American Beauty (22 page)

“Graduation?”

“No. Meeting Sam’s mother. She’s still coming to Los Angeles, right?”

Trust Adam to bring up the one thing that she did
not
want to think about.

“No,” Cammie lied. “I mean, she’s coming, but I’m not nervous.”

“I told you before, I can be there if you want.”

She shook her head. “I can handle it. We’ll talk afterward. But that’s a really, really nice off—”

Suddenly, Ben broke through the crowd on the dance floor—his forehead was creased with tension. “Have you guys seen Anna?”

“No,” Adam replied. “Why?”

“We just … I need to find her. If you see her, tell her I’m looking for her and we have to talk and … Just tell her, okay?”

“Sure.”

Cammie was more than a little curious about why Ben had to find Miss Priss. Could they be having troubles? The thought brought her considerable good cheer.

In fact, the only thing that could make this night better than winning the contest and humiliating Stefanie would be if Anna and Ben broke up.

Yeah, it was schadenfreude. But it was worth it.

In a home of magnificent rooms, the Skylight Room was the most magnificent of all. The roof and two walls were glass, the whole thing bisected by platinum support rods in geometric patterns that dazzled the eye. The view ranged from Malibu in the north down to Long Beach in the south; there were banks of telescopes for guests to use at their leisure. The floor was glass too, permitting the guests to see what was happening in the game room on the second level. All the furniture had been removed for the party, and the empty room easily held two hundred people.

There was a small stage at the east end. Cammie, Sam, Adam, and Eduardo stood near it—Cammie didn’t want to have to work her way through the throng if she won. As they watched, Pashima climbed onto the stage to cheers from the crowd; their hostess held a wireless microphone.

“Hey, everyone! Stefanie and I want to thank you guys sooo much for coming tonight!”

The crowd cheered; then Pashima went on and on about how the balloting had been so close, they’d had to count and recount the votes.

“Who’s going to win?”

Cammie turned—Stefanie had stepped up behind them.

“Oh, you, definitely,” Cammie declared, catching Sam’s eye at the same time. They knew what was coming later, after the winner was crowned. Stefanie didn’t.

“Sam?” Stefanie asked. “You know who the slave’s going to be no matter who wins from my school? Go look in a mirror—if you can find one big enough.”

“Could you suck any harder?” Sam swallowed slowly, trying to restrain herself.

“Yeah, I could have invited that girl Blythe tonight just to mess things up between your buddy Anna Percy and her boyfriend. Oops!” Stefanie smacked herself in the forehead. “How could I forget? I did!”

Cammie stifled a grin. Well, that explained the Ben/Anna drama. Not that she still wouldn’t make Stefanie her slave.

On the stage, a bald accountant type handed Pashima a large white envelope, then stepped to the back of the stage. “Okay, time to announce our winner!” Pashima gleefully tore at the envelope. “The winner is …” She pried the envelope open. Stared. Squinted. Stared at it more closely. Frowned mightily.

It’s me,
Cammie thought gleefully. Across the room, one of the boys from PHHS she’d flirted with gave her a big thumbs-up.

“Fee Berman?” Pashima shrugged. “Who the hell is Fee Ber—?”

“It’s me, I won!” Fee squealed. She pushed through the crowd, leaped onto the stage, and threw her arms around Pashima. “I really, really won!”

“B-but … you’re wearing a poncho!” Pashima sputtered.

“Not anymore!” Fee flung the poncho over her head; it fluttered like a parachute out into the crowd. Underneath was a matching camouflage bikini … that had been painted onto her naked skin.

In other words, she was naked.

“I totally underestimated that girl,” Cammie marveled, as the guys in the audience whooped and cheered; Fee held her hands overhead like a boxer.

“She’s got nerve, I’ll give her that,” Sam agreed.

“Not to mention a killer body,” Adam added. “Who knew?”

Fee stepped down from the stage; Cammie watched with not a little pleasure as Stefanie confronted her. “I really do not think this is fair. You didn’t buy cheap threads. You bought body paint.”

“I bought both. Hurts to lose, doesn’t it?” Fee crooned sympathetically. “But this is going to hurt even more.” She turned to the crowd and cupped her hands. “As my personal slave for the day, I pick … you! Stefanie Weinstock!”

“No fucking way,” Stefanie spat, over the cheers from the Beverly Hills kids. “I only invited you as a
joke
!”

Fee retrieved her poncho, dropped it over her head again, and peered down at her feet. They were shod in cheap bamboo thongs. “Wow. Right now, I need a foot massage before dessert. What are you doing standing up? Sit on the edge of the goddamn stage and rub my goddamn feet!”

“
Fine
.”

Cammie grinned. She hadn’t won, but Stefanie was going to be the slave to a prom weenie. Better than that—

“Stefanie Weinstock, where the hell are you?”

The room fell silent, as a behemoth of a man—easily six-foot five inches, two hundred and seventy-five pounds—pushed into the Skylight Room. His curly hair was disheveled and his beard was five days overdue for a shave. He wore a ragged T-shirt that advertised PEACE THROUGH SUPERIOR FIREPOWER and cutoff jeans. His flip-flops left a trail of mud on the glass floor—the same mud that was caked on his feet. In each hand, he carried a huge, open blue-and-white Foster’s beer can.

“Stefanie? Where are you?!” The behemoth didn’t speak. He bellowed.

Instantly, Stefanie was on her feet to confront the intruder. “Who the fuck are you? How’d you get in?”

“Oh sure,” the guy sneered, stomping toward her. “Act like you don’t know me, after you were all over me and spent every night with me last month in Antigua! And promised you’d come back after school was over and spend the entire summer with me?”

A murmur ran through the crowd. Everyone at PPHS knew that Stefanie had been on vacation in the Caribbean. She’d met this guy there?

“I never met you in my life!” Stefanie’s face was bright red.

“Oh, really? How about this? ‘Give me more, Damon! Give me more! Do it to Stefi, do it to Stefi! I love you Damon!’” The huge guy made his voice as high-pitched as he could, imitating Stefanie in the throes of passion, which made the crowd—even many of Stefanie’s classmates—burst into laughter. “‘Ooh! Ooh!’“

“Omigod, who is this dude?” Sam asked Cammie with a profound wink.

“Beats me,” she gasped back with a giant smile on her face.

Stefanie looked around for support, but there wasn’t any. Even Pashima seemed to have slunk away to parts unknown.

“I mean it,” she told everyone, her voice coming out in a tinny whine. “I’ve never seen this guy before in my life!”

“He sure seems like he knows you,” Fee commented. “And who said you could stop working on my feet? I sure didn’t.”

The huge guy shook his head in disbelief, then lifted one of the Foster’s to his lips and took a drink that seemed to go on forever, then flung the can against one of the walls. “This is bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. And could someone back me up on that goddamn beer?”

“That’s it,” Stefanie fumed. She dug in her pocket-book for her cell. “I’m calling security.”

“What for?” the behemoth roared. “To take you to the fucking zoo?”

Once again, the crowded room broke up in laughter.

The guy drained the second Foster’s can, dropped it at Stefanie’s feet, and belched loud enough to be heard in Swaziland. “Know what? You don’t have to call security. ’Cause I’m outta here.” He took a step back toward the door, then stopped and whirled back toward Stefanie. “Aw, shit.”

With those words, he projectile vomited the contents of the two Foster’s cans—and probably several others—in Stefanie’s direction. As Stefanie screamed in disgust and outrage, Cammie smiled knowingly at Sam.

Yep. Revenge really was better served cold.

Please-Forgive-Me Flowers

A
nna stared out her bedroom window. As she watched a leaf sail down from a eucalyptus tree, she ruminated on how peculiar it was to live in a place where the seasons never seemed to change, yet a leaf could die and fall from a tree in early June. It made no more sense than Ben and Blythe’s Princetonian sex life. Anna had a hard time with things that didn’t make sense.

When she’d returned home the night before, there were already a half-dozen messages from Ben. “Please call me.” “Please let me explain.” And the proverbial “It’s not what you think.”

She hadn’t called him, but rather had just thrown her horrible cheap clothes in the trash and stood in a scalding shower for what felt like hours. There’d been no tears just then. She felt that if she allowed herself to cry, she’d just melt into a blubbering puddle.

But when she’d gotten into her bed and curled up in a ball trying to sleep, the tears had come, trickling onto her silk pillowcase until she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. A knock from her sister had woken her up. Susan was wearing her pristine, white cotton yoga clothes and was carrying a bouquet of fragrant tulips and freesia. Anna’s first thought: Please-forgive-me flowers from Ben.

Her second thought: Fuck him.

“I don’t want them,” Anna told her sister. She punched her pillow into a new position. “I’m going back to sleep.”

“Who’s Caine?”

“Who—Why?”

“They’re from him. Card was already open. You are in a terrible mood. Ever tried chamomile tea in the morning? I can brew some.”

Anna realized there was no reason to take her misery out on her sister, who had traveled all this way to see her and had clearly gone through enough misery of her own. “I’m sorry. I’m just … I had a fight with Ben last night.”

“Well, someone named Caine wants to make you feel better.”

Anna lifted the small white card nestled between the branches of baby’s breath.

“All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking to the stars.” Oscar Wilde wrote that. It was the quote under my senior photo and I’m still trying to live it down. Hope graduation tonight is endurable.

Time to move on to real life.

—
Caine

Anna took a deep breath.
Time to move on to real life.

“Is he cute?” Susan asked, stretching her arms over her head.

“Yes. He’s your type. Your type last year, I mean.” Anna tapped the card against the back of her hand. “I can’t believe he sent flowers for graduation. What a thoughtful thing to do.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“Dad’s intern, believe it or not. We’re just friends.”

“Of course,” Susan agreed with a laugh. “You’re too straight to do one guy behind another guy’s back. Want them in a vase?”

“Sure, thanks.” Anna handed her the flowers back and then hesitated a moment. “You don’t do that anymore, Sooz. Do you?”

“What are you talking about? I’m doing pretty much the entire kitchen staff at Kripalu,” she cracked. “Is that what you think?”

“I don’t think anything. I’m asking.”

Susan stood, her mouth pressed shut in a tight line. “Look, I’m together now, get it? I prefer to forget that the old me ever existed. In fact, if you tell Gordon, I’ll kill you.” She turned around and promptly walked out with the flowers.

“Gee, swell way to start the day,” Anna told the ceiling.

The flowers were nice, but Caine wasn’t the guy on her mind at the moment. She was thinking about what Sam had said to her the night before, and about what she’d said earlier in the week about being an active heroine.

Well, all right. She would take Sam’s advice and listen to Ben. Unlike last night, she felt like she could do it with a modicum of dignity.

She reached for her cell on the antique oak nighstand before she could change her mind.

“I should have told you,” Ben muttered.

He stared at the tiny espresso cup in his hands; they were sitting together but quite apart on a huge green velvet couch at the Cameo Bar in the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica. The Viceroy was extremely popular—just steps from the beach—but at ten on a Friday morning the bar was nearly empty. Ben could have chosen one of the white tables with the high-backed white upholstered chairs out on the exterior poolside deck. Instead, he’d opted for this couch, which faced two white stools and a round Lucite table. There was an area rug underneath in swirls of white, black, green, and gray. Anna could see what a fun and romantic place the Cameo Bar would have been at another time—the green-and-gray palette with Lucite and chrome accents was beautiful in an off-kilter way. But not now.

I should have told you.

Anna sighed. How many boyfriends had used those exact same words with how many girlfriends? Funny how they never got used until the person got caught.

“I’m being as honest as I can, Anna.” Ben was leaning forward with his arms resting on the table. He raised his eyes to her. “Blythe and I were just friends. We got wasted one night and had wasted-friends sex. That’s all it was. We both agreed.”

“I guess she didn’t get the memo,” Anna said coolly.

Ben shook his head. He wore baggy jeans and a sky-blue polo shirt. His hair was disheveled; he looked as if he hadn’t slept. “I’ve been asking myself over and over: Did I do or say anything to make her think we had something going on?”

“You had
sex
with her, Ben.” She leaned back on the couch and crossed her legs away from him. “Most girls take that as a sign of involvement.” She’d dressed down in khakis and a plain white T-shirt. But just to make sure Ben would eat his heart out while he drank his coffee, she’d put on a touch of Stila brown mascara and a quick slick of clear Chanel lip gloss. Then she’d sprayed Chanel’s Allure perfume into the air and stepped through the mist so that only the subtle aroma would linger. Diamond studs in her ears, a quick brush through her hair, and she’d been good to go.

“Actually, you’re completely wrong.” He sipped his espresso, then set it down on the round Lucite table. “I know you do, but other people don’t. When it happened, you and I weren’t together. I had no way of knowing we’d get back together, either.”