Golden Orange Read Online Free

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    And then, long before George Bush was inaugurated, Ralph had played a game of singles at the John Wayne Tennis Club with a thirty-year-old manicurist who had a hell of a backhand and a tongue like fibrillating paddles. The manicurist and Ralph moved in together, and Tess was suddenly living alone in the ghetto, in a home she bought from him during the divorce with a minimum down payment and monthly payments that were exhausting what was left of her family trust. Her third marriage had lasted seventeen months from honeymoon to final decree.
    Tess Binder had never thought for a minute that she couldn’t persuade Ralph to abrogate the prenuptial agreement. If she’d known how heartless he was she’d never have invested a chunk of her inheritance in gold certificates at exactly the wrong time with exactly the wrong swarm of gold-bugs.
    Lying on the hot sand, Tess suddenly felt a shadow cross. She looked up to find Corky Peebles in her ultrarevealing jet-black bikini, with a jet-black power bob like silent film star Louise Brooks. Tess was sure that Corky dyed her hair. Nobody’s was that lustrously black, but she hadn’t been able to prove it. And Tess hadn’t had a real conversation with her since Corky had returned from a six-month cruise with the 342nd richest man in America who decided not to marry her after all.
    â€œYou should be visiting the tanning salon at least twice a week,” Corky said, kneeling in the sand, her fingernails studded with ersatz gems, à la Olympian Florence Griffith-Joyner.
    â€œI think a natural tan might be less damaging than your … unnatural salon tan,” Tess said, forced to note that the goddamn powerhouse Lulu bob looked smashing on Corky.
    â€œThere’s a great deal of research being done these days on the effects of ultra violets,” Corky said, peering across the dock at Reverend Matlock, who was being congratulated by several landlocked yachtsmen wearing blazers and a gin flush at eleven o’clock in the morning.
    â€œUltra Violet was the playmate of Andy Warhol,” Tess said dryly.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œNever mind.” Artsy allusions didn’t register around these parts, but an obscure reference to Donald Trump or any billionaire west of Suez could get you an instant grin of recognition.
    â€œHas Jeb invited you to tour his new boat?” Corky asked, sure that he had not. So far, only half a dozen locals had been aboard the yacht since its delivery, and Corky was one of them. Everyone knew that she’d slept with Driscoll on land and sea, and once, it was said, during a flight to Tahoe in his jet.
    â€œI guess I’m just not interested in boats,” Tess said. Then she added, “How much did it cost?”
    â€œI’ve heard three-point-five,” Corky said. “Sam Sloan’s cost four, you know. Four-point-two-million to be exact.”
    â€œHe’s still married, isn’t he?” Tess asked, since Corky obviously wasn’t ready to leave without finding out whatever she’d come to find out.
    â€œSam? Barely.”
    â€œHe must be sixty-five.”
    â€œA vigorous sixty-five.”
    â€œYou should know,” Tess said, relishing a microline that slashed its way across Corky’s golden forehead.
    â€œI should, but I don’t. I’ve only heard. Vigorous does not always mean what you think it does.”
    Tess kept smiling but turned her face to the sun.
    Then Corky said, “He’s dating Vera. If he marries her he’ll need to mortgage the boat to pay for her prescriptions. She uses more drugs than a Bulgarian weight lifter.”
    Tess turned a hip ever so slightly away from Corky, but instantly regretted it. There was a trace of cellulite forming on her thigh and Corky wouldn’t miss it!
    â€œShe’ll end up regretting it more than he does,” Corky continued. “He has a dry day about as often as Joan Collins irons her sheets.