by Zoey Dean
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "I'm sorry that I'm not perfect enough for you."
That statement hit Anna hard; it was so much like what Susan had said to her. Was she being unfair?
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No, she decided. Ben was bound to break her heart over and over and over. Why should she say yes to that? Wasn't anyone in Los Angeles just ... regular? Did everyone have some hidden agenda? Not everyone. Not Adam. He was so clearly the superior boy, the boy she should be with.
"Ben, you don't have to be anything, or do anything, for me," she said quietly. But her heart was still pounding as powerfully as it had the moment she'd heard his voice on the phone. "Not balloons, not roses, not phone calls. Nothing."
His eyes looked tortured. "Anna--"
"Stop. I can't do this." It just hurts too much , she added in her mind. "I'm asking you to leave me alone, Ben. I mean it." She turned around and went back as deliberately as she could to the house so Ben wouldn't have a chance to argue.
But back up in her room, she couldn't help herself. She went to the window and looked down at the backyard. And sure enough, he was still there, sitting on one of the stone benches along the walkway, his face buried in his hands. There was no denying it; in some ways, she felt exactly the same way he did.
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Canine Love
H onk honk! Adam downed the last of his orange juice and stuck his glass in the sink. The kitchen was all gleaming wood, with a giant oak table built by his dad's old college buddy. His mother, Linda, sat across from him at the table, drinking coffee and reading the Los Angeles Times . She was wearing a rust-colored velour sweatshirt that matched her perfectly coifed short red hair. She looked up at her son. "Scored a ride, I see," she said, smiling.
"Sam Sharpe." He picked up his backpack and looped it over one arm. Bowser jumped at him, tongue hanging out, panting hopefully. "No, Bowz, you can't come to school with me. Sorry."
"Right," Linda agreed as the mutt slunk away. "Everyone knows no dogs are allowed at Beverly Hills High."
Adam pointed at her playfully. "You made a sexist joke, Mom. Get NOW on the phone."
"I know my secret is safe with you. I thought maybe you'd get a lift with that girl you took to the beach the other night."
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"Asking seemed too pitiful. I really need a car, Mom."
"Then I'd say you really need to get a job."
"Why can't you spoil me rotten like all the other mothers in Beverly Hills?"
"Because she has values and a conscience," his dad, Leonard, said as he bounded downstairs, dressed in a tasteful blue suit.
Honk honk!
"Gotta run, I'll whine about this later." Adam kissed his mom on the top of her head before he dashed out the door. While it was true that he desperately wanted a car, it was also true that he genuinely liked his parents. He'd seen the horror-show families of most of his Beverly Hills friends. Compared to them, his was like some fifties sitcom throwback: parents married for twenty years and still in love with each other. Parents who listened. Parents who cared.
"Morning," Adam said as he slid into Sam's red Jensen.
"Could we hold it down to one honk in the future?" Sam asked as she gunned the sports car out of his driveway.
"How about you just give me one of the family vehicles? You know, cut out the middleman," Adam joked.
Sam pulled onto Coldwater Canyon. "Come over and pick one out. My father has so many cars, he can't keep them straight. He'd probably claim it was stolen and collect the insurance."
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"Uh, I think that's a felony, Sam. Thanks anyway."
It was a gorgeous morning: the sun was shining, the sky was clear, the smog was at a low ebb, and the temperature was in the low sixties. Adam felt so good that he started to sing along with Bono on Sam's CD player.
"Now I know why you didn't go out for choir," Sam said.
"What's pitch when you've got enthusiasm?"
Sam flicked her eyes at him before she turned onto Sunset Boulevard. "What are you so disgustingly happy about?"
"New friend, maybe."
"Does that translate to 'girl'?"
Adam laughed. He liked Sam, always had, since the first day he'd met her. When she wasn't pulling the diva thing because her father was you-know-who and wasn't feeling sorry for herself because her father was you-know-who, she really was a funny, smart girl.
"Anna Percy," Adam filled in.
"Oh, really ."
"Didn't you see us together in her car Monday?"
Sam nodded. "Yeah. But she didn't mention being madly in love with you yet."
"She confides in you?" Adam asked.
"Not really," Sam said blithely, not mentioning that Anna had told her about sharing a kiss with Adam. One thing about growing up in Hollywood--information was a precious commodity.
Adam hadn't been in Los Angeles as long as Sam, but
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he also had learned when to share and when not to. He wasn't going to tell Sam the truth--that he couldn't stop thinking about Anna. Not that he was big on playing it cool--the only place he liked to play games was on the b-ball court. It was more about being shy. He'd had girlfriends before. There was Julie Hewser, back in Michigan. She was sweet, smart, really a great girl. But when she'd told him that she loved him, it had made him uncomfortable because he didn't feel like he could say those words back. After a while she'd wanted them to have sex so she could, as she put it, "prove her love." He hadn't done that, either, despite the real temptation of Julie in lace underwear at his parents' lake house. So he drove her home, she called him the biggest loser in the world, and that had been the end of that. He'd never told any of his buddies the story for fear they would corroborate Julie's accusation.
When he'd moved to Beverly Hills, he'd been under the radar until the girls had seen what a stud he was on the basketball court. Then they'd flocked to him. He'd dated one of the cheerleaders, a really cute girl named Tabitha whose idea of fun was sneaking into the White Lotus club with a fake ID and seeing how many celebrities she could get to talk to her. When she'd told him she thought Jonathan Livingston Seagull was the greatest novel ever written, he'd known it was time to move on. Then there was Sam Sharpe. They'd made out a little on New Year's Eve, and Adam thought she was one of the brightest girls he'd ever met. But she seemed to be pretending it had never happened, so he went with the flow.
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And now there was Anna. Which, frankly, made it easy not to think about Sam.
Yes, Anna had kissed him, but she hadn't called him the night before. And when he'd called her at her father's house, there'd been no answer. What if she didn't even like him back all that much?
"We took the dog to the beach."
"Yeah, but I bet your dream life about her is a lot juicier," Sam guessed.
Adam could feel himself blushing. Because as usual, Sam was on the nose. "Hey, out of my dreams and into my car," Adam quipped, quoting an old Billy Ocean song. For some strange reason, on certain days his inner radio was tuned to lite FM. "That is, if I had a car."
"Well, the grand theft auto concept is still open," Sam said. "Oh, look, there's your object of lust now." Sam cocked her head toward the front steps of the school. "Let's go tell her you want to jump her bones. Kidding. Catch you later."
"Thanks for the ride!" Adam called after her as Sam veered off to the side entrance where she usually met up with Dee and Cammie before classes started. He sprinted to catch up with Anna. "Morning!"
She looked happy to see him. A good sign, as signs go. "Hi, Adam."
They walked into school together. Adam took in the beauty that was Anna Percy and realized she was more dressed up than usual, in elegant black pants and what
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looked to Adam to be a white cashmere turtleneck. "Wow, you look great," he said.
"Thanks." They dodged through the crowded hallway, heading toward Anna's locker. "I have a meeting after school about an internship at an
agency. I was trying to dress the part."
"Sounds great, I hope it works out." They stopped in front of her locker, and she spun her combination. "So, listen," he went on, hoping to strike the right casual tone. "How about joining me and Bowser for a run up in Runyon Canyon--it's like Hollywood's unofficial dog park. He said that if I didn't invite you, he was going on a hunger strike."
"How about if you come and hang out while I go to this meeting?" Anna suggested, storing some books in her locker and extracting others. "It shouldn't take very long--it's just a meet and greet, I think. Then I'll change, we'll pick up the canine love of my life, and go. Is it far?"
"Up that way." Adam pointed toward the hills above Laurel Canyon. "Sounds cool. And as an added bonus, I won't have to grovel for a ride home."
Anna laughed. "I knew you had ulterior motives."
Adam's mind was going a million miles an hour . She must like me, or she wouldn't have said yes so quickly. But what kind of like?
"Well, well, look what we have here."
Adam turned; Cammie and Dee were approaching them. "Adam Flood and Anna Percy. Aren't they just too cute for words?" Cammie asked Dee rhetorically.
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"Sam says you guys are a couple now," Dee told Anna and Adam. "That's so sweet!"
Adam was ready to kill Sam. He didn't even have the nerve to look at Anna. "We're friends ," he corrected. "What's up?"
Cammie pushed her white Armani sunglasses up into her hair. "Not much. We're going to Bev's after school. Maybe you two would like to come."
"Who's Bev?" Anna asked.
Cammie laughed. "God, you really are FOB."
Anna shook her head, not comprehending.
"FOB means fresh off the boat," Adam translated. "And Bev's is what everyone calls the Beverly Hills Hotel."
"Ah." Anna smiled.
"We've got a favorite waiter there," Dee said. "He'll bring us drinks."
"In the middle of the afternoon?" he asked lightly. "Living dangerously."
"Well, I'm not drinking right now, for personal reasons." Dee gave Anna a significant look--Adam had no idea what that was about. "But you guys can."
"Oh, Adam, I adore you. You're so flyover," Cammie cooed.
"Flyover, the part of the country you fly over when you go from New York to Los Angeles," Adam translated for Anna. "Where people watch Seventh Heaven and aren't embarrassed to admit it."
Cammie sidled up to him and kissed him on the
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cheek. "I think it's charming. And I envy the girl who's the first one to do the deed with you. I bet inside that point guard is an Energizer Bunny."
Adam laughed, though he realized at the same time that Cammie had correctly assessed him as a virgin-- one of the last ones in Beverly Hills, evidently. "I doubt that's something you'll ever find out, Cammie."
"Ooh, he shoots and scores," Cammie announced, sports commentator-style.
"Anyway, we already have plans after school," Anna added.
"All righty, then," Cammie singsonged. "We'll give our regards to your sister."
"My sister? What do you want with her?" Anna asked sharply.
"Anna, relax. We're going to the hotel, she's staying at the hotel, and we'll probably see her at the pool. What's the problem?" Cammie asked reasonably.
Anna's voice was stony. "I don't have a problem. She's just very fragile right now. I'd hope even you could understand that."
"She seemed fine last night," Cammie said with a shrug. "Whatever. So, have a blast later, you two, wherever you're going."
Anna stared at Cammie and Dee, shaking her head as they departed.
"Your sister's in town?" Adam asked as they headed for his locker.
Anna's face seemed to darken. "It's complicated."
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Adam wasn't sure if this was Anna's way of inviting him to probe further or her polite way of telling him to mind his own business.
But before he could find out more, the first-period bell rang.
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The Perfect Intern
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
Anna reread the line from F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous series of essays called The Crack-Up for perhaps the tenth time. Mrs. Breckner had allowed her to spend English class in the library so she could work on her Gatsby project.
The words were captivating--Anna knew that they could be the jumping-off place for her short film ... but she still didn't know exactly how they'd translate to the screen. Fitzgerald, Anna figured, had been referring to the dualities in his own life that he'd applied to Jay Gatsby-- the loving and hating of money, the attraction to the life of the very rich and the repulsion at its hypocrisy. It made Anna wonder about herself and her own dualities, but not in a way that had anything to do with money or lifestyle. It was more like the opposing ideas of Ben and Adam and how they fit into her life. Which had nothing to do with the script she was supposed to be writing. Unless--
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What if ... her script was about a wealthy girl struggling with her identity? On the one hand, she longed for a passionate, dangerous adventure--Ben. But on the other, she sought the comfort of a safer relationship-- Adam. The girl would be caught between two boys. She could work in the Palm Springs spa background footage as a way of fleshing out the world of her protagonist and show the dualities of the cult of wealthy self-absorption at the same time.
I like it.
Anna began to type away on her laptop. Sam had given her a bunch of screenplays by famous Hollywood writers-- Piper's Dream, among them--and some special software, so she knew what she wrote would at least look professional. The character names Alana, Berkeley, and Aaron flew into her head--she had no idea why. Soon she was lost in her own story--Alana at a Hollywood party like the ones Anna had attended on New Year's Eve, courted first by Berkeley, then by Aaron, unable to make up her mind about who to leave with.
It wasn't until the final bell rang that Anna looked up from her laptop. She backed up what she'd written and went to meet Adam in the student parking lot, as they'd agreed. If it hadn't been for her appointment at Apex, she would have been happy to stay in the library and continue writing.
Adam looked so cute, leaning against her Lexus, waiting for her. She was so giddy over her idea for the script that she impetuously gave him a light kiss on the lips.
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"Nice to see you, too," he said, grinning.
As Anna pulled out of the parking lot, going toward Wilshire Boulevard, she bubbled over with ideas about her screenplay. It just felt so good to be excited again about something that didn't involve guys--except on the page, of course.
"I realize it's only a short," Anna said as she headed toward Westwood Boulevard. "But it's exciting to think that I'll actually get to see it filmed. Sam said we can use her father's editing room."
"Cool. I guess this means we're not going to San Diego this weekend, though."
"You should come out to the desert," Anna said. "That is, if you want to. You can meet my sister--she's coming, too."
"You were going to tell me about her," Adam reminded her.
Anna nodded, then hesitated.
"Highly evolved guy that I am, I sense that something's wrong," Adam said. "Is it about your sister?"
Anna knew it was ridiculous, but she couldn't bring herself to open up. "I'll tell you about it some other time," she said lightly. Then she opened the center console between her seat and Adam's--it was full of CDs. When Django had seen that her father had leased her the Lexus, he'd brought over an eclectic assortment of music--Anna hadn't even heard of most of the artists. She pointed to the CDs. "Pick something. Loud."
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Adam held up a CD. "Coldplay. Check it out." He popped the music into the player; a gut-wrenching ballad filled her head and her car. She told him to crank it up to drown out her tumbling thoughts.
> Minutes later they pulled into the underground lot at the corner of Westwood and Le Conte, directly below the building that housed the Apex office. One of the city's ubiquitous valets took her car, and she and Adam rode the elevator to the main lobby, which was enormous. The windows went from floor to ceiling, and tall plants encircled the entire space. From the middle of the ceiling hung a huge Lichtenstein painting, and all the furniture was chrome. She felt like she was on the set of some futuristic movie from the 1960s. Anna signed in with security and was given a visitor's tag, which she promptly shoved into her pocket.
"Look, I know this neighborhood. I'll go get coffee at Jerry's Deli. It's right around the corner. Come meet me when you're done," Adam offered.
"I'm sure there's a reception area where you can wait."
"Nah. You should go up alone. Good luck."
"Thanks." Anna took the elevator to the twelfth floor, where it opened into a spacious foyer that still smelled of wet paint. A stunningly beautiful young woman with cropped black hair and green eyes sat with headphones on behind a massive circular desk. "Good afternoon, Apex, hold, please. Good afternoon, Apex ... I'll transfer you. Good afternoon, Apex, hold, please."
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Then, letting the phones ring for a few moments, the girl looked up at Anna. "Yes?"
"I'm Anna Percy. I have an appointment at three o'clock to see Margaret Cunningham."
The girl pushed a button on her console and spoke into her headset briefly before turning back to Anna. "She'll be right with you. May I get you anything? Coffee? A Coke? Bottled water?"
"No thanks." Anna took a seat on a low-slung gray leather couch and glanced at the trade papers on an end-table: Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Publishers Weekly. A travel magazine caught Anna's eye. On the cover was a Mediterranean-style inn on a windswept beach. Just looking at it made Anna feel more relaxed. She flipped open to the article. The Montecito Inn. In Santa Barbara, about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. Built by Charlie Chaplin to accommodate his visiting friends. It looked so peaceful, so serene. Anna could picture herself walking the beach, her jeans rolled up, listening to the ocean. For a big-city girl, she was inordinately fond of non-big-city places.
