Impossibly Tongue-Tied by Josie Brown Page B

Labrador retriever.
    â€œDown, Towser, down,” grumbled the girlfriend, seemingly helpless in controlling the friendly pup. Nina patted him on the back, then gave him a command to heel. Immediately Towser went down on all fours with a look of adoration in his eyes.
    â€œSo, you’re delivering the teff. Hmmm . Well, that’s certainly…surprising.” Cocking her head in consternation, Sam’s girlfriend ignored Nina’s offering. Instead she reached languorously behind herself to grasp an outstretched leg.
    Quite frankly, the position reminded Nina of one she had learned in a free pole-dancing class that Nathan had insisted she take when he’d seen it offered by the gym down the block from their apartment.
    Scrutinizing Nina, the human pretzel then asked pointedly, “Say, what sign are you?”
    Nina blew the bangs out of her eyes. She suddenly realized that she had forgotten to push the child-lock button on the backseat windows of the car, and Jake had already wrestled Plum’s favorite Diva Starz from her with the aim of tossing it out onto the Pacific Coast Highway and causing a three-car pile-up. “Taurus,” she answered. As if that mattered. “It won’t affect your plans for the teff, will it?”
    Slinky blinked twice. Obviously, it did matter, because she said with all seriousness, “Maybe. That depends.”
    â€œOn what?”
    â€œOn why he left it on the counter in the first place.” She let her leg snake vertically up the wall. Giving Nina the once-over, she added: “Believe me, if Saturn weren’t in retrograde, I wouldn’t be worried. At all. ”
    â€œStop me if I’m wrong, but the fact that you brought it up in the first place makes Saturn’s orbit immaterial, doesn’t it?”
    That notion suddenly made Slinky uncomfortable. With a barely civil nod, she snatched the plastic bag of teff out of Nina’s hand and shut the door.
    By the time Nina reached the car, Plum’s Diva Starz pop tartlet had already been flattened by southbound traffic. Great, thought Nina. That little problem could be easily rectified with a stop at the closest Toys “R” Us, but she knew that doing so meant being bombarded with cries of “Buy me! Buy me!” from both Plum—a child who had yet to learn the meaning of the word no—and Jake, who, when the situation merited it, could be the perfect mimic.
    Considering the day she was having, Nina couldn’t endure that.
    Instead she endured Plum’s high-pitched howls of mourning until the kids were shuttled inside the Hartes’ third-story apartment.
    It was only after Jake and Plum had loaded up on Cap’n Crunch—her son’s usual after-school treat—and were jumping off his tiny, messy bedroom’s walls by using his bed’s very thin, very cheap Sleep Train mattress as a trampoline, that Nina realized she had forgotten Becca’s grocery order. The afternoon’s only saving grace was that Ylva showed up not just one hour later but two, giving Nina enough time to swing back by Tommaso’s for the groceries, and for precious Plum to crash from her sugar high.

4
The After-Party
    By the time Sam had arrived at the Chateau Marmont for the after-party celebrating Hugo’s latest film, Very Bad Boys, the booze was flowing as freely as the hyperbole coming from the mouths of all in attendance. From what Sam could hear, everyone was in development (as opposed to Development Hell); So-and-So was just a dream to work with (not, as had been previously reported in Page Six or Ted Casablanca’s “Awful Truth” column or Defamer.com, an unparalleled bitch/raving lunatic/burned-out druggie); and everyone agreed that Hugo’s latest film was “another winner from a true artist with a unique idiosyncratic vision…”
    â€œWho do these fuckheads think they’re kidding?” Hugo growled as he waved Sam over