California Dreaming (13 page)

Then she saw him. Them. They were talking with another couple whom Anna didn't recognize. She took Logan's arm. “That's Ben. And that's Cammie with him.”

Logan peered across the crowd. “My comp, huh?”

“No,” Anna said. “We're over. He's with Cammie.” The words felt hollow to her.

“She's gorgeous,” Logan decided, eyeing Cammie. “In an obvious L.A. plastic kind of way.”

Anna nodded, glad he'd amended his statement, even if it was for her benefit.

Cammie noticed them from across the party and pulled on Ben's arm. He turned, and Anna thought she could see his jaw clench as he spotted her and Logan. Then, hand in hand, Anna watched Ben and Cammie make their way to them.

They stood as a foursome, Ben and Logan the same height, Cammie and Anna's eyes level. They did the usual Hollywood hug and air kiss, followed by the gushing “I'm so glad you guys are alive” that Anna had expected. Cammie actually seemed sincerely relieved. Ben simply said, “I'm glad you made it,” rather soberly, locking eyes with Anna. She just nodded, not knowing what else to say.

“Your club is great,” Logan put in, nodding appreciatively at the surroundings, clearly trying to make the meeting easier on everyone.

Ben flicked his eyes from Anna to Logan. “Thanks, man.” He raised his voice a notch as the band cranked up the volume.

“All the proceeds of the first month are going to charity,” Cammie boasted. One of the waiters passed by with a small tray of grape leaves stuffed with pistachio nuts and organic grains, and she plucked one from the tray.

Anna was impressed. “That's fantastic. You should be really proud of that. Both of you.”

“We are.” Cammie nuzzled even closer to Ben. Anna instinctively took Logan's hand.

“You guys need to go up to the stage,” Ben advised. “We've brought in this fantastic street performance artist.”

“His specialty is bubbles,” Cammie added.

“Come on. Let's go check him out.” Ben led them through the crowd to the stage, where the band had stopped playing and where the performance artist—Ben said his name was Fan Yang—was wowing the crowd by creating massive bubbles, bubbles within bubbles, even square bubbles.

“Ever see this guy before?” Ben asked.

Anna shook her head. She didn't particularly want to talk about bubbles, although she did have to admit that Fan Yang was amazing—at the moment he was creating enormous pear-shaped bubbles with smoke inside of them. As they watched, Fan invited Ben and Cammie up on the stage with him, to the delight of the crowd. There, he wrapped them in a huge oblong bubble and urged them to kiss. When they did—inside the translucent sphere—the crowd went nuts.

“A little heavy on the PDA,” Logan noted. “But they seem to really be into each other.”

“I guess.” Anna found that she was gritting her teeth watching the display. Well, that was okay. The more times she saw the Traveling Ben and Cammie Show, the less it would bother her.

Suddenly, Anna felt herself thinking again. Overthinking, in her usual Anna Percy way. About Bali and Yale. About Logan and Ben. About her screenplay. About—

“Anna?”

She looked up at Logan.

“Relax. It'll all work out.”

It was like he was reading her mind. “You think?”

His blue eyes were bright. “I'm going to say this one time. When you decided to get on that plane? You made a decision that was right. You chose in the moment, from your gut, your heart—someplace deep. You can do it again. Now,” he said sternly, “enjoy the show.” He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist so that they could both watch Fan on stage. Now he was making a bubble large enough for a dozen people to stand inside.

She ordered her brain to turn off and leaned back into Logan. He kissed her temple. He was wonderful, terrific, smart, cute, kind, and all around better for her than Ben.

Fan Yang had moved into the crowd and was encapsulating other people in bubbles. With a giant swirl, he flashed one over Logan. Then over Anna. The bubble was clear, like glass, and she looked through it. The world sparkled, like some sort of fantasyland. It made her laugh with pure joy.

She was here. She was alive. She was with a guy she liked, could maybe even love. What could be better?

Being with him in Bali, perhaps?

Mommy Deares

Monday, 11:21 a.m.

A
nna awoke the next morning with a pounding headache. It could have been due to the fact that she had a hair consultation for Sam's wedding, and Sam had already gone off the stress scale—she'd left a rambling message for Anna the night before that was essentially one long run-on sentence that went something like: “Sorry I didn't come to Cammie's club there was too much planning to be done I hope you're having fun without me I can't fucking believe I'm getting married on Friday I have a zillion things to do I must be insane why am I doing this oh God I love Eduardo so much you have to be at my house tomorrow at four for a hair consultation with Raymond I'm thinking updos and according to his assistant you shouldn't wash it first because it's harder to put up clean hair and did I mention I'm getting fucking married?!”

Anna sat up in her antique four-poster bed and massaged her temples. Maybe it was knowing she had to have a talk with her father about her future that was stressing her out. She had to tell him about Yale, her feelings about going. Or not going, as the case might be. Not that she even knew. She just knew that after their heart-to-heart the other day, she owed him an honest conversation canvassing her doubts and fears. The story he'd told her about his teacher friend in Appalachia made her feel as if maybe, just maybe, he'd understand her confusion.

She showered quickly, threw on a white tank top and a pair of McQ-Alexander McQueen khakis she'd had forever, curled her wet hair into a bun, and went downstairs to find her dad. He'd mentioned that he'd be working at home today, so it was the perfect time to get him alone.

She found him on the phone in his home office. He lit up when he saw Anna and motioned for her to take a seat on the camel suede Bellini Clock sofa. Its two branches were designed to rotate around a circular coffee table like the hands of a clock. Anna slid onto the sofa and gazed out the picture window at the meticulously groomed English rose garden. It featured an abundance of rare flowers, like the Barbra Streisand, a fragrant mauve rose, and First Kiss, a wonderful landscape rose, given to Anna's dad from the Nixon Library's rose garden.

Her dad finished the call quickly. “Anna, sweetheart, I'm famished. Follow me,” he said, hugging her. “Did you eat?”

“Not yet.”

“Mimi will have some food outside,” he noted, as he grabbed his navy Yale Class of ’83 coffee mug and headed to the glass door that led to the back garden. Anna followed.

“How's your morning? I had an early game at the club,” her father went on, his long legs loping so that she had to power-walk to keep up. “Took a tennis racket to the head—one of the guys I was playing doubles against lost control of it at the net.”

“Ouch.” Anna winced sympathetically. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, sure. Zonked me out there for a minute, but I'm fine.”

They emerged into the bright late-summer sunshine and Anna breathed deeply. She loved the back of her dad's house. Wrought-iron outdoor furniture graced the portico, which was covered with crimson bougainvillea. Beyond was a patio surrounded by greenery and a burst of flowering colors. A lush pathway of moss and stones meandered through the rose garden, which was organized like a museum—here a collection of all twenty-three varieties of the rare desert rose, there an exhibit of English tea roses. The vibrant colors were offset by elegant ivy-covered trellises that made the garden feel like a nineteenth-century romantic paradise. In the center of everything were the koi pond and gazebo where her father spent many an hour in “medicinal meditation,” his euphemism for smoking weed.

On the patio, they sat down at the table set with Limoges fine bone china, as one of the household assistants, the very blond Tatyana, whose hair was wound on top of her head in two braids, served blueberry pancakes and omelets with basil, tomato, and goat cheese. The crystal French press in the center of the table gave off a heady aroma of roasting coffee that filled the air, mingling with the ever-present scent of roses and freshly cut grass.

Anna lifted her fork, then put it down again. “Dad, since the plane—”

“You've been doing a lot of thinking,” he surmised.

She nodded and took a sip of coffee from her delicate china cup before continuing. “It's been …”

“Of course. You've been through a life-changing event.” He poured himself more coffee, then held the French press toward her. She shook her head no, and he put the pot down again.

“True,” Anna agreed, “but it's more than that. I'm feeling … confused. It's like, I know what I want to do.” She thought of her screenplay. “And at the same time, I don't know what I want to do at all.”

He put his fork down and wiped his mouth with the delicate cream-colored napkin. Clearly she had his undivided attention, so she pressed on. “About college, I mean. Yale has been the plan, the blueprint, the dream,
my
dream—”

“Since you were old enough to speak in full sentences, as I recall,” her father said fondly.

“Right,” she agreed, even though the acknowledgment was going to make this even harder. “Everything I've ever done was so wrapped up in the ultimate goal. But now …” Anna paused to consider the exact words, but couldn't find them.

“Honey, cut yourself some slack,” Jonathan advised, and picked up his fork to stab a bite of blueberry pancake. “Anxiety is part of the deal when you're switching from one phase of your life to another.” He washed the food down with a gulp of black coffee. “Mmm. How good are these pancakes?”

“Great,” Anna agreed, even though she hadn't touched hers. He didn't notice.

Jonathan reached for a pinch of sea salt from the small gold seashell that held it and sprinkled it on his omelet. “Seriously, Anna,” he continued, “you're going to have the best time. Yale is a Percy family tradition!” he exclaimed, brandishing his navy blue mug for emphasis. “The bulldog, the Shakespearean society, the yacht club—”

“Dad? I wouldn't go to Yale for any of that.”

He drained his crystal goblet full of fresh-squeezed orange juice and smiled. He was still wearing the crisp white tennis clothes he'd had on from his early-morning match, and his tan arms were muscled and lean. “You're going for the education. That's okay. The bulldog can take care of itself.” He took a huge forkful of tomato-basil omelet, pillowy white goat cheese falling onto the ivory plate. “This is just prefreshman jitters.”

Anna bit into her pancakes thoughtfully. Was it? Was she totally overreacting? “It might be,” she responded slowly. “But I don't think it's fair for me to take the spot of someone else who would kill, maim, or sell a body part to get off the waiting list and be accepted.”

Her father put down his silver-plated fork and stared at her with something that looked like horror.

Anna forced herself to plunge on. “It's not fair for me to take that spot, Dad,” she murmured, gulping hard. She winced, waiting for the axe to fall. Her father was quiet.

“I admire your selflessness,” he finally said. “But I still think it's jitters. What would you do if you don't go? Go to Bali with Logan? Stay here and hang out with Sam? Go back to New York and work in a gallery?” He didn't seem mad. That was a relief. But he also didn't seem to understand the strength of her ambivalence.

“It doesn't surprise me, Anna,” he continued, leaning back in the wrought-iron chair. “After what you went through—I couldn't imagine. You must have been sure you were going to die. But you didn't. Which to me says, Get on with your life. Let the jitters go.”

For a split second, she wanted to tell him he was right, that it was only a little bit of precollege nerves. To talk about what it would be like in New Haven on early-morning walks across the quad, the smell of the leaves in the fall, the challenge and the fun and the lifelong relationships she'd forge.

But it simply didn't feel right.

The bright sunshine reflected off her father's crisp tennis whites, and Anna felt like she was staring into the sun. “I don't think it's jitters, Dad. Maybe the plane thing
is
affecting my thinking,” she agreed. “But maybe that's a good thing. It's like …” She closed her eyes and felt the hot sun soak into her skin as she searched for the right words. “Like everything is stripped down to the barest essentials.”

Her father was quiet for a little while. Finally he stood and stretched, then rubbed a spot on his left temple. “Damn racket. It hurts where it hit me.”

She gave him a faint smile. “Did you win the point?”

“Lost the point, won the match.” He shook his head a little, as if to clear it. “Don't put so much pressure on yourself. It will all work out in the end.”

A cloud passed in front of the sun, casting a quick-moving shadow over the backyard. It passed, and summer sunlight washed over everything again.

“I appreciate your not blowing up over this,” she told him.

“You're not a little girl anymore. You make your own decisions. But I do think it's a mistake not to go back to New York next Saturday and get yourself started at Yale.”

“But—”

He held up a palm to interrupt her. “I'm asking you to keep your mind open for a little while longer. You still have a window—albeit an extremely small window—to make your decision.” He came back to the glass-topped table and put a hand on hers. “Either way, you'll be okay, Anna.”

She rose and wrapped her arms around his neck in a spontaneous hug, grateful that he wasn't ranting and raving. “Thanks, Dad.”

“You're welcome.”

For a moment she wondered what it would have been like to grow up with him, to have had the closeness that she felt with him at this very moment. But you couldn't move backward, only forward.

She left her father, went up to her room with a porcelain mug full of coffee, and sat down at her iBook. After checking her e-mail, she opened her screenplay and started adjusting scenes. Some needed to be lengthened. Some needed to be trimmed. One or two were superfluous, and she cut them with a couple of swift keystrokes. She was in the second act—at about page sixty—when the sound of her Razr chiming practically made her jump out of her skin.