Sunset Boulevard (13 page)

Fortune group-hugged a puzzled-looking Grant. Jojo and the band crowd stood up, waving

their brass wildly. Even Lewis Buford, several rows back, stood and yelled, "Yeah,

motherfucker!"

Ash and Myla were on their feet, cheering and hugging like the rest of the crowd. Ash looked

down at Myla, his eyes gleaming. Their faces were less than a foot apart, and Myla felt the

tingling sensation she got whenever Ash was about to kiss her. Civility truce be damned. She

loved Ash. She gave him her most meaningful stare and her most telling half-smile.
Kiss me,

she willed her eyes to say.

Then he leaned back, held up his palm awkwardly, and said, "High five!"

What. The. Fuck.
High five? Was he
twelve
? Myla forced her jaw back into its locked and

upright position and limply slapped his palm.

Ash smiled as he stood, and as he pulled away from her, Myla felt like he took all the oxygen

in the air with him. "Well, I gotta go. See you around?"

Her voice catching in her throat, Myla nodded. They'd known each other better than anyone

else for three years. She'd taken care of Ash when he was sick. They'd slept in the same bed.

And now they were high-fiving?

TRAIN WRECK CONDUCTOR

Ash turned onto Moreno and reached for his phone, ready to call Mulberry Pizza for a large

pepperoni-and-mushroom pie. After his weird encounter with Myla, he wanted nothing more

than to sit in his room, play the new MGMT EP on repeat, and eat until he fell asleep.

Just as he was about to hit Mulberry's number on speed dial, his phone lit up in his hand, his

dad's scowling face on the screen.

Ash picked up. "Hey, Dad," he croaked, knowing immediately what this was about and

wishing he hadn't answered.

"Hey, Ash," Gordon said, in a too-chipper-to-be-talking-to-your-son voice. Ash could hear the

sound of hot-tub jets bubbling in the background. "So, did you forget our plan?" Gordon was

using his salesman voice, which Ash recognized from years of his dad's bargaining. As a kid,

Ash and his father had bargained and bartered over all Ash's chores--"Son, I thought you were

gonna clean your room so we could go to Toys 'R' Us," "Ash, didn't we say you couldn't have

Jake over until you finished your spelling worksheet?"

"Um, no, I didn't forget," Ash swerved in his one-handed turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard,

nearly clipping a limo making a left into the rear drive of the Beverly Hills Hilton.

"Daisy needs a tour guide, kid," Gordon said. The goofy way he said "kid" made Ash cringe.

Why was he being given an annoying grown-up responsibility if he was still a kid? "She said

she can't get a hold of you."

"I had to be in a football game scene for
Class Angel
. My phone was off," Ash said, hitting the

brakes hard to avoid a cluster of ladies laden with shopping bags as they crossed Santa Monica

at Rodeo Drive.

"For four days, Ash Gibson Gilmour?" Gordon said, his upbeat tone giving way to veiled

irritation.

Ash pulled the phone away from his ear and flipped it the finger at the use of his full name,

shrinking into the leather bucket seat. It was true, Daisy had called countless times over the last

few days and he'd sent the calls to voice mail, figuring his dad would call himself if it was

really important. When he'd agreed to his dad's plan at Spago the other day, he really hadn't

thought it would mean Daisy would actually
call
him. And he was kind of annoyed with his

dad's power. A couple little
you're the only guy for the job
remarks, and somehow Ash had

agreed to take on what was really just dirty work.

"I was busy," Ash lied, turning onto Beverly Drive, through Beverly Gardens Park. He turned

onto Carmelita, toward home, his ravenous appetite for Mulberry's oily slices gone.

"Daisy is waiting for you at the W in Westwood. Be there in fifteen minutes, sport," Gordon

said. "I know you don't want to. But my house, my rules. And it would mean a lot, bud."

Before Ash could protest, his dad had hung up.

Fifteen minutes later, Ash stood at the chrome front desk of the W, which looked like a giant

staircase laid on its side. He was all business as he asked the pretty desk clerk, whose blond

afro matched her golden tank top, to call Daisy's room.

She dialed, shaking her head at Ash after thirty seconds had passed. "I'm sorry, there's no

answer in Miss Morton's room."

"Okay, thanks," Ash said, smiling. He was off the hook. He'd send his dad a picture of himself

waiting in the W lobby to prove he was there--and Daisy, his pill-popping, non-bathing

prodigy--was not. Maybe he'd still get that pizza after all.

Ash walked through the lobby, toward a dimly lit seating area the W called the Living Room.

The room's flattering mood lighting made the half-dozen wannabe screenwriters hunched over

laptops look almost like
GQ
models instead of agoraphobic insomniacs. Ash plopped down

onto a chair that was nothing more than a huge cushion with legs. He was about to take his

photo when a familiar voice rang out.

"Is that Ash Gilmour? Finally arriving for little ol' me?"

Ash looked up. Daisy lay like an abused rag doll across a long white sofa. She clutched one of

the couch's striped pillows to her chest, covered by a flimsy tank top emblazoned with black

type that read,
How Much?
Her glittery yellow tutu rode up around her waist, exposing her

plaid boy shorts. One leg stretched across the table, her other bent at an uncomfortable fortyfive degree backwards angle on the couch. Both her feet were clad in R2D2 slippers.

"I'm ready to go," she said, leaping up from the couch, her limbs splayed like none of them

belonged to the same person.

Daisy looked worse standing than she did lying down. Her short hair was matted in back, a

snarl of purple and fire engine red locks clumped to her skull, and one eye drooped closed

under a heavy layer of glittery eye shadow. She looked like an asymmetrical disco queen who

needed a V8.

"Okay, let's go," Ash said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward the door.

Daisy let out a low whistle. "You're a rough one, eh? I like it." A little wobbly, she leaned into

him. She didn't smell like booze, so Ash wondered if she was drugged up. She waved like a

hyper child at the hostess and every person she passed, yelling, "I'll see you later. And you!

And I hope you too!"

Ash rolled his eyes. Anyone else would be getting paid to put up with Daisy's crap. All the

compensation he'd get was a "thanks, sport." If he was lucky.

After prying Daisy from the arms of the valet, who she insisted on hugging goodbye, they

were safely in the car. "Safely" being a relative term, as Daisy pushed buttons, rolled her

window up and down, and reached for the steering wheel as Ash drove.

Ash searched his head for something to do. He'd never played tour guide to a rock star before

and felt like he needed to come up with something to keep his charge occupied. It dawned on

him that Daisy was a girl, and might like some of the things Myla did. "Where to? Barneys?

Bloomingdale's? Saks?" Ash named Myla's favorite haunts near Rodeo Drive.

Daisy made a gagging noise. "Do I like look a fucking priss to you?" She rooted around in her

"purse," a vinyl kids' pencil case with Dora the Explorer on one side. "I have directions." She

fished out a piece of W stationery, on which were surprisingly neat penned directions to an

address in Hollywood.

"Well, okay," Ash said. "Where are we going?"

Daisy put a finger to her lip in a
shush
gesture. "Secret. You'll see when we get there."

With the directions in hand, Daisy became oddly serious, navigating and pointing out

landmarks from the passenger seat.

"You're not even going to give me a hint?" Ash asked, not moving his eyes from the road as

Daisy stared out the window. They were stuck on the busiest stretch of Hollywood Boulevard.

An army of tourists waddled along the crosswalk, headed from Mann's Chinese Cinema to the

El Capitan. Daisy screeched with delight as two impersonators of Captain Jack Sparrow, an

overweight version of Elmo with matted fur, and a Supergirl who'd long stopped being super

anything wandered in front of the Camaro.

"Maybe I should give up this music thing and do that," Daisy said, not answering Ash's

question, as a nearly seven-foot-tall black man in red platform boots, hot pants, and fierycolored angel wings sauntered past the car. "Get my photo taken with American sods on

holiday."

"Sounds good," Ash said blankly, wondering why Daisy would choose to shop here. The

Hollywood & Highland shopping center had nothing you couldn't find everywhere in L.A.

Actually, it had nothing you couldn't find everywhere in America. Ash mentally went over the

mall's stores, trying to figure out where Daisy wanted to go. Forever21, a Virgin Megastore,

Sephora, Guess, Lucky, Victoria's Secret. He winced at the idea of Daisy buying underwear.

But then Victoria's Secret probably didn't carry bourbon-flavored edible undies.

"Yeah, I'd be good at it. Dressing up," Daisy said, picking at some crust of indeterminate origin

on her tank top.

They parked, and Ash followed Daisy past the stores. "Everything closes soon, you know," he

told her. He glanced at the time on his iPhone. He hoped this wouldn't take all night.

"Yeah, but the bars just got busy," Daisy said, striding toward the pedestrian crossing on

Highland. They crossed and she beelined for a hole-in-the-wall bar called the Powerhouse,

sandwiched between a Chinese restaurant and a Western Union. Against his better judgment, a

vague flare of intrigue flashed in Ash's brain. As grimy as the place looked, at least Daisy

wasn't making him chaperone her to some designer store or poser nightclub.

"Follow me, love," she said, pulling him inside.

The Powerhouse was not a nice establishment, which probably explained why neither of them

was carded. The bar was a dirty gray steel, every leather stool torn or held together with duct

tape, as though the decorator had been going for something called Urinal Chic. Few lights

worked, and with no windows to the outside, it resembled a poorly lit subway stop out of a bad

horror movie. Scattered around were old men with missing teeth, a few homeless guys nursing

drinks as they guarded all their worldly possessions, and several terrified-looking hipsters

who'd probably gone in search of a real dive bar experience and gotten more than they

bargained for.
Maybe a poser nightclub would have been a safer choice,
Ash thought.

Seeing Ash looking around warily, Daisy patted his arm. "Don't worry, it's all bark, no bite.

They're just supposed to have really great live music, and small crowds 'cause it's kind of a

dump. The
CityBeat
reporter got it right." She smiled, her glossed lips parting to show off her

gleaming teeth. She turned toward the bar, standing on tiptoe and placing an order. She

stretched past a few overdressed guys who looked like lost members of Franz Ferdinand, who

both stared at her shapely legs peeking out of the tutu, and the bare skin of her back where her

tiny T-shirt rode up. Neither guy made an effort to hide the fact they were checking Daisy out,

as if her looking so right-out-of-bed gave them a right to ogle. Ash glared at the guys, feeling

oddly protective of Daisy all of a sudden.