David stirred, sat up, looked at his wife of four days. “The transformation is complete.”
“Transformation?”
“From nymphomaniac to business barracuda. I feel sorry for this Peterson fellow.”
Laura laughed. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour or two.” She put on her earrings and walked over to kiss David. “Will you miss me?”
“Not even a little.”
“Bastard.”
David threw back the blankets and stood. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
She glanced over his rugged build, shaking her head. “Incredible,” she muttered. “You expect me to leave that body for even a little while?”
“Uh-oh.”
“What?”
“Problem in the transformation, Captain. I still sense a few molecules of the nymph hidden under the business facade.”
“You sense right.”
“Laura?”
“Yes?”
David took her hand. “I love you,” he began, his eyes misting over. “You’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”
She hugged him, her eyes closing. “I love you, too, David. I couldn’t live without you.”
“Grow old with me, Laura, and I promise I’ll always make you happy.”
“You’ve got a deal,” she said gently, “and you better stick to it.”
“Forever,” he said.
Laura kissed him then, not realizing that the honey-moon was over.
“G’DAY, ma’am.”
“Good morning,” Laura answered the receptionist with a smile. They were staying at the Reef Resort Hotel in Palm’s Cove, about twenty miles from Cairns, Australia. The private resort was a quiet slice of Eden, a secluded paradise overlooking the Coral Sea. They were hidden within the century-old palm trees and lush bush of tropical northern Australia. Take a boat out in any direction and you would be mesmerized by the rainbow colors of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, nature’s most exquisite masterpiece of jagged coral and exotic marine life, an underground park that man both explored and preserved. Travel in any other direction and you would be wandering through green rain forests with cascading waterfalls, or the beginning of Australia’s famed outback region. It was like no other place in the world.
The receptionist’s voice was heavy with an Australian accent. “Your taxi should be here in a few minutes, ma’am. You and your husband enjoying your stay?”
“Very much so.”
“Lovely here, ain’t it?” he said proudly. Like most locals, his skin had a bronze-to-red tone from the constant exposure to the sun.
“Yes, it is.”
He began to tap his pencil on the desk, his eyes darting around the sun-drenched room. “Do you mind if I ask you a sort of personal question, ma’am?”
“I guess not.”
He hesitated. “Your husband I recognized right away from the telly. Even in these sticks we get some of your important basketball games—especially the Boston Celtics. But, ma’am, you also look a mite familiar. You used to be on magazine covers or something, right?”
“Used to be,” Laura responded, amazed at both how widespread certain publications were and how far the average person’s memory stretched. Four years had passed since Laura had been on any magazine covers with the exception of last November’s Business Weekly.
“I knew I’d seen you before. But don’t worry, ma’am. I won’t let on. No way I’m going to allow anyone to disturb you and Mr. Baskin.”
“Thank you.”
A horn honked. “That’ll be your taxi. Have a good one.”
“I’ll try.” She left the lobby, greeted the driver, and sat in the backseat. The air-conditioning was at full blast, making the car almost too cold, but against the outside sun, it was a most welcome change.
Laura settled back and watched the tropical foliage merge into a wall of green as the taxi sped toward town. Every once in a while a small building would pop out of the natural habitat, but for the first ten minutes of the ride, there were only a few hidden bungalows, a post office, and a grocery store. She gripped the briefcase that contained the catalogues of all the latest Svengali products. Her right leg bounced up and down restlessly.
Laura began modeling when she was only seventeen. Her Cosmo debut was followed by Mademoiselle and Glamour covers in the same month, and then Sports Illustrated ’s annual swimsuit issue made her name somewhat household. The cover photo was taken during a sunset on Australia’s Gold Coast about five hundred miles from Palm’s Cove. In the photograph, Laura was wading knee-deep in the water, her eyes staring into the camera as she pulled back her wet hair. She wore a strapless black one-piece that molded to her curves, her shoulders bare. It ended up being the bestselling issue Sports Illustrated ever had.
From there, the amount of covers and layouts grew along with Laura’s bank account. Sometimes she appeared on the cover of the same magazine four or five months in a row, but unlike other models, there was never a backlash to too much exposure, never an overkill. The demand did not let up.
It was all very odd. As a child, Laura had been fat and unattractive. Her classmates had teased her mercilessly about her weight, about her stringy hair, about her thick glasses, about her lack of makeup, about the way she dressed. They called her names and taunted her with the painful insults of cruel children. Their oral barrages never slackened or let up. In the cafeteria, in the hallways, in the schoolyard, in gym class, Laura’s classmates were relentless in their savage attacks upon their defenseless victim.
They made her childhood a living hell.
Sometimes, a group of the really popular girls would beat her up in the woods behind the schoolyard. But physical abuse never hurt little Laura as much as the cruel words. The pain of a kick or a punch went away. The cruel words stayed with her always.
In those days, Laura would come home from school crying to a mother who had to be the most beautiful woman in the world—a woman who could not understand why her baby was not the most well-liked girl in her class. Mary Simmons Ayars had always been unusually gorgeous, had always been popular amongst her peers. Girls had always wanted to be her friend; boys had always wanted to carry her books and maybe hold her hand.
Laura’s father—her dear, sweet father—would be heartbroken over the situation. It tore at Dr. James Ayars’s stomach to see his daughter spend every night crying alone in a corner of her darkened bedroom. He too tried to help, but what could a father do in a situation like this?