by Elise Sax
For a moment, I fantasize that he’s sneaking peeks at me because he’s madly in love with me, but he’s shy and is afraid to reveal his feelings for me. But this is Rock Clarke, international man of business, billionaire playboy. He’s not afraid of anything except for the IRS.
So, he’s probably looking at me because I missed a spot of asphalt on my face, or I have steak caught between my teeth. Either that or he’s never seen a woman eat this much food before.
“Do you always eat like this in your office?” I ask, scooping mashed potatoes onto my fork.
“No. I either skip lunch, or I do lots of business lunches. I’m sure you’ll do a few of those with me before we snag you a guy.”
I sigh and scoop up more potatoes. The joy of Operation Billionaire has flown out the window. I don’t want any billionaire. I want the man who’s sitting across from me, the man who used to flirt openly with me, but now is keeping himself in check, as if he thinks of me as his personal assistant.
Despite it all, I’m still out of my mind ecstatic that I’m breathing the same air as Rock. But I want more than air.
“You said there was chocolate cake?” I ask.
Rock’s easy on me for my first day. After we eat, he shows me my desk, which is in a small office next to his. “But you won’t spend too much time here. Just scheduling,” he assures me. “As my personal assistant, you’ll do more at my house, and hopefully this is very temporary.”
He winks at me, and my heart does a little skip. Then, he drives me to his house, which is a Malibu mansion right on the beach. The guest house is next door, and after he parks his car, he walks me over. Bessie runs out to greet us, as if she’s been looking out the window, waiting for us.
She takes a look at me in Rock’s sweats with my hair messed, and her mouth drops open. She gives me two thumbs up. Huh? I get pretty much the same reaction from Rosalind and my mother when we go inside.
Everyone’s beaming at me, as if I’ve won an Oscar. Instead of being upset with me for looking like a homeless person not a hot mama seductress, everyone’s thrilled with me. Have I done something right? Have I done something to make my backup proud of me?
I take track of my day: I fell down the stairs and landed on two flight attendants and wound up dressed in Rock’s big sweats with gum in my hair and most of my makeup washed off.
Nuh uh. I can’t figure out why that would make them proud.
I could understand if they were proud of me if I already bagged the billionaire, and my messed-up hair was sex hair, and I was wearing his clothes because he had stripped me out of mine, but…
Oh, wait.
I catch Rosalind’s eye, and I shake my head slightly, trying to convey the message that I haven’t seen Rock’s penis, and the reason I have gum in my hair is because I’m clumsy, not a sexual animal.
My little head shake does the trick. Rosalind’s smile vanishes immediately, and her Chanel-lipsticked lips flatten in a tight line, half-disappearing into her mouth.
“How you ladies doing?” Rock asks. “Are you being taken care of? You need anything?”
“I love your cable company,” my mother says from the couch. “Since I arrived, I’ve watched Judge Judy in Brazil. Judge Judy in Canada. And I think I’ve watched Judge Judy in Kazakhstan, or maybe it was Iceland. I get those two mixed up.”
“It’s not cable. It’s satellite,” Rock explains. “Five satellites combined. Not strictly legal, but we need our Icelandic Judge Judy, so what’s the harm in cutting a few corners?”
He plops down on the couch next to my mother and puts his feet up on the coffee table, his legs crossed at the ankles. Behind him is a large wall of windows, overlooking the beach and the ocean.
“Where are the babies?” I ask.
“All taking a nap at the same time,” Bessie says. “It’s a miracle from God. I guess it’s not the only miracle today, right?” She gives me a dramatic wink.
“What’s the strategy on Operation Billionaire?” Rock asks. He’s giddy with excitement. “What men do you have lined up?”
There’s a sudden drop of energy in the room, and everyone stops moving, except for my mom who only moves to turn off the television.
“What do you mean, what men do we have lined up?” Bessie asks and slaps a magazine against the side of Rock’s head.
“Hey!” he yells, rubbing his head. “What was that for?”
Rosalind sits next to him and crosses her long legs. “What do you mean, what men do we have lined up?” she asks him, her voice dripping calm and cool and scary alpha female.
“The guys for Operation Billionaire. For Olivia. That’s still on, right?” he asks.
He stares right at me, and I smile, weakly. I have no idea how this conversation is going to end. Is my team going to blurt out to him that he’s dumb and thick and obtuse because he hasn’t figured out that Operation Billionaire is targeting him, and he wants me, wants me bad, and he should get down on one knee right this second and put a ring on it because he’s damned lucky to be married forever to a woman in sweatpants and gum in her hair with four little children sleeping in the next room?
I hold my breath and wait for the fallout. I’m tempted to shield my face from shrapnel, which is sure to fly at any minute. But even Bessie keeps her mouth shut. I can almost hear everyone’s brain click into gear. They’re catching on quick.
My mother surprises me by speaking first. “We were hoping you’d help. Don’t billionaires know other billionaires?”
“That’s true,” Bessie says, catching on, finally. “We could find our own billionaires, but we’re sure your billionaires are better than ours.”
I flop down on a chair and wish I was dead. Not just not-breathing kind of dead. I want to be underground, eaten by worms, kind of dead. This is so humiliating. How can my mother ask the man I’m crushing on to find me a husband?
Ugh.
Where’s chocolate when I need it?
Or chips. Chips would be helpful, too.
Rock scratches the side of his head above his right ear. “I guess I know a couple guys.” He looks my way but quickly averts his eyes. So do I.
Awkward.
Rock obviously feels the awkwardness, too. He makes an excuse and leaves. When he shuts the front door behind him, all eyes turn toward me.
“Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish,” Bessie says.
I jump up from the chair. “What the hell was that? Why did you ask him for names of other men?”
“We were playing along,” my mother says. “Saving your face, like Judge Judy says.”
“And she says shut up, too,” Bessie adds.
Point taken.
“Anyway, I know you have the hots for him, but maybe one of Rock’s friends could fit the bill,” Bessie continues.
“But his face,” I whine. “And his hair. And his everything. Oh, geez, I need a drink,” I say, sitting back down. “And a Double Quarter-Pounder.”
Rosalind starts to pace the room. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This isn’t over. We can still make this happen.” Her eyes get big, and she smiles wide. “We can make this work to our advantage,” she assures me. She looks up at the ceiling for a second and snaps her fingers. “Yes. This is perfect. We’ll play Rock’s billionaire buddies against him. Make him jealous. It worked with Cole, and it’ll work with Rock.”
“What if he doesn’t get jealous?” I ask. It’s all about my biggest fear that he doesn’t want me, isn’t attracted to me, and he can never love me.
“Are you kidding me?” Rosalind asks. Her hands are planted on her hips, and her right eyebrow is arched almost to her hairline. “Every time you turn your back, that man’s staring at your ass like you’ve got two hoagies, a six-pack of Heineken, and two box seat tickets to the Superbowl in there. He wants you naked worse than Keith Richards wanted a highball in 1970. You get me?”
“What’s a highball?” I ask.
“It’s a Scotch and soda,” my mother says. She’s turned the tel
evision back on, and The Price is Right is playing.
“No, it’s not. It’s a Seven and Seven,” Bessie argues.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Oh Jesus, not this again,” Rosalind moans. “It’s both, okay? And besides, that’s not the point. The point is that Rock wants Olivia. We just have to make him aware that he wants her. And we’re going to do it with Operation Billionaire.”
“But Rock’s part of Operation Billionaire,” I say. I’m ready to throw in the towel and totally give up.
Rosalind is doing a bobblehead thing. “Exactly,” she says, excitedly. “He’s doing one Operation Billionaire, and we’re going to do a totally different Operation Billionaire. There will be the fake Operation Billionaire that Rock thinks is happening, and there will be our real Operation Billionaire that Rock doesn’t know about, and we’ll do them simultaneously.”
“I get it,” Bessie says. “We’re mole spies.”
“It’s called rodent detectives,” my mother insists.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
Rosalind rolls her eyes. “This’ll work,” she tells me, ignoring my mother and Bessie. “Let’s bring Beatrice in. She’ll back me up.”
We try to Skype, WhatsApp, Facetime, call, text, and email Beatrice, but we can’t reach her for three hours. Boffing takes up a lot of time. I could get pregnant just thinking about it. Finally, we get her, and she backs up Rosalind one hundred percent.
There are two Operation Billionaires. One fake and one real. And Rock may never know.
The next morning, I wake extra early to get the kids fed and dressed for the day. It turns out that my new job pays preschool tuition for my first three children in the swankiest, fanciest preschool on the planet, which just happens to be a mile down the road, overlooking the ocean. I drop them off, and they start to play with Drew Barrymore’s kids. I sip a vanilla latte and eat a chocolate chip scone with the teacher, while she regales me with the day my children are going to have, which includes riding an elephant and learning to paint on the beach with Picasso’s grandson.
Gee, money is wonderful.
When I get back to the guest house, my backup team is ready with my wardrobe and makeup. Very little wardrobe and big gobs of makeup.
I look in the mirror afterward. “Is my face in there?” I ask.
“Yes, but we can’t see it, which is good,” Bessie says, happily. “That’s how you know the makeup’s working.”
Baby Bianca’s walking around the small living room, knocking knickknacks to the floor. I tug at my skirt, which isn’t technically a skirt because a skirt has to have more material. This is a hanky on my hips. A red scrap of expensive fabric that’s wrapped around my hips, squeezed closed with an impressively strong zipper.
I put my foot down against more Spanx. I’m smart enough to say never again to that disaster. But Rosalind and Beatrice have me cowed about the clothes.
“You look so hot,” Beatrice says. Her face is beaming at me on FaceTime. “Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”
“The slut part of the movie,” I say.
“Yes!” Beatrice says. “When she’s working it down the street.”
“What if I have to sit down?” I ask, tugging again at the skirt. “He’s going to see everything. It’ll be like having a pap smear.”
Rosalind fluffs my hair. “You should be so lucky to get a pap smear from him. Just keep your legs crossed if you don’t want to show him too much. I wish we could do something with these boobs.”
I touch my breasts. “What’s wrong with my boobs?”
“They’re everywhere. You turn to the left, they swing to the right. You turn to the right, they swing to the left.”
“This bra isn’t doing what needs to be done,” I explain. “It has spaghetti straps. Usually, I have the double-wide, padded straps. And there’s only two hooks in back. I have five-hook boobs, Rosalind.”
She sighs. “You’re probably right, but we need you to look sexy. This bra says, ‘I have boobs and you can stick your face between them.’ You don’t need a bra that works as body armor, and says, ‘I might have boobs, but you’ll never know about them.’”
I wonder if Rock is ever going to know about my boobs. I think about him sticking his face between them, and I get all warm and gooey inside. As if on cue, the doorbell rings, and Rock saunters inside. He’s wearing another suit, and my gooey insides grow gooier.
“Hello, ladies. What’s shakin’? Holy shit!”
He stops dead when he sees me. Maybe he’s just scared of strangers, and he’s never seen my new face before. Or he’s afraid of my boobs, which have a life of their own in my crappy, sexy bra and are moving so much, it looks like they’re trying to fling themselves off of my chest in either a violent attack or a desperate bid at suicide.
“You look like you swallowed your tongue,” Bessie tells Rock, looking up at him. “Did you eat something you’re allergic to? I’m allergic to peas. They make me itch like crazy. And sesame seeds give me welts the size of silver dollars. That’s why I never order a Big Mac. There’s sesame seeds on the bun. I have to tell you that it burns me that I’m going to die without ever tasting that ‘special sauce’ I’ve heard so much about.”
“You can order special sauce on the regular hamburgers,” my mother announces.
“Don’t tease me, woman,” Bessie says.
“Cross my heart.”
Rosalind slaps her forehead and stomps her Louboutin shoe on the floor. “Good morning, Rock,” she interrupts. “What’s the plan for today? Do you have anybody lined up for Olivia?”
“Uh…” he says, still staring at me. I look down to make sure my skirt is covering my private parts.
Bessie snaps her fingers in front of Rock’s face. He blinks and returns to normal, smiling wide. “Looking good, Olivia,” he says, pointing at me and winking. “You’re going to make quite an impression.”
“I am? On who?” I ask.
“Declan Simmons.”
“The toilet paper guy?” my mother asks, looking up from the television. “I wipe my butt every day with his toilet paper.”
“So do hundreds of millions of other people,” Rosalind says.
“He does all right,” Rock says.
“Who’s got more billions? You or Declan Simmons?” my mother asks.
“Diane, are you asking me who’s bigger?” he asks.
Chapter 4
Olivia
I’m creating an Excel spreadsheet.
I don’t know how to create an Excel spreadsheet.
I’m sitting at my desk, pretending to create an Excel spreadsheet, and I’ve sweated through my clothes. Luckily my makeup is made up of some kind of nuclear waste material that’s completely waterproof.
I’ve been in the office for two hours. Rock disappeared as soon as we got here, mumbling something about Brazil and the Arctic Circle. His assistants told me to create a new spreadsheet for his shopping needs, and here I’ve been ever since.
This program was obviously created for rocket scientists and brain surgeons. Not uneducated single mothers wearing almost-bras. It’s the like the columns are laughing at me. Maybe I can throw the computer through the window and then nobody will discover that I can’t figure out a basic administrative tool.
It occurs to me too that if I don’t find my runaway husband and get child support from him or don’t manage to marry a billionaire, I might forever be destitute because I’m not able to hold down a job. Who’ll want me if I can’t make spreadsheets?
My cellphone rings, and I jump in my seat. The number’s unknown, but I answer it, worried it might be about my children. “Hello?”
“Is that Olivia Newman, the classic Californian beauty with Rita Hayworth hair?” I hear a man ask on the phone.
“Uh�
��”
“I hear you’ve got a body that won’t quit and are sweeter than molasses.”
I haven’t gotten an obscene phone call in years. This is a pretty detailed one. I’m about to hang up when he continues. “Rock gave me your number. He told me you’d be up for dinner tonight.”
Oh. My billionaire. I stop sweating and get chills. This is really happening. Rock has already set me up. I want to shout, “wrong number!” and hang up, but Rosalind would kill me, and Bessie would kill me a second time. And my mother. I shudder to think what my mother would do to me for rejecting a date with a billionaire.
“Yes. This is Olivia,” I say.
“This is Declan Simmons. Yes. That Declan Simmons. I know you can’t believe it. But it’s me. Most girls scream with excitement here. Are you going to scream?”
I wonder if I can get crabs through the phone. “It’s nice to meet you,” I say and gag slightly.
“I’m going to take you to the hottest new dinner spot in L.A. It’s so hot that it’s going to get you hot. I’ll send a limo to pick you up from Rock’s office at six. Early enough to catch the sunset. See you later, hot stuff.”
And he hangs up.
Dread radiates through my body like an oncoming heart attack. Declan’s a toilet paper billionaire. The toilet is totally his brand.
My cellphone rings, again, and this time it’s Rosalind.
“What’s happening?” she asks.
“Declan Simmons called me. I’m having dinner with him tonight. He’s sending a limo to the office.”
“Perfect. Rock is going to get so jealous.”
“I haven’t even seen Rock today. I doubt he’s thinking much about me.”
“Are you kidding?” Rosalind says. “With your boobs in that bra? He’s thinking about you. Tell me about Declan. What did he sound like?”
“Like he’s got a wicked comb-over.”
