First Kiss (21 page)

A) You need to face reality and accept the fact that Texas is calling you home. Besides, everybody expects you here because they know you're out of work.

B) You secretly want Sydney's new love Alex to be bald and fat since you dated him a million years ago, but he's more scrumptious than ever, so you need to prepare yourself.

C) If I don't stop you now you'll have me running numbers on European weddings next.

PS Did you really play Tom Brock's ahem trombone? I WANT DETAILS!

Big Hug, Breckin

Kiki returned to her Mistress Hideaway and opened the door to hear the screaming rings of the suite's phone. She smiled, imagining Fab in the stairwell making SOS calls on his cell. There was a mad dash to answer, followed by a breathlessly melodic, "Hello?"

"Is this Kiki Douglas?" Unrecognizable voice. Female, butch, tough, raspy (obviously a smoker), pushy. May or may not be lesbian. Kiki was not one to judge.

She ran the numbers journalist . Her stomach did that elevator thing, and she experienced a moment of total and sudden fear. Oh, God! What should she do? Hang up! A brilliant idea. Wait a minute. No. If the dirt digger had the gumshoe skills to find her, then a dial tone would hardly get her off the trail.

Thinking fast, Kiki hatched a plan. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those video phones, so her boobs couldn't help her. She would have to rely on her acting skills. Yes! She remembered her finest moment as a thespian. A steamy love scene on The Guiding Light. A costar with terrible breath. Kiki had improvised the blocking and thrown her head back in a pantomime of ecstasy, skillfully avoiding the rancid fumes of the actor too cheap to buy a tin of Altoids. The director had even praised her for showing extra passion.

Kiki's next utterance loomed with monumental importance. She felt the mind-strain of the pressure. She felt paranoid and hunted down, too. The tabloid fever was redlining on the thermometer. And this was her sweating it out.

"I am maid," Kiki said in her best Pakistani accent. "I clean room."

A booming silence.

Kiki felt bathed in relief. Had the reporter bought the act? Well, she should have. Kiki did a great Pakistani accent. Especially for her first time ever adopting one.

"You expect me to buy that housekeeper shit? I'm calling for your reaction to the Tom Brock story. This is a chance to give people your side of it."

Damn. The bitch couldn't be fooled so easily. Hmm. A formidable foe. Definitely of the Woodward and Bernstein school of crafty, no-stone-unturned dogmatic reportage. Of all the rotten luck! Why couldn't a reporter from Us Weekly be on the line?

They would've completely bought her Pakistani routine and then just made up a quote. Suddenly panicked, Kiki slammed down the receiver. She began to count. Five, four, three, two and it started ringing again.

Oh, God, it was the worst feeling in the world to be hunted down like an animal. They probably had the hotel staked out. Somehow she had to trick them into believing that she wasn't here anymore. Yes! An elaborate sting operation. Like Jennifer Garner on Alias , only without all the kicking and falling out of airplanes.

To escape the seemingly endless and blistering phone jangles, Kiki raced into the bathroom and shut the door, crouching down, cellular in hand. No way could she do this alone. This was a job for the lace mafia. Suzi-Suzi, Danni, and the new gangster princess among them Tiffany Lynn.

Kiki jabbed in the first speed dial code.

"I can't talk," Suzi-Suzi whispered after the second ring. "We're at the sex therapist's office, and she's got Chad under hypnosis."

"This is an emergency!" Kiki yelled.

" So is this ," Suzi-Suzi hissed, still talking in a hushed whisper. "I just found out that in high school Chad got caught masturbating in the library with a National Geographic . That's why he cries. The semen emission triggers the pain of a repressed memory. That's also why he doesn't like a hand on his

Kylie Adams pecker. It's all related to the shame of the library incident."

Kiki gripped the mobile so tight she thought the casing might break. Her well-meaning friend always came through in the end, but sometimes it took a goddamn sledgehammer. "Suzi-Suzi, listen to me. The tabloid vultures are swooping down. They know where I am! I need your help."

"Oh, my God!" Suzi-Suzi cried softly. "Okay, hold on."

Kiki could hear her talking, obviously to the sex therapist.

"Excuse me, I have to go right now. My best friend's in a terrible bind. Keep working with him, though. And since you already have him under, suggest that he not slobber so much when he kisses. Oh, one more thing. When Chad goes down on me, all he does is lick like a baby kitten. A girl needs more stimulation than that. You know, some finger action would be nice. Maybe a more assertive use of the tongue, too." One beat. "I'm on my way." Click.

Kiki jabbed in the second speed dial code.

A groggy Danni answered, slurring her hello.

"You sound awful!" Kiki cried.

"No, I feel great. George Clooney gave me Vicodin. He's so wonderful. I think I love him. I've completely forgotten about the hedge fund guy. I can't even remember his name now."

"Thad Davis," Kiki filled in.

"Oh, yeah Thad," Danni murmured, totally blotto.

"What is this doctor's real name?"

"I have no idea." Danni giggled. "I just call him George. He doesn't seem to mind."

Kiki spoke in a loud, modulated tone. "Danni, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I need you to pull yourself together and come to Affair as soon as possible. I'm in trouble, and I need your help."

"What's wrong?" Danni asked, still loopy but showing audible signs of sobriety.

"I'll explain when you get here."

Kiki signed off and raced into the main suite to grab the note Tiffany Lynn had left, wincing at the incessant jangle of the suite phone as she darted back inside the bathroom and slammed the door. Her finger worked fast on the keypad.

"Hello?" Tiffany Lynn on the first ring. Not whispering and not drugged. Good news all around.

"Tiffany Lynn, thank God you answered!"

"Kiki? How funny. I was just thinking about you. I hope you didn't have too bad of a hangover."

"OhmyGodthere'sbeennotimeforoneofthosebutifl-didhaveonelhighlyrecommendgreatsexinashowerasa-cure-all," Kiki said, suddenly speaking in impatiently fused word strings. She sucked in a deep breath to slow down. "I need your help."

"Anything," Tiffany Lynn said. And she meant it. The girl was gold.

But a big problem hung overhead like a mushroom cloud. Kiki had the workers but no plan for them to work. Her razor brain began to cut. After a few long seconds of superconcentration, the sting started to take shape.

"I need a car," Kiki blurted. "Do you have a car?"

"I don't. I'm sorry," Tiffany Lynn said, sounding as crushed as a little girl who just found out that the My Little Pony factory had ceased all production. "Wait a second." Brighter now. "Kirby has a car." Hot damn. My Little Pony was back in business. "He keeps it at his mother's house in New Jersey."

"Will he let you borrow it?"

"Not a chance," Tiffany Lynn said automatically. "But I'll just make him come along. That way you'll have a car and a driver."

"You're a total lifesaver," Kiki gushed.

Tiffany Lynn giggled. "No problem. Now, it's not the fanciest ride. Can you deal with a Ford Taurus?"

"That's perfect!" Kiki yelped. She needed something hopelessly bland, the kind of car that would blur into traffic to such a degree that it might as well be invisible. A Taurus fit the bill perfectly. "What color?"

"Silver."

"Oh, my God. That's brilliant. I am so in love with Kirby right now."

Tiffany Lynn giggled again. "I don't know about that. It's pretty boring if you ask me. But it's spotless inside and out. He hand waxes it and shampoos the carpet every weekend. Kirby says the Taurus is the man's man car of today. Kind of like the Pontiac Trans Am was back in the eighties."

"Perfect. Just get to the hotel as fast as you can." Kiki hung up and felt her heart go bang. Oh, God, this had to work.

Within the hour, the Mission: Impossible team was packed into the tiny Mistress Hideaway suite: Suzi-Suzi, looking very Emma Peel in a form-fitting unitard; Danni, hobbling on crutches and fighting off sleep; Tiffany Lynn, knocking them all out in a simple college-girl-shops-at-the-Gap ensemble; and Kirby, playing impromptu bartender as he fetched Diet Cokes from the minibar for the girls.

Kiki experienced a dart of excitement. She felt just like John Forsythe from Charlie's Angels , dictating an assignment to the sexy undercover detectives. Tiffany Lynn could be Jill, the gorgeous one. Suzi-Suzi could be Kelly, the model. And Danni could be Sabrina, the smart one. Hmm. That left Kirby in the role of Bosley, the dorky one. Oh, well. Hopefully, he wouldn't mind.

She paced the floor in front of them, like an anxious cat testing the limits of a cage. "It has to be timed perfectly. Like an intricately choreographed ballet."

Kirby raised a hand. "Uh, you've got two strippers

Kylie Adams in the room. All I'm saying is the ballet analogy might offend." He shrugged impossibly broad shoulders. "Just a thought."

"Okay as I was saying," Kiki went on, "it needs to be like an intricately choreographed lap dance."

Kirby gave her the thumbs-up sign.

Tiffany Lynn beamed.

Danni stared back like a postsurgery lobotomy patient.

"Hold on a second," Suzi-Suzi cut in. "Let's back up. How did these bottom-feeders find out you were here in the first place?"

Kiki halted. It was a good question. But she'd had no time to consider it. "Actually, I have no idea."

"Well, who did know you were staying here?" Tiffany Lynn asked. "That's a good place to start."

Kiki nodded in agreement to her logical suggestion. "Okay, everyone here in this room Fab"

Kirby pretended to have a tickle in his throat as he coughed out the word "asshole."

Kiki paused to shoot him a warning look, then continued reciting the list of possible suspects. "My new friend Jackie Dickinson Fab's sister Serafina uh that should be it. Everybody else thinks I'm Jennifer Aniston."

"I don't trust him," Danni said.

"Trust who?" Suzi-Suzi wondered.

"Fab," Kirby confirmed. "He sells Kiki out to the tabs, and his hotel gets the kind of publicity you can't even buy."

"Now let's not jump to conclusions," Tiffany Lynn said, trying to provide the voice of reason.

"Oh, go ahead," Kirby said hotly. "Rush to your boyfriend's defense."

"He's not my boyfriend," Tiffany Lynn fired back. "I've been over him for weeks."

"Well, you were going to have his name tattooed on your ass cheek," Kirby sneered.

"I only thought about doing that," Tiffany Lynn clarified. "I also thought about putting Johnny Depp's name on my butt. Does that make him my boyfriend, too?"

Kirby stood up. "Just admit it. You're still hung up on the guy."

Tiffany Lynn gazed up at the ceiling. "This is so retarded." Then she looked at Kirby. "How can I be hung up on Fab if I had sex with you, like, an hour ago? What does it take to prove that I'm into you?"