The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy by David Handler Page A

Baywatch. He used to be married to Heather Locklear. Is Heather really as big a bitch in real life as she is on Melrose Place ?”
    “You mean Melrose Place isn’t real life?”
    “Oh, go to hell.”
    “This is hell. Want to buy any more jeans?”
    “Do you and Merilee fuck a lot?”
    “Constantly. Like animals.”
    She sighed, the eternally suffering teen. “Geez, I’m like, why are you dogging me, homes? I’m totally fucking serious.”
    And she looked serious, too. Totally fucking serious. But this wasn’t about serious. This was about her testing me, much the way a child tests a new baby-sitter. Nothing to do with her age. Every celebrity I’ve ever worked for has done it.
    “That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to an answer.”
    “Oh, I get it.” Now she copped a gangsta attitude, poking herself in the chest with her thumbs. “Like, I’m supposed to be straight up with you but you don’t have to be straight with me? What bullshit.”
    “You’re right, it is. But I’m not the one who’s getting paid two million dollars.”
    “So why are you helping me?” she demanded.
    “Because I enjoy getting crapped on. I’m a little kinky that way.”
    She let out a girlish shriek of a laugh, and immediately clapped her hand over her mouth, reddening. I had to keep reminding myself just how young she was. “I just wondered if the two of you got along together all the time, that’s all.”
    “No one does.”
    “Thor and my mom sure didn’t.”
    I glanced at her. She was twirling her hair around and around her finger. “They fought a lot?”
    “Like, all the time. You two aren’t married?”
    “We were.”
    “But you’re not anymore?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “So she’s like your perma-date or something?”
    “Or something.”
    “That’s kicking,” she said approvingly. “It’s, like, you don’t care what other people think of you.”
    “Now you’re catching on.”
    She reached over and seized my hand. Hers was soft and rather hot. She turned mine over and squinted intently down at the lines in my palm, reading them with a look of spirited devilment on her face. This was her trying to be flirty and fascinating. I’m quite sure she thought she was, too. After all, she was eighteen—the zenith of female desirability if you go by all of the lingerie ads and rock videos. But that was image. Reality was quite different. Reality was that she hadn’t done anything in life except go to school and buy and watch and listen to whatever we had told her to buy and watch and listen to. Reality was that she was nobody at all, just a pepper pot of attitudes still in desperate search of a person. Me, I was her tour guide.
    “Whew,” she gasped, dropping my hand. “You are hostile. ”
    Well, maybe she did know how to read palms.
    I now became aware that three middle-aged chunkettes in stretch wear were standing there gaping at us.
    “Omigod! It’s her! ”
    “I don’t believe it!”
    “What is she doing here?!”
    “Omigod!”
    Others began swarming around us, wondering what the commotion was. And anxious to get in on it. Quickly, I hustled Clethra out of there, two dozen or more women in hot pursuit. We had to sprint the last hundred yards to the Jag. Lulu even had to show them her teeth, a sight known to throw terror into the hearts of fanzoids the world over. Then we hopped in and I floored it out of there.
    “Jesus, why can’t people just leave me the fuck alone?” Clethra cried, as we headed back toward Lyme. She seemed genuinely shaken by the frenzy she’d caused. She was used to Manhattan, where people go less ga-ga. In Manhattan, they’ve seen ’em all. “I mean, why do they even care?”
    “Because your private life is public theater. They see you on TV, just like they see Heather Locklear on TV. It’s all entertainment to them.”
    “Well, it’s not fair.”
    “Life isn’t, Clethra. Sorry to be the one to break it to you.”
    I got off the highway at Old Lyme and took