Flawless (42 page)

“Actually, Boxie’s always liked him,” began Scarlett. But Nancy wasn’t close to being finished.

“He’s a user, a liar, a womanizer,” she counted Jake’s minus points off on her fingers. “He buys contraband diamonds—”

“Not anymore,” said Scarlett. “He’s changed.”

“Please!” Nancy scoffed. “Men like that don’t
change
. He’s selfish, he’s lazy, he’s a chauvinist. He probably has every STD known to man and a bunch that haven’t even been discovered yet.”

“I think I might be in love with him,” said Scarlett helplessly.

“
In love
?” Nancy looked like she was about to choke. “Lord help us. And what about Magnus?”

“Ah yes, Magnus. Now that’s another story,” said Scarlett. And not without some relish, she related all the gory details of Jake’s trip to Seattle.

“
Taylor
?” Nancy frowned disapprovingly. “I have to admit, I’d have thought he’d pick something a bit less trailer-trash than that. Poor kid. And poor you. Were you shocked? Magnus, eh?
Who’d have thunk it?” She shook her head in wonderment. “He seemed so perfect.”

“Exactly!” said Scarlett. “But he wasn’t. Which surely goes to show that one should never judge a book by its cover.”

“You mean Jake?” said Nancy, the fires of her indignation only slightly abated by the Magnus digression. “Just ’cause Magnus was a master of disguise doesn’t mean hooking up with Jake’s a good idea. God damn it, Scar, I
knew
this would happen. I
knew
he’d worm his way around you eventually.”

Scarlett had tried to explain that there had been no “worming.” That Jake’s absence in Africa had made her heart grow fonder, and that by the time he’d come to her in London, she’d already decided that whatever it was she’d once felt for Magnus, it was a) not love and b) not there anymore. But after three weeks Nancy’s skepticism remained as rock solid as ever, to the point where Jake had become an almost total nonsubject between them.

As a result, Scarlett had only had him stay overnight at the cottage twice since they got back from London, both times on nights she knew Nancy would be staying at Che Che’s. The second time, Nancy came home just as Jake was leaving, and Scarlett could have cut the tension with a knife.

“What’s her problem?” Jake complained to Scarlett afterward. “Is she jealous or something? ’Cause you’re getting shit-hot sex and she’s not?”

Scarlett laughed. “Somehow I doubt that’s it,” she said, giving him a conciliatory kiss. “She just needs a little time to adjust, that’s all.”

But privately she’d begun to wonder whether Nancy was ever going to accept the relationship. If she didn’t, Scarlett thought sadly, she’d have to start thinking about looking for somewhere else to live, a hassle she could well do without right now.

Technically she supposed she could move in with Jake. But it seemed an awfully big step to take so early on, particularly
given the fact that she had yet to set foot inside his apartment. He’d always been a bit secretive about his place. Even last year, before they got together, he’d made excuses not to invite her in on the rare occasions she drove by to pick him up for work or drop him off after a meeting when his car was in the shop. At the time she hadn’t given it much thought. But now that they were a couple, his prevaricating seemed somehow more disturbing.

“Trust me, it’s a shit hole,” he’d tell her breezily whenever she suggested they spend the night there instead of the cottage. “I’d be embarrassed to show it to a princess like you.”

In other circumstances, Scarlett would have turned to Nancy for some girlfriendly advice. As it was, the last thing she wanted to do was sow any more seeds of doubt about Jake into the veritable forest of disapproval that was Nancy’s mind.

Once Scarlett had finished her food, Nancy carried her empty plate and glass back into the kitchen.

“Is Che Che taking you dancing tonight?” Scarlett called after her.

“No, sieve-for-brains,” Nancy called back. “He’s coming over here, remember? The three of us were going to get takeout from Chin Chin and brainstorm how to revive your NPR piece. It was your suggestion.”

“Of course. Right,” said Scarlett, who’d completely forgotten and had promised Jake earlier that they were on for a private night of passion. He’d go mad when she called him to cancel, but it couldn’t be helped. Che Che had kindly agreed to get involved with Trade Fair and had close friends at KCRW, the LA radio station, who might be able to revive the show she and Andy had toiled over for months last year. No way was she going to flake on him. Plus, with his background as a refugee and his rising profile on the LA art scene, he’d have huge credibility as a guest speaker if she could really get him interested in the cause.

“I’m dropping off some flyers for him down in Venice,” said Nancy. “Then I’ll pick up the food and be back by seven, seven thirty latest.”

“You don’t think you’re a tad overdressed for a leaflet drop and a trip to grab takeout?” Scarlett looked questioningly at the
Saturday Night Fever
outfit.

“There’s no such thing as overdressed in Venice,” said Nancy firmly. “Besides, Che Che likes it when I make an effort.”

She’d only known him for five weeks, but Nancy had already gotten into the habit of “making an effort” for Che Che. Never in her long career as a party girl had she adored and admired a lover as much. After so many years being chased, it felt strange to be the one making all the running for a change. But figuring that most of the prizes worth having in life involved a challenge, she threw herself into the task of winning her new boyfriend’s heart with the same enthusiasm she brought to her writing, her friendships, and everything else that was dear to her.

Tearing west along the freeway in her gleaming yellow Thunderbird—after her second script had been optioned in December, she’d rewarded herself by getting the car resprayed, transforming her loyal banger into a polished work of art—she let the top down, allowing the cool breeze to ruffle her hair and blow it into a sexy, tousled mop.

Scarlett must have been really frazzled to have forgotten about tonight’s dinner. She’d been nagging Nancy for weeks to set up a meeting with Che Che and pin him down on a time. (No easy task, given he had two exhibitions coming up at the end of the month and a string of social commitments. He barely had enough time to devote to Nancy, never mind to spend a whole evening making the world right with Scarlett.) No doubt Jake
fucking Meyer was behind the new, even more scatterbrained Scarlett. How
could
she have fallen for that jerk?

Turning off the freeway at Ocean Park, Nancy turned her thoughts back to her own life. Like Scarlett, she’d endured an unusually stressful family Christmas. Her mom had been struck down with mysterious, debilitating headaches that had hung over the rest of the family like a dark cloud. Lucy Lorriman was an old-school stoic. By the time she got around to calling the doctor or popping a pill, most normal people would have collapsed on the floor in agony, demanding ambulances and morphine. For her to complain of headaches at all, never mind take to her bed with them, something had to be seriously wrong. So far the specialists had all drawn a blank—there was no obvious tumor. But both Nancy and her father remained privately convinced that some frightening, nameless evil lurked behind Lucy’s symptoms. And neither of them knew how to handle it.

Making a left on Main Street, then again onto Abbot Kinney, she searched for a parking space among the maze of streets that made up downtown Venice. She loved the area, with its quaint streets and canals, its brightly painted 1920s shacks (built for the poorest of the poor, they now sold for millions), its run-down art galleries and kooky new-age stores: palm readers, tarot specialists, tattooists. There was even a “spiritual acupuncture temple,” whatever the hell that meant—pins with your hymns, presumably; she laughed, picturing her dad’s horrified face at the very thought of it.

The Ramenez Gallery, where Che Che’s work was being shown, looked as beat-up as the rest of the establishments surrounding it, but in fact sold very little under the twenty-thousand-dollar mark. Venice’s poverty, like so much of LA, was an affectation. It might be full of artists, and they might be living in attics. But the attics went for the price of a decent family home in Connecticut, and none of the artists was starving. Most of Ramenez’s front window was taken up with a single childish
drawing of a sunflower, priced at an astonishing eighty-five thousand bucks. Not for the first time, Nancy seriously considered chucking in the writing, changing her name to Moonbeam, and flogging some hopeless daub in the name of “high art.” She’d never say as much to Che Che, but part of her thought his entire line of business was the world’s greatest scam.

“Hey, baby.” Sauntering through the gallery door, her hips swaying like a short, blonde Elvis, she made her way over to the front desk, where he was deep in conversation with Rodrigo Ramenez, the gallery owner. “I got you the flyers.” Dumping a stack of paper bound with a single elastic band down on the desk, she snaked her arm around his waist, simultaneously flashing her most winning, “come up and see me sometime” smile at Rodrigo. It never hurt to stay on the good side of one’s lover’s boss. “You nearly ready to go?”

“I need twenty minutes.” Che Che’s huge, laborer’s hand instinctively slid down over her butt and gave it a squeeze. “Forty tops.”

Rodrigo caught the gesture—a big, black linebacker groping the smallest and cutest cheerleader—and didn’t know where to look. The sexual chemistry between these two was so hot it was about to start fucking with his air conditioner.

“Why don’t you order for me, and I’ll meet you back at your place?” said Che Che, removing his hand and inspecting the flyers for his exhibition with a critical eye. “I’ll have Singapore Ho Fun, no pork, and some noodles, the clear ones. I’ll be right behind you,” he added, seeing her hesitation and a skeptical look pass across her pretty, doll-like features.

Nancy thought about it. As always, in his presence, it was a physical wrench to let him go, even for a short time. Plus, if she left him here, talking art and prices with Rodrigo, she ran the risk that he might be hours. On the other hand, she didn’t want to be the sort of clingy, nagging girlfriend that hung around, looking at her watch and tut-tutting while he tried to work.

“OK,” she said. “But please, baby, don’t be late. Scarlett’s expecting us at seven.”

“I won’t.”

He smiled, and Nancy felt her insides melt like chocolate on a hot summer sidewalk. Her parents would come around eventually, once they saw how talented and strong and beautiful he was. Once they saw how happy he made her.

After she left, Rodrigo shook his head at his newest young artist with unfeigned admiration.

“That’s quite a girl you’ve got yourself there.” If he’d been a few years younger, he might have whistled.

“I know it,” said Che Che proudly. He still felt like pinching himself every time he looked at Nancy—and especially when he looked at her from behind, sashaying down the street like a forties siren, wiggling that perfect backside of hers with seemingly limitless confidence. “I’m a lucky man.”

While Che Che counted his blessings, Jake was sitting in the living room of his apartment with Solomon Stones’ latest quarterly accounts spread out in front of him on the coffee table, feeling distinctly less lucky.

“Bollocks. Piss, wank, bollocks,” he mumbled, to no one in particular. The numbers were bloody awful. Even he, with his barely scraped high school equivalency in math, could tell that. Looking at the situation on paper, in black and white, it was plain that their East Coast business was dead. Not dying, actually dead, kaput, finished, as fully expired as the Monty Python parrot, or the slab of Whole Foods cheddar molding in the dairy drawer of his untouched fridge. Brogan had cooked Danny’s goose good and proper. In LA, Jake’s own sales were up on the previous quarter—thanks to the Flawless connection he’d at last regained some ground against the ubiquitous Tyler Brett. But
without the lifesaving injection of steady income from Scarlett’s store, Solomon Stones would have been royally fucked.