Girls on Film (6 page)

Anna got out of her Lexus and embraced her sister, all the while wondering how this could be. She’d spoken to Susan at Hazelden twenty-four hours before. She knew her older sister wasn’t due to leave the rehab facility for several more weeks.

Susan hugged her back hard. “I missed you so much!”

“I missed you, too,” Anna said. “But what are you doing here?”

“Hey, you’re supposed to be glad to see me.” Susan flipped her platinum-blond hair off her face. She was a half inch shorter than Anna, and an impartial observer would have said not quite as classically beautiful. But when Susan was at the top of her game, Anna knew that her sister could be stunning—though now in a downtown, rebel kind of way. At the moment she was a little on the plump side with an edgy, sexy look: lots of smudgy black eyeliner, red lipstick, tight jeans, and a sleeveless white muscle T-shirt under a black leather motorcycle jacket. Her hair was naturally the same color as Anna’s, but for the past couple of years she’d been bleaching it Courtney Love white blond. It drove their mom insane, which Susan took as an excellent reason to keep doing it.

“I
am
glad to see you,” Anna said, stepping back from her sister and giving her an appraising look. “You look great. I mean it, too.”

Susan shook her head. “No, I don’t. I’m a blob. I need to drop fifteen in a hurry. Flipping rehab mac and cheese and endless Snickers bars. Hey, every addict needs something.”

Anna looped an arm through hers. “Well … just come on inside. Why were you out here, anyway?”

Susan squeezed her arm. “Because I really don’t want to see Dad, that’s why. I was waiting for you. Hey, how do you like my ride?” She patted the top of the red Saleen. “Pretty hot, huh? Zero to sixty in three point three.”

“Yeah, great,” Anna said distractedly. “So. Here you are. In Los Angeles.”

Susan reached into her pocket for cigarettes. “Gee. Don’t hyperventilate with happiness or anything.”

“It’s just … you weren’t due to get out of Hazelden for—”

“Screw Hazelden,” Susan said, torching her cigarette and taking a deep drag. “Because of Hazelden, I’m smoking again and I’m fat. So I checked myself out.” She made a pouty face at her sister. “Oh, come on, Anna. Lighten up. I’m fine. Really. I was worried about you, all alone here with dear old Dad. It’s not like he’s going to look out for you or anything.”

Anna was tempted to say that Susan had never looked out for Anna, either; in fact, it had been Anna who’d always been the one to look out for Susan. Susan needed looking after. Anna didn’t. But no one ever talked about it. That was just the way their family worked.

“Dad’s trying to change,” Anna said instead as she opened the door.

“Thrilling.” Susan chucked her burning Marlboro Light into the shrubbery. “I’m not staying here, no matter what. He’s not home now, is he?”

“Doubtful.”

“Then I’ll come in.” They stepped into the foyer, and Susan took in the spacious surroundings. “My entire apartment in the East Village could fit in this hallway.”

“You don’t have to live in a dive, you know,” Anna reminded her. “So, where do you plan to stay?”

“Maybe I’ll get a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Remember when we got a bungalow there for the opening of the Getty Center art museum? It was so great.”

“That’s funny. I was there this afternoon. The hotel, I mean. I was meeting with someone about a school project. But look, Sooz, Dad’s got tons of room—”

“Forget it. Just show me to the bathroom, then we’re on our way.”

“Come up to my room with me. I want to chuck my jacket,” Anna said. Her sister’s face darkened. “Don’t worry. He’s definitely not home. You won’t see him.”

Reluctantly Susan followed Anna upstairs. As soon as they reached the hallway, they were hit with an over-powering smell of roses. The closer they got to her room, the stronger the scent became. “Jeez, you think the maid used enough air freshener?” Susan asked.

Anna opened her door. “Holy shit,” Susan breathed.

Every horizontal surface of Anna’s room was covered in roses: crimson and cherry red, pale and dusky pink, white, yellow, even orange. Some were in vases, some were strewn across on her bed, and some blanketed the carpets and hardwood floor.

There was a note in the center of the bed.

ANNA—

I’M STILL IN TOWN. LET ME MAKE IT UP TO YOU. CALL ME. PLEASE
.

—BEN

Susan read the card over Anna’s shoulder. “Ben who?”

“A guy I met on the flight from New York.” Anna crumpled up the note and threw it toward her trash basket. Why was Ben making it so difficult for her to do the right thing? If he really cared about her, he’d let her go … wouldn’t he?

“A guy who sent you like a thousand roses—”

“That I’m about to have removed by one of the maids.” With studied nonchalance, Anna went to her closet—crushing rose petals all the way—and hung up the jacket.

“What does he mean, ‘let me make it up to you’?” Susan asked as she brushed rose petals from Anna’s bed so she could plop down on it.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s a bastard.”

Susan smiled knowingly. “A hot bastard?”

“Very,” Anna admitted. “But there’s more to life than that.”

“Honey, I’ve been locked up for three weeks with about a hundred Twelve Steppers in training. Right now, I can’t think of anything better than a hot bastard.”

“Not this one. Trust me. Come on, let’s go.”

“Let’s take my car,” Susan said. “I never get to drive in Manhattan.”

Downstairs, Anna found the cook and gave her thirty dollars to take the roses to the closest battered-women’s shelter. Then they went out to Susan’s car. They were just pulling out of the driveway when Django turned in. The dark roots of his platinum-bleached hair were showing more and more each day.

“Whoa, who the hell was that?” Susan asked, craning to get another glimpse.

“Dad’s driver. He lives in the guest house.”

“He’s renting it?”

“I think it’s part of his salary.”

“Buttoned-up Dad hired a guy who wears rings? On his thumbs?”

“Dad’s pretty unbuttoned these days,” Anna replied. “Turn left, you’ll head toward Sunset Boulevard. So, how long are you planning to stay?”

Susan followed her sister’s directions. “I’m playing it by ear. Anyway, let’s do something fun this weekend, okay?”

“Can’t. I’m writing a short film and going to a spa in Palm Springs to film it.”

“Since when do
you
write films?”

“Since now, I guess.”

“Anna, you don’t even go to the movies. Now, if it was a novel—”

“This is for school,” Anna explained. “And I go to the movies.”

“Yeah, if there are subtitles.”

Anna smiled. She was used to Susan’s ribbing, and she’d missed it. She’d missed
her
. “You should come to the spa with me. It’ll be fun.”

“How do you know?” Susan’s voice was skeptical.

“I have a feeling Sam Sharpe doesn’t do boring.”

“Girl Sam or boy Sam?”

“Girl Sam. Jackson Sharpe’s daughter.”

“Cool. I
love
Jackson Sharpe.”

“So come. Sam says this spa is incredible. Wouldn’t you like a little first-class pampering?”

“Yeah, actually I would. At Hazelden we had to scrub each other’s toilets. My roommate made Ilsa, She-Wolf of the Nazi SS, look like a pussycat. While I was cleaning, she stood over me with a flipping checklist.”

Anna was incredulous. “You cleaned toilets?”

“Toilet,”
Susan corrected. “After the first time, I paid someone else to do it. I mean, come on. I’ve got an eight-digit trust fund. How ludicrous is it to make me pretend to be humble?”

“I don’t know. You live in the East Village and pretend to be poor,” Anna pointed out.

“Poor little rich girl, slumming it. I’m a cliché,” Susan admitted.

“I still don’t understand why you live down there.”

“Hey, I’m the only girl on Avenue D who has a cleaning lady.” They came to another light, and a silver Porsche Carrera pulled up alongside them. Susan looked over at the driver—a guy in his fifties—and revved the Mustang’s engine. The guy grinned, and Susan winked at him. Anna remembered when her older sister had followed the rules of propriety even better than she had. But that felt like a long, long time ago.

“I like the people who live downtown more than I like the people in our old stomping grounds,” Susan said. “The air is just too-too on the Upper East Side. Besides, I love to make Mom apoplectic.”

Which Anna already knew. It just seemed like Susan should be getting over it already. But she didn’t say anything as the light changed and Susan hit the gas pedal. “Follow that Bronco, the one turning right onto Beverly Drive. You make the right and then a quick left into the Beverly Hills Hotel drive.”

Susan made the same right turn as the Bronco, and a moment later they were passing the green-and-white sign welcoming visitors to the hotel. “Nice. I won’t be missing my squalor at all.”

Susan stopped the car at the entrance. The same valet who’d greeted Anna earlier opened the doors. “Welcome back, miss,” he said to Anna.

“Thank you. My sister will be checking in. Her bags are in the back.”

“Very good. Just go inside and register; I’ll take care of these.”

Anna pressed a few dollars into his hand and then went inside with Susan.

“So here’s the plan, little sister,” Susan said as they joined a short line at the registration desk. The hotel lobby was cavernous. Done in shades of pale pink and gray, with pale pink leather club chairs dotting the entire area, the whole expanse of it was shaded by giant potted palms.

“I brought two string bikinis and one of ’em has your name on it. Let’s go get changed, then sit by the pool and count how many guys try to hit on us.”

A Private Screening

D
ee and Cammie hung out at the Beverly Hills Hotel the way other kids hung out at the mall. In fact, it just so happened that as Susan was checking into the hotel, they were fixing their makeup in the ladies’ room just off the lobby. This was after spending the previous hour flirting with some guys at the bar in the Polo Lounge. Allegedly these guys were musicians, in town because their band was opening for Avril Lavigne at the Pond in Anaheim the next night.

A quarter hour earlier the guys had invited Cammie and Dee to go club hopping. Dee had been ready to go, but Cammie wasn’t so high on the idea. The guys had only rated a five on her basic one-to-ten scale, losing three points for opening for Avril but gaining a bonus point for their British accents. Dee had followed Cammie’s lead in holding off from any firm response. Instead the girls had excused themselves to the restroom.

As they stood in front of the mirrored vanity, Dee watched Cammie admire her own reflection. She wore a washed-pink La Perla silk camisole under a cropped pink Gucci jacket, with jeans cut so low you could see her hip bones and even a hint of where those hip bones led. The strappy pink-and-white polka-dot open-toed pumps she’d special ordered from Christian Louboutin made her legs seem to go on forever. She had a perfect French manicure on her toenails and a Harry Winston gold-and-diamond ankle bracelet on her left ankle. As usual, her wild red-gold tendrils curled over one eye and halfway down her back.

It was an accepted fact that Cammie knew she was gorgeous. In fact, she often said, if she ever had an inclination toward girls, the person she’d want to do was herself.

Cammie retouched her lip gloss, and Dee instantly looked at her own lips. Thinner. Smaller. She sighed. It was impossible to be with Cammie and not be spell-bound by her self-confidence.

Not that looks are the most important thing
, Dee mentally added.
The flesh is fleeting, the body a mere vessel. Still, at least I’m better-looking than Sam
.

“So, do you want to go out with those guys?” Dee asked.

Cammie sprayed herself with Très Cammie, a made-to-order perfume her father had commissioned for her sixteenth birthday. “That’s like asking if we want to be bored to death.”

“I wish you’d said that before. We could have made the six o’clock spinning class at Yoga Booty.”

“Spinning is for fools. We live in Los Angeles, where you can ride seventeen miles right on the beach from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes. Who’d want to sit on a stationary bike in a gym and pedal to nowhere?”

Dee sighed. Sometimes it was hard to be Cammie’s best friend because Cammie had so many hostility issues. These last few days, especially, had been difficult. They’d seen Ben at the wedding with that new girl, Anna. Cammie had made a play to try to get him back. And Ben had turned her down.

“You know, you were much nicer when you and Ben were a couple.”

Cammie dropped the tiny perfume bottle back into her Chanel clutch. “And?”

“
And
I think you compare every guy you meet to him.”

“In his dreams.” Cammie snorted.

“Ben’s awesome. I know how happy you were with him, and I know how much you want him back. I’m really sorry it’s not all going according to plan.” This was the very first time in Dee’s memory that Cammie had not reeled in a boy she wanted. It was all because of Anna Percy. She had to give Anna props for that. Ben was a great guy. The happiest that Dee ever had seen Cammie was when she and Ben were a couple. Ben had made Cammie … kinder. Not kind, but kinder.

That wasn’t to say that Dee thought Ben was right for Anna. He was so much more right for, say,
her
. She and Ben had shared that one magical night together in Princeton a couple of months ago on Dee’s East Coast college tour. He’d been a little wasted. Maybe even a
lot
wasted. But so what? It had still been magical.

Cammie didn’t even know the Dee-Ben interlude had ever occurred. Neither did Sam. Dee knew better than to tell either of her best friends anything truly important. But she’d mentioned it to Anna on New Year’s Day, after deciding that in her own pursuit of Ben Birnbaum, the best defense was a good offense.

Cammie shook her curls off her face. “I could get Ben back if I really wanted to.”

“Acceptance is the first step toward healing, Cammie.”