Bad Things (7 page)

“Cody! Cody Piper! What're y'all doin' here?” She grabbed the boy and hugged him, muffling his delighted laugh between her breasts. “And there's yore cute li'l ol' daddy! Come on in, Ricky. Bet y'all are lookin' for Shelly. Well, she's on back there.” She flicked her shiny red nails vaguely toward the bedroom. Garth Brooks wailed faintly through the closed door.

“Thank God,” Rick said. At least she wasn't out roaming around with that pack of overripe future beauticians she called her friends.

“Y'all want me to call her or you wanna be sociable and come in for a few?” Lil asked.

As long as they weren't fighting, Dakota and Lil's antics almost always took care of his headaches. “I'll be sociable,” he told her with a grin.

“Good.” Lil Magill, all six feet two inches of her, stepped back to let him enter the apartment. A Moonbeam Nights dancer, she had an Amazonian body and copper hair—its color as fake as her Georgia peach accent—piled up to add another three inches to her height. Rick enjoyed her as long as she wasn't trying to seduce him. Lil could have virtually any man she wanted, but when the mood struck—generally after a couple drinks and the Sunday afternoon airing of “Consumer Crusader”—she wanted him.

It wasn't Sunday, but she reeked of alcohol, and Rick carefully kept his gaze above her breasts as he passed her. Whenever she wanted to embarrass him, she'd point out that they were just “kissing level” to his mouth.

“Hiya, Piper!” Dakota O'Keefe, Lil's roommate and Rick's best friend, strutted out of the kitchen, dressed in an apron, bra, and Jockey shorts. He held a potato peeler in one hand, and a drink in the other. Dakota, formerly Duane, worked for the Chambre du les Femmes show, and when he had his makeup on—he specialized in Marilyn and Madonna—he was as stunning as Lil, which shot the hell out of Rick's theory that show girls were all cloned on a ranch out in the desert somewhere, probably near a nuclear testing site.

“Here's your scotch, Lil. Last call. Remember, you have to go to work.” He looked Rick up and down appraisingly. “Nice suit. It's a Blass, isn't it?”

“Uh, I don't know. Could be.”

“Piper, dear, you're a TV star and you look—mmmmm.” Dakota smacked his lips, doing the sweet transvestite from
The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“You look good enough to . . . You look so good in your clothes, dear, you really ought to know who you're wearing,” he finished, tousling Cody's hair.

“Thanks.” Rick suppressed a smile. “So is my daughter making a pest of herself?”

“Nah. She's tryin' on clothes.” Lil scooped Cody into her arms. “What else you think a teenage gal's gonna do?” Cody laughed gleefully as she rubbed noses with him. “You gotta let me help her pick out some new stuff, Ricky. She's got a real nice figure, an' she oughta be showin' it off.”

“Magill! For Christ's sake, a father doesn't want his daughter showing off her figure!” Dakota frowned. “Honestly, Piper, all Lil thinks about is her body!”

“And
you
don't, Dakota?” Lil laughed. “ ‘I do think mah breasts are bigger than yours! I got more feminine hormones than you do, Magill. And ain't mah skin so soft and purty? Bet you all wish you had skin's nice as mine.' Jumpin' Jesus, Dakota! Except for that big old dick of yours, you ain't nothin' but the vainest—”

“Magill, don't say ‘dick' in front of Cody,” Dakota admonished. “It's not nice!”

Clutching the squirming boy to her bosom, Lil shook her head. “Ah won't say ‘dick' if you'll quit callin' everyone by their last names. God, I hate that, don't you hate that, Ricky?” She didn't wait for a reply. “Lord, ah'm gonna be late for work.” She placed Cody in Rick's arms, then turned and planted a big kiss on Dakota's lips. “See you later, sweetie. You keep your hands off Ricky, ya hear?” She snatched her bag and keys from a hook by the door and exited in a flurry of perfume and hairspray.

“I'm sorry, Rick,” Dakota said, locking the door. “Lil wouldn't watch her language in front of the pope.” He crossed his arms, staring at the door. “I think it's about time for her annual vacation at Betty Ford,” he added, embarrassed.

“Don't worry about it.” Rick felt sorry for Dakota, who spent much of his time apologizing for his roommate's frequent scenes. He glanced toward the bedroom. Country music always gave him an inexplicable urge to throw his head back and howl like a coyote. “I'd better get Shelly.”

“I'm hungry,” Cody said.

“Look, why don't you stay for dinner? There's plenty.” He glanced toward the door. “Lil wasn't supposed to work tonight, but one of the other gals called in sick.”

“I wanna stay,” Cody said, wiggling from Rick's grasp. “Can we, Daddy?”

“Please,” Dakota said. “You'd be doing me a favor.”

“Well . . .”

Dakota smiled. “You know you can't say no to me, Piper.”

Certain the invitation was sincere, Rick grinned. “Sure. What's cookin', good-lookin'?”

“Coq au vin.” Dakota, queen of the double entendre, cracked no smile.

“Sounds great.”

Dakota nodded. “I hope so. Piper, we need to have a chat. Cody, you want to watch TV while your daddy and I get dinner ready?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay. You can go turn it on. You know how, right?”

“Yeah!” Cody ran across the room, grabbed the remote control, and plunked himself down on the floor in front of the set. An instant later, Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote were vying with Garth Brooks for aural dominance. Somehow, Rick thought, that seemed appropriate.

The bedroom door opened and the singer drowned the cartoons.

“Turn that down, Shelly!” Dakota immediately yelled.

The sound went down, fractionally, then Shelly strutted out of the bedroom wearing one of Lil's gowns, a strappy, spangled, peach-colored piece of spandex that revealed enough skin to keep Cher happy. She'd piled her long golden hair high on her head and sprayed it with blue glitter that matched the eye shadow coating her lids. In one hand she held a mirror so she could admire herself, and she used the other to hike up the skirt. Except for the length, the gown appeared to fit perfectly. It made her look twenty-five or maybe even thirty-five years old. Obviously, Rick thought as his stomach turned to lead, she'd stuffed the bodice. Overstuffed it.

“Lil! What do you think?” Shelly asked, undulating closer, her eyes on the mirror.

Oh, God, maybe she hadn't stuffed the bodice, Rick thought as she neared.
My daughter looks like a stripper.
The lead sank deeper.

Dakota glanced at Rick, then cleared his throat. “Lil's not here, hon.”

“Doesn't this look great, Dakota?” she chirped, never looking up from the mirror. “This dress makes my boobs look absolutely like double Ds! I'm going to go to Victoria's Secret tomorrow and buy a push-up bra. Man, it'll drive Starman nuts, and I bet I could get a really
good
job in a casino.”

“Oh, my God.”
Did I say that?
Rick thought he might have.

“Daddy!” Shelly screamed. “How
could
you!” Crossing her arms over her breasts, she turned and ran back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“How could I what?” Rick asked slowly. He felt like he'd been punched in the gut.

“Come on in the kitchen, Dad,” Dakota said, pushing him ahead. “Time to talk.”

“Who's Starman?”

“The rim job she's got a crush on. Sit.” Dakota pointed at the dinette set in the corner of the small, neat room. Numb, Rick did as he was told.

“I've got to get these potatoes going before my coq gets too soft,” Dakota informed him in his best breathy contralto.

O'Keefe smiled, and Rick realized he was trying to lighten things up, but it wasn't going to work, because his shock was transmogrifying into anger. “Did you
see
her?” he asked, trying hard to keep his voice steady.

“I saw her. Don't get too upset about the clothes, Rick. She's just doing what comes naturally.”

Not trusting himself to speak, Rick stared dully at Dakota, at the apron declaring him to be a “Hot Dish.”

“She's playing dress-up, Piper. All little girls like to play dress-up.” He smirked. “So do some little boys.”

“She's not little. She was falling out of that dress.”

“Filling up, not falling out Look, Piper, big or little, we all like to try on clothes, so quit worrying about that. You've got bigger fish to fry.”

“Starman?”

“Don't let the name fool you. He's just a bellboy at Bally's. I took a look. Not a brain in his head, just a penis on legs. Wants to be a rock 'n' roll star.”

“That's supposed to make me feel better?” Rick closed his eyes. “Are they having sex?”

“I don't know.”

“She's only sixteen.”

“Oh, grow up. And open your eyes, Piper; you're giving me the creeps. How old were you when you had sex for the first time?”

“That's different.”

“Bullshit. How old were you?”

Rick resisted the urge to close his eyes again. “Fourteen. . . But I was a boy.”

“So who'd you have it with, another fourteen-year-old boy? Or the family sheep, maybe?”

“Dakota—”

“You had it with a fourteen-year-old girl, right, Piper?” He chuckled obscenely. “Or maybe a thirteen-year-old girl, you cradle robber, you.”

“If you want the truth, it was a seventeen-year-old girl.”

“Whoa, Ricky!” Dakota poked him in the arm. “You seduced an older woman! I'm impressed.”

“Well, no . . . She, ah, seduced me.”

“I'm even more impressed.” Dakota put two fingers under Rick's chin and forced him to look him in the eye. “The only thing you're worried about here is that your sixteen-year-old daughter might be having sex. Why? Because you did and because you know how guys think. But there's more to your problem with Shelly, and now that you've told me about your experience with the older girl, I think you know exactly what it is.”

“I don't know what the hell you're talking about, O'Keefe.”

Dakota snatched his fingers back and crossed his arms, studying Rick. “Yes, you do.” He tapped his foot impatiently. “Your real problem is that Shelly is a lot like that seventeen-year-old who seduced you. She knows what she wants and she takes it.”

He thought about that a moment, then nodded slowly. “You're right.” He felt like giving up as he spoke the words. “You're absolutely right. Dakota, I can't control her anymore. She's too young, she's going to get into trouble. I wish I understood her as well as you do.”

“You have all the answers, Piper, but you're too close. You can't see them for looking.”

The kitchen door flew open and Shelly, dressed in jeans and a tight yellow tank top, glared at them. “I'm going out. I have a date.”

Rick started to rise. “It's a school night. You can't—”

“A study date, Dad,” she said in disgust. “At the library. I'll be home around eleven.”

“Shelly—”

But she was gone before he could say more.

“Rick . . .”

Rick stared at the backs of his hands, his emotions furious and futile. “There must be some way to control her.”

“Don't try to control her; you'll just make it worse. Try to guide her, without her knowing it. If you try to do the old laying-down-the-law routine, she'll go dead opposite. She's strong-willed as hell. Smart, too. She's feeling her oats right now.” Dakota shook his head. “That's what I wanted to talk to you about. It's not boys or clothes you have to worry about. It's Shelly herself. She's too impatient for her own good. She wants it all—money, glamour, power. And you're right. She
is
going to get into trouble. I'm afraid Lil isn't helping much, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, she's been introducing her to people, trying to help her get a job.”

“In a casino,” Rick said darkly.

“Not exactly. Shelly can't work in a casino. She can't be on the floor where drinks are served; you know that. The FBI checks for age of majority. Lil's trying to help her get a job in a show. She believes she's doing her a big favor. I've tried to stop her, but . . .” Dakota shrugged. “Lil's pretty strong-willed herself. She means well.”

“Oh, shit. The stage. This is supposed to make me feel better?”

“Hell no, Piper. I just thought you should know what's going on.”

“Oh, shit,” Rick repeated. “This all ties in with something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What's that?”

“I'm considering getting out of Vegas,” Rick began.

Dakota raised his eyebrows. “Really? What about your show?”

“KBUK wants me to renew—an extended contract—but I've been thinking that it would be good for the kids to live in a real house in a real world. I knew Shelly had an attitude, but I didn't realize how bad it's become. Her performance tonight pretty much made my decision for me.”

“You're thinking of buying a house in the 'burbs?” Dakota sounded pleased. “Make sure you get one with a pool.”

“Actually, I'm thinking of moving back to Southern California. Back to Santo Verde.”

“Santo who?”

“Santo Verde. It's the town where I grew up.”