Tainted Love

by Melody Mayer

  “It's me.”

  “What's up, me?” Jorge asked easily.

  “Too much.” With just a few polite preliminaries, she quickly relayed the highlights of the Jonathan situation and how insane it was making her.

  “Well, what do you want to do?” Jorge asked.

  She stowed the toolbox back under the sink and wiped up the mess she'd made. “I want Jonathan to call me.”

  Her friend laughed. “I asked what you want to do, not what you want him to do. You can't control what he does.”

  Right. True.

  “I want …I want to not care this much,” she admitted, leaning against the refrigerator. “And I want to know exactly what's going on.” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly eleven. Jonathan was shooting again today, at the same location in Topanga Canyon. “I want to go to the movie set and confront his ass,” she added.

  From the other end of the phone, all she got was silence.

  “Jorge?”

  “No one is stopping you, esa.”

  Esme closed her eyes. “I'm stopping me.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don't ‘ah’ me, Jorge,” Esme said crossly. “Don't pull that enlightened shit with me.”

  He chuckled. “So don't pull your tough-barrio-chica shit with me then. Hey, the Latin Kings are playing tonight in the old neighborhood. You want to come back and forget your troubles?”

  “I have to see if Diane needs me.”

  “Well, do what you got to do.”

  Esme thanked him and hung up, feeling no better. Why couldn't she simply take her mother's advice and fall for Jorge? But no, she had to choose ex–gang leaders and rich gringo actors, guys guaranteed to mess with her mind and screw up her life.

  She shed her clothes and headed for the shower. She would not call Jonathan. She would be more on the ball with the kids so that Diane would have faith in her again. She'd take the glitterati who wanted her tattoos for every penny she could get.

  She was in charge.

  “Oh, you are not wearing that,” Platinum decreed when Kiley walked into the living room of the main house. Platinum had been moved up a level in her pretrial detention program, which meant that she was now allowed a weekly supervised visit to her estate to pick up clothes and see her children, always under the watchful eye of Ms. Johnson. Her actual trial was set for early September—she faced three to five years in prison if she was convicted on all the charges.

  Ms. Johnson had called the colonel the night before to say that she'd be visiting tonight. But the colonel had already planned to take the kids to the MCAS Miramar Air Show in San Diego and refused to change his schedule. The good news was that they'd be home by ten, and he was never late. The bad news was that no one but Kiley was there to greet Platinum and the social worker.

  As it turned out, Platinum was in better shape than Kiley had anticipated. While Ms. Johnson retired to the kitchen to drink coffee and write up some reports, the rock star took the opportunity to bond with her nanny as if they were long-lost friends. The first few weeks of pretrial custody had been a bitch, though, she confessed. Withdrawal from drugs and alcohol didn't get any easier when you got older.

  Of course, she was smoking like a fiend, and her language hadn't improved any, but she was clear-eyed and sober. Her perfect waterfall of platinum white hair fell nearly to her waist. She wore skinny white Seven jeans with pearl and crystal embroidery around the waist, and a sheer white Escada linen shirt with a crystal tie at the neckline left unknotted, so that the shirt fell off one shoulder. Underneath was a white Chloé pleated bra top. She looked absolutely perfect. It was hard to ignore the fashion advice of someone who looked absolutely perfect, even if it was Platinum.

  “I thought casual would be good,” Kiley explained.

  “I hope you don't have a date.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  This was true. She and Tom had finally connected. He was picking her up at nine, after he finished shooting a commercial for a start-up jeans company that was paying him an obscene amount of money.

  “With the model? Tom whatever-his-name-is?”

  Kiley nodded.

  “Jesus, Kiley. That jeans-and-a-T-shirt thing screams high school. When you get dressed you have to look in the mirror and ask: Would I do me? Let that be your guide.”

  “Honestly, Platinum, I'm not very good at this stuff.”

  “Big shocker there.” Platinum sucked her unfiltered Camel deeply, and exhaled a ragged smoke ring. “Come with me.”

  Kiley only had a little while before Tom was supposed to pick her up, but Platinum was already ascending the staircase to the second floor, so Kiley trotted after her. The rock star went straight to her own white-on-white suite and the adjoining bedroom she'd transformed into a massive walk-in closet.

  One entire side was devoted to white clothes, the other to prints and solids. Kiley watched, amazed, as Platinum marched back and forth between the racks, scrutinizing her choices the way the colonel scrutinized the kids when he gave them a lecture. Finally she stopped abruptly.

  “This,” she decreed, and pulled a gossamer top of palest peach off its matching peach velvet hanger.

  “Oh no,” Kiley declared. “I mean, I still have that beautiful shirt you gave me and I just—I can't take another one.”

  “What shirt?”

  “In my guesthouse? You took off one that you were wearing and gave it to me? I was going to a party with Tom?”

  “I don't remember,” Platinum admitted. “But do yourself a favor and take this.”

  Kiley took it. It was simple and elegant, with bell-shaped sleeves and tiny rhinestone buttons. “It's beautiful.”

  “It should be, it's Yves Saint goddamn Laurent. It'll fit you, too, because it's meant to be drapey. And take this, and this, and this.” She began pulling various shirts from their hangers and flinging them in Kiley's direction.

  “Platinum—no—I mean, I can't—”

  “Okay, you so need to shut up,” Platinum said, tossing Kiley a pair of white trousers. “Try these Betsey Johnson pants—they stretch.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Kiley asked. Platinum was hardly known for her generosity.

  “Because, Kiley, you're as crazy as I am.”

  “I am not!”

  “Oh, come on. My brother-in-law is a Nazi. How can you stand him? Any sane nanny would have gone to the breezeway at the club and gotten poached. Well, don't just stand there. Take off that ugly-ass crap you're wearing and try some real clothes on.”

  They went back into Platinum's bedroom, where Kiley changed. Off came the jeans and T-shirt, on went the pale peach shirt. It fit marvelously, skimming over her curves. Then she added the white pants. She'd been certain that her butt would approximate the size and color of the Abominable Snowman, but the pants were so well made that they looked great.

  “Great ass,” Platinum commented offhandedly as she lit another Camel. “Not that anyone would know in that baggy shit you wear.”

  Kiley wasn't sure “thanks” was an appropriate response, so she gestured to the huge pile of clothes on the bed. “This is so nice of you, Platinum.”

  “Oh please, I am not nice, and I am not suddenly going to become nice. You're my goddamn Berlin Wall here, Kiley. You are all that stands between my children and that bastard my sister married. Consider the clothes a bribe. There's more where they came from.”

  Kiley's cell phone sounded; she had to scramble for her just-removed jeans to answer. “Hello?”

  “Hey, it's me, Lydia. You have a minute? There's something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Can it wait? I've got a date with Tom. In ten minutes.”

  “For Tom it definitely can wait. It's important, but don't try to call me back. Billy and I are going to be occupied this evening. How about you?”

  By her use of the word “occupied,” Lydia left little doubt as to the activity that was planned.

  “Don't know. I'll have to see.”

  “Give
me the blow-by-blow,” Lydia advised. “I'll call you tomorrow.”

  As her friend was saying goodbye, Tom clicked in. “I'm outside the gate. Can you open it?”

  “Come on up. I'll meet you in front of the main house. Five minutes.”

  “Leave the clothes,” Platinum instructed when Kiley hung up. “I'll get one of the maids to put them in the guesthouse.”

  “Thank you so—”

  Platinum held up a palm of silence. “Got it. You're pathetically grateful. Now go meet your guy.”

  Then, Platinum did the most startling thing Kiley had ever seen her do. She smiled.

  Tom suggested a new casual restaurant on the Venice Beach boardwalk called the Seafarer. They sat at an outdoor redwood table and basked in the warm glow of the standing heating poles that graced so many of Los Angeles's outdoor establishments. The boardwalk, famous for its street performers and eccentrics, was close to deserted at ten o'clock at night.

  They'd both ordered the house specialty, fish and chips, and an amazing fruit drink made from pureed peaches, pineapple, papaya, and coconut. The conversation was low-key— his modeling gig, her latest misadventures with the colonel, and the brief return of Platinum to her estate. It was all very newsy and casual, like good friends catching up. Actually, like casual friends catching up, Kiley mentally amended. Casual friends to whom you don't tell the important stuff.

  But how could Kiley share the weight of depression she felt, about how her goals that used to be elusive but were still possible, were now utterly impossible? If she found the attacks unattractive in her own mother, what would Tom think of them? She didn't want to find out. Not that it mattered. Nothing he had said or done since picking her up at Platinum's had led Kiley to think that Tom wanted anything more than buddy-buddy friendship.

  Just when the ineffable sadness of that notion was hitting her, Tom reached across the table and touched her hand. “So here's my question, Kiley McCann. How did things get weird between us?”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe not so buddy-buddy after all, then.

  Thank you, God.

  He sat there in the glow of the heat lamp, the subdued outdoor lighting glinting off his golden hair, looking more delectable than any human had the right to look. He wore a T-shirt the same blue as his eyes, casually loose jeans, and Bass Weejuns. Though Kiley was sporting Platinum's beautiful shirt and sexy pants, she knew what passersby must have been thinking: What the hell does that gorgeous guy see in her? She felt it whenever they were together. There had always been girls trying to catch Tom's eye. But how did you tell a guy any of that without seeming insecure and pathetic? You didn't. However insecure and pathetic she felt in Tom's presence, opening up about it would up the awful quotient exponentially.

  “Well…I thought maybe you wanted us to just be friends.”

  He looked perplexed. “Why?”

  “You're so busy.”

  “I'm busy?” he echoed, sounding confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I barely heard from you when you were in Florida.”

  “Jeez, Kiley. That's what this is about?”

  She flushed. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “Then you're rewriting history, which is not such an admirable trait. The last time we talked before I went to Florida, I was dropping you at Platinum's place. You were pissed at me because I hadn't called you ‘my girlfriend’ when I introduced you to some friends at Cafe Med. You told me we'd talk later. I thought, fine, let her think this through. She'll call me. And now, you're pissed I didn't call you? Kiley, the ball was in your court. I was waiting for you.”

  The waitress brought their fish and chips, which gave Kiley a moment to think. Tom was right about the time line, that was true. So she apologized.

  “What's really going on here, Kiley?” he pressed.

  She chewed thoughtfully on a single french fry. Then, to her surprise, she heard her mother's words again, as if on the breeze.

  Kiley McCann. I did not raise my daughter to be a liar and we have been down this road before. I warn you, do not lie to me. It's you, isn't it?

  It was her. At least as much as him.

  “Tom, I spend my days with little kids. You spend yours with the most beautiful women in the world. I can't compete.”

  Tom looked incredulous. “That's what this is about?”

  She nodded and reached for her fruit drink just to have something to do. At the next table, two high school girls tittered, glancing at them and then quickly looking away. Kiley was sure they recognized Tom from either his recent role in The Ten or his billboards.

  “Kiley, if I wanted to be with a model, I'd be with a model. Do you really not know how attracted I am to you?”

  She could feel her cheeks burn. “I …uh…”

  He put his knuckles to her cheek; his eyes exuded so much heat that Kiley thought she would simply melt and slide under the table. Then he pulled some bills from his wallet and threw them onto the table. “We need to get out of here.”

  They walked across the boardwalk—actually just a wide strip of gray asphalt—and then they were on the broad beach. The closer they got to the water, the quieter it became, save for the insistent calling of some nighttime terns that picked at the edible detritus of the day's sun worshippers.

  “These girls I work with—the ones you think are so beautiful,” Tom began, his voice low. “Most of them are completely self-centered. It's like the whole world exists just to be a reflection of their beauty.”

  “Hold on while I get a tissue. Poor them.”

  Tom smiled. “Okay, let me try again. Kiley. On my dog Blue's life …” He held up a hand as if taking an oath. “I simply am not attracted to bony women.”

  “What?”

  His hand was still in the air.

  “I am not attracted to tall, bony women,” he repeated. “Never have been. Never will be.”

  Kiley laughed. “Now you're the one who's joking.”

  “Alisa, my first girlfriend in eighth grade? She was so round and cute, with the greatest red hair. She had a pet pig and wanted to be a vet. I was crazy for her. My high school girlfriend, Laurie? Five-foot-nothing and very curvy—definitely not skinny. She's at MIT now.”

  Kiley's head was spinning. “But—but Marym …”

  “I know the world thinks Marym is the epitome of beauty,” Tom acknowledged. “I like her because she's a truly nice person, regardless of the crap that went down between the two of you. She's smart as hell.”

  “Oh come on,” Kiley scoffed.

  “What kind of guys are you used to, Kiley? The kind that base who they're attracted to on what the world thinks? I've never been like that. And I can't believe you'd be into that kind of guy.”

  Kiley decided against admitting that her only real high school relationship had been based more on “well, he asked me out” than on any great chemistry.

  “The girls I've really liked have had a lot in common,” Tom went on. “They were all on the short side, none of 'em were skinny, and they were all passionately interested in something besides navel-gazing. I mean, my concept of hell is to be stranded on a desert island with an airhead whose claim to fame is that she modeled in Vogue.”

  Kiley laughed. “Mine too, now that you mention it.”

  “I have this favorite book—my mom used to read it to me and my sister when we were kids—maybe you know it. The Little Prince.”

  Kiley nodded. “I know it. We read it in tenth-grade French.”

  “Well, it's about … about dreams, I guess. There's this line that always stays with me: ‘What is essential is invisible to the eye.’ ”

  A gust of wind blew some hair over Kiley's eyes and Tom tenderly brushed it away. “You are a beautiful girl, Kiley. On the outside, even if you don't know it. But what means more to me is the essential part on the inside. You're not jaded. You don't pretend to be. I love how much you love the ocean, how that fuels your hopes and dreams.”

  Kiley felt as if
someone had slapped her cheek. Tom must have read it in her face.

  “What?” he asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

  She gulped hard.

  “What? Tell me.”

  “The ocean …”

  She looked out at the sea, instead of at him, as she let the whole story spill out. The aborted scuba diving lesson. Her panic attack. The history of it in her family; her grandmother, her mother.

  “I guess that's the real me, invisible to the eye,” she concluded, her voice hoarse.

  Tom gathered her into his arms and held her. “Can I ask you something?”

  Kiley nodded.

  “What happened underwater—it never happened before. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has it happened since?”

  “I haven't been in the pool.”

  Tom stepped back and rubbed his chin. “Do you think … what time do you start work in the morning?”

  “I don't, actually. The colonel is taking the kids flying at Edwards Air Force Base. I don't need to be home until noon.”

  “What would you say if I picked you up around five a.m.?”

  “Did you say five?”

  Tom nodded. “There's someplace I'd like to take you.”

  Kiley couldn't think of anything open at five except the diner where her mother worked.

  “Where?”

  He looked at her with his clear blue eyes, the eyes that had vicariously seduced a million women and a whole lot of gay men. Eyes that now were looking at her and seeing only her. “Trust me, Kiley. I think you can do that.”

  “Now, this is the life I was meant to live.” As Lydia stretched with languid pleasure, the two-thousand-dollar cinnabar vine-and-bamboo-patterned chinoiserie sheet fell from her naked breasts. “Sanity has been restored to the world.”

  Billy nuzzled her neck. “If you'd never left Texas, you'd be a much more boring girl, Lydia.”

  “I suppose that's true. But now that I have a greater appreciation for all things decadent, I say we make up for lost time. More Cristal and beluga sound about right? I'll call down to room service. And then … second helpings of you, too.”

  He kissed her quickly. “Hold that thought. Nature calls.”