Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [56]
“You already planned on coming here,” I said.
“What’s that?” He leaned down without taking his attention from the salivating paparazzi.
“This was the event you were planning to attend all along,” I said, and for reasons quite unknown to me, the idea made me angry.
One corner of his mouth jerked up a little. “The producer’s a fan,” he said. “We’re talking movie deals.”
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look serious?”
As a Michael Moore documentary. But that seemed to be his only expression. “You could have told me earlier.”
Ushered into the inner sanctum, the first thing we saw was a movie poster featuring Wesley Donovan wearing little more than a fine sheen of sweat and a grim expression. But I wasn’t given much time to appreciate the marketing genius. A moment later we were milling in a sea of bling, angst, and beautiful faces. A place where cellulite was treated like the Black Plague and silicone was as common as the proverbial cold.
Fake trees hung with vines were interspersed through the cavernous lobby. Jungle music throbbed in the background, and near the distant wall was a buffet table, spread with every possible delicacy, but there seemed to be an invisible shield around it. There was not a soul in the vicinity except a waiter who stood as stoic as my escort, hands clasped behind his back. I wondered a little aimlessly if he was serving the food or guarding it.
I was starting to drool in earnest. Note to self: When attending a Hollywood event with starlets the width of my pinky finger, do not wait to eat until you get there. That would be an erro—
Just then, someone approached from behind.
“Hey, Vinny. How’s the knee?”
I glanced up, bug-eyed.
As it turns out, George Clooney is a god. He stood to my right, talking to Angler as if they were bosom buddies. But in a moment it was all over. Or maybe his smile had made me disoriented.
“See anyone you know?” Vincent asked.
Clooney was walking away. I blinked and glanced up at my escort. His expression was as animated as an apricot’s. I tried to match his stoicism, but my tongue felt a little blocky.
“I think I recognize a few faces.” I was going for that admirable apricot attitude, but the saliva dripping from my chin might have given me away. Still, I scanned the crowd in the hopes of remaining upright.
Angler chuckled and slipped his hand a little lower, hovering over the swell of my too large ass as my mind did a little exploration into reality. It’s a state I don’t often visit, but I was beginning to wonder if he had lied to the media about his sexual orientation. Before I could inquire, however, he spoke.
“You okay if I leave you alone for a while?” he asked. “There’s someone here I’ve been meaning to terrorize.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m a big girl.”
“Noticed that,” he said, and smoothed his palm over my behind.
“Vincent?” I glanced up. It was now or never.
“Yeah?” He was glowering into the crowd.
“You are gay, right?”
“We’ll see,” he said, and almost smirking, glided away.
I pondered that for a while, but the sea of beautiful people was so intimidating I felt the need to eat. In fact, they seemed to be washing me toward the buffet table. I hadn’t had anything but a dry bagel all day, and even though the other women in the room probably hadn’t eaten since their tenth birthdays, I, for one, was hungry. I was also pretty sure I could take the waiter if his task really was to keep the buffet safe from all comers.
I scanned the table, keeping an eye on the hovering waitstaff. The stuffed shrimp looked fantastic. I could do without the escargot, but the bruschetta called to me. My stomach spoke eloquently of missed meals and the coming seven years of drought. I was just about to fulfill my biblical obligations to store up when a woman approached the other side of the table. She looked vaguely familiar and though I couldn’t put a name to her, she had that sleek, starved look so popular in our overfed part of the universe. She took a radish cut like a rose and two