American Beauty (17 page)
“I think we all know that Sam Sharpe single-handedly saved our prom,” Fee recounted into the mike.
As Fee’s words echoed around the Coliseum, Monte had panned the crowd: every head in the place was nodding fervently. Parker snuck a glance at Eduardo. He was rapt.
“I mean, how great is this?” Fee continued. “Here we are on the set of Jackson Sharpe’s next unbelievable movie. Sam, we all just want to thank you for taking lemons and making lemonade!”
Parker turned off the DVD and TV. “Sam was a hero that night, Eduardo.” He took the disk out of the player. “A real hero. I don’t know how much you know, but our prom was completely ruined. It was supposed to be at the Bel-Air Grand Hotel, but that hotel burned down the week of prom. Sam was the one who figured out what to do. Sam was the one who made all the arrangements. Sam was the one who thought of everything. Sam was even planning to make a movie about it. You’re asking why she was so bummed out, so upset that she’d let me kiss her … and maybe even kiss me back? The answer is simple: Because you weren’t there to see it.”
Whew. Parker hadn’t intended to go on that long. He didn’t want to seem like he was overplaying his hand. Yet the passion of his words got the best of him. Sam
had
saved the day, and she’d been planning to make a movie of the prom do-over. When she’d won prom queen, the movie had been ruined, because she knew no one would take seriously a documentary where the filmmaker ended up as the belle of the ball being filmed.
“She didn’t tell you, right?”
Eduardo nodded.
“Yeah, didn’t think she would. That’s why I came here. That’s why I wanted you to see that. It hurt her that she couldn’t make her film, but it hurt more that you weren’t there to see her moment of glory.” Parker stood. “Look, the girl really, really loves you. She’s special. Hell, she doesn’t even know how special she is, but she’s …” He stopped, then started again. His eyes met Eduardo’s. “You don’t just throw something like that away, man.”
Eduardo’s eyes clouded. “What she did … you did … It was still a betrayal.”
Parker shrugged. “Like I said, we were drunk. But it didn’t mean shit.” Then he switched to Spanish. “
Si yo podría vivir esa noche otra vez, no habría hecho lo que lo hice. Y de la manera que me has recibido aquí hoy, debo decir que mi amiga Sam es afortunado tenerle. Gracias, Eduardo. Yo significo eso
.”
The look of shock on Eduardo’s face pleased Parker greatly. His high school grades had always sucked … except in Spanish, where his twelfth-grade teacher was a fox. He’d just told Eduardo that if he could do it over again, he’d do it differently, and that from the way Eduardo had allowed him—Parker—to make his case here, he thought Sam was lucky to have him as a boyfriend.
“Where did you learn to speak Spanish like that?”
“We have schools in America too. But there’s one thing they can’t teach, no matter how good a student you are.”
“Okay. What’s that thing?”
“To get your goddamn head out of your ass, Eduardo. Before it’s too late.”
W
hen Anna went to meet Ben for breakfast the next day at Nate’n Al’s delicatessen on North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, she was determined to be what Sam had described as an “active heroine.” There was something off between her and Ben, but she wasn’t just going to wait around miserably and see what would happen. She would take matters into her own hands and address it. “I can’t pretend everything is fine when it so obviously isn’t. It’s insulting to both of us.”
Yes, that was what she would say. If it meant that she and Ben were done, so be it. It would hurt. It would hurt a lot. But there were other guys in Los Angeles, and it wasn’t like their relationship had been a plate of …
Oh God. She was so full of it. Ben was her first everything. Her
only
everything. How could he have stopped loving her?
What did one wear to confront one’s boyfriend? Her mother would have insisted on high-priced battle armor—Chanel would be perfect. So Anna did just the opposite. She pulled a plain white T-shirt from her drawer and an ancient pair of cargo khakis. She did opt for Chanel, but only on her feet—comfy ballet flats. With her hair back in a ponytail tied by a black silk ribbon, a little Stila brown mascara, a slick of Smith’s Rosebud Salve on her lips—that was it. Take her or leave her.
Nate’n Al was the most famous deli in Beverly Hills, with a simple storefront that boasted its name in bright orange script. The interior was spacious, with booths and tables all variations on orange and white. Off to the left was an actual delicatessen counter, with glass cases full of herring, lox, pickled tomatoes, and other delicacies.
The place was popular, an industry hangout for decades. In fact, as Anna stepped through the door, it seemed like Nate’n Al was packed to well over its human capacity. She knew that Ben was supposed to be here already to find a booth, but how was she going to find him in this mass of Hollywood hipsters, ladies-who-lunch out for breakfast instead, waitresses in their fifties and sixties in orange dresses that must have been high fashion forty years ago, and tourists enjoying a celebrity gawk session? Just to her left, in fact, a tight knot of foreign visitors surrounded one table, talking excitedly to one another and pointing. All Anna could understand were the words
American Idol
, which meant that someone from a show even she had heard of was dining at that very moment.
She felt a strong male hand on her right shoulder.
“Table for two, madame? Come right this way.” She turned. Ben wore a green V-necked Fila rugby shirt with khaki pants. He looked great. More than that, he looked different, and not just because he’d gotten his hair trimmed between the last time she’d seen him and now, or because he sported a scruffy growth of beard that Anna found very sexy. It was his eyes—as she looked into them, all she saw was love.
“I might have to hit on the maître d’,” Anna mused, as Ben led them through the restaurant. “Or is he taken?”
“Very taken. But since when have you ever ‘hit on’ anyone?”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.”
“You don’t say? No, wait. Come to my table and tell me every titillating detail,” Ben suggested. He tried to force his brows and mouth into an impression of Jim Carrey, but failed miserably. Still, Anna giggled as he helped her into a vacant chair at a table for two with a RESERVED sign on it. Just like that, all was right with the world again.
A well-past-middle-age waitress with dangerously tall brown hair and legs like tree stumps lumbered over to their table. She wore an orange Nate’N Al uniform that had likely looked good twenty pounds ago, but miraculously didn’t restrict her movement as she poured coffee for them both. “The matzo brei will be out in a minute, Benny,” she reported. “Ditto the sable platter.”
Ben grinned and pointed to his watch. “I’m timing you, Myrtle.”
“Timing, shmining,” Myrtle scoffed in her warm yet gravelly voice, obviously unfazed. “Remember, I control your breakfast between the kitchen and here. I could tell you stories about what Phoebe did to a certain notorious Oscar-winning actor’s tongue-pastrami-roast-beef sandwich when he was rude to her, but I’d hate to ruin your appetite. How’re your parents?”
“Great. And don’t try to blame Phoebe, either. I heard this unnamed actor has your picture up on his dartboard.”
“I ain’t saying I did anything, but whatever happened, he deserved it.” Myrtle lumbered back toward the kitchen.
“She’s been a waitress here since I was a kid.” Ben leaned over the booth, grinning. “She used to be an actress in Roger Corman’s horror films.”
No doubt. Ben was back. Apparently, better than ever.
“You’re different today,” she declared.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Myrtle had also poured fresh-squeezed orange juice. Anna took a sip; slightly tart and slightly sweet, it was delicious. At the next table, a couple of producers were arguing over possible casting for their next feature, an action flick about a lonely female cruise ship captain who decides to quit her job and enter the competitive world of speedboat racing. One wanted Angelina Jolie, one wanted Renée Zellweger. Their voices got louder and louder.
“It’s the talent, Richie. It’s the talent. Renée has the talent!”
“Screw that, Freddie. What would you rather see?
Cold Mountain
or
Tomb Raider
? I tell ya, Jolie’s butter!”
In best
This Is How We Do Things
Big Book fashion, Anna was doing her utmost to ignore the distraction. Ben, however, leaned over toward them. “Hey, guys? I write for the
Hollywood Reporter
. What’s the picture? Maybe I can do a story for tomorrow?”
The two squat-looking men—both in standard-issue jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps to cover their candidacy for the Hair Club for Men, backpedaled furiously.
“We’re still in preproduction—”
“We’re not ready to be in the trades—”
“We’ll be greenlit any day now, I swear it.”
“Fine,” Ben replied, nodding. “Then please keep the volume down. You see this girl?” He hitched a thumb toward Anna. “Gorgeous, huh? I think I’m in love, and I need a little quiet here so that I can tell her.”
The thinner of the Hair Club men nodded. “Okay, wise guy. Just don’t get married. Ruins everything.”
“I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” Ben assured him.
Myrtle brought them the sable platter—bright pink slices of fresh lox, golden pike, sliced tomatoes, and the sable itself, which Anna discovered was close to smoked cod but altogether wonderful. There were two sliced everything bagels shedding sesame and poppy seeds, plus small brown chunks of roast garlic and flecks of salt.
She leaned close to him as he prepared a section of bagel, cream cheese, and sable for her. “Do you know what’s funny?”
“What?” He forked up a piece of sable and tasted it.“Perfection.”
“Something was bothering you over the last fewdays, and you wouldn’t say what. But now I realize; it didn’t have anything to do with me. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, and put the bagel section on her plate. “I’m sorry, Anna. I acted like an asshole. A rude and distant asshole.”
“Can you tell me what it was about?”
“Just some personal stuff.” He spread cream cheese on his own half a bagel.
“With your family? Your dad?”
“I swear it’s not important. I just really don’t want to go into it.”
She was a little taken aback. “Okay. It’s just … maybe I could help.”
Ben shook his head. “It’s … not really appropriate for you to help. Anyway, it’s handled and it’s over.” He lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them. “Okay?”
Anna considered pressing him for details, but thought better of it. In the social circles of the WASPy Upper East Side of Manhattan, there was a difference between what was and what was not her business. Couples didn’t need to share
everything
. Besides—if she was going to be perfectly honest—she hadn’t been without at least a slight interest in Caine during the brief time they’d spent together. It wasn’t like she’d confessed that to Ben.
Perhaps some things in relationships were better left unsaid.
“Got plans for today?” Ben asked. He sipped his coffee.
“I don’t know. Do I?”
He grinned. “Well … I thought it might interest you to know that my parents are not only not home, they’re not coming home, because—”
Anna’s cell rang. “Don’t you dare change the subject,” she warned him, then fished her phone out of her classic butter-colored Marc Jacobs hobo bag. “Hello?”
“Anna? It’s Dad.”
“Hi, Dad.”
“Where are you right now?” Jonathan asked.
“Nate’n Al. Having breakfast with Ben.”
“I hope you ordered the sable.”
“I did … I mean, Ben did. And matzo brei.”
Jonathan’s happy laughter rang in her ears. “Well, that’s a good thing. Now, I want you to do four things, and no is not an option. One, pack up the sable to go. Two, pay the check, though I suspect your dining companion will cover it. He’d better. Three, come home right away. And four, bring Ben with you.”
“But—”
“No buts, Anna.
Now
.”
“A summons to Foothill Drive,” Ben joked, as he and Anna stood on the doorstep of Jonathan’s mansion. “Just when we were about to make up for lost time.”
Anna tried to force a smile, but the truth was, she felt uneasy. From the exterior, everything at home looked normal—her father’s third car, a bright yellow Lotus Exige, stood sentry in the driveway that circled the front of her father’s two-story classic white mansion with two bay windows that looked out over the front of the property. Anna’s own room was in the rear, on the second floor. Behind and around the house was something more rare in Beverly Hills than a child who had to walk to school—a sizable plot of land. An old maroon pickup from their landscaping company was parked behind it; a crew of workers was hard at work cutting the lawn and trimming the shrubbery before they went to work on the landscaped grounds behind the building that featured an artificial stream, a footbridge, and a wooden gazebo. But who knew what was going on inside?
“Shall we?” Anna asked tentatively.
“We shall, but I’m not carrying you in this time.”
Anna smiled sweetly and found her keys. “I think we can go in under our own steam.” She opened the door.
“Happy graduation!”
Anna stopped dead in her tracks. Barely five feet from her, in the middle of the foyer, were not just her father, but her mother, Jane; her sister, Susan—who had just made the big surprise announcement—and a mystery guy with a brown bushy beard and wiry, unkempt hair. He wore blue drawstring pants and a sort of white tunic.
Susan rushed forward to embrace her sister, words tumbling out of her as she did. “Surprise! Mom came from Italy and Gordon and I came from the East Coast to surprise you for your graduation! So say something. Oh wait, I should introduce you. Anna, this is Gordon Freed. Gordon, meet my little sister, Anna.” Then she threw her arms around Ben. “It’s so good to see you!”
“Uh, nice to see you again too, Susan,” Ben acknowledged with a sudden grin. “You seem … like you’re doing well.”