Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [58]
They laughed. I did, too, even though Ben Affleck was another actor I would be happy to watch gargle. So what if the film had offended half its viewership and put the other half to sleep?
“Nadine, have you met Fani?” Kenny asked.
“No.” She skimmed her gaze up my coppery form and raised her brows when she reached my strawberry blond mane. “I don’t believe I have.”
“Fani Kolarova, this is Nadine Gruber, hairdresser to the stars.”
“And philanthropist,” Ethan added.
She pulled her attention from my lion’s mane. I wondered uncomfortably if she recognized it from Queen’s set. “You’re too kind,” she said.
“Nadine is single-handedly saving the California condor.”
“Any publicity is good publicity,” she said, then grinned wryly at herself. “I’m just kidding. I love those ugly birds. I’m just trying to do my part. Those of us in the entertainment business, with a few exceptions, of course, aren’t nearly as self-centered as people believe. Many of us feel the need to give back.”
I watched her. “You are an actress as well?”
She turned toward me again, smiling prettily. She was not a young woman, but she had been as carefully preserved as Grandma’s sweet pickles. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the kind of exercise regimen it would take to keep every muscle so perfectly toned. She’d probably spent half her life in warrior III pose.
“I was for a time,” she said, and laughed. “Until I was cured.”
The guys laughed with her. I managed to look confused. It wasn’t that hard.
“Cured?”
“Acting is a brutal business,” she said. “The mad rush followed by hours of boredom drains body and mind of its natural vitality. Far better for me to work in the background, where I have time to hone my craft properly.”
“You do a beautiful job at Queen,” Ethan said.
“Well …” She shrugged. “I have excellent people to work with. Patricia, especially, has glorious hair.”
“Only made better by your care.”
“I am developing an excellent earth-based hair care …” she began, but suddenly her words were swept into a soundless abyss, because just then I spotted Adonis. He wasn’t wearing the usual tux. Instead, he had donned an open-necked poet’s shirt. Black jeans hung low on his hips. His skin was dark, his eyes as blue as God’s heaven. He glanced toward me. Our gazes met. His grin was sparkling white and a little wicked.
I believe I said something like, “Ugga,” and then he was sauntering toward me, big shoulders drawn back, all chest and smolder and beard stubble. The rest of the room seemed to fade to gray, evaporating into smoke until he stood before me like a mermaid’s wet dream.
“Hello,” he said, nodding toward my companions. For reasons unknown, their names had scattered like frightened poultry from my mind. It might have been the fact that Adonis had an accent. Or a chest. Or a smile that could light up the Getty Center.
“Sergio,” they said, and then he turned toward me.
“We’ve not met,” he said, and held out his hand. It was in that instant that I recognized him. Give him a loincloth and a hip brand and he was everyone’s favorite slave.
Morab.
20
What can I do to pleasure you, my queen?
—Morab the man-slave, just
before Chrissy awoke
I fumbled with my plate for a moment, wondered wildly who I was, what I was doing there, and if my underwear was on fire. “I’m …” I glanced at Kenny. “Fani.”
Our hands met. A little dab of sugar/fairy dust had somehow been sprinkled on my knuckles and subsequently smeared up against his pinky finger.
“Oh.” The word sounded oddly breathy from my lips.
“I … Sorry.”
“Not to worry,” he said, and sliding his fingers from mine, sucked the offending digit into his mouth. Swear to God, my own went dry. Every ounce of moisture drained from my head like water down a drain.
One of the other guys cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “I seem to have become invisible.”
“Gay,” said the other, raising his hand.
I think the three of them eventually