Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,4

masculinity he tries to project. Jewelry-wise, he’s a cubic zirconium stone in a platinum setting.

“Darling,” Ian gushed and planted an air kiss on both sides of my face. “Let me look at you!” He began fake crying. “Oh, Amanda, are you still letting that gobshite Micky Hamilton do your hair?” he added, forever in battle with his nearest rival, a local he could squash with one wave of his hand.

“Ian, you keep forgetting that Micky killed himself after you trashed his hair-coloring abilities on national television,” I replied.

“And he couldn’t even do that right. If I were to jump off a cliff, I would make sure it was high enough.

“Ian, it was over two hundred feet high.”

“If you’re going to kill yourself, you have to be thinking at least four to five hundred feet high. What you don’t want to do is hit a bunch of rocks on the way down, bruising your face in case there are television cameras. You want to leap and make a huge splat and lie there on the ground, arms akimbo in a perfect swastika pattern for the photographers at the top of the cliff to capture. The aftermath is just as important as the act itself. Now, where were we? Would you like something to drink, Drake?” he asked into the air, but Drake had withdrawn from the room like an obsequious servant.

“No, thank you, Ian, it’s a little early.”

“It’s ten o’clock! Perfect time for a hairball.”

“A hairball?”

“That’s what I call a highball around here.”

“No thanks, Ian. So you want Alex and I to list your house?” I ventured, relishing the idea of listing one of the largest homes in Palm Springs.

Ian put an arm over my shoulder as he steered me toward his dining room. “Yes, but not right away.”

“Rent it? We can handle that.”

He stopped. “No, Amanda. As you know, a television producer wants to make a reality program here in my house.”

“And I suppose it’s a real-estate show?”

“Yes and no,” he said, smiling like a crocodile waiting for an unsuspecting stork.

“It’s going to be a reality show about finding an heir and boyfriend for me.”

“A boyfriend, Ian? But you’ve had plenty over the years!”

“That’s the problem, Amanda. Too many. I’m going to have my therapist, Aurora Cleft, as the judge on the program. We’re going to bring back a handful of my present and former boyfriends onto the show and they’re going to compete with each other, and Aurora is going to help me pick a suitable heir.”

“Heir?” I snorted with a chuckle. “What, are you dying?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

I was horrified at what I had just said. Of course, not as horrified as the time I mistakenly uploaded a picture of myself making love with my ex-husband, Alex, to my real-estate Web site. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but my Web site gets thousands of hits every month, so you can imagine my shock. And my continued shock when I found the very picture on several online sex galleries, including nymphouniverse.com.

“Oh, Ian, what’s going on?” I asked with real concern in my voice—the first time such concern was probably ever uttered in his house.

“I have pancreatic cancer. Inoperable. So I might as well go out with a bloody great bang, huh?”

“So where do I come in?”

He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then walked me into the dining room where two men plainly from Los Angeles were sitting—you could tell from the heavy black Elvis Costello eyeglass frames they both wore.

Ian finished, “That’s why I’ve invited these two gentlemen here—to discuss your role.” He approached the dining room table and introduced the two men. “Amanda Thorne, this is Jeremy Collins and Tony Marcello. They’re from the Q Channel.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” I uttered, extending my hand for them to shake as though it were a fragile lily. I threw in a curtsy.

“Perfect!” the man named Jeremy blurted out. “Ian, she’s just what the show needs! A comic persona . . . some comic relief! And you were right about her offbeat looks! The nose too! Great! She does look like someone punched Kathleen Turner in the face!” he said. Then sideways out of his mouth, “Something I’d like to do myself to that haughty bitch!”

Jeremy was a tired, but prevalent stereotype from Hollywood. He seemed to speak mostly with exclamation points at the end of everything he said—like everything he said was brilliant. For Jeremy, excitement equaled believability. Tony motioned for me to sit down.

Jeremy