“I should have married a blue-collar worker,” Maxine said when they got back inside, “Hamburgers, beer and a good fuck on a Saturday night. I always overcomplicated things.”
“Arnie’s blue-collar. And he was a terrible lover.”
“Oh yes, Arnie. It’s time we talked about Arnie.”
“What about him?”
“Well for one thing, he’s a louse.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. What’s he been up to?”
“Are you ready for this? He’s been selling your life-story.”
“Who to?”
“Everyone. You’re hot news, right now. In fact I had a call from someone over at Fox wondering if I could sell you on the idea of having your life turned into a Movie of the Week.”
“I hope you said no.”
“No. I just said I’d talk to you about it. Honestly, Tammy, there’s a little window of opportunity in here when you could make some serious money.”
“Selling my life-story? I don’t think so. I don’t have one to sell!”
“That’s not what these dodos think. Look at these.”
Maxine went into her bag and brought out a sheaf of magazines, laying them on the bed. The usual suspects: The National Enquirer and The Star plus a couple of more up-market magazines, People and US. Tammy was still too stiff to lean forward and pick them up, so Maxine went through them for her, flicking to the relevant articles. Some carried photographs of Todd at the height of his fame; the photographs often emblazoned with melodramatic questions: Was Fame too much for the World’s Greatest Heart-throb? on one; and on another: His Secret Hideaway became a Canyon of Death. But these lines were positively restrained in contrast with some of the stuff in the pages of The Globe, which had dedicated an entire “Pull-out Special your family will treasure for generations,” to the subject of Haunted Hollywood; or, in their hyperbolic language: “The Spooks, the Ghosts, the Satan-worshippers and the Fiends who have made Tinseltown the Devil’s Fanciest Piece of Real Estate!
There were pictures accompanying all the articles, of course: mostly of Todd, occasionally of Maxine and Gary Eppstadt, and even-in the case of The Enquirer and The Globe, pictures of Tammy herself. In fact she was the subject of one of the articles which was led off by a very unflattering picture of her; the article claiming that “According to her husband Arnold, obsessive fan Tammy Jayne Lauper, probably knows more about the last hours of superstar Todd Pickett’s life than anybody else alive-but she isn’t telling! Why? Because Lauper (36) is the leader of a black magic cult, which involves thousands of the dead star’s fans worldwide, who were attempting to psychically control their star, when their experiment went disastrously and tragically wrong.”
“I was of two minds whether to show you all this,” Maxine said. “At least yet. I realize it probably makes your blood boil.”
“How can they write such things? They’re just making it up … ”
“There were worse, believe me. Not about you. But there’s a piece about me I’ve got my lawyers onto, and two pieces about Burrows — ”
“Oh, really?”
“One of them was a very long list of his … how shall I put this? His ‘less than successful’ clients.”
“So Todd wasn’t the first?”
“Apparently not. Burrows was just very good at buying peoples’ silence. I guess nobody really wants to talk about their unsuccessful ass-lifts, now do they?”
Maxine gathered all the magazines up and put them into the drawer of the bedside table. “That’s actually put some colour back into your cheeks.”
“It’s indignation,” Tammy said. “It’s fine to read all that nonsense in the supermarket line. But when it’s about you, it’s different.”
“So shall I not bring any more of them in?”
“No, you can bring ’em in. I want to see what people are saying about me. Where are the magazines getting my photographs from? That one of me looking like a three-hundred-pound beet — ”
Maxine laughed out loud. “You’re being a little harsh on yourself. But, you’re right, it’s not flattering. I guess the photographer himself gave them the picture. And you know who that was?”
“Yes. It was Arnie. It was taken last summer.”