A Not So Model Home (13 page)
Read A Not So Model Home Online
Authors: David James
My cellphone came to life again, vibrating on the tabletop, which amplified the buzzing tenfold as it danced around, doing the hokeypokey. Aleksei, ready to lock his targeting mechanism onto anything that moved or left a heat signature, fired away at me.
“Ar-man-dah,” he managed to get out. “I know you have sexual needzzz like the rest of uz, but please get your ga-damn vibrator off the table and keep it in the drawer in your ni . . . stand,” he said, laughing.
I was shocked at how fast the wine was going to his head. He was getting insanely drunk by the second.
“So where was I?” he asked, giggling at forgetting his train of thought, which was currently derailed. A train wreck, to be more accurate. “Oh, yeah, Au . . . Au. . . . Wowah!” More giggling. “Wait, I forgot,” he said, falling blessedly silent.
Marcus tried to wrestle the conversation back to something more inert. “Well, wonderful meal, Ian. I guess we'll have to think of something to do to work this meal off,” he said with a lascivious smile at Ian.
“Yes, it is,” Darryn said from a safe distance as he spooned some tomatoes onto his plate. “I mean, a wonderful meal, that is.” He finished, then again took his place next to me.
My phone buzzed again. I looked around and challenged everyone within eyesight to call me on it.
Just try me,
my eyes blazed. Someone was desperately trying to reach me. Alex, calling to tell me Knucklehead had inadvertently set the house on fire? One of my listings had a gas leak and exploded, leveling the Vista Las Palmas neighborhood? I looked at the phone and it was an MMS multimedia message of a guy's asshole. Yes, someone had sent me a picture of their asshole. I looked at the sender and surprise! It was none other than my asshole client (pun intended) Vicktor Teller. The message under his unbleached anus:
Just try me,
my eyes blazed. Someone was desperately trying to reach me. Alex, calling to tell me Knucklehead had inadvertently set the house on fire? One of my listings had a gas leak and exploded, leveling the Vista Las Palmas neighborhood? I looked at the phone and it was an MMS multimedia message of a guy's asshole. Yes, someone had sent me a picture of their asshole. I looked at the sender and surprise! It was none other than my asshole client (pun intended) Vicktor Teller. The message under his unbleached anus:
You can kiss this good-bye, bitch. I'll get someone else to sell my house!!!!
I was three inches from completely snapping. You read about housewives taking all they can, calmly hitting their husbands with a frying pan, then sitting down to watch the afternoon soaps. I was just about to go there.
The storm had not yet passed, however. Aleksei roared back to life again. Taking off in yet another direction.
“Oh, I got a piece of gossip. Hot, hot, hot, hot, hot . . . sizzin' hot fuggin hot. Hot. You ne'er guess who I zaw kissing here in the house! I was shocked. No, diz-gust-ted,” he said, sticking his finger down his throat in a mock vomiting gesture.
Unfortunately, Aleksei's motor skills were sorely lacking and he went a little too far down the pipe, erupting in a shower of vomit that spewed out of his mouth in a Niagara of wine and . . . other things I don't care to mention, or identify. Unfortunately, Aleksei had some motor skills left: He hit me squarely from across the table with pinpoint accuracy.
“THAT'S IT!” I shrieked like a banshee, composing myself only to the point of being able to force words out through my clenched teeth. “I am so sick of all this horseshit! I can't take it anymore. I agree with Lance. I'm sick of the way you guys are sucking up to Ian for his money when most of you couldn't care less about him! All this bitching and moaning, and your eating disorders, your enemas to avoid going to the toilet like poorer people, and going on and on about stuff that's so stupid and shallow, it wouldn't even make it into the dialogue of a Quentin Tarantino movie! Bleaching your assholes, plucking your pubes, and now, I learn, acting like babies with pacifiers, cross-dressing, wearing pig masks, and getting spanked so you can't even sit on your lily-white assholes!”
Aurora tried to intervene by reaching up and putting a hand on my shoulder, but I wasn't finished.
“I'm not finished with all of you yet . . .” I continued, as David and Marcus tried to leave the room. “. . . and that means you too. I've listened to all of you for long enough, so now you can stand here until I've said what I need to say. I have had it up to here with everything”âI held my level hand to my forehead, then lowered it to my navel and looked straight at Marcusâ“and I've had it up to here with you! So you're short and your balls have shrunk to the size of marbles because you're juicing all the time to make up for the fact that you're short. So what! The other guys make fun of you! Boo hoo. People say I look like someone punched Kathleen Turner in the nose. So what?!”
Several of the guys muttered that they finally figured out whom I reminded them of.
“Since we're making the rounds, David, I like you, but you've got the empathy of an Auschwitz commandant, and you need to find
one
personality with
one
look and stick to it. Gilles, you have an amazing butt and a huge cock, and that's about it. You have none of the wit, the charm, or the sophistication of the people of Paris. I said it at the beginning and I still stand by my original proclamation: You're just cheap, gold-digging Eurotrash. Drake, you're another one I'm disappointed in. You're smart, handsome, and yet you run around Ian's estate picking up the shit his dogs leave all over the yard. And now I learn you perhaps earn your keep by beating up Ian. I as much as any of you would like to beat up Ian, but, Drake, you're wasting your life being stuck here because Ian pays you for it. Go out, get a real job. Yeah, it might not pay as much, but at least you won't have to put up with anyone else's shit. Darryn? You I like. You're perfect. Now for Ian. I can't believe that a man who created this huge empire can be so petty. You have guys followed, you pit the guys against each other, and you don't seem to care that you had sex with your son. You need to grow up . . . 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!”
one
personality with
one
look and stick to it. Gilles, you have an amazing butt and a huge cock, and that's about it. You have none of the wit, the charm, or the sophistication of the people of Paris. I said it at the beginning and I still stand by my original proclamation: You're just cheap, gold-digging Eurotrash. Drake, you're another one I'm disappointed in. You're smart, handsome, and yet you run around Ian's estate picking up the shit his dogs leave all over the yard. And now I learn you perhaps earn your keep by beating up Ian. I as much as any of you would like to beat up Ian, but, Drake, you're wasting your life being stuck here because Ian pays you for it. Go out, get a real job. Yeah, it might not pay as much, but at least you won't have to put up with anyone else's shit. Darryn? You I like. You're perfect. Now for Ian. I can't believe that a man who created this huge empire can be so petty. You have guys followed, you pit the guys against each other, and you don't seem to care that you had sex with your son. You need to grow up . . . 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”âI pointed at Aleksei, who had passed outâ“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.
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.”
C
HAPTER 20
HAPTER 20
Amanda Thorne, Incorporated
M
y 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.
y 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 a Naomi Ballington wanting to know if you'd seen the Web site yet.”
“Well, yes, Alex. I'm having someone handle my publicity. I've got a blog, Twitter account, and a possible upcoming book deal.”
“A book? About your experiences on the show?”
“No, not yet. This is a how-to.”
“How to get on the show?”
“No, a You-Know-You're-a-Fag-Hag-When . . . book.”
“You've got to be joking!”
“I am not, Alex. My publisher thinks it will be a big seller. Think of the all the straight women who married gay men. Constance Lloyd to Oscar Wilde. Linda Lee Thomas married to Cole Porter. Liza to Peter Allen. Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera.”
“Diego was straight. It was Frida who had affairs with women.”
“Okay, but you get my point. Maybe Fran Drescher will buy a copy.”
“So when did this publicity machine crank up? I didn't even know you were working with a P.R. firm.”
“An agent, actually. Vanessa Plant. Naomi is my Web site strategist.”
“You have an agent? This is shocking. You never mentioned it to me.”
“It happened just a week ago.”
“So how did you find this agent?”
“She found me, Alex. That's why I went with her. She's on top of things. A real shark. You gotta have an agent like that nowadays. Someone who wants to win. Aren't you glad that I'm making all these changes in my life? Being assertive. Taking what's mine.”
“Wow, I had no idea you had all these deals going on.”
“They're not all definite, but my agent is working on them. Oh, and I've got a few product endorsements in the works.”
“Product endorsements?”
“You remember when I had the wardrobe malfunction with Gilles?”
“Booby Nights?”
“Yes, it turns out that several companies that make breast enhancement exercise devices want me to endorse some of their products. I could be the celebrity spokesperson for the BusterAll. It's a bust-enlarging secret from Lithuania, heavily guarded for centuries and now used by the hottest fashion models from Lithuania.”
“I didn't realize that your grandmother's homeland was such a hotbed of fashionistas.”
“It is now. At least that's what the advertising manager for this bust thing said. I'm not going too far with this stuff, am I?”
Alex hesitated for probably a nanosecond before he respondedâsomething that would have gone unnoticed by anyone else, but to me it was like getting slapped across the face. “Uh, sure. It's great. Milk it for all it's worth. Make hay while the sun shines.”
I got it. The disappointment . . . a look I was used to all my life. From my parents. The nuns. From teachers. Countless dates. I could have found the cure for cancer, but all it took was one look from a disapproving scientist and I would have thrown the life-saving formula into the trash. I didn't say a thing to Alex, but we were still soul mates: I could read his mind and he mine. A few words with just the right, but almost imperceptible, inflection spoke volumes to the other. He had telegraphed his concern to me about the direction my life was taking and I got the message loud and clear. But would I listen to it? That was the $64,000 question.
“Thanks, Alex. Thanks,” was all I could say.
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