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“Believe me”—Julia says, lifting a finger—“we need to think outside the box or we’ll be in a box—a financial casket to be exact.” She does a double take near the door. “And here comes someone I’d love to see in a casket.”
We look in that direction to see a handsome man, tall, with dark hair, large somewhat bulging eyes, a prominent forehead, and sharp chin. He’s dressed in a white ruffled shirt, paired with dark suede pants, both of which he’ll want to chuck overboard once we hit the Tropics.
The weather in L.A. is mild, but give it three days and the humidity will be hugging you to the point you’ll wish your birthday suit was removable.
There go thoughts of my birthday suit again…
I give a quick glance around for Ransom, but before I can thoroughly inspect the place, that man in the suede pants is upon us.
“Ladies.” He nods to the three of them. “So nice to see you here.”
“Please,” Julia groans. “Captain”—she nods to Tinsley and me as well—“this thorn in my side is Travis Weatherly.”
“The Travis Weatherly?” Wes looks taken aback. “I’m a big fan of your work.”
The man chuckles, and soon they’re locked in a conversation that revolves around football.
For years my brain has been programmed to shut off when talk of sports takes the spotlight. It’s not entirely my ex’s fault— my father played a huge role in that himself. He would hog the television on most nights watching any sport he could scream his head off to. The entire neighborhood knew when my father’s team was losing.
“I need air.” Julia stalks off and Jane gives a nervous laugh in her wake.
“Please excuse her.” Jane wrinkles her nose at Tinsley and me. “Julia and Travis are practically at war. To be honest, I’m shocked she invited him.”
Nadine nods. “It was Julia who curated the guest list.”
“I’m off to the bar,” Jane says. “Nice to meet you ladies. And Trixie, you can bet I’ll be in one of your art classes, if not all.”
Nadine catches her by the arm. “Why don’t you get a drink for Julia and me as well? We’ll meet you on the balcony.”
Jane agrees, and soon the two of them disappear together.
“They all seem so well put together,” I say to Tinsley as the crowd blossoms in size.
“Yes, well, you know what they say, even a decapitated chicken can fake normal.”
“Unless I’ve been living under a rock, nobody says that,” I point out. “What’s the story with the three of them?”
“The blonde with the bad perm, Julia Edwards? If you don’t know who she is, you really have been living under a rock. She’s a huge pop star, or at least she was. She had a reality show that followed her tour last year. Julia is a real dog lover, so she showcased her standard poodles. She has a small army of them. Anyway, it was standard poodle this, standard poodle that, and soon there was an outcry over the lack of canine diversity.”
“Really?”
She nods. “Anyway, the cat lovers weren’t going to sit around and keep silent either. They started picketing at her concerts and, well, Julia being Julia wrote a song about how cat lovers belonged in cages. The next thing you know, she’s receiving death threats and her sponsors pulled out of her tour. She lost millions of followers on all her socials, and now she’s a washed-up has-been. Don’t tell anyone, but I still love her music—especially that cat song.”
“You would,” I mutter. “What about the other two?”
“Jane Hunt?” Tinsley rolls her eyes. “She was a high and mighty influencer. You know the type, a company sends them a bucket full of free stuff and they pretend to like it? She has a legion of loyal followers. Anyway, it turns out, no one was sending her anything. She was purchasing the pricey products herself, photographing herself with them, and then returning everything. She was a nobody that no one wanted anything to do with then—and she’s a nobody that no one wants anything to do with now. Not only that, but she’s a fraud. Her name has become synonymous with being a fake. If someone tells you that you’re so Jane Hunt, it’s not a compliment.”
“Ouch.”
“And then there’s Nadine.” She shakes her head. “All she did was treat her staff like trash. Someone labeled her a toxic person, and that was the end of her talk show and her life as she knew it.”
“They all seem to be adjusting pretty well,” I say. “I mean, they’re starting a new business.”
“Please. No one in their right mind is going to buy a single product from them. Maybe in some third-world country where no one has heard of them, but seeing that every human on the planet has a smartphone in their pocket, I doubt even that. It might as well be a lemonade stand they’re opening. And with an appropriate name for their business at that.” She glances past me. “As for Travis Weatherly…”—her lips twitch as she cranes her neck past me—“I think I’ll fight the captain for his attention. Who knows? It might even make the captain a little jealous to see it.”
She darts off as the party hits its zenith. Soon enough, the Diamond Lounge seems to shrink ten times in size as bodies bump up against one another.
Try as I might to make my way to the buffet, I’m one salmon that can’t seem to swim her way upstream, so I go with the current and end up near the balcony doors.
