“Hi, Maddy.”
Maddy stopped dancing as a tall blond man with rimless glasses danced by with a well-tanned, bleached-blond young woman in his arms.
Ah
. Ben remembered—this was Maddy's math teacher, the infamous Mr. T. He'd met him at Joe's Clams. He looked great in an Armani tuxedo. Meanwhile, Ben thought that Theresa had described his dance partner—this had to be Miss Brewster—correctly. She did indeed have huge boobs, cantilevered atop a black-and-white polka-dot spaghetti-strap chiffon dress, with a full, flirty skirt. For the life of him, Ben couldn't imagine what kind of bra was holding up her basketballs.
“Oh. Hi, Mr. T.” Maddy smiled radiantly and called back as the two teachers danced off into the crowd.
“Your teacher seems like a good guy.”
Maddy's smile turned into a frown. “You think?”
They kept dancing. Was it Ben's imagination or had Maddy just deliberately pressed up against him?
Damn
. Much as he tried, he couldn't exert control over certain anatomical reactions. Maybe this was what she thought she was supposed to do? Maybe her amazing makeover had filled her with confidence and she was trying stuff out on him?
“Do you think people looking at us think you're my boyfriend?” Maddy asked, as they continued to dance.
“Maybe.” He'd have to remind her—diplomatically, of course—that he was involved in an exclusive thing with Anna, which made him the wrong target. He realized that it couldn't be easy for her for it to be prom night and for her not to have a boyfriend.
She rested her chin in the nape of his neck.
Double damn
. Ben could feel beads of sweat pop out on his fore-head. This was not what he'd had in mind
at all
.
Fortunately, the song ended; when Ben suggested they go outside for a while, Maddy happily acceded. They stopped for some “fairy punch”—Ben wished it had been spiked with Stoli—and joined a few of Maddy's friends at a round table on the restaurant patio that overlooked the city. Ben barely caught their names—Barry and Amy, Twilla and Joel, Heatherly and River. They weren't the geekiest kids at prom … but they were close to it. The guys seemed like clones of each other. Not only had they obviously rented their tuxes at the same store, but each sported a thin wisp of a moustache; their hair ranged in length from very short and spiky to medium short and spiky; and each had a piercing somewhere on his face.
As for Amy, Twilla, and Heatherly, they were a triumvirate of blond, redhead, and brunette, but each with at least one facial feature that would knock them off the pretty list. Ben hated to admit this, but it was true. Twilla's eyes were too close-set; Amy's lips were almost painfully thin; and Heatherly's nose resembled a snow-ball that had been thrown at her face and smushed on impact. Ben was, of course, polite and friendly, complimenting their dresses, etc. They giggled giddily in response.
That they were not A-list was confirmed by the obvious A-list kids who fired glances of disdain in their direction as they entered or left the restaurant.
Ben checked his watch. Good. Time was passing mercifully quickly. Another half hour and he could make a graceful exit for Anna's prom in Palmdale. The limo would take him home, he'd get his car, and then the driver could return to the Getty Center to wait for Maddy.
“Want to take a walk in the garden?” Maddy asked.
“Sure.”
Anything to kill some more minutes.
They said good-bye to Maddy's friends; she took his arm as they headed back past the restaurant for the escalator that led down to the central gardens. With the sun fully down, the gardens were spectacular, lit by tens of thousands of tiny pink lights strung through the trees, plus a rotating series of theatrical gobos atop several of the pavilions that projected tableaus from famous Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales on the terrace floor.
Maddy held tight to Ben's arm as they strolled. “I wish this night could last forever and ever.”
“You're like Cinderella at the ball, huh?” Ben asked kindly.
“I am?” She stopped, took his hands, and gazed into his eyes. She looked ethereal, beautiful, bewitching.
Uncomfortable, Ben shoved his hands into the pockets of his tux pants. “Sure.”
“I always wanted to be beautiful, you know? Like all the time I was so fat and everything, I used to dream that one day some kind of magic would happen and—
poof!
—I'd be pretty.”
“It wasn't magic, Maddy. It was your accomplishment.”
They stopped by the central fountain and people-watched for a while; more couples had come downstairs to enjoy the fragrant night air and the transformed surroundings. Ben thought to himself about how much longer he'd have to hang around. An hour, maximum, he decided. Hopefully less than that.
“Do you think I need to work out more?” she asked suddenly, raising the hem of her top to expose a couple of inches of creamy flesh.
Ben gulped hard.
“Lookin' good, Mad,” he assured her, though her attention was entirely on one strolling couple—Mr. T and the teacher with the body of death.
“How good?” Maddy demanded.
The next thing Ben knew, she had snaked her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his in a sizzling kiss. At least, it would have been sizzling if he'd wanted it to happen. It was painfully clear now. Sweet, clueless Maddy had a crush on him. He'd suspected it for a long time, but now he knew for certain.
Poor kid.
He put his hands on her hips and gently eased her away from him. “Maddy—”
“You're mad.”
God
. He didn't want to ruin her evening, but she had to understand the truth.
“Come with me for a sec. I want to talk to you.” He put a hand on her elbow and led her to a carved stone bench at the far edge of the terrace, but where they could still see the central fountain. She sat next to him on the bench after he brushed away any nonexistent dust.
“Maddy,” he told her, “I'm so flattered you can't imagine. But I'm in love with Anna.”
“That's okay,” Maddy replied amiably.
“No, it isn't. You know how much I care about you, but … not like
that
.”
Maddy nodded. “Yeah, I get it. I don't care about you like
that
, either.”
Okay. Now he was baffled.
“But you just—”
“Didn't you see Mr. T?” When Ben didn't jump in, she continued. “Wait, you mean … you really don't get it?”
Ben scratched his chin. “No, Mad, I really don't.”
“Oh, wow! I was so sure that it's, like, written all over my face! And Jack is your best friend so I figured you guys talked and. …” She puffed air out as if it were all just so complicated to explain. “Okay, well, the thing is, I have this huuuge crush on Mr. T, my teacher? Don't you think he's like, the hottest guy you ever saw in your life?”
“Uh, I never really thought about—you've got a crush on your math teacher?”
Maddy looked at him cockeyed. “Why do you think that Jack and I got to be such good friends? And why he said he'd come to prom with me? I told him about Mr. T. and he said he would help me. Mr. T. would think of me as, like, a
girl
and not just his
student
if he saw me on, like, a
date
with an older guy.”
Ben felt completely off-kilter. “Jack did that?”
Maddy nodded. “He said he knew what it felt like to really want something and that it was hard to get what you wanted if you didn't have help. Isn't that so sweet?”
Ben reeled. All his assumptions had been—
“When you said you'd take me to prom instead of Jack, I thought you were in on it! Because you're even cuter than Jack is, so that would make Mr. T. really,
really
jealous!”
“Why didn't you tell me back then?” Ben wondered aloud. He felt like such a presumptuous dick. “That night I got so mad at Jack—hey, what about those pictures on your computer?”
Maddy flushed. “Those were going to be for Mr. T, sometime. I don't know if I would have had the nerve to actually give them to him or anything. Probably not. Even Jack said it wasn't really a great idea, but when I told him I was going to do it anyway, he relented and said he'd help me.” She ducked her head. “This is kind of embarrassing to talk about. Do you think I'm, like, pathetic?”
No
, Ben thought. I think
I'm
, like, pathetic.
“It's fine to have a crush, Mad. But Mr. T is a lot older than you are and—”
“Hey you two. Hope I'm not interrupting …”
There stood Maddy's crush, Mr. T. Alone. Big Boobs was nowhere in sight. Now that Ben really looked at him, good ol' Mr. T wasn't all that old; early twenties.
“No, no, you're not interrupting
anything
!” Maddy insisted. “Ben is just a
friend
.”
“Yeah?” Mr. T asked.
“Oh yeah,” Ben confirmed.
Mr. T's gaze went back to Maddy. “You look … great tonight, Maddy.”
“I do?” Maddy seemed to float off the stone bench.
“I thought you might like to dance. If that's okay with your friend, that is.”
“My friend doesn't make my decisions,” Maddy declared, even before Ben could give permission. “Anyway, he has to go meet his
girlfriend
. Right, Ben?”
“Right,” Ben agreed, nodding his head slowly. “But could I speak to you, Maddy? Before I go? Alone?”
“I'll wait for you at the top of the escalator,” Mr. T assured her.
“Two seconds,” Maddy promised. When Mr. T was safely out of view, she threw her arms around Ben. “It worked! Oh my gosh, he asked me to dance. He likes me!”
Ben cleared his throat. “At the risk of sounding parental, he's a teacher and you're a student.”
“So?”
“So … I want you to promise me that you won't …” He wasn't quite sure how to put it. “You know how people think you have to have sex on prom night. …”
Maddy nodded eagerly.
“
No. Very
bad idea.”
Maddy gave him a sly look. “What about you and Anna?”
“That's different. We're a couple, we're nearly the same age, and—” He stopped himself. “I want you to promise me that all you'll do with Mr. T is
dance
.”
She nodded. He kissed her cheek and watched as she ran to the escalator. When she was on her way up, Ben headed back to the monorail. He didn't know what to laugh about more—how he'd totally assumed the wrong thing, or about how his own ego was as least as big and fat as Maddy, presurgery. Or both.
W
here the hell was Adam?
Adam, the guy who was never late, was now holding everyone up. Cammie tapped the foot of her taupe stiletto-heeled sandal impatiently (taupe because even though her gown was white, it was mall-level tacky to also wear white heels) and checked her new Jacob & Co. pearl-faced, diamond-studded watch that had been a lame can't-we-all-just-get-along gift from her father after their spat at the late, great Bel Air Grand Hotel. If the truth be known, she felt badly that she'd had a big role in that hotel being late and great. On the other hand, who doesn't put a good sprinkler system in a public bathroom?
She stood by the fountain in the center of the circular driveway in front of the Sharpe estate along with the rest of her friends who were limoing over to the
Ben Hur
set in Palmdale. There were Sam and Parker and Anna, Dee and Jack and Marshall—Jack looked very cute in an Oleg Cassini tux; Marshall was more
Napoleon Dynamite
than ever in his severe black formalwear.
A good chunk of the rest of the informal Beverly Hills High School high court was there, as well. Damian Williams, he of the unfortunate name—same as a villain from the Rodney King riots of 1992—but the fortunate bank account, whose father owned a string of exotic car dealerships from San Diego all the way up to San Francisco. Dark of hair, indolent of face, and fond of drink, with a thumbnail-size diamond stud in his left ear, he wore an Ecko six-button notch tuxedo with a silver cummerbund and a matching silver bow tie. He stood chatting with his ex-girlfriend, Skye Morrison, a crazy boho trustfunder with a pedigree almost as long as Anna's.
Unlike Anna, Skye was a free spirit with dreadlocks who had given up alcohol a month or so ago after an inebriated Damian had deposited his semidigested Buffalo Club roast venison in blackberry balsamic reduction on her lap. Her latest penchant was for one-of-a-kind bejeweled designer cowboy boots that easily ran ten thousands dollars a pair. She could afford them; her great-grandparents had invested heavily in the nascent West Coast oil business. Every barrel that came out of the wells by LAX helped to line her family's pockets. This was a good thing, since Skye had the academic interest of an amoeba. What she cared about was snow-boarding, skiing, and staying in shape—that shape was displayed to great advantage in her custom-made, fitted Antoniette Catenacci silver gown that shimmered in the twilight, slit up both legs to reveal hand-tooled silver cowboy boots adorned with hand-painted diamond-and-ruby cowgirls.
Near Skye and Damian, standing in a little knot, were Krishna Gottesman, Jordan Jacobson, and Ashleigh Amber Anders (nicknamed “Triple A” as middle schooler for her lack of upfront assets. She'd been the first of the A-listers to pay a professional visit to Ben's father. Now, Triple A was Double D.) All three were from showbiz families. Krishna looked eerily like Tiffany-Amber Thiessen circa
Beverly Hills 90210
and was the daughter of self-help guru Howard Gottesman, whose late-night infomercials raked in a million dollars a week and were giving Tony Robbins a run for his considerable money. She was currently dating Jordan, son of a famous movie producer whose decades-long feud with Sam's father was Los Angeles legend. Jordan's father had been an early producer of Jackson's movies but then had had the temerity to beat him 6-0, 6-0 in the quarterfinals of the Beverly Hills Country Club fall club tennis championships. Jackson hadn't spoken to Mr. Jacobson since, and that had been in 1988. Jordan was a guitar player— tall, handsome, and in superb shape—and wore a Carlo Palazzi tux that looked great with Krishna's Hanae Mori Japanese-inspired jet black formal gown.
Ashleigh, like Sam, was the daughter of an actor. Her father, Charles Anders, was the same age as Jackson Sharpe. Many thought that Charles was the superior performer, particularly after he proved himself by playing Macbeth in a recent Broadway revival opposite Susan Sarandon. His current quote, however, was several million dollars below Jackson's, which Ashleigh found maddening. Ashleigh's Swedish mom, Britta, was a fashion designer. Ashleigh planned to follow in Britta's foot-steps after college. She and her mother had codesigned a gown that would set off her flaming red hair—black Chinese silk brocade with a massive hot pink rose on the bodice; its leafy tendrils were green silk ribbons that curled down the front of the dress.