California Dreaming (19 page)
She and the reporter—what was his name? Chuck? Buck?—were seated on a pair of black gunmetal chairs at one of the black tables near Bye, Bye Love's main bar. It was still an hour before opening, and the venue was silent save for the grunts and mutterings of the laborers who were wheeling in bales of hay and a bucking-bronco machine for that night's theme: Ride ’Em, Cowboy.
The concept had been Cammie's idea—she'd gotten it when she'd read about Willie Nelson playing a concert later in the week at the Hollywood Bowl—and they were going all out. They'd borrowed several life-size cowboy statues from the Saddle Ranch Chop House on the Sunset Strip and placed them strategically outside by Venice Boulevard to set the mood as guests waited in line. As for the interior, everything was Western, from the cowboy waiters who would carry trays of hors d'oeuvres—miniature flap jacks, biscuits and gravy, bite-size steaks—to the specialty drink list, which included cocktails like the Midwestern Margarita, Texan Tequila Sunrise, and Ranch-Lover's Rum & Coke. There was even an authentic lasso near the bar, which would be put to use at hourly intervals. Anyone who managed to rope either Ben or Cammie on the first attempt would drink free for the rest of the night.
Out back, in the alley behind the club, they had transformed the smokers’ patio into a campfire area, with a dug-in-the-ground stone barbecue pit, where tired club-goers could take a break from riding the electric bull to roast their own s'mores, eat baked beans à la
Blazing Saddles
, and listen to a Montana cowboy musician who'd once been part of the legendary Chris Ledoux's band play old Western songs.
Ever since the theme had been announced this morning, the office phone had been ringing nonstop with celebs and their entourages clamoring to get on the night's guest list. Willie Nelson's tour bus had pulled into town early, and he'd been invited. Someone had even called from the national campaign headquarters of a presidential candidate interested in making a guest DJ appearance. Cammie had turned the offer down. Not because she didn't like the candidate, but because she wasn't a fan of Fleetwood Mac.
The word was out. Cammie and Ben's club was
it
.
Which was great. Except that being
it
meant instead of free time, Cammie now had interview time; interview after interview after interview. She felt like a movie star doing a junket for a film that wasn't particularly interesting.
The
People
reporter had ears that stuck out and a distracting gap-toothed smile. He wore khakis and a crumpled Hawaiian shirt from Old Navy. He had a nice voice and a pleasant manner, and the chat wouldn't have been so bad but for the fact that this was her sixth interview of the day. She'd started with the
Star
at lunch. On to
In Touch
at two.
New Woman
—that baffled her, until she decided that the reporter wanted to be comped, so she gave her one just to be nice—at three-thirty. And so forth. The questions ranged from repetitious to dumb.
New Woman
had asked where she would be interested in retiring someday. Cammie just smiled and said, “Next question.”
“What's it like to be the queen?” Cammie repeated. “Oh, it's great being queen, especially since my partner and co-owner is Ben. As in Ben Birnbaum. The king. My king.” Cammie oozed sincerity as she watched Ben out of the corner of her eye. He was just now arriving at the club—he'd called and said he'd be late—crossing from the front door of the club to the office. That figured. He hated doing interviews, and left that part of the job of running the club to Cammie. She was fine with it. Except when there were six of them in one day.
“What made the queen want to join forces with the king?” the reporter asked, playing along. “And why rule this kingdom? The clubbing industry, that is.”
“Simple,” she explained, knowing Buck-Chuck would lap up whatever spilled from her mouth. “We're kindred spirits. Life is short; you have to take risks—big risks, big gains. That's what it's all about. Life is a party and there's nothing I'd rather be doing, so why not make a business out of what I love?”
Cammie flipped her strawberry-blond curls playfully. Her smile and exuberance were automatic and perfectly timed.
But for reasons she couldn't fathom, what Adam would say if he were here right now flew into her mind:
It's not like you cured cancer, Cam. Is this really how you want to spend all your time?
“And it's not all about money. I love that we're giving so much to charity,” Cammie added, for imaginary Adam's benefit.
“Do you have a favorite cause?” Buck-Chuck queried.
“New Visions.” She glanced at the bartender, a beautiful Cuban woman named Alita with long, lustrous hair, who doubled as a model. She was doing her prep for the evening, wiping the bar down with a wet cloth. “It's a program that helps teen girls who get into trouble find a different path. The fashion and beauty industries are really involved in helping these girls. When you look great, you feel great, and that's a start.”
Buck-Chuck eyed her dress. “And who are you wearing? My readers will want to know.”
“Pucci,” she replied. Her bubble dress was pink-and-brown paisley. It had been sent over by her personal shopper at Fred Segal. “Thanks so much for the interview, but we're going to open soon, and there's a lot to do. But it was great to meet you … Ch-buck.”
She kind of mumbled that last part into her hand as she stood, knowing that reporters loved it when you remembered their names. At least she had 75 percent of this guy's name under control.
“Mind if I hang around and watch the action?” Ch-buck asked.
“Enjoy. Here, take these.”
She pressed a couple of drink coupons on him, which he gallantly refused—something about ethics—and then bid him goodbye as she moved off toward the rear of the club, dodging more workers wheelbarrowing in more hay. She stopped to check her watch. Was there time to call Sam? She hadn't spoken to her since Sam had fired her as maid of honor.
Truth was, Cammie
did
feel guilty that she'd neglected Sam's wedding. If she had to be honest with herself, she was not ecstatic that Sam was thinking about leaving her life in Los Angeles for Paris with Eduardo. No matter how much they fought, Sam was still her best friend; more like a sister than that bitch of a half-sister, Mia, who, no matter how many times Cammie warned her, simply did not know the meaning of the simple five-word sentence “Stay out of my closet.”
Call her
, she told herself.
She'll forgive you
.
Cammie decided she'd call Sam after she checked in with Ben. Usually at this time of the night he was in the club office, double-checking the guest list and making sure that everyone who was supposed to report to work was actually on the premises. People in the nightclub business were notoriously flaky.
Cammie decided to lend him a helping hand. Or maybe two. Sex in the office didn't appeal to her. However, appetizers were always appropriate before the main course. Sometimes even hours before.
She found Ben in the office, hunched over a spreadsheet. He wore Diesel jeans and a blue James Perse button-up, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was focused so intently he didn't even hear her come in.
“Hello, there, hard worker.”
He looked up, and a slow smile spread over his face. “I'm in here doing the grunt work, you're out there doing the glamour work. Tell me what's fair about that.”
“Sounds fair to me. Where were you before?”
He looked away. “Out. Had an errand.”
She moved toward him a step. “Let me make it up to you,” she said coyly. “Maybe you'll be convinced to come to the club on time next time.”
There was a knock, and Ben's eyes looked behind Cammie toward the office door behind her. “Can you get that?” he asked.
“Sure.” Awful timing, whoever it was. Cammie opened the door to find the photographer from
People
who'd come along with Buck-Chuck, a tall, blond, long-haired Swede named Sven. A portrait camera was slung around his neck, and he wore a white Marc Jacobs T-shirt with Seven jeans
“Sorry to bother you guys. Ready for your close-up? I thought one shot of the two of you in here, where all the behind-the-scenes action happens, would be something different.” Sven's English was impeccable, and he exuded confidence in a way that Buck-Chuck never could.
“Sure,” Ben agreed. “You good with that, Cammie?”
“Of course.”
She offered Sven a radiant smile as Ben sidled up next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him. They looked darling, this much she knew. Because they'd struck this pose for all the other press photographers and they'd looked darling in every photo she'd seen.
“Give me something fresh,” Sven urged them. Oops. Maybe he'd seen the earlier photos.
“How's this?” Cammie said. She turned to Ben and wrapped both arms around his neck, then kissed him on the cheek.
“Love it!” Sven cried as he snapped away. “More, more, more!”
Cammie moved this way and that—in front of Ben with his arms around her from behind, back-to-back, whatever. As she draped herself over him in various positions, Cammie kept thinking about how great they looked together. They acted like a couple. They seemed like a couple. They worked together the way most couples could only dream. So why was it that they weren't together again as a couple for real?
“Maybe we can wrap up with this photographer,” she told Ben under her breath, so Sven couldn't hear.
“Nah. We need the press. Let him do his thing,” Ben replied, not breaking his camera-ready smile.
She let Sven do his thing, and he stuck around for five more minutes, shooting them from various angles. “These are great,” he noted of a shot of Ben leaning on the desk, holding Cammie in his arms. “You're the king and queen of the nightclub scene,” he added. Cammie knew Sven was just trying to get a good picture out of them—the confident, radiant smiles you always saw in magazines had less to do with the subject and more with the photographer's smooth prodding. “You're a publicist's dream.”
How right you are
, Cammie thought. Publicists cared about how things looked, not how they were in reality.
Ben squeezed Cammie in close, leaning in to give her a delicate kiss on top of her mountain of strawberry-blond curls. “Perfect!” Sven cried.
But Ben and Cammie's happy, coupley photograph was starting to feel staged, and awfully convenient. Cammie couldn't help but wonder if, in real life, the same wasn't true of their relationship.
Wednesday morning, 10:07 a.m.
“J
ust have a seat, Sam. Marty will be with you in a moment.”
“Sure thing, Clarice.”
“You look great. How's your father? How's the family? Is it true you're getting married?”
“Thank you, good, good, and yes,” Sam replied. She'd worn a pair of DKNY black slacks and a black Chloé long-sleeved cotton blouse with puffy sleeves to this meeting, counting on the “wear black, it's slimming” effect.
“Congrats on that. I'll be sure to send something over. Now, there's coffee in the waiting area outside Marty's cubicle. Marty will be right with you.”
“Thanks.”
Sam drifted over to a somewhat improvised collection of gray fabric chairs, a single black couch, and a coffee table covered with back issues of the industry trades, plus
Entertainment Weekly, Premiere
, and
Cahiers du Cinéma
, the French movie magazine. She picked up
Premiere
and idly flipped through it as she waited for Marty to see her.
Marty Martinsen, the chief executive of mini major Transnational Pictures, had come to the faltering studio in the late 1980s and made it solvent via a string of shrewd acquisitions of horror and slasher films like
The Nail Clipper
(about a homicidal owner of a pedicure salon). He'd hit pay dirt in the early 1990s with a low-budget teen comedy called
I Call Shotgun
, about a not-too-good-looking guy and his drop-dead-gorgeous male best friend. The underdog wound up getting the hot girl, the hot car, and about a million dollars’ worth of hot diamonds that landed in his lap after being tossed out of a helicopter during a chase sequence. The box office for
I Call Shotgun
set low-budget-feature records, as did its sequels and spin-off Xbox and PlayStation games, and the franchise had established Transnational as a Hollywood player for the next fifteen years.
Though studio execs were legendary in their battles for corner offices and imported furniture, Marty had held on to the very first gray-fabric cubicle he'd occupied, when he came to the company to work in the finance department. He had a regular, snazzy office, too, for when he had to impress an agent or the international press. But mostly, he liked to work in his cubicle. He said it kept him humble.
“How've you been, Sam?” Clarice sipped coffee from an oversize mug with the
I Call Shotgun 3
logo on it. Marty supposedly paid Clarice—a no-nonsense woman in her fifties with a short graying pageboy bob and gleaming white teeth—a salary that was equal to that of his chief financial officer.
“I've been good,” Sam replied. Because that's just what you did. When people asked how you were, they didn't really want to know. The truth was, she was freaking out. She was getting married in less than fifty hours. She still had not made a decision about going to film school or to Paris. Nor had she mentioned that indecision to her soon-to-be groom.
“I just wanted to say that it was fun, the way you had your wedding invitations delivered by messenger. We got ours just this morning.” Clarice smiled like she herself had been invited, when actually the invite had gone to Marty and his wife.
That was fine, Sam thought. If Clarice wanted to bask in just being in the know about her wedding, more power to her. One of the great advantages of being married on a yacht far out to sea was that there was no risk of wedding crashers.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Pellegrino? Juice?”
“Nothing, I'm good.”
Clarice glanced left and right, as if someone might overhear. “He's on with Cruise/Wagner Productions,” she said confidentially. “This could take a while. You're here because … ?”
