B004183M70 EBOK (27 page)

We stepped outside, Lola complaining of the
brightness of the sun, and found where Pierre had set up for the shoot. A
white wooden beach lounger and a tiny round bamboo table had been placed near
lush green plants and a low palm tree. From my Durden swimwear notes, I knew
there were supposed to be shots of Lola frolicking in the water, reclining with
a tropical drink, and sunbathing.

Pierre saw us first. "
Merde
!" he
cursed.

"Oh, shit," Gloria echoed.

Lola put her hands on her hips. "What
is wrong with you people?"

Pierre held Lola's chin in one hand. He
examined her face intently before she swiped his hand away.

"There is nothing I can do. Nothing!
She's been drinking. Her looks are ruined," he declared, and kicked a
seashell across the beach. He walked a few feet away and assumed a tragic pose.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not
here," Lola said. "Gloria will—"

"Gloria cannot fix that mess you call
a face!" Pierre shouted. "And your stomach is hanging over the top of
that bikini bottom!"

Darlene and Cole drifted over.

"If Gloria has any talent at all,
she'll make me beautiful," Lola countered.

Gloria drew in a deep breath at the insult.
"I'm sorry, Pierre. There's no way I can cover those bags under her eyes,
not to mention her swollen eyelids. Maybe you can shoot her at an angle where
her bloated face appears thin."

"Shut up, Gloria," Lola snapped.
Then she turned her ire on Pierre. "You always have a love-hate relationship
with your star model. You did with Suzie, with me, and with Kiki before
us."

Pierre took an angry step toward Lola.

I put myself between them. I was supposed
to be in charge here. "Pierre, I know you're upset, and you're perfectly justified. Lola, you should have gone to bed early
and gotten your beauty rest. Now, why don't I take Lola back to her room, where
she can rest for an hour with a cool cloth over her eyes."

Darlene said, "It sounds gross, but
the cream people use for hemorrhoids can shrink the swelling around your eyes
too. We were taught that in stew school."

"Darlene," Cole barked in a tone
that dropped the eighty-something-degree temperature down to fifty, "I
won't have you speaking of such personal things in public. And for Pete's sake,
tie those things on the front of that bathing suit tighter. You're exposing
yourself. No wife of mine—"

Darlene's freckles stood out like drops of
red wine on a white-tiled floor. She stopped Cole before he could continue.
"I'll say anything I want to say! And what I've wanted to say for a while
now is that I won't be your wife." She twisted her engagement ring
off her finger and flung it at Cole.

The ring hit him squarely in the center of
his forehead, then bounced down to the sand. He bent down, scrambling around
trying to find it.

Darlene flounced off to the hotel.

"This is madness," Pierre said.
"I have to wait for a drunken model before I can do my work. I'll never
photograph you again after this, Lola."

Cole, ever the bearer of good tidings,
said, "If you don't stop arguing, you won't get any pictures at all.
Storm's coming in later today. Supposed to last through tomorrow. Lola looks
pretty enough to me even without makeup."

She smiled at him and moved away from
Pierre to help Cole look for Darlene's ring.

I couldn't believe what was happening
around me. I felt the shoot slipping through my fingers, and me helpless to do
anything to save it.

Added to that, Cole, single for all of two
minutes, was flirting with Lola, and she was loving every minute.

"Bebe," Pierre said, "please
make flight arrangements. I wish to leave at once."

"No, Pierre," I said, half pleading. "There
must be a way to salvage the situation. Can't you give Lola some time? I'll
help her get the swelling down. With your talent, I know we can work this
out."

"Bebe, I would love to please you, but it's out of my
hands. We need at least three hours to shoot, and that's only because I am so
talented. I need a model in makeup right—"

He stopped and looked at me. "This is an important shoot
for you, isn't it, my cherie? Whoever is your new superior at the agency will
consider this failure your fault, won't they?"

"Yes," I said in a resigned tone.

"I have an idea."

My spirits lifted. "Tell me! I'll do anything to
help."

"Excellent! Now go put on the bikini."

"What?" I said, not believing my ears.

Pierre ignored me. "Gloria, you will do Bebe's makeup. I
want her to look light and fun. The perfect all-American girl."

"I knew it would come to this," Gloria mumbled.

"Pierre," I said, grabbing his arm, "I'm not a
model, much less a star model. I can't do it. What about Darlene? She's sexy
and beautiful."

"Darlene is too sexy and curvy for what Durden wants.
You should know that. Don't you see? You will be something better than a star
model: a fresh new face. You are beautiful, my cherie."

Lola stood, wiping the sand from her hands. "This is an
outrage!"

"Bebe's pretty, I guess, but not like Lola," Cole
said.

"Leave us. Your opinion is not wanted here," Pierre
told Cole. Then as if to himself, "Gloria's makeup will enhance her
natural beauty, and I will make her an angel in a devil's attire. I don't know
what that murderer was thinking to give Lola the assignment in the first
place. Bebe has a sweetness that Lola could never project."

Cole pulled Darlene's ring from the sand and pocketed it. "Lola, why don't you let me take you back to
New York? I can cheer you up if you like Broadway shows, eating out—"

"I'd love to, Cole. Since it's going to rain here, this
place would bore me silly."

The two walked away.

My mind raced. Would my doing the shoot be better than coming
back with no photographs at all? Maybe Gloria could make me pretty enough. What
choice did I have?

Bradley's words came back to me. Make me proud.

"Okay, Pierre. But you'll have to give me lots of instruction,"
I said.

He clapped his hands together in delight.
"Wonderful!"

I turned to Gloria. "Should I get the suit on
first?"

"Yeah."

She started walking with me back to the hotel.

"Gloria, are you mad at me?" I said, finally
bringing my feelings out into the open.

She snorted. "Little Miss Innocent, don't worry; I'll do
my job. The photos will be gear. After all, you're going to be Pierre's new
girlfriend."

"That's not true," I protested.

"Right. We have a professional relationship now, so act
like it."

"I'm sorry that our friendship never grew."

Silence.

We were at the staircase leading to my room. Something else
nibbled at the edge of my mind. "Gloria, what happened to Kiki?"

This time Gloria threw her head back and laughed.
"Always good to know what happened to those who came before you."
Then she looked me right in the eyes and said, "Kiki committed suicide.
She jumped off the top of Pierre's building."

"How dreadful. Why did she do it?"

Gloria shrugged. "I don't know, Bebe. You tell me why
people kill themselves. Or others."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"I can't wait to see those pictures of you, Bebe. You
have to get copies for yourself," Darlene said. "Bradley sure is
gonna get an eyeful. I'm so happy I got to watch the whole thing." She
burst out laughing.

I rolled my eyes. "Please. I'm afraid
Bradley won't be happy."

We'd managed to get the shoot done, and
with Darlene's pull at Skyway, all of us flew back to New York before the
storm got too bad. As it was, I'd had my first experience with turbulence, and
I hadn't liked it one bit.

To add to the tension, Pierre had sat next
to me on the plane, trying to convince me to come work for him. He said he
would welcome another assistant, and promised he could easily get me modeling
jobs. When I'd reminded him I was only five foot seven, hardly tall enough to
model, he scoffed and told me height rules were for runway models. I spent the
flight being noncommittal and finally feigned sleep even when Pierre took my
hand and held it against his heart.

Cole and Lola didn't join us on the plane.
Either they were stuck on the island, or they'd taken an earlier flight.
Darlene assisted the stews, glowing with happiness now that she was free of the
domineering oil man.

Gloria sat across and down one row from me.
Her head fell to one side the minute the plane took off. While she'd done my
makeup, she had only given me commands like "turn your head to the left" and
"raise your chin." I wanted to tell her that she was wrong; I wasn't
planning a romance with Pierre, or a big modeling career. But then I figured
Gloria wouldn't believe me, and I wondered again why she was so upset.

Once home, Darlene and I had slept until
almost noon on Friday. Clad in our pajamas, we were now enjoying coffee and
toast in the living room.

"I want to forget all about those
photos, Darlene. I had to show my navel! Not even Annette Funicello does that.
If Daddy ever finds out—"

"What will he do? Ground you for
life?" She said, and laughed.

"You've met Daddy. He'll trot me to
the closest nunnery," I said.

"Honey, he won't even recognize his
'Little Magnolia' in those shots. That one pose Pierre put you in, the one
where you're lying on the beach lounger, one knee raised slightly, holding a
pina colada with the little paper umbrella in it? Not his little girl,"
Darlene half sang.

I put my hands over my ears.
"Stop!"

"Not to mention the one of you just
out of the ocean, with drops of water glistening over your exposed skin, lying
on the hard sand. Pierre had to adjust his shorts every few minutes—"

"Darlene!"

"Once he got you in the mood, you
delivered a sexy mix of innocence and secret knowledge," she assured me.

"It's a secret, all right, even to me.
I couldn't have done it without Pierre's instructions. I shouldn't have agreed
in the first place. Durden will never accept the photos. I'll disappoint
Bradley."

"Ha! Time will tell." Darlene
shot me a sly look. "But you had a teensy-weensy amount of fun, didn't
you?"

"I did it for Bradley, so the shoot
wouldn't be a total failure," I said, and sipped my coffee.

Darlene smiled.

"Oh, all right! I had fun," I
said, shifting position so that my legs were folded under me on the pink
sectional. "Pierre made me feel cherished and beautiful."

"You are beautiful, silly,"
Darlene said. "Do you think you might accept another modeling
assignment?"

I smiled. "If the circumstances were
right, maybe. Pierre said he could get me assignments, and if Bradley fires me
for not controlling Lola . . ."

"Nobody could have handled that drunk.
Cole will keep her in alcohol and under his thumb. Lola's modeling career is
over," Darlene said, lying down and propping a yellow satin pillow under
her head.

"Gosh, let me call Danielle and see if
Bradley is back at the office. That Pickering—the so-called lawyer—had better
have gotten him out of jail," I said, and stood.

"You're not going into the office, are
you? Even I'm exhausted."

"Let's see what Danielle says. Don't
move."

Darlene yawned. "I won't. I'm going to
close my eyes and figure out what to wear when I see Stu."

I went to the kitchen wall unit and dialed
the office.

"Hi, Danielle, it's me, Bebe. We got
our shots and came home last night because of a storm down in the islands."

"Wow, that was a fast trip. Are you
tired? Or do you want to hear the latest?"

"Both," I answered. "First
tell me if Mr. Williams is back in the office."

"No, he's not. We haven't heard from
him since . . . well, you were at the reception," Danielle said. "No
one has come to take his place either, like Debbie Ann keeps telling
everyone."

I closed my eyes and leaned against the
wall. Darn Debbie Ann! She believed Bradley was guilty and must have been
gloating that she had inside information of the imminent arrival of his
replacement. "Okay, give me the latest now."

"We've been bombarded with phone
calls."

"Reporters?"

"Uh-huh. Four of them even came to the office, but I
showed them the elevator fast. I treated them politely but firmly, like you taught
me, Bebe."

"Thank you, Danielle. I'll speak with your supervisor
when I can. I appreciate everything you've done."

"You're too sweet. I've learned a lot from you, and I
can add my extra duties to my resume."