James Conway - In Cold Blonde

“Hello.”

Her mother’s voice; even after all these years Syd recognized it instantly.

“Hello?” Amanda Stevens repeated.

Her mother’s voice triggered a fearful little girl inside Syd, ashamed and terrified.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Syd’s heart pounded, tears flowed. But somehow she fought back the temptation to hang up. “Mom,” she said finally. “It’s me. Syd.”

There was stunned silence then, “Oh, my God, Syd. Where are you, baby? How are you?”

And Syd told her.

BUT WAIT!

Before you go, we’ve included an excerpt from another novel by James L. Conway — a wild and wicked thriller full of humor, unforgettable characters and nonstop action — Sexy Babe…

The worst day of my life began with an orgasm.

His, not mine. So what else is new?

His name was Jason Settles, an actor who had that bad-boy thing going on. Jason had long sun-bleached hair, brown bedroom eyes, a perpetual three-day beard and these incredibly perfect white teeth, well, caps really, but this was Hollywood and everyone had caps, or wanted them.

Jason was usually typecast as Sexy and Dangerous, and his girlfriend, Grace Taylor, that’s me, was usually cast as the cute, perky, blonde, blue-eyed Girl Next Door. Which, I guess I looked but rarely felt like.

Jason lived on Wonderland Drive just off Laurel Canyon in this little blue bungalow with a hot tub in back. It seemed like every house in Laurel Canyon had a hot tub, some kind of weird remnant of the 70s, I think. It was in that hot tub that Jason and I had first made love. And the answer is no, I didn’t get off that night either. To be perfectly frank, I generally need a little mechanical help, if you know what I mean. It kind of freaks guys out, though, when you ask them to use a vibrator on you. Makes them feel inadequate or something. So I usually just fake it and take care of myself later.

Okay, that’s probably too much information. Anyway, after Jason’s wham bam thank you Grace, he climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom. “You want the shower first?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I need to get home and change. I’ve got an audition at ten.” Then I bolted up in bed. Shit! My agent was supposed to fax the scene to me here at Jason’s house. I leapt out of bed and raced to Jason’s fax machine. Thank God, the scene was there.

It was three pages. Not bad, I thought, walking back to the bathroom. Usually, the more pages the better the scene. Then I read the character name: Sexy Babe.

“Oh, no,” I muttered as I joined Jason.

“What is it?” he asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“My character. It’s Sexy Babe.”

“The role’s not even big enough for a character name?”

I scanned the material, just two lines in a three-page scene. This was bad. I was supposed to be reading for guest star roles, leads in pilots, break-out parts in edgy independent movies, not two lines as a nameless bimbo on NCIS . “I may not have worked in a while,” I said, insecurity filling every pore of my being. “But I’m not doing another bit part.”

“Hey,” Jason said, “look at the bright side; at least it’s not Sexy Babe #2.”

The bright side, of course. I’m good at looking at the bright side. In fact, I’ve got a deep well of eternal optimism. I just have to remind myself to tap it.

“No, Jason,” I said. “The bright side is realizing that this must be some kind of mistake. Someone must’ve sent me the wrong sides. I’ll just call Lucas when the agency opens and straighten it all out.”

I stepped on Jason’s medical scale, reached to adjust the weights, and then stopped. “Who weighs 94 pounds?”

“Who, what?”

“Weighs 94 pounds. The scale is set at 94 pounds, it’s usually set at either 185ish, your weight, or 105ish, my weight. Hey, I know,” I said, trying to be funny. “You’re probably banging the model next door. She looks like she weighs 94 pounds.”

“Really,” Jason said, as he stepped back into the bedroom and started getting dressed. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Okay, about a hundred things wrong with that answer. First, no man could not notice how skinny Melody was. She was five-foot-ten, all legs, tits and ass. Second, she traipsed around the backyard in a band-aid sized bikini doing weird Tai Chi exercises every morning. Third, Jason may be gorgeous, but he’s not a very good actor, so he could’ve definitely used a take two on the “Really, I hadn’t noticed,” delivery. And now that I thought about it, he looked guilty as hell.

Then it hit me. “You’re sleeping with her, aren’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Whoa, that reading was even worse than “Really, I hadn’t noticed.” Now I was sure. “Jason, stop lying to me. Why don’t you just man up and admit you’re sleeping with her.”

This was where he was supposed to sweep me up in his arms, tell me how stupid I was being, how much he loved me, and then shut me up with a passionate kiss. Instead, he looked at me and said, “All right, I’m sleeping with Melody.”

His words seemed to hang in the air in front of me. I’d asked for the admission, hoping he wasn’t sleeping with her. But actually hearing him say the words hurt more than I could have imagined. I didn’t know what to say, what to do next.

“In fact,” Jason said, filling the awkward silence. “I think I may be in love with her.”

Any confusion I felt was suddenly washed away. “Wait,” I said. “You think you’re in love with another woman yet you screwed me ten minutes ago?”

“I was trying to find the right time to tell you.”

“Yeah, tough decision. Do I dump Grace before I fuck her or wait until I’m done.”

“See, I knew you would turn this around on me.”

“What?”

“That you’d find a way to blame me.”

“I do blame you. Hello! You’re fucking another woman!”

“Because…” He trailed off like the rest of his sentence was obvious.

I tried to think of what would come next and drew a blank. “Because, what?”

“Think about it,” he said, staring hard at me. “It’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“I’m not the one with intimacy issues.”

“So you’re saying that if I didn’t have intimacy issues, you wouldn’t have cheated on me?”

“There you’ve said it. And I forgive you.”

“You forgive me ?”

“What we had was great, Grace. Awesome, even. But it’s time we moved on.” He grabbed his keys off the counter. “I’m going to the gym. It might be best for everyone if you were gone when I get back.” He walked out the door.

Okay, Jason was a jerk. I knew that. But for the last six months he was my gorgeous jerk.

And I always knew Jason was just an in-between guy — the guy after my last less-than-perfect boyfriend and before the long-dreamed-about Mr. Right. But still… Ouch.

Oh, and the worst thing — I weighed 109.

I burst out Jason’s front door fifteen minutes later. My arms were filled with the detritus of our six months together. A box filled with make-up, tampons, toothbrush — you know, that stuff. I balanced a pile of clothes on top of the box and tried to talk into the cell phone wedged into my shoulder. “Sexy Babe? Come on Lucas, it’s got to be some kind of mistake.”

Lucas Abrams was my agent. We hooked up when I first got to town — yes we slept together and no, I didn’t. Actually it was more a fling than a thing; he came to a showcase where I performed a scene from Carnal Knowledge. He’d just been promoted to an agent at Pinnacle Artists after making the “mail room to assistant” odyssey. He liked my work, and signed me. We went out that night to celebrate, had too many Cosmos, and ended up back at his place. We both admitted it was a mistake in the morning, agreed our working together was more important than our sleeping together, and we’ve been platonic ever since.