”

  “Those are orders, McCann,” the colonel barked.

  “Yes, sir.” Kiley had learned the hard way about not responding directly when the colonel asked her something.

  Anya laughed again, and the two golfers headed off toward the restaurant-and-bar complex, with Susan bringing up the rear. Kiley was appalled. Never, ever would she marry a guy who treated her the way the colonel treated Susan. Never, ever, ever.