American Beauty (14 page)

Sam had suggested that she be an active heroine. Hmm. That could be good advice.

After waiting in line at the customer service counter while a middle-aged platinum blonde in peach-toned Juicy Couture, carrying a peach-toned toy poodle in its peach-toned carrying case, got her malfunctioning BlackBerry replaced, Sam stepped up to the desk, where a guy in a cranberry polo shirt grinned at her. He looked to be about nineteen, with spiky blond hair and aquamarine eyes that bellowed, “I wear colored contacts!”

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Yes. I need a new cell phone plan,” Sam replied.

His voice dropped to a conspiratorial level. “Say, aren’t you … ?”

“Cell phone plan?” she repeated.

Anna knew Sam was used to getting recognized as Jackson Sharpe’s daughter. Often she liked it, and used it to her great advantage.

“Oh sure,” the guy assured her. “Just wanted to say that I’m glad you put the weight back on, ’cuz it like suits you. There are a zillion skinny girls out there. And you looked really good after you lost weight too. But I just meant I really like your show. My girlfriend turned me on to it—”

“What show?”

Anna could see doubt begin to cloud his way-too-blue eyes. “
Less Than Perfect
? You’re Sara Rue, right?”

“Wrong,” Sam snapped. “I am not Sara Rue. Now can we get back to your actual job? New cell phone plan?”

“Oh sure, sorry. Wow, you really look like—”

“No, I really don’t. And I don’t look like Kelly Osbourne, either.”

“Sheesh, my bad.” He plucked a brochure from under his desk and slid it over to Sam. “Lemme just go over the plans with you—”

“I don’t need you to go over the plans. Just pick one.”

“But there are different options based on—”

“Fine. This one.” Sam blindly stabbed a finger at the brochure.

The sales rep looked confused. “Well, okay. Do you already have a phone or will you be needing a—”

“Let’s cut to the chase. Any phone plan, any phone. I’ll need that for
one hundred phones
, which I’d like programmed now. Now what did you say your name was?”

“The name is Stuart.” He hesitated. “Did you say—”

Sam turned to Anna. “Did I not say a hundred phones?”

“You did,” Anna confirmed. “I have no idea why, Stuart, but I have a feeling she’s going to explain.”

Sam hitched a forefinger in Anna’s direction. “Stuart, now see, this is a girl who knows me. Fine. One hundred phones on plan whatever. I want every single number on them blocked, except for a single number that I give you. And I want that number programmed into all the speeddials, too.”

Stuart looked dubious. “Is this, like, a joke?” He was scratching his head and squinting his eyes.

“No, this is not, like, a joke,” Sam replied.

“Well I … I’m not … I mean, I don’t think we can … It’s going to cost …”

“Stewie,” Sam said with a grin. “Let me tell you who I am. I’m Sam Sharpe. As in, Jackson Sharpe’s daughter. As in, I am not concerned about the cost of this. As in, do you think you could make this happen within the next five minutes?”

Stuart turned beet red. “I … I … ”

“Glad to hear we’re on the same page here,” Sam said with a smile.

Stuart excused himself to speak with the manager. Sam folded her arms, tapping one patent-leather-platform-clad foot impatiently.

Anna tried to fill in the blanks. “You’re ordering a hundred cell phones for Eduardo, and the only number he can call on them is yours?”

Sam wagged a playful finger at Anna. “There’s a reason you get straight A’s.”

Anna laughed out loud. “That’s actually kind of … brilliant.”

“Is it?” For just a moment she looked vulnerable.

“Yes, it’s great,” Anna assured her. “It’s sweet and funny and shows how much you want him. I should do something like that for Ben.”

Sam threw her hands in the air. “What is your problem? Ben loves you. You don’t
need
to do anything.”

Anna sighed. Right now, she needed to be about Sam; she got that.

“I’m going to have the phones delivered to Eduardo in a giant box. Any number he pushes on any phone, he gets me. He’ll laugh, don’t you think?”

“I do. How could he resist?”

Stuart hustled back to them, his manager in tow. She was in her thirties and built like a bowling ball, wearing the same regulation Verizon shirt as Stuart. Sam had told Anna many times that any time you found someone fat in a position of power in Beverly Hills, it meant they were great at their job, because excess avoirdupois in Beverly Hills was essentially illegal.

Ten minutes and one credit card with no spending limit later, Sam had ordered her phones and arranged for them to be delivered to Eduardo.

“So we’re here, let’s spend,” Sam suggested as they exited the store, mission accomplished. “Aveda Esthetique, Donna Karan, Armani?”

“I’ll wander around with you if you want, but I don’t really feel like shopping.”

“You and your vintage Chanel hand-me-downs,” Sam groused. She peered closer at Anna. “Wait. Something really
is
wrong; I see it in your eyes.”

It wasn’t like she hadn’t been trying to tell Sam exactly that. Yet Anna couldn’t help herself; her knee-jerk reaction was to lie and murmur, “No, I’m fine.”

God, she’d been well bred into being a damn robot! According to her mother, being well bred meant that you never let on that your life was anything less than serene. If you were the center car in a ten-car accident on the 405, you’d say, “I’m fine, thank you,” before bleeding on the paramedics’ feet.

“Oh puh-lease,” Sam challenged. She stopped walking and faced Anna.

“Okay, not fine,” Anna forced herself to admit. Then, as they leaned against the metal rail, beyond which they could look down to the floors below because the mall was constructed like a giant angel food cake, she told Sam everything.

“Okay, so it’s more than he didn’t rock your world last night. What does Ben say is up?”

Anna hesitated. “I haven’t exactly asked him.”

“That is so you,” Sam marveled. “How can you stand not knowing?”

“I can’t. That’s the problem.”

“Here’s a novel concept: Ask him. At least you can. Think about me and Eduardo. The guy won’t even talk to me. Yet, that is.”

“But … I did ask him if anything was wrong. He said no. You can’t force someone to confide in you …”

“That is utter bullshit. He’s your guy. You have this serious big-time relationship, starring
you
, Anna.”

Starring me, she thought, and felt ridiculous just thinking it.

“I know exactly why you haven’t confronted him.” They began moving away from the railing and started back toward the escalators. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re afraid to find out the truth. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

“Franklin Roosevelt,” Anna filled in. “He was talking about the Depression.”

“Very apt.” Sam agreed, as they started downward. “He fought the Depression like it was a war. So rally your fucking army and ride to the sound of the guns.”

“It’s just so … so not me.”

“God, would you just get over yourself? If Ben is cheating on you, then he’s an asshole who doesn’t deserve you, and I’ll help you kick him to Van Nuys. If it’s something else, find that out too. Don’t give up without a fight.”

Anna nodded, feeling emboldened by Sam’s fighting words. They were particularly sweet since she knew there had been a time not so long ago when Sam had nursed an unrequited crush on Ben herself.

Sam was right. Anna was in a much better place with Ben than Sam was with Eduardo, and Sam was the one taking action. She reached into her black Chanel quilted purse, fishing through her Kiehl’s lip balm, her black leather Coach wallet, and a pack of spearmint gum for her own cell.

“How’s this for a saying?” Anna asked, flipping her cell open with her thumb. “‘I have not yet begun to fight.’ I’m calling him. Right now.”

Not a Screw-and-Run Guy

B
en’s cell phone rang out the first three notes of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” but he ignored the call because Blythe was winding her way through the tables of the outdoor patio section of Trieste to meet him. The inside of the club was a series of enormous themed spaces set up by some of the most famous movie set designers in Hollywood. There was a room set up to look like a giant emergency room, complete with bottles of alcohol suspended in medical bags over the massive bar. Another was decorated like a cave, with a special glass floor that changed colors in time with the music. But the part of the club Ben liked best was definitely the patio; it was set up to look like a wacked-out version of a suburban family’s backyard from the middle of the twentieth century, complete with individual barbecues, an aboveground pool where clubgoers could cool off during a hot night of dancing, and life-size cardboard cutouts of President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and other world leaders. He saw Blythe stop and take a second glance at Winston Churchill.

She was a damn great-looking girl, he had to admit—on the short side, and very curvy, à la Salma Hayek. In fact, she looked a little like that actress. Her naturally raven-black hair fell straight past her slender shoulders, compliments of her mom, a full-blooded Sioux. As she had confided to Ben one night, her grandparents still lived on a reservation in Nebraska.

Blythe was a fascinating girl. She dressed like a pretty stuck-up bitch. Most everyone at Princeton thought that was exactly who she was. It was authentic, too, from her father’s Portland, Maine, first-family blue-blood side. Ben didn’t know how Blythe’s parents had actually met, but he did know that her family background was an uneasy mesh of two very different worlds.

They’d met at the movies, of all places. Blythe had taken off her shoes during a midnight showing of
Rocky Horror
that she’d gone to with a girlfriend for nostalgia’s sake—evidently, back in junior high, she’d been a fixture at the midnight Saturday show at Portland’s sole art house. Somehow, her black velvet Steve Madden wedge heels had migrated to the row where Ben was sitting with Jack and two girls they’d met at the Ivy Club on Prospect Avenue.

They’d ended up going out for coffee, and that wasn’t all they’d ended up sharing. They’d ended up becoming friends, and then things had progressed.

Shit! Why had he let it happen? How had hanging out turned into … more? Ever since he’d come home for the summer, Blythe had been calling to discuss their “relationship.” To make matters worse, she’d called over the weekend to say she’d be in Los Angeles in two days visiting her older brother, Derek—a junior development exec at Disney. She couldn’t wait to be with Ben again. To Ben’s shock, she’d started talking dirty to him; all the things she remembered about him, and all the things she wanted him to do to her when they saw each other.

Ben had been freaked ever since Blythe’s phone call. If Anna found out how much Blythe was pursuing him … he simply could not let that happen.

He’d picked Trieste because he figured this was as neutral an environment as he could think of. Yet here she was, dressed to kill in a little lacy burnt-orange camisole and the lowest-slung jeans in the history of denim.

“Hi,” Ben said.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He was sitting in one of the outdoor lawn furniture chairs that were spread around the patio. She leaned down to kiss his lips, somehow super-gluing her body to his at the same time. “I missed you.”

“Blythe …” Ben motioned to a second lawn chair he’d placed near his own.

“Ooh, too much too soon, huh?” She smiled and tossed her inky hair back, sitting down and crossing her right leg over her left. “I can’t help it if seeing you gets me hot.”

Shit
.

Ben was determined to take control of this conversation. “You remember I told you about Anna.”

“Sure,” Blythe breathed easily, lifting her heavy dark hair to fan the back of her neck. “Is it warm in here or is it you?”

“Um … It’s warm. They turn the AC off when the club isn’t open. I don’t know how to make this any clearer to you, Blythe. You and I had sex one night—that’s all—during a time when I thought Anna and I had broken up forever. And that’s all that happened.”

“That’s sweet, Ben.” Blythe’s thick but perfectly groomed eyebrows rose. “But I know you better than that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You are not a screw-and-run guy,” she replied simply. “You care about me too much to be like that. I know you do. “Plus …” She ran the toe of one black Chanel stiletto against the leg of his faded jeans. “You can’t tell me the sex wasn’t great.”

“Well, I suppose it was,” Ben admitted reluctantly. God, if Anna were anywhere nearby, she would
freak
.

“And I
do
care about you. As a
friend
.”

She laughed her throaty laugh. “You do what we did with all your friends?”

“No. But we talked about it before—”

“Because I’m not the kind of girl who rolls around with her friends. You
know
that about me.” She looked him straight in the eye, her expression suddenly serious.

This was true. During one of their late-night conversations, she’d talked about the two lovers she’d had and how both relationships had been serious. How the hell had he allowed himself to get carried away by a few beers and some steamy kisses?

He ran a nervous hand through his thick hair.

“Blythe, I don’t know any other way to say this. I told you this before, at school after I came back from Vegas. I’m back with Anna. You and I are just friends. We have to pretend that drunken one-night thing never happened.”

“Wow,” she breathed, hurt clouding her eyes. “That stings.”

“I just …”

He hated the hurt on her face and knowing he’d caused it.

“I—I don’t want to screw things up with Anna.”

Blythe withdrew her hand. “I see.” She stood, tears in the corners of her limpid eyes. “Sometimes the heart and the lips say two different things. I was reading your heart. The reason I’m so sure I’m right is that you’re breaking mine.” With those words, she turned around and walked away; Ben put his head down on his arms. Why had he succumbed to one drunken night of lust? How had he gotten himself into this terrible predicament? He went back over everything he’d said and done and concluded once again that he hadn’t in any way led her on.