Page 87 of Killer Body

What happens when you get too old for the job?

Age is the last thing I fear, and no one else needs to fear it, either. Age is a bully, when you think about it—all bluff and bluster, that can distract you from the joy of being alive. Killer Body isn’t about age. It’s about lifestyle, about choices, about giving yourself the freedom to choose. Inspiration and accountability. That’s what Killer Body is about.

And Julie Larimore is Killer Body.

It’s not age that scares me now. It’s this draining strength, this pain. No one can ever know. Promise me that no one will ever know. Stop the others any way you can.

Tania Marie

Word of the day:Vehemence:Forcefulness, intensity, fervor

Since there was no parking on Third Street, they found a place on Fourth, where she expected Jay Rossi to wait. She’d agreed to an interview and photo shoot forWomanmagazine, and she had to find something to wear.

She should have left Rossi behind, but he refused, saying he’d feel better if he could just keep an eye on her. The fact that someone worried about her, even though he was being paid to do so, softened her, and she agreed.

Damned if she didn’t know better. He’d done nothing but harp at her since they left her place. She was keeping something from him, he said. She was a lousy liar. Neither accusation was news to her, and the second had been witnessed by the entire country the year before.

“Even if I did know something, what makes you think I’d tell you?” she’d said as they drove into Santa Monica.

“Because I care.”

“Can it, Rossi.” With that she’d turned up the music, drowning him out in a joyous blare of Van Morrison.

That’s what she got for having dinner with him Saturday. She was glad that was all they’d had. For a moment there, when it had been just the two of them, a bottle of Frogs Leap zin and the foggy slice of moon, she’d considered breaking her short-man rule.

“About an hour?” she asked. “I won’t be long.”

“This is my first time here,” Rossi said, ignoring her request.

Instead, he followed her past the art galleries, jewelry vendors and street performers that made up the center of Third Street Promenade. Restaurants, clothiers and coffee shops lined the sidewalks. The smells of cotton candy, funnel cakes and churros were so real she salivated.

She stopped in front of a cotton-candy concession. “No one has ever seen me shop,” she said. “It makes me too nervous.”

“So, try me. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll wait in your car.” He grinned and walked up to a tiny studio of a store, its windows filled with Asian designs. “Come on. I shop with my sisters all the time. Sometimes, a second opinion can help. Otherwise it’s just you and the mirror.”

She pulled her straw hat lower and pushed up her dark glasses. “How many sisters do you have?”

“Four.”

“That’s obscene.”

“My mother would probably agree with you.”

“You’re the only boy?”

“Yeah, the oldest. That’s why women don’t intimidate me.” He grinned at her. “Not even you.”

“You don’t intimidate me, either.” She tried to move past the shop, but he remained planted in front of it.

“My number three sister was a designer for Ralph Lauren. She’s living in Paris now.”

“She should buy her brother a new truck,” she said. “And some shoes without pointed toes.”

He looked down at his boots. “What’s wrong with these?”

“You ever hear the termshit kicker?”

“I’m not ashamed of my roots. And Blackie’s fine for me.”