Death of a Bachelorette Page 4

  As soon as she saw me, she waved me over to join them.

  “So sorry I’m late,” I said as I hurried to my seat.

  “Think nothing of it,” Manny replied. “Everyone, say hello to Jaine Austen, our new writer.”

  Everyone murmured hello, the gang at the other table gazing at me with undisguised pity.

  “Congrats,” Polly whispered as I sat down. “You’re eating with the honchos. Manny makes the rest of the crew eat at the ‘B’ table.”

  Aloud, she said, “I think you’ve met everyone at our table, Jaine, except for Justin, our director.”

  The wiry-haired kid, in a T-shirt that said BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT, tore his eyes from where they’d been lingering on Brianna’s boobs to welcome me aboard.

  “I hear this is your first reality-show gig,” he said. “Me, too. Manny saw a student film I directed at USC and hired me on the spot. I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to be here,” he said, in the kind of voice one hears on the podium at the Academy Awards. Any minute now, I expected him to start thanking his agents, his parents, and his sixth-grade English teacher.

  “I’m so darn grateful to Manny,” he added, loud enough to be certain Manny heard him, “for giving me my big break.”

  He beamed a smile at his benefactor, who was otherwise occupied ogling Brianna’s Double D’s.

  “Here’s to Manny,” Justin said, raising his wineglass in a toast.

  Polly reached for a bottle of Pinot Grigio and poured some in my wineglass.

  “I really shouldn’t,” I protested. “I’ve got a lot of writing to do tonight, and I need to keep my head clear.”

  “Don’t worry,” Polly whispered. “Your head will be clear. Manny waters down the booze. There’s not enough alcohol in this bottle to knock out a gnat.”

  Indeed, I took an eager sip, only to taste the faintest hint of Pinot Grigio.

  At which point, Akela and another maid showed up to take our orders.

  “Steak or pasta?” Akela asked when she got to me.

  I thought for sure they’d be serving fish, but who was I to turn down a nice juicy steak? I could always start my healthy fish and fruit diet tomorrow.

  “Steak, please,” I said with a hungry smile.

  After taking our orders, the maids trotted back to the kitchen to fetch our food.

  Meanwhile at the other end of the table, Dallas and Hope were both cooing over Spencer, missing no opportunity to snipe at each other.

  Dallas, like Brianna, was clad in a low-cut halter top, while Hope, going for the pristine look, wore a simple white blouse with her hair swept back in a headband.

  Polly had said Dallas was the front runner in the Rope-A-Royal Sweepstakes, and it looked like she was right. Spencer kept gazing at the long-limbed Texan rapturously with his vacant blue eyes.

  Hope, however, was not about to give up the battle.

  “Gee, your hair looks nice,” she said to Dallas with a sly smile, “but not as full as usual. Guess it must be the weather, huh?”

  I remembered the missing hair extensions Dallas had been so steamed about and watched her shoot Hope a death-ray glare.

  “Love your hair, too, hon,” she said. “Nothing says glam like an Amish headband.”

  “Ladies, you both look absolutely brilliant!” Spencer beamed, totally oblivious to the mounting hostilities. “Anyone care for a roll?” he asked, holding out a bread basket.

  “I would!” I cried out, leaning over and grabbing one with impressive speed.

  “Brilliant!” Spencer said. “I like to see a woman with a hearty appetite.”

  He eyed me appreciatively as I slathered butter on my roll.

  “I’ll have a roll, too!” Dallas said, not to be outdone in the hearty-eating department.

  “Me, too!” echoed Hope.

  “And me!” said Brianna.

  “Looks like you’ve started a new precedent,” Polly whispered in my ear. “Those’re the first carbs that’ve passed their lips since they got here.”

  Dallas and Hope made an elaborate show of eating their rolls, taking the tiniest bites possible.

  “I’m lucky,” Hope said with a complacent nod of her shiny blond bob. “I can eat anything I want, and it never shows. I’ve got good genes, I guess.”

  “That, and bulimia,” Dallas parried back with an evil grin.

  “Look who’s talking,” Hope sneered. “The woman who chews diuretics like Tic Tacs.”

  Manny, meanwhile, had given the signal to two cameramen who’d stationed themselves behind the feuding beauties and were catching every syllable of their bitchfest on tape.

  Soon to be seen on a cable station near you.

  Brianna opted to stay out of the fray, occasionally shooting Spencer a dazzling smile and turning to give him a bird’s-eye view of her boobage. But most of her time was spent oohing and aahing over Manny.

  The other two bachelorettes may have had their eyes on a royal title, but it looked like Brianna was going for power and big bucks.

  “I just love a man who smokes a cigar,” she crooned at Manny. “It’s so virile!”

  “I’ve been thinking about taking up a pipe,” Justin chimed in, eager to impress.

  “That’s nice,” Brianna said, barely turning to look at him.

  At which point, Akela and the other maid returned to the patio, wheeling food carts.

  My last meal a distant memory, my taste buds now sprang into overdrive. I clutched my knife and fork eagerly, ready to dig into my thick, juicy steak.

  You can only imagine my heartbreak when Akela handed me a plastic tray with a tiny lump of dried-out meat, a scoop of desiccated mashed potatoes (whose main ingredient, I am certain, was Elmer’s Glue), accompanied by a salad of wilting greens smothered in gonky white dressing.

  Polly leaned over to me and whispered, “Manny buys overstock airline meals at a discount. The guy has money up his wazoo, but he’s cheap as they come.”

  Meanwhile, I couldn’t help noticing that the steak on Manny’s plate was an actual steak, prime all the way, charred on the outside, juicy on the inside, and thick as a copy of War and Peace.

  It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to reach over and cut myself a piece.

  Instead, I dug into my hockey puck of a steak, struggling mightily to make a dent in it, wishing I’d remembered to pack a hacksaw.

  Down at the other end of the table, Spencer, clearly a culinary space cadet, pronounced his steak “brilliant!” And his potatoes. And his second glass of wine water.

  Dallas, eager to score points, offered him some of her Elmer’s Glue taters, plopping a blob of them on his plate.

  “How sweet of you,” Hope simpered. “I just hope trench mouth isn’t catching.”

  It looked like Dallas was on the verge of lobbing her buttered roll at Hope, but all hostilities came to a halt just then when a rugged young guy, unshaven and tousle-haired, came weaving out onto the patio in jeans and a T-shirt, clearly more than a little sloshed.

  “Hey, everybody,” he mumbled, his voice slurred with booze as he headed for the “B” table.

  “That’s Kirk,” Polly whispered, “the company propmaster.”

  Manny slammed down his steak knife, disgusted.

  “For crying out loud, Kirk,” he said. “I can smell the gin on your breath from here.”

  Kirk muttered something unintelligible as he sat down.

  “What’s that?” Manny called out.

  “It’s bourbon,” Kirk said. “Not gin.”

  “I don’t care what the hell it is. I’m tired of you showing up drunk all the time. You keep this up, and you’ll never work on another Manny Kaminsky production again. You got that, Kirk?”

  Kirk nodded, slumped in his chair.

  Next to me, Polly was gazing at him with unabashed sympathy and—if I wasn’t mistaken—a bit of longing in her eyes.

  “Poor guy,” she sighed.

  Was it possible, I wondered, that our plucky
production assistant had fallen for the beleaguered propmaster?

  Somehow, I managed to finish most of my steak and potatoes, my taste buds groaning in protest. I was hoping that Manny would make up for the crummy dinner with a yummy dessert—possibly cheesecake flown in from New York, along with his pastrami—but my hopes were dashed when he announced:

  “Now, if you want, you can all adjourn to the basement for dessert.”

  Dessert, in the basement?

  “He’s got a vending machine down there,” Polly informed me. “Factory-second Snickers.”

  So much for dinner in paradise.

  * * *

  The mansion’s basement was little more than a glorified crawl space, furnished with only a washer, dryer, and the aforementioned vending machine.

  “Can you believe it?” Polly said, as she led me down the basement steps. “Manny actually makes us pay for our desserts! He’s got goodies galore for himself—all sorts of cakes and cookies, not to mention a boatload of Eskimo Pies and Dove Bars in his office mini-fridge—but he makes us fork over our hard-earned cash for his stale candy.

  “Well, here it is,” she said, pointing to an ancient vending machine.

  I stared at it in disbelief.

  “Five bucks for a Kit Kat bar? That’s highway robbery.”

  “That’s why nobody ever comes down here. But don’t worry. I know a little trick.”

  A mischievous gleam in her eyes, she gave the vending machine a violent kick and out popped a bag of Cheetos.

  “It’s Vending Machine Roulette,” she said, holding up the bag in victory. “You get whatever falls out.”

  Another kick, and the machine coughed up a pair of chocolate peanut butter cups. Which Polly was gracious enough to give to me.

  “A dose of chocolate is just what I need right now!” I said, thanking her profusely.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” she warned. “That candy’s probably as old as Manny.”

  And she was right. My peanut butter cups were chalky, stale, and hard as a rock.

  Sad to say, they were the highlight of my dinner.

  Polly and I ate our desserts out on the front verandah under a canopy of stars, Polly’s fringe of bangs enviably straight in the humid night air.

  “I swear,” she said, popping a Cheeto in her mouth, “this is the last time I ever take a job on location. If I’m going to be miserable, I might as well be miserable in L.A.

  “I thought being a production assistant would be a stepping-stone to becoming a producer, but I’ve been at it seven years, and I’m still running for coffee and Xeroxing scripts. There’s got to be a better way to make a living than this.”

  Raking her fingers through those fabulous bangs, she got up with a sigh.

  “Time to turn in. I’d ask you over to my cabin for a nightcap, but the snakes don’t like it when I have company.”

  I watched her as she headed down the path to her cabin, shoulders slumped.

  After gazing at the stars for a few minutes, praying my show biz experience would be a tad more fulfilling than Polly’s, I got up from the verandah and made my way upstairs.

  I had just reached the second floor when I saw someone dashing across the hallway into Spencer’s suite. It was Hope, clad in nothing but a lace-trimmed white nightie.

  Well, well. Maybe Miss Goody Two-Shoes was taking over the lead from Dallas in the Rope-A-Royal Sweepstakes.

  But all thoughts of Hope’s romantic tryst were forgotten when I returned to my room and found Prozac perched on the windowsill, clawing at the screen.

  “Prozac! What’re you’re doing?” I said, swooping her in my arms and plopping her down on the bed.

  She looked up at me with indignant green eyes, oozing misery and chewing the scenery for all it was worth, a proud graduate of the Feline Academy of Hammy Overacting.

  What do you think I was doing? Breaking out of this hellhole! I can’t take it anymore, I tell you. I can’t take it!

  “Don’t even think of jumping from that window,” I scolded, looking down at the grass below. “It’s a three-story drop! I know you hate it here, sweetheart, but I promise I’ll make things better.”

  With that, I went to the bathroom, wet a washrag, and sat down on the bed next to her, wiping her down with coolish water.

  That seemed to soothe her a tad.

  Grabbing an in-flight magazine I had taken from the plane, full of interesting articles about places I would never get to visit, I began fanning her.

  I breathed a sigh of relief as she started to purr.

  Aaah. Much better. Now do my belly. Now my legs. Now my le ft ear. Now my right ear. Now my belly again . . .

  This was all very well and good for Prozac, but eventually I had to quit my stint as a Nubian slave and get some pages written for tomorrow’s picnic scene with Dallas and Spencer.

  So, setting my laptop on the bed, I spent the rest of the evening writing picnic banter and periodically cooling Prozac with my copy of Tahiti Today.

  After a few hours, I had some passable dialogue for tomorrow’s picnic scene. And Prozac, thank heavens, had fallen into a deep slumber.

  I collapsed into bed, on what little space my sprawled-out princess had left for me on the mattress. I didn’t dare wake her to move over, afraid I’d be drafted for fanning duty.

  Thoroughly exhausted and huddled on my sliver of the mattress, I was just about to drift off to slumberland, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic sounds of Prozac snoring, when suddenly I saw a black blur skittering across the floor, illuminated by the moonlight streaming in my window.

  I told myself it was the shadow of a cloud passing by in the night or a palm frond rustling in the breeze. But deep in my heart I knew the truth:

  It was Godzilla, the waterbug.

  Too exhausted to get out of bed and do battle, I listlessly tossed my slipper at the black blob.

  And much to my surprise, it hit him.

  Just when I was congratulating myself on my skilled marksmanship, wondering if perhaps I had a future as a Navy Seal, I saw the slipper move ever so slightly. And there before my eyes was Godzilla, creeping out from under the shoe, unharmed.

  Good heavens. That bug was indestructible.

  And call me crazy, but I could swear I heard the little devil snicker as it scampered off under the baseboard.

  Chapter 5

  There was no sign of Godzilla when I woke up the next morning. Just my slipper, the failed murder weapon, in the middle of the floor, chilling evidence of Godzilla’s superpowers.

  The room had cooled down somewhat during the night, so it was only slightly hellish when I climbed out of bed. Prozac, still listless, lay sprawled out on the sheets. That is, until Akela showed up with her morning bowl of fish parts. One sniff and Prozac was up like a bullet, sending Akela scurrying away in fear.

  Prozac was busy slurping up her breakfast, when there was another knock on the door.

  This time, it was Polly.

  “I managed to find this for you,” she said, holding out a small room fan. “I hate to think of your poor cat stuck up here in this heat all day.”

  Talk about your angels of mercy!

  We set the fan on my night table and plugged it in to an outlet that actually worked.

  A lovely breeze wafted across the room.

  “Thanks so much, Polly!”

  “Think nothing of it, hon. Well, gotta run and make sure Manny’s orange juice is fresh-squeezed. See you down at breakfast.”

  When Polly had gone, I picked up Prozac and held her in front of the fan.

  “Doesn’t the room feel so much better now, sweetheart?”

  She shot me a jaundiced look.

  Yeah. This joint’s a regular Four Seasons.

  Plopping her down on the bed, I headed for the bathroom, where I showered under a trickle of tepid water, then quickly slipped on some elastic-waist capris and an oversized T-shirt.

  Then I gathered my script notes and left Pro lolling on the bed, hoping sh
e’d be okay with the window open and the fan on full blast.

  Outside on the patio, breakfast had been laid out on a buffet table, with coffee and orange juice, stale muffins, and plastic trays of airline scrambled eggs.

  I took a seat at one of the two tables from last night and dug into my rubberized eggs, going over the dialogue I’d penned for Spencer’s picnic with Dallas. Taking no chances, I’d given most of the lines to Dallas, who I was certain would have no trouble spilling them out, along with a good portion of her cleavage.

  Across from me at the other table, Spencer was sipping tea in miraculously unwrinkled white linens, surrounded by the bachelorettes. Dallas and Brianna were dressed to seduce in short shorts and clinging tank tops, while Hope had opted for a perky floral sundress.

  Spencer pronounced his airline eggs “brilliant!” as the girls took calorie-conscious sips of their orange juice.

  With no time to waste, I rounded up Spencer and Dallas, and we adjourned to the pool area to go over their “suggested dialogue” for the upcoming picnic scene. Dallas had no trouble with her lines and soon scooted off to have her hair and makeup done, leaving me alone with Spencer to rehearse.

  Spencer, while declaring my suggestions “brilliant!”, had trouble memorizing the few paltry lines I had tossed his way.

  “Not a very good student, I’m afraid,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

  After about his fifth try saying, “I think I may be falling in love with you,” his cell phone rang.

  “Oops,” he said, checking the screen. “Mummy calling. Must take it.”

  I sat there as he chatted with Mummy—although Mummy did most of the talking, Spencer adding only the occasional “Yes, Mummy,” “No, Mummy,” and “Absolutely, Mummy!”

  At last he managed to untangle himself from Mummy’s apron strings and ended the call. We were just about to resume our rehearsal when his phone pinged again.

  This time it was a text.

  “Hold on a sec,” he said, “while I check this out.”