Free Tainted Love by Melody Mayer

hair and get those colored contact lens thingies so that my eyes are green instead of blue.”
    “Martina, Momma Anya and Momma Kat are not going to let you bleach your hair or get contacts, sweetie. You're ten.”
    “I don't want to be the stupid, ugly fat girl anymore.”
    “You're not—”
    “I am fat and ugly. Momma Anya thinks so! You said you're on my side. If you mean it, you'll help me. If not, then … then I'll tell Momma Anya all the stuff you've tried to do with me that's against the rules and they'll fire you.”
    Lydia's jaw fell open. Had her little cousin just threatened her?
    “Martina, sweetie—”
    “Not listening! Not listening!” Martina put her hands over her ears. “And I'm not eating, either. And there's nothing you can do to make me!”

Under a crystal blue noonday sky, Kiley and Susan— Platinum's older sister—were lying out together on the pool deck at the Brentwood Hills Country Club. Susan's husband, Richard, was out on the golf course in a foursome, consisting of Anya Kuriakova, a well-known Czech cinematographer, and the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers (who loved to play the country club course on his off days).
    Kiley was enjoying a moment of relative freedom, since Sid and Serenity had gone to the restaurant for a burger—the colonel heartily approved of red meat for growing children. She wore the more-than-modest blue racing swimsuit purchased for her by
Platinum Nanny
.
    She glanced over at Susan, who was rubbing SPF 50 sun-block into her white, freckled legs. If anything, Susan's swimsuit was even more modest than her own, and the opposite ofanything Susan's rock star sister would wear. It was kelly green with yellow piping around the boy-cut legs and neckline.
    Save for her excellent cheekbones and azure blue eyes, it was hard to believe that Susan had any genetic relationship to Platinum. Her chin-length blond hair was styled in a flip that Kiley suspected not even gale-force winds could budge. This style never varied, except for various color-coordinated head-bands or bows that often matched her kneesocks. Yes, the woman often wore kneesocks.
    Kiley raised herself up on one elbow. It was the perfect opportunity to ask a question she'd wondered about since Susan and her husband had arrived at Platinum's estate to take charge of the children.
    “Mrs. Jones?”
    Susan put the sunblock back into her green and yellow straw tote bag and smiled. “If my husband isn't around, you can call me Susan, okay?”
    “Okay. Susan.” Kiley hesitated. “It's just that the colonel can be a bit …”
    “Intimidating? Commanding? Overbearing?”
    “Something like that,” Kiley agreed.
    “Did you ever see
The Great Santini
?”
    Kiley shook her head. “What is it?”
    “A movie. From a long time ago,” Susan acknowledged. “The seventies. See if we can get it from Netflix. It'll tell you a lot about him.” She dug a pair of yellow-rimmed sunglasses out of her bag and slipped them on. “When you take away all that marines stuff, you'll find an amazing man. I've never met anyone smarter. Or more loyal to his kids. To me. Or moreloving, in his own way. Of course, Rhonda hated him from the first time they met.”
    “Rhon—oh, you mean Platinum.” Kiley laughed. She still couldn't get used to how Susan called Platinum by her given name instead of the stage name that the whole world used. As hard as she tried, imagining Platinum as a Rhonda was a stretch. On the other hand, Susan had just given Kiley the perfect opening to ask the question she'd been dying to ask. “If you wouldn't mind telling me … you and your younger sister are so different from each other. I was just wondering …”
    “What happened?” Susan prompted.
    Kiley nodded. As Susan tapped a contemplative short-nailed, polish-free finger against her lips, Kiley watched a girl from a MTV reality show stroll by in a bikini approximately the size of three postage stamps. Kiley knew that one of the strict country