Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) (2 page)

“I am unsure,” Sven said to
MM
with a concerned frown. “Which one is it who we should be scared of?”

Sophia nearly choked on the coffee she was sipping, and everyone else cracked up too except Sven, who continued to look confused.

Which was pretty much his standard expression—whether because he didn’t understand English well or because, as Lily thought, all the cells that should have gone to his brain went instead to making him godlike in his handsomeness, was unclear.

He and the super-outgoing
MM
were opposites not just socially but physically as well.
MM
was barely five and a half feet tall with cinnamon-colored skin, dark curly hair, and a wiry, lean physique, while Sven, a foot taller and blond, with the chiseled proportions of a bodybuilder, looked like he could hoist
MM
with one bicep.
MM
was always cleverly dressed with every detail attended to like the way the penny in his just-the-right-amount-beat-up loafers was tarnished the same color as the band on his coconut-husk fedora; Sven, on the other hand, wore only warm-up suits with the names of Eastern European countries on the back. And yet, somehow their relationship seemed to be working.

How,
a tiny voice inside Sophia’s head asked. How come they could do it and she couldn’t?

Glancing across the table and seeing Ava’s eyes on her, she quickly pushed the thought into a corner of her mind, stopped shredding the napkin she’d been destroying in her lap, tucked a stray strand of blond hair behind her ear, and broadened her smile. She really appreciated what Ava was trying to do and she wanted her to know that her sistervention had been a success.

She whispered, “Thank you,” and was rewarded with a big grin from Ava. They spent the next twenty minutes being entertained by Lily, who launched into a guided tour of the plastic surgery on display at the tables around them.

Although Lily’s thick, wavy blond hair, olive skin, light green eyes, and perfectly symmetrical features were natural, she’d been raised around so much plastic surgery that she was an expert and she prided herself on her ability to recognize different doctors’ work. Or, as she called them, “market enhancements.”

It was one of the legacies of growing up in
LA
as the great-granddaughter, granddaughter, daughter, and niece of movie stars. Despite having the looks and the storied van Alden name, she’d chosen not to follow in her ancestors’ footsteps. When Ava, who had a secret fantasy about being in movies, asked her why, Lily said, “I want to watch movies, not live them. Like a normal person. That way I get all of the perks without the stint in rehab.”

Lily’s version of “normal” wasn’t exactly, well, normal though. Like the way Sophia and Ava had met her when she’d knocked on the door of their apartment the day after they’d moved in, introduced herself as their neighbor, and asked if they had any lace doilies she could borrow because she had to go to a black-tie dinner that night and she had nothing to wear. They’d lent her a dress instead, which she’d worn backward and somehow landed on four Best Dressed of the Week lists, and they’d been friends ever since.

Now Lily was excitedly zooming in on a woman three tables away who was a prime example of the latest in nose jobs—“You see how the curve of her nose plays off the curve of her chin? That is true artistry!”—when Sophia’s pocket started to buzz.

Sophia jumped. She’d been so distracted she’d forgotten to think about checking it but now her heart began to race.
It won’t be him,
she told herself sternly.

Still her fingers were shaking with excitement as she reached into her pocket to pull it out and turned the screen toward her.

It wasn’t him.
You knew it wouldn’t be,
she reminded herself. And yet—

“Anyone exciting?” Lily asked.

Sophia swallowed hard and kept her eyes down, blinking back the tears that were burning at the corners. “Just my date from the other night,” she said.

Lily lost interest in the nose and directed her green eyes to Sophia. “Wasn’t that the doctor who started talking to you in line at Starbucks?” she asked, excited now. “The one who seemed nice? Spinner?”

“Skinner,” Sophia corrected. “He was nice and smart. And he made me laugh, a lot. And he likes me.”

“But…” Ava prompted.

“But.” Sophia flashed them a gorgeous smile. “He collects spiders.”

Ava goggled at her. “You just made that up!”

“No,” Sophia said brightly. “He claims they are the only ecological pet.”

“This is a fact,” Sven confirmed, nodding vigorously. “The spiders they are very good pets.”

For a moment everyone just stared at Sven.
MM
patted him on the thigh, said, “Thanks for that, sweetie,” and returning to Sophia asked, “So, how long did you last?”

Sophia’s fingers picked at the edge of her napkin. “I made it through the main course but left before dessert.” She looked at Ava. “I’m afraid you had an emergency.”

“Always glad to help,” Ava said. “Was it something gross?”

Sophia shook her head. “You locked yourself out of the house. In your pajamas.”

“Nice detail. I like that better than the time I was lost in the Valley.” Ava sighed.

“How come you never use me?” Lily wanted to know. “I’m dying to be locked in a Tijuana jail.”

“That can be arranged,”
MM
said. He ignored Lily sticking her tongue out at him and went back to Sophia. “Is that a new record? Making it through the main course is longer than your last date, right?”

“Yes.” Sophia sighed, shredding another inch of her napkin. She had no problem getting dates, it was just getting
through
them could be a challenge. “I left that one before the food even came.”

Lily leaned her chin on the palm of her hand and assumed a look of intense concentration. “Was he the agent who brought the fake bug so you could get your entrée free, or the screenwriter who interrogated the waitress about whether the pine nuts were harvested during the day or by moonlight and if she could ask the chef precisely where the striped bass was caught because he didn’t eat fish from certain latitudes? Or was he the one who talked about himself like he wasn’t there and in all caps?”

“
BLAIN KNIGHT!
” Ava yelled happily, then lowering her voice two octaves, “
BLAIN KNIGHT
! would like a double cappuccino!”

Sophia dumped a handful of shredded napkin snow onto the table. “None of those. It was that real estate developer who tried to convince me to go see his therapist because she’d really helped him and he could finally admit to his mother it was him that stole her lace underwear when he was twelve, not his sister.”

“I can’t believe you left that one so early,” Lily said, meaning it. “Just think what else he could have shared. But I like the spider one best. He reminds me of the Buddhist guy who refused to exterminate his cockroach-infested apartment because the roaches might have been his reincarnated ancestors.”

“Gross!” Ava and Sophia said in unison.

“Yeah, I totally
bugged
out,” Lily said, grinning at
MM
’s groan. “But that’s why I decided to do a boytox.”

“A what?” Sophia asked.

Lily’s eyes got huge. She turned and grabbed Sophia’s wrists and said, “You should do it with me. It will totally help with your dating block.”

“I don’t have a dating block.” Sophia tried to gently pull away. “It’s just that I think I attract weird men. Seriously … who else here can say they have gone on dates with such strange guys? All of whom were perfect on paper and very good looking.

Lily kept hold of her wrists. “Uh, Spider-Man,
BLAIN KNIGHT
!, and lace underwear guy sound like a dating block to me. Something is out of balance about the romantic energy you’re sending out, so you’re attracting the wrong kind of person. I learned all about it in my ‘use your energy to save the world’ seminar.”

Ava’s dark ponytail slid over her shoulder as she tilted her head to one side and said, “But what
is
a boytox?”

Lily addressed the whole table. “A boytox is like a cleanse, but for your personal life. I read about it in a magazine.” On her left
MM
began folding his napkin into a noose. Lily ignored him and went on. “It’s a way to clear out stagnant dating energy. Like after you end a relationship. A lot of times after a breakup people distract themselves by taking ‘manex,’ which means having flings or going on dates with lots of different people. But that just leads to more negative energy. The way to heal is to stop going on dates entirely—do a total boytox. If someone asks you out, you automatically say no. It takes away the pressure of thinking you should be dating.”

Sophia frowned. “I’m not sure that sounds fun.”

Lily shook her head emphatically, sending a wave of thick golden hair swinging back and forth. “It’s the complete opposite of that. I know someone who knows someone who did it and said it’s the
best
way to meet men. It’s like they can smell your unavailability. So while you’re
avoiding
bad dates, you’re meeting tons of guys and then when you’re done with your boytox, you can choose the ones you connect with. Think of it like being at a fat-free buffet, all the choice and none of the downside.”

Sometimes I go to buffets just to look at the food, but then I don’t eat any of it. Is it like that?”
MM
asked.

Lily ignored him and stayed focused on her sales pitch. “If not for yourself, do it for me. In fact, let’s all do it together in a spirit of sisterdarity.”

“I don’t know…” Sophia said. She looked at Ava. “What do you think?”

Ava toyed with her fork for a minute, looking torn, then spent a little too much time straightening the napkin in her lap. But when she finally looked back up she gave a smile and said, “Sure. So, how long does a boytox last?”

LonDOs

Cinnamon rolls

Lacy blouses

Bright blazers

A nail polish collection the size of a nail salon

LonDON’Ts

Being forced to eat an entire large cinnamon roll yourself. Rude.

Boys who collect spiders

People who talk about themselves in all caps

Puppies who don’t act menacing when you need them to

Ava after more than one cup of coffee

Sophia before one cup of coffee

2

haute dog!

Watching Popcorn bounce down the sidewalk happily, stopping every now and then to sniff a sprinkler or a crack in the pavement, Ava wished she felt the same kind of freedom.

As soon as she’d heard Lily invoke the word “sisterdarity,” Ava had known she was in trouble. After all, she wanted to support Sophia. But she was still a growing girl, and she wasn’t sure a boytox was a good idea for her—

“Heads up!” a voice yelled, and the next minute a volleyball came bouncing along the lawn toward her and stopped at her feet. She picked it up and was going to toss it back when a cute guy with dark curly hair wearing a grin and no shirt jogged over and took it from her. “Thanks,” he said, and gave her a wink before heading back to the game.

No,
Ava thought, watching the way the muscles in his shoulders moved when he tossed the ball to his friends, not a good idea
at all
. What good was living in
LA
, land of endless hunky men, if you didn’t get to kiss at least a few of them? Not dozens but maybe three. Or five.

A boytox really didn’t fit into her plans. But if Sophia needed the moral support, how could she refuse?

And Ava knew full well how hard the breakup with Clay had been on her sister. Sophia had always been a hopeless romantic. When it came to love, she fell deep and she fell hard, and that’s exactly what had happened with Clay. And that’s exactly why the swift and brutal breakup had been so difficult for her. Sophia’s heart had been wide open, which just made it all the more painful when Clay decided to crush it.

Ava looked down at Popcorn. “I guess we’re going to be doing a boytox. Are you okay with being the only man in my life for—
ouch!
” She yelped the last word as Popcorn nearly yanked her hand off straining against his leash. “Where are you trying to go, little man?” she asked him, rubbing her hand, but he was apparently in no mood to talk. Instead he took off diagonally across the lawn, bounding over a blanket where two girls were sunbathing and narrowly missing being hit by a little boy furiously pedaling a Big Wheel.

Running behind Popcorn, Ava saw he was heading toward an area of the park where a cluster of booths had been set up. Someone pressed a flyer into her hand as she sped by and, looking down, Ava read, “P
ARADISE
L
OST
?
SAVE PET PARADISE
,
A
NO-KILL SHELTER
! F
UND-RAISER TODAY
!” Looking up she saw that they were approaching an arch with a picture of a dog and a cat on it and she just had time to read the words
NOW ENTERING PET PARADISE
before Popcorn whipped her past it and into the middle of a knot of people, people with dogs, and people selling products for people with dogs.

One thing that Ava and Popcorn had in common was that while they were outgoing with their friends they were totally shy around strangers, so rather than plunge into the thick of things, Popcorn led Ava toward the edge of the crowd. Ignoring the other dogs he buried his nose in the grass, moving slowly now as he drank in what Ava imagined was probably the doggie equivalent of Chanel No. 5. And if it wasn’t, Ava saw that they were passing a booth that sold “artisanal scents for your dog” including one called “Grampa’s Old Boot” and another called “Red Fire Hydrant.”

Next to the Elite Pawfumes booth Ava discovered Dogalates
TM
—“Pilates for your pet!”—followed by the Dog Lover’s Book Club, and then a booth decked out in leopard skin for Dressed to Thrill, “Couture Formalwear for Pets of Any Size from Kitten to Clydesdale.”