Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,50

and go get a haircut . . . I hate that ponytail! And to Mrs. Gorky, my client with her overpriced house in Vista Las Palmas,” I said, looking directly at a camera that was capturing me. “Your house is a dump. D-U-M-P! It’s way overpriced! It has the curb appeal of a sewage-pumping station, it smells like Coney Island at low tide inside because you won’t stop cooking sardines for breakfast, and you look like you hired Marilyn Manson to do your makeup. And to my ex-client Vicktor Teller, you’re an asshole, and here’s the photo of yours that you just sent me,” I said, holding the photo on my iPhone to the camera. “Very classy. With all those wide-screen TVs out there, viewers might just be able to take your whole ass in!”

“Well, Amanda . . .” Aurora tried to cut in.

“Wait! I’m not finished! And what’s the thing with fitted sheets! How the hell are you supposed to fold the goddamned things until you’re ready to use them? And last, but not least, why am I supposed to care about Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton? I really don’t care!”

“Thank you, Amanda, for that wonderful mental meltdown with a touch of Seinfeld near the end,” Aurora interjected. “I hope you had a good catharsis.”

As Aurora tried to move things along, no one else moved a muscle for what seemed the longest time. No one spoke. Anyone who was still standing near me had a trapped look on their face and slowly made their way out of the room, as did the rest, slowly trickling away.

“Since we were on the subject of assholes a minute ago, this one”—I pointed at Aleksei, who had passed out—“needs to be put into a car, driven home, and put to bed. If I could get a little help from one of you guys,” I pleaded, but the men in the room were holding their hands over their noses and turning their heads away in disgust.

“He’s covered with vomit. Eewww!” David exclaimed in disgust. “I’m not touching him. Maybe if you let him sit in his own vomit, that will teach him a lesson.”

“I’ll do it!” I said. “You guys are all supposed to be such icons of masculinity, but you’re all a bunch of big pussies,” I said, getting up and wiping Aleksei off with several napkins. “You get the legs, and I’ll get him behind his shoulders,” I instructed Aurora.

Despite the fact that Aleksei was exactly six feet one inch tall, he weighed close to nothing since he was a model who found eating a necessary evil in life. I also took several outdoor survival classes with Alex and learned how to carry a wounded hiking partner if necessary.

Aurora and I carried Aleksei out to my car, whereupon I drove him home, with Aurora and Darryn gallantly volunteering to help me carry him upstairs and down the long hall to his room. Aurora suggested that we leave him seated in a wing chair.

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“From the look of the table downstairs, I think he’s purged just about everything in him . . .” Aurora said.

“You mean entire Mondavi vineyards?”

“Yes, but there’s no guarantee he doesn’t have more coming. I say we leave him upright. I’m afraid if he sleeps on his back or side, he runs the risk of choking on his vomit.”

“One Jimi Hendrix is enough,” I agreed. We took his shirt and pants off, and left him sitting comfortably in his chair, putting a bucket from a nearby bathroom in his lap, just in case, and closed the door. We started down the hall, when I grabbed Aurora’s arm and stopped her.

“What?” Aurora asked.

“I’m not sure I can go down there.”

“Because you gave them all a much-needed kick in the groin? Honey, if I worried about what everyone thought about what I said, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

“And where is that?” I asked.

“Splattered in vomit, but a rising star in the field of relationship counseling.”

CHAPTER 20

Amanda Thorne, Incorporated

My filming schedule had become too much for me to take care of my real-estate business, so I turned everything over to Alex. My rising stardom was lassoing clients in right and left, and Alex took on the extra work himself with his usual otherworldly ability to handle a hundred things at once.

I stopped at his house and was signing some paperwork when he looked up at me and asked, “Do you have a publicist? I got a call from