Celebrity Sudoku (4 page)

“Let’s tell Lolly.” Rikki Popovic led the way to the group around Darrie Brunswick.

“We arranged a nice place for you to hang in between tapings,” Darrie was saying to Lolly.

“ ‘Hang?’ What is this, the Sensational Sixties?” Ritz didn’t even bother to lower her mocking voice.

But that changed at Darrie’s next words. “It’s the Boots Bungalow.”

“Baby Boots?” Lolly looked up in surprise. “The child star from the thirties?”

“The very same,” Darrie replied. “She was a big star for Mammoth. The studio built special accommodations—”

“Wait a minute,” Ritz interrupted. “Why does
she
”—she pointed at Lolly—“get a perk like that? You think she’s the only star around here?”

Darrie looked down her nose at the heiress. Liza had to agree. Ritz had “starred” on the cable travel show underwritten by her dad’s tourism company. And even then, her participation came down to running around in a bikini saying, “Is this cool or what?”

Then there was the CD where each cut sounded like an outtake from Britney, or Jessica, or any other blond singer.

As for Ritz’s movie stardom, she’d played the bitchy girl who got killed off in the first fifteen minutes of a horror flick.

But Lolly Popovic responded with a conciliatory hand wave. “Is there enough room to share? I think I’d prefer a roommate.”

Ritz was so surprised, she didn’t even try to demand more. Rikki Popovic separated her daughter from the group and explained about dinner with Liza and Michael.

Lolly’s face radiated enthusiasm. “I’m so glad! I have so many questions—you did such a great job of launching Jenny Robbins’s career—”

“I wouldn’t exactly look at it that way.” Liza tried to keep her voice light, but there was a lot of pain underneath. Jenny was the niece of an old friend, and yes, her debut film,
Counterfeit
, had opened to critical and financial success, prompting a lot of other movie offers. But most of Liza’s publicity work for Jenny had involved managing the media coverage of some pretty traumatic events for the girl—murder, suspicion of murder, kidnapping, mind games from one of the directors on the film . . .

“Jenny went through some ugly times,” Liza finally said.

“But now some of the biggest directors in Hollywood want to cast her for their projects,” Lolly said.

“And that makes it all worthwhile?” Michael had seen some of what Jenny had gone through, and he obviously didn’t think so.

“Well, there’ll be a lot to discuss over supper,” Rikki Popovic spoke up.

“I made a reservation for the first seating.” Michael looked at his watch. “Can’t go too late—I’ve got to be on set early in the morning.”

Liza sighed. “Don’t we all.”

 

 

The next morning, Liza dragged herself out of her hotel bed. All too often when she had to get up early, she’d end up squinting over at the alarm clock about every two hours, making sure she wasn’t oversleeping. So instead, she was spending her second day sleep-deprived and groggy.

Moving clumsily, Liza got dressed and headed down to the lobby to meet her fellow puzzle experts. Blessedly, Will had gotten hold of a few cups of coffee. Liza sipped at hers until the car from the studio arrived. They moved smoothly through the studio gate—at this time of day, there were no lurking paparazzi, video or otherwise. When Liza and the others came into the soundstage, staffers immediately whisked them off to Makeup.

Liza found herself taking a seat from Samantha Pang—well, they had similar complexions. The Kelly name may have come from her father, along with a chestnut tinge in her shoulder-length dark hair. But the rest of Liza’s looks came from the other side of the family, the Watanabe side.

“You look great,” Liza told Sam—and she meant it. A very short gamine cut brought out the fine bone structure of the mathematician’s face.

Sam, though, looked as if she’d just bitten into a piece of rotten fruit. “This is as much as they could save since most of my hair just broke off. And then they had to dye what was left.”

Obviously she was still struggling to get over what Ritz had done to her.

With his sunburn, Will was destined for the attentions of Gloria as well.

“Only the best for people with
special
skin tones,” a young African American guy said from the chair next to Liza. She had a little difficulty recognizing the rapper Forty Oz. without his ton of gold jewelry. “For me, you see, the lighting’s a difficulty.” He put extra emphasis on the last syllable, as if he were performing. “Make it too bright so people can see me, and the white folk look kinda washed-out.”

His sharp, intense features tightened in a mirthless grin. “Got to make sure I don’t fade back into the shadows.”

“Like that’s going to happen,” Gloria scoffed. “I never heard anyone call you ‘wallflower.’ ”

Liza submitted to the ministrations of the makeup artist, getting the works—a base coat of pancake, highlights, toning, even work around her eyes. Soon enough, she was declared ready and directed to the greenroom.

She found several people already sitting around. Liza spotted Samantha Pang working on a sudoku, of all things. So was Lolly Popovic, looking somewhat subdued. Liza hoped that wasn’t the result of their dinner-table conversation last night. Both the young actress and her mom seemed so intent on establishing what Lolly called a “legitimate career” that Liza had to warn against loading too much importance onto this single film deal.

Lolly angrily crumpled up her puzzle. So did Sam.

Liza didn’t say anything—out loud, at least. No sense in ratcheting up the tension for two of the contestants.

I just hope this isn’t a sample of how they’ll act in front of the camera,
Liza thought.

Fat chance.

Waiting for the cue to make her entrance, Liza shot a dubious look at the doorway she was supposed to pass through. The
D-Kodas
set always looked so solid on TV. Seen from behind, this entrance seemed held together with staples and spit.

One of the stagehands preparing to slide the doors apart caught her look. “Hey, we had to get this ready ASAP,” he whispered. “We’ll hold it steady. Trust us.”

Liza rolled her eyes. Those last two words represented the biggest red flag known to show business.

She didn’t have a chance to comment, though. Wish Dudek introduced her, and the stagehands slid the doors open. Liza had to admit, they worked together so smoothly, the jerry-rigged entrance never moved.

Then she had other things to think about, like not blinking from the brilliant spotlights facing her—or flinching at the rush of applause from the barely seen audience. She only wished the camera was equally hard to spot.

“Well, Wish,” she said brightly, walking to the mark on the floor that she was supposed to hit. “For this round, contestants will tackle a simplified sudoku. Instead of a nine-by-nine grid, this is four-by-four.” Off to the side, the main puzzle board lit up, revealing the puzzle.

“The rules are simple,” Liza went on. “The grid can break down into four rows, four columns, or four subgrids, each with four spaces.” As she spoke, she used the light pen to outline a row, a column, and a subgrid.

“Based on the clues given, contestants must fill each of those subdivisions with the numbers one through four—with no repetitions.”

Wish picked up the spiel. “Now, for purposes of this round, notice the two spaces outlined in red.”

The borders on two spaces toward the middle of the grid suddenly changed color.

“Now pick up your signaling devices,” Wish told the six contestants. “The blank spaces will light up randomly. If you believe you have the correct number to fill the space, ring in. Everyone ready?”

The empty spaces on the puzzle began to light up. Claudio Day was the first to ring in—the star quarterback’s gridiron reflexes apparently gave him an advantage with the signal device.

Too bad he didn’t have the sudoku skills to match. “Two?” he said in a hopeful voice.

“Sorry,” Wish said. “We’ll continue.”

Other spots lit up, including one of the red-rimmed ones. Sam Pang rang in. “One.”

Wish nodded. “Correct.” The number appeared in that space. “Ten seconds to claim the other.”

If she could identify that one, she should know the other,
Liza thought.

But Samantha bit her lip and didn’t go for the win. The light moved on.

Lolly rang in, correctly identifying a 3 in an illuminated spot.

Another spot lit up. Chard Switzer said, “Oh!” and tried to ring in, but was too late.

Forty Oz. blurted out, “Three!” at the next space, but Wish disallowed that. “You didn’t ring in,” he explained.

The rapper’s face twisted, and he muttered, “Damn!”

Lights blinked their way across the board, but nobody rang in. Liza began to feel a bit concerned. This wasn’t supposed to be particularly difficult. If the celebrities choked on this, how would they do with the higher-level puzzles?

She glanced over at Lolly and Sam, who both stood with their signalers in tensely clenched hands. Liza had seen them working on sudoku. How could they not get this?

The other red-bordered spot lit up, and Ritz Tarleton buzzed in, singing out, “Four!”

“That’s correct,” Wish said. “Do you—”

The celebutante’s voice cut right over his. “It’s forty-one.”

“Four, one, yes.” Wish paused, shooting her a look. “Unless there’s anything else you want to add?” His voice was mild with an underlay of sarcasm.

Ritz rolled her eyes.

“Fine, then. As the winner, you get to choose your partner for tomorrow’s team round.”

“I choose Lolly,” Ritz said confidently.

Sam Pang looked a little surprised at this. So did Lolly.

With that, taping broke for a few minutes as Lolly and Ritz both left their places. So did Liza, noticing that the doorway did jiggle when the stagehands didn’t have to worry about being on camera.

On the other side stood Wanda Penny, looking as if she were seriously reconsidering the whole idea of being on camera.

“You did so well!” Wanda said, her frizzy hair floating around as she all but jittered in place. “I’m sure I’m going to mess up—babbling instead of explaining things clearly.”

Ritz came walking past. She glanced at Wanda and gave a single chuckle that sounded remarkably like the word “loser.”

Then she glanced at Liza and raised her foot. “What do you think?”

The high-heeled shoe she wore was just a webwork of leather straps, creating a set of half-inch squares on her feet and up her ankle. “Sudoku shoes,” Ritz said, with a condescending glance at Liza’s flats.

Before she could move on, Ritz found Darrie Brunswick in her face. “As a guest I’d expect you to show a little respect for your host and not step all over his lines.”

Ritz gave the hostess an almost contemptuous look. “You mean stand there like an idiot while he trots out some inane old joke? The director told me we were supposed to keep things moving along.”

Darrie flushed under her makeup. “Look here, missy. We’ve put twenty-five years into this gig and deserve respect just for doing that—”

“Kind of hard to offer much respect to somebody wearing last year’s prom gown from a third-rate designer.”

Darrie’s face went from red to white with rage.
“What?”

Ritz shrugged. “C’mon, Darrie, you have to know your costumes are famous—and not in a good way.”

Liza had to admit that dart definitely hit the target—while also apparently landing on a sore spot for Darrie Brunswick. She started screaming at the younger woman, drawing a worried-looking Fran Evans and then an assistant director.

Ritz faced the abuse with a sweet smile. “I think you’re holding up the taping, Darrie, dear.”

She turned to Lolly Popovic, who stood looking at her cell phone. “They won’t need us for a while. What do you say we head back to that bungalow and chill?”