Jeopardy in High Heels (High Heels #12) - Gemma Halliday

CHAPTER ONE

"Yoohoo! Over here, Maddie!"

My mother was waving both her arms frantically in the air, as if signaling a 747 on the tarmac at LAX. Several heads in the studio audience swiveled to see who she was hailing. I gave a one finger wave back in acknowledgement, secretly hoping that gave her the signal that her heroic attempts to flag me down had been seen. No such luck. Her arms continued flapping. More heads swiveled.

Dorothy Rosenblatt, my mother's best friend, must have thought Mom wasn't trying hard enough because she joined the party by waving a yellow scarf in the air, the same bright color as the muumuu she was wearing over her ample frame. Mrs. Rosenblatt was a part-time Venice Beach psychic whose second career was marrying and divorcing the unsuspecting men of Los Angeles. Her hair was Lucille Ball red, her jewelry as colorful as her language, and her horseradish gefilte fish burritos could put hair on your chest. Mrs. R didn't do subtle.

"Maddie!" Mrs. Rosenblatt yelled as she patted the seat next to hers. The loose flesh on her arms jiggled at a faster pace than a belly dancer, making me wish she'd invest in muumuus with sleeves. "We've saved places for both you and Dana."

"Excuse me," I said politely to a twenty-something man sporting a bleached blond Mohawk and the woman next to him who had a variety of colorful tattoos running up and down both her arms. They rose to let me pass, and as soon as I was within reach, my mother pulled me down into the seat next to hers.

"Isn't it wonderful, dear?" She gripped my hand so tightly that I lost all feeling for a second. Mom let go to adjust the blue and white T-shirt she was wearing, with Alex Trebek's face prominently displayed in the center. There was a bubble coming out of his mouth with the words The answer is… Mom had paired the shirt with a pair of black stirrup pants and pink high-top sneakers that matched the pink eyeshadow extending from her lids all the way to her plucked eyebrows. Mom's style was once the height of fashion but had stalled like a Volvo station wagon somewhere around 1986.

"I can't believe we're actually here," she said, her gaze whipping around the audience—who had thankfully stopped staring in our direction and had their attention on the sound stage in front of us where the crew were making last-minute adjustments before the show started taping.

"It is exciting," I admitted, feeling the catchy exuberance. We were on the set of the famous Jeopardy! game show that morning, taping a special Celebrity Jeopardy! Tournament to air later that evening, featuring notable names in Los Angeles. My stepfather, Ralph, had been lucky enough to be picked to compete, and Mom, Mrs. R, and I had all scored tickets to come cheer him on.

Mom's hazel green eyes, which I had inherited, studied me carefully. "Where's Dana? She is coming, right?"

My best friend, Dana Dashel, who had recently become Mrs. Ricky Montgomery, was a working actress, and as luck would have it, she happened to be filming a TV pilot in one of the other studios on the same production lot.

"She'll be here, Mom," I assured her. "She had an early call time, but she promised she could slip away. I know she's been looking forward to it."

"Who hasn't?" Mrs. Rosenblatt asked. "It's not every day that your best friend's stepfather is a contestant on Jeopardy!"

She spoke loudly and purposely, clearly hoping to attract the attention of others seated nearby. As if her outfit hadn't already done that.

Mom chewed on her lower lip. "I hope he's not nervous backstage. This is so important to Ralph—err, Fernando," she corrected herself.

Although I affectionately referred to my stepfather as Faux Dad, most people knew him as Fernando, proprietor of the hair salon by the same name, which was located near the elite Rodeo Drive and catered to the rich, beautiful, and Botoxed of Beverly Hills. Over the years his customers had run the gamut from the wealthy and obscure to moderately famous to downright celebrities. He even claimed to have done a cut and color on Barbra Streisand—or Babs, as he affectionately called her—when her normal hairstylist had come down with the flu just before a big charity luncheon.

Fernando had started life as Ralph Hoggington from the Midwest. But when he'd hit the glamorous West Coast, he'd quickly realized that no one in Beverly Hills would frequent an

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