“Bitches,” Ben declared. “Ignore 'em.”
“No, wait, I didn't get to the good part yet.” Maddy leaned forward, eyes shining. “Jack leaned over, right in front of them, and he kissed me.”
Ben couldn't decide what he felt. What Jack had done was cool. But Maddy was so clueless that she had probably misinterpreted it and now thought she and Jack were engaged or something.
“You should have seen the looks on their faces,” Maddy went on. “Jack is a hottie, kinda. Not like
you,
but, you know, cute.”
“
And
?”
“And, you know, it's almost prom, and … he said he'd go with me!”
Ben nearly groaned aloud. Everyone knew that prom meant sex. Especially Jack Walker.
Ben had known Maddy forever. She was the closest thing to a little sister that he was ever going to have. The idea of someone actually taking advantage of her innocence appalled him, even as he realized the temptation to stare at her in that robe. What the hell, maybe he was just a sucker for underdogs. The way Ben saw it there was more than enough cruelty in the world, and way too much every-man-for-himself. Beverly Hills was full of people like that; he'd grown up with them. It had helped him figure out what he
didn't
want to be.
“You guys are going as
friends,
right?”
“Oh, you!” Maddy laughed gleefully. “Anyway, I'm so excited! Jack has to be a great guy because he's your friend, so I know I can, like, totally trust him! I just wanted to say thank you.”
She crossed the floor to his bed and hugged him hard. Was it his imagination, or did her hug linger just a little too long? He felt her huge breasts separated from his naked chest by the thinnest of silk. Way … weird.
He pulled away and tried to make it seem natural. “Hey, that's great, Maddy.”
She didn't move.
“We'll talk about it more tomorrow, okay?” He hoped she'd get the hint that he wouldn't mind if she departed.
She did, waving a happy good-bye from the doorway before disappearing down the hall. Ben got up and shut the door.
Shit.
Maddy thought Jack had to be a good guy because she trusted Ben. The truth was, when it came to girls, Jack was anything but trustworthy or good. Maddy was definitely not prepared for Jack Walker's moves, and Ben had no clue what to do about it.
C
ammie sat across from her father at one of the round glass tables in the piano bar at the Bel Air Grand Hotel. Her dad was entertainment
über
-agent Clark Sheppard, who had come to meet his daughter straight from the office. He was dressed in one of his custom-made-in-Hong-Kong single-breasted gray ventless suits, a light blue dress shirt, and an elegant lavender tie. The bar was close to full at this hour: tourists having post dinner cocktails, actors and Hollywood types stopping off after the day's shootings. Cammie recognized Vince Vaughn and a couple of his friends watching the Dodgers game on the bar TV.
Cammie was in a funk so deep it hadn't been repaired by the two Grey Goose cranberry martinis (all the rage on the west side of Los Angeles, these consisted of a Grey Goose martini into which exactly seven ripe cranberries were added prior to the shaking process—the shaking bruised the cranberries but didn't crush them) she'd imbibed.
After her blowup with Adam on the beach, she'd actually called him to apologize—not for her feelings, because she still thought he was out of line for having enlisted his parents' help without clearing it with her first, but for the way she'd handled it. She shouldn't have stormed off like she had.
Adam's response had been so
him
—understanding, accepting. He still thought that if his parents could find out anything about what had happened to her mom it would be a good thing. But that was her call, not his, so he wouldn't push it. They were still on for prom, right?
One part of her was pleased by his response. Another part of her wished that he had the balls to call her on being a total bitch and a half. One day, she really would push him too far. On purpose, maybe. God, what kind of a girl did something like that? What was it about her that made her want
bad
things to happen? Maybe danger and love and sex were all confused in her mind, some deep psychological shit like that.
She ragged on Sam for seeing Dr. Fred. Maybe she needed to see him herself.
She'd thought about her mom all day. Her father hadn't even acknowledged his dead wife's birthday when she'd seen him briefly that morning. So she called him at Apex on the way home from Ojai and asked if he'd join her for a drink later. She'd suggested the Grand, figuring she could see and book the biggest suite there for prom night and then meet her dad in the piano bar.
The suite she'd found barely met her minimum standards; it was the kind of place that was written about in Zagat guidebooks as “quaint” and “venerable” and “charming,” which actually meant that there was no bidet in the bathroom and that the shower had only one head. Still, the Mayer suite on the top floor was the nicest in the hotel, named for the movie mogul Louis Mayer, who'd had it decorated to match the grandest Art Deco suite in his film
Grand Hotel,
one of the alltime Hollywood classics. She and Adam could simply adjourn up here when they tired of the proceedings in the ballroom.
Drinks with her father? She'd expected him to disappoint her, and he wasn't letting her down. Clark's movie-actor cleft chin bobbed as he rattled on about his day, the various exciting projects that his agency was handling, and all the people in the business who had fucked him this week. Like she cared. Why couldn't he talk about anything personal?
“So this is sick,” her dad was saying, oblivious to Cammie's disinterest. “There I am, with Harvey on one line and Renee's manager on the other, and I'm telling Harvey I can bring Renee in for five mil less than her quote, and I'm telling Renee's manager that Harvey will meet her quote plus a dresser and a makeup artist for her publicity tour, plus a private jet.”
She drained her martini. “Don't tell me, Dad. You made them both happy.”
Her father smirked and twirled the stem of his martini glass. “Nothing makes me happier than to dick Harvey. He's screwed me so many goddamn times—”
His sentence was interrupted by a discreet chiming tone from his cell phone. “Hold on a sec, babe.” He checked the number. “Gotta take this.”
Cammie shrugged and glanced around for the waiter—she wanted another drink. Meanwhile, her father launched into a conversation that quickly escalated into a heated negotiation. Three minutes later, he muttered good-bye to whomever was on the other end, snapped the phone shut with supreme anger, and stood up from her chair.
“Gotta go back to Apex for a conference call,” he barked, angrily flinging a fifty-dollar bill on the table. “Harvey's dicking me again. I'll see you at home.”
“No, you won't.” Cammie kept her tone even and conversational.
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you won't get back till after midnight. I've seen this movie before.”
He gave a snort of disgust. “Can you hit the guilt thing some other time, Camille?”
“Today was Mom's birthday.”
A beat. He sat back down again abruptly.
“That's
what this is about?”
“You didn't remember, which doesn't surprise me.”
“Shit.” He ran a hand through his perfect silver hair. “I'm not big on birthdays of the living, Cam. Let alone the dead. You know that.”
She looked away. “Right.”
“What was I supposed to do, send her a card?” He leaned toward her. “I'll always care about your mom, Cammie. But I'm married to someone else now. I've moved on with my life.”
Cammie felt something clench in her stomach. “Gee, Dad, I guess I didn't get that ‘moving on’ memo.”
“Look, I get that this is hard for you, okay?” He stood again. “If I get home at a decent hour, I'll knock. We'll talk. Okay?”
“Whatever.”
“‘Whatever,’” he echoed with disgust. “What are you, twelve? You can't come up with something better to convey your disgust with me than ‘whatever’?”
Cammie raised cold eyes to him. “How about fuck you, then? That better?”
“Excuse me while I earn a living.” He walked away.
Gosh, she sure loved these family-bonding moments. How dumb could she be, after all these years, still har-boring a secret hope that he'd suddenly turn into a decent father? It was stupid for her to feel hurt.
The pretty, pug-nosed waitress with auburn hair razor cut to her chin set another cranberry martini in front of her. “From the gentleman at the bar,” she announced, handing Cammie a napkin. “There's a note on this for you.”
She unfolded the napkin:
You're the most gorgeous girl in this place. May I share a drink with you?
Cammie always enjoyed the “you're the most gorgeous girl” thing; there was nothing that could lift a girl out of a funk than a hot guy telling her how cute she was. She had on a canary yellow eyelet lace Twelfth Street by Cynthia Vincent silk tunic with an uneven handkerchief hem. It was supposed to be a top, but it barely cleared the bottom of Cammie's yellow silk La Perla thong. She wore it with nothing but miles of tanned leg and Michael Kors cork sandals with gold braiding. She glanced lazily over at the bar. She vaguely recognized the twentyish actor at the bar—he'd been in that Orlando Bloom movie set in the desert. The guy sitting next to him gave Cammie a quick wave. She vaguely recognized him from a medical show on TV where he played the young rock 'n' roll rebel doctor. His sandy-colored hair was short and curly, and he wore a short-sleeved gray T-shirt over an olive-green long-sleeved T-shirt with Levi's. Very Justin Timberlake.
She lifted the cranberry martini to her lips and gave him the smallest of smiles.
He took that as a yes, picked up his drink, and joined her. “Hey,” he said easily as he slid into one of the purple upholstered chairs at the table. “I'm—”
“I know who you are,” Cammie said, cutting him off. “Do you like playing doctor?” She gave the question a double meaning on purpose.
He flashed a lazy grin. “I'm good at it. And you're—?”
“Cammie Sheppard.”
He nodded. “I recognized your dad. Figured you were a client.” He took another sip of his drink—it looked like scotch on the rocks. “So. Clark Sheppard has a daughter.”
“We've just established that.”
He studied her a moment. “You really are, you know, incredible looking.”
She sipped her martini and didn't respond. This was a game she knew and loved. The art of flirting. The thrill of feeling how much a guy wanted her. It had all the fun of cheating, with none of the guilty consequences.
They bantered back and forth for a while. He lived in the neighborhood and liked to hang out at the hotel bar; he liked the Old Hollywood vibe. When it was Cammie's turn, she lied and said she was a sophomore at USC, just for fun. Turned out he'd gone to school there and wanted to know if she knew any of his friends, which was monumentally boring. Like she gave a shit about his friends. Just when she was ready to draw the little flirtation to a close, he mentioned that he had some killer Thai stick; a friend had brought it back from a recent trip to Phuket. Was Cammie interested?
Cammie thought about it a moment, then decided why the hell not get fucked up? It wasn't like reality was so attractive. The guy suggested they torch up in one of the second-floor bathrooms. The floor was only used for conferences; there were no conferences at ten o'clock at night.
Rock 'n' Roll Doctor Actor was right. The dressing area that led in to the vintage black-and-white-tiled bathroom was deserted. They didn't bother to turn on the light; they could see well enough from the moon-light streaming in through the windows to sit together on a red velvet chaise and torch up the fat doobie he took out of his back pocket. He sucked in a huge hit and passed it to her. “Oh man, that is so sweet.”
She sucked on the joint, then passed it back to her new playmate. Instant attitude adjustment. Why stress about her father? He was who he was; he was never going to change.
When the joint had burned down to a roach, her insignificant other reached for it again, but Cammie had just flicked it into a trash receptacle. “Excellent. I needed my mood altered.”
There was a stoned gleam in his eye. “Yeah?” He leaned in and kissed her softly.
What the hell. It was just a kiss. Kissing wasn't cheating. She kissed him back. And while it was nice, it wasn't Adam. God. She was turning into such a good girl, she could puke. She gently pushed Rock 'n' Roll Doctor Actor away. “I don't think so.”
He shrugged. “Worth a shot. Although your dad is such a son of a bitch, if I
did
seduce you, he'd probably
have
me shot.”
They both found that comment hysterical, laughed until they were gasping for breath, then headed back to the bar. She gave him one soft little kiss on the lips and took off, stoned and more than a little drunk, but proud in a silly way that she hadn't done what she'd done so many times before: picked up a hot guy just to prove to herself that she could.
Maybe Adam was right. Maybe she really
was
changing.
Waiting for the Other Manolo to Drop
C
ammie had already called down her order to Stephen, a new cook that her father and Patricia were trying out for a week of breakfasts before they fired Ricardo, the current cook, who did dinners four days a week and three meals on Saturdays and Sunday. Cammie had ordered two soft-boiled organic brown eggs, a butter croissant with a slice of fresh Brie melted on top, a small glass of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and a sixteen-ounce mug of Sumatran coffee with two tablespoons of fresh cream and one packet of Splenda.
When she drifted into the kitchen fifteen minutes later—ready for school in a Notice green-and-white floral sarong-style skirt and a Hot Kiss white tank top—she was pleased to see that breakfast was already on the new Thomas Bell designer kitchen table with interlocking black tile and white glass squares; six gun metal chairs with plush pillow upholstery surrounded it. Stephen was at work at the restaurant-style stove with ten burners and three ovens. Her father, Patricia, and her loathed stepsister, Mia—Patricia's fourteen-year-old valley girl of a daughter who had come to live with them a few months earlier—sat around the table, eating.