Laying Low in Hollywood (9 page)

   I gasped and stared at him in shock.

   “Oh, I am sorry, have I hit a bit of a raw nerve?” asked Jorge, smiling at me coyly.

   “That was a long time ago,” I managed to whisper.  I was suddenly shaking, my voice had faded away to nothing.
             

   “The point I am hoping to make, Ms. Jensen, is the show must go on.  I know the position you were put in, back in Paris.  You did what you had to do for the show once before.  Now I am asking you to go along with this little scam for the good of my show,” said Jorge, eyeing me seriously.

   “The scam is, the two of us are lovers, am I right?” I asked, looking him in the eye.

   “That is correct my love,” said Jorge, raising his glass to me in a silent toast.

   “Well, since you traveled with the show in France, undoubtedly, you’ve heard all the rumors about me.  I only hope that you can handle me,” I told him, flashing him a seductive smile.

   “I will certainly give it my best effort,” he said, smiling back at me.  I almost cracked up, he was flirting with me, but I was almost certain that he was gay.  I felt like this was some sort of contest...he was trying to shock me.  I hated to tell him, but he was about to loose at his own little game.

   “I find your offer to be quite intriguing, if a lover is what you want, a lover is what you get!  I can’t wait to get you home so I can rip all your clothes off,” I told him, giving him a little wink and a sly smile.

   “I believe that might be construed as sexual harassment Ms. Jensen.  I am your boss,” said Jorge, eyeing me casually.

   “I was merely following your lead Mr. Broussard,” I told him, anxiously stifling a giggle.  “I mean, why pretend when we can just do it.  I mean, who’s stopping us?”

   “Am I to believe that you think that I wish to have an affair with you?” asked Jorge, his face was suddenly shocked.  I was biting my lip to avoid laughing hysterically.

   “Well Jorge, I am a woman, and I do have needs...” I was smiling seductively at him.

   “Lane I...” Jorge mumbled, his face suddenly looked panicked.

   I couldn’t help it, I dissolved into laughter, I couldn’t keep a straight face any longer.  Jorge was staring at me in shock.

   “You were messing with me!” he cried, unable to hide his shock.

   “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.  Besides, it was you who started it.  I’m not stupid Jorge, I get what’s going on, I’m willing to go along with it and take the heat off of Ron,” I told him, rolling my eyes.

   “Good, for a minute there, I thought you might have gotten the wrong idea about me,” said Jorge, giving me a smile.

   “Don’t worry Jorge, I won’t tell your partner that you made the moves on me,” I giggled.

   “Partner...I do not believe I told you I have a partner,” said Jorge, assessing me carefully.

   “But you do, don’t you?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at him, daring him to deny it.

   “Yes, but...”

   “Shhh, here comes Maurice,” I whispered, flirtatiously straightening Jorge’s tie.  “I’ll see you later my little stud muffin,” I crooned as I turned toward Maurice, who’s camera was rolling, of course.  I acted surprised to see him and I gave him an innocent little wave.  “Uh oh, you weren’t supposed to see that.”

   Maurice panned his camera in on Jorge’s embarrassed face.  “Go away Maurice,” he snapped.

Chapter 10

   That first week I was in Hollywood flew by, and as the weeks turned into a full month, I have to say, I was beginning to see a tiny glimmer of hope in my terribly mismatched team. 

   As green as Ron was, he had more determination than anyone I had ever met.  Elena had also become quite inspired as Ron improved and they were actually starting to impress me with the way they skated together.  Soon, I was comfortable enough to introduce them to a few easy dance steps for opening night.

   I was still a bit aggravated with Ron’s arrogance, he had nearly ruined his feet by pushing himself with his extra skating.  Those first few weeks I spent at least 20 minutes before each practice, covering all his blisters with moleskin before he could even get his skates on.

   Our whirlwind month of training was drawing to an end, and we would now fall into a new routine as the actual competition began.  We were to have practices on Mondays and Tuesdays, then we would tape the first show of the season on Wednesday and it would air on Thursday night.  Then on Fridays we would begin working on the next week’s program, and start the whole process over again.

   I was dreading our first taping, as I sat in the conference room with the network executives as they went over the story line for the upcoming season premier.  The actual skating part of the show was going to be filmed in front of a live audience and the show itself, was going to feature clips of our interviews and, of course, clips of all the drama during our practices.

   The skating portion of this first show was merely going to feature a 30 second intro skate for each team, which would simply introduce the audience to each team and highlight a bit of what they had learned thus far.

   For my team’s intro, I had picked a 30 second clip from the song “Smooth” by Santana, for Ron and Elena to skate to.  I was teaching them a few dance steps that had a bit of a tango influence.  I didn’t want them to do anything too fancy, lest Ron might be laying on the ice. 

   I was a bit frustrated, even with the tango steps, the whole thing seemed a little lame.  I wanted something memorable, this was their intro for the entire season, I wanted my team to make a stunning impression on the judges and the viewers.  What could I have them do, that no other team would even try?  I wanted my team to stand out, but Ron could barely skate, let alone wow the audience with some technically difficult stunt.

   Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea!  If I could teach Ron and Elena a death spiral for their intro, it would completely blow everyone away.  I wasn’t sure if they could master it by Wednesday or not.  It should be easy enough for Ron, if he could plant his skate in the ice and maintain his footing enough to allow Elena to glide around him on the ice. 

   The hard part, was that Elena had never been a pairs skater, so she had no experience doing a death spiral.  Trusting your partner was an integral part of this move.  Elena seemed to barely tolerate Ron!

   Ron was staring at me blankly when I announced excitedly what I wanted them to do.  Of course, the name does sound rather daunting, though Ron was not the one who’s life was in danger.  Elena, at least, knew what I was talking about, and she downright refused to even try it. 

   “Are you crazeee?  He weel keel me!” cried Elena, glaring at me as if I were a complete idiot.

   I was frowning and rolling my eyes.  Why did Elena even come on this show?  Maybe since I had virtually grown up doing these things, they didn’t seem all that scary to me.  Personally, I thought she was being a big baby.   I had already decided, if we were going to stand out during our intro on Wednesday night, we needed to do it, unfortunately, my team was not convinced.  I frowned with the realization that if we were going to try this, I would just have to be the guinea pig.  I would try it with Ron first, if things went well, I would work on coercing Elena to try it.

   I explained to Ron what he needed to do, he basically just needed to skate in a small circle, holding my arm, and keep my head from hitting the ice.  It seemed easy enough, but I was suddenly nervous.  What was I thinking?  Ron was, by no means, a skater and I hadn’t done a death spiral in years.  I had just recently turned forty three years old!  Luckily, my life meant little to nothing to me anymore, all I had left were my children, and they were both far away at college.  Really, what did I have to loose?

   Elena was staring at me in shock, as I gave Ron a few last minute instructions before we actually tried the stunt.  Elena was watching wide eyed as we skated around and gained speed for our first try.  I felt a twinge of fear as I grasped Ron’s hand tightly and I slowly leaned into the spin, my back parallel to the surface of the ice.  I’m sure Elena thought that I had completely lost my mind!

   On that first try, I hadn’t quite got my edge, so my foot slid out from under me, and I skidded across the ice on my back.  Ron was horrified, but it really wasn’t his fault.  Like I said, I hadn’t attempted this in years.  I was beside myself with excitement that we had come so close to nailing it!

   I was anxious to try the move again, but Ron was not so enthusiastic.  He wanted me to give it up, he was afraid I would get hurt.  I was finally able to coerce him to try it one more time.  Our second attempt was much better.  We made two nice rotations, then Rob pulled me up so hard, I almost fell on top of him.  As I struggled to right myself, I looked up to see that  he was gazing down at me, admiringly.  I almost fell right on my butt, I was caught more than a little bit off guard.

  “Wow, that was completely incredible,” said Ron, smiling down at me.  He was beaming at me proudly.

   “Well, if you pull Elena up that hard, we might have to retrieve her from across the rink,” I told him with a smile.

   I had to look away.  I was very uncomfortable, he was still smiling at me, and for some reason, my heart was pounding with an adrenaline rush.  I wasn’t sure if it was because I had just pulled off the craziest move of my middle aged life, or if I was just charmed by his dazzling smile.

   It seemed as if I was paralyzed, I was standing there staring up at him, suddenly completely mesmerized by his smile. Abruptly, I was snapped back to reality by Jorge’s voice booming across the ice.

  “Lane Jensen, you are completely amazing!” cried Jorge. I was completely stunned to see Jorge standing there, near the entrance of the ice.

   I whipped around quickly and tried to conceal the look of pure guilt that was washing across my face.  Jorge was standing there at the edge of the ice waving at me, I couldn’t read his face at all.  Elena was smiling sweetly at him.  Of course she was, he was a producer, and her ticket to stardom, or so she thought. 

   I tried to hide my embarrassment, I’d been caught in the act of ogling.  Of course, Maurice was right there, with his camera trained on our every move.  I grimaced painfully, I couldn’t get away with anything, I’d totally forgotten about Maurice.

   I gave Jorge a guilty smile, hopefully, he hadn’t noticed that I had been gazing up into Ron’s eyes like a school girl with a massive crush.

  “That was amazing, obviously, I picked the wrong woman to do the actual skating,” said Jorge, giving Elena a meaningful glance as he waved her away distastefully.  “Lane darling, may I have a brief word with you?”

   My heart sank guiltily.  The jig was up, Jorge had seen everything.  He had trusted me, now, I was about to get a lecture.  I hesitated briefly, then I skated toward the gate, Maurice started to follow me with his camera.

   “No, I do not think so, Mr. Dubois, please take your little toy elsewhere,” said Jorge, waving him away like a child.

   Maurice rolled his eyes, then he turned abruptly and trained his camera on Ron, who shook his head miserably, then calmly skated away.

   “What?” I snapped, as I skated up to Jorge.

   “What, exactly, do you think you are doing?” he cried.

   “I thought a death spiral would spice up our 30 second intro.  I wanted to do something no other team would even attempt this early in the game.  Elena refused to even try it, she’s afraid because Ron is so big and clumsy.  I knew he would be fine. I thought that if Ron could do it with me, she would see it was okay, then she would try it,” I told him shrugging nonchalantly.

   “Listen Lane, I may be gay, but I am not completely blind as to what is going on here.  If you would let him, Ron would do it with you, then where would we be?” cried Jorge.

   “What are you talking about?  I was only skating with him, isn’t that what you hired me for?” I cried indignantly.

   “I know what I did not hire you for!  I do not know what kind of crazy, middle age, chemistry you and Ron Brannon have together, but you need to put a lid on it!  There is a spark there, I can see it.  I imagine it is only a matter of time before everyone can see it!  I realize you’re divorced and it’s probably been months since you got laid, but you can’t do this, he’s married Lane!” cried Jorge, he was waving his arms excitedly as if he were on the edge of a breakdown.

   “Jorge!” I cried, my face suddenly turning red with embarrassment, my life totally sucked, I didn’t need Jorge to point that out to me.

   “I understand...you have needs...there are plenty of single men in Hollywood...”

   “Jorge, for God’s sake!  I didn’t do anything!” I cried, struggling to keep my voice at a reasonable tone.  It wanted to creep up an entire octave in hysteria.  My heart was pounding nervously in my chest.  I wasn’t sure why I was feeling a strange attraction to Ron, but I couldn’t help it.  No matter what I felt, I already knew I couldn’t act on those feelings, the fact that Jorge kept bringing it up, was making me crazy!

   “Lane, I was so excited when I walked into the rink today and saw that you were teaching him the death spiral.  With your talent and drive, you could take that hopeless team all the way to the finals, that is how much confidence I have in you.  I mean, if the two of you could just work together as coach and student, I would be fine.”

   “Jorge!”

   “Lane, I believed you, when you told me there was nothing between the two of you, I trusted your judgement.  Now that I have seen it first hand, I am very worried.  He has feelings for you Lane, I saw it on his face.  I seriously doubt that the two of you can work together closely, and not act on those feelings for nearly twelve weeks.”

   “Jorge please, I’m trying to make this work, we’re just friends for God’s sake!” I cried, trying to keep my voice low, so only Jorge could hear me.

   “Lane, you are essentially single now.  If he made the moves on you, do you really think you could resist him?  I mean look at him, he’s yummy,” said Jorge, flashing me a sly smile.

   “Jorge really...he’s married.  Of course, I’m attracted to him, I guess I just can’t help it.  But believe me when I tell you, you have nothing to worry about, we’re just friends.”

   “I trust you to keep it that way, do you understand?” he asked, staring into my eyes determinedly.

   “Yes Jorge,” I told him, rolling my eyes miserably.

   “You can wait twelve weeks, right?  When the show is over you can screw his brains out if you wish, but not before,” said Jorge, giving me a coy smile. 

   “Jorge, you know you’re the only one for me,” I crooned, then I turned to skate back out on the ice.  I had work to do, I didn’t really want, or need a lecture.  Ron was off limits, I realized that.  Jorge grabbed my arm, before I could skate away.

   “I mean it Lane, I will not have the negative publicity, it would ruin everything.  I know you, of all people, are well aware of the power of negative publicity,” he crooned, giving me a meaningful glance.

   I snatched my arm from his grasp and glared into his eyes.  It was true, I knew all too well the power of negative publicity.  It was a destructive force that seemed to have a life of it’s own.  Once it gained a foothold, it would leave reality in the dust, leaving it’s victims completely powerless to stop it. 

   Jorge had done his research on me, he knew that the media had destroyed my life years ago.  I wasn’t about to let that happen again.  “I know Jorge, trust me, just let it go,” I snapped, then I gave him a dazzling smile and skated away.