by Smith, Skye
"So which producer's arm do I have to hang off?" Maya groaned. In her very short movie career she had already found out that the tired clichés about the wandering hands of producers were mostly true.
"They have all bowed to Gerry here. When I told them that he did the society spot on local radio, and knew everybody in this town, they backed out in favor of him."
* * *
Karen was not exaggerating. They spent the rest of the day in wardrobe and makeup, many times longer and fussier than for any movie scene. As Karen explained it, the company's cameramen chose their shots to help you look fabulous, while the paparazzi chose their shots to embarrass you. Everything about them had to be perfect.
While Karen and Maya were being glammed up, they stopped Gerry from shaving. The scruffy chin look was the in thing, despite the fact that he appeared a bit dirty, or perhaps because of it.
Karen's gown was of sky blue with white accents of silk and lace, strapless and tight in the bodice to support her cleavage and loose on the hips to hide them.
"The fashion house wouldn't let us wear black," she told Maya, "because in Canada black is what all the wealthy matrons wear. They want us to stand out from the crows. We'll probably be the only women there not in black."
"Well, you look fabulous," gushed Gerry in falsetto. "Just a touch of Bo Peep. Maya, on the other hand, has been set up for the wolves. Really. Little Red Riding Whore." He looked over to where the makeup artist was standing. "Try the lighter red on her lips. That one comes off too dark for the dress."
Maya swirled her skirt in the mirror. It moved so well she hoped there would be dancing. Hers was strapless and skin tight all the way down over her hips and then flared out so that she could walk or dance. Gerry was right, though. It was crimson, and had a matching crimson cape. All she needed now was a basket on her arm and a grandmother in the forest to visit.
* * *
With the help of the guards and their limo driver, they had made it through the paparazzi scrum, or should that be scum, at the entrance to the hotel. Then, once they were inside the lobby they had to run the gauntlet of official reporters. Dressed as they were, and one on each arm of James Bond, they were stopped by everyone. Karen was a pro. She hurried them through the local reporters and lingered at the network cameras.
They entered the ballroom walking along a red carpet, and it looked all the world like they were entering the funeral of a king. Every woman was in black except for some young women way at the back of the huge room, where the token Olympic Athlete wannabes were crowding around a food table stoking carbs.
Maya knew where she wanted to be. She was starving, not just for treats, but for the company of other young women. First, she had to make it through the greeting line.
Six handshakes later, she regretted leaving her matching formal gloves in the limo. Of the six, three had sent shivers of blackness through to her very soul. She was losing it, ready to swoon, the intense stench of charred toast seemed to fill the room. She couldn't breath. She didn't want to breath. She didn't want to smell it anymore.
In a moment, she could begin to see again, focusing, but it was like she was dancing and swirling around. She focused again and saw that Gerry must have swept her into his arms, and was now carrying her to some overstuffed armchairs in the corner.
Once in the chair, Karen arrived with a glass of water, and the tiny purse she had dropped. Maya sighed, "I'm sorry. I've mucked it up."
"Not at all, love," Karen replied, "your theatrical timing was perfect, and so was Mr. Bond's." She said 'Mr. Bond' with a deep voice and an English accent. "The official event photographers had a heyday snapping us rather than the boring old farts they were hired to photograph." She leaned over and felt Red Riding Hood's forehead. Maybe she had been pushing them all too hard. "What happened?"
"I forgot my gloves in the car. Touching psychopaths curdles my aura and makes me sick. I'll go and get them."
"What, and do that gauntlet on your own? Sit still." Karen snapped her fingers to a security guard nearby. She told him how and where to find her driver and to have him fetch a pair of formal gloves from their limo. "You wait for your gloves, darling." She put on her accent again. "James and I must work the crowd. He has promised to introduce me to some hockey goalie that walks on water around Vancouver. Be still, my heart."
Maya closed her eyes so that some browsing young lawyer types couldn't use the excuse of eye contact to speak to her. She opened them when someone put a hand on her knee. "Don't be afraid," said a woman’s voice, "I'll keep them away from you." She looked over at the next overstuffed chair. An older woman in a brace of diamonds and a sequined black gown was looking at her with concern.
"I'm okay," she began.
"But you touched some psychopaths and they curdled your aura. I heard. You must have met my husband. He could give psychopath lessons. I come to these functions with him, but these people are not my choice of company. I will guzzle some more of this dreadful domestic champagne, excuse me, I mean champagne method, and then beg off with a headache and go and watch TV in my suite upstairs."
"Please don't leave me, not yet. Not while the wolves are still circling and me without my gloves."
The woman had raised one leg up on a stool. With her foot she nudged it closer Maya's chair, and then moved over to sit on it. "There, now we can speak without shouting. So, you have an aura?"
"You know about auras?"
"When I was not much older than you, I was a nurse in India, and then taught nursing in Africa. I know about auras."
"Nursing must have paid better in those days," Maya said, reaching forward and lifting the woman’s diamond pendant with two fingers to watch it sparkle.
"My nursing career ended when I was swept off my feet by the drug company exec who knocked me up. I was Catholic, you see, and I was not on the pill even though that was what the executive was promoting on his visit to Africa." She fixed her gaze on the lovely blonde in the stunning red dress. "So, why would a girl who is allergic to psychopaths attend a function filled with politicians and land developers? What were you expecting to find? Saints?"
"I'm here promoting a movie that I am in. The three of us are in."
"Is it about rich and famous psychopaths? I am Nancy, by the way." She squeezed Maya's wrist affectionately.
"Maya," she replied, putting her other hand softly on top of the woman’s. "It's about vampires."
"So, I was right, then. Well, they are all here. Break out the sacred oak stakes." She grabbed two more glasses of bubbly from a passing waitress. "Ooh, these will be your gloves coming. You still don't look well. Why don't you come to my suite and put your head down for ten. Say 'yes'."
"Yes," Maya said in a faint breath. That is exactly what she needed to do. Just getting out of the ballroom would help. She watched the woman swallow the two drinks down as if they were shooters, and then wave across the room at some man. The man walked over to them. Obviously her husband.
"I'm taking this young lady to lie down for a few minutes in our suite. We won't be long. And you can put your eyes back in your head. You will not be coming to the suite while she is there."
Maya was right. As soon as they were out of the ballroom and the crush of psychos and psycho wanabes, she felt immediately better. The woman's suite was the penthouse, so it was a long elevator ride. She didn't like elevators. Not since the first time she had ridden in one, the day after she moved to Frisco. She took her mind off the enclosed space hurtling into space by looking at herself in the mirrored walls. She fully understood why the wolves had been circling.
"Come in," Nancy said, opening the door. She pointed across the room. "There is a day bed over there. I will find you a blanket." She walked to the linen closet, pulled one out, smelled it, put it back and pulled out another. Nurses training. She tucked Maya in and sat on the edge of the day bed beside her.
"You must have had fantastic adventures in India and Africa." It was a hint for a story.
"Act
ually, it ripped my heart out. I was working with a couple of French Canadian doctors who specialized in sewing children together after they had been playing with land mines. There was a new type of landmine that looked a bit like a plastic toy. It was enough to make me flee into the arms of the man who knocked me up. I mean, I was Catholic, so my only choice was to marry him even though I didn't actually like him. Anything, so I wouldn't have to see the effects of those mines any more."
"You did well. You seem to have had a good life by him."
Nancy stiffened, and Maya thought she was going to collapse, so she wiggled over in the bed to make room and then pulled her to lay down beside her. She pulled her gloves off and threw them onto her spiked scarlet pumps so she wouldn't forget them, and then started to caress the woman with her aura.
"Mmmm, that feels good. Drugs were just one of his family's many businesses. The main business was, is, munitions. Do you know what that is, munitions?"
"City and county bonds?" she guessed. Her understanding of words had leaped while living with the guys.
"It's short for ammunition. They made the land mines that were maiming my children. Then they sold us the drugs to use on them."
"Merde,"
"Exactement, la vie est cruelle. The fates were laughing at me."
"So, why did you stay with him?"
"I was Catholic, with a young child, a first son of a first son. He, they, would not allow me to leave. Later when he wanted rid of me, I refused."
"You refused?"
"Divorced, I am just another family member with an interest in the family trust. Now that his father has died, if I outlive my husband, I take control of the family trust."
"What is this family trust?."
"Ah my child, in the old days the family fortune would pass from eldest son to eldest son, and therefore would stay whole and powerful. Under modern laws, it must be passed on to all children equally, which means it is weakened and the power block is broken. The politicians are owned by the rich, so they legislated family trusts so that the rich could bypass the inheritance laws. A family trust is like a corporation. It is a way of keeping a family's wealth and power intact across the generations."
"So if he dies, you, like, control everything. The munitions, the drugs, everything?"
"Everything."
"What would you do?"
"Can you keep a secret?" Nancy asked. "My life may well depend on it."
"Then don't tell me."
"Who better to tell than someone who is sickened by the touch of a psycho? I have kept my plan inside me for ten years or more. I need to tell someone or else I'll explode."
"Umm." Maya increased the power of her aura, hoping it would lull Nancy to sleep before she told her dangerous secrets. It wasn't working. She could feel the agitation in Nancy's body. "Okay, tell me."
"I have thought about this long and hard.
First I will hire a brigade of ex-Green Beret types to protect me.
Then I will call in the forensic auditors and put all the executives in prison.
Then I will dump a truck load of evidence at the UN war crimes court.
Then I will shut down, not sell, mind you, but shut down the land mine factories.
Then I will hire a hundred lawyers to keep the munitions patents from being used by others.
Then I will transfer the drug patents into public domain.
Then, if there any money left in the trust, I will throw it all at Medecins sans Frontieres. That is the organization created by the doctors I worked with to help with the so called 'collateral damage' of the oil wars.
Then, then, then I ..."
Maya could feel Nancy relax into sleep. All it took was for her to get it off her chest. She ratcheted back the power of her aura and tucked the blanket around the old nurse. Then she picked up her pumps and her gloves and her purse and crept out the door and into the hallway.
"Ah, I was hoping you hadn't left yet," said a man's voice. She jumped and turned. It was the husband.
"Please, don't go in yet, she is just falling asleep."
He looked the trim lass up and down as she was putting on her long gloves and her shoes. She was ravishing. "Well, if I can't go into my own suite, then you will have to entertain me. You want to be in movies don't you? I know some producers that could get you some roles, kick-start your career."
She looked at him and hid her disgust under a sweet smile. "I've been in movies long enough to know a pitch when I hear it."
"That obvious eh? Can't blame me for trying. You are beautiful, and I'm the luckiest guy in the building right now because I get to talk to you. May I escort you back to the ballroom?"
She thought for a moment. Did she really want to be in an elevator with this man, in this dress, alone? "What happened to the pitch you were going to make?"
"I thought..."
"I've always got time to listen to a pitch. Is there somewhere more private where you can tell me about it? I would hate for the paparazzi to catch us on film."
"Uh, well gee. I've got a brand new two hundred and fifty thousand dollar Bimmer in the private parking on P5. We could twiddle all the knobs and buttons while we talk."
"Yeah, right. Get this. Some very nice ladies at the studio spent a lot of time dressing me like this for the cameras tonight. You don't muss the hair, the makeup, or the dress. The only knobs and buttons we twiddle are the car's. We talk, we exchange phone numbers, we go back to the ballroom. Okay?"
"Hey, okay. I'm winning already. I get to spend time with the knockout of the evening."
The elevator doors opened. "You take this one, I'll take the next. P5 right? I don't want to risk the doors opening on the mezzanine for the whole world to see us."
* * *
He stood there by the elevators on P5 jingling his keys. She was slick. Hollywood slick. She had brushed him off so easy she didn't even need to blink. She'd be back in the ballroom by now. Oh well, she was worth the gamble. It was a long shot, but she could have come. He had already decided to play the gentleman, follow her rules, offer her a condo or something, just for visiting privileges a few nights a week. He pressed the call button for the elevator.
There was a ding and he turned to walk towards the opening door. She stepped out. He almost creamed himself, she looked so good. She smiled at him and said "I was right. The doors opened on the mezzanine and I had to, like, kick some shins to get the photographers' feet out of the doorway. Now, where is this fine automobile with all the knobs and buttons?"
* * *
The paparazzi had breached the walls and she made a high-heeled dash from the elevator towards the ballroom door. There were two big security guards at the door, so she made a motion with her hands that she would be running between them. The photographers dogging her footsteps ran into their chests, but Maya was through. She strutted her stuff across the ballroom to the circle of dark suits that could only mean that Karen was standing there.
As she got closer she could see that Karen had her back to her, and as she got even closer she saw a man's hand drifting down from her waist to grab her ass. A light kick from Maya's foot behind the man's off side knee made him stumble away and spill his drink on the man beside him. "Thank you, Mrs. Li," she said under her breath and then she whispered into Karen's ear as she took the place of the stumbling man, "Darling, have you missed me?"
"You don't know the half of it," Karen whispered back. "I would introduce you around but I don't think you want to meet any of them. You are wearing your gloves, I hope."
"That bad?"
"The fat one over there made it very clear what he would like to do to Bo Peep's sheep."
"Where's Mr. Bond? Isn't he supposed to be protecting you?"
"He's over there making notes for his radiocast tomorrow. I must remember to listen to it. I wonder whose eyes he's going to scratch out?"
"Hopefully some of the choice psychopaths. Have you ever seen so many in one room? I guess it's because there are so many powerful politic
ians here. Even if they aren't psychos themselves, they attract them like flies to rotting meat."
"This? This is nothing," replied Karen. "The baby bears of an unimportant country. I mean, Canada is almost a third world nation. Hewers of wood. Drawers of water. Wait til we do the promos in LA and New York. The mama bears and the papa bears of psychobabble."
"And am I, am I going to do the promos in LA and New York?"
"What do you think the fifty grand is for? They are going to peddle our asses on every TV talk show on the networks." Karen looked into Maya's face. "It's okay. You can stay with me. My LA house has bedrooms galore, and my New York condo is big enough for the both of us. You don't look so well. Is your aura still wilting?"
"No, I'm good. I have been recharging it, and see," she wiggled her fingers, "I'm wearing my gloves. Besides, I wouldn't mind a dance or two."
Karen looked around at the men standing near them nursing their drinks and talking football or weather or some other male blah blah blah with other men. "Not with any of these specimens. They are from a culture that takes pride in not being able to dance."
"Mr. Bond is an excellent dancer," said Maya, politely accepting a glass of domestic bubbles from the man she had knock kneed. "So all we need is one other man who can dance."
"Let's wander closer to the dance floor and pick one out," said Karen, taking her arm and waving bye-bye to the suits. "How about that old guy? He must be in the diplomatic corps. They get formally trained in the charms, you know."
"What'sup?" asked Gerry walking up to them.
"Dance sup," replied Maya.
"I'll do Karen with pleasure," he whispered in a falsetto while looking around "Who can we get to do Maya?" He waved to a tall man who moved towards them with a slow grace. "He's just a local Vancouver politician, but of course that means he is gay. He dances divinely, but we always fight about who has to lead."
His name was Kevin, and he could have been Gerry's brother. Another Bond type man dressed like any good Bond should dress. He welcomed the idea of dancing and clicked his heels romantically and twirled Maya to make the skirt of her dress swirl. Gerry, not to be outdone, did the same to Karen.