by Zoey Dean
"That wasn't hitting--
Sam waved her hand to cut him off. "I know, I know. If you were really hitting on her, she'd be on a break with you now in one of the empty bungalows. Forget it. Actually, I wanted to thank you again for what you did with Eduardo. I owe you. Big-time."
He made a dismissive gesture. "Forget it. You two are back together?"
"Better than together. He took me to Peru for graduation. To meet his family. I am a woman in love. And I owe it to you."
"Excellent." Parker laced his fingers together. "Couldn't happen to a nicer girl."
Sam frowned. Nice? Her? She should take it as a compliment, she supposed. But the truth was, she'd asked him to lunch to offer him more than just a
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thank-you. And the reason was definitely not one a "nice" girl would come up with. But there was time enough to get to that.
"Thanks. So what's up with work for you?" she inquired.
Parker talked about his so-called career for a while. It was more of the usual. He was auditioning for a whole bunch of roles, none of which he would get. He was thinking about getting a crap job to help his mom pay the rent, but the thought of working as a waiter at some place where his friends might eat was incredibly depressing and would confuse everyone since Sam was his only friend who knew his real financial situation. Which made it the perfect time for Sam to pounce.
"So listen. You know my dad is remaking Ben-Hur, right?"
Parker gave her a quizzical look and edged his chair closer to the table. "Of course I know. We had our prom on the chariot race set. Lay off the wacky weed."
"Here you go, Parker." Citron carefully set his bagel and fries in front of him and then poured coffee into his cup.
"Thanks, Citron. What brought you to Los Angeles, anyway?"
"Katrina," she answered, with not a little sadness in her voice. "I'm from New Orleans. I stayed with my grandparents in Memphis for a while. Then with friends in Baton Rouge. And now .. . here I am."
When it appeared that they were about two conversational
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steps from the traditional swapping of cell phone numbers, Sam shooed the waitress away once again. To bring her her lunch. Which she had ordered before Parker even showed up.
"Get the digits after," Sam suggested when she took off. "Is that too much to ask?"
Parker watched Citron at another table. "Damn, there is just something about her--"
"Yeah, great. Focus! I want to talk to you about something infinitely more important. Namely, a role in my father's movie."
Parker actually froze with his bagel halfway to his lips.
"Did you say--?"
"Yeah. Next week. Tom Hanks is coming in to do a small part as a favor to my dad. They go way back. You'd be up for the role of Tom Hanks's son. And you'd have a brief scene with my father."
Down to the white china plate went the bagel, and Parker's eyes widened to the size of its rim. "Tom Hanks's son. And a scene with your father."
Sam nodded and sipped her water. Now that she had his attention, she could take her time. Served him right.
"Tell me more," Parker demanded.
"Oh, so now I get your attention," Sam groused. "You'd play a Roman teen. You'd have three scenes: one little one, one where you get into a fight with your father, and one where you help prepare my father for the chariot race. It's not insignificant."
"Damn, I would kill for a screen test."
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"You don't actually have to test. I can get you an audition where you'd go up against two other guys. I've already talked to the casting director, and I'd say those are pretty decent odds. Of course, if you don't want to bet on yourself--"
"Are you shitting me? I always bet on myself. When? Where? And can I get sides?"
Citron waltzed over with Sam's order and set it down in front of her. Sam frowned. "Did I not say dressing on the side?"
"Did you?" Citron asked, looking neither apologetic nor concerned.
"Forget it. Just take the salad away."
"Fair enough." Citron took the salad with her.
"Sides?" Parker asked again.
"Got 'em right here." Sam opened her oversized Be & D camel suede ruffled shoulder bag and took out several stapled sets of script pages she'd been given by her father's assistant, Kiki Coors. "This is what you need to work on for the audition. I'll call you with the time and place. Sound good?"
Parker looked suspiciously like he had tears in his eyes when she handed him the sides. "Sam, this is really ... I really . . ."
Sam waved away his thanks and waited for him to take a sip of coffee. This was going to be fun.
"You're the one who has to nail the gig. And in return, I only ask one thing." She smiled sweetly. "That you also nail my stepmother."
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Parker nearly snorted coffee out to the hotel tennis courts and had to wipe his nose before talking. Sam desperately hoped that Citron had been watching.
"You want me to-- Did you just say what I think you said?"
"She's cheating on my father. I'm pretty sure of it."
"So it's just a suspicion."
"Well, I didn't watch the act," Sam admitted. "But I did see her with her yoga instructor, whose eyes--and probably his hands--know every curve of her ass."
"So you think she's doing him," Parker surmised.
"Do you think I'd be asking you to do this if I wasn't sure? Poppy bitches all the time about how my father is never home. She's taking, like, six classes from Yoga Guy every week. Private classes. At my house. He's definitely showing her more than his full lotus." She leaned closer. "Look, you don't actually have to nail her--although the look on your face when I said it was priceless. I don't even want you to trap her."
"What do you want, exactly?"
Good question. "I just want you to . . . open the door, let's say. Be nice to her, very attentive--which, God knows, is one of your great talents--and take your cue from her. I swear, if you come back to me and say she wasn't interested, I'll let it go."
"And if it goes further than that?" Parker raised his eyebrows and rubbed his chin at the same time.
"That has to be her call," Sam decided. "I'm not trying to set her up. I'm trying to see how she handles
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temptation. My guess is, she'll be head over heels for you. And shortly after that, heels over head--metaphorically speaking. Like I said, you don't have to do her."
"Good. Because 'doing' Jackson Sharpe's wife would pretty much guarantee the end of my not-yet-started career."
Sam nodded. "I would never ask you to do that."
Parker riffled the edge of the sides she'd given him. "Far be it from me to question any of this, but . . . what's your goal?"
"For my dad to divorce the Pop-Tart and get her the hell out of my house and out of my life. I wouldn't even mind if we kept the baby around. She's just a baby. We can probably undo the months of damage that Poppy has no doubt done. Do you think babies are too young for psychotherapy?" She grinned. "Perhaps it's not too late to save her."
"At the risk of my losing the gig--how will me flirting with Poppy get back to your dad?"
"I don't have all the details worked out yet. But I'm a director. I can sure as hell direct this." She sipped her cappuccino, thinking out loud. "Let's see. . . . I'll hire a private investigator to take some pictures of the two of you in some public place. Smooching, let's say. But you'll be from the back, the side, any angle where your face can't be seen."
"Absolutely positively I won't be identified?"
Sam nodded. "I give you my word. So, you in?"
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Parker nodded emphatically. "You've been good to me so far, Sam."
"And you've been great to me. I'll cover your ass, no matter what," she promised. She meant it, too.
"If I say no ... no audition?"
Sam had fully intended to say, "No audition." This was, after all, her bargaining chip. But she heard herself say something else entirely.
&nb
sp; "Oh, hell. I'll still get you the audition. I owe you, like I said. Besides, Parker, I have a feeling that underneath all that bullshit you throw around, you're actually a very talented guy who's getting overlooked. And one other thing, too."
"What's that?"
Sam smiled. "I helped you. Then you helped me. Now I'm asking you to help me again while I help you. It's the American way. Go for it. Then go over there and give that Southern-fried brain-dead waitress your number. You know you want to."
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Model Behavior
"We're here to see Melange."
Anna stood with Sam, Cammie, and Champagne in the all-white PacCoast reception area. All white was no exaggeration. The walls were white, the furniture was white, the phones were white, and the ceiling was white.
The receptionist, whose little desk plaque identified her as Zona, was holding the phone to her ear. "Excuse me?" she said rudely, to Sam, and then went back to talking into the sleek white phone. "I know, I know she looked like such a total fat-ass." When Zona said the phrase "fat-ass" she looked Sam up and down.
"We've been sent by the New Visions foundation to do a preliminary selection of models for their show at the art museum," Sam explained, tapping her fingers against Zona's desk.
This was true. Mrs. Vanderleer had thought it might be fun for them to winnow down the field of potential models, even if she would be making the final choices. But if Cammie and Anna wanted to recommend, say, four men and four women that would be more than okay.
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Anna had been the one to suggest that Champagne come along. After a bit of hesitation, Mrs. Vanderleer had said that would be fine. But they had to keep an eye on her. At all times, she'd emphasized. And they had to sign her in and out at New Visions headquarters in West Hollywood. As far as Anna could see, Champagne was just a pretty girl who'd gotten some bad breaks.
Zona looked more carefully at Sam. "Wait. Aren't you . ..?
Sam smiled smugly. "This might be a good moment to start sucking up."
Zona opened her eyes wide and slowly lowered the phone back onto the receiver, without even saying goodbye. "I love your father's movies!" she gushed.
"Right on cue!" Champagne cried, as if the whole thing delighted her.
"I'm so sorry," Zona insisted. A red blush of embarrassment spread up to her eyebrows.
"Just get Melange," Sam instructed.
The receptionist looked up at the four girls arrayed in a line in front of her desk. "Okay! I'll be right back."
She scuttled through the glass doors into the back offices; miraculously, in her absence, the phones bounced to another location. Normally, Anna hated it when Sam and Cammie threw their celebrity weight around, but this time she had to admit it had been incredibly satisfying.
"It must be so cool to be you," Champagne told Sam.
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"It has its upside," Sam admitted.
Zona returned and led them into a large white conference room with a white Formica table, white chairs, and several crystalline white boards. "Have a seat. Melange will be here in a moment."
Before they were even in their chairs, Melange strode into the room. Anna recognized her immediately. When she had been younger, her photograph had graced the covers of countless magazines and bus shelters. She'd been Kate Moss, Cindy Crawford, and Gisele Bundchen rolled into one. Now, at age fortysomething, she was running one of the hottest new modeling agencies in the world.
She also looked much the same as Anna remembered. Five-ten, with a choppy, chin-length bob the color of a burnt sienna crayon, her face wide-eyed and unlined, with the highest cheekbones that Anna had ever seen, and a generous mouth.
"Sam!" Melange put her arms out. The former model towered over Sam but embraced her anyway. "Wow, you look fantastic! I haven't seen you since your father's wedding."
"You look great too," Sam told her, and then quickly introduced everyone, taking extra time with Champagne, who looked like she'd died and gone to heaven.
"I am so honored to meet you," Champagne gushed. "I really admire your work."
"The honor's mine," Melange replied graciously. "Aren't you a beauty! Too bad you're not just a tiny bit
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taller." She took a seat at the head of the white rectangular table. "It's just fantastic that you're all working on this show. What a great thing to do with your free time."
Champagne nudged Anna and grinned wildly. Evidently Melange was under the impression that they were just a group of do-gooder girls doing a do-gooder deed. "We all really need to do more giving back, don't you think? Did Sam tell you how we met? When I was much younger, Jackson gave me a part in Hangman's Mountain. You remember that one, right?"
Anna did. It was a throwback western designed to both mock and pay homage to the melodramas of a bygone era, and she vaguely recalled that Melange had the role of a dance hall girl who was thrown under a steam engine by the grotesquely mustachioed villain within the first half hour of the movie. But Melange had proved incredibly photogenic, and the role had launched her career. Now it was twenty-five years later, and she was apparently returning the favor.
"Anyway," Melange went on, sliding into one of the white leather seats, "we all have to do what we can, when we can, as much as we can."
"Well, we're just really glad that you can help us with this," Sam cooed back, then edged away from the table so she could cross her legs. "So, do you have girls for us to see? And guys?"
Melange nodded. "I called in twelve of each. You're going to narrow it down to eight, right? I'll just have them come in one at a time and you can look at their
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books. You didn't need me for this, did you? I've got a fire to put out on a shoot in Milan."
Moments later, one by one, the models came into the conference room, starting with the women. They were all rail thin--no big shocker there--and dressed down in T-shirts, skinny jeans, leggings, or workout gear. None of them wore makeup. Each handed her portfolio over to Cammie, who was closest to the door, and then waited patiently for the others to flip through their photos.
Anna found it amazing to see the difference between how the girls looked in person and how they photographed. Sometimes she wouldn't even have been able to tell that they were the same person. From time to time, Cammie made surprisingly helpful suggestions to the models. To a beautiful girl with long dark hair, she suggested that the girl brush her hair back off her face for her next comp card, because she'd obviously lost a bit of weight since then, and now her cheekbones stood out even more. The girl gushed her thanks.
After they'd seen a dozen girls, in came the guys. They were less clearly variations on a theme, though all were elevens on a scale of ten in the looks department, even if some seemed south of the midpoint on the IQ department. Cammie asked a guy with the biggest chin cleft that Anna had ever seen the name of the vice president of the United States. When the model answered, "That old guy," Cammie suggested that maybe he'd want
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to read the newspaper or watch Headline News once in a while, in case a client cared about such things. The guy thanked Cammie as though no one had ever made the suggestion before.
Finally, they spread out comp cards on the table and picked their eight favorite models
--four girls, four guys. Melange rushed back in to air kiss each of them before they left, then walked them to the elevator. After the agency head had departed, Champagne looked back longingly.
"You know what I wish?"
"What?" Anna asked.
"That I really was four inches taller. Because maybe I could do what those girls do. You know what my mom did before she went on disability? She was a cashier." Anna saw tears in the corner of Champagne's eyes, which she quickly brushed away. "And that's what she wants me to do too."
Anna sipped her cafe Americano while Champagne applied some hot pink Rexall lip gloss. There was a Coffee Bean downstairs in the same building as PacCoast, and they'd decided to make a pit stop before heading
over to the New Visions offices to meet with Mrs. Vanderleer and Mrs. Chesterfield. Sam had to depart, though. She had a session planned with her psychotherapist.
As Cammie was waiting in line for some elaborate fat-free soy concoction she'd ordered, Anna looked
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closely at Champagne. "If you were taller, would you really want to be a model?"
With her high cheekbones, wide-spaced eyes, and naturally silvery-blond hair, Champagne really was a spectacular-looking girl. Better looking than some of the girls they'd just picked to be in the show. Yet she was five-six, in a world where models were five-ten.
She shrugged. "I think it would be amazing. Who wouldn't want to?" Champagne raked her fingers through the ends of her hair. "It's not like I haven't tried. I went into this agency on Van Nuys Boulevard that I found in the Yellow Pages--I had to take two buses there from Reseda. It turned out that they were looking for models, all right--porno models. Anyway, I wouldn't have time. I go to school and work two part-time jobs. My mom's on disability, so I work at a doughnut shop on Saticoy from four in the morning till seven in the morning. Then I go to school. Then I work at a 7-Eleven from five until eleven. On weekends, I baby-sit or work overtime."
"How'd you get into the New Visions program?" Anna wondered aloud. Champagne had just laid out a daily schedule that was unimaginable to her. It made her feel very, very lucky. And guilty too.
"There's a teacher at my school--a really cool English teacher, Ms. Martinez. She recommended me. I did really well on some aptitude test for nursing. She thought the program would help."
"Does it?"
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Champagne smiled sweetly. "I'm not in jail, am I? Most of my friends have been in and out of juvie. I'd prefer to just stay out."
Cammie came back from the counter with her soy drink. It hadn't taken long for her to get served. At this hour of the afternoon, the cafe was nearly empty.
"You guys are both rich." There was no malice in Champagne's voice. Only envy. "I know that girl Sam is, 'cause her father is a big movie star. But like, how much do you spend a year on clothes, Cammie?"
Cammie coolly sipped her drink. "Who keeps track?"
"Take a guess, then. Ten thousand dollars? More?"
