They're Not Your Friends Page 21

  “Hello, Amber,” Cyndi sang. “This is Lottie, the newest addition to the Bowman family.”

  “Hello.” Amber surveyed Lottie’s breasts. “You guys are early.”

  The assistant escorted them into Franny’s enormous living room, which featured vaulted ceilings and Mexican tiles on the floor. There were two huge white leather couches, Ionic-columned floor lamps, an oversized glass-topped table sporting fat legs carved with gods’ heads, and intricate gargoyle wall sconces with bright, white-lit eyes. Even though it was late May, a fire crackled loudly in the mammoth white-brick fireplace while vents furiously pumped cold air above it. Franny is proficient at wasting time, energy, and money, Lottie thought. Over and around the fireplace were portraits of Franny during her Lisa days. Lottie studied one: a silkscreen portrait shaded by acid pinks and green.

  “That couldn’t be more of a bad imitation of Andy Warhol,” Lottie whispered.

  “That is a Warhol,” Cyndi huffed and rolled her eyes.

  “Well, I never thought he was that great anyway.”

  Lottie sat down on one of the two white sofas. When she looked across the room, Lem’s Personality cover story stared back at her—enlarged to six by eight feet and encased behind a colossal rosewood frame of Corinthian columns as thick as tree trunks. It seemed to hang precariously, and Lottie was sure that if a fly alighted atop its pediment, the entire stucco wall would crumble under its enormous weight. Lottie studied the face. Even though the same photograph had been in Lem’s office, she’d never really looked at it. She realized that the eyes, like the Mona Lisa’s, caught every angle of the room. “Personality” was printed across the top of the photograph and near the bottom it read LISA THE LOVE WITCH REVEALS ALL.

  Glass shattered somewhere upstairs.

  “OH GOD! OH GOD!” a female voice shrieked.

  Lottie bolted up as her heart raced. “What’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” Cyndi said.

  Amber entered with a tray of water. “Everything’s fine,” she chimed as she set the tray on the coffee table. “Franny will be right with you.”

  “What was that noise?” Cyndi asked while reapplying Honey Nut Brown.

  “Well, umm. . . nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Trust me, it’s nothing.” Amber giggled. “Happens all the time.”

  “DON’T STOP. DON’T EVER STOP!” a female voice commanded.

  Then Lottie heard a familiar voice.

  “Oh God, Franny. Oh God. Oh God. You’re the best. Franny, Franny. Oh, Franny. . . you’re number one!”

  You’re number one?

  Lottie’s face turned crimson. She stared hard at the floor as if it were in deep conversation with her. She plugged her ears. This was the last thing she wanted to hear. It was like incest by proxy. You’re number one? She suddenly remembered something. When Lottie was a kid, her dad would sometimes get stopped by women—on the street, in restaurants, movie theaters, stores—who’d say, “You’re number one” while sucking in their cheeks. Lottie could never understand why this infuriated her mother. Shouldn’t she be happy all these people thought her husband was the best plumber around? Now she realized it was never about plumbing. It was about making Daddy’s pipe sing.

  She had to get out of there. Cyndi cleared her throat, but Lottie couldn’t look up. What do you do? What does Emily fucking Post suggest when your father’s upstairs screwing a skanky aging star? Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe Cyndi didn’t realize it was Lottie’s dad. Maybe she thought her father was fixing toilets in some remote corner of the house.

  “Oh! Oh, oh, Hank!!!! HA-A-ANK.”

  “FRANNYFRANNYFRANNY.”

  Amber giggled. “OhmyGod, she’s so getting his pipes to sing.”

  Cyndi laughed so hard she nearly hyperventilated. She waved a manila folder in front of her face as if this would somehow calm her down. She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, cleared her throat, and eyed Lottie. But Lottie continued to stare at the floor. She could practically see each molecule in the terra-cotta. There was another thud. Pound pound pound.

  Amber whispered, “This morning, she tossed an entire bag of rice down the toilet, just to have an excuse to call him.. . . Gross.” She paused. “Let me put this DVD on for you.”

  The assistant pressed some buttons on the remote and Euro-trash-techno-pop blared through the speakers, blotting out the commotion upstairs. A silhouette of Franny filled the screen.

  The camera panned Franny’s naked but strategically shaded body. It finally settled on her dimly lit face. “We are all works of art,” Franny whispered to the camera while slowly thrusting her neck back. Then her hand pulled a chain suspended from the ceiling. Franny was doused by a shower of bronze paint. She arched her back as the paint coated her. She massaged the color into her flesh as if she were soaping herself.

  Franny was transformed into a bronze statue, ready for any lawn in Los Angeles. She faced the camera again. “I am a work of art.” Even Franny’s pubis was coated in bronze.

  “I am the canvas and I am the paintbrush. I am art. I am the artist.”

  The fifty-something woman on the plasma screen was still coated in bronze paint, but now she was writhing on a blank white canvas. She gyrated her hips, smearing bronze onto the canvas. Then she propped herself up on all fours and crawled along the periphery like a bedraggled cat. She tugged at her bronze-matted hair with her bronze hands and then ran her fingers through it, chin out, eyes closed, and mouth slightly opened. Euro-techno beats segued into Vivaldi’s “Spring,” then Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” Enya’s “Watermark,” a discofied Beethoven’s Fifth, even Ludacris’s “Blow It Out.” Franny meditated on the canvas—followed by sessions of tai chi, ballet, and yoga—for an interminable sixty minutes.

  How could Lem have spent all these years being in love with such a vapid, vain woman? Could she have been different back then? Was Lem just as stupid as most men? Or maybe Franny represented every failure he had ever had.

  Lottie was almost asleep when Cyndi jumped out of her seat and bounded toward the door as if the house was on fire.

  “Hello! Hello!” Cyndi sang as if the most incredible person in the universe had just entered. Lottie stood up. As she shook hands and told Franny what a pleasure it was to meet her, Lottie heard the familiar rumble of the plumbing truck as Hank Love headed to his next appointment.

  Franny was dismayed that she had been relegated to the new girl on staff.

  “Cyndi, now that you’ve signed Chris Mercer, you’re getting too big to handle me, aren’t you?”

  “It’s not that at all, Franny darling. Lottie arrived straight from Personality magazine. She’s extremely well connected. She’s already nailed you an interview with the magazine. Who knows? Maybe it could be a cover.” Cyndi’s face exploded into a plastic smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be outside returning some calls. I’ll let you get acquainted.” Cyndi smirked. “I’ll bet you two have a lot in common. More than you know.”

  God, now she definitely despised Cyndi Bowman.

  “IT’S A PERFECT match since I’m known as a healer.” Franny prattled on about her homeopathic elixirs, and Lottie struggled to keep her eyes open. “Unfortunately, people take better care of their cars than their insides. I’m hoping I get herbs into the mainstream and change that. Mind you, even though The Cure doesn’t have FDA approval, it’s safer and more healing than any over-the-counter or prescription drug. It’s a shame people don’t take herbs seriously. It’s like herbs are medicine’s silly hippy-dippy cousins. But when The Cure hits the market next month, it’s going to change the health of this country.”

  “Aha.”

  Franny spoke endlessly about the products in The Cure line, her infomercials, her craft, her past, her present. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Lottie talked to her about the upcoming Personality article. She studied Franny’s face when she told her Lem Brac would do the interview.

  “Lem Brac,” Lottie r
epeated.

  “Uh-huh,” Franny said blankly.

  “You remember him?”

  “Lem Brac? I don’t know him,” Franny said. “Should I?”

  Lottie nodded toward the framed photograph on the wall. “Yes, you do. He did that story.”

  Franny snorted. “Honey, I’ve been interviewed so much during my lifetime, after a while, every face is a blur.”

  Lottie studied Franny. Was the woman lying to her? She thought about all the guys she’d fucked in the last year. She could recall every moment with each one. But maybe she was just a dizzy blur to them.

  Of course she was.

  Lottie persisted. For Lem. When she had packed up her office, Lem had told her about Franny, even reminiscing about their first kiss on the Santa Monica carousel.

  “You rode the carousel at Santa Monica Pier. It couldn’t have been more romantic.” Lottie looked at Franny, but her face remained blank. “You kissed while the horses went up and down. The guy in charge told you lovebirds to get off, but you wouldn’t. You two kept kissing. So you rode around for like an hour without paying. All these kids were hooting and hollering.”

  Franny smiled and nodded her head. So she did remember, after all.

  “Lottie, is it? This happens to me all the time,” Franny said, waving her hand through the air. “Men paint these weird fantasies about me and they start to believe them. This Lem person may have interviewed me, but I didn’t go out with him, and I definitely didn’t ride a merry-go-round with him. Did he say I fucked him on the horse, too?”

  “No,” Lottie whispered. “No. He didn’t say that.” Why did she feel as if she’d just been insulted? Or could Lem be so far gone he didn’t know what was real?

  “Well, anyway, I need the press, so I’d be happy to meet with him. But please explain that I have a man in my life, and he satisfies me intellectually, emotionally, and sexually.” She grinned goofily. “He. . . makes my soul sing.”

  Lottie cringed. Cyndi reentered the room.

  “I assume you two are getting along famously,” she said. “Listen, kiddos, I’m going to have to run. Chris Mercer’s gonna be interviewed by Personality magazine, and I have to get him ready.”

  “On to bigger and better things,” Franny said snottily.

  “I thought you said he was too big for Personality,” Lottie blurted out.

  Franny gasped.

  “WHAT? And I’m not?” Franny grabbed her chest. “Just get old Franny Blanchard anything. How about an exclusive interview with a Pennysaver?”

  Cyndi glared at Lottie. “I never said such a thing about Personality. It’s got the highest circulation rate of any celebrity magazine in the world.”

  Franny stormed out of the room.

  “That was real professional, Lottie,” Cyndi hissed.

  “Oh, Cyndi, I’m so sorry,” Lottie nearly choked on the words. “It’s just that you seem to loathe Personality.”

  “Well, it’s a long story,” Cyndi said. “Anyway, they’ve got this reporter there who’s brilliant. He found out where Chris was staying and what his alias was. I thought I was the only one who knew that.”

  “So who’s the reporter?”

  Lottie braced herself. She knew the answer before Cyndi Bowman said:

  “Mike Posner.”

  California

  MIGUEL

  CHAPTER 17

  MIKE WANTED TO HIDE UNDER THE TABLE AT ORSO EVERY TIME Bernie called him Miguel in front of the Mexican busboy. Instead, he smiled as if Bernie was the wittiest person he’d ever met—as if it was an honor to sit across from her and Vince as they waited for him to spout forth scoops, gossip, anything. He squeezed out as much bullshit as possible, knowing they knew less than he did.

  “I heard Julia and Danny are planning a trip. A second honeymoon, to escape from all the press,” he heard himself say. “My sources believe this marriage is going to work. They are really in love. Julia talks about him nonstop, and she loves being a mom.” Mike took a sip of water to shut himself up. The less he knew, the more he prattled on. If he kept it up, he’d be assigned a cover story on the couple.

  “Great stuff, Miguel,” Bernie said. “I think we should start a round-up cover story on celebrities who make their love work and how. Let’s see: there’s Julia and Danny, Antonio and Melanie, Michael and Catherine. . . What’s new with Demi?” Bernie asked, then shuddered. “I hate how they keep referring to her as a well-preserved forty-year-old. You’d never hear anyone talk about Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt that way. Men are just hitting their peak at forty. If a woman looks good, she’s ‘well preserved.’ Horrible.”

  Mike nodded his head as he stuffed some prosciutto-and-Parmesan thin-crust pizza into his mouth. He couldn’t afford to talk anymore or he’d be assigned another cover story: Hot Men, Well-Preserved Women.

  Bernie stared dreamily. “We really need a good circulation booster. Hopefully the Mercer story will help, but we could really use a death. Princess Di and John-John did wonders for the magazine. I hate to sound ghoulish, but it would be really nice if some young, beautiful celebrity would die in a fiery wreck.”

  Vince tugged at the moussed and gelled lock of hair that swooped down the middle of his forehead. “Well, Bernie, we’ll keep looking for the provocative stories.” He smiled. “And, of course, we do have Courtney Love’s obit written.”

  Bernie nodded her head and chuckled. Then she turned toward Mike. “Miguel, is everything coming together for the big interview tonight?”

  “Sure.”

  “Positive? Because this thing has to happen tonight and then go straight to press or it’s my well-preserved ass in a sling. We don’t normally operate this close to deadline, and the suits in New York are a bit concerned—especially since our backup cover is on celebrity dieting again. They don’t think it has legs. They think we’re beating that one to death. But I told them if Mike Posner says it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. End of story.”

  “I just talked to Chris’s publicist.” Mike looked from Bernie to Vince. “It’s a slam dunk. Guaranteed. I’m meeting him tonight at a celebrity charity party. They promised me an hour alone with him plus access to some of his friends.”

  “Great. Have some write-around material available, just in case. Make sure you get as much as possible about his disease. People love that stuff.”

  Disease? Shit, Mike still hadn’t done any research. He figured he’d ask the basics. Dating. The craft. Family. But disease?

  “If you could get him to talk honestly about his alcoholism and recovery, it would be a real exclusive for the magazine,” Vince said. “Except for a few vague blurbs, he’s never really opened up. Call me the minute it’s over and let me know how it went so edit can write the headlines ASAP. We’ve got to get this done tonight.”

  “No problem.”

  Now it made sense. No wonder they’d been so willing to talk to Mike. They were afraid he’d mention that Chris was blitzed out of his skull the other night.

  Bernie cleared her throat. “I see it as something like: ‘Chris Mercer. His acting. His addiction. His A-list girlfriends.’” She turned toward Vince. “So, Vincenzo, do you think we should press charges against our former employee Ms. Love? You know, what she did was trespassing and theft. That Rolodex was Personality property. This is our very own Personality-gate.”

  “Well, we don’t know for certain. . .”

  Bernie clucked. A piece of ravioli flew out of her mouth. “Ha! We don’t know for certain! Oh, puh-lease. I’ll tell you, my gut says that we should press charges. That girl is trouble.” She looked hard at Mike. “Do you know what we discovered today? Lottie Love was attending AA meetings to get close to Chris Mercer. Passing herself off as an alcoholic. That’s how she met him.” She shook her head. “Disgusting.”

  “Really?” Mike said.

  “If the L.A. Times gets that, we’ll never get our credibility back. This is a total breach of journalistic ethics.”

  Vince looked gray an
d sweaty. And Mike could tell the guy had known all along. He remembered that Lem had told him some stories about Vince’s ethics. A few years ago, when the magazine was covering more hard-news stories, Vince had told a reporter to pose as a grief counselor at Columbine High to get colorful first-person accounts of the shootings there.

  “Anyway, we have to let her know we mean business. Because of her, we have to get every office lock changed. It’s going to cost the company hundreds.”

  Mike touched his pants pocket that held the master key. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten to put it back. And he’d even managed to lose the Rolodex. Where the hell could he have put it?

  Bernie turned toward Vince. “So, have you looked at the video yet?”

  “Not yet. I thought I’d wait for your go-ahead. You know how this could look if someone gets wind of it, especially ‘Page Six.’ They think we’re paranoid enough as it is.”

  “Well, screw them and let’s find our criminal.”

  Mike looked up from his pizza. “Video?”

  Bernie smiled coyly at Vince. “Vincenzo is our very own Columbo.”

  “Huh?”

  Bernie looked at Mike and laughed. “Is Columbo before your time? I keep forgetting how young everybody is getting. Peter Falk played this detective on television. He acted scatterbrained, but he always solved the—”

  “I know who Columbo is,” Mike said as casually as possible. “But what video?”

  Vince looked around the restaurant as if to ensure that no one was eavesdropping. He leaned in toward Mike. “During the last few months, we’ve had some things stolen from the office. At first it was petty stuff—invitations to various parties, free CDs publicists had sent us to review, black-and-white celebrity headshots.” Vince sipped his water. “But last week, two framed photographs disappeared and then a radio. My gut was that it was the guys in the mailroom. So, just the other day, I had a surveillance camera installed in Melissa’s pencil sharpener to catch our thief in action. It’s activated whenever anyone walks by after hours.”

  Mike coughed out a piece of proscuitto. He gulped down his water.