Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,66

I’m about one commission check from joining you. But sir, please, I really need that suit!” I pleaded. I opened my purse and pulled eight more twenties and a fifty from my wallet. “Perhaps these will help. They’ll help keep that lonely Mr. Jackson company . . .” I tried to say, but Mr. Charming had already snatched the group of bills from my hand.

“Cut the private-eye crap, bitch. Like I said, it’s not 1940! I’ll get out of these right now if you’ll just leave me to my hunting and shut up about all the Dashiell Hammett shit.”

And he took everything off right there, standing naked right in front of me as cars drove by and mothers struggled to cover the eyes of their children in the backseat. I wandered over to my car, popped the back hatch, and threw the clothes inside, vowing to have them dry-cleaned at least twice. I looked at the label: Anderson & Sheppard. Oh man, this was going to be easy, I thought. As I turned around, my homeless man had already pulled out a T-shirt and shorts from Ian’s garbage and put them on. The T-shirt said, and I’m not kidding, GIORGIO ARMANI.

CHAPTER 28

A Pair Of Well-Fitted Trousers Can Be Very Revealing

We filmed all afternoon and into the evening. You could cut the excitement with a knife. The guys were all abuzz with the idea that the long ordeal of the show was about to end and one of them would be rich beyond belief. I had to admit that I was no longer sure who was going to be declared the winner. Viewers were confounded, too, as Jeremy had allowed the conflicts to die down and permitted the guys to get all warm and fuzzy—all part of his plan, or arc, as I should say. Jeremy was now looking for the awww factor. The fights and drama of the beginning episodes were there to get viewers to tune in. Now was the time to show “the strength of the characters.” And it was working. The guys, turning from just plain disgusting to almost cuddly, whipsawed viewers’ emotions, keeping them glued to their TVs or computers. People started asking themselves whether they judged the guys too harshly. After all, they now seemed like perfect gentlemen, well, after two deaths and Darryn’s arrival. And then I understood why Jeremy had Darryn join the show out of the blue: The time was ready for the guys to undergo transformations. And change they did. You liked these characters now. You saw a soft, caring, vulnerable side that wasn’t there before. The arc, again. Jeremy was playing us all like a Stradivarius. I had a newfound respect for him. He couldn’t tell us about the change that was going to occur. It had to happen naturally, with Darryn as the catalyst in order to be real. Funny, in all this fakery, there was some reality.

This was all fine and dandy for the guys, but this change of plot had left me stranded. I could no longer be the wisecracking fag hag, firing zingers from the safety of my bunker that I often occupied with Aurora. I now had to like these guys and, worse, show it. But lo and behold, I started to. I did see that underneath all the forced reality of the beginning of the series, there really were human beings there.

So why this big change of heart? Simple. I saw what the show had made me become . . . No, what I allowed myself to become. The show didn’t actually make me do anything. I did it to myself. Celebrity went to my head. But I got over myself in the nick of time before I became a real asshole. So it was feelings of guilt, pride, and remorse that made me change course. Well, that and almost getting caught having an affair with Ken’s best friend, and also taking a look in the mirror after months of barhopping and seeing Courtney Love staring back at me. If that’s not enough to scare some sense into you, I don’t know what will. We wrapped for the day at 8:30 P.M. I was dead tired. But I still wanted to take photos of the homeless man’s suit and send them to Anderson & Sheppard before I went to bed. Jerry then could contact them in the middle of the night before they closed on Saturday afternoon their time. There was a lot of