Free Tainted Love by Melody Mayer Page A

club regulations was that no photographs could be taken, which meant that guests didn't have to worry about whether paparazzi—professional or amateur—would be recording their bad hair days and/or inebriation at the nineteenth hole for posterity or a scandal sheet. The girl joined a cute guy in surfer Jams covered by a marijuana leaf pattern. Clearly wanting as much attention as possible, she squealed loudly as the boy tickled her. Then they locked lips. And pretty much everything else.
    “Well … was Platinum like that when she was a teenager?” Kiley asked.
    “Like what?” Susan asked.
    “Like that girl over there,” Kiley explained. “A show-off.”
    “Not exactly. First off, Rhonda is two years older than I am.”
    “
Older
?” Kiley couldn't believe it. “But all the bios I read—”
    “I know.” Susan shrugged. “Her PR people are really good at rewriting history, and the press is really good about repeating the rewrites. I know it's hard to believe.”
    True. Platinum looked a good decade younger than Susan. It was amazing what good hair, makeup, skin care, and Dr. Barry Weintraub's skills as a plastic surgeon could do.
    “Anyway,” Susan continued, “we were both born in Michigan, but after that we moved around a lot, and ended up in San Francisco in the seventies. We went to Catholic school there. I loved it but Rhonda hated it. She cut all the time and got into punk, which was just starting to be big. She was friends with Jello Biafra, Rocky Graham from the Symptoms, the guys from Eye Protection, the Mutants, the deejays at KSAN and then at KUSF—”
    “How can you even remember all that?” Kiley asked.
    Susan grinned conspiratorially. “I was the little sister. I knew them all, too.”
    Whoa. There was a whole hidden side to the colonel's wife that Kiley never could have imagined. “So they were your friends?”
    “Not really. But they fascinated me. Rhonda brought them home sometimes. Even I wanted to be friends with them. … Well, I guess I just don't have the rebel gene. I was just a lot more studious than Rhonda. And religious. I worshipped the nuns. She worshipped the hardest of hard-core punk. Of course, we were just teens then. That was before she became a rock star in the eighties.”
    “So she started singing and you—?”
    “Went to college in San Diego. To the University of San Diego. It's a Jesuit school—perfect for me.” She drew her paleknees up to her chest. “That wasn't my dream, though. What I really wanted to do was go to Scripps.”
    No way. Impossible.
    “Did you say … Scripps?” Kiley queried. “The oceanography institute?”
    Susan nodded. “It's in La Jolla—”
    Kiley sat up. “That's where I want to go! That's why I auditioned for your sister's TV show—so I could establish California state residency and get in-state tuition. If I get in, of course. This is just so amazing!”
    Susan smiled. “I wanted to work with dolphins. How about you?”
    “I don't know yet,” Kiley admitted. “There's just something about the ocean …I can't explain it. Why didn't you go to Scripps?”
    “I didn't get in.”
    Kiley felt a physical pang, as if the rejection was happening to her. “That must have been so hard.”
    Susan nodded. “I was devastated. Anyway, I ended up studying elementary education instead.”
    Kiley couldn't get over it. What were the odds that she and Susan would have Scripps in common?
    “So, go on,” she urged, liking Susan more by the minute. “How did you meet the colonel?”
    “At a church function.” She looked into the distance, her eyes dreamy. “He was so responsible—an actual marine at Camp Pendleton and a practicing Catholic like me. I knew I could always depend on Richard.” Her gaze went back to Kiley. “So, that's it. We got married, had our children, and I became a marine wife. Not something I necessarily recommend—holdon.” She cocked her chin toward the far end of the pool deck, where the colonel and Anya,