Claire Voyant (5 page)

Great. Now my sentences were repeating on me like pepperoni. That's exactly what I'd said to Elyce when I tried to get out of being her bridesmaid. Little did I know that I'd suddenly be in such demand to appear in weddings and funerals. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned rule of asking people you actually knew?

“But you're the only one who shared his final moments.” Drew gave me puppy dog eyes. “I know it would mean a lot to our family.”

“Well, look,” Ben offered. “We obviously haven't had time to finalize the arrangements, but we did book the funeral chapel for Wednesday morning. Why don't you think about it?”

Ha! What did I tell you? A perfectly nice funeral is being put together in less than two days. Why not a wedding? Wait until I tell Elyce.

Meanwhile, I told Ben and Drew that I was deeply touched by their wanting to include me in the service, but that I'd only planned to be in Florida for a few days to help my grandmother and might have a possible modeling assignment. Not to mention I hadn't brought a single thing to wear that would be suitable for a funeral. Three damn good reasons, but not why I was hedging.

The bottom line was that I may have been able to snow these guys because they were in mourning and vulnerable. But no matter how good an actress I was, I just couldn't see myself getting up to make a speech filled with bald-faced lies to perpetuate the notion that Abe Fabrikant and I were buddies. I was a fraud, not a fool.

And yet in spite of all that, I heard myself say yes. Not because of Ben's generous offer to pay for a shopping spree and a trip to his wife's hairstylist. Not because of Drew's tight hug, although his woodsy aftershave made me weak. Not even because this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ingratiate myself with Penny the Great, tempting as that was.

It was something more mysterious and unexplainable. A voice in my head that nearly cast me off my seat. The voice of a man saying
please
over and over again like a mantra.

Was my Grandpa Harry trying to reach me from the other side? Doubtful, as he hadn't seemed all that interested in me when he was on this side. Besides, the voice I was hearing was gentle and soothing, not shrill like I remembered hearing as a kid. The word
please
more like a message of peace than a stern lecture from the late Harry Moss. And then it hit me. If I wasn't hearing from my grandfather, maybe I was hearing from Drew's.

Why this was happening to me, I had no idea. I wasn't one of those spiritual can't-think-without-my-green-tea kind of people who ran to psychic fairs on weekends or who consulted Sir Singh, the Tarot card reader, before making a major purchase. I never had premonitions or saw auras. Hell, I never even opened fortune cookies.

And if Abe Fabrikant was going to make the effort to contact someone on earth, first appearing to me in human form, then whispering messages, why would he choose me, Claire-Awful-Person-Greene? I was his last impression of the human race, and hardly the way I'd think he'd want to remember us.

Then again, who was I to question the will of a spirit? If he was trying to communicate with me for whatever reason, I had better pay attention. Maybe he had an important message for me. Although with my luck, the message would sound like a threat from the Wicked Witch of Miami. “Speak at my funeral, and I'll get you, my pretty.”

Good job, Abe. The dead guy one. Claire nothing.

“I
F TREFFIC STAYS GOOD, WE BE ET
S
OUTH
B
EACH IN BLINK OF YUR
eye,” my chauffeur said. “Do you like more air?”

“No, thanks, Viktor.” I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Everything is perfect.”

And I wasn't saying that just to be polite, like the time my deli-owner boyfriend Max surprised me with one of those hideous Coach pocketbooks with the million
C
's, and I had to jump up and down like an excited schoolgirl (he actually told me to say the
C
stood for Claire, as if anyone over the age of eleven wasn't familiar with the designer signature).

Seriously, the death of Abe Fabrikant notwithstanding, this day was starting to feel like the grand prize from one of those stupid reality shows. How else to explain that I was heading down 95 South to Raphael de Miro's studio in a white stretch limousine, sipping chilled champagne and with feet on the seat, watching my friend Renee get slapped on
One Life to Live
?

Or that when I called the temperamental Mr. de Miro to plead my case to let me do the test shoot later in the day, he couldn't have been lovelier? “Whenever you get here, dear,” he said.

What was wrong with this picture? For starters, I wasn't used to riding in the back of a limo alone. Usually I was some rich guy's eye candy for the night, too busy fending off the customary predate groping and grinding to enjoy the trip.

As for the nice treatment from Raphael? A real mystery. My friend Sydney had warned that the prickly photographer had once left Heidi Klum in a fetal position because he didn't care for her work. “They don't call him Saddam Scavullo for nothing.”

Meanwhile, I was trying to make sense of my quandary. It seemed the more I lied, the better the treatment. The Fabrikants thought I was Claire, Queen of Kindness. I thought I was a royal ass.

Extreme guilt forced me to mull over the possible repercussions if I should suddenly confess the truth to Ben and Drew. But what would I say?
Did I happen to mention I have a multiple personality disorder, and now that I'm somebody else, I just remembered I didn't get friendly with Mr. Fabrikant? In fact, it turns out, I never said a fucking word to him?

Couldn't do it. For as soon as I agreed to speak at the funeral, they were so in love with me, so intent on repaying my good deeds, I blew the chance to rescind my story. And just as well. For when Drew heard I was cabbing it down to South Beach, then heading to my grandmother's place in North Miami, he said, “Nothing doing. The least we can do is get you a limo.”

Frankly, I didn't put up a fuss for two reasons. I was happy to save the minimum eighty dollars it would have cost me to schlep all over town. And second, when Drew told me not to worry because the family owned a fleet of cars, it dawned on me that luxury transportation might be a mere segment of their holdings. Could you blame me for being curious about what else was under their conglomerate hood?

Until that moment, I swear I had no idea that the Fabrikants were loaded. Yes, Ben and Drew were smartly dressed, but they were wearing Florida casual. And with the way that Ralph Lauren discounted these days, for all I knew, they shopped at Marshall's like everyone else.

So when I asked my driver to tell me about this nice family he worked for, I wasn't expecting to hear that the Fabrikants were south Florida's answer to the Gatsbys. That their name was synonymous with opulent wealth because Ben managed to use his entrepreneurial
instincts to parlay the profits from his father's furniture business into a chain of exclusive clubs all over town where celebrities and the paparazzi gathered nightly.

In fact, his newest club, By the C (
C
for Cuba; now, that was adorable), had just been named by
Florida
magazine as Miami Beach's number one go-to place for the toweled-off crowd and was so coveted by club-hoppers that when it was closed temporarily due to a kitchen fire, the other Ocean Drive nightspots were thankful for even the short reprieve.

“I wotch and I learn. In thees country, a kesh business is the way to go.” Viktor talked to me through the rearview mirror. “What ken the government do? Collect money they don't know ehbout? No. Em I right?”

Okay, Viktor. Here's a little English test. Spell
IRS, tax evasion
and
jail. “Well, I'm sure the Fabrikants are very honest businesspeople.”

“Who ken afford to be honest? You get keeled in texes. I say, give us more tex credits. Give us more deductions. Em I right?”

“Amen to that.”
Why was it that the only people who knew how to run the country either cut hair or drove limos?
“So you were saying before, Ben practically owns the Miami night scene?”

“He hez so much businesses, he ken't keep them all straight. But to tell the truth, Abe was my real Ameriken hero,” Viktor sniffed. “He give my father job, he help bring my femily here. He bought us house…. A better men there never was. Em I right?”

“A saint.” I gulped.
Shit, Claire! Next big lightning storm, and guess who's gonna be toast?

“I'm so sed he's gone.” Viktor bowed his head. Not a good thing for a driver who is cruising at seventy miles per hour. “But the rest of thi bunch?” He suddenly came to. “Crazy, crazy, crazy.”

“Really? They seem pretty normal to me.”

Not so, according to the well-informed Viktor, who was clearly unfamiliar with confidentiality agreements, as there didn't seem to be much he was afraid to say. Particularly on the subject of Ben's marital history.

Seems Ben's first wife, Doreen, the doctor's daughter, divorced
him after catching him, drawers down, in a little bedroom duet with Desiree, the Dominican dancer.

A year later, against his family's wishes, Ben married this Desiree lady. Only to have the union last about as long as a Beatles album, thanks to a freak boating accident on the Intercoastal. Sadly, the poor girl had a few too many, and did a “Natalie Wood” over the side of Ben's yacht. The police reports said it was accidental, but job-secure Viktor had no problem speculating that the tragedy could have been avoided if Mr. Ben hadn't pushed her. “Strong winds, my ess.”

Not a big believer in long mourning periods, Ben started dating even before his black funeral suit came back from the cleaners. This time, a swimsuit model and spokesperson for a chain of tanning salons caught his eye. “He called her fifties wrepped in hundreds.” Viktor sighed.

Little did Ben know that the former Shari Deveraux was not only a single parent, but a grieving widow like himself. And with such a common bond, they clung to one another as if they were the last lovers for miles. Even after Shari's young son Andrew was brought into the picture, Ben insisted that he had never been more in love, and proposed yet again.

“My father say to heem. Mr. Ben, if you get the meelk for free, why buy the cow?”

But in spite of that expert marital advice, Ben, Shari, and Drew walked down the rose-strewn aisle together and were the toast of the town. Nothing was more coveted than an invitation to party at their lavish waterfront home in Gables Estates, or to travel the seas in their ninety-foot Cheoy Lee yacht.

But even the good life, like cow's milk, can have a limited shelf life. And if you believed Viktor and the local gossip columns, the marriage was curdling, thanks to their twelve-year age difference and Shari's difficulty sticking to those little vows recited before God at the wedding.

“Some days I ken't keep treck who iz in beck.” Viktor snapped his gum. “Who iz the decorator, the lover, the lawyer, the trainer…. End
now their little girl, Delia, is like her mother with the parties and the drinking…. It's crazy, em I right?”

As if this weren't enough of a guide to the “Lifestyles of the Rich and
Ferklempt,
” here is what Viktor had to say about the dashing Dr. Drew:

He and his fiancée, Marly Becker, met on blind date, arranged by their fathers, no less. Apparently, Ben had been doing business for years with Milt Becker, the owner of the largest linen supply company in south Florida, when they discovered they both had single kids on the prowl.

Although neither father expected the couple to click, a year later Drew proposed on bended knee. Unfortunately, the romantic act must have cut off his circulation, for a few months later he got cold feet and started calling old girlfriends, one of whom used the same manicurist as Marly.

And as any girl knows, news in the nail business travels faster than a fill-in. Once the two customers discovered their mutual love interest, Marly drove over to By the C, chucked her perfect four-karat solitaire engagement ring into the five-hundred-gallon aquarium, and waved her ringless finger in Drew's direction. He would never look at fishing the same way again.

Eventually he came to his senses and begged forgiveness from her and her mother, Sharon. Soon the Becker girls were working on take two of the November nuptials, and one thing was certain. Marly's mother was her best friend, and therefore her matron of honor. Not that Drew saw anything wrong with that.

At this point, I was glad to be nearing Casa de Miro, because my head was spinning from having listened to thirty minutes of rapid-fire details about these mega-rich, out-of-their-minds Floridians who only a few hours earlier I never even knew existed.

Whenever Grandma Gertie did this to me, chewed my ear off with stories about the people in her building and their
meshugina
spouses and former spouses and siblings and children and cleaning ladies and cleaning ladies' children, I'd yell, “TMI, Grams. Too much information.”

“I gotta hand it you, Viktor,” I said when he pulled up in front of the pink stucco building in the middle of bustling Collins Avenue. “You're a fountain of information.”

“It's my business to know what goes on. People like to esk me, ‘How do they live?'”

“I'm sorry?”

“Thi
Sun,
thi
Enquirer,
thi
Globe
…”

“So, wait. You're saying you're on more than one payroll?”

Viktor shrugged. “I have femily to help take care of. My muther, my father, my brother, hees wife, their one son…”

“But what about your loyalty to Abe? You just told me he did everything for your family.”

Viktor touched his heart. “And I never say bed word about heem…may God rest his soul.”

“I see. And Ben has no idea you leak like a faucet?”

“He trusts me like hees son. You don't say nothin', em I right?”

“Who, me? Of course not. I don't even know these people.”

“Okay, good. Here's my card. If you ever need to know some-think, Viktor find out for you.”

“For a slight fee.”

“It's the Ameriken way. No? I have a femily to take care of. My muther, my father, my brother, hees wife, their one son…”

“Yeah, yeah.” I grabbed his card. “I get the picture.”

As I waited for Viktor to open my door, the meter was still running on the Fabrikants' dime, so I went for a freebie. “What are the odds on Drew and Marly?” I asked casually. “You think they'll get married this time?”

“Ah!” Viktor eyed me. “So you like heem?”

“No. Of course not. I'm just curious. Because the family is so nuts.”

He turned to make sure our conversation was private, as the number one rule of dishing dirt was having an exclusive. “I hear heem say he no like the sex…. She no like to go down there.” He pointed to his crotch.

“Gee. Maybe if it was fifties wrapped in hundreds, she'd dive right in.”
Em I right?

Viktor needed a second to get my humor. “Good one. I like thet. Maybe I tell heem to try.”

“You do that,” I said, suddenly staring up at my boy/man driver, wondering how I could have missed the fact that he was easily six-three, fair-haired, with ocean-blue eyes, and bulging pecs beneath his perfectly pressed shirt.

Having served time in L.A.'s menial job land, it shouldn't have surprised me that I hadn't noticed him at first. The eternal lament of hired help was that we were practically invisible. Except to horny guests who thought that touching breasts or patting asses were harmless gestures we secretly enjoyed.

“Maybe one day Viktor take you to dinner.” He pumped his biceps. “Big strong man. Gentle heart. You like thet?”

“I'm sorry? Oh no. I mean, you're adorable, of course. But I'm getting engaged soon.”
Once again the phantom fiancé strikes. And please, Viktor. Don't escort me into the building. My luck, they'll take one look at you and discover the ass they were looking for all along.

 

My friend Sydney tells everyone that I'm practically computer-generated in perfection. Five-nine, 110 pounds. Curves in places men love. Natural blonde. Two breasts, both still in their natural habitats. Looked like this since ninth grade. So no one ever believes me when I say that I'm insecure about my looks.

Not that I didn't think I turned heads. Why else would Dolce & Gabbana have given me preferential treatment (free clothes) for agreeing to be Exhibit A on the Hollywood party circuit? It was just that after having lived in L.A, I discovered that beauty was a cheap commodity. Absolutely everyone and their colorist were stunning. So no matter how great your body, face, or hair, you were only one chair away from someone making you feel like Sandra Bernhard without makeup.

It's why I obsessed on my flaws. The narrowly spaced eyes, the wide-body forehead, and feet the size of a tribal conga leader's. My biggest fear was that I'd wake up one day, and those would be the only things people noticed about me.

But the one body part I considered my winning hand was my butt, which was small, tight, and thankfully cellulite-free. Mind you, I worked very hard to keep it looking like a baby's bottom. I jogged, did Pilates, drank a gallon of water a day, and fried foods never passed my lips.