Back in Black (18 page)

Dee slunk away, wondering what to—

Cammie. Cammie would listen. Cammie
had
to listen.

She bolted out of Sam and Anna's suite and ran in the opposite direction toward where Cammie and Adam were staying. Raised voices came from inside.

“Dammit, Adam, would you just chill out?”

“What, you think it's crazy that I want to know where my girlfriend disappeared to for an hour and a half?”

“I'm not on a leash, okay?”

“Geez, Cammie, I'm not trying to keep you on a leash! I was just asking you where you were!”

Dee backed away. Cammie and Adam were obviously having a fight, and this was no time to interrupt. Cammie would be furious if she did, and she didn't want to endure her friend's wrath. Hold on, she thought. She'd left her cell back in her suite. Poppy could be calling her that very minute and Dee might be missing the call! She charged back the way she'd come, opened her door, and checked for messages.

Nothing.

And then, as if by magic, her custom-designed cell phone ring tone—the haunting melody from the Avinu Malkeinu prayer from Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year—sounded.

“Hello?” Dee answered by the end of the sixth note.

“Dee, this is Tarshea, one of the baby nurses for Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe,” the woman announced on the other end of the phone.

Thank Hashem.

“Right, right, I know exactly who you are,” Dee assured her. “I'm so glad you called! Is Ruby okay?”

“The baby is just fine,” Tarshea assured her. “Mrs. Sharpe is out with Mr. Sharpe and she forgot her cell. She called in for messages and asked me to call you, sweetheart.”

Dee sagged onto her couch with relief. “So everything is okay?”

“Everything is just fine. Mrs. Sharpe asked me to tell you that you don't need to be calling here while you're on your school trip, sweetheart.”

“Oh, I don't mind. I think it's my responsibility to stay in touch.”

Silence.

“Don't take this wrong, sweetheart,” Tarshea finally told her. “But Mrs. Sharpe is askin' you
not
to call. She said she'll call you when she gets a chance.”

“Oh.”

“Just you go have fun with your friends. See you soon.” Tarshea hung up.

Dee just sat there. What could that possibly mean, don't call? Maybe Tarshea had misinterpreted Poppy's message? Yes. That had to be it. She dialed Poppy's cell again and got the machine.

Well. It didn't matter what the nursemaid told her. No way was she going out with the others, not with all this going on at home. She'd wait until she heard from Poppy. She could read the Zohar, a book of Jewish mysticism she'd brought with her. Then she'd go to sleep. In the morning, she'd go to Chabad for the morning minyan, just like she'd promised Rabbi Yaakov at the Kabbalah Centre.

But meanwhile, she'd be still and listen very carefully. Maybe Ruby Hummingbird would send her another psychic message.

Anna sat on the black wool love seat in her suite and tried to read
Vanity Fair
. But it wasn't working. The suite's walls weren't so thick, and she kept hearing Sam on the phone with Eduardo.

They'd already dressed for their evening downstairs at Rain, the Palm's hipper-than-thou club. Anna wore a black Helmut Lang shrunken cashmere sweater with the shoulders cut out, purchased last year on a shopping spree at Saks with Cyn. Anna recalled her mother's frown when she'd first seen Anna in the sweater, and her comments: Didn't Anna find it rather tacky to cut the shoulders out of black six-ply cashmere? Did Anna intend for it to be so cropped that it looked like it one of the maids had mistakenly thrown it into the washing machine? Anna recalled how she'd changed out of the sweater after that, the joy of wearing it gone.

Well, she didn't carry her mother's disapproving voice in her head anymore. At least she tried not to, so she was damn well going to wear the sweater tonight. She'd paired it with white silk pants from the Vanessa Bruno Athe' collection. Stila lip gloss. Shiseido brown mascara. Hair straight and loose to just past her shoulders. And her grandmother's Akoya pearl necklace. She was good to go, just as soon as Sam finished the call. Of course, that could be in the next century, from the sound of it.

Anna was happy that Sam had found such a great guy. She really was. But with Scott's arrival and Cyn's complaining about him, Anna was feeling as out of sorts about guys as she had in months. Really and truly, what did she want? One thing she knew for sure, she'd spent the hour since they'd gotten out of the hot tub thinking way too much about Scott Spencer. It was a proven fact: Her body went to mush every time she looked at him. She told herself it was just some biochemical thing, utterly meaningless. The problem was, her self didn't seem to be listening. Even now, she didn't seem to know the difference between lust and love. It wasn't like she really knew Scott. It was just some … some hormonal reaction.

With Ben it had been that and so much more. Anna felt dizzy.

Ben. Last year at this time—possibly even in this exact suite—Ben and Cammie had been insane with lust for each other.

“Hypocrite,” she muttered softly, though no one was in the room to hear her. She was lusting after two boys at the same time, but she would feel horrible if Ben lusted after some other girl while he was with her.

For all she knew, Ben had a new girlfriend at Princeton. Just because his father had said that Ben was pining away for her didn't make it reality. She eyed her PalmOne Treo 600 Smartphone (a new purchase that had helped her organize her life, since it also served as a digital camera and a PalmPilot and allowed her to access her e-mail) on the nightstand where she'd left it. Sam had programmed Ben's number into it.

It would be insane to call and invite Ben to Vegas. So not her.

Exactly.

She forced herself to put down
Vanity Fair
and picked up her phone. After four rings, she got voice mail again. “Hey, yeah, it's me. Leave a message.”

Anna's heart jumped a staccato beat at the sound of his prerecorded voice.

“Uh, hi, it's me again. Anna,” she added quickly, which made her sound like an idiot, since she'd already left a message for him earlier. “So … I'm calling you from Vegas. We're at the Palms. And I just. I just …”

Damn. She could do this.

“I was thinking how much fun it would be if you were here.” She took a deep breath. “The thing is, I still think about you. A lot. Wherever I go, you're still there inside my head. That sounds crazy, I suppose, considering how we parted. And I'm rambling, and … well, I just wanted you to know. …”

As she was thinking of what else to say, Sam knocked on her door and opened it. Anna took the moment to hang up.

“Eduardo just told me the funniest story about one time when he was here and—” Sam stopped dead in her tracks. “Did someone die?”

Anna shook her head.

“Then why are you standing in the middle of the room, clutching your phone, with your face the color of overcooked pasta?”

“I called Ben again.”

“Oh.” Sam reslung her purple Balenciaga leather motorcycle clutch over her shoulder—it was two shades darker than either her Zac Posen velvet-and-paisley shirt or her slimming Joe's jeans, both of which she'd purchased at one of the boutiques on the main floor of their hotel. “Well, geez, it took you long enough. Did you tell him to get his ass to Vegas?”

“Not exactly.”

“Well, whatever you want with him, I hope you get it.”

Anna smiled gratefully. Since Sam and Eduardo had fallen for each other, Sam was even a nicer human being. Amazing what being in love did to a person.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah. Hey, we're rich, we're young, and we're hot— in my case I'm using the term loosely.” Sam laughed. “So let's not cry into our Cristal.”

“You're absolutely right. Enough navel-gazing.”

“Speaking of, Dee was here a little while ago having a woo-woo moment. I really can't deal with her tonight.”

“She knows we're going to Rain,” Anna pointed out. “If she wants to come, she'll come.”

“I might have to duck out early. Have you ever had phone sex? I thought maybe it could be a warm-up with Eduardo until we're together again for the real thing.”

Anna smiled at her. “This is the happiest I've ever seen you.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed softly as they walked out of the suite. “I know.”

Flexing Her Sexiness

E
minem blasted from the supercharged sound system, and Cammie took a look around Rain. She nodded at her surroundings with cool approval. She remembered when George Maloof had bought the hotel—her father had sent a congratulatory bouquet of roses and a hard hat. She also recalled her father's comment that Georgie had to have ice in his veins— that the hotel business was treacherous and capricious, that today's hot spot was tomorrow's toast.

At least in Rain, Cammie thought, George had done everything right. The place was as deep and wide as two football fields; it spread out on multiple levels, and the main ceiling was at least seven floors high. There was a central raised dance floor. Above it, giant spigots spewed low-heat fire that pulsed to the beat. Behind the main service bar was a wall of Plexiglas, and behind the glass rain fell continuously. As Cammie watched, the rain became an indoor waterfall. The effect was breathtaking. She'd been to all the great clubs in Vegas. Rain was the best, by a wide margin.

“Dance?” Adam yelled over the music.

Cammie nodded. Their fight was over. The truth was, she hadn't gone much of anywhere when she'd left their suite. She'd merely gone across the street to the Rio Hotel, parked herself at the sushi bar, and consumed three California rolls and two small bottles of sake. She'd needed time to think. Alone.

Or no, maybe that was a lie. Maybe she'd done it so that guys could flirt with her. Without being superglued to Adam, she was free to flirt back. She'd come back to the Palms' casino where some guy in baggy blue Fubus, a huge black T-shirt, and what Cammie assumed were his initials—DR—in giant diamond letters around his neck, had asked her to roll his craps dice for him. She'd been amused to see that his bet was for twenty thousand dollars. She'd rolled craps and lost all his money. He hadn't seemed to care. He had a limo waiting. Where did she want to go? The answer: nowhere with him.

Then she'd strolled the perimeter of the casino—guy after guy had hit on her. Old, young, short, tall, bald, ponytailed—they'd been on her like white on rice. None of it had given her the thrill that she'd expected, the old zing of flexing her sexiness and seeing the kind of power she had over men. She couldn't decide if it was because being with Adam was taking that excitement away from her, or if she had just gotten incredibly jaded.

Then she'd seen something that had stopped her in her tracks. A pretty, modestly dressed brunette in her thirties had walked by, her arm linked through that of an ordinary-looking man with thinning brown hair and a largish nose. She was only about five foot three, and her husband wasn't much taller. Cammie noticed their matching wedding rings. The woman gazed up at him like the sun, eyes only on him.

What had taken Cammie's breath away was how much the woman looked like her mother. Same soft brown eyes, same lustrous brown hair, same easy step as she walked.

The stab of the moment came on so quickly that Cammie's hands flew involuntarily to her own heart. Cammie had been eight when her mother had died, the victim of a freak boating accident just a few miles off the Pacific coast. There one minute, gone the next.

Cammie suspected that her father, lovingly known to those in the movie business as that sonofabitch agent Clark Sheppard, had actually loved her mother. He'd never been the same since she'd died, even though he'd remarried. And neither had she. After her mom died, Clark used to admonish Cammie to toughen up.

“You're my flesh and blood, for God's sake. I can do it; so can you.”

Her father's harsh words had hurt back then. Thinking about them now, they hurt still.

Eminem's tune segued into a slow song by Beyoncé, and Cammie slipped into Adam's arms.

“We good now?” Adam whispered in her ear.

She wanted them to be good. So much. So she nodded and held him tighter as they swayed to the music.

Sam came up next to them. “Hey, we're going to the upstairs VIP room.” She motioned to the second level of the club. “You guys coming?”

“After this dance,” Adam nodded.

“You're not gonna freaking believe who's up there in the Rain suite next to ours,” Sam intoned. “A whole bunch of Academy Award losers. And not just from this year, either. Best Supporting Actor loser. Best Actor loser. Best Picture loser. They all wanted to know if my dad was here.”

Adam chuckled “That's hilarious. It's like a losers' convention.”

“I'm cursed, I swear,” Sam decided as she glanced around the dance floor. “God, half the people in here are from, like, Boise or something.” She shuddered, her gaze landing on a nearby couple. The girl was chunky, in a loud floral skirt stretched so tight across childbearing hips that it revealed a visible panty line. It was not a thong, either. “Do you realize that chick actually went into a store, tried that skirt on, checked herself out in the mirror, and said, ‘Wow, I'm so buying this’?”

“Taste is a gene,” Cammie declared. “She's missing it.”

“That's gotta suck.” Sam laughed cheerfully. “So I'll see you guys up there.” She edged her way back through the crowd.

Cammie smiled at Adam as Beyoncé wailed sexily. She felt antsy—not really in the mood for night clubbing. “Want to go play the slots, just for fun?”

“I told you, Cammie, I'm not big on gambling.”

Cammie felt irritation creep up her neck. “It's not like you're taking food out of the mouths of poor people, Adam.”

“It's the principle of the thing. Let's just hang here. With our friends.”

Fine. Great. Swell. Cammie knew she was needling him on purpose, but she couldn't seem to stop herself.

“Has anyone ever flung the term ‘bleeding-heart liberal’ in your direction? Rich Beverly Hills boy, all sanctimonious—”

“First of all, I'm not rich—”

“Your parents probably make—”