The A-List (17 page)

Monty (Montana, actually; Patti had been certain that the next generation of movie stars would be named for states of the Union) was a year younger than his brother. Unfortunately, he’d inherited the short, swarthy, large-beaked looks of his long-gone father. He figured out early on that looks were definitely not going to be his ticket; he’d have to find another reason to make A-list kids want to hang with him. Being the kind of guy who wanted to cover all his bases, Monty came up with three: He was willing to be their toadie. He was full of boundless energy and was always up for anything. He had a wicked sense of humor.

In other words, he would do their shit work, crack them up, and keep them up all night having fun. It was a winning combination. That Monty, only a junior, was smarter than the brightest of the A-list seniors was something he kept under wraps. He knew he was much better off having them underestimate him. He had to be particularly careful around Sam, because Sammikins was almost as smart as she was insecure. Monty did not want her to feel threatened. Yet. So for now, he played the affable chump.

Today, Samantha Sharpe’s flunky. Tomorrow, his own production company. One day—the world. Then all of these Beverly Hills brats could kiss his olive-skinned ass. One day, when his big brother Parker was old, ugly, and gumming his food in the William Shatner Home for the Aged, Monty might send him a nice care package of adult diapers and denture adhesive.

Sweet.

For a long time Anna thought the pounding was coming from inside her head. When she finally half opened her eyes, she realized that someone outside was banging on the front door. Evidently her father slept with earplugs, because no one was answering. The clock radio read eleven-thirty.

The banging continued; Anna rose wearily, wrapped herself in her Burberry cashmere bathrobe, and padded downstairs. She peered through the peephole of the front door and got a fish-eye view of a short guy in a baseball cap, with dark hair and a nose too large for his narrow face.

The guy stopped his knocking for a moment and listened. When he heard nothing, he started banging on the door again. Whoever he was, he wasn’t giving up. But Anna was a New Yorker; she wasn’t about to open the front door to a total stranger. “Can I help you?” she shouted.

“If you’re Anna Percy, I have a message for you.”

Anna’s first thought: Ben! She swung open the door. “Yes?”

“You’re Anna Percy?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the meaning of life?”

Anna blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Just wondered if you knew.”

“Did Ben Birnbaum send you?”

“Nope.” Monty handed her his cell.

Anna took it and held it to her ear. “Well?” came an impatient female voice from the other end.

“Who is this?” Anna asked, her voice still smoky from sleep.

“It’s me. Sam.”

Anna’s mind was still only half functioning. “Sam who?”

“Hel-
lo?
You were a last-minute uninvited guest at my father’s wedding? You got your dress ripped in half? I invited you to a party at Warner Brothers?”

Sam Sharpe? Why would Sam Sharpe send this guy to wake her up? Anna cleared her throat. “Right. Sam. What can I do for you?”

“Is there a short guy with dark hair and a honker the size of J.Lo’s ass with you right now?”

“Um … yes.”

“His name is Monty. I sent him to pick you up. Don’t thank me; that’s just the kind of bitch I am.”

Anna wasn’t processing. Nor did she want to process. “I’m sorry, Sam, but I just woke up. If you could call later—”

“Late night with Ben, huh?”

Ben. It all came flooding back to her. He was the last person Anna wanted to talk about or even think about. And she certainly wasn’t about to talk about him to Sam.

“If we could talk later, Sam—”

“Fine. But I didn’t think you were like that.”

“Like what?”

“You said you’d come. To Venice Beach, to help feed the homeless?” Sam reminded her.

Now Anna remembered. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I completely forgot—”

“Yuh, that’s fairly obvious. Too much Ben on the brain.”

“It’s not that. I just got to bed really late—”

“Fine, blow me off. I’ll send your regards to the little people.”

“Sam, would you stop? I have a splitting headache. But I’ll come.”

“How
magnanimous
of you.”

“What I mean is, I
want
to come,” Anna insisted, rubbing the pounding spot between her eyebrows. “Where do I—”

“Good, see ya.” The cell went dead. Nonplussed, Anna handed it back to the guy, who was waiting with a cheerful look on his face.

“So, what’s up?” he asked her.

“I guess we’re going … wherever Sam is. Just give me five minutes to get dressed.”

Twenty-two

11:32
A.M
., PST

A
nna washed her face, brushed her teeth, and threw on some jeans, a T-shirt, and an ancient gray cashmere sweater with moth holes in the sleeves. She ran a brush through her hair and pulled it into a ponytail. Then she stuck last night’s evening bag into her larger Coach handbag and hurried back downstairs.

A rumble in her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t really eaten since the previous afternoon’s sandwich with her dad, so she made a quick pit stop in the kitchen, where she found a scrawled note from her father on the kitchen counter.

Anna,

Hope you slept well. Needed to let you know that there’s a snag with the internship thing. Still hope to work it out. Let’s talk later.

—
Jonathan

A snag with the internship thing??
Couldn’t her father follow through on anything, ever? If it fell through, she was going to kill him; it was that simple.

She yanked the refrigerator door open angrily and found it nearly empty, except for the last of the crème brûlée cookies—so much for the help keeping the larder stocked. She grabbed a lemon yogurt, stuck it and a teaspoon in her purse, and went out to Monty’s SUV.

“Impressive,” Monty said, starting the engine. He looked at his wristwatch. “Six minutes and thirty seconds.” He looked at the yogurt in her hand and laughed.

“What?” Anna asked.

“Look behind you.”

Anna craned around to see that the entire back of the SUV was filled with food: giant plastic bags of croissants and dinner rolls, huge aluminum foil trays covered in plastic wrap, filled with steak and chicken and a rack of lamb. There was a massive tray of hors d’oeuvres—mini–spinach soufflés, bite-size Reuben sandwiches, and a massive bowl of guacamole.

“I’ve been picking up leftovers from various New Year’s Eve bashes for the past two hours,” Monty explained. “Those homeless are gonna eat like kings today.”

“It’s great that it’s not going to waste,” Anna said.

Monty started the SUV. “Kinda makes you want to chuck the yogurt, huh?”

“That food’s a little rich for breakfast.” Anna spooned lemon yogurt into her mouth while Monty told her about Beverly Hills High. Not that she’d asked. Not that she cared, except in the sense that she was thrilled not to be going there.

Traffic was light for once—most people were probably still hung over from New Year’s Eve, Anna figured—and they made it to Venice in twenty minutes. It wasn’t even hard to find a parking spot close to the beach.

Monty opened the hatchback of the SUV and unloaded a cart, which he began heaping with trays of food. “So, my brother said he met you last night at Sam’s dad’s wedding. Parker Pinelli?”

“We sat at the same table. Were you there?”

“Had to bow out. My mom was a little under the weather, so I stayed home with her.” He reached for a massive tray of pistachio-encrusted salmon that looked suspiciously like leftovers from the Jackson & Poppy nuptials. “So, you wanna hear about Venice while I work like a dog?”

“I’ve been here before.” Anna began helping Monty unload the food. “There are canals that were built to look like Venice, Italy. I must have read that somewhere once.”

“Jim Morrison lived in a house on the canal in the sixties; did you know that?”

“No.” Anna reached for the chilled bowl of guacamole and balanced it on top of the salmon.

“Of course, back then the houses on the canals were funky. That’s gone the way of vinyl records. Gotta have the megabucks to live in one of those cribs now.” He lifted an immense vat of pâté on top of everything else on the luggage cart, then wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. The SUV was empty. “You didn’t have to help, you know.”

“I was supposed to just stand here and let you do all the work?”

“That’s how it usually goes. Anyway, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“All righty. Time to go party with the unfortunates!”

Monty carefully rolled the food toward the beach with Anna trotting alongside, watching for fallout. He seemed like such a nice, cheerful guy. She couldn’t understand why he was surprised that she’d help him and why no one else was.

“It’s about time!” Sam called, waving them over as they rounded the corner.

Wearing oversized sunglasses, with her hair tied up in an artfully messy bun, Sam was standing by a long banquet table covered with a pristine white tablecloth. Plastic cutlery, napkins, and paper plates were stacked at one end. Unfortunately, from Anna’s point of view, at the other end stood Dee and Cammie.

Anna was monumentally confused. It was one thing to underestimate Sam’s desire to do charity work. Dee she really didn’t know at all, other than that she didn’t seem that bright. But
Cammie
the Bitch? Up and at ’em on New Year’s Day to do
charity work?
Something just did not compute. Anna could see from the looks on Cammie and Dee’s faces that they were as surprised to see her as she was to see them.

Sam, on the other hand, found herself ridiculously happy to see Anna. At the same time, seeing Anna looking serene and slender in her simple jeans and sweater made Sam adjust the bottom of her Asian-inspired, mandarin-collared pink Roberto Cavalli shirt to make sure it covered her loathed hips. Anna had no hips. Sam would have been happy to loan her about six inches’ worth. She wondered what it would be like to look like Anna. No, that was a little too
Single White Female
for her.

Dee scurried over to Sam. “What is
she
doing here?”

“Anna? I invited her.”

“But
why?
”

“Because she’s my new best friend,” Sam said.

Dee got wide-eyed. “Really? After all the years we’ve been best friends?”

“Kidding, Dee.”

“Oh. So then …?”

Sam went for the easiest lie she could think of. “I invited her because I thought we could pump her about what she did last night. With Ben. You know.”

Dee furrowed the perfect blond brows that she had groomed once a month at Valerie’s. “Why do you care what she did last night?”

“For
Cammie,
” Sam hastily added.

“Right. For Cammie.” Dee looked at Cammie over her shoulder. “But Cammie is right there. She can do it herself.”

“Not without looking desperate.”

Dee nodded. “Yeah, I see your point. You’re a really good friend.”

“I try.” Sam beamed in Anna’s direction as she and Monty approached with the luggage cart full of food. “Glad you could make it.”

“Me too,” Anna said, squinting into the sun. She pulled her sunglasses out of her purse and put them on. It was a gloriously perfect, no-smog day; the sun reflecting off the sandy beach was blinding, the Santa Monica Mountains were visible in the distance.

Anna helped the group set the food out on the long buffet table. She hadn’t been down to funky Venice Beach in years, but the carnival atmosphere hadn’t changed as far as she could see. Ocean Front Walk, which ran parallel to the beach, was still lined with an eclectic variety of street performers and vendors pushing their wares. People of all ages zigged and zagged on skates or skateboards along the bike path. Tourists strolled along, taking photos of the local color.

A crowd began to gather around the buffet table, shouting questions at them. Who were they, how much was the food, who was the food for?

“For everyone,” Sam replied. “People!” she yelled to the growing crowd. “This food is free for all those who are hungry. Please form a line starting right here.”

“But only if you’re, like, poor and homeless and stuff,” Dee added. “We just want to do good deeds.”

Cammie checked her watch. “Where the hell is Parker?”

“He probably stopped to have new publicity shots taken,” Sam cracked.

“He’s got my Mercedes,” Cammie snapped. “If he stops anyplace besides Breckner’s, he’s dead.”

“Hey, when do we start eating?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“You’ve got a five-thousand-dollar Nikon around your neck!” Sam yelled back. “Get out of the line, bozo!”

“The natives are way restless,” Dee muttered.

Anna looked over the line as it snaked down the board-walk. There was a toothless man so filthy it was impossible to discern the color of his shirt, who wore a weathered cardboard sign around his neck that read, THE WORLD’S GREATEST WINO. Right behind were some upscale yuppies in designer beachwear eager for a free meal. A couple who looked to be in their sixties, completely covered in tattoos, held hands, waiting patiently.

“People, welcome to Venice!” a man on inline skates, guitar in hand, called out to the crowd. His dreadlocks were piled into a turban, and he wore purple harem pants. “I’m Ace Pace, world’s most famous street performer! I’m here to make your day!” He skated around the board-walk in large circle formations and played old Beatles songs on his electric guitar, his amp strapped to his arm.

“I think he was in
White Men Can’t Jump!
” one of the tourists exclaimed, and everyone began snapping Ace’s photo.

This was all very entertaining, but Anna was desperate for about four more hours of sleep, and she wasn’t clear on what the program was supposed to be. “What are we waiting for, exactly?” she asked Sam.

“We’re waiting for Mrs. Breckner, our project adviser.”

Anna was confused. “Sorry?”

“At Beverly Hills High, you have to do community service first semester every year. The report has to be turned in by the first day back after winter vacation, which is day after tomorrow.”