Authors: Laura Levine
Pampered to Death (4 page)
T
he next morning the true torture began. I was in the middle of a heavenly dream starring me, George Clooney, and a cherry cheesecake, when someone started pounding on my door with what sounded like a sledgehammer.
he next morning the true torture began. I was in the middle of a heavenly dream starring me, George Clooney, and a cherry cheesecake, when someone started pounding on my door with what sounded like a sledgehammer.
Bolting awake, I checked the clock on my nightstand.
Good heavens. It was only 5:45
A.M.!
Even the roosters were still wiping sleep from their eyes.
A.M.!
Even the roosters were still wiping sleep from their eyes.
I staggered out of bed to get the door and found Olga in drill sergeant mode, a whistle hanging from a lanyard around her neck.
“Nature Walk in fifteen minutes!” she announced.
Nature Walk? Was she kidding? What about breakfast??
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Start getting dressed. We’re meeting in the lobby.”
With that she moved down the hall and resumed her sledge-hammer act.
Fifteen minutes later, I left Prozac yowling in protest over the diet glop I’d sloshed in her bowl and headed for the lobby, where I found all my fellow inmates.
All except Mallory.
“Hurry up, Mallory!” Olga called up to the second floor where Mallory’s digs were apparently located.
“Be right down, sweetie,” Mallory trilled from above.
But she did not come right down. On the contrary. Our resident prima donna kept us waiting a good twenty minutes—twenty minutes I could’ve been snuggled in bed, dreaming of G. Clooney and cherry cheesecakes.
Meanwhile the rest of us just hung around, cooling our heels.
Kendra, her pout in full bloom, sat cross-legged on the floor, tapping her feet impatiently.
Harvy made himself comfy on the bottom steps of the staircase, busily texting a message on his cell. Somehow, in the short time we’d been given to get dressed, he’d managed not only to mousse his hair to perfection, but to put together an outfit straight out of a Ralph Lauren photo shoot.
Nearby, Clint passed the time with a series of steroid-enhanced hamstring stretches while Cathy yammered in Olga’s ear about how wonderful she felt on her new diet regime.
“Honestly,” she was gushing, “I think I’ve lost weight already!”
Olga nodded absently, glaring up at the staircase, her jaw clenched tighter with each passing minute.
Finally, Mallory came sailing down the stairs with Armani in her arms. Both wore matching turquoise jog suits, Mallory’s hoodie unzipped low enough to reveal a honker emerald pendant nestled in her cleavage.
Interesting accessory choice for a nature hike, I thought, staring down at my own Dudley Do-Right wristwatch.
“So sorry we’re late,” she trilled. “Armani didn’t like his outfit. So I had to change him three times.”
She tsked at her little charge, who graced her with a petulant yip.
“Here, Kendra,” she said, shoving the dog into her assistant’s arms. “You take him. He doesn’t feel like walking today, so I promised you’d carry him.”
“If he didn’t feel like walking,” Kendra scowled, “why didn’t you leave him in your room?”
“Don’t be silly. You know Armani doesn’t wike to be awone. Do you, snoogums?” Mallory cooed.
Puh-leese. There’s only so much a person can take on an empty stomach.
“Okay, everybody,” Olga said, with a shrill blast of her whistle. “Let’s move it.”
She led the way out beyond the pool area to the wooded hills behind her property.
“Now start walking,” she commanded.
“Up the hill?” I blinked in dismay at the incline in front of us. It looked awfully steep.
“Yes, up the hill! Get cracking.”
Another blast of that dratted whistle and the trek began.
I regret to inform you that the slope was every bit as steep as it looked.
Within minutes, I was gasping for air, my face bathed in a fine mist of sweat.
I am, after all, a woman who gets winded running to the 7-11 for Oreos.
Trudging upward, I noticed that once again, The Haven’s caste system was in effect. Mallory, Clint, and Harvy followed directly behind Olga—Harvy chattering about how fabulous Mallory looked in turquoise, and Mallory strolling down memory lane with Clint, reliving their good old days shooting
Revenge of the Lust Busters.
Revenge of the Lust Busters.
Kendra tagged behind with the irascible Armani, who persisted in barking at every bird that had the temerity to cross his path.
And bringing up the rear were the Cellulite Twins, me and Cathy.
Cathy was still blathering about how happy she was to be at The Penitentiary (I mean, The Haven) and how she could practically feel the pounds melting away. Soon I had tuned her out, wondering instead exactly how long it would take before my lungs collapsed.
In the midst of my musings I heard Cathy say, “So what do you think, Jaine?”
Oh, hell. She’d asked me a question.
“What do I think?”
“About us being diet buddies. You know. Watching out for each other in case either of us is tempted to cheat.”
Please. The only thing tempting me right then were thoughts of suicide.
“Er, sure,” I found myself saying.
Oh, Lord. What had I just done? The last thing I wanted was a diet buddy. Due to a lack of oxygen to my brain, however, I’d obviously lost my powers of reasoning.
By now my heart was pounding like a bongo and sweat was gushing from every pore. Just when I thought I could not take another step without an oxygen tent, Olga gave another blast of her dratted whistle.
“Pick up the pace, you two!”
Damn. She was talking to me and Cathy. And she actually expected us to walk faster! Clearly the woman had spent her formative years training at the Marquis de Sade Military Academy.
Gasping for air like a beached guppy, I forced myself to go faster, and somehow Cathy and I managed to catch up with Kendra.
Thank heavens the exertion had shut Cathy up. It was during this blessed silence, broken only by the occasional yip from Armani, that Mallory turned back to Kendra and said, “Don’t forget. We have to call Daddy today and wish him a happy birthday.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Kendra snipped in reply. “He’s my father, too, you know.”
Hello! That just about stopped me in my tracks.
“You two are sisters?” I managed to gasp.
Kendra nodded glumly, clearly the designated doormat in that relationship.
Poor Kendra, with her limp hair and grim American Gothic lips. Except for her eyes, which I now saw were a rather lovely green, she bore little resemblance to her glam sister.
Lucky Mallory got all the pretty genes.
I spent the rest of the hike simultaneously pondering the fickle nature of heredity and praying for the torture to end.
At last it did.
We finally reached the top of the hill.
Below us was an unobstructed view of the small coastal town where The Haven was located. And beyond that, the majestic Pacific. White-crested waves crashed to the shore in the silvery light of the morning sun.
“Isn’t that the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen?” Cathy gushed.
“It sure is,” I replied, my eyes riveted—not on the Pacific—but on the bright red awning of the local pizza parlor.
I knew where I’d be going after dinner that night.
One mushroom and pepperoni pizza, coming right up.
With extra anchovies for Prozac, of course.
Dripping with sweat, I trudged back to my room to shower and change before breakfast, which was still an agonizing forty-five minutes away.
(Why I wasted time on that shower I’ll never know, since I’d be sweating bullets before the morning was over.)
I was almost finished dressing when I heard a knock on the door.
I opened it to find The Haven’s maid, a perky slip of a thing whose name tag read DELPHINE. Like Kevin the chef, she was probably somewhere in her late teens. A splash of freckles dotted her nose, and her shiny black hair was pulled back in a pony tail.
“I didn’t realize you were still here,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Should I come back later?”
“No, that’s all right,” I said, motioning for her to come in. “I’m almost ready to leave.”
Seconds later she wheeled in a big creaky supply cart.
Prozac, who had been engaged—as she often is in times of stress—in a thorough examination of her privates, suddenly looked up from her perch on my bed, her pink nose twitching.
With meteor-like speed, she then zoomed over to the cart and started sniffing furiously at the towels on the bottom shelf.
Which, of course, had me baffled. Never once in all her years sniffing smelly sneakers and trash cans had she ever shown the slightest interest in freshly laundered towels.
“Prozac, what on earth are you doing?”
Delphine smiled serenely.
“Oh, your kitty probably smells the pastrami.”
“Pastrami?”
With that, Delphine lifted a few strategically placed towels to reveal a cornucopia of breakfast pastries, gourmet cat food, and packaged sandwiches. One of which was the aforementioned pastrami.
My God, that sandwich looked good, I thought, my salivary glands jolting awake.
“The pay here stinks,” Delphine explained, “so I have to do something to supplement my income. I’m working my way through community college,” she added, a hint of pride in her voice.
What an enterprising little angel of mercy!
“Would you care to stock up on some goodies?” She gestured to her wares like Vanna White revealing a vowel.
Would I ever! I came
thisclose
to throwing my arms around her tiny waist and sobbing in gratitude.
thisclose
to throwing my arms around her tiny waist and sobbing in gratitude.
“How much?” I asked, trying not to drool.
“Fifteen for the Danish, twenty for the Fancy Feast, and thirty for the pastrami sandwich.”
“Thirty cents for a pastrami sandwich?” I asked.
My angel of mercy sure didn’t have much of a head for business.
“Hahahahahahaha,” she trilled gaily. “Not cents. Dollars. Fifteen bucks for the danish, twenty for the cat food, and thirty for the sandwich.”
“Thirty bucks for a pastrami sandwich?” I blinked in disbelief.
“Five bucks extra if you want mustard.”
“That’s outrageous!”
“Take it or leave it,” she shrugged.
By now, Prozac was frantic with desire, practically pulling the tab on the Fancy Feast can herself.
“Looks like kitty is hungry,” Delphine said with a sly grin. “Perhaps she’d like some yummy lamb guts in savory sauce.”
Prozac glared up at me through slitted eyes.
If these lamb guts aren’t in my bowl in two minutes, yours will be.
Unwilling to face Prozac’s wrath, I forked over twenty bucks for a measly can of cat food.
To this day, I still seethe when I think about it.
“How about that pastrami?” Delphine asked, waving the overstuffed sandwich in my face. “I’ll give you a break on the mustard. For you, only two bucks extra.”
“Forget it!” I said, for once in my life exhibiting some willpower.
“Sooner or later you’ll break down,” she said, tossing the sandwich back into the cart. “Your kind always does.”
That last crack accompanied by a most snarky glance at my thighs.
But I wasn’t about to break down. No way. I hadn’t forgotten that pizza parlor in town. By the end of the day, I’d be wrapping myself around a nice juicy mushroom and pepperoni pizza.
Turning on my heel, I marched off to the bathroom where I tossed out Prozac’s diet breakfast and replaced it with the treasured lamb guts. Which she dove into like a B52 on overdrive.
Back in the bedroom, Delphine was busy making my bed. As she bent over the sheets, her back to me, I glanced at her supply cart, just inches from my fingertips. How easy it would be to reach down and swipe that pastrami sandwich.
It would serve Delphine right, for gouging her helpless victims the way she did.
Maybe I could even grab a Danish pastry while I was at it.
I was busy trying to ignore a lecture from my conscience on how Thou Shalt Not Steal—Not Even from Demon Teens, when I heard Delphine say:
“Don’t even think about it.”
Good heavens. Did the little monster have eyes behind her head?
Then I realized she was looking at my reflection in the mirror above the dresser.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said in my frostiest voice.
Bidding her a not-so-fond adieu, I headed out the door, with the scent of pastrami still lingering in my nostrils.
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