“Prego, I don’t know your situation at all. But I learned today your father is the late Eddie Easton. If I may be as bold to ask—can’t his legacy help you with your enterprise?”
“Dad died two years ago.” She hesitated to share but at this point had nothing to lose. “He left me and Mom with nothing but gambling debts.”
“A huge Eddie fan, I saw your padre in concert, twice.” He sang, buzzing along to Eddie’s popular tunes. Lex realized it was to sweeten the sourness in the air.
She twisted her tissue in her lap. “The song you’re humming is my favorite from Dad’s fifth studio album.”
“Death’s Door?” Roberto asked.
“Knockin’ on Death’s Door. Dad’s glam metal ballad was produced as the lead soundtrack for an early Nineties slasher film. The track won a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.”
“I didn’t know.”
She laughed, thinking about her father’s money. His achievements and fame lived on, but his cash dried up. “The number did better than the movie. Can you imagine someone as famous as my father didn’t have a will? His scummy manager retained every song right. Such a hippie, a performer, but not a businessman.” She sipped her water to clear her throat. No sense in thinking about the past.
“Can’t you get the fabrics from somewhere else?” he asked.
“Anything else would be subpar. I’ll have to close the business.”
“Subpar may be better than nothing at all.” Roberto stood. “Now, let’s have Clara make you a fresh insalata verde and we’ll take it to your villa, where your housemaid will draw you a bath.” He held his hand out to help her up.
Lex rose and embraced him. She needed a hug, even from a complete stranger—a royal palace employee, no less. “Thank you for listening to me. This isn’t your problem. It’s not even the prince’s. It’s mine and mine alone.”
* * * * *
“Screw Girasoli!” she shouted out loud running down the beach. The sky glowed from the crescent moon. Waves crashed black shimmers on the shore. The wet sand squished under her feet as it kicked back on her sweats in small clumps. She didn’t care.
Lex took up jogging when she admitted Birdie in for rehab for the fourth time. Running eight miles a day, five days a week retained her sanity through her mom’s many attempts for sobriety. She worked off her frustration from the dinner.
Afterward, she tried to eat the salad Clara prepared, but couldn’t. Her anxiety returned, seeping through her pores in a cold sweat. At a quarter past ten, Lex dialed Vive’s direct line, calculating she was six hours behind her. She’d be deep in her day.
“Viveca Farnworth, speaking—whatcha debauchery?”
“Don’t be upset, please, Vive.” Lex defended herself, not allowing Vive to attack.
“Lex, love, I drank Veuve, ya know—champers for lunch. I’m gettin’ a mani-pedi combo by Mr. Kim Lee at my desk. I couldn’t be mad at you if you rode my boyfriend’s dick around Manhattan.” Vive giggled. She swished status quo at Debauchery Magazine.
“Vive—you don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Biiietch, please don’t ruin my midday buzz, okay,” she warned. Vive enjoyed her delusional life bubble, testifying ignorance kept her blissful. Viveland remained far, far, away from where everyone on Earth resided, called Park Avenue. “How’s Italy, honey bunny?”
“I’m on Isola di Girasoli. I met with Prince Tittoni tonight about my fabrics.”
“Mmm hmm,” Vive moaned. Her high-pitched panting increased. “Ohhhh Your Majesty. Ahhhh, princey poo.” When Vive finished her faux phone sex orgasm narrating how “juicylicious” Massimo must be on Ecstasy Island, she inquired, “Birdie mentioned Amelia Earhart is flying your Girasoli textile shipment over. She lost?”
“Hardy har har! And Jimmy Hoffa is brokering the delivery through customs.”
“You get Birdie’s jokes better than moi. Sorry to hear Girasoli and Easton aren’t strutting the catwalk together. Want Debauchery Magazine to run a slammer on princey poo ripping ’em to pieces?” Vive paused, waiting for an answer, then continued, “We could call the editorial “Prince of Poo,” an inside look at what a piece of shi—”
“No!” Lex interrupted her. A tabloid victim herself as a preteen, Lex didn’t dare provoke anyone to smear another’s reputation—even if warranted. “No thank you.” She appreciated her friend’s defenses, knowing Vive wasn’t serious about much in life. But gossip involving a royal Mediterranean prince may be her gospel.
Vive continued, “Do you remember, last year when Prada flew New York editors to Milan’s fashion week?”
“Uh huh,” Lex mumbled. She sat down on the villa’s oversized bed knowing she’d be in for another Viveca Farnworth tale.
“Prince Tittoni’s motley crew, including security guards, glamour girls hunk du jour men attended a few soirées.” Vive slurped more champagne perhaps, glug, glug. Another short pause and Vive cheered, “One second, Lex love.” Glug, glug, glug, glug.
“And?” Her cell phone bill was going to be maxed in roaming charges if she waited for Vive to down the next champagne bottle.
Vive burped. “Excusez moi.” She mumbled some gibberish to Mr. Kim Lee to buff her soles harder and cautioned, “Tittoni’s a loner—sticks to himself. Ignored everyone including the guests he arrived with, didn’t look at me once. Odd. You know what his disinterest in my beauty means—don’t cha?”
“Massimo isn’t gay, Vive. Please don’t start with your assumptions.”
Her friend theorized anyone who didn’t worship her Germanic tribal stamina from her father, mixed with her Sweden born beauty from her mother, must be a homosexual. Vive also didn’t believe anyone should live below 42nd Street. She encouraged on. “Have you ever met a man as hot, hung, rich and hard-bodied as your princey poo who was straight?”
“No…” Lex trolled her fruit fly mind and no straight man checked. Fudge
“We should set the prince up with Blake since he and his husband are on the outs. Is Massimo nicer than he looks? Blake’ll want ’em to bottom, if he’s a top—it won’t work.”