Authors: Leah Marie Brown
“Would you mind sending me a copy of that photo?” I ask American Flag Pasties.
“Absolutely,” she says, smiling. “Type your e-mail into my phone and I will send the photo to you right now.”
I take her phone and type
[email protected]
.
“Thanks.” I hand her phone back. “I really appreciate it.”
An electropop beat later, the Patriotic Pasties have melted into the crowd.
“We are living in a sequin-encrusted virtual prison,” Bishop says, sliding onto the booth beside me. “A sequin-encrusted prison where the economic elite hog along in plump luxury—destroying the planet as they go—and the destitute starve for sustenance of edification. We must stop this.”
“I wish you would have told me that before I opted for this mini-dress!” I joke, giving my dress a little shimmy and shake. “I don’t wish to imprison you with my sequins.”
“I surrender.” Bishop presses his wrists together. “Perhaps a sequins-encrusted prison is just the fing.”
A cocktail waitress bearing a glass of iced water with a twist of lime appears, pasties pointing. She squats gracefully and hands Bishop the iced water.
“Fank you,” Bishop says.
“You’re welcome, Mister Raine.” She arches her back until her pasties nearly poke Bishop in the eye. “Can I bring you anything else?”
The implication is as clear as the glass of iced water. Forget the lime twisted water; I’m the tall glass of something you’re looking for, Mister Funny Man. My cheeks flame with heat and I look away, pretending the action on the dance floor is suddenly all-absorbing.
“Does it bother you?” I ask, after the waitress leaves.
“Wha’?” Bishop’s eyes are wide with feigned incomprehension. “The notion of being imprisoned within your sequined dress? Not a’tall.”
Poppy and her posse laugh. Bishop laughs, but shards of pain glint behind his sparkling eyes.
The bobbleheads roll their eyes at me and change the subject by asking Poppy a question about Délais. While Poppy and the bobblehead bitches chat, the rest of the posse hit the dance floor.
Bishop looks back at me, piercing me with his laser gaze. “Does wha’ bother me?”
“That people work so hard to grasp something that is not real.”
“Wha’? Are you saying I am not real?”
“No,” I say, suddenly sober and sad. “You are real, but your rock star, sex machine, celebrity persona is not.”
“Wha’? Are you saying I am not a sex machine?”
He focuses a two-thousand-watt grin on me, and the champagne-induced warmth spreads from my cheeks to my thighs. His flirtatious manner and approachable sex appeal really discombobulate.
Just when I think he’s not going to answer me, Bishop launches into a rapid-fire monologue, blitzing me with a barrage of archaic words and revolutionary notions on the vacuous world of celebritydom.
“The phenomenon of celebrity exists to fill a void created by an appalling lack of morals. A pantheon of over-valued, over-paid, over-worshiped celebrities exists because the populace craves fame. They crave fame because they feel lost in the monotony and pointlessness of their existence. They feel lost because the world feels vast and empty. Fame, their brushes with fame, makes them forget we are essentially alone, moving through the universe without purpose or aim. Someone meets a celebrity, a celestial body who has been lifted far above their tiny world, and for a moment, they feel a flicker of purpose, passion, and connectivity.”
He pauses, takes a sip of water, and fixes me with a probing, questioning stare.
“Yes,” I say, fixing him with an equally probing stare. “But how does the vacuousness of celebritydom make you feel? How do you feel when a desperate being moves into your orbit just so they can feel less alone?”
“Are you interviewing me? Is this for public consumption or merely your own edification?”
Holy Sheisterburger! Bishop Raine just called me out.
“I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t give my right breast to land an interview with you, but that’s not what this is about. I’m genuinely interested in your answer. Me,” I say, pressing my hand to my heart. “Vivia Grant the woman, not Vivia Grant the writer.”
“Sacrificing your right breast in the pursuit of knowledge is a trifle extreme, luv,” Bishop says, grinning again. “How would you like to make a bargain?”
“A bargain?”
“A barter, trade, swap, quid pro quo…”
“Yes,” I say, laughing. “I know what a bargain is. What did you have in mind?”
He leans in close and his whiskered lips brush against my ear. “Here’s the fing. I will answer your question and grant you the coveted interview, and all you have to do is give me the tiniest of kisses.”
“Wha’?” I say, imitating him. “Trade my journalistic integrity for a single story?”
“Journalistic integrity? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
I slant him a withering look.
He raises his hands in the air. “Kidding. Kidding.”
Poppy sticks a fresh glass of champagne in front of my face, which is akin to tossing a bucket of water on Mister Bishop Sexy Raine’s smoldering mojo vibes. He’s pretty damned hypnotic with his intellectual mumbo-jumbo and his I’ll-rip-your-clothes-off-with-my-teeth gaze.
“Here.” She presses the glass into my hand. “You look entirely too serious for this venue.”
“Thanks.” I toss the champagne back in a single swallow and handing her my empty. “It’s just what I needed.”
“Okay, California Girl,” Bishop says. “You can have your interview sans kiss.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He grins. “Now, fancy a dance?”
Wait! What? Did Bishop Raine really just ask me to dance? This can’t be happening.
Bishop stands, pulls me to my feet, dips me low, and plants a big, wet kiss on me. His tongue pushes between my lips, briefly, and I taste lime. The world starts spinning like a Boujis disco ball. I am vaguely aware of a pop, a flash of light, and then Bishop’s tongue withdraws, and I am standing, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
“What just happened?”
“Bishop kissed you,” one of the bobblehead bitches says, her lips curling in a fake smile. “And we hate you.”
“You hate me?” I blink. “Because Bishop kissed me?”
I am nonsensical. My world is still spinning, and I don’t know how to make it stop so I can get off. All I can think of is Luc. What he would say if he knew I was in a posh club macking with Bishop freaking Raine.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the other bobblehead says. “We don’t hate you because Bishop kissed you; we just hate you.”
“Shut up, Katrine!” Poppy snaps.
“We’re just kidding.”
“Well then, you’ve rather missed the mark, because nobody else is laughing.”
Poppy pierces each of the twins with a don’t-fuck-with-me-or-I-will-stab-you-with-my-Louboutin-heel stare until they apologize.
“No worries,” I say, teetering on my new heels.
“Come on, Vivia,” Poppy says, linking her arm through mine. “Let’s take a walk.”
We weave our way through the crush of sweaty perfumed bodies, but another of Poppy’s friends intercepts us before we reach the loo.
“You go on, Vivia,” Poppy says. “I’ll join you in a minute.”
I leave Poppy near the dance floor and hurry to the loo. I can feel my Dior lip gloss smeared around my mouth, shiny, sticky proof of Bishop Raine’s unexpected oral assault.
I hear my best friend’s voice in my head.
“Was he worth the Dior?”
Yes. Yes, he was.
A Right Royal Cock-Up
Text to Stéphanie Moreau:
OMG! You’ll never guess where I am or what just happened!
Text from Stéphanie Moreau:
In some swanky hotel in the 7ème, having sexy time with your gorgeous boyfriend?
Text to Stéphanie Moreau:
No! In the loo at Boujis, a posh London club. Bishop Raine just French kissed me
.
My phone rings so loud, I nearly drop it in the toilet. Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” echoes in the tiny stall. That’s right, Bret Michaels singing old school hairband rock. Electropop? Whatever. I jab the red circle on my iPhone screen to answer the call.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Why are you still in London? What do you mean you were French kissing Bishop Raine? Where is Jean-Luc? How does he feel about you French kissing some sleazy comedian?”
Fanny is the most supportive and loyal friend ever. When my ex-fiancé broke off our engagement on the eve of our wedding and got me fired from my job at San Francisco Magazine, Fanny methodically picked up the shards of my shattered life and helped me superglue them back together. She even rode shotgun on my biking “honeymoon” through Provence and Tuscany.
Second, she can be a relentless interrogator. I am talking Spanish Inquisition relentless, putting-you-on-the-rack-and-stretching-your-limbs-like a-rubber-band relentless.
“Vivian? Hello?”
Fanny calls me Vivian because she thinks it’s more sophisticated than Vivia. Like Vivian Leigh.
“I’m here,” I whisper. “Bishop is not sleazy. He’s actually kinda nice.”
“Bishop?” Fanny’s French accent is unusually thick, a sign she is teetering on the precipice over the valley of Truly Pissed Off. “Bishop is it? So now you’re on a first name basis with Bishop Raine? I can think of another man you’re on a first name basis with: Jean-Luc de Caumont, your boyfriend. Remember him?”
“Wow!” I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at the screen as if I might find the explanation for Fanny’s anti-Bishop tirade. “I had no idea you had such strong feelings about Bishop Raine.”
“
Je m'en fiche
!”
I don’t care! I whistle low and long. Her transition from thickly accented English to full-on French means I am in deep trouble.
Fanny might be Team Luc, but her reaction is a bit overblown. It’s not like I ditched my boyfriend to become a Bishop Raine groupie. I didn’t pawn my MacBook and buy an old VW Van so I could follow Bishop from gig to gig.
“Calm your culottes, Frenchy! No need for a revolution,” I chuckle, in a dismal attempt at levity. “I am flying to be with Luc in the morning, and the British boy will be but a distant memory.”
“I still don’t understand why you are in some club in London, French kissing the sleazy comedian, instead of celebrating your one-year anniversary with your boyfriend in Paris. What is this really about, Vivian?”
I tell Fanny about my right royal cock-up with the Prince Harry story, my time in the pokey, and Big Boss Woman’s vaguely displeased text.
“Normally, I would choose Jean-Luc every day of the week and three times on Sunday, but after tanking the Harry story, I thought I could save face by going back to my editor with a dishy tell-all about London’s reality TV stars.” I take several breaths before launching into my final argument. “Choosing Poppy’s party over Luc’s love-in was a shrewd career move. If I am going to go out, I might as well be on top, and not wallowing in a pit of humiliation over a failed story.”
I speak the truth, but deep down something niggles at me. Something else kept me from leaving London, from joining my crazy-hot boyfriend in Paris for some crazy-hot sexy time, but I don’t know what that something else is.
Fanny mutters something in rapid French.
Despite countless hours of Rosetta Stone brainwashing, my ability to translate spoken French is no better than a deaf and dumb Inuit. I think she said, “Lord help me teach the old monkey to make funny faces,” but I don’t know what an old monkey has to do to with our conversation or why she would want to teach it to make faces.
“Who is Poppy?”
“Poppy Worthington. Heiress of the Worthington Hotels fortune?”
I wait for Fanny to respond, the muffled thumping of the electropop playing in the background.
“She’s a British socialite. She dated Sir Richard Blanchard and Tristan Kent, remember?” I hold my breath and wait for Fanny to say something. Six muffled thumps later, I finish my story. “We met on the street outside the police station. I was trying to hail a cab, waving my arms and jumping up and down like an idiot. Poppy took pity on me. She taught me the proper way to hail a cab.”
“What the…” Fanny emits an explosive pffft. “The proper way to hail a cab? Did you really just say that?”
“We have different rules for hailing a cab in London,” I say, defensive of my new friend. “She was only trying to help.”
“She sounds pretentious.”
“Anyway,” I say, ignoring the jab. “I told her about my royal cock-up and she invited me to a party at Boujis. It’s hosted by Brava TV. Her cousin, Carolena, is the newest Bravalebrity on some show called Ladies of London.”
“I still don’t understand why you decided to spend the evening with some uppity snot instead of Luc.”
The hinges on the bathroom door squeal and the explosive sound of electropop reverberates off the smoked glass partitioning the stalls.
“She is not a snot!” I whisper, cognizant of the stranger on the other side of my stall door. “She’s really nice, actually. I think you’d like her.”
Fanny mumbles something in French.
Now it’s my turn to sit quietly and wait for Fanny to speak, because she will speak. Oh, she’ll speak.
“What is going on, Vivian? Why are you letting some sleazy comedian stick his tongue down your throat when you should be with your boyfriend? Has your career become more important than your relationships?”
An exhalation explodes from my lips as if someone delivered a swift uppercut to my solar plexus. I have experienced this sensation before—the breath-robbing, gut-wrenching blunt force trauma caused by one of Fanny’s carefully aimed verbal assaults. I remind myself that brutal bluntness and tactless honesty are merely byproducts of her French ancestry. After all, her sharp, pointed questions often needle my conscious and prod me toward deeper introspection.
“Of course friendships matter more than my career,” I say, shifting my iPhone from one ear to the other.
“Really? Because I can’t remember the last time we had a real, meaningful conversation. Ever since you took that
GoGirl!
job, you’ve been AWOL in the friend department.”
Ouch! Another one-two jab to the solar plexus.