Gold Diggers

by Tracie Howard

“Don’t worry; you’ll all meet him soon enough. He’s a little shy, that’s all.”

  Reese laughed out loud. “And a little married,” she let slip. Four consecutive glasses of champagne had gone straight to her head.

  “You’re pregnant by a married man?” Gillian asked.

  Paulette shot Reese a dirty look that didn’t stick. “He’s getting a divorce soon,” she lied. Though to her it was only a partial lie; she knew that in time he would be getting a divorce, even if he didn’t know it. He had to! As happy as she was to be having his baby and to have some real money, in the darkest hours of the day she didn’t feel any worthier of happiness than her mother had all these years. Maybe even worse—at least her mother did marry, however badly, while she’d be just another statistic: a baby mama.

  “That’s what they all say,” Reese slurred. Some women were such damned fools, she thought. It was laughable. Oblivious Lauren didn’t have enough sense to know that Paulette had put a butcher knife in her back and was slowly twisting it in deeper, and Paulette was stupid enough to believe that Max would leave perfect little Lauren and her precious family name in exchange for her tired, soon-to-be-stretched-out punany. The only one who warranted a measure of her respect was Madam Gillian, who Reese never would have thought to have enough cunning to land a big fish like Brandon. She’d better enjoy it while she could. Reese took another sip.

  “Reese, I think you’ve had too much to drink. Why would you say that to Paulette? We should all be happy for her,” Lauren lectured.

  “I may have had too much to drink, but I’d still have enough sense to know if my husband was fucking my cousin.”

  The air in the room froze solid. No one moved or even dared to breathe as the meaning of the words that had dribbled from Reese’s loose lips sank in. They made a bizarre tableau, each stuck in her own sphere of disbelief. Lauren, who had been raising her glass to her lips, stood with her mouth open, though her brows had risen in slow recognition, and her eyes moved from Reese to Paulette. Instantly months of lies, innuendo, and funny feelings fit together snugly like a very simple jigsaw puzzle.

  Paulette, who was normally adept at covering up deceit, was caught so off guard that her expression was that of a kid with both hands caught deep in the cookie jar and crumbs around her mouth; her lips were moving as if she wanted to say something, but the words were inaccessible. Gillian’s hand flew to her mouth, as if to stop the gasp that crept up her throat. She knew that Paulette could be a scurrilous bitch, but she never considered that she’d have an affair with her own cousin’s husband—and then to have his baby, and worse, to let her cousin give her a baby shower! She was the worst kind of trollop imaginable.

  Reese’s reaction was delayed, slowed down as it was by alcohol. It wasn’t until she saw Gillian, Paulette, and Lauren all looking mortified that she realized that the words she’d thought in her head had actually come out of her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out.

  “You cheatin’, lyin’ bitch!” Lauren yelled at Paulette. She thought of the countless times she’d stood up for Paulette to her mother, and how she’d always made sure that Paulette had money when they were growing up, so that she wouldn’t feel bad when she got the newest toys and Paulette didn’t. And how she had considered her a confidante when she had problems with Max—only to find out that Paulette was fucking him behind her back!

  “Listen, Lauren—” Paulette began.

  “No, you listen. How dare you sleep with my husband after all I’ve done for you?” Lauren screamed. “And then you’re so low and despicable that you’d let me give you a baby shower!”

  “All you’ve done for me? You make it sound like I’m some charity case.” Paulette stood up to face Lauren. “Just because your family had the money doesn’t make you better than me.”

  “No, what makes me better than you is that I’m not a whoring slut!” Lauren hissed, inching closer to her cousin. The calm demeanor that she usually wore was replaced by cold fury. Oddly enough, she wasn’t mad at Max. Knowing him as she did now, she would expect him to stoop that low. But it really hurt that her cousin—her own flesh and blood—would betray her.

  Paulette looked as if she’d been slapped hard in the face. “You can call me what you want to, but at least I know how to please a man, which is more than I can say for you.”

  Lauren stared at her hard, never letting her eyes waver, and in a calm voice that was barely audible, but steely and steady, said, “Like mother, like daughter.” She regretted the words the moment they left her mouth, but it was too late to take them back. It was one thing to insult Paulette, who certainly deserved it, but far below the belt for her to attack her aunt’s character.

  This was the ultimate insult to Paulette. She looked around the room and saw disgust—definitely from Gillian, who was visibly appalled, and even from Reese, who was certainly not above what Paulette had done. She turned, grabbed her bag and ran out the door with tears stinging her lids. She had to get away from everything—the disgrace, the rejection, and the disgust, emotions that she had dealt with all of her life. They had little to do with Lauren, money, or Max, but were pieces carefully packed away in her private set of baggage. She was out the door before the other three could collect themselves.

  Realizing that she wouldn’t have a ride back to Paulette’s house, where she was staying, and ever self-centered, Reese jumped up, gathered her things, and ran after her, feigning concern. “I need to stop her; she’s in no condition to drive.”

  Gillian came over and put her hand on Lauren’s shoulder, not knowing what else to do.

  By the time Reese caught up with Paulette, she was in her car, had started the engine, and was about to drive off. Reese managed to hop in and buckle up before Paulette sped out of the driveway, headed down Mulholland Drive, which now bore a coat of March rain, made slick by the cold caused by the high elevation.

  “Paulette, let me drive; you are in no condition,” Reese said, as if she were suddenly sober herself.

  “And you are? You’re so fuckin’ drunk you can’t even keep your damn mouth shut,” she spit.

  “I’m sorry, Paulette. I didn’t mean to do that; you know it,” Reese pleaded.

  By now Paulette’s tears—which should have been shed decades ago—flooded her eyes, as they came upon a sharp curve that hugged the mountain over the steep canyon. Paulette turned the wheel to maneuver the car, but nothing happened. As the cliff approached, she applied the brakes: Again, nothing happened. In those few seconds, the realization that they were going over the cliff hit her in bold print. When the car broke through the guardrail, she and Reese both screamed. Her hands released the wheel and went flying to her face, as though she might be able to shield herself from the massive wreck that was now imminent. Her last thought was Damn, now Lauren will end up with Max.

  Then everything faded to black.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Paulette’s untimely death made news in papers and gossip rags from Los Angeles to New York. As a publicist who loved the limelight, so she would have been proud of the splashy headlines that heralded the bright New Yorker whose promising life had ended tragically in the Hollywood Hills. This normally would have been covered only in New York, but since it happened in L.A., the other media capital of the country, the story’s appeal was broadened and made even sexier. As details emerged on a daily basis, it “grew legs,” as Paulette would have said. In death, Paulette had what she’d always wanted in life: fame and notoriety.

  The story’s first growth spurt began when the badly injured but still alive passenger was identified as Reese Nolan, soon-to-be ex-wife of star New York Knicks forward, Chris Nolan, who, incidentally, just two months ago had had his own vehicular mishap on Mulholland Drive. Of course, every detail of that well-documented episode was dusted off, dressed up, and trotted back across newspaper pages. The articles recounted every scintillating detail, ending with a line or two ab
out the auto-theft charges being dropped, but how drug charges were still pending.

  Pictures ran of Reese stepping out of limos in thousand-dollar Blahniks, and up red carpets wearing the latest designer couture. The sideshow would not have been complete without including the infamous photo of Reese caught looking like a disheveled whore with her illicit lover in front of the Four Seasons hotel. Prominent doctors were interviewed and pontificated ad nauseam about how hideously disfigured the once beautiful woman would now be. One of the seedier gossip sheets even ran a headline: “Once Beauty, Now a Beast,” showing a “before” shot, along with a doctored-up “after” shot.

  Days later the story became even more salacious as it was discovered that the fuel and steering lines of the BMW appeared to have been tampered with, so perhaps this was no accident. Now it was murder! News anchors drooled over the scintillating story of the murder of a savvy New York publicist, and the sad disfigurement of one of the country’s premier it girls.

  As was to be expected, Paulette’s pregnancy, once discovered, added even more chunks of fodder to the grinding rumor mill. The press began speculating wildly on the paternity of her unborn child, thus drawing a link, they surmised, to a potential murder suspect, and opening a fresh, new can of worms from which to bait an ever-eager audience. The Mulholland whodunnit became a grotesque but entertaining pastime as reporters dug around like pigs in slop, coming up with a growing list of unsavory suspects.

  By now the TV gossip shows had elbowed their way into the trough, joining the wild feeding frenzy. The story was too scandalous to ignore as the list of suspects grew to include choice names like socialite Lauren Neuman, who’d had a blistering argument with her cousin mere seconds before the fatal crash, and whose husband, it was learned, had fathered the publicist’s six-month fetus. Just as likely was the notion that said husband, noted New York attorney, Maximillian Neuman III, had murdered Paulette himself after she refused to have an abortion, thus threatening to ruin his marriage and his reputation. Lauren’s mother was even bandied about as a suspect, once the family’s feud over the deceased matriarch Priscilla Baines-Reynold’s multimillion-dollar estate was unearthed.

  The next suspect was even juicier to swallow: Chris Nolan. It was discovered that Paulette was somehow involved in his nasty divorce settlement, and had assisted his wife, the tragically disfigured passenger, in her negotiations by hiring a private detective.

  No one knew exactly what, if anything, the detective had discovered, but since his involvement it was rumored that settlement talks had escalated into the tens of millions of dollars. By all accounts Chris had the qualifications of an excellent suspect: He was a high-profile celebrity, and he had infallible motives to kill both women.

  The story had it all: glitzy celebrities, upper-crust socialites, an unwanted pregnancy, and an illicit affair. If this brewing concoction wasn’t titillating enough, gossips and speculators added additional spice to the simmering pot, and rumors swirled like locusts on a prairie. Online chat rooms got into the act, creating a scintillating but totally fictitious story about a hot lesbian affair between soon-to-be superstar actress Gillian Tillman and the tragic figure Poor Paulette. They reported that the two had lived together in L.A. until Gillian took up with music mogul Brandon Russell, the man responsible for her starring role in her upcoming film release, Gold Diggers, as though this were irrefutable proof of wrongdoing, hence murder! According to HotGossip4U.com, once spurned, Poor Paulette threatened to divulge their lesbian affair to the press, giving Gillian and Brandon both compelling motives for murder. As preposterous as this unlikely scenario was, it added a strong element to the lethal cocktail. It became an explosive mixture of record and movie business executives, athletes, actresses, and socialites, all caught up in a juicy, possibly sapphic murder scandal.

  By now the story had grown so monstrous that Poor Paulette became a bit player in her own death saga. She was often referred to as “that publicist” who was killed by Chris Nolan, Gillian Tillman, Lauren or Max Neuman, or fill in the blank with another celebrity name. In death, as in life, eventually Poor Paulette soon became second fiddle, a bit player, which surely was enough to make her roll over in the very expensive casket in which she lay.

  There had been quite a debate among the family about whether or not an open casket was appropriate under the horrific circumstances. Mildred, ever concerned about family appearances—even in death—threatened to take over the ceremony and insist on a closed casket, but her sister, June, finally grew a set of balls and told her what she could do with her prissy “appearances.” June and Lauren both knew that Poor Paulette would have wanted to be front and center during her final curtain call, so Lauren hired a Hollywood special-effects makeup artist and her cousin’s favorite hairstylist to make Poor Paulette look her absolute best. It was no small feat.

  Nevertheless, on the day of the funeral, Poor Paulette lay in a highly polished Italian mahogany casket with fourteen-karat-gold trimmings, in front of the pulpit at Abyssinian Baptist Church, turned out in Chanel couture. Considering her extensive injuries, she looked great, and the turnout was very impressive. The only things missing were a VIP list, a velvet rope, and an after-party.

  Meanwhile, Reese was still laid up in Cedars-Sinai. Though she’d survived the horrific crash, she didn’t look much better than Poor Paulette. Unlike her friend, who never wore a seat belt, Reese had worn one, which saved her life. Even so, her face looked as if Barry Bonds had taken a bat to it. She also had an assortment of broken ribs, a broken arm, and a shattered pelvis. Most would say that she was lucky to be alive, though once she got her first glimpse in the mirror, she would beg to differ.

  Lauren sat in the first pew with her aunt, her mother, and Max, racked with the unrelenting weight of enormous grief and tremendous guilt. If she hadn’t lost her temper over her cousin’s affair with Max, whom she now cared nothing about, Poor Paulette would still be here. Lauren’s eyes were nearly swollen shut, and she was physically drained by the flood of tears she’d shed since that awful night. Her mother sat on one side of her, looking as stiff as a double shot of Jack Daniel’s, quietly praying that the whole sordid mess would be buried along with Poor Paulette. She had been appalled to learn that her niece had been sleeping with Max—her Max, whom she’d handpicked for her Lauren. And to think the little harlot was actually going to have his baby! To Mildred, the hussy was probably better off dead, saving them all from the enormous burden of a bastard child. But the worst atrocity was the disgrace of having all of her family’s dirty laundry hung end to end across the pages of newspapers from coast to coast.

  June sat to Lauren’s left in a fixed state of shock. The stress of the last week had desecrated what little remained of the woman’s spirit. Next to her sat Max, looking every bit as guilty and complicit as he was.

  In the pew behind them sat Gillian, who’d just flown in from L.A. She wore an air of tragedy that suited her well. She’d received a call from her mother, who was now in France, hot on the heels of an eighty-year-old shipping tycoon whose wheelchair she was trying to push down the aisle. Her first comment was to congratulate Gillian on making the papers. It seemed that the story of Poor Paulette’s death and the cast of celebrity suspects had also grown wings and landed in Europe. In Imelda’s excitement, it was inconsequential that the reason for her daughter’s publicity was her friend’s death. Importantly, she’d advised Gillian to wear Valentino to the funeral. As tasteless as Imelda’s comments were, Gillian followed her advice, and looked every bit the movie star in mourning, wearing a tailored black Valentino skirt suit and hat.

  The rest of the audience was a strange combination of assorted celebrities, business professionals, and plain old ordinary people, most of whom had never met Poor Paulette, or even heard of her, prior to her untimely death. Of course, the press hung around like hungry buzzards waiting to pick apart what was left of her carcass, including People magazine, Extra, Access Hollywood,
Page Six, and dozens of others.

  After the funeral service, Lauren and Gillian managed to catch a few moments alone.

  “How is Reese?” Lauren asked.

  “Aside from looking like shit, being in excruciating pain, and mourning herself more than Paulette, she’s fine.” Gillian had visited her every day in the hospital, and Reese’s eyes hadn’t even misted over when she was told of Poor Paulette’s death. But she’d wailed like a newborn baby upon seeing her own disfigured face. The hospital was forced to sedate her, and then put her on suicide watch.

  “How are you?” Gillian asked Lauren, though she knew the answer. Lauren looked as traumatized as she had that night when they’d rushed to the scene of the crash, after Brandon, who’d just driven by on the way home, saw the accident and, not knowing who was involved, mentioned it to Gillian. Lauren heard him, and immediately had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. By the looks of her, it was still settled there.

  “I’m in shock. I can’t believe she’s really dead.” The tears started fresh again. Lauren reached into her bag and pulled out a lace-trimmed handkerchief to dab away the tears.

  Gillian put her arms around Lauren. “Remember, it’s not your fault.”

  Between sobs, Lauren said, “If I hadn’t made that nasty comment about her mother, she wouldn’t have run off so upset.” Lauren shook her head, hoping to stave off another flood of tears. “I feel so guilty.”

  “Remember, it wasn’t an accident, so it had nothing to do with Paulette’s being upset.”

  Lauren frowned, highlighting the fresh set of wrinkles that grief had settled into her brow. “But who could have wanted Paulette dead?” She shook her head.

  “According to the rumors, at least, the list is very long. And I’m sure you know it even includes you.”

  “So I’ve heard, but why would I want to kill Paulette? I loved her.”

  “Yes, but she loved your husband, and was about to have his baby.”