by Rachel Caine
Chapter Twenty-two
"Want my advice? Avoid the Fruit. " She meant Cherise, whom Genevieve had nicknamed Cherry back in the early days. Hence, the Fruit.
The costume hanging on the rack was an aqua-blue bikini.
I gulped and held it up. Not enough fabric to it to make a blindfold. It would be different if I was strutting it on the beach, or-better yet-wearing it for David, but for an audience in the hundreds of thousands. . . I felt faintly violated.
"Um, do I have a-"
"Choice?" Genevieve's laugh sawed the air. "You're funny, kiddo. "
I tried a smile, went behind the screen, and changed.
It was worse than I'd thought. I'd had the perfect bikini-in fact, I still had it in a drawer at home-and this wasn't it. It was way too Penthouse for public view, and it was designed for someone of Cherise's build, not mine. I felt like I was modeling fabric swatches. The thick bathrobe was a relief. I came out to give Genevieve a miserable look, and she raised one overplucked eyebrow in commiseration.
And then proceeded to torture my hair with hot irons until she was satisfied.
Thirty minutes later, I was walking onto the set, feeling like I was on my way to the electric chair. Clutching my bathrobe in a death grip. Cherise was sitting in a chair over to the side, looking like a thundercloud. I don't mean frowning, although she was doing that, of course. No, she looked like a thundercloud. As in, blue foam cloud suit, with little drops of silvery rain glittering all over it and hanging by wires. Her legs were covered in thick black tights.
I clapped my hands over my mouth in outright horror. She frowned harder.
"I did not ask for this," I blurted. "God, Cher-"
"I know," she interrupted. "It's not your fault. "
"This is awful. "
"Are you wearing my bikini under there?"
"We can quit. "
Cherise managed to look mutinous and defeated at the same time. "And do what? Flip burgers? Internet modeling? I've got my pride, you know. I'm a professional. "
Her little, silver suspended raindrops were shivering with indignation.
I swallowed a bubble of laughter and nodded. "Let's just get through this, okay?"
"I will if you will," she said, and looked around at the stagehands, who were all staring at us. Probably waiting for me to drop the bathrobe. "You! Assholes! Nobody drops water on me today unless you want to cash in on that pension, you got me?"
For a little thing, she was ferocious. Nobody answered.
Marvelous Marvin strolled onto the set, toothy as a land shark, and patted his stiff hair. "How do I look, girls?"
"Clark Gable and Valentino all rolled into one," Cherise said. He beamed at her and moved into his camera position. She glared after him. "They're dead, asshole. "
"Let me guess. Marvin's behind this?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. Marvin wants to ogle your ass for a while. And besides, he's pissed at me because I wouldn't put out. "
Usually, that would have been a joke, but the way she said it. . . "Seriously?"
She just looked at me.
"You're going to report him, right?"
"Oh, yeah, right. Like Bikini Girl is going to get any traction on a sexual-harassment issue. Plus, there's the whole issue of me having tormented the hell out of every HR person to the point where they run when they see me coming. " She eyed me speculatively. "But you, on the other hand. . . "
"Me?"
"If he snaps your bikini, you'd report him, right?"
"No," I said flatly. "I'd kill him. " Especially today. So not in the mood for this. I wanted to do this, grab my paycheck-which would be the last one, as I planned to be fleeing soon-and get the hell out.
Whatever Cherise was about to say was cut off by the command for silence on the set, and we stood in silence, waiting for our cues.
Hers came first. I watched her lumber out into public view in her thick, lumpy cloud costume. Watched Marvin deliver his lame-ass jokes at her expense. I'd never really looked at it from this side of the camera before. Damn, I had a really pathetic job.
Marvin had set up a water-drop joke. The stagehand didn't pull the bucket.
Cherise was just that scary, and besides, the stagehands were union. They didn't give a shit. When Marvin gave the signal, the stagehand up there just grinned, shrugged, and chomped gum.
Cherise gave him a behind-the-back thumbs-up.
Commercial break. The anchors sniped at each other over who had stepped on whose leads. One of them was rewriting an intro for the next piece. Badly.
Marvin speared me with a look and gave me the toothy grin of death.
"Joanne," he said. "Let's flash some skin. You're up. "
I took a deep breath and slid the bathrobe off of my shoulders, then folded it neatly on a chair. The air felt ice-cold on my all-too-exposed skin. I walked over onto the tiny ocean set, which had glittering white sand, a blue-sky backdrop, and an oversized beach ball. Marvin came over to join me. Close up, his tan looked a shade of orange that earthly sun didn't produce, and the professionally even smile didn't really disguise the ruthlessness in his eyes.
"Okay, this is the standard beach setup, right? So look pretty and nod. " He gave me an analytical once-over. "Turn around. "
"What?"
"Turn around. "
I didn't want to, but I did it, a fast circle. When I was halfway around, he reached out and stopped me.
"Your tag's showing," he said, and slipped his fingers into the back of my bikini bottom.
And snapped it.
And burst out laughing.
I spun, with perfect timing, and yanked his toupee off his head just as the camera operator finished his silent three-two-one countdown. The thing felt damp and dead-animal in my hand. I tossed it offstage, to where Cherise was standing.
She fielded it neatly, waved it like a battle flag, and grinned at me.
Marvin was not amused. The red light went on, and he was still glaring at me for a full two seconds before he pulled himself together enough to bare his teeth at the audience and start the shtick. His hair plugs looked naked and sickeningly experimental under the harsh lights, and some of them were standing up stiff as cornstalks from where I'd pulled the toupee off. We were talking about the possibilities for fun and sun in the next three days, I gathered. Marvin talked in totally unscientific generalities about updrafts and warm fronts, and gave us the assurance that we were over the worst so far as hurricane season went. "And I can personally guarantee that the next weekend is going to be spectacular!"
I stood hipshot in my best cover-model pose, waving and smiling. Presenting myself mostly in profile, because it seemed slightly less revealing than standing full-on or (God forbid) facing away.
Marvin turned to me and gave me the most furiously charming smile I'd ever seen.
I smiled back. Give us pistols at ten paces, and we'd be the picture of friendship.
"Why don't you read the forecast for the next week, Joanne?" he asked. Which gave me a pleasant little shock of surprise.
"Sure," I said warmly, and caught, too late, Cherise frantically making a no-go gesture with both hands. Damn. Whatever was coming, I'd just walked right into it.
"It's on the beach ball," he said.
The beach ball was behind me.
I froze, stared at him for a second, and then recovered my smile. "Would you get it for me, Marvin?"
He kept smiling. "Sorry. I'm busy. "
The whole point was, of course, to get me to turn my nearly naked ass to the camera. I bit the inside of my cheek and decided to just go for it. "Actually, Marvin, I'd like to give it a shot without the notes. "
Which wasn't what he expected or wanted to hear. He shot a look at the director, who made a bored keep-moving motion. "Sure. " He rolled his eyes for the benefit of the viewers.
"Well, Marvin, from the radar imaging you showed us earlier, it'
s pretty obvious that we have a warming trend moving in from the southwest, moving northeast. I'd say from the satellite time-lapse that we can expect to see some clouds later today with a strong possibility of afternoon showers, and by tomorrow, lows in the mid-eighties and highs topping out around ninety-two degrees. The dew point will be around seventy-four, with humidity of about eighty-four percent, rising through the weekend. We can expect to see some thunderstorms by tomorrow evening, about a seventy-three percent chance. So let's be careful out there. There should be some major electrical activity associated with these storms, as well as the possibility of rising winds. "
I finished it with a wide smile.
There was a stunned silence. The two anchors and the sports guy looked at each other in open-mouthed amazement; I guess they didn't think a girl in a bikini could so much as string together a sentence, much less deliver a coherent, scientific analysis.
I hadn't used even a little bit of Oversight to do it, either. I didn't think I was capable of that, at the moment. I'd done it all from my own observations last night, and the maps, and the same data Marvin had available at his disposal.
And I knew I was right. One hundred percent right.
Marvin looked like a gaffed fish. He must have realized it, because he flushed under the pancake makeup and forced a labored smile in return. "Ha! That's very funny, Joanne. You've been watching a little too much Weather Channel. " He broadly mugged for the camera. "Sorry, folks, but Joanne's forecast is completely wrong. There's not going to be any rain. I've already guaranteed it. "
"Want to bet?" I asked.
"Oh, we don't encourage gambling on our show," Marvin shot back, with a quick, frantic glance at the director. Who was looking enraptured with the sudden tension on the set, and gave him a go-ahead nod. "But I suppose a friendly wager, in the interest of science. . . "
"If it rains, Marvin, I think you should have to wear the Sunny Suit," I said sweetly.
The anchors laughed, off camera. Cherise had her fist stuffed in her mouth. All her silver, suspended raindrops were glittering as she shook.
Marvin sputtered and twisted, but after all, he'd given his personal guarantee.
"Well," he finally said, "I'll take that bet. Because Marvelous Marvin stands by his predictions!"
The anchors clapped. So did the stagehands, who were all giving me-not Marvin-a big, double thumbs-up.
Marvin did a back-to-you, and the newscast resumed. They were about to interview a 110-year-old man from Coral Gables who had a pet tortoise nearly his own age.
The red camera light flicked off, and Marvin lunged at me. I danced back through the sand, stepped off the narrow ledge onto the cold floor of the studio, and mouthed at him, Want to see my ass?
And then I turned, pointed to it, and walked away, head held high. Put my arm around the squishy mass of Cherise's costume, and walked her toward the door. I tossed the bathrobe over my shoulder on the way out and made sure that I was doing a full model's sashay, the entire time.
When I looked over my shoulder, Marvin was doing a silent dance of fury, right in the director's face. The stagehands were convulsed with silent laughter.
So endeth my career as Weather Girl. Sad, really. I was just getting to like it, in a perverse, kinky kind of way.
It occurred to me, on the drive back, that I had a lot to worry about.
Jonathan's threat was still in force, and although he'd temporarily forgotten about me, he was almost certainly going to come reinforce his point anytime now.
And whatever wistful hopes I had to repair the damage to David were now officially dead, buried, and had grass growing on their graves.
David was an Ifrit, and I didn't know how to get him back without human blood and the Ma'at. I was dangerously willing to get the human blood. The Ma'at, however, were notoriously not easy to convince, and with the Djinn in the middle of political warfare, that wasn't even vaguely an option.
When Jonathan showed up, I'd have to do what he said. I wouldn't have any choices left.
I felt such a crashing wave of anguish that it left me breathless, tears cold on my cheeks, and I pulled into a strip mall parking lot to let it pass.
It didn't pass. The waves kept coming, battering me, releasing more and more pain. It was as though a dam had broken inside of me, and I couldn't stop the flood.
I found myself hunched over, head against the steering wheel, hands over my stomach. Protecting my unborn child, my child who was just an idea, a possibility, a spark.
David was already gone, but he wasn't dead. He'd told me he had to die for the child to live. Probably.
I tried to sense something, anything, from her, but like the bottle that contained David in thick, obscuring glass, my own body refused to grant me a connection. Was she still there?
Please, I thought to her. Don't go.
It took me an hour to dry my tears and feel up to facing what was waiting for me at home.
When I arrived, Lewis and Kevin were gone. That wasn't totally a surprise; Lewis never had liked hanging around waiting for trouble, and he'd be thinking of Kevin, too. I wondered why the Ma'at weren't rallying to protect him. Yet another thing I should have found the time to ask.
I wished I hadn't missed Lewis, but at the same time, I was relieved. He'd have taken one look at my reddened eyes and known what I'd been crying about, and I wasn't really sure I could stand the sympathy just now.
When I closed the door, I heard Sarah banging around in the kitchen. By banging I mean cooking, with punctuation. I saw Eamon standing in the living room, sipping coffee, and raised my eyebrows; he raised his back and nodded toward the source of the noise.
"I think she's a bit unhappy," he said. "Considering that she walked out of the bedroom thinking she'd be alone in the house and, well, she wasn't. "
I blinked. "That was a problem?"
"It was the way she walked out of the bedroom. "
"You mean she was. . . ?"
