P.J. Morse - Clancy Parker 02 - Exile on Slain Street (17 page)

He laughed. I wished I had grilled Muriel a little more about what the residents of Gardenia did on the weekends, but Muriel wasn’t the type to get near a mechanical bull, much less any place that was named “Junior’s Barn.”

Greg then pulled Patrick away from me and started giving him the pre-challenge script. One of the Buck Yeah! employees stepped up to the bull controls, and Greg slapped a cowboy hat on Patrick’s head.

Patrick sighed heavily, not liking the cowboy hat. It rode too low since he had no hair. But, like a professional, he got up on the bull, and the crew shot him presumably speaking to the rest of us. In reality, Patrick didn’t have an audience. Greg was actually attempting to round us up and prevent jailbreaks. I looked at the ceiling, wondering if anything could fall on our heads or if anyone could slip and break a bone. However, it seemed that the mechanical bull was the only thing at Buck Yeah! that would kill us. I chuckled to myself. Maybe we were going to get through the day without any injuries or deaths.

Patrick did several takes to explain the challenge. “Here’s how it works,” he announced. “You get on, and you can hold on to the bull with one hand. Use two hands, and you’re out. Whoever lasts the longest wins, and the top two go for a final challenge.”

It seemed simple enough, even for Andi. As usual, she went first. She stepped into the ring and tried to hoist herself up on the bull with both hands. Unfortunately, she was short, and her chest got in the way. When she was fully bent over the bull, her miniskirt left little to the imagination, and most of us looked away. But I heard Hare proclaim, “This is the best job I’ve ever had in my life!”

When Andi finally did get on and rotate herself so she had one leg on either side of the bull, she found out she was facing backwards.

“Jesus,” I heard Patrick say to Greg. “You are right. She makes for amazing television.”

“Let’s go!” she shouted. Then she started whooping.

“The bull must be faced by the beautiful woman in order to budge,” Wolf said.

“Andi, can you turn around up there?” Patrick asked. “You’ll be a whole lot more comfortable.”

“This position is comfortable already! Whoo! Have we started yet?” She raised her arms in the air, like a boxer who just won a match.

“Girl’s been riding too damn many broncos,” Topaz said, shaking her head. “Her brains are addled.”

Wolf grumbled, got in the ring, and lumbered toward Andi. He lifted her up and turned her around, as if he were a little girl and Andi were a Barbie doll on a plastic horse. “Oh! That’s how you do it!” she proclaimed.

Wolf returned, humming the Loverboy song, “Workin’ for the Weekend.”

The bull operator was kind to Andi. He put the bull on a slow speed, and she didn’t have any trouble with the back-and-forth motion. In fact, she worked hard to undulate in a manner that suggested she had no trouble whatsoever with any kind of back-and-forth. Once the bull started to spin, she was a goner and twirled right off, landing on her side in the padding. Members of the crew who weren’t attached to sound or camera equipment immediately rushed up to help her.

Greg pointed at me. “You’re up!”

I concentrated on staying on the bull, not on looking sexy, but no amount of concentration was helping. I squeezed my legs against the bull, imagining that I was giving this monstrous machine a hug with my thighs. But, once I tightened up my legs, the rest of my body tensed up, so every move of the bull jolted through my body. It struck me that maybe Andi’s undulations weren’t such a bad idea after all.

Then the bull picked up speed. I wondered if the mechanical bull operator had anything against me, and I noticed Greg standing by the bull operator. If he paid the bull operator enough, Greg could get him to do anything to shape the storyline.

Suddenly, my thighs gave out, and I spun off the bull. Like Andi, I fell on my side, and all the padding didn’t make the fall any easier.

The rest of the women took turns on the bull, and most all of us were knocked off immediately. When it was Dawn’s turn and she started climbing on the bull, Patrick called out, “Whoa! How’s your leg?”

Already straddling the bull, Dawn said, “Let’s try it. It can’t be any worse than the stripper pole.”

Patrick smiled. “A for effort! Just for that, you’re going on a date tonight. OK — a quick spin, and then you’re off the bull.”

She held on, and she managed to get in a few turns before she cried uncle.

When the whole challenge was over, Cookie emerged as the one with the most-gifted thighs, and that surprised exactly no one given her profession.

Patrick gave Cookie and Dawn “Buck Yeah!” T-shirts, plus long kisses. When it was Cookie’s turn, Wolf stewed, but I noticed that Patrick and Cookie’s smooches had become more chaste as of late.

In fact, Patrick seemed far more excited about getting close to Dawn. “I get to go on a date with both of you, and a little special time with you, pixie!” he said. He then brushed his finger on her freckled nose, and I began to think maybe he really did like her. I even worried that he liked her more than me.

Chapter Twenty:
Slipped Away

P
atrick took Cookie and Dawn to a motorcycle shop where he was going to give them rides. I found myself back at the mansion, pacing the floor. I had good reason to be nervous. I watched them leave, and Fred was at the wheel of a replacement car — this time a regular limo instead of a stretch Hummer. I told him not to drink the coffee or eat a single bite of food from the house, but Fred was the type who never said no to free food, and what if the killer had devised a new way to sabotage the car? Beyond the limo, motorcycles presented a host of frightening possibilities.

“Would you stop pacing? You’re making me nervous!” Lorelai said. She was stretched out on the couch and holding a large margarita glass in one hand, and she was dressed for trouble in a short, white minidress. “You need to learn how to control that energy.”

I ignored her and looked out the window. The sun was setting, and it was about time for Patrick and company to return.

We had all this alcohol, a pool and a stripper pole, and yet we already ran out of stuff to do. None of us had much to say to each other. Even Topaz and Tina, who were in some kind of alliance, really weren’t chatty and seemed to stick together out of necessity.

In fact, it seemed more and more like Topaz was a third wheel. Greg had stayed behind at the mansion while Patrick, Dawn, and Cookie went on their date, supposedly to plan for the next day. Instead, he was lounging on a tuffet with Tina and Topaz, and all his energy was focused on Tina. Tina kept going to and from the bar, bringing him more Rum and Cokes as Topaz sat on the edge of the tuffet, holding an empty highball glass.

Greg was advising Tina about her story arc when I thought I heard the rumble of a large car. Topaz walked away from Tina and Greg, sighing, “Story arc? And they told me this shit was real.”

“You giving up?” I asked her as she passed me and went to the window.

She didn’t look at me as she pulled back the gauzy curtain. “Of course not. I’m just rethinking my strategy.”

As soon as Patrick walked through the door, Lorelai leapt up and squealed. She dove for him and practically knocked Cookie and Dawn out of the way, somehow avoiding sloshing her margarita all over everyone. Dawn obligingly stepped aside, but Cookie clutched Patrick by the waist in a territorial gesture.

“Whoa there!” Patrick cried out. But he was soon muffled when Lorelai kissed him.

Cookie eventually backed away and said, “Rude!” Then she took me aside and started showing off a new leather jacket that had been given to her courtesy of the show. Like everything else on the show, it bore a clear label. Apparently the sponsor for Cookie and Dawn’s date was “Big Bobby’s Bikes / Marin County, CA.”

“And check this out!” Cookie said. She pulled a smaller version of her leather jacket out of a white paper bag. “A jacket for my son! They remembered him!”

While Cookie was telling me about the gifts, Lorelai was leading Patrick up the stairs, and he wasn’t exactly resisting.

“Hey! What about us?” Tina asked. If she and Greg had been working on a story arc, the Lorelai subplot wasn’t going over all that well. Poor Greg was pouting behind her. Judging from the way he was staring at Tina, he had a story arc he wanted to follow, too.

Meanwhile, Lorelai was promising Patrick sips of her margarita if he obeyed. “And I swear… I make perfect margaritas,” I overheard her say. “They might be better than the brownies.”

“I know my way around margaritas,” Patrick said, “and I expect the best.”

Dawn, who had been completely forgotten during the arrival in the foyer, leaned up against the spiral stairs and looked up them, watching as Patrick disappeared into his room. Her eyes gleamed with tears.

Cookie noticed this and leaned toward me. “I’m worried,” she whispered. “That girl mopes with the best of them. A serious downer.” Dawn looked at us suddenly, and Cookie shifted gears, shouting, “Hey, where’s the beer?” She went for the bar, making vroom-vroom sounds.

Wolf came down the stairs. As Hare rolled camera, Wolf saw Dawn’s unhappy face, took her hand and said, “Love is a battlefield.”

The reference to Pat Benatar made me giggle. Cookie overheard it and began to shimmy in true Benatar style. But the joke was lost on Dawn, who was too young for the joke anyway. She suddenly took off up the stairs, tripping up on her heels as she tried to get to the room.

While getting back up, she pounded the stair and shouted, “God, I’m such a loser!” Then she climbed up the rest of the way and vanished.

Greg sensed the dramatic opportunity. He turned to Tina, who was looking out the window as if she dreamed of escape. “This is your moment! Go comfort her!” he shouted. Then he paused. “No, wait… you’re not supposed to like her.” He turned to me. “You! Go comfort her!”

“I was gonna do it already,” I shot back, thudding up the stairs in my cowboy boots. “Some story arcs come naturally.”

“Give her some Southern wisdom!” Greg chirped, running after me. “‘It’s like my momma always said’…”

“I think I can handle it!” I was tempted to slam the door in his face. Only there wasn’t a door to our bedroom. Patrick and Wolf were the only ones who got anything resembling privacy.

Tortoise and Hare, who magically appeared, started shoving their gear into Dawn’s face as she sobbed.

I sat down beside her on the bed. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“I thought he liked me!” she cried. “He kissed me! He said I was special! But he doesn’t even remember my name! He really thinks my name is Pixie! I know it!”

I handed her a box of tissues that Greg quietly set on the edge of the bed, out of Hare’s camera range. “Of course he knows your real name. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten this far. But he can only pick one in the end, and you can’t let Lorelai walk all over you like that.”

“Cookie doesn’t steal like that!” Dawn cried. “She made sure I got equal time.”

“Most of these women aren’t like Cookie. You give them a chance, and they’ll take it.”

“But, if Patrick loves me, why does it matter?” She rubbed her eyes, sending a streak of her dark blue eye shadow right into her hairline.

“Because this is supposed to be a competition. Look, I see you alone with him, and I’m gonna interrupt. You see me alone with him, and you’d better interrupt, even if you like me. If you stand off to the side and wait, someone louder is going to get all the attention.”

Right at that moment, we heard whoops and squeals emerging from Patrick’s room. They were good whoops and squeals — the kind of noises that made Tortoise forget all about us and run over to Patrick’s door so he could capture some lovemaking noises for later.

The rest of us followed him. Greg didn’t even have to give the direction. Dawn stood beside Tortoise and pressed her ear up against the door, and Greg nudged me toward them. But he nudged me so hard that I fell against the door.

Patrick must have heard the thud, and when he turned the knob, Tortoise, Dawn, and I all fell into a heap. Tortoise was at the bottom. “Aw, shit! Now we can’t use it!” he yelled.

“Blooper reel,” Hare pointed out.

I looked up at Patrick and grinned sheepishly. “What can I say? We don’t have any television, so we decided to amuse ourselves.”

At first Patrick’s face was stony, like he didn’t appreciate being interrupted, but he broke into a smile. “At least I know you two didn’t forget about me! And I think he’s pretty happy.” Patrick pointed at Tortoise.

Sure enough, despite his anger about losing the sound, Tortoise wasn’t working too hard to get out from under me and Dawn. He smelled too much like Aqua Velva, so I rolled off him, stood up and pulled up Dawn after me. I looked around the room for Lorelai. She was holding on to one of the bedposts wearing nothing but a white bra and matching panties, and another crew member and sound guy were filming her. She may not have worked the stripper pole, but she certainly knew her way around a bedpost. And she did not look happy.

“All’s fair,” I said.

She didn’t smile, but she shrugged and admitted, “That was a good scene.”

Patrick forgot all about her once he saw Dawn’s smudged makeup. “Hey, you! Pixie!” He crouched down since he was much taller than she was. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “I said I wasn’t going to be the dramatic one, but… I wanna talk to you!”

“Let’s talk,” he said. Then he pointed at me. “And you — I want to spend time with you later.”

I saluted him. “Aye-aye. Wanna meet by the pool?”

“Yes, in a little bit,” he said to me. Then he took Dawn’s arm. “How about you wash up, and we’ll go for a walk, okay?”

She nestled into his side and nodded, and he stroked his thumb on her cheek, as if he wanted to clean off the makeup, but he just smudged it more. They started walking toward the staircase.

Lorelai followed them and hooted, “Patrick! Don’t forget the brownies!” Once the cameras were gone, she whirled around to face me. “Look, I get that this is a competition, but I don’t know what game you are playing. You want Patrick? You want camera time? What do you want?”