The A-List (6 page)

“You mean he called her back and she didn’t tell me?”

Dee shrugged innocently. “Maybe.”

“Did he?” Sam demanded. “Not that I care, personally.”

Dee looked at Sam through narrowed eyes. “Methinks thou art protesting too much.”

Sam winced. Dee’s last boyfriend had been a pretentious young actor from Minnesota who was forever misquoting famous works.

“It’s ‘the lady doth protest too much,’” Sam corrected.

Dee frowned. “Did you miss a session with Dr. Fred? Because you’re very hostile.”

Sam saw Dr. Fred five times a week. She was one of the few private clients he’d kept after he started his national cable television show on Lifetime. On television he had the uncanny ability to get women to share the most intimate details of their lives and then respond gratefully to whatever life-fixing advice he had to offer. Sam often wondered why it was that she needed such extensive therapy while his television clients had their problems solved in a single seven-minute segment.

“I saw him yesterday, between tapings,” Sam said. “Unzip me?”

Dee did. “I mean it.”

Sam pulled the dress over her head. “You’d be a bit hostile if you were about to inherit a twenty-one-year-old stepmother who couldn’t pass a ninth-grade exit exam.”

“Not everyone is as smart as you are, Sammie. Maybe your dad really loves her.”

“Please. We both know that Daddy Dearest doesn’t love anyone except himself,” Sam said. “But I didn’t mean to take it out on you, Dee. I adore the dress. You’re a lifesaver.” She leaned over, hugged her friend, and then hung the dress over the mirror.

“If you’re happy,” Dee breathed, “I’m happy.”

Sam smiled. Dee was one of the most well-meaning people she’d ever known, and had befriended Sam long before Cammie Sheppard had deigned to acknowledge Sam’s existence. Plus Dee was the kind of friend who would see a certain dress and buy it because it was perfect for you. And she’d be right. That counted for a lot.

For a brief moment she was tempted to tell Dee about her plan to bag Ben; she really needed to confide in someone. God knew she couldn’t confide anything really important to Dr. Fred.

“Dee …”

“What?”

Sam looked down into Dee’s sooty-lashed blue eyes. Dee looked so sweet. For a moment Sam felt as if she could really bare her soul. But at the last second she stopped herself. So what if Dee looked innocent and cute? Guppies were cute, too. But they still ate their babies.

“Never mind,” Sam said. “Thanks again for the dress. Remind me to write you a check later.” She headed into her lavish bathroom to shower, happy she’d kept her mouth shut. After all, what kind of a girl tried to bone the exboyfriend—Ben—of one of her best friends—Cammie—when that best friend had made it crystal clear that she wanted the boyfriend back? It would make Sam look really, really bad, which was something she really, really hated.

It was one thing to be a shit and quite another to look like one.

Five

1:39
P.M
., PST

D
ee bounced up and down on Sam’s bed, looking much like she had when she was eight years old. Nothing made her happier than making people happy, except maybe truly dirty gossip or fooling around in public places. The fooling around in public places thing was weird because, unlike her dear friend Cammie, she didn’t think of herself as a show-offy kind of girl. Maybe it was because she was so nice (she decided that was probably it) that doing something scandalous appealed to her.

But that was just a game. Love, really, was everything to her. And what would make her happiest of all would be to be loved by Ben Birnbaum.

She stopped bouncing. It was just so odd that Sam had mentioned Ben. Maybe Sam really
did
want him. Nah. Most likely, Dee decided, Sam had been so in tune with Dee’s own vibrations that she’d picked up Dee’s feelings without knowing it. Dee believed in things like that.

As much as Dee wanted to confide in Sam about her love for Ben, she didn’t dare. That is, until Ben loved her back. If things worked out the way she planned, it could happen. But what if she told Sam, and—God forbid—Sam told Cammie? Dee shuddered. Being on Cammie’s shit list was a fate worse than death.

Dee’s opinion was that Cammie didn’t deserve Ben. Last year, when the two of them had hooked up, it had nearly broken Dee’s heart. Being around them was so trying that Dee would occasionally erupt in nasty hives. It was a good thing that her car-parking novelist-wannabe then-boyfriend had introduced her to high colonies. There was nothing better for ridding the body of stress toxins. And after she’d caught Car-Parking Novelist-Wannabe in his bedroom with the pool guy, she’d just marched over to Zen Nation and had all the stress toxins flushed away.

It did bother Dee that Car-Parking Novelist-Wannabe was the second guy she’d fallen for who’d turned out to be light in his driving mocs, though. She’d also had a fling with the lead guitarist of the local band Pus. He’d run off with an A&R guy from Gyro Records. Dee couldn’t help wondering if she was some kind of magnet for gay boys desperate to explore the heterosexual lifestyle.

Ever since Dee’s father, Graham Young, had ascended to the presidency of Gyro, Dee had met a lot of famous musicians. Forget that hackneyed What I Really Want to Do Is Direct T-shirt that everyone wore three years ago. What everyone really wanted to be was a rock star. Even Jackson Sharpe had once approached Graham Young about recording a CD, though it had never come to pass.

Ben Birnbaum was refreshingly different. His rock star dreams didn’t exist. Plus he radiated “guy” guy. No DC in his AC. Dee could easily picture herself with him on side-by-side massage tables at a spa in Ojai, while two small Korean women walked on their backs. After that, he’d ravish her on a faux bearskin rug, since she didn’t believe in killing animals.

She did believe, though, in inspirational visualization. It was why she’d asked their handyman to put a poster of the Big Ben clock tower on the ceiling over her bed. Next to it she’d written,
If You Can Believe It, You Can Achieve It
. It was the last thing she saw every night before she turned out the light and the first thing she saw when she woke up every morning. When her friends asked her about it, she said it was a reminder of her last visit to London.

One of the Sharpes’ many servants knocked on the open door to Sam’s room. “
Señorita Samantha está aquí?
”

“Shower,” Dee said. “Ella washo.”

“The people are downstairs for …” The maid gestured to her hair and face. Dee realized she meant the hair and makeup people for the wedding had arrived.

“Oh,
que bueno. Cinco minutos, gracias
.”

The moment the door closed, Dee sprang up from the bed, lifted her camisole, and gazed at her naked chest in Sam’s massive mirror. Not too big, not too small, no plastic surgery needed, thank you very much. Wouldn’t Ben be surprised when he saw that she’d gotten her nipples pierced? She’d had them done at the Sunset Room just the month before. It had been right after her Wednesday acupuncture appointment, and she’d gone to dance off the excess energy she had accumulated from lying still for so long. She’d had a little too much to drink that night, and before she knew it, she was incorporating flashing her breasts into her dance moves. Afterward, on the way to the bathroom, this really hot guy had stopped her and told her that he did piercings and that he was ready to do her nipples right then and there. His vibe had been so mellow that she’d agreed. He’d done an excellent job, too. Dangling from each nipple now was a tiny silver ring.

She lowered her top thoughtfully. She hoped no one would mention the incident to Ben. He might misunderstand what a liberating experience it had been for her. She’d tell him herself—say, after they’d had a meaningful hookup in one of the changing rooms at Fred Segal.

Six

5:07
P.M
., PST

A
fter an hour’s nap and a steamy shower, Anna felt much better. It didn’t take long to prepare for the wedding. She’d packed the perfect dress: a simple long black satin Oscar de la Renta. And the perfect jewelry: diamond studs and a narrow white pearl necklace that had once belonged to her grandmother.

Her skin was flawless, so she never wore much makeup. A single touch of pink cream blush on her high cheekbones, a coat of understated brown mascara, a nude lip gloss, the tiniest drop of Chanel No. 5 behind her ears, and she was good to go. It ran through her mind that she should hit the Chanel counter for more than perfume. Now that she was starting a new life, there was no reason she always had to look like the Ivory Girl. She could wear red lipstick or blue eye shadow or glittery highlighter on her cheekbones if she wanted to. Who knew what smudged kohl-black eyeliner could do to change a girl’s life? And while she was at it, maybe some low-slung jeans with a belly chain, and sexy little T-shirts without a bra, and—

Anna sat on the bed. The very idea of dressing like that filled her with dread. Which is ridiculous, she told herself.
You are here to try new things
.

Anna slipped her feet into the classic strappy Valentino pumps she’d had forever, then brushed her straight blond hair off her face and tied it loosely at the nape of her neck with a narrow black velvet ribbon. Her lip gloss, cell phone, a miniature boar’s-hair brush, and her slender wallet were secreted in her Chanel pearl clutch. And that was that.

Ben was coming any minute, so Anna went downstairs to say good-bye to her father and wish him a happy New Year. Once again, she couldn’t find him. She suspected he was out back at the gazebo, doing what he’d been doing the last time she found him there. It was very disturbing. Just so … not him. What had happened to the buttoned-up, highly driven businessman? She scribbled him a Happy New Year note and left it on the kitchen counter.

When the doorbell rang, Anna called to the housekeeper that she’d get the door herself and opened it to Ben in a perfect Armani tux.

His face lit up when he saw her. “Wow. You look fantastic.”

“Thank you. So do you.” She felt like a princess as Ben helped her into his pearl-gray Maserati Spyder two-seater convertible.

“I’ll put the top back up; I’m sure you don’t want your hair wrecked,” Ben offered as he slid behind the wheel.

She put her hand on his. “Don’t worry about my hair. Leave it down.”

He chuckled and started the car. “That might be an L.A. first.”

As Ben pulled out of the driveway, Anna tipped her face to the afternoon sun. Everything was just so perfect—the weather, Ben, going to Jackson Sharpe’s wedding. There was only one thing—Ben was with the wrong girl.

At least that was how Anna saw it. Now that she was completely sober and somewhat rested, she was appalled about how they’d met. She was nothing like the babe who’d pounded vodka tonics and jammed her tongue down his throat at thirty-seven thousand feet, her butt perched on a soap-scummy sink. There was something to be said for baby-stepping outside of one’s comfort zone, but her behavior on the plane had been a pole vault. There were things she liked about that highflying version of herself, true. But the fact that it had been fueled by alcohol gave her pause. She’d seen her sister use alcohol to blur the edges and give her courage too many times, and look where Susan had ended up.

No, Anna definitely had to tell Ben the truth. “Ben,” she began.

“Anna.” He grinned.

Why did he have to have such a great smile? “About the plane—”

“I know. It was amazing.”

“Meeting you was amazing. It’s just that—”

“Shhh. Don’t spoil the moment.” Ben turned up the volume on his sound system. “Karma Police” poured from the Maserati as he headed for Sunset Boulevard. So much for true confessions. She’d tell him later. Somehow.

Traffic was magically minimal. They zoomed through Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood, and Los Feliz and then turned north into hilly Griffith Park, leaving the city behind. Ben followed the road to the Griffith Observatory, powering past the big orange road sign announcing that the observatory was closed for renovations. Finally the storied tridomed building and planetarium came into view.

Anna was surprised. When she’d heard the wedding would be at the observatory, she’d expected massive party tents on the expansive grounds. But there weren’t any. “The wedding’s inside? Didn’t that sign say the observatory was closed to the public?”

“Welcome to Los Angeles,” Ben said. “Movie stars are not the public.”

“How do you know Jackson Sharpe, anyway? You never said.”

“I grew up with his daughter, Sam. She’s a year younger than me.”

Ben turned onto a narrow driveway strewn with rose petals. Anna found this a lovely touch, if a tad excessive. Then she realized that the tires of the car ahead of them weren’t disturbing the petals because they’d been painted on the asphalt. At the end of the driveway was a valet-parking stand, where beautiful people were being helped out of beautiful cars. As Ben brought the Maserati to a gentle stop, a skinny brunette in a black Gucci sheath stepped out of a black BMW. From the driver’s side came a goateed guy in a red velvet smoking jacket and trousers adorned with Elvis cartoons.

“I’m sure it’s a joke, but I don’t get it,” Anna admitted. “Who are they?”

“Very fun—,” Ben began, but stopped when he saw that she was serious. “You don’t recognize them?”

Anna shook her head.

“She’s one of the highest-paid actresses on TV And he’s—well, no one is quite sure what he is. Probably her latest mistake.” Ben eyed her curiously. “Don’t you watch television?”

“Not much. Ninety percent of it is stupid, isn’t it?”

“That doesn’t stop most people.” He smiled at her. “But you are clearly not most people.”

Now,
Anna told herself. It was the perfect moment to reveal the true her: generally sober. Utterly virginal. And she would have, if a valet hadn’t opened her door and offered her a helping hand. Ben flipped the valet his keys, then playfully offered Anna his arm.

“Shall we?”

The moment was gone. “We shall.”

They joined a line of guests snaking up a red carpet and passed beneath a giant archway of entwined red and gold roses that spelled out JACKSON + POPPY.