Death of a Bachelorette Page 5

  He glanced down at his phone, and for once his vacant blue eyes came alive—with fear. Beads of plebian sweat broke out on his noble brow.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “No, no. Everything’s fine,” he replied with a frozen smile.

  But I could tell things were far from fine. Something in that text had scared the royal stuffing out of him.

  He looked over at the patio where some of the crew were still lingering over their breakfasts. Dallas was off to one side, having her hair done, and Brianna and Hope were still nursing their orange juices.

  The girls noticed him staring at them.

  Dallas blew him a kiss. Hope sent him a perky wave. And Brianna struck a boob-enhancing pose.

  Spencer clicked off his phone and turned back to me with a determined smile.

  “Shall we continue?”

  We resumed our lessons, me pitching a few simple lines of dialogue, Spencer screwing them up each and every time. I’m guessing whatever mental facilities Spencer had to begin with had gone AWOL when he got that text.

  Finally, when we’d gone over his lines about a zillion times and he still couldn’t remember them, I figured out the answer to my problem:

  Cue cards!

  I raced over to where Polly was helping the crew set up the picnic scene and begged for her help.

  Soon, working with cut-up cardboard from Manny’s pastrami cartons, she and I were writing out Spencer’s lines on makeshift cue cards.

  All the while I was writing out his lines, I kept thinking about Spencer’s mystery text. What was in it that had frightened him so? And more important, who the heck had sent it?

  * * *

  In the annals of picnic history, I doubt there’s ever been a bigger disaster than the one that took place on the rear grounds of the mansion that day.

  It all started auspiciously enough.

  A picnic blanket had been spread out in front of a charming thatched-roof gazebo, with pygmy palms at each side of the gazebo’s entrance. Laid out on the blanket were an expensive wicker basket and an ice bucket sporting a bottle of chilled champagne.

  Spencer and Dallas took their seats on the blanket, Spencer—in spite of his recent text scare—the very essence of Keep Calm and Carry On.

  Dallas looked spectacularly lovely. Her long, tanned legs were set off by her white shorts, and a slouchy pink tee slouched just enough to reveal a nice hunk of boobage. Sitting next to Spencer, she fluffed at the sides of her lush chestnut hair, trying to induce some extra volume.

  A result, I was guessing, of those missing hair extensions.

  Manny stood near Justin and his crew as Justin called for quiet.

  His wiry curls tamped down under a baseball cap, Justin had been a ball of nervous energy, yakking to his cameramen about long shots, close-ups, and reverse angles, clearly fancying himself the next Steven Spielberg.

  “Okay, let’s roll ’em!” he called out.

  “Wait a minute!” Dallas pouted. “I can’t shoot this scene.”

  “Why not?” asked Justin, grinding his teeth.

  “This palm frond keeps tickling my neck.”

  Indeed, Dallas was sitting in front of one of the pygmy palms, whose frond was brushing against her.

  With a sigh, Justin crossed over to the blanket and whipped out a Swiss Army knife. With a few deft strokes, he hacked the palm frond off the tree.

  “Happy now?” he asked, a stiff smile on his face.

  “Delirious,” Dallas replied, having caught the note of irritation in his voice.

  Justin tossed aside the offending frond and returned to his crew.

  “Action!” he shouted, and once again, filming began.

  Dallas asked Spencer if he’d care for some champagne.

  “Absolutely,” Spencer replied, remembering his first line of dialogue.

  Hallelujah.

  But when it was time to open the bottle, try as he might, he couldn’t seem to dislodge the cork.

  “Probably because the bottle’s been sitting in a factory-seconds warehouse for the past seventeen years,” Polly muttered at my side.

  Justin called “Cut!” and stomped over to the picnic blanket. For a skinny guy, he was pretty strong, and soon he’d loosened the cork enough for Spencer to give it the final shove.

  The cameras started rolling again.

  The champagne flowed, and Spencer, who was supposed to say, “To us!” instead relied on his old standby, “Brilliant!”

  Frantically, I pointed to the cue cards, reminding him he had actual sentences to deliver.

  And then I learned the true meaning of the words “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Because Spencer, squinting awkwardly at the cue cards, began to deliver those sentences. It was then, and only then, that I discovered that, in addition to his other shortcomings, Spencer was dyslexic.

  I won’t bore you with the gruesome details. It’s all too cringeworthy.

  Here’s just a sample of the mangled words that came tumbling out of his mouth—with my delicate corrections whispered in parentheses:

  I think I may be falling in vole with you. (Love, you idiot! Love!)

  Never have I seen such beautiful lube eyes. (Blue! Not lube!)

  Hold me, hug me, never let me og! (Go! Go! Go!)

  And finally, the one that tugged at my heart strings—not to mention my ulcers:

  I want you with ever hiber of my fart. (Fiber of my heart!!!)

  Justin was calling “Cut!” every five seconds. Any minute now, I feared he would take his Swiss Army knife and start using it on Spencer.

  Finally, everyone agreed to let Dallas do all the talking, with Spencer weighing in with an occasional “Brilliant!”

  The cameras rolled, and we waited with bated breath as the scene continued.

  Spencer somehow managed to get through the next few minutes without any major mishaps.

  It was time, at last, for Spencer and Dallas to tuck into their picnic basket.

  Spencer opened it.

  “What have we here?” he said. And with that, he pulled out a hunk of glossy chestnut hair. Dallas’s missing hair extensions!

  Dallas’s “lube” eyes burned with fury.

  She leaped up from the picnic blanket and lunged at Hope, who was standing near me, smirking.

  “You bitch!” Dallas cried. “You stole my hair extensions and put them in the picnic basket to sabotage me in front of Spencer.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Hope, her smirk firmly entrenched on her face. “But I got a great shot of you pulling them out of the picnic basket.

  “Look,” she said, holding out her cell phone. “Gosh, is your face red. Can’t wait to post it on Instagram.”

  “Like hell you will,” Dallas snarled, snatching the phone from Hope.

  “There!” she said, acrylic nails clicking away. “It’s deleted. Gone forever. So fooey on you!”

  (Although fooey wasn’t exactly the F word she used.)

  As she stomped back to the picnic blanket, Hope turned to me with a sly smile. “Dallas only thinks the picture’s deleted,” she said. “Most people don’t realize that when they delete a photo, it’s still in the phone, stored in their photo albums. Check it out.”

  And sure enough, with a few clicks, she’d located the picture of Dallas and her missing hair extensions.

  “Oh, this will be on Instagram, all right,” she crowed.

  Meanwhile, back at the picnic blanket, it looked like the scene would finally get shot.

  Dallas, having regained her composure, along with her missing hair, joined Spencer on the blanket as he once again offered her a flute of champagne.

  They sipped and eyed each other with cloying smiles.

  Then Spencer offered her some caviar on toast points.

  And just when they were about to bite into their fishy treats, all hell broke loose—yet again—when a flying ball of fur came charging across the lawn and onto the picnic basket.<
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  Damn! It was Prozac. Somehow she’d managed to escape from Sauna Central.

  And now, she had her pink nose in the jar of caviar, lapping it up at lightning speed.

  “What the hell is that cat doing eating my Beluga caviar?” Manny cried.

  Pro looked up, oozing skepticism.

  Beluga? Who’re you kidding, buster? This stuff’s domestic. Costco’s finest.

  At which point, after a delicate burp, Prozac gazed up into Spencer’s beautiful lube eyes and leapt into his lap, purring ecstatically.

  Well, hello, handsome!

  “Will someone get that cat off the set?” Manny bellowed, his face an alarming shade of puce.

  My turn to rush over and pluck my shameless hussy from Spencer’s lap, only to be rewarded with a nasty glare.

  Party pooper.

  Then she turned her attention back to her inamorata, giving him a blast of her bedroom eyes.

  Call me later, big boy.

  Oh, hell. It looked like a fourth bachelorette had just entered the competition.

  Chapter 6

  Leaving the cast and crew to finish shooting what remained of the picnic scene, I carried Prozac back up to my room.

  Frankly, I wasn’t the least bit surprised at what had just happened.

  Prozac is, after all, the Houdini of cats, and had long mastered the art of jumping up and opening doorknobs. I should’ve known it was just a matter of time before she pulled her doorknob stunt and broke out of Sauna Central.

  So you can imagine my surprise when I trudged the three flights of stairs back to my room and found the door shut tight.

  Prozac may have been a feline Houdini, but there was no way on earth she could have clawed the door open and then shut it behind her. Just as I was pondering how she could have possibly pulled the door shut, Akela the maid came up the steps with towels in her arms.

  At the sight of Prozac, her eyes widened in fear.

  “For you.”

  She thrust the towels at me and, quick as a bunny, started down the stairs again.

  “Wait, Akela!” I called after her. “You didn’t happen to come to my room earlier, did you?”

  Maybe she’d stopped by and inadvertently left the door open, clearing the way for Prozac’s escape.

  “No! No! I no go in room. No kitty. No kitty!” she cried, careening down the steps.

  That woman really ought to do something about her fear of cats, I thought, as I headed to my room.

  Opening the door, I immediately felt a strong breeze blowing in through the window, bolstered by the air circulating from the fan.

  So that was the answer!

  The breeze from the window, combined with air from the fan, had probably blown the door shut behind Prozac.

  Mystery solved.

  Now all I had to do was make sure it didn’t happen again.

  That day at lunch (ham and Swiss on cardboard) I approached Manny, who was still glowering about Prozac’s cameo appearance at the picnic scene.

  “Do you have any idea how much your cat cost us this morning in unusable footage?”

  “No,” I confessed.

  “Me, neither. But whatever it is, I’ve got a good mind to dock it from your pay.”

  Ouch.

  I immediately launched into an apology, explaining Pro’s past as an escape artist, and asked if it was possible to have a bolt installed on the exterior of my door, so I could lock her in when I left the room.

  After a bit of grumbling, Manny assigned the task to Kirk, the propmaster.

  And ten minutes later, Kirk was at my room with his tool kit, installing a bolt outside my door.

  I remembered how Polly seemed attracted to Kirk last night at dinner. And I could see why. He was a handsome guy, with a bronze tan, thick surfer blond hair, and six-pack abs rippling beneath his skin-tight tank top. A few tats twined around his arms. (Definitely not my thing, but I knew it was a turn-on for some gals.)

  He worked in silence, screwing the bolt in place.

  “That ought to prevent any more escapes,” he said when he was finished.

  “Would you mind coming inside and checking the latch on the window screen?” I asked, just in case Prozac was plotting a three-story jump.

  “Not a problem,” he said, stepping into Sauna Central.

  As he crossed the room, Prozac eyed him hungrily.

  Hubba hubba, sweet cheeks!

  First Spencer. Now Kirk. I tell you, that cat makes Lady Chatterley look like a nun.

  Kirk took out a screwdriver from his tool kit and was just about to start tightening the latch when he became transfixed at the sight of something on the grounds below.

  I followed his gaze and saw Hope in her pretty floral sundress, fiddling with her iPhone. No doubt posting the damning photo of Dallas and her hair extensions.

  “She’s really something, isn’t she?” Kirk said, his eyes glazed over with longing. “Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  From the bed, Prozac flipped her tail in annoyance.

  She’s not so hot.

  “And she’s smart, too. Got her whole life figured out.”

  I sure hoped Polly wasn’t too hung up on Kirk, because his heart clearly belonged to Hope.

  Then, remembering the screwdriver in his hand, he said, “I’d better get this screen fixed, huh?”

  Within minutes, he had the screen firmly fastened in place.

  I looked over at Prozac, now sprawled out on the bed, belching caviar fumes.

  With the new latch on the door, and the screen safely secured, there was no way she could possibly escape.

  Right?

  * * *

  The next shoot of the day was Spencer’s waterfall scene with Brianna. The rest of the crew had already left, so Kirk and I rode over with Polly, who had waited for us. And by us, I mean Kirk. Polly couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him.

  I sat in the back while Kirk drove, Polly in the passenger seat, sneaking covert glances at her tattooed heartthrob.

  Life is so cruel, n’est-ce pas?

  Here Polly was lusting after Kirk, while Kirk was lusting after Hope, who was no doubt lusting after Spencer. The old daisy chain of love, where someone is always bound to get hurt.

  It’s at times like this that I’m grateful for my own two longtime lovers: Ben and Jerry, whose happy smiles and high butterfat content never fail to warm my heart and clog my arteries.

  We arrived at the base of the Grand Paratito Waterfall, a rather impressive natural wonder, where sheets of water cascaded down craggy rocks to a sparkling pool below.

  When we showed up at the water hole, Justin and his crew were setting up the cameras. Off to the side, Spencer and Brianna, clad in terry bathrobes, were having waterproof makeup applied to their faces.

  After this morning’s angst, Manny had opted to remain behind at the mansion.

  I approached Justin with trepidation.

  “I’m so sorry about those cue cards,” I said. “I had no idea Spencer was dyslexic.”

  “Not your fault, hon. None of us did.”

  “I don’t know how much good it will do,” I said, handing Justin a few hasty lines I’d dashed off, “but I wrote some dialogue for the waterfall scene.”

  “Thanks, Jaine, but we won’t be recording dialogue today. The noise from the falls will drown out anything Spencer and Brianna say. We’ll dub in their stuff later. Maybe even using an actor with a working brain to read Spencer’s lines,” he added with a wink.

  By now, the crew was ready to shoot.

  Spencer and Brianna stepped out of their bathrobes, Spencer in modest boxers and Brianna in a micro bikini so tiny, I’d seen more cotton on the swab of a Q-tip.

  Brianna was really quite a specimen, with her flaming red hair and Barbie bod. Soon she and Spencer were frolicking in the pool, Brianna laughing gaily and practically smothering Spencer with her massive Double D’s.

  Never had I seen the cameramen look through their lenses with such avid interes
t.

  Eventually, one might even say inevitably, Brianna was doing so much bouncing around, her bra top sprang loose and was floating around in the water.

  The cameras stopped, all eyes (all male eyes, anyway) glued on Brianna’s chest as she bobbled around trying to retrieve the top. Justin was standing there thisclose to drooling when his cell phone rang. Somehow he managed to tear himself away from Brianna and check his phone.

  “It’s my agent.”

  I could see an internal tug of war waging in his brain. Take the call, and miss out on more boobage? Or ignore it, and miss out on what could be important career news?

  His career won out.

  “Hey, Jeff,” he said into his Bluetooth. “What’s up? . . . You’re kidding? . . . Really? . . . That’s fantastic! I’m over the moon, buddy. Over the moon!”

  He clicked off with a whoop of joy.

  “Guess what?” he said. “I just got offered a movie deal. From a major studio!” He threw his baseball cap in the air. “Yippee! No more schlock reality TV for me!”

  Much to the crew’s consternation, Brianna’s bra had now been retrieved, and filming resumed. Justin continued to give directions to his cameramen, but I could tell his heart was no longer in it.

  I remembered how grateful he’d been to Manny last night at dinner for giving him this directing gig, and what a kiss-up he’d been.

  How quickly he was ready to jump ship to advance his career.

  Happens all the time in Hollywood.

  In fact, I think you can major in it at USC Film School.

  * * *

  As it happened, Justin’s was not the only good news of the day.

  Soon after Brianna and Spencer had resumed romping at the base of the falls, I looked up and saw Tai, my hunky native driver, getting out of his Jeep and walking over to me.

  “Hey, there,” he said, gracing me with his heart-melting smile.

  “Hi,” I managed to croak, longing to run my fingers through his black curls. “What brings you here?”

  I couldn’t get over how dazzling his teeth were next to his tan skin.

  “I was making some deliveries and decided to stop by.”

  “You’re absolutely gorgeous. You realize that, don’t you?”

  Okay, so what I really said was, “How nice.”

  But you know darn well what I was thinking.