Palm Springs Heat (12 page)

When Clay returned, Lara studied
his face. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course,” he said, putting his
hands on her waist. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

He kissed her, right in front of
Chartre and the assistants.

Chartre tapped his foot and drummed
his fingers until he couldn’t take it anymore. “You know, some of us wage
slaves might be interested in taking a few minutes off on The Lord’s Day.”

Clay ignored him. “Are you okay
with these new developments?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice. It’s
not company policy to force anyone to be in The Rotation.”

“It’s what we talked about last
night, isn’t it?”

“Chartre, give us a minute, will
you?”

“Always the same: Hurry up and
wait.” He snapped his fingers and the assistants followed him out of the room.

Clay took Lara’s hands in his.
“Sushma’s kind of—how do I say this? Suspicious.”

“Ya think?”

Clay chuckled. “She’s done a lot of
work, so it’s understandable that she’d be overprotective of the company. After
you and I were seen together, the media got all revved up, and she thought she
had to do something.”

“Sun Tzu. She wants me close so she
can keep an eye on me.”

“Can you handle that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“That’s exactly what I said.” Clay
smiled. “I have to go back to Hollywood
to take care of some apparently urgent business. They’ll keep you pretty busy
here for the rest of the day, but we’ll see each other again tomorrow. Okay?”

“Sure. Yeah, that sounds fine.
Great, actually.”

Clay kissed her and started
collecting his clothes. “Don’t let anyone or anything get under your skin. Just
keep reminding yourself it’s all good.”

Lara and Clay kissed again, but
before they were finished, Chartre came back into the room and harrumphed. “I
assume the business part of this meeting is over?”

Clay slapped Chartre on the arm on
his way out and gave Lara one last golden-eyed smile.

Chartre snapped his fingers, and
the assistants came back into the room. Chartre pointed at a rack of clothes
and said, “That one.” The redheaded assistant handed a top to Chartre, and he
held it up to Lara’s torso. The neckline consisted of heavy silver rings that
resembled a dog collar.

* * *

Three hours later, Lara wrapped a
big, fuzzy robe around herself and flopped onto the bed. Who would’ve thought
trying on clothes and shoes could be so exhausting? The mountain of clothes was
so tall and dense it muted the sound of the waterfall.

Lara’s mind spun like a wheel,
bouncing from Clay to Sushma to The Rotation to her mission. She had known Clay
for less than a week, but they had already shared some amazing moments, as
though they were genuinely connecting. On the other hand, getting into The
Rotation seemed way too easy. She shoved some clothes aside to let the tranquil
murmur of the water work its magic. In no time, she was floating in a pool of
warm comfort.

A knock on the door put an end to
that. Lara tripped over shoes as she groggily made her way to the outer suite.
She opened the door to a perky nineteen-year-old who resembled a blond Lhasa
apso with pink highlights wearing a miniskirted candy striper outfit, bejeweled
flip-flops and nerd glasses.

“Hi,” the candy striper chirped in
a voice so cute Lara want to pinch its cheeks, “I’m Tiffany, and Ms. V said I’m
supposed to escort you to your meeting.”

“I’m having a meeting?”

“One sec.” Tiffany checked a text
on her phone and said, “Okay. That makes more sense. I’m also supposed to tell
you about the meeting.”

“What is this meeting about?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know that. I’m just
a, you know, gofer and all.”

“Can you tell me who it’s with?”

Tiffany shrugged.

“When it is?”

“Yeah. They told me that.” Tiffany
nodded, but said nothing more.

“Well?”

“Oh—you want me to say.”

Lara nodded.

“Um, right now.”

“Right now?”

“That’s cool, right? I mean, if you
already had your phone, and everything, I guess they could have just called
you.”

“My phone?”

“Everyone at Fast Lane gets a
phone. An excellent one.” Tiffany held up her company-issued phone. It was
ensconced in a fuzzy aquamarine leopard-print case that made it look like a
high-tech Muppet.

“Nice case,” Lara said.

“You can get, like, a million
different cases so you can match them with your outfits. I mean, if you’re that
kind of person.”

“An animal print with stripes?”

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“I see.” Lara watched Tiffany come
into the room and look around. “I have to get dressed now.”

“Cool.”

 Lara moved back into the
bedroom to look for something to wear. She didn’t expect Tiffany to follow her
to the mountain of clothes.

Okay
…“Do you have
any
idea what the meeting is supposed to be about?”

“I’m just a—”

“Gofer, I know.”

“Actually, I’m an intern. Maybe
they just want to give you your phone.”

That helps.

“OMG! They gave you the DK!”
Tiffany ripped a sequin-covered tank top from the middle of the pile, held it up
to her scrawny torso and checked herself out in the mirrored glass wall.
“Completely boss!”

“I should wear
that
to the
meeting?”

“Tae-Q totally would. But she’s,
like, ‘If there’s a rule, I’m breaking it.’”

“Tae-Q?”

Tiffany looked embarrassed.
“Taequanda lets me call her that. But, you know, only when no one else can
hear. It’s, like, a between-girls thing, you know?”

“I do.”

“So, you won’t tell her?”

“Tell her what?” Lara smiled.

The guilty look left Tiffany’s
face.

“I don’t know if I’m like ‘if
there’s a rule, I’m breaking it,’” Lara said as she rescued a staid pencil
skirt and a soft white button-down blouse from the pile. “These are more my
style. What do you think?”

Tiffany put down the tank, walked
up close to Lara, pushed her glasses to the end of her nose and leaned way
back. “It’s kind of, you know—briefcase-y. For a Sunday afternoon, I mean.”

“How about this?” Lara said,
holding up a black washed silk sundress with an African-influenced beaded
neckline.

Tiffany nodded her approval. “With
the Latin sandals.”

“These?” Lara nudged a pair of flat
sandals with a large black silk flower adorning the leather upper strap.

“Those rule.” Tiffany slipped out
of one flip-flop and held her bare foot next to the sandal. “They totally go,
dontcha think?”

Lara nodded. “So, I’ll be getting
dressed now.”

“Cool.” Tiffany continued rummaging
through Lara’s new clothes.

“Could you, maybe, wait for me out
in the other room?”

Tiffany kept rummaging. “I’m good.”

Lara thought about pressing the
issue, then decided it wasn’t worth it.
Maybe having people watching you get
dressed and undressed is part of the corporate culture.
She slipped into
the bathroom, got dressed and emerged a few minutes later.

“How do I look?”

“Excellent. Way excellent. Let’s
rock.”

“Almost.” Lara peered at the glass
wall and tried to straighten out her hair.

“You don’t have to do that,”
Tiffany said. “Your hair looks awesome.”

“It’s been through the wringer,”
Lara protested.

“Just do this.” Tiffany pushed the
hair off Lara’s forehead.

Lara scowled and quickly pushed it
back. “You’re right. It looks good enough.” Tiffany recoiled. Lara softened her
tone. “After all, it’s Sunday afternoon. Lead the way.”

 So Tiffany led the way down the
hall, onto an elevator and past the front desk to a door Tiffany opened with a
wave of her phone. Lara couldn’t take her eyes off the burnished bronze
“Employees Only” plaque on the door as she passed over the threshold from what
her life had been for thirty-two years to whatever it was about to become.

10

The door led into a long corridor
lined with offices and conference rooms.

 “Third door from the right.”
Tiffany bounded ahead, parked in the doorway and smiled.

Being herded again.

Lara stopped short of the door, her
heart racing, palms sweating. The latter was bad. A telltale sign of lying.

“Don’t worry.” Tiffany’s wide eyes
gleamed through the cascade of silky hair hanging over her face. “You’ll kill.”

The girl’s confidence was
infectious. Lara wiped her hands on her skirt, straightened her back, took a
deep breath and proceeded into the room.

Three people—two women and a
man—huddled around a desk, looking over a stack of papers. One woman was about
Lara’s age, the other in her mid-twenties. The man looked about fifty and was
the epitome of distinguished. All three wore suits.

Uh-oh.

The woman who was Lara’s age looked
up and smiled.

“Miss Dixon, I’m Candy Kane,” she
said as she walked toward Lara, “lead counsel for Fast Lane Enterprises.”

“Candy Kane?” Lara hadn’t
recognized her, but the name stuck out from the list of former members of The
Rotation. As they shook hands, Lara tried to connect the name to the photo
she’d seen.

“My father thought that was a good
idea.”

“Oh, no,” Lara said, sensing a need
to cover up a faux pas. She did not want to make Fast Lane’s top lawyer
uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean—”

“No worries. My dad’s name was
Dick, but everyone called him ‘Sugar.’ He always said no one could dislike
someone with a nickname, so he cut right to the chase with me.”

Her smile was so warm and welcoming
that Lara could feel her blood pressure ease down a notch.

“Lara, Rafael del Lago. Meilani
Ma’atupu.”

Lara shook their hands, too.

“Rafe is V.P. of corporate
communications; Meilani’s in charge of new media.”

“I’m sure it’s been a whirlwind for
you,” Rafe said reassuringly. “To have so much thrown at you so fast must
certainly be a little daunting.”

A little?

 “I’m sure it is.” Candy had
one mode—businesslike. “But Mr. Creighton wanted to make sure certain
formalities were taken care of right away.”

Mr. Creighton wanted?
Of
course Lara had set out to be in The Rotation, but a part of her hoped Clay had
other ideas.

Candy continued. “Anyway, what we
need to do today is fairly perfunctory. Standard procedure for any girl who
joins The Rotation.”

Gina had warned Lara that women
entering The Rotation would likely have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. She
felt pretty sure of this because thirty-eight women had passed through The
Rotation without any of them writing one word about it except for sycophantic
guest spots on Clay’s blogs. “What are the odds of that?” Gina had said with a
sneer.

Even though she was prepared for
what was about to happen, Lara worried about reneging on a signed contract.
Gina assured her that HardCoreGrrrls would pay for her defense and let Lara
retain the book and movie rights that would inevitably come her way. Still,
Lara dreaded the moment when she would have to put the pen to the paper.

“Please, have a seat.” Candy motioned
them all to a C-shaped pit group in the corner of the room.

Lara sat in the middle as Tiffany
brought in a pitcher of jasmine-scented iced green tea and a set of the
hand-painted hula-dancer tumblers that Lara recognized from the ICE House.

“So, Rafe,” Candy said, filling the
tumblers, “would you like to begin?”

A slight man, Rafe had a big
presence. Maybe it was his broad shoulders. Or his impeccable attire. Or his
shiny, slicked-back, dark, curly hair.

“We’re not going to get it all done
today, obviously,” he said, “but we’re going to be spending a considerable
amount of time together developing your brand.”

“I have a brand?”

Lara knew that whatever “the girls
of The Rotation” were like in real life, precious little of it showed through
in their public personas. “They have people whose job is to craft a personality
for each woman that fits the Fast Lane ‘mystique,’” Gina had said. “When they
ask you about yourself, just tell them about your life. There’s too much chance
of stumbling over details if you make stuff up.” Lara didn’t think her life had
been interesting enough for Fast Lane, but Gina said her movie industry
background and knowledge of auto racing would provide plenty of grist for the
highly paid corporate spin doctors. One thing was sure about Clay Creighton’s
consorts: None of them were dull.

“You don’t have a brand yet.” Rafe
put a hand on Lara’s knee.
Doesn’t anyone here respect personal boundaries?
“We know a little about you already—your previous marriage, your career in the
film industry.”

“I just wrote publicity pieces for
my husband’s—my ex-husband’s—production company. I didn’t even get paid.”

“Ah, but you see, that is something
we can use. You’re a team player. Loyal. That kind of devotion is hard to find
these days.”

I was more like a towel boy, but
it sounds better than saying a conniving son-of-a-bitch profited from my
ignorance while fucking every two-bit, size double-D slut in the
San
Fernando Valley
.

“So that’s what we’re going to do
first.” Lara found Rafe’s confidence reassuring. “Brainstorming. Riffing, more
or less, on…whatever. Your experiences. Your likes and dislikes. Your
childhood. Hobbies. Favorite music. Dark secrets.”

His eyebrows rose and he moved in
toward Lara when he said “dark secrets.”

“Dark secrets?”

“That kind of thing.”

Lara nodded.

“I’ll be in on those discussions,
too,” Meilani interjected.