Masters for Hire Read online

  “That’s my girl,” he toasted me.

  His girl, I thought to myself. It reminded me that I was locked into this ride whether I liked it or not.

  I’d have liked it a lot more if he ever actually acted like I was his girl.

  After dinner, he drove me back to the store so I could collect my car. I sat for a long minute in the front seat of his SUV that smelled strongly of his cologne, strong notes of mint, lemon and cedar. I hoped he’d make a move. I willed him to make a move. He didn’t always. He didn’t usually. But sometimes our date nights actually lasted the whole night. It just depended on what kind of mood he was in. When he said, “Better get those spring rolls home to your dad,” I knew that our night had effectively ended.

  By this point I wasn’t particularly jonesing for him to indulge some passionate display of wanton affection, yet I was effectively bummed that wasn’t even an option. We’d only been dating less than a year, but it already felt like we were an old married couple, where sex just wasn’t even a priority anymore.

  Even his lukewarm kiss, with just the right amount of tongue for a lonely night apart, wasn’t enough to hold me over.

  And I was considering a lifetime of this?

  I didn’t bother listening to the radio as I drove home. I needed the quiet, even as I trudged into the darkened house, carrying Father’s take-out. Of course he wasn’t up. He wouldn’t wait up for me. He was likely hoping, like I was hoping, that the night would have been a little more exciting. A little more meaningful. A little more significant.

  Instead, I just had some leftover food and a mean headache from the wine.

  And I blamed the wine entirely for what happened after I crawled into my bed, wearing freshly laundered pajamas. I opened my laptop and found myself searching, almost unconsciously, websites for male escorts. Just to see what was out there, if anything was. I mean, what could it hurt? Each one I found offered discreet services with handsome men. Some even featured pictures of the men I could book, ordering just like a big ol’ yummy cheesecake, just like Lucy said.

  Weirdly enough, I got a bit of a charge thinking that any of these gorgeous men could give me the experience I wanted, whatever it was I wanted. I didn’t have to wait for it. I didn’t have to pine for it. I just had to pay the fee and I could have the experience of my dreams–or so the website promised anyway. Of course, sex was not explicitly offered on these websites, given the current illegality of sexual services for hire. But the prospect of sex remained squarely on the table, despite being formally forbidden.

  That gave me even more of a charge. Here were men ready to buck convention, and the law, just because they wanted–needed–to have sex with me. What naughty boys.

  I had spent the last ten years of my life being a good girl. With a click of a button, I could be a bad girl at last, with an equally bad boy whose sole purpose was to give me the experience of my dreams, with more than enough experience to do so.

  Imagine. A good looking man who would seduce me in all the ways my lascivious little heart desired? Apparently it was a fantasy that was completely attainable, if the price was right anyway. And wouldn’t you know? I had more than enough in my personal bank account to cover it.

  Ah, the possibilities.

  My hand hovered over the keys for a long moment before I finally slammed the computer shut. Screw Lucy and her crazy ideas. This wasn’t me. I didn’t do things like this. As much as I griped about Oliver being a Nice Guy, I was a Nice Girl.

  And Nice Girls simply didn’t order sex, no matter how badly we might have wanted it.

  I rolled over and turned out the light.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I spent the next morning on the phone with Lucy, whose next crisis revolved around a caterer who insisted on putting foie gras on the menu simply because the ban on the delicacy had recently been lifted. For my former fire-breathing feminist and occasional militant vegan/vegetarian, this was the final straw, and she and Sylvia had nearly come to blows.

  I was still in my PJs, unsuccessfully fighting off bed head, as I tried to talk her down from the rafters. “Lucy. Lucy, calm down.”

  “Do you know what they do to those ducks?” she screeched back into my ear. “They shove some kind of tube down their throats to literally fatten them up before being slaughtered.”

  I thought back to my date the night before with a slight smirk. I was familiar with the concept. The ducks aside, however, this was yet another non-crisis I needed to nullify before Lucy blew yet another gasket. I might have brought up the bolts they shot into cows’ brains in order to prepare the prime rib that was also on the menu, but I knew that it really wasn’t the inherent inhumanity of meat-eating that bothered her. It was finding something, anything, to grind the whole crazy circus to a halt. As the maid of honor, it was my job to talk her down even if, by this time, I was ready to tell her to forget the whole stupid affair. I still had another month of this? Deep breath. Soothing voice. “So you change caterers. I know a great service here in Los Angeles. We use them all the time for our events. As a matter of fact, they’re catering the benefit,” I said before I scrolled on the computer now opened on my lap. “Bravo Catering. You’ll love them. Sweetest folks you ever met. From Texas.”

  Lucy promptly burst into uncharacteristic tears. “Gus will like that,” she sobbed into my ear, hovering somewhere between despair and hysteria.

  Once that crisis was averted, I took a quick shower, changed, and headed downstairs. Gretch had already prepared my plate, but I looked down at my boring egg whites with a pout. God, I would have killed for a sausage. But there was no point if I was going to fit into one of Cabot’s ill-fitting formal gowns. I lifted my fork with a sigh. I always hated when I couldn’t enjoy my food. It was like I hadn’t eaten at all, which was just about as depressing as you could get for a food enthusiast like me.

  Gretch detected my mood in a second. “So what’s the matter with you, huh?”

  There was no sense lying to her about it. “I tried on my dress yesterday,” I confided with a deepening frown as I speared more rubbery eggs with my fork. “Father was right about the sausages.”

  Gretchen snorted in derision. “Let me tell you. Your father is wrong more times than he’s right, about a lot of things, but particularly about the sausages. I’ve eaten sausage every day of my life. Look at me,” she commanded as she slapped her taut, hard-working body. “Fit as a fiddle.”

  I smiled at her. She was always my biggest cheerleader. I often wondered if she got paid extra for it. “Then maybe you should squeeze into that dress and you can walk down the aisle.”

  She playfully hit me with the dish towel before she resumed her duties cleaning the kitchen.

  I had barely rinsed my breakfast plate when Aunt Margot swept into the room with Sylvia Lyon.

  I was sure that everyone, regardless of who you were, got an instant image in your head the minute I said, “Sylvia Lyon.” An iconic moniker like that might give you a little insight into what such a creature might look like. You likely pictured a woman with a mane of perfectly coiffed blonde hair, teased from her head like a grand halo. You probably pictured her face, preserved from aging by the finest cosmetics (and the finest doctors) money can buy. It was pretty easy to fill in the picture with tight skin, luscious, if enhanced, lips and boobs, wearing a designer cut over a tightly toned body, as if working out at the gym amounts to a full-time job. Maybe you smelled the familiar perfume, an ode to shiny, perfect, sparkling diamonds; an audacious sent that could smash you right into your nostrils like a fist whenever she enters the room. It was a familiar, heady mix of florals and sandalwood flying behind her along with layers of ever-present silk scarves, fashioning her into some super rich superhero who was larger than life.

  And you would have been right on the money.

  Sylvia Lyon looked every inch the pampered Bel Air wife she was, the kind of five-foot-six powerhouse that made grown men back up a step if she glared down her perfectly straight(ened) nose the
ir direction. There was a reason Lucy, one of the most forceful women I knew personally, stopped short of telling this diamond-studded dynamo where to stick it when it came to her wedding plans.

  Sylvia Lyon may have looked like a pampered show poodle, but one got the distinct impression that this was one bitch whose bite was every bit as impressive as her bark. Let’s face it, being slapped with that much fine jewelry on her hands could cause quite a bit of damage. Her wedding set alone came in just under five carats.

  Fortunately for all of us, Margot Dupriest was her equal right down to the last privileged molecule. Not only did she know how to make Sylvia happy, she knew how to get things done. They were in full planning mode, barely taking any notice of my presence at all, as they entered the room. “I think we’re going to have to order at least another twenty bottles of champagne,” Sylvia told her. “And not that swill that they serve at the club. Domestic sparkling wine, my ass. It’s not champagne unless it’s from France.”

  “Please. Like I’d ever serve anything but our family wine at any event anyway. We recently imported a case of 2006 Chateau du Cabot Timide that would be a lovely addition to the party. I have some chilling in the fridge.”

  Margot fetched said bottle of sparkling pink champagne while I dutifully retrieved a couple of flutes from the cabinet. “You should try a glass of this, too, CC,” she said as she removed the special stopper from the bottle of effervescent wine that had been shipped straight from our family vineyard in the Champagne-Ardeene region of France.

  Like I said before, heritage is extremely important to my father, which was why those very same grapes grew in the small vineyard on our Bel Air estate.

  I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t even ten o’clock in the morning. “It’s a little early for me, yet,” I declined with a smile.

  Sylvia turned to me, her perfectly waxed eyebrow arched to perfection. “I’m actually glad I ran into you, CC. We hadn’t touched base yet on what alterations needed to be done to your gown.”

  “On second thought,” I said as I reached for flute number three, “it’s never too early.”

  “Problems?” Sylvia asked.

  I felt like I had swallowed ground glass. “It’s not quite ready but it will be,” I assured. “I just ordered…,” I started, but then wilted from her blue-eyed glare, “the last set of alterations. It should be perfect in no time.”

  “Good, because no time is all that is left.” She turned to Margot, who poured the wine into our glasses. “Lucy is driving me absolutely bonkers. If it’s not one crisis, it’s another. The closer we get to the wedding, the more manic she becomes. I’ve had to add another day of yoga, and a third session with Dr. Abramov, per week just to manage.”

  “I know CC is doing her best to manage Hurricane Lucy. Right, CC?” Margot said as she topped off my glass.

  “You know it,” I mumbled before I take a sip of the sweet bubbly liquid.

  Sylvia smiled and patted my hand. Unlike her high-strung, high-maintenance daughter, I was like Old Faithful, the steady, calm influence throughout all her daughter’s maddening fads. I didn’t go through the different phases to find myself, or date half of Los Angeles to piss off my dad. I kept my nose clean. I went to school. I stepped into the family business. And, when the time came, I would have a very nice wedding that would take into consideration all the family traditions and societal conventions to which people of our stature were expected to adhere.

  Of course, until Cabot’s carried bridal gowns in the dreaded size-16, there wouldn’t be a wedding at all.

  “You are a saint, CC,” Sylvia purred before she threw back that first decadent sip of champagne with a self-satisfied murmur. I killed my own glass in one gulp after she asked, “So what kind of exciting number are you wearing to the benefit?”

  I didn’t want to answer this question. I had an “exciting number” picked out, from Cabot’s no less, which happened to fit perfectly… after having it altered and buying the different pieces in different sizes anyway. It was a sequined tunic in rich, navy blue, paired with silk palazzo pants in the same color. It had a lot of sparkle and shine, but it still made me look forty-five. Anyone who shopped our store or our catalogue would have recognized it straight from our “Mother of the Bride” collection.

  But it fit, both my body and my personality, I supposed. I just hated that the best I could hope for was something to distract away from my perceived flaws. I already knew that Lucy was wearing a skin-tight bandage dress the bright color of a stop sign. It was so tight, I had wondered how she was going to eat or drink anything without it splitting right in half like an overcooked sausage.

  #MMMSausage…

  “Actually, I’m on my way out to pick it up. If you’re still here when I get back, I’ll show it to you.”

  Of course, I had no plan to show it to her. One, I knew she didn’t care. She knew I would show up in something simple and conservative, nothing controversial or show-stopping. I had to, really. Those were the only options available to me through my family clothing line. Two, I knew simply offering to model for her approval won huge points with Sylvia. Since neither of us had to act on the gesture, even better for both of us.

  Appearances were everything in our world.

  “I’d love to, darling, but my schedule is jam-packed.” She turned to Margot. “Did I tell you that I have to go back to the cathedral this afternoon? Apparently there’s some problem with the seating. They insist the limit for the indoor venue is 550, and I honestly don’t see how I can whittle the guest list from 576. I told them it’s just twenty-six extra people, and some of them are children who can sit in the laps of their parents. These are not insurmountable problems.” Margot offered an empathetic nod of her head. For people like Margot and Sylvia, limitations were for other people. “But they’re threatening to move the whole ceremony outside, something about fire codes or what-have-you. And of course I have to handle it or else Lucy will have another meltdown.”

  I finished my glass of bubbly, confident now that my participation in the conversation was no longer required. I didn’t even have to say goodbye, I just slipped soundlessly from the room.

  With a sigh of relief, I headed down out of the French doors leading to the oasis in our back yard. I skipped the stairs that led past the infinity pool, which happened to be the dramatic showstopper to our outdoor entertaining area. At night it lit up in jewel tones like blue, red, green and purple, and it always sounded as though we lived next to a waterfall.

  I turned down the stone pathway. Bamboo grew tall on either side, painting the landscape a vivid green color. Majestic palm trees swayed overhead in the breeze. Continuing on this path would take me over a stone bridge crossing a small creek, which led down to the vineyards. Walking along this path made me forget that we lived in one of the biggest cities in the world. It felt like our own country oasis, quite similar to our family chateau in France. I veered towards the garages, which sat beyond Gretchen’s private residence.

  I wasn’t lying. I did have to pick up my outfit for the benefit. But beyond that, a lazy Sunday shopping sounded a lot more fun, especially now that I’d guzzled two glasses of expensive champagne.

  I pointed my car towards the San Fernando Valley, to pick up my outfit from our store in one of three largest malls in L.A. I started the twenty-minute journey singing loudly to Pink, feeling badass and enjoying my buzz. But the more I thought about the outfit I was going to pick up, the more frustrated I got. Like most red-blooded American girls, I liked shopping. I liked feeling pretty as I tried on new, exciting things. Send me shopping for shoes or accessories and I’ll shop all day. But clothes? It remained a constant thorn in my side that my options were so limited, particularly in my own family store.

  I wished I could make Father see that expanding our clothing line would help us build our brand. Recently another designer store, Titanium & Lace, had attracted a ton of scrutiny because they didn’t offer sizes over XL for women, even online–where larger shop
pers are forced to shop in order to find a little variety. Titanium & Lace made the bold, if subliminal, message that there clothing line was so good that women should have to earn the right to wear it.

  Like Cabot’s, their sizes ran small, so I couldn’t fit into their larger sizes anyway, even if they sold them. It would have been pointless to wear anything that came from there even if Father had allowed it. And it wasn’t so much that I liked their clothes, which were boring and ordinary at best, just framed for the Hipster crowd as something only the coolest people would wear because they were somehow too cool to give a shit. That was annoying enough. Mostly I didn’t much care for the idea that they wouldn’t want my business or my money simply because I didn’t fit into their narrow definition of attractive.

  #fuckem.

  At the time I was smug about their being put on the spot for being elitist, sizeist assholes because they deserved to be. But part of that, frankly speaking, was relief that the news hounds hadn’t sniffed us out as well. Our line was just as proudly exclusive, despite some token pieces thrown at our heavier clientele.

  Needless to say, it was on my short list of changes to be made once I became CEO.

  By the time I made it to the mall in Glendale, my buzz was effectively squashed. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to my store, because I was so disappointed with the expensive outfit waiting for me. It was what I settled upon, not what I chose, and I was increasingly bitter about it.

  It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that outfit was a symbol of my life.

  Instead I meandered around the mall, in and out of different stores, including several department store rivals. Even they were adapting their lines to include trendy clothes in extended sizes, made exclusively for a larger clientele who had just as much money to burn as their thinner counterparts. Each department was filled with young, affluent women my size and larger, trying out the latest styles with every bit as much variety and panache as the junior miss section.