Tall Cool One (11 page)
I am so not leading lady shape,
Sam thought.
I’m still fucking fat.
She told the cook to cancel her order. Then two more workers came into the kitchen and started moving around furniture. It gave Sam an instant headache, and she knew she had to escape. The alternative was homicide.
Sam dug her new cell phone out of her jeans pocket—platinum coated, with her initials encrusted in diamonds. It had been delivered last week from Tiffany, courtesy of her father. She pressed speed dial.
Cammie was having a crisis.
No one could tell by looking, of course. She sat at the bar of the Spider Club in Hollywood, sipping her cranberry martini and awaiting Sam’s arrival. She knew she looked fantastic in her Gucci denim miniskirt and Boy Scout shirt that looked like it belonged to her little brother—if she had a little brother. But it had been designed, in fact, by a former porn star named Lydia Cherry, who made mock scouting and bowling shirts for a boutique on Beverly Boulevard. Cammie had chosen it to match the interior of the club: a striking red lighting scheme, oversized Chinese lanterns suspended from the ceiling, and Spanish-Moorish tiling on the floor and around the doorways. Acid green walls, golden bar stools, a huge mirror from the 1950s behind the bar, and an arachnid theme in the artwork. And that was just the dance area—there was an indoor smoking patio as well.
Spider Club was private, but Cammie had been offered a free membership the week the club had opened, on the theory that hot girls hanging out would help ensure that the club was a hit. The club concierge tracked her favorite drink; the cranberry martini had arrived without her having to ask for it.
Cammie took a sip—perfect—and watched a hot young model-turned-actor whose last movie had tanked slip out the door with an older actress. It was rumored that she had had so much work done by Dr. Birnbaum, plastic surgeon to the stars (Ben Birnbaum’s father—formerly
her
Ben, then for about a millisecond
Anna’s
Ben, and now probably doing-half-the-girls-at-Princeton Ben), that she had a zipper all the way from her butt to her neck, due to the massive removal of hanging skin.
Cammie figured the couple was going next door to Avalon, where they would pretend they wanted privacy while in actuality they’d put on a spectacle. First they’d make out on the dance floor. Then she’d give him a topless lap dance and hope it would make the rumor rags because they were both desperate for publicity.
Cammie took another sip of her drink. Sam had called that afternoon to ask Cammie if she wanted to go clubbing. It had been a salve to Cammie’s bruised ego. So were the guys all checking her out. For kicks, she was keeping a running tally of how many had mentally undressed her. Five. Eight. Eleven. It boosted her self-confidence, which had been recently been slipping like a Telemundo actor’s bad hairpiece. How could the hottest girl at the hottest high school in the hottest city in the world be in love with a boy who couldn’t get it up for her? Why wasn’t Adam Flood calling her day and night, pining for her, insane for her, when every other male of wet-dream age went deaf and dumb—but never blind—in her magnificent presence? And the most pressing question of all—
If Adam had been with Anna on that beach, would he have been ready, willing, and very able?
Without saying a word or even being in her presence, somehow Anna Percy had managed to screw her over again.
“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Sam said, sliding onto the gold leather seat next to Cammie. “Did you happen to notice that like half of our class is in the next room at Twyla Bonet’s birthday party? Mischa Barton’s in there, too. She’s Twyla’s cousin, I think. Can you believe Twyla didn’t invite us?”
Cammie drained her martini. “And I would care because . . . ?”
“Because we always get invited everywhere.”
“Everywhere
important.
”
A young bartender with a shaved head discreetly slid a Cosmopolitan in front of Sam. “No thanks, Remy. A Diet Coke.”
He whisked the cocktail away.
“Don’t tell me you quit drinking.” Cammie scoffed.
“No, I’m—” Sam stopped mid-sentence.
“What?” Cammie pressed. She hated it when Sam didn’t tell her everything.
“Never mind. Anyway, I had to escape the Poppy and Dee show. They’re all atwitter over Poppy’s shower tomorrow. I suppose you’ll be there. Ugh. I don’t want to think about it. How’s it going with Adam?”
“Ah, here’s a subject near and dear to my heart,” Cammie murmured, sipping her drink. “Not to mention many other parts of my anatomy. The boy’s a stallion.”
Sam looked surprised. “Adam?”
“Yes, Adam. I mean it, Sam. I can barely
walk.
”
“Gee, he seems like he’d be such a gentle—” Sam began.
“What can I tell you? I bring out the beast in men.” Remy set a Diet Coke with lime in front of Sam and another martini for Cammie, who raised her glass at him. “Here’s to unbridled lust.”
“Right back ’atcha,” the good-looking bartender replied.
“You had lust with Ben, too,” Sam reminded Cammie.
Cammie flashed her patented cat-got-the-canary grin. “Would you like to know how good Adam is? He makes me ask, ‘Ben who?’”
The DJ fired up some Beanie Man and the girls went to dance. Boys instantly surrounded them. As usual, though, the ones who came on to Sam were never more than six-point-five on the heat-o-meter that put, say, Orlando Bloom at nine-point-nine. Or if they were higher than six-point-fivers, it was only because they recognized Sam and wanted to suck up to her in hopes of ingratiating themselves with her famous father.
After a couple of songs, Sam signaled to Cammie that she wanted to return to the bar. But Cammie merely waved and kept dancing, gratified to see that she was surrounded by tens and near tens, with a few nines who had an inflated view of their own good looks.
If only Adam could see her now.
Back at the bar, Sam nursed her Diet Coke. If she’d hoped that an evening with Cammie would pull her out of her funk, seven minutes on the Spider Club dance floor had destroyed that notion.
“Hey, Sam!”
A guy so handsome that he didn’t look real slid onto the stool next to her. His short, spiked black hair set off sexy deep-set green eyes, and he wore the regulation young-actor November-to-March uniform of low-slung blue jeans, black button-down shirt, and white T-shirt underneath. She knew him, vaguely. Lars Something-or-other. He’d played a fresh-scrubbed young cop in a Jackson Sharpe film called
Street Hero.
Sam recalled he’d died in the teaser before the credits. She’d seen him recently in an underwear ad in the
Los Angeles Times.
Evidently, the acting thing wasn’t working out.
“Wow, you look great!” he told her.
What an asshole.
“Thanks, Lars.”
“So, what have you been up to?”
“I’m having a sex change.” Sam said first thing that came into her head.
“Wow, cool,” Lars said, nodding, which proved Sam’s point. He hadn’t heard her, didn’t think she looked great, and didn’t care a flying fuck about her. “So listen, I’ve gotten into Scientology. It’s the bomb, really. It’s helped my acting like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You should check it out—go to the Dream Center building in Hollywood; you can see it from the 101. They’re really good people. Tell your dad I sent him my regards, okay? Tell him Scientology really helped me get in touch with my core. I’d love to read for him for his next project.”
“Right. As soon as I get home,” Sam lied. “In fact, if he’s asleep when I get home, I’ll wake him and tell him, okay?”
Sam went back to her Diet Coke without even bothering to wait for a response. For all she knew, Lars believed her. How depressing. Everyone was a user or a poser. Everyone had an angle.
The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to eat.
Fuck it. What difference did it make if she weighed five pounds more or less? She could turn into a Sherman tank for all anyone cared. She surrendered herself to Remy and ordered one of every single appetizer on the bar menu: fried Brie with water crackers, prawns in chutney butter, confit duck bites wrapped in miniature Mandarin pancakes, charred vegetable crostini, and Asian pear with candied walnuts.
“Hungry, Sam?” he joked.
“You can’t even imagine.”
Within five minutes, as if by magic, plates surrounded her in a gluttonous semicircle. People rushed past, flirting, dancing, tripping; no one noticed the brunette surrounded by a meal for six.
Sam knew that if she took a single bite, she wouldn’t stop. And she realized there were probably photographers lurking at the club—there were always photographers. She’d likely end up in a tabloid spread: SUPERSTAR’S DAUGHTER TURNS INTO SUPERPIG. Was she willing to risk
that?
She edged back from the bar. She had to change locations. Someplace away from everything that could make her want to eat. Not just from Cammie, but also away from Dee and Poppy—all the day-in, day-out usual suspects. The question was, Where to go? Money was no object. But what fun would it be to go to Paris or Tokyo or Maui by herself? Sam wasn’t very good at flying solo and she knew it.
And then, the lightbulb moment. She knew exactly what to do.
“Remy?” She got the bartender’s attention.
“Yeah, Sam?”
“Put this all on my tab and give it away to the next person who sits down.” Then her face brightened. “Better idea. Bring it into Twyla’s birthday party and tell them it’s a present from Sam Sharpe.”
Remy grinned knowingly. “She’ll appreciate it.”
“I know.”
As Sam pushed away from the table, she wondered if she wasn’t the first person at Spider Club to tempt fate and then walk away. She was actually proud of herself. One quick wave to Cammie, and Sam was outta there.
Eenie, meeny, miney, mo,
Cammie thought as she raised her arms over her head and swiveled her hips to the music.
Which cute boy should I take home? This one?
“This one” was a curly-haired guy named Uzi who told her with the cutest Israeli accent that he lived in Tel Aviv but was in Los Angeles for a week to train with the American Olympic judo team. Objectively speaking, he was way hotter than Adam. Older. More worldly. Most likely able to function in the junction.
After an hour of dancing with Uzi and two more martinis, Cammie told him she’d be right back and tottered off to the ladies’ room. Her path took her right by the doorway into Twyla’s little party. Something made her want to go in and waggle her fingers at Beverly Hills High’s B-list.
So she did. Twyla spotted her immediately.
“Cammie! I didn’t know you were here!” She whirled around to her friends. “Hey, you guys, look who’s here!” Then back to Cammie. “Come party with us!”
“Gee, can’t,” Cammie said, her voice oozing faux regret. “I have to meet Adam.”
“Adam Flood?” Twyla asked.
“The one and only,” Cammie confirmed. She let her index finger trail from her clavicle down to her cleavage. “We are so hot for each other, it’s unreal.”
“Wow,” Twyla breathed. “I always thought he was a nice guy, but I didn’t think . . .”
“Trust me,” Cammie purred. She moved closer. “Confidentially, if I keep him waiting too long, he’ll spontaneously combust.”
Twyla giggled the most annoying and imbecilic giggle, and Cammie remembered all over again why, even though Twyla’s father owned half the BMW dealerships in Southern California, she would always be second tier.
“Tell him I said hi, okay?” Twyla asked.
“Sure. Oh, one more thing.” Cammie leaned even closer to Twyla and whispered in her ear, then spread her hands apart. The space between them was approximately the length of a tennis racquet. Twyla gaped in awe.
Cammie sashayed out, feeling great. One more cranberry martini and she might even start to believe her own lies. In the meantime, she realized, she’d already forgotten about Uzi. Which meant that Adam had
really
gotten under her skin.
Now if only he’d get on top of it.
“T
hanks for meeting me.”
Kai grinned. “It wasn’t exactly onerous.”
Anna and Kai were sitting at a table with a white tablecloth that had been set up in the sand a few feet from the water. Each had the Surf Shack’s specialty drink before them: fresh limeade mixed with beer brewed in Las Casitas’ own microbrewery. The ochre moon illuminated the sand and the waves. Anna could hear the distant strains of disco at the main pool, but down here at the Surf Shack, the only sounds were the swooping gulls and waves lapping the sand.
It was beautiful. Calming. Damn near perfect. The fact that she was experiencing this with a very cute guy who had just correctly used the word
onerous
made it even better.
As for Lloyd, he’d called her twice during the evening. One time to ask her to dinner, which she’d declined. The second time to inform her that tonight was disco night at Club Las Casitas next to the main pool, and since he could out-disco John Travolta circa
Saturday Night Fever,
they really should meet up. Anna had allowed as how she hadn’t come to Mexico for disco night, but she was certain that Lloyd could find plenty of girls who might appreciate his moves. Now she was wearing a cherry-pattern-on-white Miu Miu sundress she’d recently bought while shopping with Sam, sitting with a well-spoken surfer. And she was shocked at how comfortable she felt.
“Where in Australia did you grow up? Sydney?”
Kai looked impressed. “Good ear. Generally I get the British thing. Americans never guess Australia unless you talk about putting shrimp on the barbie.”
Anna laughed. “You’ve been hanging out with the wrong Americans.”
“Well, don’t let it get round, but actually I’m a citizen of the good old U.S. of A. My mum is Hawaiian; my dad was stationed there in the service. We moved to Sydney when I was two. That accounts for the accent.”
“How did you end up here in Mexico?”
Kai stretched his arms behind his head, revealing gleaming, golden muscles beneath a Fiji Surf Open 2004 T-shirt. “Ah, yes. My path to paradise. I was going to the University of Sydney. Supposed to be studying engineering. But the fact of the matter is, I was majoring in girls and surfing. Bloke I know got a summer gig here teaching tennis, told me they needed a surfing instructor. Didn’t have to ask me twice. Within forty-eight hours I was hooked on the place. That was four years ago. He’s gone on to a Club Med and I’m still here. Once you taste paradise, how do you settle for anything else?”
