Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

Temple didn’t envy her. That body type was hard to change. “We’re all hyper-nervous about our own evaluations. Have you done your interviews yet?”
    Temple nodded. Suddenly, she was the center of everyone’s interest.
    “Are they too beastly mean to stand, like Simon on American IdolT Silver asked.
    “They’re pretty blunt,” Temple said. “It wouldn’t be good TV otherwise. You can see the cameras and you know they want to make you sweat.”
    “Who could see you sweat with that mop of dyed black hair?”
    “You sound just like Mr. Adair, the Hair Guy. At least I stand out in a crowd,” Temple added pointedly. “Why did you all want to be in such a pressure-cooker, anyway?”
    “Same reasons you did,” Ashlee said.
    “I don’t think so.”
    Temple doubted anyone else in the crew was a plant. Or a mole... oh. There actually could be a fake mole, as opposed to the real mole part Temple was playing. Reality shows loved to use fake contestants as insiders who could stir up trouble, keep everyone on edge, and rat to the producers on them all.
    “What are your reasons?” Honey asked as if beeswax wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
    “Needed to get away from the family, such as they are.” Temple snapped her gum for emphasis. “My brothers’ bike club was keeping me up nights.”
    “You’re brother’s a biker?” Blanca asked with a curdled expression.
    “Brothers. Plural. I have... six, I think. Yeah. You ever heard of the Demon Dozen?”
    “No.”
    “Why’d they let you in here?” Ashlee made no secret of the fact that this was a comment on the bad taste of the producers, not merely a question.
    “That’s a no-brainer. I’m the only one here who isn’t a Paris Hilton clone. Thin and dumb is getting old.”
    “Would you please stop chewing that tacky gum!” Blanca said.
    “If it weren’t tacky, it wouldn’t be gum, sis. Can’t stop. It’s my weight-control secret.”
    “Gum?”
    “Yeah.” Temple blew another big pink bubble, then reeled it back into her mouth. “Bums calories. The longer you chew it, the more you lose.” Now that she had their rapt attention, it was time for a kicker, the more ridiculous the better. “And if it’s green tea gum—very rare, that stuff—you’ll lose a pound a day.”
    “Really?” Amber edged near, her lips almost quivering to acquire a wad of green tea bubble gum.
    Temple was seriously wondering how she could “manufacture” such a thing.
    “All right, girls. Ready to rock-and-roll on the exercise mats?”
    They all turned to regard the Barbie doll in bright pink spandex yoga pants and top. “I’m Brandy, y’alls personal trainer, and an hour a day keeps the cellulite away. We’ll be working out by the heart-shaped pool. Won’t that be inspiring? Follow me.”
    Silver was both preening and frowning. “Didn’t Jayne Mansfield have a heart-shaped pool? She was the best blonde bimbo since Marilyn.”
    “She had a heart,” Temple said, “but not a head.”
    Only ex-newsies would remember the car accident that had decapitated the actress in nineteen-something ancient. The newspapers and TV stations always like to recall the date of anything grisly once a decade or so and call it an anniversary mention. That was one reason Temple had left the news biz for the PR biz. Grisly did not go over big in PR. Except, somehow, it seemed, on accounts she handled....
    The crew of identically clad contestants, joined by the Little Sisters from the breakfast room, marched behind Brandy out to the welcome sunlight of the house’s expansive grounds.
    What a sight to behold.
    Twenty-eight hot pink yoga mats surrounded the heart-shaped swimming pool, its gunite walls painted pink for the occasion.
    The only thing that marred the pink perfection of the scene was the whipped cream letters lying like fluffy clouds across every mat, spelling out...
    Everyone else stopped cold in the hot Las Vegas sun, frowning into their hot pink sweat bands, but Temple/Xoe just had to step forward and count:
    Die, you damn heartless bitches!
    Twenty-eight letters exactly, counting the punctuation marks. Twenty-eight little candidates all in a row. Someone was a perfectionist.



Whipped Scream

    You have not lived until you have seen the Las Vegas crime scene investigation folks (now famed on TV) photographing twenty-eight hot-pink yoga mats with whipped cream pooling on them in the sun.
    By the time that they, and I, have been alerted and are on the scene, the