Claire Voyant

by Saralee Rosenberg

  “Not necessary.” He smiled. “I’ll tell you. Just promise not to freak out on me.”

  “I’m cool. In my line of work I meet tons of celebrities. They’re just like you and me.”

  He leaned in and whispered a name in my ear. “Except for her,” I gulped. “Oh my God.”

  Drew tried to shush me, but at that point I couldn’t stop the Ohmygodathon. Could you blame me? I had just learned that the man who had died on my lap was the father of the legendary Golden Globe–winning actress Penny Nichol.

  “I expected you to be excited, but…”

  “It’s not what you think. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love her. She’s my idol. But there’s something I have to tell you, and now you have to promise not to freak out.”

  “Okay….”

  “This is so bizarre, I’m shaking.” I placed my hand over my heart. “Okay…. When we were on the plane, it so happened that I was reading People magazine, and I was looking at this picture of your Aunt Penny at her birthday party, and thinking, wow doesn’t she look amazing at fifty!” You are such a liar. “Then all of a sudden, your grandfather collapses, and lands right smack on her picture.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me!”

  Drew’s loudness stirred Ben. “What’s going on?”

  “I told Claire about Aunt Penny.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow.

  “What the hell is the difference? She’s in the business.”

  “Exactly.” Ben whispered. “Isn’t that why we agreed not to say anything?”

  “Hey, look. She just tried to save Pops’ life, okay? Be nice. And listen to what she told me.”

  Ben looked at me to make sure there were no hard feelings for withholding his sister’s identity, and I smiled. As if I’d ever try to take advantage of the personal connection.

  “I’m paraphrasing,” Drew continued. “But basically Claire just told me that when they were on the plane, she was looking at Aunt Penny in People, and that’s when Pops plotzed on the page.”

  Ben laughed. “Claire, do you swear you’re not making that up?”

  “Why would I lie?” I’ve already reached my quota for the day.

  “Was he looking at the picture with you?” Drew asked.

  “I don’t think so. He’d been nodding on and off for a few minutes.”

  “Even if he did see it, he wouldn’t have recognized her anyway.” Ben sneered.

  “She’s had some work done.” Drew lowered his voice.

  No, my car has had some work done. Penny had a major overhaul, according to my sources who frequent the same Beverly Hills plastic surgeons.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something?” Ben said.

  “Not at all.”

  “When my dad talked about the family, did he happen to mention anything…about Penny?”

  Even in my inebriated state, I knew a loaded question when it was pointed at my head. “No. Not a single word.” At last. The truth.

  Ben looked relieved, and I could tell that I’d just saved him thousands in therapy.

  “He did talk a lot about you though.” I smiled. “In fact, I remember thinking, wow, he seems so proud of his son’s accomplishments.” Please don’t be a convicted felon out on parole.

  Now Ben beamed, and I thought, Hey, maybe I could become a professional liar. I was obviously quite good at it, and look how helpful I was being.

  “See? I told you he wasn’t mad anymore.” Drew smacked his father’s arm. “He was worried that Pops died angry at him because we’d moved him into an assisted living center.”

  “It was nothing like a nursing home,” Ben blurted.

  “Actually he told me how much he loved it there,” I said. “He had started to make friends and—”

  “Really?” Ben said. “That’s strange. Because the last time I spoke to the administrators, they said that he almost never came out of his apartment, he didn’t want to go on any outings—”

  Ooops. Delete, delete, delete. “You know? He did say that. But then he met a nice man down the hall, they started playing cards, and next thing he knew, he had all these new friends.”

  “Isn’t that great, Dad? See? You were worried for nothing.”

  “I can’t tell you how much this means to me.” Ben took my hand.

  “Hey, you know what?” Drew leaned in. “I was just thinking. Maybe we should have Claire speak at the funeral.”

  Oh fuck! “Oh no, no, no. I couldn’t possibly do that. I mean, he was such a nice man, and we had a wonderful few hours together, but—”

  “That’s what I mean.” Drew stopped me. “My Pops’ last few hours on earth were incredible, all because of you. Dad, don’t you think everyone would want to hear Claire tell the story?”

  “I don’t know. It might be a nice touch.”

  “No, wait.” I had to stop this runaway train. “I mean I’m honored, of course. I just wouldn’t feel right taking someone else’s place who, you know, was closer to him.”

  Great. Now my sentences were repeating on me like pepperoni. That’s exactly what I’d said to Elyce when I tried to get out of being her bridesmaid. Little did I know that I’d suddenly be in such demand to appear in weddings and funerals. Whatever happened to the old-fashioned rule of asking people you actually knew?

  “But you’re the only one who shared his final moments.” Drew gave me puppy dog eyes. “I know it would mean a lot to our family.”

  “Well, look,” Ben offered. “We obviously haven’t had time to finalize the arrangements, but we did book the funeral chapel for Wednesday morning. Why don’t you think about it?”

  Ha! What did I tell you? A perfectly nice funeral is being put together in less than two days. Why not a wedding? Wait until I tell Elyce.

  Meanwhile, I told Ben and Drew that I was deeply touched by their wanting to include me in the service, but that I’d only planned to be in Florida for a few days to help my grandmother and might have a possible modeling assignment. Not to mention I hadn’t brought a single thing to wear that would be suitable for a funeral. Three damn good reasons, but not why I was hedging.

  The bottom line was that I may have been able to snow these guys because they were in mourning and vulnerable. But no matter how good an actress I was, I just couldn’t see myself getting up to make a speech filled with bald-faced lies to perpetuate the notion that Abe Fabrikant and I were buddies. I was a fraud, not a fool.

  And yet in spite of all that, I heard myself say yes. Not because of Ben’s generous offer to pay for a shopping spree and a trip to his wife’s hairstylist. Not because of Drew’s tight hug, although his woodsy aftershave made me weak. Not even because this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ingratiate myself with Penny the Great, tempting as that was.

  It was something more mysterious and unexplainable. A voice in my head that nearly cast me off my seat. The voice of a man saying please over and over again like a mantra.

  Was my Grandpa Harry trying to reach me from the other side? Doubtful, as he hadn’t seemed all that interested in me when he was on this side. Besides, the voice I was hearing was gentle and soothing, not shrill like I remembered hearing as a kid. The word please more like a message of peace than a stern lecture from the late Harry Moss. And then it hit me. If I wasn’t hearing from my grandfather, maybe I was hearing from Drew’s.

  Why this was happening to me, I had no idea. I wasn’t one of those spiritual can’t-think-without-my-green-tea kind of people who ran to psychic fairs on weekends or who consulted Sir Singh, the Tarot card reader, before making a major purchase. I never had premonitions or saw auras. Hell, I never even opened fortune cookies.

  And if Abe Fabrikant was going to make the effort to contact someone on earth, first appearing to me in human form, then whispering messages, why would he choose me, Claire-Awful-Person-Greene? I was his last impression of the human race, and hardly the way I’d think he’d want to remember us.

  Then again, who was I to question the will of a spirit? If h
e was trying to communicate with me for whatever reason, I had better pay attention. Maybe he had an important message for me. Although with my luck, the message would sound like a threat from the Wicked Witch of Miami. “Speak at my funeral, and I’ll get you, my pretty.”

  Good job, Abe. The dead guy one. Claire nothing.

  Chapter 5

  “IF TREFFIC STAYS GOOD, WE BE ET SOUTH BEACH IN BLINK OF YUR eye,” my chauffeur said. “Do you like more air?”

  “No, thanks, Viktor.” I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Everything is perfect.”

  And I wasn’t saying that just to be polite, like the time my deli-owner boyfriend Max surprised me with one of those hideous Coach pocketbooks with the million C’s, and I had to jump up and down like an excited schoolgirl (he actually told me to say the C stood for Claire, as if anyone over the age of eleven wasn’t familiar with the designer signature).

  Seriously, the death of Abe Fabrikant notwithstanding, this day was starting to feel like the grand prize from one of those stupid reality shows. How else to explain that I was heading down 95 South to Raphael de Miro’s studio in a white stretch limousine, sipping chilled champagne and with feet on the seat, watching my friend Renee get slapped on One Life to Live?

  Or that when I called the temperamental Mr. de Miro to plead my case to let me do the test shoot later in the day, he couldn’t have been lovelier? “Whenever you get here, dear,” he said.

  What was wrong with this picture? For starters, I wasn’t used to riding in the back of a limo alone. Usually I was some rich guy’s eye candy for the night, too busy fending off the customary predate groping and grinding to enjoy the trip.

  As for the nice treatment from Raphael? A real mystery. My friend Sydney had warned that the prickly photographer had once left Heidi Klum in a fetal position because he didn’t care for her work. “They don’t call him Saddam Scavullo for nothing.”

  Meanwhile, I was trying to make sense of my quandary. It seemed the more I lied, the better the treatment. The Fabrikants thought I was Claire, Queen of Kindness. I thought I was a royal ass.

  Extreme guilt forced me to mull over the possible repercussions if I should suddenly confess the truth to Ben and Drew. But what would I say? Did I happen to mention I have a multiple personality disorder, and now that I’m somebody else, I just remembered I didn’t get friendly with Mr. Fabrikant? In fact, it turns out, I never said a fucking word to him?

  Couldn’t do it. For as soon as I agreed to speak at the funeral, they were so in love with me, so intent on repaying my good deeds, I blew the chance to rescind my story. And just as well. For when Drew heard I was cabbing it down to South Beach, then heading to my grandmother’s place in North Miami, he said, “Nothing doing. The least we can do is get you a limo.”

  Frankly, I didn’t put up a fuss for two reasons. I was happy to save the minimum eighty dollars it would have cost me to schlep all over town. And second, when Drew told me not to worry because the family owned a fleet of cars, it dawned on me that luxury transportation might be a mere segment of their holdings. Could you blame me for being curious about what else was under their conglomerate hood?

  Until that moment, I swear I had no idea that the Fabrikants were loaded. Yes, Ben and Drew were smartly dressed, but they were wearing Florida casual. And with the way that Ralph Lauren discounted these days, for all I knew, they shopped at Marshall’s like everyone else.

  So when I asked my driver to tell me about this nice family he worked for, I wasn’t expecting to hear that the Fabrikants were south Florida’s answer to the Gatsbys. That their name was synonymous with opulent wealth because Ben managed to use his entrepreneurial instincts to parlay the profits from his father’s furniture business into a chain of exclusive clubs all over town where celebrities and the paparazzi gathered nightly.

  In fact, his newest club, By the C (C for Cuba; now, that was adorable), had just been named by Florida magazine as Miami Beach’s number one go-to place for the toweled-off crowd and was so coveted by club-hoppers that when it was closed temporarily due to a kitchen fire, the other Ocean Drive nightspots were thankful for even the short reprieve.

  “I wotch and I learn. In thees country, a kesh business is the way to go.” Viktor talked to me through the rearview mirror. “What ken the government do? Collect money they don’t know ehbout? No. Em I right?”

  Okay, Viktor. Here’s a little English test. Spell IRS, tax evasion and jail. “Well, I’m sure the Fabrikants are very honest businesspeople.”

  “Who ken afford to be honest? You get keeled in texes. I say, give us more tex credits. Give us more deductions. Em I right?”

  “Amen to that.” Why was it that the only people who knew how to run the country either cut hair or drove limos? “So you were saying before, Ben practically owns the Miami night scene?”

  “He hez so much businesses, he ken’t keep them all straight. But to tell the truth, Abe was my real Ameriken hero,” Viktor sniffed. “He give my father job, he help bring my femily here. He bought us house…. A better men there never was. Em I right?”

  “A saint.” I gulped. Shit, Claire! Next big lightning storm, and guess who’s gonna be toast?

  “I’m so sed he’s gone.” Viktor bowed his head. Not a good thing for a driver who is cruising at seventy miles per hour. “But the rest of thi bunch?” He suddenly came to. “Crazy, crazy, crazy.”

  “Really? They seem pretty normal to me.”

  Not so, according to the well-informed Viktor, who was clearly unfamiliar with confidentiality agreements, as there didn’t seem to be much he was afraid to say. Particularly on the subject of Ben’s marital history.

  Seems Ben’s first wife, Doreen, the doctor’s daughter, divorced him after catching him, drawers down, in a little bedroom duet with Desiree, the Dominican dancer.

  A year later, against his family’s wishes, Ben married this Desiree lady. Only to have the union last about as long as a Beatles album, thanks to a freak boating accident on the Intercoastal. Sadly, the poor girl had a few too many, and did a “Natalie Wood” over the side of Ben’s yacht. The police reports said it was accidental, but job-secure Viktor had no problem speculating that the tragedy could have been avoided if Mr. Ben hadn’t pushed her. “Strong winds, my ess.”

  Not a big believer in long mourning periods, Ben started dating even before his black funeral suit came back from the cleaners. This time, a swimsuit model and spokesperson for a chain of tanning salons caught his eye. “He called her fifties wrepped in hundreds.” Viktor sighed.

  Little did Ben know that the former Shari Deveraux was not only a single parent, but a grieving widow like himself. And with such a common bond, they clung to one another as if they were the last lovers for miles. Even after Shari’s young son Andrew was brought into the picture, Ben insisted that he had never been more in love, and proposed yet again.

  “My father say to heem. Mr. Ben, if you get the meelk for free, why buy the cow?”

  But in spite of that expert marital advice, Ben, Shari, and Drew walked down the rose-strewn aisle together and were the toast of the town. Nothing was more coveted than an invitation to party at their lavish waterfront home in Gables Estates, or to travel the seas in their ninety-foot Cheoy Lee yacht.

  But even the good life, like cow’s milk, can have a limited shelf life. And if you believed Viktor and the local gossip columns, the marriage was curdling, thanks to their twelve-year age difference and Shari’s difficulty sticking to those little vows recited before God at the wedding.

  “Some days I ken’t keep treck who iz in beck.” Viktor snapped his gum. “Who iz the decorator, the lover, the lawyer, the trainer…. End now their little girl, Delia, is like her mother with the parties and the drinking…. It’s crazy, em I right?”

  As if this weren’t enough of a guide to the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Ferklempt,” here is what Viktor had to say about the dashing Dr. Drew:

  He and his fiancée, Marly Becker, met on blind date, arrange
d by their fathers, no less. Apparently, Ben had been doing business for years with Milt Becker, the owner of the largest linen supply company in south Florida, when they discovered they both had single kids on the prowl.

  Although neither father expected the couple to click, a year later Drew proposed on bended knee. Unfortunately, the romantic act must have cut off his circulation, for a few months later he got cold feet and started calling old girlfriends, one of whom used the same manicurist as Marly.

  And as any girl knows, news in the nail business travels faster than a fill-in. Once the two customers discovered their mutual love interest, Marly drove over to By the C, chucked her perfect four-karat solitaire engagement ring into the five-hundred-gallon aquarium, and waved her ringless finger in Drew’s direction. He would never look at fishing the same way again.

  Eventually he came to his senses and begged forgiveness from her and her mother, Sharon. Soon the Becker girls were working on take two of the November nuptials, and one thing was certain. Marly’s mother was her best friend, and therefore her matron of honor. Not that Drew saw anything wrong with that.

  At this point, I was glad to be nearing Casa de Miro, because my head was spinning from having listened to thirty minutes of rapid-fire details about these mega-rich, out-of-their-minds Floridians who only a few hours earlier I never even knew existed.

  Whenever Grandma Gertie did this to me, chewed my ear off with stories about the people in her building and their meshugina spouses and former spouses and siblings and children and cleaning ladies and cleaning ladies’ children, I’d yell, “TMI, Grams. Too much information.”

  “I gotta hand it you, Viktor,” I said when he pulled up in front of the pink stucco building in the middle of bustling Collins Avenue. “You’re a fountain of information.”

  “It’s my business to know what goes on. People like to esk me, ‘How do they live?’”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Thi Sun, thi Enquirer, thi Globe…”

  “So, wait. You’re saying you’re on more than one payroll?”