First Kiss (5 page)

"I heard she went crazy and beat up her husband," Kiki said. "It was all on the E! True Hollywood Story . But I'm sure he means that you remind him of pre-arrest Tawny, the girl who was rolling around on top of David Coverdale's car."

"Exactly," Danni chirped proudly. "So this Thad guy keeps asking me out. And it's not like, 'I'll sit here until you get off work, and we'll go back to my place.' He wants to pick me up and take me out for dinner and a show."

" A real date," Kiki said. "This guy really does love the eighties. I mean, he's so retro."

"I know!" Danni sighed. "But I have this personal policy about never dating guys I meet at the club."

"Okay, I'm great at rationalizing loopholes for constricting policies. You should see me do my taxes." Kiki gazed out the window. "Oohhot guy jogging." She pointed to a half-naked Adonis sweating bullets in the midday heat.

Danni raised her brow in appreciation.

Kiki moved on. "Let's see what do you think is the core reason behind your policy?"

"Maintaining a professional distance," Danni said right away. "And avoiding losers and heartbreak. Every dancer who's ever dated a regular she met at the club has ended up crying on my shoulder."

"It's simple then," Kiki remarked in a singsong voice. "Ban him from the club. Then go out with him."

Danni brightened. "In a weird kind of way, that actually makes sense!"

"I mean, if he's not willing to give up going to Camisole to date you, then, he's not worth fooling with anyway."

Danni smiled. " You are brilliant."

"Did I tell you I'm writing a book?" Kiki asked.

"No! Are you serious? What kind of book?"

"Sort of a self-help, autobiography, relationship recovery thing. Well, I don't know exactly yet. It's all over the place. I just think I can help a lot of women out there. For instance, take a girl in, say, Ohio. She wakes up with a pimple on the morning of the night she has a very big date with a guy she's mad for. Does she know that the only way to make it disappear is to put a speck of toothpaste on the eruption and keep it covered with a Band-Aid all day?"

"Probably not," Danni said.

"My point exactly!" Kiki thundered. "Why should I limit all of my knowledge to just you and Suzi-Suzi and the occasional girl I strike up a conversation with in a nightclub bathroom? I could be helping women all over the world."

"It's not just a book," Danni said. "It's a humanitarian project."

"Hello!"

The taxi rolled to a stop outside Danni's building, and the girls swung out, blew past the leering door-man, and rode the creaky elevator up to Danni's sixth floor studio.

Danni was a compulsive organizer, so it took no time to find the Gucci box piggy bank. She sat on the bed and gestured for Kiki to join her. "Let's count it. I want to make sure there's enough here to tide you over."

Kiki just stared at the box. Cash had been stuffed inside to the point of spilling out once the cover was peeled off. They both began to count, but Kiki gave up after the five grand mark. Whatever the final figure was, it would be plenty to see her through this minor funding emergency.

"You can take another box, too, if you want," Danni offered.

"This is more than generous," Kiki gushed. "And I'll pay you back every cent." One beat. "Once I'm rich again, of course. I mean, really. If I pay you back too soon, then I might just have to borrow it again. And that would just be tiresome." She scanned the floor of Danni's closet in search of the Gucci boots that had once been nestled inside the cardboard ATM machine positioned on her lap. Suddenly, she saw thema gorgeous brown pair with gold "G" buckles hooked around the ankles. A little yelp escaped her lips.

"Help yourself," Danni said.

"You're the best friend in the world." Kiki practically negotiated a dive-and-roll for the coveted shoes.

"That's what you told Suzi-Suzi when she got you front row seats to see a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ."

Kiki grinned. "I meant it then, and I mean it now." A soaring sense of exuberance rushed though her body. What a day! A great book idea, a meaningful encounter with Kirsten Brock, a new Stella top, enough money to momentarily keep the vultures at bay, and these fabulous boots. "You know," she announced sunnily, "everything in my life is starting to move on the right track."

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Just Imagine

Breckin!

I've had the most delicious thought. Why limit ourselves to a ceremony in Fredericksburg? Think about this: How fabulous would a New York wedding be? You would go wild planning it, and it's so much more convenient for me. I'm sure Roman won't mind. Let's discuss.

Air Kisses, Kiki

The telephone jangled violently.

Who on earth? And why at this ungodly hour? Kiki stirred, spewing curses in a low growl as she fumbled for the receiver. But first she squinted to make out the clock. A few minutes past nine. What kind of barbarian would dare to call now? As if everyone lived by a farmer's crack-of-dawn schedule.

"This better be an emergency," Kiki croaked instead of hello.

"I'd say the end of your career in New York qualifies as one."

Kiki rose with a start, recognizing the voice instantly. It belonged to Sarah Ann Duckworth, the Birmingham, Alabama debutante turned Manhattan publicist. But forget transplanted sweet Southern girl. In this case, long-lost Soprano child rang with more truth.

"And if you expect any help with damage con-trol," Sarah Ann went on, "then I suggest that you pay your overdue bill."

"What are you talking about?" Kiki asked, feigning ignorance about all of it when she really was only clueless about half. In all honesty, she had been thinking about Sarah Ann's recent invoice (the one with deadbeat! scribbled across it in red Sharpie) while the girl at Stella McCartney had been ringing up the eight-hundred-dollar blouse.

"I'm talking about a public image holocaust!" Sarah Ann shrieked. "I would rather explain why you pushed an old blind woman in front of a bus than this!"

Kiki paused to consider the situation. It could very well be that Sarah Ann Duckworth had bipolar disorder. Oprah had done a whole show about it. Hmm. If this proved to be true, then Sarah Ann could hardly be an asset to Kiki's career.

Beep.

Oh, thank God for call-waiting. The perfect escape chute for unpleasant interruptions or boring conversations. "That's my other line, Sarah Ann. I'll have to call you back."

Click.

But before Kiki could get so much as the "H" in hello out, Suzi-Suzi was screaming bloody murder, then asking, "Are you dying? You must be dying. I would be so dying. At least it's not a bad picture, though. I mean, you look great."

"What are you talking about?" Kiki demanded. And this time, she really had no idea.

"You haven't seen it?"

"Seen what?"

"Oh, God," Suzi-Suzi said, her voice down an octave. "Uhyou shouldn't be alone when you see it. I'm coming over there. But whatever you do; don't go out and buy the New York Post . Promise me you won't. Promise !"

"I promise," Kiki said earnestly. So the first thing she did as soon as Suzi-Suzi hung up was shove her feet into a pair of Uggs, toss on her Hello Kitty terry cloth robe, and race downstairs to the newsstand on the corner.

From several feet away Kiki saw it. Almost instantly, her stomach dropped. And then a sense of personal doom settled somewhere in her gut and threatened to stay.

HOME WRECKER!

Those two words were stacked on the front page of the New York Post , each offending letter billboard big. To the immediate right was a photograph of Kiki between Tom Brock's legs, looking like she had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Lewinsky University.

Kiki just stood there in a foggy tableau, as if watching the scene outside of herself. Slowly, she reached out for the tallest stack to touch one of the tabloids, if only to prove it real. And the smudge of newsprint that stained her fingertips provided the answer: Oh, hell, yes.

She slapped down two dollars, grabbed a copy, and started back to her apartment as she read. The photo caption alone infuriated her: "Washed-up soap starlet Kiki Douglas makes a desperate play for Tom Brock, New York's very own young Sinatra." Kiki could feel a flush of red heat start up at her neck and move to her cheeks, which were burning. Washed-up soap starlet ? First of all, she was hardly washed up. Her career was merely in a period of transition. And what's this about a desperate play ? Please. Not that she was even trying to offer one, but the fact is that she gave a very good blow job. Any man should be quite happy to get one from her. Even Tom Brock!

Ripping through the paper to get to the story, she found the rest of it a few turns over, basically a single column running down the page, accompanied by publicity shots of her (a nice one, actually; she was wearing a Pucci halter), Tom, and Kirsten. Not much there as far as information goes. It was all vague speculation about what might or might not be an affair. Pretty boring and pointless, actually. Even the most gullible moron would have thought so.

Kiki continued to read. All of a sudden, she halted. How did they discover her real age? Damn those tabloid hacks! Now she couldn't go ahead with plans for her thirtieth birthday party. Still consumed with every image and syllable, she found her way back inside her apartment as if by muscle memory alone.

The telephone blasted Kiki away from her private Mars. Like a zombie, she moved to answer. All she did was pick up. Not even an intake of breath.

And Suzi-Suzi shouted, "I knew you would go down and grab the first paper you saw! I called Danni. She's on three-way. I think. I'm always screwing that up. Either hanging up on someone when I want them on the line, or not hanging up when I want to gossip about them. Danni, are you there?"

"I'm here. Don't panic, Kiki," she offered soothingly. "The morning's scandal is the afternoon's fish paper."

"And what's the old saying? Oh, yeah. There's no such thing as bad publicity," Suzi-Suzi put in.

"Everybody's going to know that I'm really thirty-four," Kiki whined.

"What? That's crazy. They didn't say anything about your age," Suzi-Suzi said. One beat. "Oh, you're right. There it is. Well, don't worry. At least it's buried in the article. Hardly anybody will notice. Most people just look at the pictures. I only read the whole thing because you're my best friend."

"Nobody is going to pay attention to this," Danni went on. "There's nothing to this story. It must be a really slow news day."

Kiki gasped. "Are you saying that I'm not a worth-while scandal queen?" Almost worse than the public humiliation would be the prospect of boring the public. After all, at the end of the day, Kiki considered herself an entertainer.

"No!" Danni and Suzi-Suzi exclaimed in perfect unison.

"You're a great scandal queen," Suzi-Suzi assured her. "Way better than, say, Amber Frey. I mean, has she ever heard of Google? That's how I found out Chad was married. I just Googled him. Come on. You don't have to be Nancy Drew."

"What we mean," Danni added, "is that there's no meat on this bone. It's an innocent situation completely blown out of proportion. If it lasts longer than this morning's news cycle, then I'll choreograph a dance to 'Two of Hearts' by Stacey Q. And you know how much I hate that song."