She glanced at the clock. Four-fifteen. She was going to be late to Sam's. It was probably Sam calling, annoyed and crazed in her new Bridezilla way.
But when she checked the number, she saw it was her mom. Her mother was still in Italy, and it was probably 2 a.m. there. Anna smiled. It was thoughtful of her mom to check up on her. They didn't speak all that often. As much as she hadn't enjoyed her crash landing, some good things had come out of it.
“Hello?” Phone in hand, she moved to her oak canopy bed and plopped on the handmade silk tapestry quilt. The whole room was done in classic antique style: the hardwood floor gleamed beneath tapestry rugs with hand-knotted edges, an antique armoire scented with lavender sachet held her clothing, and there were fresh flowers in a crystal vase on a small table by the picture window, and an antique chaise lounge. And of course, an antique brown wood rolltop desk, on which she kept her laptop.
“Hello, darling,” Jane began. “How are you? How do you feel? Have you recovered completely? What an ordeal!”
Anna smiled. “I'm good. I'm okay.”
“Of course you're okay. You're a Percy,” her mother intoned.
“Where are you, Mother?”
“Milan. The Intercontinental. There's a major art auction here tomorrow; I want to be a part of it. So tell me how things are going.”
Her mother was uncharacteristically chatty. Anna talked a bit about Sam's wedding and about how she'd been doing a bit of writing. Her mother didn't inquire about what she was working on, and Anna didn't volunteer.
Anna glanced at the clock again. Four thirty-five. “Mom, I'm sorry, but I actually have to run to a hair thing at Sam's,” she said. “I'm going to be late.”
“Just a second, Anna, one last thing. There's someone in Los Angeles that you need to meet.”
“Who?” Anna asked cautiously, leaning back against the fluffy white pillows.
“My dear friend Carlie Martin. I've known her forever. She's a Yale alum.”
Anna sat up in bed like she'd been speared with a red-hot poker. So that was it. Her father, who had been so supportive at breakfast, had turned around and promptly called in the cavalry—namely, her mother. Jane Percy hadn't called at 2 a.m. to chat.
Instantly Anna curled her fingers into fists, feeling defensive. “Mother, please—”
“Anna, I won't hear another word. You owe it to yourself to speak with her before you make the biggest mistake of your life. She's in Los Angeles this very minute. I won't take no for an answer. You know who she is, of course?”
Of course Anna knew who Carlie Martin was—everyone in the western world knew. She was a triple threat actress/director/producer, who had to be around the same age as her parents. Jane's usual contacts were anti-Hollywood, and this was the first time Anna had heard that her mother even
knew
Carlie Martin. The whole thing was funny in some bitter way. Her parents, who could not get along for ten minutes without sniping at each other, could join forces so easily on what Anna now thought of as the Yale Problem. It reminded her of what she'd learned about Roosevelt and Stalin's collaboration during World War II, though who was Roosevelt and who was Stalin was up for grabs.
“Anna?” Jane prompted again.
Anna scuffed a bare foot into the tapestry throw rug. This was no time for a fight.
“Fine,” she acquiesced. It wouldn't hurt to meet Carlie.
“Fantastic. I'll have her assistant call you to set a time?” Her mother said this as if it was a question because that was the polite thing to do, when in fact Anna knew it to be a parental decree.
“Yes, Mother.” Anna played with a loose thread in her white Frette sheet, looking out the picture window toward the backyard, the gazebo in the distance. After her talk with her father, she'd felt like she won the point. Now it was clear that she'd lost the match.
They talked a few more moments, then Anna clicked off. She needed to get to Sam's. But there was one thing she needed to do first.
Live like you were dying
, she told herself.
It was great to have a completed script. But it wasn't doing anyone any good on her iBook, and there was only one other person in the world she could send it to for an opinion. An honest opinion. She opened her Gmail and attached the script.
Sam–tell me if this blows.
Without hesitation, she hit send.
Tuesday, 10:20 a.m.
“I
n Paris, you can become the next Truffaut,” Eduardo murmured in Sam's ear as he came up behind her. He brushed her hair to the side so he could kiss the back of her neck.
Sam liked the kisses but wasn't sure about the concept.
“The whole French New Wave thing is highly overrated,” she mused, turning to him. She fiddled with one citron starburst earring. She'd recently bought the pair at Fred Segal on a whim. “I mean, improvising lines and quick scene cuts might have been innovative in the fifties, but please—every kid in the ’burbs with a camcorder has been doing that for years now and calling himself an auteur.”
Eduardo slipped his arms around her waist. He smiled at her attitude; clearly it didn't bother him in the least. They were in her room, alone in the massive house. Her father had taken her mother on an insiders’ tour of the Paramount lot and then to lunch at the Ivy, and Eduardo had delayed going to his job at the Peruvian consulate so he could stop over to talk about wedding plans.
Of course, she hadn't revealed a thing. Part of it was because she wanted Friday night to be a surprise for him, and part of it was that Dee was still pulling together so many of the details. Sam was supposed to taste wedding cake samples later in the afternoon and then look at potential floral designs for the tables. There was so much to do—choosing a DJ, arranging the seating assignments, finalizing her color scheme—the list went on and on. At least she'd been able to check bridesmaid hairstyles off her list: Anna and Dee had come over yesterday for a consult with Raymond and had chosen their looks for the event—sweeping updos with the occasional cascading tendril, a yet-to-be-decided flower that would match the floral arrangements woven in.
“In that case you will be better than Truffaut,” Eduardo decreed, gently brushing her just-moisturized skin with a tanned hand. That he was so proud of her talent was one of the many things she adored about him. “In Paris, you can be anything you want. Let me go downstairs and get you coffee so you won't be late.” Sam smiled at his cute butt as he disappeared out the door, feeling like the luckiest girl in the world.
She turned back to the mirror on her vanity—which had a movie-quality lighting system that could be adjusted downward, in case of a bad body-image day—and shook her hair off her face. The citron earrings flashed in the morning light slanting through the open bay windows. She wore a black Yellow Dog jumper over black tights and chunky black suede Bruno Magli booties, thinking that the long black line would be flattering. She looked, she thought, rather cute. But then being with Eduardo, being
loved
by him, made her feel beautiful and brought out her self-confidence.
Funny how that worked.
A quick check of her Omega Constellation watch told her she had forty-five minutes to suck down some caffeine and get her ass downtown for the USC film school freshman orientation. The more she'd thought about it over the past few days, the less appealing of an option USC—and living halfway around the world from Eduardo—seemed to her. Sam was about 80 percent convinced that she wasn't going to go at all. After all, what could she possibly learn at film school that she didn't already know? She remembered taking an advanced filmmaking course at Stanford the summer after her freshman year and being bored out of her mind. And it wasn't like she needed contacts in the business. She
was
a contact in the business!
She loved the fact that Eduardo was being so supportive about her career, though. True, his parents had pressured her to go to France with him rather than having a long-distance marriage. But Eduardo himself had not. Other than the occasional Truffaut comment, of course. As for his folks, they'd gone back to their vacation and were going to return to Los Angeles on Thursday night for the rehearsal dinner, and then the ceremony on Fright out on the yacht. She was sort of glad they weren't around this week. It was easier to think and make decisions without Consuela, as well-meaning as she was, constantly pointing out where Sam's future ought to lie.
“Strong with extra sugar,” Eduardo announced as he reappeared, bringing her a blue ceramic mug of coffee.
“Thanks.” Sam blew on and then gingerly sipped the steaming-hot espresso. “You are the only person in the world who would willingly give me extra sugar.”
“Ah, but sugar gives you energy,” he teased, his warm brown eyes dancing. “And you'll need energy for all the things I'm going to do to you later.” He then proceeded to whisper in her ear exactly what he intended to do to her later, in detail, until her cheeks were more red from his voice than from the steaming coffee.
He had to leave for the consulate soon, so they made plans to meet later for dinner. She had that wedding-cake tasting, and then a meeting with the DJ whom Dee had selected to go over music. Nothing could ruin a party faster than a DJ who played the wrong songs.
“Have fun at USC,” he told her.
“I could probably teach half the courses myself,” she replied, straightening the hem of her jumper.
“I know. Come to Paris, make a movie of your own, and they can study it in film school while you're in France with me. But go to this, so you can see for yourself.”
“Okay, that sounds simple enough,” Sam teased, setting the mug on her vanity to kiss him.
Two last sips of oh-so-sweet coffee, and they were out the door.
Sam took the Hummer to the USC campus near downtown, fighting traffic on Wilshire Boulevard all the way into the dicey neighborhood where USC was located. After having her name cleared by the security guard, Sam found a parking space and made her way toward the Eileen L. Norris Theater Complex, an enormous white structure built only a few years back—she recalled that her father had made a high-six-figure donation to its construction. There were a number of bike racks outside the building, and Sam shuddered to think of four years spent biking around the campus. How … pedestrian.
Once inside, she joined a dozen or so others who were waiting for the elevator to take them to the Frank Sinatra Theater. The wide-eyed fellow students were all about her age, mostly dressed in shorts and T-shirts, an interesting mix of races and ethnicities, about half guys and half girls. She watched them eye the Sinatra memorabilia that lined the lobby, saw the reverence on their faces when they entered the refurbished 365-seat screening room. Sam had been at the party for the opening back in 2002, and all she remembered about it was that they had served chocolates in the shape of Frank's head, and Nancy Sinatra's daughter had eaten too many of them and barfed on her mother's mile-high red satin Jimmy Choo boots. Afterward Cammie had gone around singing, “These Boots Are Made for Puking.”
She slid into a seat on the aisle. The guy next to her nodded coolly in her direction. He was pale and skinny and wore baggy jeans, a white T-shirt, and black-and-white plaid Converse high-tops. He had a wispy blond goatee and wore dark sunglasses. Sam gave a mental eye roll. He was already doing the affected, sunglasses-worn-indoors thing, and he hadn't even begun his freshman year. He was probably from somewhere in flyover country and had made some pretentious little film that got shown at his high school graduation, and everyone said he was
so
talented that he had to come to Hollywood and he was
so
going to be the next fill-in-the-blank hot young director of the moment, and he utterly, totally, and completely believed them. Undoubtedly he would use the words
my
and
vision
in close proximity in almost every sentence.
Sam shifted in the red cushioned auditorium seat and glanced around. Her eyes were drawn to a girl with spiky pink hair a few seats over. She wore a puffy zip-up vest from American Apparel and skintight black jeans that she was currently drawing designs on with a whiteout pen. The girl bobbed her head in time to music playing from the oversize headphones around her neck. Total hipster—she probably watched nothing but Japanese horror flicks and considered anything made after 1975 to be worthless commercial garbage.
And to think, these people would be Sam's classmates. She might actually have to spend time with them. Paris was looking better by the second.
The theater was packed, and there was a low rumble of excited, expectant voices as Elizabeth M. Daley, an attractive woman in her forties and dean of the USC film school, strode to the microphone on stage. She had a round, sweet face surrounded by short, choppy, chestnut brown hair similar to the color of Sam's if she hadn't had it highlighted. She wore a conservative taupe pants suit and didn't look very Hollywood at all.
“Thanks so much for coming today, and here's to the USC class of 2012!” The crowd roared in applause and Sam rolled her eyes. Film school spirit? “Don't worry, I don't have any grand speeches prepared,” the dean continued, and Sam exhaled thankfully. “Instead of listening to me talk, what better way to convey what you're going to be experiencing for the next four years than with a film? That's why we're here after all, isn't it?” She backed away from the microphone as the overhead lights dimmed and an enormous screen was lowered from the ceiling.
A short documentary made in 2004 to honor the seventy-fifth anniversary of the film school came on. It told all about how USC was the first school in the country to offer a bachelor's degree in film, and how it had been founded by Hollywood legends Douglas S. Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, and William C. DeMille. It boasted an awesome list of alumni, from Steven Spielberg to Will Ferrell. Sam found herself caught up in the history, both of the school and of L.A., her town. Sitting in the darkened theater, one part of Sam felt utterly jaded about what she was seeing. After all, just as many famous people had been to parties at her own home. But another part of her felt something she couldn't quite name, a kind of anticipation in the pit of her stomach at the idea of being part of all this, and not just for the usual reason that she was the daughter of Jackson Sharpe.