American Beauty (16 page)
Cammie let her toes float to the surface of the water. “I ask myself that all the time.”
“You love him.”
“Sometimes,” she allowed. “And sometimes I wonder what the point is. We’re going to break up eventually. Everyone always does. My parents. Your parents. Look at our friends’ parents, The only ones who are still on their first marriages have so much Prozac in their systems, they should wear prescription bottles.”
“Come on,” Sam told her friend. She didn’t let herself think it, much. But she had to admit to herself that—every so often, usually late at night when she was all by herself—she’d definitely considered the notion of her and Eduardo
forever
. “You’re only saying that because of what’s going on with your father.”
“No. I’m saying it because it’s true.” Cammie hoisted herself out of the tub and padded over to the redwood stand of fluffy six-hundred-thread count fuchsia-and-bloodred Ralph Lauren damask towels, took one, and used it to dry herself off. “My parents loved each other.” She sat on the edge of a velvet-topped chaise and wrapped the towel around her neck. “My earliest memories are of them together. They were laughing, my father dancing my mother around the living room in that crappy little house in Mar Vista we used to live in. Look where
that
shit led. How about we talk about Jackson and
your
mom? That was a match made in heaven. Just a heaven in a parallel univer—”
Sam’s cell rang. She’d left it on the lip of the hot tub.
Eduardo?
“Hello?”
“Sam? It’s Melanie Mayes. Your investigator,” came a woman’s brisk voice. “Do you have a minute?”
Sam watched the fingers of her left hand weave through the water.
Not Eduardo
.
“Sure.”
Cammie mouthed,
Who is it?
but Sam paid no attention, just kept her eyes on her fluttering fingers, their size distorted by the refraction.
“I found your mother.”
Four simple words.
I found your mother
.
Sam’s gaze drifted past the deck, out to the mustard-colored and squishy lights of the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles below. Would her mother like the view?
I found your mother
.
“Miss Sharpe? Are you there?”
Sam inhaled sharply through her nose. “Yes, sorry. I heard you. You found her.” Across the hot tub, Sam saw Cammie’s eyes bulge from her head. “That was fast.”
“It wasn’t all that difficult. She’s running the Living section of a local newspaper in western North Carolina under her married name.”
Sam was suddenly dizzy. Everything felt not quite real.
“Go on.”
“I told her you were graduating from high school on Friday. She now has your cell number, as you instructed,” Melanie continued.
Sam dug the nails of her left hand into her thigh. “Is she going to call me? Did she say?”
“Actually, she gave me a message for you.”
“What … message?” Sam could barely choke out the words.
“She said she’ll see you on Friday.”
“W
ell, this is taking forever,” declared an elderly woman with thinning chin-length gray hair and an oversized aqua peasant blouse. She was sitting next to Parker in the medium-sized waiting room full of orange plastic chairs. There were a few Peruvian travel posters on the walls; the far end of the room featured a door and a long glass window, behind which three or four consular officials were methodically processing visas. “What are you here for?”
“Visa,” Parker lied. He lied easily; he was very good at it.
“Me too,” the woman smiled. “This will be my fourth trip to Peru, relief work with my church. We always go to an Indian village named Indiana. Indiana, Peru. Did you know there’s also a Peru, Indiana? I wonder if anyone mixes them up.”
Parker laughed, because obviously she expected him to laugh. Fulfilling other people’s expectations was something else at which he excelled. A tall, dark-rooted blonde in the chair kitty-corner from him flashed a dazzling Rembrandt-veneer smile. She crossed her faux-tanned legs, which led to her Pucci knock-off miniskirt. Parker knew the real thing and he knew a cheap imitation. He knew a lot of things, most of which no one gave him credit for. One thing he did not know, though, was why he felt quite so determined to do something really, really nice for Sam Sharpe.
He knew he should have a million other things on his mind. First and foremost, what to do after graduation that did not involve the phrase, “Do you want that supersized?” He wasn’t old enough to bartend. With his chiseled good looks and easygoing flair, he knew he could be a waiter at someplace upscale, but the idea of serving the “haves” would make him feel all the more like a have-not. He hated that feeling more than he hated romancing a supposedly rich girl and dumping her if he found out she was as poor as he was.
That morning, he’d awakened damn depressed. He was going to graduate from high school in three days. After that, his life was a big fat blank, beyond his burning desire to become a professional actor. His mom was pumped; she considered graduation a big occasion, probably because she’d dropped out of school in the tenth grade. She’d purchased an outfit from QVC and had already modeled it for him—too loud and too tight and too short and ugly squared. There was a matching droopy hat from the same shopping channel—did Parker notice how it picked up the citron in the print of the dress and was the same color as the ankle boots that showed off her legs, which were still her best feature, dammit?
Jeez. Could he pretend that he didn’t know his own mother at his graduation? With her around, forget that Robin Williams was the graduation speaker—the Pinelli family would be all the entertainment the audience needed.
As the day had gone on, and Parker had gone through his usual daytime routine when he didn’t have to go to school, he found himself thinking more and more of Sam. Not in a romantic way. At least, he didn’t think so. Oddly, he had really enjoyed kissing her the night of prom. But what the hell, maybe he’d enjoy kissing any girl that rich. If he got desperate enough, he could probably learn to enjoy kissing a
guy
that rich. But it was more than the money, and more than good acting on Parker’s part. He liked her. Yeah, he was very, very grateful that she hadn’t blown his cover after figuring out the truth about his depressingly low family income level during their trip to Vegas, but gratitude didn’t explain why he was where he was at that very minute.
He’d tried to fight the feeling. He’d gone for a run along San Vicente Boulevard down to the ocean, and then watched DeNiro in a DVD of
Raging Bull
. The movie only made things worse; that much acting talent was intimidating. He even raided his mom’s meager liquor cabinet and downed a couple of shots of her el-cheapo bourbon. Then he’d sat in his mother’s very used Barcalounger with the bottle by his side, staring blankly at
Animal Planet
, where a lioness stalking a zebra herd spotted a small zebra that had come up lame. In two seconds, that zebra would become the lioness’s lunch— just like he would have if anyone but Sam had learned his secret.
Goddamn. He
liked
Sam. He
owed
Sam. Sam had
power
, maybe even the power that could likely give him a break in the business down the road. She was hurting because of their prom kiss, caught in the act by her boyfriend. Maybe there was something he could do for her that would not only be kind, but also be in his enlightened self-interest.
On
Animal Planet
, the Australian guy who looked like Matt Damon’s bigger, taller, and more handsome brother was talking directly to the camera, making a big deal about how he was going to cheat death on the Serengeti plain and walk straight into the lioness’s den—the same lioness that had just torn the lame zebra several new orifices and checked out the caloric content of its hindquarters.
Bingo. He knew what he had to do. It might not involve eating raw zebra, but it definitely could mean he’d have to consume a good deal of crow.
Fuck it
. He’d better do it now, before he lost his nerve.
Parker looked at the paper slip in his hand that had been handed to him by the guard at the entrance to the consulate, which occupied the eighth floor of a nondescript office building. He was number ninety-one. The electronic sign above the long glass window in front of him said that number eighty-five was being served.
“
Numero ochenta y seis, numero ochenta y seis,
number eighty-six to the visa window, number eighty-six to the visa window.”
His seat companion bounded to her feet with the energy of someone much younger, brandishing her navy blue American passport. “Well, see you in Peru, young man. What airline are you flying?”
“TWA,” Parker replied. He’d never flown internationally and only a few times within the United States. TWA was the first airline he could think of.
The elderly woman frowned. “Young man, TWA went out of business at least five years ago. I hope you didn’t actually pay for a ticket.” With that, she departed.
Her departure was a good omen. Numbers started to be called in rapid succession. Eighty-seven. Eighty-eight. Eighty-nine. Ninety.
Ninety-one. Parker got his old Campmor green knapsack from the floor under his seat and went up to the glass window, where a beautiful Peruvian girl with thick dark hair and Angelina Jolie lips smiled at him.
“How may I help you, señor?” Her voice was soft and melodious; Parker had to remind himself of his mission and restrain himself from flirting. Besides, if she had any money, she definitely wouldn’t be behind that damn desk.
“May I speak with Eduardo Muñoz, please? He’s working here for the summer.”
The beautiful young woman looked puzzled. “You want to speak with Eduardo? You don’t want a visa?”
“Nope. No visa.”
“You could have come up to the desk to tell me this sooner.”
Great. Now that he’d wasted a fucking hour and a half with his ass in one of those ugly-ass plastic chairs.
“Could you tell him that Parker Pinelli would like to see him? For just a few minutes. Tell him it’s important. It’s … Tell him it’s about Sam.”
“Okay. Please sit. I’ll call him. If he’s available, that is …”
Her voice trailed off, and Parker was tempted to up the flirt quotient again. How could he be sure that Eduardo was even here? If he wasn’t, why shouldn’t he ask this lovely señorita for a drink? He doubted that anyone had yet taken her to the Viper Room, or the Derby, or even a salsa place, like Club Bahia on the dicier part of Sunset.
He sat, folded his arms, and waited some more.
Ninety-three. Ninety-four. Ninety—
The wooden door next to the long glass window opened. Eduardo peered out. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and yellow tie, a stark contrast with Parker’s battered Levi’s, white T-shirt, and red baseball jacket from a minor-league team in Las Vegas.
“Parker Pinelli?” he asked, his voice impersonal.
Parker stood.
“Please.” Eduardo motioned with one hand for Parker to join him behind the door.
Again, Parker grabbed his backpack. Ninety seconds later, he was sitting with Eduardo in a small conference room ringed by file cabinets, plus a small TV with a DVD player and a couple of computers.
Eduardo’s face was impassive; neither pleased nor displeased to see Parker here on his own turf. Then he smiled thinly. “What do you want? Did Samantha send you?”
Parker shook his head. “I came here on my on my own.”
“That is good to know. Do you know what she did this morning?” Without waiting for Parker’s response, he reached under the conference table and extracted a white documents box that normally held files. “Look.”
It was the strangest thing. The box was filled with brand new cellular telephones phones—there had to be at least fifty or a hundred, maybe even more.
“Try one,” Eduardo instructed. “They’re all charged. Call your own cell.”
Parker took one at random from the open box—a Samsung SGH-E635, punched in his own digits, and pressed send. Nothing. Just a Verizon voice saying that the call could not be completed.
“Didn’t work, right? Try any other number. On any phone you want.”
Parker switched phones, this time to a red Verizon 5200. His cell. His brother’s cell. His mother’s cell. Nothing. Strange.
“None of these phones work?”
“Oh, they work.” Eduardo smiled that thin smile again. “Try the speed dial. Any speed dial.”
Parker pressed the digit
4
. It dialed Sam’s number. Eduardo yanked the phone from Parker’s hand, ending the call before it connected.
“I must say this for Samantha. She is … What is the word in English? Indefatigable.”
Parker was impressed. Sam really wanted Eduardo back. Well, he could try to do his part too.
“She is,” Parker agreed. “And I just wanted to tell you, Eduardo, that what happened after prom was totally my fault. We were drinking, and I was the one who made the first move. She was a little toasted and a lot depressed.”
“Depressed about what?”
Parker pointed to the DVD player and TV. “Do you mind? I want to show you something.”
Eduardo looked skeptical, but nodded. “Go ahead, but keep the volume down.”
Parker got his backpack and rooted around in it for a certain DVD. Then he brought it over to the Bose player, popped it in, and turned on the TV. Almost instantly, a picture appeared—it was film taken by Parker’s brother Monte at the Beverly Hills High School prom, on the set of
Ben-Hur
out in Palmdale. The film was from the pivotal moment of prom, when the prom queen and king were announced. Parker saw that Eduardo was transfixed by the images: the impossible moment when Sam was named queen of the prom. Monte had come in close on Sam and focused on her face—shock, disbelief, and finally, amazed pleasure as she mounted the stage at the far end of the Coliseum movie set to frenzied cheers from the thousand-plus crowd of students and faculty. He zoomed in even closer at the climactic moment when the glittering tiara was placed on Sam’s head, and Fee Berman stepped to the microphone for an impromptu speech:
