“S
am, wow. This is the most killer prom ever!”
“You rock, Sam. Thank you so much for making this prom so special!”
“Sam, you built a Roman bath! That was so smart!”
“One for the guys and one for the girls. And one that's coed!”
“And chariot rides outside for everyone! Way cool.”
“I always thought you didn't even have any school spirit, Sam, but I was totally wrong. This rocks!”
Sam Sharpe had nothing if not a great appreciation of irony, and that appreciation was certainly kicking in. Classmates with whom she'd never had a conversation, whom she'd never normally deign to speak to, and who knew better than to start a conversation with her were rushing up to her to gush no more than two sentences of praise—all they probably thought they could get away with—to thank her for saving the prom. No, not just saving it—making it into a true A-list-worthy extravaganza.
To the south of the arena, Sam had had a full-fledged Roman bathhouse constructed by the movie's production designers, complete with showers, hot tubs, and portable swimming pools, along with individual terry cloth robes personalized with each prom attendee's name and
BHHS Prom
in Roman-style calligraphy. Promgoers could indeed choose the guys', girls', or coed facilities. Outside of the arena, horse-drawn chariots piloted by Italian models (some male, some female) in skimpy togas were squiring couples and quartets on a mile-long path through the hills. Meanwhile, all the food was being cooked on enormous open pits, in keeping with the
Ben-Hur
theme.
“Big smile, Sam Sharpe!” crowed one of the event photographers, a tuxedoed older woman with a shaved head. Sam smiled as Old Baldy popped off a few shots before Fee and Jazz edged their way into the viewfinder. They each still carried their videocams, identical Sony models to Sam's.
“How'd the filming go?” Sam asked them.
“Fantastic!” Jazz gushed. “We had a bunch of friends come over to do our prom prep—we even had a makeup artist! We got the whole thing on film.”
“I'm sorry I ever thought you were a snob,” Fee told Sam earnestly.
“Me too,” Jazz added. “I hate judgmental people and then I totally judged you. I'd just like to apologize.”
“Ditto,” Fee agreed.
“What can I tell you, girls, I was just overcome with school spirit,” Sam responded, managing to sound suitably sincere. A pang of something close to shame hit her. Jazz and Fee were actually very sweet—not so different from Sam and her friends, except economically. She was glad all over again that she'd changed the thrust of her documentary. It would have been unfair to bash Fee and Jazz.
Twenty feet away, Monty had the camera trained on the three of them. Sam's instructions had been clear: Focus on other people, not herself. She didn't want any more footage of herself at the actual event and detested documentarians like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock who insisted on making themselves the center of their work. Who did they think they were, Jonas Salk? That was why she'd asked Monty to troll around with the other camera for a while, to try to record some candid moments of the crowd.
“Students, students!” The acerbic voice of Mr. Vorhees, their vice principal, boomed out over the public address system, getting their attention. “Students, be sure to drop your vote for prom queen into the ballot box within the next half hour!”
Behind Mr. Vorhees, the band smirked. Vorhees was a tall man who looked about eight months pregnant; the belt to his tux pants lost somewhere underneath his stomach. “We'll count the ballots and announce your prom court at eleven o'clock. Good luck to one and all!”
Fee and Jazz both looked thrilled at the mention of the prom court; it actually meant something to them. Sam scrutinized the two girls. Fee wore an off-the-rack Armani strapless royal-blue matte jersey gown—there was also a blue flower Sam couldn't name in the center of her wrist corsage. Evidently some serious color-coordination planning had taken place. Her hair was done in curls; Sam supposed that she'd been looking for sexy and messy. She'd almost gotten there.
As for Jazz, she'd chosen a diagonal pastel rainbow-striped Chloé knockoff; Sam had seen the cocktail-length designer version on Kate Hudson at Koi the week before. The dress did nothing for Jazz, though, other than emphasize her lack of bust. Though Jazz's hair was freshly streaked and flatironed, new bangs only drew attention to the fact that her nose was a little too long for her face. She needed Raymond of Beverly Hills for a consultation and a style, and Gillian to shop for her.
“Do you think you have a shot at prom queen?” Sam asked Fee.
“Oh, I'd
never
get voted to the court,” Fee insisted. “Jazz, maybe.”
“That's
totally
not true,” Jazz countered. “Everyone is
totally
going to vote for you for court!”
“You!”
“No,
you
!”
Sam sighed. It was B-list de rigueur for girls to insist that they couldn't
possibly
get voted to prom court, because they shared some kind of unwritten rule that they weren't supposed to appear to have egos. Sam's own friends, though, would be the first to say that while they deserved to be prom queen—after all, they were the cutest, hottest, and coolest girls in the school—they would never actually
be
prom queen because they were above such drivel and everyone knew it.
After a few more questions, Fee's and Jazz's dates drifted over to try to join the conversation. Fee had ended up coming with Miles Goldstein, who had pitched a hissy fit in the principal's office when he found out that he was on track merely to be salutatorian instead of valedictorian, while Jazz's date was Roman Hoopes, an aspiring white rap promoter whose original name was Richard but who'd changed it to Roman because he thought that sounded more dope.
The arrival of the two guys was Sam and Parker's signal to depart—they drifted over to the production side of the arena without even thinking about voting. Sam settled into the Barcalounger reserved for her father and happily put her feet up. Meanwhile, Parker sat in the director's chair, pulled out his flask of Chivas, and passed it to Sam. She threw back a long swallow; it burned going down, but in a good way.
“Your film is going to rock,” he told her, then took the flask and swallowed lustily. “Chivas. Better than mead.”
“Let me be the judge of that,” she teased, taking the flask back and drinking some more.
Parker gave Sam a serious look. “You know, Sam, you look really hot tonight.”
Sam would never admit it, but hearing Parker say that gave her a little thrill. From a purely physical point of view, he was easily the best-looking guy at prom. If only he could magically morph into Eduardo.
“Too bad your guy crapped out on you,” Parker went on, as if reading her mind.
How irritating. It wasn't like she wasn't already thinking about just that.
“Eduardo didn't ‘crap out on me.’ He had a family engagement.”
Parker shrugged and reached for the vodka. “He's missing something great. Look out there, Sam. Look.”
She looked. The party was in full swing, with hundreds of her classmates dancing to the band. Most were in formalwear, some were in bathrobes from the Roman baths. They were laughing, smoking, eating, having the time of their lives. Though Monty and the prom weenies were out there shooting, she got her handheld and took some more footage. The more she looked through the lens, the more she felt that she had the makings of a great documentary on her hands. Still, she felt the loss of Eduardo so much that she belted down another huge shot.
“You did this, Sam. If you were my girlfriend, I'd figure out a way to do whatever I needed to do to be here for you.”
Please. She knew how good Parker was at acting—witness the fact that he'd passed himself off as a rich kid for so long without anyone figuring it out but her.
“Don't bother sucking up, Parker.”
Parker shook his head. “Man, you always think everyone is using you.”
“Because they usually are.”
Out near the gardens at the center of the track, Sam spotted Anna wandering around, alone. Strange. Why hadn't Ben shown up yet?
“You're right,” Parker acknowledged. “They are. Look, I'm gonna go get something to eat and find Damian. Then I'll do some more filming. Okay?”
“Okay,” she told him, reminding herself to keep her eye on the prize. Her cell rang as Parker loped away.
“Yeah?” she answered.
“How's prom?” The voice was lightly accented, deep, and sexy.
Eduardo.
“Not as good as if you were here,” Sam responded, thrilled that he had called her. “You can't imagine what that voice does to me.”
“Alas, I'm stuck in Mexico with the family. Miss me?”
Sam nodded, even though Eduardo couldn't see her. “Yup. Definitely.”
“Is it fun anyway?”
“Sure.” Sam watched Parker talk for a moment with his brother. “There's the afterparty on the beach; it's the set of
Hermosa Beach.”
“Ah yes, I know where Hermosa Beach is,” Eduardo said.
“Someone will probably have sex with someone and regret it afterward, some longtime couple will break up badly, and a lot of someones will have way too much to drink,” Sam quipped. “Prom with all its trimmings is an American institution, after all. How's your party?”
“Very large,” Eduardo replied. “Maybe three hundred people. I am related to half of them—I have a very large family—and every lady over the age of sixty wants to pinch my cheek and tell me what a handsome young man I've grown into.”
Sam laughed. “Sounds deadly.”
“It's all right. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you I was thinking of you and I'll see you when I get back to Los Angeles for work. I'm really looking forward to the summer.”
His words were perfect; they brought myriad images to her mind: being in bed with him at the hotel. Making love. Making love again. No image was as strong, though, as the dozen tulips in the vase. That he'd remembered her favorite flower when she'd only mentioned it once seemed to encapsulate everything that she adored about him.
Which was why she responded, “Me too.”
Anna had been drifting around the Colosseum for the past hour, watching prom unfold but not really feeling a part of it. The guy she loved was at a different party with a different girl. She told herself it didn't matter, that having Ben put in an appearance with Maddy had been her own idea, but she wondered now whether she had been more stupid than selfless. Ben was a guy, after all. She'd seen how Maddy had looked after her prom makeover.
God
. She'd been partly responsible for that, too.
Mr. Vorhees had just made what he'd claimed to be his last announcement for prom court voting. Anna figured she might as well cast her ballot. The voting area was below the twin arches at the north end of the Colosseum; she wended her way through the crowd, found a ballot and looked it over.
Who to vote for? On a whim, she scrawled in Dee's name and stuffed the paper in a ballot box watched over by Fee and Jazz. The new and improved Dee was someone Anna actually liked—at least, could possibly like, if she had a chance to get to know her better.
After that she didn't know what to do, so she found a quiet spot away from the band and watched people she barely knew dance, laugh, fight—all the things couples did on prom night. Her high school back in New York had been as cliquey as anyplace, yes, but she'd known almost everyone, having gone to school with many of her classmates for years. Here, she'd come in as the new girl and would go out as the new girl, notable only because she'd been taken in by Sam Sharpe and had hooked up with Ben Birnbaum. Would anybody even remember her for who she was? It seemed doubtful.
She drifted toward the dance floor. Dee and Jack were together, diminutive Dee snuggled up against Jack. Marshall stood near the stage, moving to and fro in an effort to keep Dee in his sightline. Damian and Ashleigh were dancing; Jordan and Skye were macking, even though they were no longer a couple. Even Parker and Sam were out there. The only ones not around were Ben, Cammie, and Adam. To think she'd had qualms about how Cammie might flirt with Ben. He wasn't even around to participate in that possibility.
Anna couldn't help it; her mind went back to her first date with Ben, when he'd abandoned her on his father's boat at two o'clock in the morning. A tiny part of her would always wonder if he'd do such a thing again; if, in fact, he was doing such a thing right this very moment. She wouldn't put it past him. With the new Maddy and his history—
No. There he was. Striding toward the dance floor, looking more perfect in his Armani tux than any boy she'd ever seen before. A lock of his brown hair flopped onto his forehead; his eyes searched everywhere.
For me,
Anna thought, and her heart swelled and her face broke into a giant smile.
He's looking for me.
She rose to meet him, ashamed of her feelings of the moment before and so glad that she had shared them with no one. Then he was there, and it felt as if there was no one there but the two of them; the rest of the world slipped away.
“This is a very Cinderella moment,” she teased.
“The
Caligula
version,” he joked back. But the look in his eyes told her how important the moment was to him, too. “You look amazing.”
“How many other prom dates have you said that to this evening?”
He slipped his arms around her waist. “Wait till you hear about Maddy and her crush.”
Anna arched a brow. “On you?”
“Oh, no, not me. I was merely a pawn in her chess game of love. Or lust. I can't figure out which one.” He tugged her toward the dance floor. “Come on. I want to dance with the most beautiful princess in the empire.”
I
t took quite a while for Cammie and Adam to wend their way through the crowd. Rather than a buffet table—
so
Club Med—Sam had directed that waitstaff dressed as gladiators and wenches circulate among the guests, offering a variety of grilled Italian hors d'oeuvres—tiny
bruschetta al forno
(native plum tomatoes marinated in fresh basil, chopped garlic, and extravirgin olive oil on focaccia squares topped with Belesca-grated mozzarella cheese), crab cakes served with a fennel-and-pepper topping, scallops wrapped in Italian bacon and mesclun greens, jumbo shrimp marinated in horseradish with lemons and Grey Goose vodka, and mushrooms stuffed with smoked Gouda and a salmon demiglace.