Girls on Film (19 page)

“It’s not something I … The situation was …” Ben stopped. He sighed. His shoulders drooped. “Okay. Maybe you’re right.”

He looked so sad that Anna momentarily wanted to put her arms around him. “You’re lucky that Dee isn’t pregnant, Ben,” Anna said, her voice softer now. “But don’t you see? You don’t remember what happened that night, which means it could have been true.
Then
what would you have done?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was ragged, his eyes miserable. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Anna. I wish I could explain so you’d understand … but I guess it doesn’t matter to you anymore. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. Anna couldn’t help it; she felt as if Ben had lifted her heart out of her chest and was taking it with him. Or, more accurately, dragging it behind him. She had to force herself not to follow him.

It was over. Really over. There was nothing left to say.

When Anna got back to the suite building, her sister stood outside her door.

“Well, that was entertaining,” Susan said as Anna let them inside.

“So happy to provide your post-rehab amusement.”

“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard sarcasm from you before,” Susan commented.

Anna flopped onto the couch, lay down, and closed her eyes. “How can you find this funny?”

“Because it is. Why turn a comedy into a tragedy?”

Anna opened her eyes again. Susan was at the desk, scanning the room service menu. “What if I had said that to you?”

“Bravo, score one for the kid sister. Want a snack?”

“Guess what, Susan? It’s possible to have real problems in this life without having to go to rehab over them.”

Susan kept her eyes on the menu. “I know that,” she said quietly.

Tears filled Anna’s eyes as she sat up. “What happened to you, Sooz?”

Susan looked up from the menu. “What are you talking about?”

“The person in this room with me … this isn’t you.”

“Maybe it is.”

“No. You were never cold. Or mean. Or bitchy. You were always … you cared about people. You cared about me.”

Susan put down the menu and walked over to one of the plush chairs. She sat on it with one of her legs slung over an armrest. “Maybe I just don’t want to feel so much anymore, Anna. Life is easier that way.”

“That’s too simple,” Anna said. She hadn’t planned on confronting Susan, especially after what had happened in the sauna. She hadn’t even consciously realized how much Susan’s behavior had been bothering her. But here they were.

“Why, because I decided not to play by Mom’s rules anymore?” Susan asked. “All the caveats and addendums of what is and isn’t permissible? God forbid you have appetites. God forbid you have passion. Mom’s rules suck, Anna. I’d rather live my way and fuck it up than be stuck in that prison. I said this to you before, and I’ll say it again now: When is the last time you took a chance on anything?”

“Coming to Los Angeles was a big chance, and we’re not talking about me.”

“Right,” Susan shot back. “Because you’d much rather focus on my problems than on yours. So you moved to Los Angeles. Big deal. Nothing changed except the ocean.”

Anna felt her hands clench into fists. “Fine. I’ll try it your way. How does it go again? Drop out of school to live with some lowlife loser. Get all fucked up. Then go to rehab and bail on it. Then become loser party babe. Have I got that right?”

All the color drained from Susan’s face. “I didn’t bail on rehab.”

“Yes, you did,” Anna insisted. “At least own up to your—”

“I got kicked out,” Susan snapped. “Happy?”

Anna was silent. She had no idea what to say. Until finally she came up with, “Of course I’m not happy. What happened?”

Susan stared at the carpet, as if she couldn’t bear to face her sister. “I didn’t get high, if that’s what you think.” Finally she raised her eyes. “I was with a guy. He was getting high. We got caught. And I’m not going to ask you if you believe me because I don’t give a damn. So fuck you, Anna, and the sanctimonious horse you rode in on.” Susan got up and stormed out the door.

Anna sat there, stunned. She knew Susan was in pain. There had to be secrets Susan hadn’t shared. But instead of being there for her sister, she’d attacked her. The worst part of it was, Anna knew how upset it had made Susan when her father had done the exact same thing.

Size Six

“F
orty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!”

Cammie sat up on the incline stomach-crunch bench, having just finished her fifth set of crunches.

“Impressive,” Susan said, wiping her neck with a towel. She’d just finished doing three miles on an elliptical machine.

It was the next day. Cammie had called Susan at the Beverly Hills Hotel and invited her to come work out with her at the Summit, the most exclusive fitness club in Los Angeles. Occupying the penthouse and roof of the tallest building in Century City, the Summit attracted actors, models, studio executives, and celebrities who were not at all put off by the five-figure annual membership fee and who would not be caught dead in, say, L.A. Fitness, regardless of whether Cindy Crawford did their advertisements or not.

The Summit was massive. The Summit was plush. There was a rooftop swimming pool, four lighted tennis courts, an indoor basketball court, a climbing wall, a restaurant and juice bar, aerobics, yoga, spinning, and kick-boxing studios, plus all the weight-lifting, circuit training, and cardio equipment that anyone could want. What members liked the most—aside from being insulated from the Los Angeles riffraff, and the incredible vistas through the glass walls from the Pacific to downtown—was that once they were out on the fitness floor, there was none of the pretense that ruined so many other clubs. Even if the clients
were
on the covers of major magazines, everyone dressed down to work out. Which was why both Cammie and Susan were wearing ordinary gym shorts and T-shirts with athletic shoes. This was perhaps the only “in” spot in Los Angeles where it was “out” to preen, except in the sense that everyone checked out the perfection—or lack thereof—of everyone else’s shape.

“Ready to pack it in?” Cammie asked, wiping the damp hair off her forehead.

Susan agreed. Cammie led the way to the locker room, which featured floor-to-ceiling glass walls—the glass was one-way so no helicopter-borne paparazzi with a supertelephoto lens could snap any embarrassing photographs. “Did you call Anna and tell her that you’re bringing me to the Steinbergs’ party?”

Susan opened her locker. “No.”

“Why not?”

“We had a fight last night. Coming back from the desert, we barely said a word to each other.”

Perfect
. Cammie had studied Susan and Anna’s relationship. Susan was Anna’s weak link. And, by extension, her sacrificial lamb.

Cammie cursed herself for not having been able to hold on to Ben Birnbaum. And she cursed Anna Percy for having such power over him. Ben had come for Anna, right into the Mount St. Helens sauna, fully dressed. He’d never done anything like that for her, and he never would. It hurt so much to know that he loved Anna in a way he’d never loved her.

For that, Anna would pay.

As Cammie stripped down, she was careful to keep the smirk off her face. Susan was emotionally dependent on Anna; that, Cammie had already figured out. A fight between them was definitely something she could use to her advantage. Poor little Susan could so easily come unmoored without Anna to prop her up.

Cammie stretched, knowing that her naked body was fabulous. In contrast to Susan’s, whose stomach was fleshy and whose ass sagged a little. After they’d undressed for the shower, Susan wrapped a towel around herself and tucked in the end.

“So, what was the big fight about?” Cammie asked.

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

Cammie laughed. “You sound just like your sister.”

“Who sounds just like our mother. Who probably writes a thank-you note after sex.” The edge of Susan’s towel came untucked, revealing her naked body. “God, I wish I’d lose the weight from rehab already.”

Cammie’s eyes flicked over Susan’s body before Susan retucked the towel. “Doesn’t it suck? The same thing happened to me when I was in rehab.”

“I’ve already dropped three pounds,” Susan said. “Two more weeks, I’ll take off the rest.”

“Well, I admire your self-confidence. I mean, it must suck, having such a perfect sister.”

Susan just shrugged.

They spent the next half hour in the marble-and-glass shower and the steam room. Cammie made sure that she let her eyes stray over the small fleshy roll at Susan’s waist, then when Susan “caught” her, she pretended she hadn’t been staring. She pointed out the gorgeous hard bodies of the other women they saw. And made a joke that it was illegal to be over a size six at the Summit.

“So, what are you going to wear to the party?” Cammie asked as they headed back to the locker room area.

“The black pants we got at Betsey Johnson.”

“Those? Oh. Great.” Cammie made sure doubt colored her declaration.

Susan dropped her towel into the wet-towel bin and took her clothes from her locker. “What? You helped me pick them out!”

“They’re great,” Cammie assured her. “You and Anna have such different styles.”

“So?” Susan hooked her bra and reached for her T-shirt.

“Just that Anna would never wear the pants you bought.”

Susan pulled on her panties, then her jeans. “I could wear something else.”

“No, it’s cool. You have your own taste. I mean, you like that look. It’s fine.”

“What look?”

“You know, that I’m-so-fucking-cool look. You’re rebelling, it’s fine.”

“Thank you, Dr. Fred,” Susan muttered.

“I know just how you feel,” Cammie went on. Susan was sitting on the bench, strapping on her sandals, so Cammie sat next to her, leaning close, her voice low and hypnotic.

“Do you ever feel like if you let yourself give in to everything you want, that you’d just never stop wanting?”

“All the time,” Susan confessed. She reached for the other sandal.

“Like you’ll never measure up. And nothing can fill you up, ever,” Cammie went on, “because you’re just this gluttonous, needy
thing?
I feel that way all the time.”

Susan looked around. The locker room was empty. No one was there to overhear their conversation. “Well, don’t you hide it well.”

“Do I?” Cammie feigned surprise. She pulled her Giuseppe Zanotti suede-and-leather sandals out of her locker. “Thanks. I’m telling you, Susan, after rehab, I was afraid to do anything. Eating was out—I was such a pig. Drinking—how was I supposed to stop at one drink? Pot—I’d want to smoke my way into oblivion and stay there. Coke, E, sex—anything I ever did before rehab, I wanted to do and do and do.”

“So, how’d you stop?”

Cammie pulled on her silk lace Miu Miu T-shirt. “I had to prove that I could master it, you know? I mean, what was I supposed to do, stay alone in my room listening to Ani DiFranco for the rest of my life? So I just, you know, had one drink.”

Cammie could see the yearning for “one drink” on Susan’s face.

“And?” Susan prompted.

“And so what? Seriously, that’s the conclusion I came to. If I have one or two drinks, so what? It made me feel better. It didn’t hurt anyone. And I proved I could party and not, like, just pass out.”

“Must be nice.” Susan stood up, zipped her jeans, and pulled on her Chanel shirt.

“It
is
nice.” Cammie reached deep into her gym bag, rooted around, and found what she was looking for: a pint of Flagman vodka, its Russian label proving that it was authentic. She unscrewed the cap. “I can’t stand for people to tell me what to do. You want some?”

“No.” Susan sprayed her neck with Escada perfume, then started to brush her hair and put on lip gloss.

“Fine. I understand. Personally, I’d like to say a big ‘fuck you’ to Anna and everyone else who thinks they know exactly how I should be and who I should be.” Cammie took a long, dramatic swallow. She could feel Susan’s eyes on her. “Oh yeah. Nothing else feels like that. Sure you don’t want some?”

“No.”

“You’re right. If you’re really out of control, I mean. One sip and you’ll be lap dancing for Jell-O shots.” Cammie upended the bottle again.

“I’m not out of control.”

“Anna thinks you are. Otherwise why would she be playing
Baby Sitters Club
with you?” Cammie tilted the bottle to her lips one more time; she could feel Susan’s yearning as the fiery liquid rolled down her gullet. “Mmm. Nothing takes the edge off like Flagman, you know? Makes Stoli taste like Drano.”

Susan didn’t answer, but Cammie could see she was gritting her teeth as she worked the hairbrush.

“But listen,” Cammie went on. “I completely understand. I guess Anna is right. You’re this out-of-control loser who can never have a drink again. It sounds like a death sentence, but you know what’s best for you.”

“When did I say I was never going to drink again?”

Cammie shrugged. “I was where you are once. For me, the only way to conquer the fear was to do what scared me and prove I could handle it. But I guess you’re different.”

Susan glared at her. “That’s bullshit.”

“Prove it, then. Loser.” Cammie held the vodka out to Susan.

For a long moment Susan stared at the bottle like it was Pandora’s box. Cammie could sense her wavering.

“Why should I?” Susan asked, her eyes on the open bottle.

“To prove it doesn’t have power over you. To prove you’re not the fat loser your sister thinks you are.”

Another long beat, then Susan grabbed the bottle from Cammie’s hands. “My sister is right about you, you know. You really are a bitch.”

Their eyes held. For a moment Cammie thought Susan was going to dump the vodka onto the floor of the locker room. But instead Susan lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a long swallow.

Bingo
.

Home Theater

T
he Steinbergs’ own huge home in the Hollywood Hills was in the midst of a complete renovation, so their party was being held at the Graystone mansion on Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills. As Anna drove Brock from his hotel to the party, he was utterly silent, except to mention to Anna that he’d recently taken up Buddhism and always felt out of sorts when he visited Los Angeles. “I guess I’m destined to live and die in New York City,” he said.