“T
ry this on.” Cammie offered Champagne a black satin Bebe dress, cut very narrow through the hips, with a neckline that plunged nearly to her navel. “It’s you.” “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Champagne gasped.
“Then stop gawking and get your ass in the changing room,” Cammie ordered. “It doesn’t cost anything to try something on.” Then, on a wooden hook behind her, she spotted a pair of black leather gloves long enough to reach past the elbow and halfway up the bicep. You had to be a certain kind of girl to pull off the dress-gloves combination, but Cammie had a hunch that Champagne was exactly that kind of girl. She tossed Champagne the gloves. “Let’s see it with these. Or I’ll send Anna after you with an ice princess stick.” “Go ahead, Champagne,” Anna urged. “I want to see you in the dress, too.” It was late the next afternoon; they were ransacking the Anastasia boutique at the Beverly Center, before heading toward the Bloomingdale’s wing. When Anna and Cammie were driving Champagne home to the valley after yet another meeting with Mrs. Vanderleer and Mrs. Chesterfield—this one about selecting the music that would accompany the runway models—Champagne had politely begged for a window-shopping expedition to the Beverly Center. She claimed she’d never been there. Considering what the girl had told them about her background, Cammie believed it.
“My prediction: She’s going to sizzle in that,” Cammie told Anna.
“She’s a beautiful girl. And she’s smart. We should steer her toward using her brains to get somewhere.” “Please, Anna, spare me the modeling-is-so-superficial speech.” Anna shrugged. “Well, it is. Besides, Champagne’s been through a lot. Think what a great social worker she’d make.” “If she isn’t a thief,” Cammie joked.
“I don’t think she took that dress, Cammie.” “Of course she didn’t. But it’s so easy to make assumptions.” Cammie tossed the hair off her face. “She was at PacCoast with us. She wants to be a model like that. It’s a new dream. Why shouldn’t a person go after a dream if that’s what she wants to do?” “Because a person isn’t tall enough,” Anna reminded. “Why follow a dream that’s impossible for you? Isn’t that a huge waste of time? Isn’t she setting herself up for a big disappointment?”
“Fuck that kind of negative thinking,” Cammie decreed. “Following rules is boring. Champagne could be the exception—a successful model who’s on the short side.” Anna smiled as she flipped through a rack of ivory lace shirts. “You know, I actually agree with you. If you can’t try to be exceptional when you’re sixteen, I don’t know when you would.” “Exactly.” Huh. Maybe Anna had more sense than she’d figured. Or maybe being away from Ben Birnbaum was actually good for her.
“Didn’t you ever have a crazy dream, Anna?” Anna held up an ivory lace shirt. It had lovely eyelets instead of nasty buttons. “Coming out here in the middle of my senior year was pretty crazy.” “Oh yeah, that’s wild. Dream bigger,” Cammie ordered. “Life’s short.” Cammie knew how true that really was. Life was too damn short sometimes.
“What do you think?”
Champagne. She’d poured herself into the Bebe dress and the gloves, and somehow had matched them with a pair of electric blue suede stiletto-heeled open-toe pumps that elevated her from five-foot six to almost five-ten. The dress clung to every curve; no evidence of a panty line spoiled the view.
“Champagne . . .”
Anna could barely form a sentence, so Cammie did it for her.
“What Anna meant to say is, ‘Go back in the changing room and put the dress on a hanger. The gloves too. Box up the shoes.’ Where did you get them? They don’t sell shoes here.” “The salesgirl saw me in the dressing room and ran across to Ferragamo so I could try them on with the dress. I think she knows the manager.” “The whole thing looks fantastic on you!” Anna exclaimed.
“Really?” The girl’s voice was small, almost dazed. Suddenly, Cammie knew what she wanted to do. She stepped over to Champagne and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, not saying a word until the younger girl looked her in the eye. “Listen to me. I know what you want. And I think I can help you. But you have to do everything I say. Wax on, wax off. Wax on, wax off.” Champagne grinned. “Like the
Karate Kid
? I love that old movie. You want me to be like Daniel-san? He lived in the valley, too. But I don’t understand.” “And I’m the teacher, whatever his name was.” “Mr. Miyagi,” Champagne reported. “How are you going to help me?” “Here’s how you start. Bring that stuff to the counter. Then we’re going to pick out some simpler outfits for everyday. If you’re going to be seen in public, you need to have something decent. Then we’re going to Ferra-gamo and buying the shoes, too.” Champagne shook her head. “That’s incredibly nice of you, but I can’t let you buy me this stuff.”
“Well, ‘buying’ might be a bit of an exaggeration,” Cammie admitted. “I’m investing. In you. Consider this an advance against your future earnings as a model. And ‘no’ is not an option.” Champagne stood there, stunned. “But . . . everyone says I’m too short. How would I ever pay you back?” “Champagne?” Cammie asked.
“Yeah?”
“Wax on, wax off. Move your ass. Now.”
“Adam! It’s me.” Cammie laid back on her bed wearing just a satin La Perla thong, her feet arched against the wall behind her headboard, her head propped up on a massive pile of plush rose pillows, and her curls spread out on the luxurious cotton summer bedspread below. Her enormous bedroom was immaculate—not that Cammie ever cleaned it herself—the windows flung open to capture the last rays of sunshine of this gorgeous Los Angeles summer evening.
“Hey, Cammie. How goes it back there in La La Land?” “Well, let’s see,” Cammie purred. “I’m on my bed.
No one else is home. I’m not wearing anything but a thong.” She smiled, knowing what that mental image would do to him. “When are you coming back?” Silence at the other end of the line.
“Adam?”
“Well, I’m not sure, exactly,” came his voice.
“Meaning, I’ve tempted you to come back early? Great idea. Just steal your parents’ canoe, paddle it to the bottom of the lake, hitchhike to Detroit, catch a plane to LAX, and we’ll do a rerun of my current state of undress tomorrow,” she suggested. “Same time, same place. The front door will be open. Don’t knock.” “Hard to resist,” Adam admitted. “But the thing is, I might stay a little longer here in Michigan.” Longer? What was he talking about?
“How much longer?”
“Dunno, exactly. You know, it’s just that . . . well, this place is, like, sacred to me. I’ve come every summer with my parents since I was in grade school. Now that I’m starting college in the fall, everything is gonna change. My parents said maybe they’d try to rent the place on the lake for an extra month, seeing as how it might be our last time.” It was more of a battle to stay calm this time. “That would mean you wouldn’t be in Los Angeles until
August
?” Fuck. What about how she was supposed to be so irresistible? “That’s a long time, Adam.” “I know. I’d miss you a ton.” “Well, you don’t
have
to stay an extra month.” Cammie tried not to let irritation color her voice, but really, look at his choices. Blackflies and bullfrogs versus naked and boyfriend-deprived
her
? What guy in his right mind could resist?
She swung her feet around and found herself facing the wall of her room that had been moved in its entirety from their old house in Beverly Hills when that house had been sold. Back when Cammie was in elementary school, her mother had painted a mural on it of the characters from
Charlotte’s Web
. Cammie had refused to move to her father’s new mansion unless the mural came with them. Workmen from the Getty Center had orchestrated the move as if the mural had been painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
“Hey, here’s a plan,” Adam offered. “Why don’t you come here? We’ve got plenty of room.”
Her?
Come
there
? To
Michigan
?
“Are you on drugs? I consider maid and/or room service basic human needs.” Adam sighed. “Yeah. I know.” Shit. There were so many things she wanted to tell him face-to-face that would be ruined by the phone. About the amazing breakfast with her father. And the even more amazing letter from her mother, like a song from the Great Beyond.
“Cam?” “Yeah?”
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
Oh no, he was
not
breaking up with her by cell phone. If he even tried, she was going to press in star seventy-one pound eleven and his cruddy LGX 5200 cell would blow up and take his brain with it. Hey, it might work.
“I’m not breaking up with you,” he added quickly. “Never entered my mind,” Cammie lied. She stood and drifted to the open window. Why wasn’t Adam outside right now, smiling up at her?
“Being back in Michigan. It’s . . . weird.”
“And?” she prompted, because obviously there was more.
“And . . . it’s making me kind of . . . nostalgic, I guess. I miss it here.” She was in Los Angeles, and he missed Michigan. It was time to talk some sense into this boy.
“Adam, can you do me a favor?” “Sure, Cam. Anything.”
“Tell me exactly where you are right now.” “I’m on one of the bunk beds in the cabin.” “What’cha wearing?” “Jeans. T-shirt.”
She could picture him perfectly. Tall and on the thin side, with a basketball player’s gangly arms and a star tattoo behind one of this ears; spiky, dark brown hair, and a warm smile. “I can tell you for a fact that the view is a lot better from my bedroom,” she declared. “I believe you when you say you’re not breaking up with me. But do not bullshit me. Are you having second thoughts about coming back?” She heard him sigh. That was confirmation enough, no matter what his words would be.
“I wouldn’t mind going to U of M,” he said softly. “You’d like Ann Arbor. It’s a very cool—” There was a limit. He’d just smacked into it. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have the grades to get into U of M, and she didn’t think any amount of money or sexual favors could get her in, either. Adam knew that full well, too.
“Adam.” “Yeah?”
“Foreign countries aside, there are only two digits that will ever go at the front of my zip code—9 and 0. I’m allergic to flyover country.” “Yeah. I thought that’s what you’d say.” “And yet you asked anyway.” “Sometimes people change, Cammie. You’re judging a place you’ve never been to and don’t really know.” They talked for another minute or two, but Cammie felt like a helium balloon five days after a birthday party. And when she hung up, she felt even worse. Not even the thought of retail therapy could make her do anything else but lie on her bed and stare at Fern, Avery, and Wilbur on the wall. They didn’t move, so she didn’t either.
“I
sn’t this a little
Mission Impossible
?” Caine asked, as Anna took out the set of keys that Sam had given her. She was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt, which seemed appropriate for a stealthy operation.
“I’m doing Sam a huge favor,” Anna reminded him. “She said not to come until midnight. She wanted to be sure the office was deserted. It’s midnight, almost. Here we are.” She said these things matter-of-factly, but honestly—she was nervous.
“I think we woke up the guard at the front desk,” Caine said. “What’s the point of having a guard if he sleeps on duty?” “So that desperate criminals like you and me can sneak in.” Anna chuckled as she turned keys in both locks. The door to the offices of Action Jackson Productions, on the second floor of a nondescript building at the low-slung Culver City movie studio complex that housed Transnational Pictures, swung open.
Once again, Anna asked herself what the hell was she doing. Yet the answer was clear: she was doing something huge for Sam that Sam dared not do herself.
At the end of the toga party, Sam had corralled her and told her all about her encounter with Norman Shnorman, aka Jonah Jacobson, whose mother held the purse strings at Transnational. There were enormous budget problems on
Ben-Hur
, and it simply wouldn’t do for Andrea, aka Bigfoot, to see negative coverage on her son’s
Burnt Toast
from an Action Jackson Productions script reader. Someone had to change the coverage in a hurry. But Sam didn’t dare do it, because it could so easily get back to her father that she’d been at his production offices at midnight. Someone would surely mention it to him, even if just by way of making conversation, and she’d have to concoct some elaborate lie. If Anna went . . . well, no one knew her, so everyone would just assume she was some assistant doing something. And surely that wouldn’t be worth mentioning to anyone.
Which is how it was that Anna and Caine had presented their credentials to the guard on the ground floor of the studio offices, gotten themselves cleared, and were letting themselves into the deserted production offices. Just as Anna got the door open, Caine’s watch beeped twice. He pushed the sleeve of his black hooded sweatshirt up his tattooed arm and glanced at his wrist.
“Midnight,” he declared in a doom-filled voice. “The witching hour.”
“Very funny.”
Anna snapped on the lights. Though she was officially an Action Jackson employee, she hadn’t yet been inside the offices. They were surprisingly spare.
They went into Kiki’s utilitarian office—there wasn’t even a window—and Anna quickly found the script in the drawer where Sam had said the covered scripts would be.
Caine pushed his hair off his forehead. “Hot in here. Don’t they believe in air conditioning?” “Oh, that’s just me,” Anna quipped, proud of herself for being lighthearted in the midst of this unusual midnight outing. Anna dug out the script to
Burnt Toast
and was pleased to see Sam’s coverage still stapled to the upper righthand corner.
“So, what now?” Caine asked. “Can you boot up that computer?”
“Yes, ma’am. Love taking orders from a high school graduate.” Fortunately, Caine was grinning.
“Let’s redo it from the top,” she decided. “Fine with me.” “How are you on the keyboard?” “I bring new meaning to the word
fast
.”
“Great. I’m not an expert at this, but I’ll dictate and you type.” “I await your brilliance.” “Hmm . . .” Anna looked at Sam’s coverage. It was scathing.