Girls on film: an A-list novel

by Zoey Dean

  She dropped her notebook into her backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then exited the classroom with everyone else. Adam was leaning against the lockers just outside the door. She'd been avoiding him all day.

  "Hey, stranger," he said, and gave her that sweet crooked smile. He fell in next to her and they headed down the hall. "Long time no see and all that. So, what's up?"

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  "Not much." Anna had a hard time making eye contact with him. "Want a ride home?"

  "Yeah, sure." He held the door open for her. It was a rare overcast, gloomy afternoon. Adam furrowed his brow. "Hey, are you all right?"

  "Yes. I've got a lot on my mind." She could hear how tense she sounded, how stilted.

  It wasn't until they were inside her car that he spoke again. She was about to turn the key in the ignition when he put his hand over hers to stop her. "It doesn't take a mind reader to figure out that something is up with you, Anna. If it has something to do with me ..."

  Anna stared at her hands in her lap. This was horrible. More horrible than she had even imagined it would be.

  "Oh, crap, it does have something to do with me," Adam said. He rubbed the star tattoo behind his ear.

  "You know how much I like you, Adam." Anna's voice was low and earnest. She forced herself to look at him. "You're one of the greatest guys I've ever met."

  "There's a big-ass 'but' coming, isn't there?" Adam guessed. "Something like, 'but Ben and I got back together.'"

  "No. We didn't."

  "Whew," Adam exhaled. "So what is it, then?"

  "I don't ... I'm not ..." Anna couldn't figure out a way to say this without hurting Adam, which was the last thing in the world she wanted to do. "I feel very confused about guys at the moment," she finally said. "I just don't think I can have a relationship right now."

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  "If I was going too fast--"

  "It's not that," Anna assured him. "I'm the one who kissed you, remember? I just think I need some time on my own. I care about you. A lot. And I don't want to hurt you ..."

  "Wait, you're breaking up with me so that you won't hurt me?" Adam asked. "That's not exactly logical."

  "Yeah," Anna agreed. She rubbed one finger across the steering wheel. "I am doing a terrible job of this. Ben ... hurt me. I'm not going to pretend he didn't. I was an idiot to let him hurt me, but ... it happened. And I think I need to get over that, and learn some things about myself, before I get into another relationship. Does that make any sense at all?"

  "Not really." Adam leaned his head back against the car door. "Damn! I mean, I know I should just say, 'Okay, cool, take all the time you need,' but frankly, that's not how I feel. It's not like we jumped into some hot and heavy--"

  "I know that. I just need some time alone. I'll go to the desert with Sam this weekend and try to sort things out in my head."

  "And how long will it take for you to 'sort things out in your head'?"

  "I don't know, okay?" Anna heard the sharpness of her tone. She hadn't expected Adam to push her like this. "At the moment I'm terrible girlfriend material, Adam. And that isn't fair to either one of us."

  Adam held his palms up. "What can I say?"

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  "I'm so sorry," Anna said, meaning it with all her heart. "I really do care about you. Maybe in the future--"

  "What am I supposed to do, wait around for your call?"

  "No. You should find a girl who deserves you. Because you are terrific."

  "Yeah, great," Adam muttered. "This is the world's nicest kiss-off." He ran a hand over his stubbly hair. "Do what you need to do, then."

  Anna nodded and started the car. She pulled out of the parking lot. In silence they headed for Adam's house. When she reached his driveway, he turned to her.

  "I'm not exactly proud of how I handled that, Anna. If you need some time alone, then you need some time alone."

  She felt like hugging him, he was such a sweetheart. Why couldn't she be madly in love with him? Why was her damn heart so utterly screwed up? "Thanks," she said. "For understanding."

  "So I'll take a lot of cold showers and we'll see what happens down the road." Adam got out of the car and came around to the driver's side. He spoke with Anna through the open window. "Bowser is going to take this hard, you know."

  Anna nodded. It was all she could manage. Adam gave her a half salute and she backed the car down the driveway. Adam was still watching her when she drove away. If she'd imagined that she'd feel better after breaking up with Adam, she'd imagined wrong. Because now

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  she felt worse than ever. Why did girls seem to obsess about guys so much more than guys obsessed about girls? Anna need to take her mind off Adam and Ben entirely and replace it with something that was about her instead of about them .

  She made a snap decision and turned right on Sunset Boulevard instead of left, which led to her father's house. She headed for the Beverly Hills Public Library. Research on her Gatsby script was just the thing to do, she decided. Maybe there were some essays on love and lust and limerence in Gatsby that would help her write her screenplay. She would simply throw herself into that project. Maybe it would turn out that she was a fabulous writer. She certainly knew enough about the subjects of life, love, lust, and limerence to do justice to a ten-minute film. At least when she was writing, she was in charge of what all the characters said and did.

  She'd just have to write herself her own happy ending.

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  Sloppy Thirds

  Sam Sharpe pawed through her closet--actually, an entire room off her bedroom suite--trying to decide what to take to the spa. The key was to find a bathing suit that accentuated the positive. And eliminated the negative.

  She had a black one from Calvin Klein with a small flounce at the bottom. It was great for covering up her thighs, but with the metal detailing, it made her look like Barbarella. There was always the less-is-more approach--sometimes showing more skin created an optical illusion. By diverting everyone's attention to the boobage, the flaws were often overlooked. Crap! It was already four o'clock, and she'd told Anna she'd pick her up at four-thirty to drive out to Palm Springs. With any luck, they'd beat the worst of the afternoon rush-hour traffic.

  What to wear, what to wear, what to wear? It was unlikely that there'd be any hot young single guys at Veronique's. Yes, there were the Indian casinos in Palm Springs and lots of golf courses. Casinos plus golf

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  equaled men. But Sam hated golfers--the clothes alone were enough to make you gag--and the casinos were strictly low-rent compared to, say, the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Low-rent casinos attracted low-rent men, and Sam had no interest in low-rent men. Or women.

  Or women ? What the hell made that little thought jump into her head? But she knew the answer--the four-letter A word. Anna . Okay. So she had a crush. It was cute, really. If little girls could get crushes on girls, then big girls could get crushes on girls. It didn't mean anything.

  As if to prove the point, she wrote a mental to-do list of hot guys. Well, there was Ben, of course, her first love. And then there was ... um ... let's see. The Pinelli brothers. They were both coming out to V's on Saturday morning to help with the film. Monty wasn't her type, but Parker was serious eye candy. Still, Sam suspected that he loved himself too much to give anyone else equal time.

  There had to be someone besides Ben. But weirdly, no one came to mind. She'd much rather give Anna a massage than have some sweaty, hairy guy she'd meet in the sauna try to stick his tongue in her ear and--

  Oh, shit. She'd rather give Anna a massage?

  She knew she had to get her mind on something else, so she concentrated on her packing. She tracked down the one swimsuit that she liked, by Gottex, plus jeans, shorts, and a selection of Versace and Pucci T-shirts, and threw it all into the ice-blue leather Coach

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  suitcase on her bed. Underwear, too. As she struggled with the zipper, her bedside ph
one rang.

  "Yuh?" she answered.

  "Hi, Sam, it's Anna."

  "Hi, Anna," Sam said, careful to keep her tone breezy. "What's up?"

  "I'm at my sister's bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So you won't need to pick me up at my father's house. We can meet you in the lobby."

  "Okay."

  "Are you sure you don't want to use two cars? Because it's not a problem. We can take Susan's Mustang."

  "Nah. Monty and Parker will schlep all of the equipment in the van. It'll be more fun for us all to drive out together. So, see you in a few."

  "Sam? I finished the script. I was up most of the night working on it."

  "Great." Sam tried to sound enthusiastic. "When do I get to see it? You really should have sent it to me for notes."

  "I can read it to you in the car on the way, if you want."

  "I'll just read it myself when we get there. Anyway, look for me in, like, half an hour."

  Sam hung up, nibbling at her lower lip. It was one thing to have a little crushette on Anna and quite another to become a cheerleader for her new screenwriting career. Every studio exec in Hollywood tried to make his bimbo girlfriend into a screenwriter or producer. It was

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  pathetic. Well, Sam had penned her own backup script just in case. It hadn't been hard. Rather than tell a complete story--hard to do in just ten minutes--it had occurred to her to do the whole thing in the style of an Entertainment Tonight fawning television feature on a Jay Gatsby-like character but with a shocking, Richard-Cory-put-a-bullet-through-his-head-like reveal at the ending. Edwin Arlington Robinson himself would have been proud. Yes, Sam would give Anna's script a listen. She hoped it was good. But chances were, it wouldn't be.

  Sam finished packing, loaded her suitcases into her dad's Cherokee, and headed to the hotel to pick up Anna and her sister. The traffic was manageable for once, so she got there at four-thirty, as advertised. Anna and Susan were waiting in front with their suitcases by the bellman's stand, which gave Sam a chance to check out Susan as she pulled up. Cammie had told Sam all about Susan, of course. According to Cammie, Anna's sister, Susan, was the poster girl for Party Hearty and had been in rehab more times than Whitney Houston. She certainly looked the part, in an artfully ripped black T-shirt, low-riding camouflage pants, and a black leather motorcycle jacket. She wore red lipstick and a lot of black eyeliner and bore a passing resemblance to Marilyn Monroe.

  So evidently Anna's big sis was going for a sex-bomb thing. It was working.

  As the bellman loaded the bags into the back of Sam's Jeep, Anna introduced Sam to Susan. Susan offered Sam

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  her hand. "Nice to meet you," she said in perfectly modulated, cultured tones that were at odds with her tough-girl appearance.

  Funny, Sam thought. You can take the girl out of the Upper East Side of Manhattan, hut you can't take the Upper East Side out of the girl . Or put it into the girl, for that matter, if she didn't have it. Some people tried, of course. But Susan and Anna were the real thing.

  Anna got in the front, Susan in the back, and Sam pulled onto Sunset Boulevard. As they headed toward the 101 freeway, Sam asked Susan whether she'd be interested in helping with the film.

  "Some school thing?" Susan asked disdainfully. "Definitely not."

  Sam was taken aback. Who the hell was Susan to dismiss it as some school thing? The person doing the "school thing" was in the process of becoming a really famous filmmaker. Besides--hel- l o--she was Jackson Sharpe's daughter.

  "Actually--is it Susan?" Sam called into the backseat. "A short of mine was on IFC last year, Susan," Sam said. "Maybe Anna mentioned that my father is Jackson Sharpe. He watches all my reels. So you never know."

  "I love your dad," Susan said. "Especially in The L ast Patriot. I think I've seen all of his movies."

  Ah, yes. Drop the magic name of Jackson Sharpe, and they always come running.

  "Thanks," Sam said, eyeing Susan in the rearview mirror. "So, changed your mind?"

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  "God, no."

  No? Sam wasn't used to "no." Usually everyone she asked to be in one of her films said yes. Even girls who hated her said yes. It was like some kind of Los Angeles disease, where everyone thought they were one break away from becoming a star. But Susan Percy couldn't care less. And now, Sam could see in the rearview mirror that Susan was underscoring her refusal by leaning back and closing her eyes.

  Well, to hell with that , Sam thought, eyeing Susan's I-wish-it-was-1977-and-I-was-dating-a-Sex-Pistol look. What music would annoy this girl the most? She rooted around under her feet for a CD, found an old Frank Sinatra disc that her father adored and she detested, and popped it in. The familiar repeating five-note intro to "New York, New York" blasted through the Cherokee.

  Sam checked the rearview mirror. Susan's eyes opened for the briefest second, then closed again.

  Touché.

  Actually, this was a Sinatra song that Sam actually liked. At Ben's bar mitzvah the band had played this song, and Ben had danced with her to it. It was a nice memory.

  "You like this music?" she asked Anna.

  "Not much," Anna admitted.

  "It's my dad's," Sam confided. "My pubescent stepmother likes to sing to him. It's aural torture. You know how the Pop-Tart got her start in the business?"

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  "No."

  Sam changed lanes--they were approaching the freeway entrance--then turned the music down. "She was a junior at Santa Monica College, and some guy saw her running on the median of San Vicente Boulevard and told her she could be a star. She moved in with him, and he cast her as a runaway in Against Their Will for Showtime."

  Sam glanced at Anna, who looked completely preoccupied, then back at the road. She realized that she'd been babbling as nervously as if the two of them were on a first date. "I have no idea why I'm telling you this. It's boring, I know."

  "Sorry," Anna said. "I was just thinking about this party I have to attend late Sunday afternoon for my internship at Apex. I'm supposed to take a new client of theirs."

  "The Steinberg thing? I know all about it. I'll be there, too," Sam said.

  "What an incestuous little world this is," Anna commented.

  "Like it's any different where you come from. Same turds, different bowl."

  "You're right," Anna acknowledged. She turned toward her sister in the backseat. "You're coming to the party with me tomorrow, right?"

  "I'm still suffering through the fact that the pretentious little twit got famous," Susan said without opening her eyes. "God, he used to wheeze when he kissed me. Talk about gross."

  "I'll take that as a yes," Anna said.

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  Sam wanted to continue the discussion, but Anna closed her eyes. A few minutes later she was asleep. She looked so calm and peaceful that Sam couldn't bear to interrupt her slumber. So she just shut up and drove.

  To Anna, the three-hour drive to the desert seemed endless. She mostly dozed fitfully, wondering if she'd done the right thing by calling a halt to things with Adam. She could still see the hurt on his face. Susan slept through most of the ride, and Sam listened to music that Anna really didn't like. But they'd finally reached the outskirts of Palm Springs and were driving between the two huge expanses of power-generating windmills that spread out along both sides of the freeway. There were hundreds of them, illuminated by floodlights, spinning madly in the gusty desert wind. Interspersed were billboards for Indian casinos.

  "Casino Morongo." From the backseat a just-awakened Susan read one of the billboards aloud. "We should blow the spa tomorrow night and hit it."

  Anna tensed. Here we go again.

  "That's not really a good idea, Sooz."

  "Jeez, Anna, I can drink Red Bull or something. I just got out of rehab," Susan added for Sam's benefit.

  Anna wished Susan had kept that last comment to herself. There was a time when Susan was even more private than Anna.

  "What's the biggie?" Sam asked
, noticing Anna's reaction. "Half the people I know are in rehab. The

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  other half just got out." She checked her side-view mirror and then shifted smoothly into the passing lane.

  An exaggeration, obviously, but Anna thought it was kind of Sam to take such a sanguine attitude.

  "Tell me about it," Susan agreed. "So, you up for some fast dice and fast boys, Sam?"

  Sam's eyes flicked to Anna, then back to the road. She sensed Anna's discomfort over her sister being in such an alcohol-soaked environment as a casino. "You know, Susan, let's just hang at the spa. People kill to get a reservation at V's. You should take advantage of it. And the massages are awesome."

  "You can get a good massage anywhere." Susan leaned forward and tugged on a lock of Anna's hair. "Come on. Let's have fun. It'll help you get Flower Boy out of your system."

  Anna's stomach clutched. Too late, she realized she should have told her sister not to mention anything about Ben or Adam to Sam--that Sam seemed to be oddly obsessed with Anna's love life.

  In the old days she could have counted on Susan's discretion. These days discretion wasn't even in her sister's vocabulary.

  "Flower Boy?" Sam echoed.

  "Yeah, it's wild," Susan told Sam. "The guy sent Anna hundreds of roses."

  "Adam Flood?" Sam guessed.

  "Ben something," Susan filled in. "I hear he's an ass."

  "Ben?" Sam echoed, incredulous. She took her eyes

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  off the road and looked at Anna. "I thought you guys were done. He sent you flowers from Princeton?"

  "Um ... he might still be in Los Angeles," Anna murmured, trying desperately to think of a way to change the subject without being obvious.

  Sam gripped the wheel tightly now and stared straight ahead. "I guess he wants you back."

  Anna shrugged. Sam seemed really intense about this, and she had no idea why. Was it just on behalf of Cammie? She decided to change the subject. "Let's talk about our film, okay? I can read it to you--"