Girls on Film (12 page)

There were three discreet knocks at the door.

“Now, that’s gotta be room service,” Susan said, reversing course. A check through the peephole confirmed her guess, and Susan opened the door for the waiter, who wheeled in a dining cart featuring a centerpiece of lavender and white orchids.

“Crab cake appetizer, lobster bisque, club sandwich with extra bacon, fries, avocado-and-mango salad, hazel-nut cheesecake, and a Coke,” he enumerated, lifting silver covers off various dishes and setting them down on the dining room table. “Can I get you anything else, miss?”

“No, that’s fine, thanks.” Susan scribbled her signature on the check, added a generous tip, and let the waiter out. She turned to Anna, red-faced. “Like I said, you caught me in a major pig-out. So now you have to help me eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Anna protested.

“Come on. Save me from humiliation.”

Anna laughed. “Okay, sure. I’ll call it dessert.”

They sat down together. The waiter had assumed the order was for two people, so extra plates had been provided. Anna took a plate and a section of the club sandwich and bit into it. “Delicious. So, what did you do besides go shopping?”

“Nothing.” Susan cut into the crab cakes. “Cammie wanted to go club-hopping tonight, but I’m still kind of jet-lagged, so I bowed out.”

“That was smart.”

“I’m okay around alcohol, Anna.”

“I never said you weren’t.”

“It’s the tone. You sound just like Mom.” She licked some mayonnaise from her pinkie.

“Do I?” Anna felt stricken.

“No, I’m sorry.” Susan reached over to squeeze Anna’s hand. “God, why do I do that? I get so defensive around you sometimes.”

“Maybe that’s how I make you feel,” Anna said guiltily.

Susan shrugged and cut another bite of crab cake. “What can I tell you? You’ve got it. Mom’s got it. And I don’t. Guys love it. It’s one of the reasons Dad fell in love with her.”

Anna reached for Susan’s Coke. “Speaking of. I was supposed to ask you to call him.”

“I told you, Anna, I don’t want to see him. Or speak to him.”

“Okay, fine, you don’t like him, I got that. But he’s trying to change. Why can’t you give him a chance?”

“Because.”

“‘Because’? What kind of answer is ‘because’?”

“Did it ever occur to you, little sister, that I might know some things you don’t know about Daddy dearest? And that for once I might be protecting you instead of the other way around?”

No, such a thing had never occurred to her. “What things?”

Susan waved her hand dismissively. “Forget it. Eat. Then come look at the cute clothes Cammie talked me into buying. We have to go wild this weekend so I can show ’em off. In fact, come see them now.”

Susan led Anna into the bedroom and showed off her purchases—a sleeveless mauve Prada blouse with ruffles, an orange Marc Jacobs jacket with oversized buttons, a Diane von Furstenberg wraparound dress in a tiger print, and an Ann Demeulemeester skirt that Anna couldn’t quite figure out. It gathered at the waist and was cut at an extreme angle at the hem—where could anyone wear such a thing? Her sister’s style was suddenly all over the map.

“I’ve turned into a fashion schizoid,” Susan confessed. “But you have to admit, these black pants are hot.” She slipped into them to show Anna. “What do you think?”

They were lacy and partially sheer. Anna could never wear a garment remotely like them. Well, not never. She’d worn much cheesier pants on New Year’s Eve, when she’d been with Ben and purchased the world’s sleaziest faux-leopard pants at the
Hustler
sex emporium on, Sunset Boulevard, then worn them to the back-lot party at Warner Brothers. The memory made her wince.

“What’s wrong?” Susan asked. “Are they that bad?”

“No, they’re great,” she told her sister, trying to sound enthusiastic.

Susan laughed. She went to her nightstand for her cigarettes. “You’re full of crap, Anna. You hate these pants. You’re such a little prep girl.”

“You used to be, too.”

Susan torched her cigarette and took a long drag. “The difference is, it never really suited me.” She regarded Anna thoughtfully. “Don’t you ever do anything wrong, Anna? Don’t you ever just want to break out and get crazy?”

“Does ten minutes in Noah’s bungalow count?”

“Saving his sole, so to speak?” Susan grinned, replying with a rhetorical question. “Cammie filled me in on his, er, predilection. Anyway, that doesn’t count.”

“
Very
ick,” Anna said, laughing. “And he seemed so normal!”

“You want normal, Anna, go out with the same boring preppie types you went out with back in New York. It’s okay to go a little nuts, you know.”

I did on New Year’s Eve
, Anna thought.
With Ben. And all I got for it was a broken heart
.

Anna tried to make light of Susan’s remark. “So you think I should have let Noah slime my toes?”

“Hardly. You know what I mean.”

Suddenly Anna wanted to tell Susan about Ben—she remembered a time when the two sisters had had no secrets from each other. Besides, hadn’t Susan done many stupid and crazy things in her life? She’d be the first one to admit that. Why was it better to keep silent and let Susan believe that it was only the older sister who’d use bad judgment? They went back to the table to eat, and Anna took the plunge: she told Susan all about Ben.

“Wow. Who woulda thunk it?” Susan said. She lit another cigarette and tossed the match onto an uneaten crab cake. “That sucks, sweetie.”

“Live and learn, I guess.”

“Guys can be such shits.”

Anna sighed. “Yeah.”

Susan pulled her legs up and sat Indian-style at the table—a habit that Anna remembered from when they were kids.

“Mom hated it when you sat like that,” Anna recalled. “She said it wasn’t ladylike.”

“Mom’s seven thousand miles away; I think it’s unlikely she’s gonna find out. That is, unless you tell her.”

“I don’t tell her anything.”

“Good. Anyway, Anna, how do you know this guy Ben isn’t telling the truth? About why he split that night, I mean?”

“Sooz, come on. He abandoned me at three in the morning because he had to go save the life of some mystery celebrity girl. Does that strike you as plausible?”

Susan reached for a glass of ice water and drained it before she spoke. “No. Which is exactly what makes me think he could be telling the truth. I mean, from what you said, the guy is smart, right? Smart, smooth, hot. A guy like that could definitely make up a better lie.”

Anna shook her head. “I sincerely doubt it.”

“Take it from me. Ben could be telling you the truth.”

Anna went to the open window, though there was nothing to see outside except a few lights along the walkway through the bungalows. She could smell jasmine and orange blossoms, flowers that bloomed year-round in Los Angeles, and inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself down. Why, why, why did it always come back to Ben? The image of him and his new girlfriend flooded her brain again. She so desperately wanted not to care!

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she finally said, then turned back to her sister. “I’m over him. He’s seeing someone else. And so am I.”

Susan laughed. “Liar.”

“I am! I was just with him, in fact. All afternoon. His name is Adam. He’s the anti-Ben.”

“I didn’t mean that you’re lying about seeing someone else, sweetie,” Susan explained. “I meant that you’re lying about being over Ben.”

Anna felt her neck flush; she hoped that Susan couldn’t see. “No, I’m not.”

“Bull. I can smell the sexual tension clear across the room. You seriously need to get laid. I’m telling you, we should go partying with Cammie and Dee this weekend. Your assignment is to pick the hottest guy you meet and jump his bones.”

When Susan got like this, it made Anna crazy. “First of all, that is terrible advice,” Anna snapped. “Second of all, I told you, I’m going to a spa with Sam this weekend. I’m working on a screenplay for a short film, remember? And you were going with me—unless you’ve changed your mind. Third of all, Cammie and Dee are not high on my people-I-want-to-spend-my-precious-time-on-earth-with list. And fourth of all, meaningless sex is just so … so meaningless!”

“How would you know?” Susan asked laconically. “You’ve never had it.”

“I don’t need to have it to know.”

“There’s only one reason you’d say that, Anna. Because you already know the one guy it would be meaningful with.”

Okay, now Susan was making her
really
nuts.

“If you mean Ben, you’re wrong,” Anna insisted. “Did your new best friend Cammie happen to mention that he used to be her boyfriend?”

“No.” Susan seemed to falter a beat, which Anna found satisfying. “Really?”

“And did your other new best friend Dee Young happen to mention that she had a one-night stand with him?”

Susan’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What an asshole. I take back everything I said. The boy is a player.”

“Thank you.”

“But this other guy … what’s his name?”

“Adam.”

“Adam,” Susan repeated. “What do you like about him?”

Anna thought long and hard. “He’s nice,” she said finally.

“Nice?” Susan hooted. “Nice? A new kitten is nice. Your third-grade teacher was nice. That guy you went to the ninth-grade prom with? Paul Brody, the one who looked like an albino, whose parents own half of the Upper East Side? He was nice. But you told me he drooled when he kissed. Anna, you’re almost eighteen years old. You don’t need nice!”

“Please, that’s such a cliché,” Anna insisted. “A guy can be hot without being a bad boy. Adam is terrific. He’s smart. He’s honest—”

“He’d make an excellent social worker, then,” Susan opined. “Maybe there’s an opening for him at Hazelden. But as a boyfriend? You’ll be bored to death within three months. And that’s why you came out here, isn’t it? You don’t need to be bored to death anymore!”

“Fine,” Anna shot back. “And you don’t need to go club hopping with Ben’s former flames.”

Susan looked defiant. “What do you expect me to do, Anna, never party again?”

“It’s not like eating and sleeping, Susan. It’s not something you
have
to do.”

“Sorry. Once again your older sister is going to disappoint you.”

Anna sighed. Sometimes Susan simply exhausted her. “Fine. Do whatever you want.”

“You say it, but you don’t mean it,” Susan said. “That’s right. Because I love you. And I’d prefer it if you stuck around for the next fifty or sixty years.”

Susan looked away. She was quiet for a long time. “Okay,” she finally said. “You win. Forget Cammie and Dee. I’ll come to Palm Springs with you.”

“Great.” Anna could feel her shoulders unhinging from her earlobes. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Susan for a few more days. She went to her sister and gave her a quick hug. “We’ll have fun. You’ll see.”

Susan tugged on a lock of Anna’s hair. “Probably not. But I know you’re just looking out for me. Can I tell you something, though?”

“Sure.”

“Think about what I said. You can’t talk yourself into lusting after someone. And that quiet, steady kind of love—that can wait until middle-age spread sets in.”

All the way home Anna did think about what Susan had said. Was she choosing safety over passion, and was she doing it because Ben had hurt her so badly?

She liked Adam. A lot. And she
was
attracted to him. But Susan was right: Anna didn’t dream about ripping Adam’s clothes off. Little people didn’t bungee jump in her stomach when she thought of him. And no amount of liking him was going to make that happen. Whether it was because she was afraid or just because the chemistry wasn’t there, she didn’t know. But she did know this: it wasn’t fair to Adam.

The question was, What the hell was she going to do about it?

But …

“L
imerence
is the early state of love or lust where one person sees another as perfect,” Mrs. Breckner explained. “Basically, we’re talking about lust. Gatsby lusted after Daisy but called it love. The difference between the two is—”

Mrs. Breckner’s lecture was cut short by the bell. Anna sighed. Actually, she would have been interested in hearing what her teacher thought the difference between those two things was. She’d been up all night, tossing and turning, trying to figure out what, if anything, she should say to Adam. Maybe all she felt for Ben was lust, and it was coloring her judgment.

She dropped her notebook into her backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then exited the classroom with everyone else. Adam was leaning against the lockers just outside the door. She’d been avoiding him all day.

“Hey, stranger,” he said, and gave her that sweet crooked smile. He fell in next to her and they headed down the hall. “Long time no see and all that. So, what’s up?”

“Not much.” Anna had a hard time making eye contact with him. “Want a ride home?”

“Yeah, sure.” He held the door open for her. It was a rare overcast, gloomy afternoon. Adam furrowed his brow. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Yes. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” She could hear how tense she sounded, how stilted.

It wasn’t until they were inside her car that he spoke again. She was about to turn the key in the ignition when he put his hand over hers to stop her. “It doesn’t take a mind reader to figure out that something is up with you, Anna. If it has something to do with me …”

Anna stared at her hands in her lap. This was horrible. More horrible than she had even imagined it would be.

“Oh, crap, it
does
have something to do with me,” Adam said. He rubbed the star tattoo behind his ear.

“You know how much I like you, Adam.” Anna’s voice was low and earnest. She forced herself to look at him. “You’re one of the greatest guys I’ve ever met.”

“There’s a big-ass ‘but’ coming, isn’t there?” Adam guessed. “Something like, ‘but Ben and I got back together.’”

“No. We didn’t.”

“Whew,” Adam exhaled. “So what is it, then?”

“I don’t … I’m not …” Anna couldn’t figure out a way to say this without hurting Adam, which was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. “I feel very confused about guys at the moment,” she finally said. “I just don’t think I can have a relationship right now.”