No one seemed to mind that Adam was late, not even Sam, who should have been more nervous because of her movie. Cammie figured it was because Sam had sent Parker's younger brother, Monty, over to Palmdale to film the B-list as they went through their prom prep. Even though time was ticking away, Sam insouciantly toted around a video camera, getting her friends' impressions of prom night. Meanwhile, one of the maids had brought out a magnum of vintage Clos du Mesnil champagne from Jackson's twenty-thousand-bottle wine cellar and had already come back once already for refills. At the far end of the driveway, so the fumes from the idling engine wouldn't bother anyone, Jackson's platinum superstretch-limo was idling in preparation for the forty-five minute trip to Palmdale.
Cammie continued to tap an impatient foot. This was getting ridiculous. Where the fuck was Adam?
“Umm, your boyfriend is AWOL,” Sam intoned as she approached and focused her handheld Sony HDR-FX1 digital camcorder on Cammie.
“No problem,” Cammie cooed smoothly, giving the camera her patented, sloe-eyed I'm-always-in-control look.
“Adam is always on time,” Sam mused. “Didn't you guys go to dinner?”
Cammie gave the camera an above-it-all look. “Who would go to a restaurant on prom night? They're all jammed with kids from the valley. The chefs are so rushed you can't even order off the menu.”
Anna stepped over to Cammie. “You should call Adam; this isn't like him.”
Cammie raised her eyebrows and smiled, feigning a cool she didn't actually feel at the moment.
“I'll call his parents, then.” Anna got out her cell and punched in the numbers. It irritated Cammie, but she didn't let that show on her face. It was just so Anna to jump into the fray, reminding Cammie that she'd been with Adam first. Anna probably had a decent relationship with Adam's parents, too. They probably loved
her
.
Stop, Cammie told herself. She exhaled and tried to calm down, knowing full well that she was mentally taking her pique out on Anna because she felt a bit anxious about tonight. She loved Adam as much as ever, but she knew they'd been out of sync for the last few weeks. Some of it was probably her own fault—it was like the happiness gene wasn't working for her, and she needed to replace it with the rush of chaos or the thrill of the chase.
“He's on his way,” she reported. “I'm on with his father and—”
At that moment, a silver Prius rolled in through the Sharpe estate front gate. It was Adam, and his entrance merited spontaneous applause as he stopped the car by the fountain. Damian even added a two-finger whistle as Adam hopped out of the driver's seat and hurried to Cammie.
“Man, I'm so sorry.”
“Where were you?” Cammie asked, allowing him a careful kiss on her perfect lip gloss.
“I was driving my mom's Saturn and it died in the middle of Pico Boulevard,” Adam explained, fumbling with his bow tie. “I wanted to call Triple A but my cell phone wasn't charged and …” He waved a hand. “Long, boring story. Anyway, I managed to get the car off the road, take a cab home, and get the Prius. I'm good to go.”
“Good.” Cammie kissed him again, for three reasons. First, she wanted to. Second, Anna was watching. Third, Sam had the camera on her again.
“Okay, we're outta here. Let's go, guys,” Jordan instructed. He snapped his fingers and motioned for the limo. Two minutes later they'd all piled inside. The stocky driver shut the doors and they started to pull away, but instead of heading toward the security gate, the driver circled the fountain and turned left onto a gravel service road that led to the rear of the estate.
“'Scuse me, wrong direction!” Dee chirped.
“No it's not,” Sam countered. “You didn't really think we were going to
drive
, did you? Do you know what the traffic could be like between here and Palmdale? The exhaust fumes alone could undo every oxygen facial you ever had.”
The limo rounded the house, motored past the pool, tennis courts, and golf area, and stopped at the edge of Jackson's private helipad. On that helipad, a converted VH-3D twin-engine military helicopter, painted white, started its blades whirring the moment the pilot saw the limousine.
“Shut
up
!” Krishna cried happily. “We're taking a chopper!”
“How do you think my dad gets back and forth to the set?” Sam asked, smoothing her dress as the air blast from the chopper blades hit them all. “We can get there this way, but we have to limo back.”
“Whatever,” Ashleigh commented. “This is definitely the way to travel.”
The helicopter pilot was there to greet them. With silver hair swept back from a high forehead that offset his craggy features, he looked like someone right out of central casting. “Careful of your heads, ladies and gentlemen,” he called over the sound of the engines, and offered a hand to help them into the copter, a commercial version of Marine One, the official helicopter of the president of the United States.
There was plenty of room inside. The chopper had been outfitted to carry sixteen passengers plus crew. The regular seats had been taken out in favor of leather couches to which seat belts and safety harnesses had been attached. There were a big-screen TV and a small video console, along with wireless headsets for all the passengers. The interior had been dampened against noise, but there was no way to completely silence the roar of the engines or the
whup-whup
of the main blade overhead—hence the wireless headsets.
Cammie took a seat between Adam and Jack and strapped herself in; Dee was across from her, between Jack and Marshall (who did not look thrilled about their mode of transportation). To her left were Parker, Anna, and Sam. Her other friends were in a separate forward cabin. As the helicopter engines roared and Cammie felt the craft go airborne, Parker lifted the handheld camera to film them all.
“Next stop,
Ben Hur
,” Sam announced happily, as they headed straight up over her father's estate. The chopper rose until Beverly Hills spread out below them like a high-priced Monopoly board, then roared forward so quickly that Cammie felt herself pushed back into the sumptuous leather seat.
Punk Boy—what was his name again? Jack!—caught Cammie's eye and jerked a thumb toward Dee. “Cute,” he mouthed, since it was too loud for conversation.
“I know,” Cammie mouthed back with a smile. “Hurt her and I kill you.” She pointed to her own eyes with two fingers, and then to Jack. The message was clear: I'm watching you.
The flight north over the Santa Monica Mountains and through the pass to the outskirts of Palmdale took only ten minutes—far faster than a limo ride would have been, though Cammie could see that the 405 and the other freeways were clear and traffic was moving rapidly. Once they were through the mountains and into the high desert, they buzzed the Magic Mountain theme park—a kaleidoscope of color against the starkness of the landscape—and circled west, with a great nighttime view of the space shuttle's secondary landing strip at Edwards Air Force base to the north.
Five minutes later, they hovered directly over a movie set replica of the Colosseum of Rome, as if that storied edifice were still a fully functional sports arena. The parking lot was full of cars, vans, and limos; Cammie watched dozens of gawking classmates as they dropped down toward an illuminated concrete helipad a few hundred yards from the Colosseum. To the left of the helipad were the four black limousines that would squire each of the couples—in Dee's case, a peculiar trio—to Hermosa Beach for the after party and then home.
The helipad had been roped off with a red-velvet barrier; security guards from the movie studio were stationed every ten feet. As the pilot gently touched down, Cammie saw the early prom arrivals gather to see who was making such a spectacular entrance.
Like there'd ever been any question.
Jackson Sharpe's remake of
Ben-Hur
was already the buzz of Hollywood, mostly because of accounting figures leaked from the production office—the budget had already escalated from a hundred and twenty million to a hundred and forty million dollars, and that was before publicity and advertising were taken into account. Word was that dialogue was disappearing from the script in favor of more and more action, on the theory that overseas territories cared little for the nuances of English language. They mostly wanted to see shit blow up. Since serious pyrotechnics had been an impossibility in the first century, in their place was a grossly inflated, very bloody body count.
Jackson was playing the title role of Ben-Hur, which in the famous 1959 version (the story had already been filmed twice in the very early days of Tinseltown) had been brought to life by Charlton Heston. The story was an epic tale of a boyhood friendship between Ben-Hur and his former friend Messala. The action culminated in a chariot race between them in the Colosseum.
Once the helicopter blades stopped, the pilot opened the passenger doors and helped everyone down. Sam had specified that a red carpet lead from the helipad to the entrance to the Colosseum, and the prom weenies had done their job well. Monty Pinelli—Parker's younger brother who was nowhere as cute as Parker, with his stocky build, big nose, and somewhat unkempt appearance despite a Ralph Lauren tuxedo that Sam had rented for him—was stationed at the far end of the red carpet to film their arrival. Krishna gave him a kiss as they passed; Monty blushed happily.
The producers of
Ben-Hur
had spared no expense in building a Colosseum for the seminal chariot-race scene, except to construct the structure of wood with false fronts instead of the original marble used two thousand years ago. The exterior wasn't much to look at, since it wouldn't be seen in the film—any exterior shots would be done with a miniature model in the studio. The interior, though, was dazzling from the moment Cammie stepped inside, and that was without considering any of the prom decorations.
The floor of the Colosseum was some sort of brown synthetic substance mixed with tiny silicon balls (the better to reflect movie lights and to absorb any stray moisture—chariot racing in mud was not what Jackson had in mind). It covered the length of two football fields. One half of the building was given over to camera towers, a production office, and all the various and sundry spaces that were necessary to produce an action epic: makeup trailers, a commissary that was doubling for the evening as the caterers' headquarters, costume headquarters, even a stable in which the teams of horses used in the race could be kept.
The opposite side of the building, though, was a meticulously crafted vision of a first-century Roman stadium. There was tiered seating that could hold thirty thousand extras, columns by the hundreds, and arches by the dozens, with a marble royal reviewing stand that covered a quarter of the bottom tier of seats. At the far end of the structure were two matching sets of columned arches through which the chariot race would start, while the center of the racetrack was dominated by a long and narrow formal garden containing enormous statues of Roman leaders, generals, and caesars. The gardens served the same purpose as the infield at the thoroughbred track Hollywood Park.
The entire arena was lit by an array of steel football-stadium lighting towers. There was also a concert-quality sound system that had been erected for the band. After having nixed any number of possibilities, Sam had suggested that they bring in Slick Willy, a new British band that was reviving Beatles haircuts along with a good-time party sound; their first CD,
Manchester Disunited
, was number one in Britain but just beginning to cross over into America. Cammie had called Dee's father, the record producer. He was so happy that his daughter was mentally healthy enough to attend prom that he twisted arms, pulled strings, arranged for a private jet to fly the band over, and it was a done deal. The band was playing its heart out on a stage erected at the opposite end of the track from where the chariot racers would enter.
“You rock, girl!” Cammie heard Jack tell Sam, as the group—trailed by Monty—got past the last phalanx of security and joined the throng already inside the arena. At the front gate, ordinary promgoers parted like the Red Sea to let the A-listers pass.
“This is totally off the hook,” Adam chuckled, surveying the Colosseum. All the parts that weren't being used had been draped in blue and white fabric, the BHHS school colors. “Back in Michigan, they had prom in the gym with a disco ball.”
“I thought that kind of thing was only urban legend,” Cammie teased.
He grinned at her. “For a girl who wasn't into prom, you sure look happy.”
For some reason, Cammie now felt determined to be on her best behavior and mend things. It was prom night, for God's sake. She slid her arms around his neck. “Because I'm with you.”
Such a simple, declarative statement and yet so hard for her to say. Why did it all get so complicated? Why couldn't a girl just love a boy and have the boy love her back? She so wanted to believe that she wasn't too fucked up to have that, for the first time in her life—to have it with Adam. Before she could summon up her nerve to tackle the pile of unspoken shit that still stood between her and Adam, Jack found her.
“Listen, I'm feeling your girl, Dee,” he confided, thumping his chest with his fist.
“Excellent.”
“But what's up with Napoleon D over there?” Jack cocked his head toward Marshall, who stood with Dee on the parameter of the parquet dance floor near the band.
“Her mental-health bodyguard,” Cammie quipped.
“No, really. The girl's in an institution?”
“Something like that. Temporarily.”
“Well, I like a woman with a past. How do we ditch him?”
“I'll leave that in your capable hands,” Cammie replied. “Let's see how motivated you are. And how well you treat her.”
“Very to both,” Jack replied easily.
“Dee's been through some tough stuff,” Adam put in. “Go easy, huh?”
“Hey, easy is my middle name.” Jack winked and headed back toward Dee.
“Yeah, I bet.” Adam frowned as Jack walked away. “You trust that guy?”
Cammie took his arm. “No need to worry. Jack will make Dee feel desirable and hot, and Marshall won't let Dee out of his sight. It's a win-win.” She took a deep breath. “Want to go up to the bleachers for a minute? I think we need to talk.”