Blonde Ambition

by Zoey Dean

  He didn’t look convinced, so she playfully nudged his shoulder with her own. “Oh, come on. Lighten up. Sam mentioned you’d be here, so I thought I’d come over and say hi. Who are you here with?”

  “Came alone, actually.”

  “Really?” she purred, all innocent. “I’m with Dee, but she’s probably backstage worshiping at the shrine of Stevie Novellino’s leather pants by now while he pretends that her name is Dick. Anyway, I’m a huge Beck fan.”

  Adam showed the first sign of interest. “Yeah? Me too. So what’s your favorite?”

  Shit. Cammie’s brain went on overdrive. Beck. Beck. Alt god of girls who don’t wash their hair. No, wait. Hadn’t she overheard her dad talking to his manager about some benefit thing for Willie Nelson? Well, it was worth a shot.

  “I have to tell you … I do kind of like the country stuff,” Cammie ventured. “But don’t let it get around.”

  “No kidding?” Adam marveled, his eyes lighting up. “Me too! Did you hear him do Hank Williams’s ‘Lonesome Whistle’? So awesome.”

  Cammie nodded. “I totally agree.”

  “What else?” Adam asked eagerly.

  Double shit. She’d have to pull an answer out of her butt. “The one he did at Farm Aid? You know. The one everyone loved …” She snapped her fingers like she was trying to remember.

  “‘Rowboat’?” Adam asked. “That’s killer!” He seemed to be appraising her with new eyes. “So, Cammie Sheppard. You like Beck. Cool.”

  “More than cool.” She casually exposed the laminated backstage pass that she’d tucked under the mink lining of her jacket.

  Adam’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “How’d you score that?”

  “I told you, my dad and his manager have a professional relationship,” Cammie said truthfully, and followed it with a hell of a whopper. “You see, I have Dee’s pass, too. I guess Stevie got her in with his band.” She extracted the extra pass from her jeans pocket. “Why don’t we watch Beck from downstairs? Afterward I’ll take you into his dressing room and introduce you.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I’m not… .”

  He held his palms up and grinned in a way that lit up his entire face. “I’m your man.”

  Oh, Adam, Cammie thought, you have no idea.

  Watching Beck perform from orchestra-level, tenth-row center seats was fantastic enough. But going backstage to watch the two encores from the wings of the stage and then being a part of the post-show party at the Century City Plaza blew Adam away.

  First of all, he and Cammie arrived at the famous elliptically shaped hotel by limo, which had been waiting for them right outside the gates to the Hollywood Bowl—Cammie assured Adam that they could easily return for his car later, when there wasn’t a gargantuan traffic jam waiting to get out of the arena. He’d seen the wide-eyed, jealous stares from the guys and girls streaming past them to return to the parking lot—the girls jealous that they didn’t have to fight the traffic, the guys jealous that he was with a girl as stunning as Cammie Sheppard.

  At the hotel’s semi-circular driveway, valets practically did battle for the right to open the doors to the limo. Once they were inside the expansive lobby, a representative from Beck’s record label saw their backstage passes and corralled them—the post-show party was being held out back of the hotel, alongside the enormous heated swimming pool. The pool was closed to the general public for the night; a phalanx of security guards made sure that the riffraff was kept out and the beautiful people allowed in. But the magic backstage passes around their necks gave them easy access; within seconds they were inside the purple velvet ropes.

  Adam felt Cammie slip one arm through his. “How about a drink?” she asked.

  He spotted the open bar and a lavish buffet table at the far end of the pool. “Sure. What would you like?”

  “Champagne. Join me?”

  Adam shook his head. “Coach would kill me if he found out I was drinking champagne while I was in training.”

  Cammie threw her head back and laughed, her strawberry blond curls shaking seductively on her shoulders as she did. “Adam Flood, what do you think the chances are that your basketball coach is going to be at the after-show party for Beck?”

  Now it was Adam’s turn to laugh. He ordered orange juice to Cammie’s Moët & Chandon and thought he saw a look of respect in Cammie’s eyes when they clinked glasses.

  “I thought there’d be a lot more people,” he said, surveying the pool area. It wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t crowded, either. The atmosphere was, if anything, subdued.

  “I’ve been to a lot of these; it depends on the musician. Kid Rock and P. Diddy’s post parties were pretty raucous. But sometimes it’s just a bunch of people up in a hotel suite doing drugs and—”

  “Cammie! Cammie Sheppard!”

  Adam and Cammie turned in the direction of a moon-faced guy in his thirties, wearing a Funk Daddy baseball cap, who was hustling in their direction.

  “Who the hell is he?” Cammie murmured. As for Adam, the moon-faced guy looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen him before.

  The guy answered Cammie’s question quickly enough. “Rick Resnick! From Jackson Sharpe’s wedding!” He pulled Cammie into an unwilling embrace.

  Now Adam remembered. At the New Year’s Eve wedding of Sam’s father and Poppy Sinclair, Rick had been one of the guests. He was a record producer; he and Dee’s father were friends. And he had totally humiliated Anna.

  Anna. Couldn’t he stop thinking about her? And couldn’t the world stop sending people his way that made him think about her?

  A few other people drifted over to join the conversation—Dee Young and her father, among others. The conversation quickly turned to other post-show parties that they’d attended and how the buffet and open bar at this one compared to those. Adam had zero interest, so he told Cammie that he needed to use the facilities, which was true enough. He drifted back toward the hotel, skirting clumps of music industry types who stood together in clusters, talking.

  Just as he neared the velvet ropes, though, he heard something unusual: the faint but very pleasant notes of an acoustic guitar being plucked. Curious, he followed the music across a grassy lawn to his right. As he got closer, he realized that what had sounded like a single guitar was actually two. Then at the far end of the lawn, on a pair of white plastic chairs nestled between three palm trees, he spotted the source. Two men were picking together, heads bowed so that they were almost touching. One had extremely long gray hair and a red bandanna.

  Willie Nelson, who Adam hadn’t even realized was at the party. And with him Beck himself.

  Their fingers flew furiously, picking out the notes of a rollicking bluegrass tune. Adam froze, not wanting to disturb them. That was when Willie Nelson looked up, saw him, and smiled. Then with a cock of his head, he indicated that Adam should join them if he wanted to.

  Adam—heart pounding at his good fortune—had to stop and pull himself together. Then he gave a little wave and practically floated to an empty chair. There he sat down, grinning from ear to ear, listening to two of his musical heroes jam.

  An hour later he was still there, sure that if he wasn’t in heaven, he was close.

  Oops

  Ben’s house was cedar shingled like a New Mexico country cottage, only in this case the “cottage” was at the top of tony Stone Canyon Drive in Bel Air and covered seven thousand square feet. Anna was there for dinner with the Birnbaums. Ben had offered to pick Anna up, but she’d told him that she’d drive over herself. Now, as she turned her Lexus into his driveway, anxiety welled up inside her.

  After their argument at the beach, she and Ben had kissed and made up; then she’d gone home to shower and change. But she was still uncomfortable with what had transpired—she’d never expected Ben Birnbaum to be a possessive boyfriend, and she wasn’t really sure how to handle it. And she felt equally uncomfortable, the closer she got to it, about a family dinner
with parents. Ben had told her in great detail about the travails of his father, whose huge gambling addiction had sucked dry his enormous income from being plastic surgeon to the stars. It had led to an ugly incident on New Year’s Eve and to Ben’s mom being hospitalized with a nervous breakdown.

  Now here it was, just a few weeks later. Mom was home, Dad was supposedly functional, and Ben had invited her to share a Friday night meal with them. Though she’d told Ben yes, by the time she was ringing the front door to his house, she was thinking a big fat no.

  A maid opened the door and cheerfully invited Anna inside. Anna hadn’t been sure what to wear for a meet-the-parents, so she’d gone with wardrobe staples: a gray cashmere sweater and black wool Chanel trousers.

  The front hallway was adorned with photographs of Ben and his parents at various ages, as well as a few framed articles about Dr. Birnbaum from the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and Los Angeles magazine. Anna was looking at this last one and reading how Dr. Birnbaum was the consensus best plastic surgeon in Los Angeles when Ben came bounding down the stairs, looking fabulous in a black T-shirt under an Armani jacket.

  He hugged her and held her close. “How about if we just pretend this afternoon never happened?” he whispered into her hair.

  Her answer was to nod and kiss him. But she noted that it wasn’t the first time in recent memory that she’d been forced to erase the mental records on his behalf. She felt herself relax; everything was going to be all right.

  “So listen,” he went on, “my parents decided we should eat out. My dad made reservations at Spago; we’re supposed to meet them there. That okay with you? It’s not my favorite, but my dad thinks it’s good for his business to be seen there.”

  “Are you sure you really want to have dinner with them?” Anna asked. “It’s not too soon?”

  “Nah. It was my idea. I really want them to meet you.”

  Anna swallowed uncomfortably. This was Ben’s idea?

  “Well … Spago sounds okay, I guess,” she said. If she had to meet Ben’s parents, neutral ground seemed less intimate.

  Ben checked his watch. “We’ve got a little time. At the risk of sounding like I’m ten, want to see my room? It’s been pretty much hermetically sealed since high school. Last year’s BHH yearbook alone is worth the price of admission.”

  She nodded, so Ben led her upstairs, along a wide hallway, and then into his blue-carpeted bedroom. A large-screen plasma TV dominated one wall; a Sansui sound system, as well as floor-to-ceiling compartments full of CDs, lined another one. In the far corner was a well-equipped office and study area, complete with PC, color printer, and fax and answering machines.

  Ben reached for some photo albums on a bookshelf; they sat on his bed to leaf through them. “Just remember, if I’m willing to let you see me looking like a weenie, you have to return the favor and show me your own geek-stage pictures.”

  She hesitated before nodding, because as far as she knew, she hadn’t had a “geek” stage. Nonetheless, it warmed her heart to see snapshots of Ben playing Little League and as a Cub Scout in the troop at Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills. He even broke out his bar mitzvah pictures—it had been a lavish affair, to say the least. Anna recognized a younger and chubbier Sam sitting at a teen table with Dee. Cammie stood behind them, one hand on each of their shoulders, secure in her pubescent sensuality.

  “Just one more set, then I’ll put you out of your misery,” he promised. “High school junior year, when I made the mistake of trying out for the school play. Here, look through these—I have to pee.” He handed her one more photo album and kissed her forehead before departing for the bathroom.

  She grinned as she turned the pages—there was Ben as Danny Zuko in Grease, decked out in a 1950s costume, his mouth opened wide to sing. That he wanted to share that part of himself with her was endearing, really.

  Across the room Ben’s phone rang three times. She didn’t answer it—wouldn’t have dreamed of answering it—then his machine picked up. Ben had left the volume turned up on the machine, so Anna couldn’t help but overhear the message.

  “Dude, it’s your roomie Josh at Princeton. Dean Ward called me today to see if I’d heard anything from you about spring semester. She said she FedExed a letter to your house. Didja get it? Basically said if your ass isn’t back here on Monday morning, you’re out. So get it in gear, because I don’t want them to give me some transfer student from Hofstra. Later.”

  The machine clicked off, leaving Anna stunned.

  “Oops. Princeton is a thorough place,” Ben said. Anna turned. He was standing in the doorway, grinning sheepishly.

  “What are you doing, Ben?” Anna demanded.

  He shook his head. “How did we get here, Anna? How did this happen?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Once I told you that I didn’t know what love was, you remember?” He stepped into the room, then sat on his bed.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, now I do. Isn’t that a bitch?”

  She still didn’t understand. He tugged her gently to the bed. They sat side by side, and he stared into her eyes. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, Anna, but it happened anyway. It’s the most overwhelming, consuming thing, wonderful and terrible at the same time.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his index finger to her lips. “And now that I know what love is,” he continued, “I can’t just walk away from it. Away from you.”

  It was Anna’s worst subconscious fear, articulated. “You haven’t gone back to school because of me?”

  He put a hand in her hair and held it away from her face. “You feel it, too. I know you do.”

  She did feel … something. But Ben’s revelation didn’t feel liberating—it felt quite the opposite. Yes, the earth had certainly moved more than once during the last few days. But she didn’t want Ben to jettison his life because of it. What had happened to the self-confident boy to whom she had given her heart? Where was his center? Who was he? Clearly he didn’t know. And it was easier to hang his life on her than to face his own self-doubts and insecurities.

  “I only want what’s best for you, Ben, I swear it. You have to go back to Princeton. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t. In the long run, you’ll never forgive me, either.”

  “How do you know what I’ll do?” he retorted. “Don’t you hear what I’m telling you?”

  “Ben, I think you’re the one not hearing me. Don’t you understand? You’re smothering me.”

  He called his father to say they couldn’t make it; then they sat in his boyhood room, talking for hours. Anna tried to convince him that the boy who’d lived in that room was gone and that the man he would become needed to move forward and have the courage to let her go.

  By the end of the night there wasn’t an emotion left unfelt. Anger, joy, sadness, fear. And of course, love. Lots of love. The evening ended with them making love by the moonlight streaming in through the open shutters.

  And both of them knew it was for the very last time.

  Crash Helmet

  Ben looked around—the line of people waiting to go through the metal detectors and security screeners to reach the departure gates for American Airlines flights snaked back for several hundred feet. To his left was a prominent and threatening sign: ONLY TICKETED PASSENGERS BEYOND SECURITY. HAVE YOUR TICKET AND ID READY FOR INSPECTION.

  “Not exactly like the movies,” he said to Anna. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman on the tarmac in Casablanca, plane revving in the background, music swelling, et cetera.”

  Anna managed a half smile. Even she had watched Casablanca, where heroic Humphrey Bogart loved Ingrid Bergman but made sure she got on the airplane because it was the best thing for her.

  “Will you come visit?” Ben asked. “We could go skiing or snowboarding or rent a cabin in Vermont.”

  “Ben,” she gently chided, then peered a
t him closely. “You gonna be okay?”

  He grinned; it was the assurance that Anna needed. Then he gently nudged Anna’s chin with his fist. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” He slung his backpack over his shoulder, turned, and walked away to join the security queue farthest from Anna. She stood for a moment, waiting to see if he would look back. He didn’t. So she drifted away, edging through the crowds of travelers to go back to the parking structure and her car.

  Getting out of LAX was easy. Getting home, though, was a pain in the ass. She’d been stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for a half hour when her cell phone rang. Normally she didn’t answer when she was driving—Los Angeles drivers were dangerous enough without her being distracted on the phone. But bumper-to-bumper traffic that rolled along at three miles an hour maximum didn’t seem particularly hazardous.

  She answered. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Sunshine, what’s up?”

  Anna recognized Danny’s warm, upbeat voice.

  “I’m at a dead stop on the 405, staring at the rear end of a Hummer that hasn’t moved in five minutes. How about you?”

  “Joy. On my way to Hugo’s for lunch. Wanna join me?” “Where’s Hugo’s?”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re a newbie. Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood. Serious industry hangout with awesome French toast and eight-buck oatmeal. Whaddaya say?”

  “I say yes,” Anna agreed impulsively. Why not? She really didn’t want to go home to her father’s empty house and brood. Besides, Danny was so upbeat, he could bring anyone out of a funk. “It might take a while, though; traffic’s barely moving.”

  “Take the 405 to Santa Monica Boulevard, then go east. It’s on the left-hand side—you can’t miss it.”

  “How long?”

  “Thirty minutes. Just look for the Jewish guy with the big nose, with three, four babes hanging on my every word. Or my laptop. Take your pick.”