Blonde Ambition (12 page)
No. That wasn’t her.
So what, then? She snuggled under the covers and closed her eyes. Her final thought before falling asleep was this: What if it meant that she really did want a relationship … but she had simply picked the wrong guy?
All Anna’s fears of the night vanished with the morning sun. Ben picked her up at nine on the dot; he looked hot in simple khaki shorts and a white tee. It had been Ben’s idea that they drive down to Hermosa Beach but hers to offer a tour of the TV show set later in the day. So what if she had enjoyed a mild flirtation with Danny the night before? She was in a relationship, yes, but she wasn’t dead. That Ben declined her offer didn’t bother her at all.
They breakfasted at Two Hussies, a restaurant on the corner of the Strand, the broad pedestrians-only strip of restaurants and boutiques that met the asphalt walk by the beach. It was unusually warm for January, and they were able to sit outside, overlooking the sand and surf. Ben sat next to her so that they both faced the ocean, an arm draped loosely around her shoulders. A steady stream of runners, joggers, and Rollerbladers passed them on the walkway, either heading north toward Santa Monica or south toward Palos Verdes. The asphalt, Ben told her, stretched for seventeen miles.
“Man, this is the life,” he said with a sigh. “I read in the
Times
today that the high in New York yesterday was three degrees. Fahrenheit. Hard to believe.”
She leaned into him. “Does it make you wish you weren’t going back?”
He grinned at her. “
You
make me wish I wasn’t going back.”
Their waitress, clad in a skintight abbreviated Hussy logo shirt and short-shorts that looked spray-painted to her thighs, brought their breakfast: eggs Benedict for him, a veggie omelet for her. The waitress refilled their coffee, offered a perfunctory smile, and headed back inside. Anna checked to see if Ben’s eyes followed her retreating butt. They didn’t, so she repositioned her napkin on her lap, uncomfortable that she was testing him like that.
“This is so different from the East Coast,” she mused, trying to make conversation.
“How’s that?” Ben asked as he cut into his eggs.
Anna took a sip of coffee. “We had a house in the Hamptons for years. East. God, I loved it. An old colonial, right on the beach, on a street that looked as if you’d gone back in time,” she remembered. “My mother sold it when Susan started high school—she never said why. Susan and I were ready to go back, like we did every summer, and she casually dropped that she’d sold it, just like that. After that, we’d stay there with friends, but it was never the same.”
“So how was it different than this?” Ben asked.
Anna toyed with a slice of omelet. “Oh, it’s all snotty wealth and good breeding—or people trying to pass as that,” she said with a laugh. “One year a good friend of my mother’s had a show at
Downtown Guild Hall.
Of course, she insisted that Susan and I dress up in little Lilly Pulitzer outfits, and—”
“Whoa, back up. What kind of show
where?
”
“An art show. Modern art. But it was really Susan and I who were on display. ‘Cross your ankles when you sit, girls. Don’t muss your dresses, girls.’”
Ben shook his head. “What about beaches and sand castles and playing with dead crabs?”
“We did all that,” Anna agreed. “But everything is so much more formal than this. They do their best to keep the riffraff out. It’s difficult to describe.”
Ben hooked his pinkie to hers. “Well, we’ll just have to go back there together. Who knows? Maybe one day we can buy your old house.”
She smiled because it was such a sweet notion. “Or maybe I’ll visit you at Princeton in the spring and take you to Montauk Point. It really is spectacular.”
Ben put his fork down. “Can you lighten up on the Princeton talk?”
Why was he so irked? It didn’t make any sense to her. Unless … yes. That had to be it.
“Are you worried about your parents being able to afford it?”
“Afford what?”
“Princeton. Tuition.”
“It’s complicated.”
Anna shrugged. “That’s okay. I’ll listen.”
“It’s not money,” Ben told her earnestly. “It’s just that I’m still worried about my mom and dad. Dad’s going to Gamblers Anonymous meetings. And Mom’s doing okay. But still.”
“I understand. But you were the one who told me that we have to stop trying to be the ones to fix our families. That it wasn’t our responsibility.” She bit off a piece of her omelet and chewed it thoughtfully.
“I did.” Ben smiled. “Sometimes it’s easier if you don’t practice what you preach—if your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another. Anyway, I have it all worked out with Princeton. If I get back there at a reasonable time and do okay on my midterms, there’ll be no problems.”
“Sure?” Anna asked.
“Sure.” Ben balled up his napkin and threw it on the table. “Nah. Enough of this serious East Coast crap. I’m a California boy, and you, my dear, are now an honorary California girl. So what do you say we do something totally West Coast?”
“Get wasted and have sex on the beach?” she teased. “Hell, yeah!” Ben threw his head back, laughing. He saw the waitress out of the corner of his eye and motioned for the check. “But first, let’s get out there.”
“Out where?” Anna asked.
Ben smiled. “Trust me.”
Get out there,
Anna learned, was California’s unofficial slogan. And from Ben’s point of view, it meant not sitting around like a spectator, but participating in the incredible range of outdoor activities that made southern California such a paradise spot. Which was why, by the time the sun was low in the afternoon sky, Anna and Ben were happy, tired, and more than a little disheveled.
They’d joined a pickup volleyball game. Walked along the ocean’s edge and watched a couple of surf casters pull huge ocean perch from the water, one after another after another. Rented bicycles and ridden south toward Redondo Beach. And then, for the pièce de résistance, Ben had booked them on a boat ride that took them from Redondo all the way out to Santa Barbara Island. There a certified naturalist had guided them in a sea kayak along the rocky shoreline, to the chiding but harmless consternation of hundreds of barking seals and sea lions that called the island their home.
It was, Anna thought, as she and Ben pedaled back from Redondo Beach to Hermosa Beach, one of the best days she’d had since she’d come to California. And maybe one of the best days ever.
But just as the Hermosa Beach pier was coming into view, Anna’s cell phone rang. She stopped her bicycle to answer it. “Hello?”
“I need you to pick up some dailies.” It was Clark Sheppard, with no preliminaries and all the manners of an ill-tempered
Homo erectus.
“How soon can you get to the set?”
“How far are we from the Strand in Hermosa Beach?” Anna asked Ben.
“Five minutes,” Ben told her. Anna reported this to Clark.
“Good.” Clark hung up.
“What a lovely man,” Anna said, putting her cell back in her purse.
“What’s up?” Ben asked.
She quickly explained her mission. “Sorry,” she added as they started off again. “I guess a day off from school doesn’t mean a day off from interning.”
But Ben was easy about the detour to the set and didn’t even seem to mind that he’d have to give her an immediate ride to Westwood to deliver the dailies to Clark. Anna only knew what dailies were because Danny had mentioned them: they were raw videotapes of scenes from the show so that interested parties could see what was happening on the set. One “daily” might show one scene from five different camera angles, repeated in five different “takes.”
Ben’s guesstimate was accurate. Five minutes later they’d parked their bicycles and Anna was leading Ben through the hotel’s spectacular lobby. No filming was in progress, so the set was deserted save for some designers refreshing the flowers with new ones that looked exactly like the old ones.
Anna found Danny in his small office, banging away on a keyboard. When he saw Anna, he gave her a “happy to see you” look and a little wave but then continued typing. Anna waited for a minute or two as Danny completed whatever he was working on, then came around his desk and enveloped her in a bear hug. “Hey, dancing partner! Great to see you!”
“You too,” she said when he released her. “Danny Bluestone, Ben Birnbaum,” she added, introducing the guys to each other. Danny held out a friendly hand, which, Anna could see, Ben shook with an iron grip.
“Danny’s a writer on the show,” Anna went on, choosing to ignore the scowl that had taken over her boyfriend’s face. Ben didn’t say a word, so she muttered something about picking up the dailies for Clark.
“Yeah, I just got his message,” Danny said, reaching for a stack of tapes on his desk. He rearranged the rubber band around them, then gave them to Anna. “He could have just used a messenger service.”
“I think he enjoys telling me what to do,” Anna said ruefully. “Anyway, thanks.”
“Not a problem.” Danny sat on the edge of his desk. “Hey, come back later on—we’re gonna hit Dublin’s again. Nice to meet you, Ben.”
Anna could feel Ben’s ire as they left Danny’s office, crossed the hotel lobby, and headed back outside. Truth be told, she felt awful. It had seemed like such a small deception when she’d let Ben think that she hadn’t picked up his calls the night before because she was working.
“Um, you gonna explain that?” Ben finally asked when they reached their bicycles.
“The cast and crew went out last night and invited me along.”
“You told me you were working.”
Anna didn’t reply.
“What’s up with you and that guy?” Ben demanded. “Nothing,” Anna said quietly.
“That’s a load of crap. If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have lied to me about it.”
“I didn’t lie to you, exactly—”
“What the hell would you call it?”
“Would you calm down, please? You’re making something out of nothing.”
“Maybe.” Ben started walking his bicycle down the path toward the shop where they’d rented them, and Anna pushed hers along, too.
“Maybe I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d overreact, which is exactly what you’re doing.”
“Don’t twist this around, Anna,” Ben insisted.
“I just … I don’t think we have to get so … so intense.”
“That ice maiden shit might intimidate the hell out of guys back east, Anna, but it doesn’t mean squat to me. Either we’re together or we’re not.”
She touched his back with her free hand. “You know I want to be with you. But I have a life, too.”
“Jeez, I can’t even trust you when I’m in the same city. How am I supposed to trust you if I go back to Princeton?”
She knew he meant the question rhetorically. What she couldn’t quite figure out was how they’d gotten from being two people who wanted each other desperately to Ben feeling jealous—and her feeling guilty—if she so much as looked at another boy.
A
s Adam Flood pulled a vintage Public Image Limited T-shirt out of his top dresser drawer, a photograph he’d stuck on top of that dresser caught his eye. The photo was of him and Anna on the beach with his dog, Bowser. Adam had his arm around Anna, and the dog was gazing soulfully up at her.
Adam remembered the day that photo had been taken. He and Anna and the dog had been at the beach near Gladstone’s, the famous seafood restaurant. Some Japanese tourists wandered by and asked Adam if he’d take their picture. Afterward they’d insisted on snapping one of him and Anna and the dog and had promised to mail it to him. Though Adam had scrawled his address on a scrap of paper, he’d never expected to see the photo. But it had arrived only a few days later, in an envelope from the Century City Plaza Hotel. Evidently the very honest tourists had developed their film before returning to the Land of the Rising Sun.
Anna and he hadn’t been a couple then. They weren’t a couple now. What Adam had never expected was that if there were a relationship, it would last roughly the same amount of time as a typical tourist’s visit to Disneyland. Goddamn Ben. Adam should have known that Anna would run back to him. Girls always ran back to guys like Ben Birnbaum.
Morose, he sat on his bed. Bowser trotted into his room, and Adam absentmindedly stroked his dog’s ears. Anna had told him she was ending their relationship to be alone for a while. What a crock. Then she’d had the nerve to pull that “I want us to be friends” line. He’d almost bought it, too.
With a final scratch to Bowser’s fur, Adam sprang up and headed into his bathroom to brush his teeth. He wasn’t pining for Anna, exactly. Nor was he in love with her. But he knew he’d been in the process of falling in love with her, deeply, truly, really in love. There was just something about her, something unlike any other girl he’d ever known and certainly unlike any other girl he’d known since moving from Michigan to Beverly Hills. For example, he liked Sam Sharpe. But her obvious insecurities gave her so much emotional baggage, he found it exhausting to hang out with her sometimes.
Then there was Cammie. It had shocked the hell out of him when she’d kissed him on the beach. And only a mannequin wouldn’t have enjoyed that. But he knew her reputation—there was always an agenda with that one. Friends like Cammie made scorpions seem obsolete.
With new resolve, Adam strode back into his room and took the photograph off his dresser. He tore it in two and dropped it in his wastebasket before heading downstairs.
“Rotten, Johnny,” his mom said archly when she saw the T-shirt. She was at her desk in the family room, poring over some legal briefs. Both of Adam’s parents were entertainment lawyers; they practiced together at the same firm. As far as Adam could see, that they continued to like and respect each other was a true Beverly Hills rarity.
Adam pulled on his ratty, ancient denim jacket. “So, I’m heading out.”
His mom took off her reading glasses and frowned for a moment until she recalled his plans for the evening. “Beck. Hollywood Bowl. Right?”
He nodded.
“With?”
“Me. Solo.”
“What about Anna?”
“There is no more Anna. He tried to shrug it off. “It’s okay. I’m over her.”