Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(44)
Author: Mimi Strong

I shut the door most of the way and turned on the TV to mask the murmuring of their voices. Keith had returned the set to the spare room because he didn’t like the negative ions electronics gave off in the bedroom.

The two of them were still murmuring. At least they were talking, which meant nobody had their burrito in anyone’s drunk mouth. As I watched some trash on the little TV set, I hit the mute button periodically, just to be sure.

The third time I hit the mute button, the apartment was silent, and I had to ask myself a question: if they weren’t still talking, was I prepared to go busting in there like some not-very-hip parent, flipping on lights and whipping back covers?

False alarm. They were talking… and… laughing? What was so funny? The fact that Keith’s rebound girl was in the next room? Yeah, really funny, guys.

I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Mitchell, my only other friend in LA

Me: I think maybe you were right to warn me off male models.

I got a message back almost instantly.

Mitchell: What did he do? I’m telling you, they’re barely house-trained. If only they weren’t so f**king hot, my life would be simple.

Me: In a parallel universe somewhere, models aren’t hot.

Mitchell: What’s bugging you? Does he wear a sleep mask? Does he have a satin pillowcase so he doesn’t get sleep wrinkles on his face?

Me: Neither of those things. He has an ex-girlfriend. And they’re both in the bedroom talking right now. She showed up drunk. Stupid cow.

Mitchell: Fuck them. Come dancing with me.

Me: I can’t leave the apartment! They’ll have self-loathing sex for sure. I think she’s in heat. She had that look of a horny alley cat.

Mitchell: How would you know that look?

Me: Takes one to know one! I’ll let you get back to your life. I just have to wait this one out. I can always pull the fire alarm, right?

Mitchell: LOL! Let me know if you change your mind about going out. I could use some adventure for a change.

I put the phone away and tried to focus on the TV show. Competitors were making puff pastries and acting like they were getting their big break. I snickered at them, with their silly dreams, then realized I was no different from them, and probably looked just as foolish.

I’d nodded off, face down on a pillow with the remote control still in my hand. I was woken up by someone gently shaking me.

“I’m going to drive Tabitha home,” Keith said.

“That’s where she should be.”

“Do you want to come along for the ride?”

“You only have two seats in that van. Is she going to sit on my lap?”

“Oh, right. Never mind.” He stared down at me, his face in shadows. He looked like he wanted to say something.

Go ahead and say it, I thought. Tell me you’re getting back together with Tabitha, and you feel just awful about the whole thing. Say it.

“I should pick up some ice cream on the way back,” he said.

I smiled up at him. Keith was a good one.

“Anything but chocolate,” I said. “Chocolate ice cream always tastes burnt to me.”

Nodding, he said, “I’ll get a variety.”

He went back out, and they whispered to each other as they went out the door. The whispering made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I told myself not to overreact, and I sat up to await his return, clicking around looking for a better channel.

I flicked past a familiar face, and stopped. It was Dalton Deangelo. I turned up the volume and shifted down the bed, so my face was practically against the set.

I’d been carefully avoiding news about him, or gossip about me, mainly by staying off the internet. But now, here it was—the exact thing I’d been avoiding.

I froze, too curious to change the channel.

A voice-over ran as commentary, while a series of photos of Dalton ran like a slideshow.

An excited-sounding woman said, “Dalton Deangelo, best known for his role as Drake Cheshire on his hit TV soap, One Vamp to Love, was spotted this morning in a Marina Del Ray Pilates studio, working on that body millions of women love.”

The TV showed a grainy clip of Dalton inside the Pilates studio, talking to another man with a blurred-out face, and then a clip of him standing outside, drinking bottled water.

The woman continued, breathlessly: “While his lips might be smiling that trademark Drake Cheshire smile, the sunglasses conceal the true windows to his soul, and the secret he carries. Millions of women love Drake, but Dalton is unlucky in love, heartbroken after his recent fling with up-and-coming sassy underwear designer, Peaches Monroe.”

A photo of me with my shirt off at the bookstore flashed onto the screen. The picture that put me in the spotlight. My eyes closed reflexively, and the static in my head overpowered all my sensory inputs for a moment. The woman was still talking, but it could have been in a foreign language.

I fell back on the bed and rocked in a fetal position for a moment, chanting, “Shitfuckshitfuck, suckass, mothershitting-fuckshit,” the way any grown woman in this type of situation would.

The woman kept talking, but now the topic had already shifted, to something about Lindsay Lohan. I have never been so happy to hear someone talk about Lindsay Lohan. My stomach lurched when the woman made a quip about poor ol’ misunderstood Lindsay hooking up with Dalton, but everyone in the gossip headquarters office laughed, so I knew it was a joke.

The next segment was all about celebrity baby bumps.

“Get a life,” I said to the TV, but I didn’t change the channel.

Two hours later, Keith hadn’t returned from driving Tabitha home. Even if she lived on the other side of the city, it was past eleven on a Thursday night, so surely he could have gotten back, unless…

Unless he was making her a trouser-meat sandwich with extra mayo.

GROSS!

I ransacked Keith’s kitchen, then got started with a vodka and soda, easy on the soda.

Midnight.

Four drinks drinked. Drinked? Drank? Downed.

No sign of Keith. Obviously he was expending his coveted man-mayonnaise on Tabitha’s bologne flaps.

FUCKINGratSHITonTOAST!

I called his cell, but he didn’t pick up. I called it eleventy-seven times and still NO PICKY UPPIE.

Which was probably for the best, considering how juiced up I was.

I put in a call to the Last Good Man in Los Angeles. “Mitchell come get meeeeeeeeeee!”

He had me go outside and get the address for him off the side of the building, since he couldn’t remember where it was, then he swore he’d come for me, with reinforcements.