Chapter 14

Carrying a small purse and a large plastic bag, Vicki settled in the rear of the limousine. She looked at the two occupants seated across from her. Rose looked excited while Lisa looked pensive. It was obvious that Lisa was having second thoughts about spending the evening with her mother. It was obvious that she was just waiting for a chance to unload at her mother.

Vicki said, "Before I forget, I got something for you."

She rummaged through the plastic bag for a second before extracting a box from it. She handed it over to Lisa and then went back to rummaging through the bag.

Lisa looked at the box taking in the packaging. It was a high quality digital camera with a view finder and interchangeable lens. She said, "This is a camera."

"Yes. I thought you would enjoy taking some pictures at the fashion show," Vicki said.

"The tickets say no cameras allowed," Lisa said.

"I may have meddled some," Vicki said.

"Meddled?" Lisa asked with a bite in her voice.

Vicki answered, "I called the art teacher at your new school who gave me the phone number for the photography teacher who gave me the phone number for the teacher who oversees the school newspaper. I ended up talking to the guy for about an hour and twisted his arm a bit."

"You did what? Lisa asked sharply.

She didn't quite like the idea of her mother calling all of her teachers, particularly teachers she hadn't even met yet. She was about to say, or more accurately yell, something to that effect when her mother said, "I got you press credentials so that you can take photographs there."

"Press credentials?"

"Ah, here it is," Vicki said. She pulled out a lanyard with a high school press pass attached to it. Handing it over to Lisa, she said, "There you go."

"Will this actually work?" Lisa asked.

"Yes," Vicki said. It had better work. It had cost her a fortune to arrange.

Rose asked, "Do I get one?"

"Sorry Rose. I could only get one," Vicki said.

"Bummer," Rose said.

"Where's the champagne?" Vicki asked looking around the back of the limousine.

"Champagne?" Rose asked.

"I ordered Champagne," Vicki said. She opened a sliding panel on the car door. "There it is."

Vicki opened two mini bottles of champagne. Holding up a bottle cap, she said, "They used to come with corks. Now they come with bottle caps."

She filled a half of a glass for Rose, a full glass for Lisa, and took a full glass for herself. Once everyone had a glass, she raised hers and said, "May all of the models be uglier than us."

"That's a good one," Rose said.

Lisa held up her glass and then took a sip from it. She was still unwilling to engage in much talk with her mother. It did seem that every time she was about to make a negative comment, her mother changed the subject or diverted her attention to something else.

"One more stop and we'll be heading to the fashion show," Vicki said.

"Where are we stopping?" Lisa asked suspiciously.

Vicki answered, "Claire's house."

Frowning, Lisa asked, "You know Claire."

Vicki said, "I may be a woman, but I'm clueless when it comes to fashion. Clair has been picking out my outfits for years. If you want my personal opinion, she's the best personal shopping assistant in the business."

Even though Lisa had realized a while ago that her mother was paying Claire, she wasn't too pleased to learn that she was sharing her personal shopping assistant with her. She knew it wasn't rational, but she didn't care. She didn't want to share Claire with her mother. That wasn't the kind of thing she could yell at her mother over, at least not without looking like a complete idiot and she knew it.

The car stopped at a house. Claire came out and climbed into the limousine. She accepted a glass of Champagne from Vicki upon getting into her seat. Raising her glass, she said, "Hello everyone."

"Mother was just telling us that you are her personal shopping assistant," Lisa said.

"I've worked with her for six years. She's been my most difficult client," Claire said rolling her eyes.

"Difficult?" Lisa asked.

Claire said, "Look at her. She's gorgeous. She wants clothes that make her look like a combination of an Ice Queen and Nasty Bitch. Every time I dressed her, she ended up looking like a great white shark just waiting to ravage some poor unsuspecting seal. Scary. It was a waste of a perfect female body."

Vicki said, "I had to look like a shark to keep the barracudas away."

"Why?" Rose asked.

Vicki said, "There are a lot of men out there who won't take no for an answer. They discovered that my no meant no and not taking it that way meant they should call an ambulance."

A woman alone in a strange city was easy prey for unscrupulous men. She had been lucky that Sid was usually nearby. There had been a time or two over the six year period when she could have been in real trouble. It was amazing what stomping on a foot could accomplish. It always took the men by surprise since they expected, and were prepared for, a knee to the groin.

Rose asked, "What do you mean about calling an ambulance?"

"Your father showed me a number of ways to take care of a man after I complained about getting harassed on my business trips," Vicki said. "He said I should cut them down to size and then file a harassment suit against them. He wanted them scarred physically and professionally. If I didn't, then he would do it and he didn't think they would survive him doing it."

Rose said, "That's good."

Vicki said, "I'm sure you're father will tell you all about how to take care of men who won't take no for an answer when he has his sex talk with you."

Rose said, "He already gave the sex talk to me."

"What did he say?" Vicki asked.

Rose answered, "Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas. Boys want to put the penises into your vagina. My job is to prevent the boys from getting their penises into my vagina. Then he spent an hour describing different ways to stop the boy from inserting his penis into my vagina."

Snorting Lisa said, "I see you got the same lecture I did."

She glared at her mother thinking that she should have been giving them the sex talk. She was beginning to think that this trip had been a bad idea.

Vicki said, "That's just the first one. He'll tell you all of the ways in which guys will try to take advantage of you in the next one."

Rose asked, "How do you know that?"

Vicki answered, "I'll make sure he tells you. He understands the male mind a whole lot better than I do."

"You're probably right," Rose said.

Vicki said, "He's got another one he that he will use on the boys when you start dating."

"What's that one say?" Rose asked.

Vicki recited as if from memory, "Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas. Boys want to put their penises into a girl's vagina. Sometimes a boy gets his penis into a girl's vagina. The Dad's job is to rip off the offending penis along with all closely related organs and feed them to the boy."

Rose said, "Scary."

"It's effective, particularly when he's sharpening a knife while telling the boy that," Vicki said.

Claire said, "All fathers have a speech for a boy taking his little girl out on a date. All of them involve maiming or murder."