Born to Be Wild Read Free

doorway one hundred feet away? No, she’d bet it was no more than eighty feet. She knew he was taking photos of her with a telephoto lens. But who cared? Who would publish them if no one could recognize who she was? And thus her cap and huge sunglasses. She ducked into Luther’s Army Salvage, caught by the sight of army combat boots piled high in a barrel. She looked through them but didn’t find her size. Then she saw the pile of pea green knit sleeveless T-shirts, perfect for workouts and running on the beach. None of the three older guys in the store gave her a second look. She bought three identical pea green T-shirts, paid cash, pulled one on in a cramped dressing room, and slipped out the side door, then ran the block to PCH. She looked back, didn’t see him. She turned right and ran at a steady pace on the side of the highway, her tote banging against her side. When she reached Webb Way, she paused at the red light, then charged across just as the light was changing, the traffic on PCH still idled. All she had to do was keep up a nice fast pace until she reached the kiosk at the entrance of the Colony just three blocks away.
    No sooner had she gained the other side of Webb Way, right next to the Malibu Plaza, when she ran smack into an old woman pushing a grocery cart piled high with brightly colored afghans, all neatly folded. She apologized profusely, saw the woman eyeing her pea green T-shirt, reached into her store bag and pulled out another one. She thought the woman would kiss her, but she only nodded and gave her a stingy smile. Mary Lisa looked back to see the woman unbuttoning her ancient red blouse with its Peter Pan collar. She really didn’t want to see the woman wear the T-shirt, she really didn’t, not weighing two hundred plus pounds.
    Mary Lisa looked around and didn’t see Puker. Only another couple of blocks to go and she’d be safely through the gates into the sanctuary of the Colony. She began whistling, feeling quite fine, and found herself thinking again about where the writers were heading with the plot. She’d cornered head writer Bernie Barlow yesterday morning. “Listen, Bernie, Sunday doesn’t even like Damian. She knows he’s a jerk and a sleaze, that he’s a fake, she knows he married her half sister for her money, knows he’d like to finagle his way into her mother’s company. There’s no way Sunday would ever sleep with him, no matter the provocation.”
    Of course the writers never listened to the actors although they tried hard to pretend they did. Bernie patted her shoulder, nodded enthusiastically, and said, “Good, good,” but ended with, “Sweetie, Sunday sleeps with Damian for revenge against her half sister and her mother. It’s that straightforward, at least that’s the way it’ll appear for a couple of weeks, then—well, we’ll just have to wait and see.” She knew she should hang it up, stop pestering him about it, but where were they heading with this?
    She paused a moment before crossing the gnarly Malibu Road, its name not posted to discourage outsiders. She didn’t see a single car coming and crossed the road. She heard a gut-jerking song from Phantom at the same instant she heard the screech of tires and saw the flash of an old Buick LeSabre coming straight at her. For an instant her brain and her feet froze, then air whooshed out of her lungs as she hurled herself toward the opposite sidewalk. The car clipped her right side, sent her tote flying, and her crashing onto the sidewalk where she landed at the feet of a woman with a white toy poodle on a leash. The poodle barked maniacally in her face, his sequinned collar nearly blinding her.
    The woman, wearing too-tight white Capri pants that barely covered her hip bones, and a tube top of bright lime green, wasn’t, however, a sloucher. She fell to her knees beside Mary Lisa.
    â€œOh my God, that maniac tried to