American Beauty

by Zoey Dean

  “When we get back to my house, my dad should be there.” Cammie went on. “He’s not going to avoid me,” she reached up and grabbed Adam’s hand, which was resting over her shoulder. “Will you please, please help me?”

  Adam pulled the Saturn up to Clark Sheppard’s immense spread high in the hills of Bel-Air. It was so quiet—you couldn’t see or hear noise from another mansion from the parking area. His quick hug gave Cammie the strength to unlock the front door and tap the code into the security system.

  Moments later, they were inside—she went straight to the front living room, with Adam close behind. It was crammed with Louis XIV Bergere chairs and Finnish traveling trunks-turned-coffee tables, all atop a soft plush beige Berber carpet. Cammie didn’t expect to find her dad there, but his private home office was attached to the living room. That was her real destination, and the light was on under the door. A good sign.

  He hated to be disturbed when he was working, which was why Cammie didn’t bother to knock—just pushed open the big brass double doors.

  To her surprise, his brushed-stainless-steel desk chair was empty; the brass Levenger lamp turned to dim. Could her father actually have gone to bed? If so, he was losing his edge—what happened to the Clark Sheppard who read every draft of every script and watched more dailies than his directors?

  She gazed around. Nothing. No sign of life. Just a single page of paper sitting in the output tray of her father’s Xerox WorkCentre Pro 785 plain-paper fax machine.

  She went to it and read.

  The fax was on Apex Agency stationery. In fact, it had been addressed to her. After all the identifying crap at the top—the To/From/Re/Number of Pages—the message was a crystal-clear blow-off:

  Cammie Sheppard,

  Mr. Clark Sheppard arrived from Europe this evening as scheduled. However, due to his considerable workload, Mr. Sheppard asked us to inform you that he has checked into a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and under no circumstances is he to be disturbed.

  Many thanks,

  Alleister Blaise

  Personal assistant to Mr. Sheppard

  “Bullshit,” she declared.

  Adam asked what was going on; Cammie gave him the fax, with plenty of editorializing to boot. Her father had arranged a disappearing act so as not to have to deal with her; she was certain of it.

  “I’ll be right back,” she told Adam, distractedly. “Wait in the living room.”

  She sprinted upstairs to her closet, practically ripping off the clothes that she’d worn on the yacht. What does one wear when one goes to give one’s father hell? She opted for a pair of Imitation of Christ jeans, a tiny lemon-yellow vintage T-shirt she’d picked up with Adam at the Coachella festival in Palm Springs, and Swarovski-studded flip-flops.

  She was about to start back downstairs, but stopped to take a deliberate look at the half-finished wall mural of Charlotte’s Web, her favorite childhood book. Her mother had died before she could complete it. Cammie had insisted that the mural move from the bedroom of her old house into the mansion. Sometimes she would stare at it, trying to remember the soft sounds of her mother’s intonation of Wilbur, Templeton, and Charlotte.

  Now, hard as she tried, Cammie couldn’t remember that voice anymore.

  Her hands flew to where her heart would be if she had one—who could afford a heart when going toe-to-toe with Clark Sheppard, the meanest man in Hollywood? If she went with her heart instead of her head, she would lose and her father would win. Hearts were soft sometimes; they made mistakes. Cammie couldn’t afford to take that chance.

  One sign of a great hotel is that it’s just as busy at two o’clock in the morning as it is at two o’clock in the afternoon. The Beverly Hills Hotel was even busier—an endless line of cars and SUVs were waiting to pull into the valet roundabout. The three pink sandstone hotel towers were floodlit; tonight, the flagpoles displayed the flags of Ireland, Italy, and Israel, as well as the United States.

  Finally, Adam was able to edge the Saturn forward under the roundabout’s pink-and-white-striped canopy. A young uniformed valet with a white-blond buzz cut and startling blue eyes took the keys with the most supercilious of nods, somehow miffed that he’d even have to put a low-end vehicle like a Saturn in the parking area with all the Jaguars, Beemers, and Range Rovers.

  Adam took the claim ticket, then held Cammie’s elbow as they as they headed between the famous four columns and up the long red carpet that led to the double glass doors. “You’re sure …?”

  “Stop asking me that.”

  Cammie slapped a cool smile on her face and went through the pink-and-white lobby, with its elegant seating areas, massive art deco chandelier, and huge potted plants, to the understated front desk, Adam just a step behind her. A uniformed young woman greeted her with a warm “Welcome to the Beverly Hills Hotel. May I help you?”

  “Hello, Jara,” Cammie replied sweetly, reading the young woman’s name tag. Jara was very tall and slender, with a glossy chestnut brown bob. Obviously a wannabe model.

  Cammie tapped a quizzical finger against her lower lip, deciding how to play the scene. “Wait. Didn’t I see you in Vogue last month? Modeling that purple silk-charmeuse Proenza Schouler miniskirt?”

  The young woman’s face stretched into a glossy grin, showing off twin dimples. “I wish. I’m still shopping for an agent. How may I help you?”

  “Well, Jara, I’m Cammie Sheppard; my father, Clark Sheppard, is staying in one of the bungalows, and it’s urgent that I see him.”

  “One moment, please.” Jara crossed to her manager, a tan guy who bore a startling resemblance to a Ken doll. After a brief conference, she returned. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Sheppard has specified that no one is to disturb him.”

  Cammie grabbed the edge of the burnished walnut counter. “Maybe you didn’t hear me.” Her voice remained as calm as before. “I said I’m his daughter.”

  “I know. But he left very strict instructions.”

  “Oh, I see.” Cammie’s voice dripped gentle disdain. “So if I was being assaulted, or our house was burning down, or his wife was having a heart attack, you’d have to call his bungalow and leave a message on his voice mail?”

  “Cammie.” She felt Adam’s hand on her arm but shook him off.

  “Excuse me, but I’m having a little chat with Jara the wanna-be model. Now, where were we, Jara? Oh yes, you were about to tell me what bungalow my father is in.”

  Jara handed Cammie a heavy sheet of embossed hotel stationery. “May I suggest that you leave a note for him? I’ll have one of the house staff deliver it.”

  With a cold smile, Cammie methodically tore the paper into little pieces and let them rain down on Jara’s side of the desk. “Apex Agency gives this establishment hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in business. If you don’t give me that bungalow number, I assure you, not only can you forget about a modeling agent ever, but you’ll also end up working the night shift at the Holiday Inn.”

  Cammie saw Adam wince. Well, sometimes power was best applied discreetly, and then sometimes stronger measures were called for. Her father had taught her that lesson too.

  Jara nodded coolly. “We all admire your father. We respect him. Which is exactly why we are following his orders, not yours. Have a lovely evening.” With that, she politely smiled at the next customer, a Sikh gentleman in a turban. “Welcome to the Beverly Hills Hotel. How may I help you?”

  Cammie was floored—she always struck fear into the hearts of bartenders, bellhops, waiters—pretty much anyone low on the food chain. This bony-ass bitch was not going to thwart her plans. She tried to take Adam’s arm and start back into the lobby, but he didn’t move.

  “Well?” she challenged.

  “First of all, stop ordering me around. It’s ugly, nasty, bitchy, and pretty much all-around uncalled for. Are we clear?”

  Oops. Gone too far.

  “Sorry.” She put her hand on his. “I’m just upset. And … and I know what we have to do. The
re’s a path out back that leads to the bungalows.”

  “So?”

  “So we knock on doors until we find my dad.”

  Adam was incredulous. “Not happening, Cammie. Not at two in the morning because you’ve got an issue with your father.”

  Is that all he thought this was? An issue?

  “Fine. I can do this on my own.”

  “We don’t think so.”

  Suddenly, two house detectives in impeccable Ted Lapidus suits were on either side of them. One was tall and thin with a short silver brush cut; the other was not much taller than Cammie but half again as wide as Adam … and none of it was fat.

  “Miss, we think this would be a good time for you and your companion to go home,” the tall one suggested.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes, Miss Sheppard. Which is why we’re going to walk you to the door.”

  There was another lesson that Clark had taught her: Know when to retreat. It’s better than being bloodied on the battlefield.

  “Fine. We’ll take care it of this morning.”

  Five minutes later, they were on their way back to Bel-Air. As Adam drove, Cammie felt a wave of pure exhaustion and was just the tiniest bit ashamed for the way she had acted. Not toward Jara, that stupid bitch, but toward Adam. Why did she always turn on the one person who she was certain actually loved her?

  “Adam. I’m sorry.” Her voice was low, sincere. “I hate myself when I treat you like that.”

  “I’m not particularly fond of you at those moments, either.” After a silent beat that seemed to go on for an eternity, he relented. “You just had all this adrenaline built up to get into it with your father, and he thwarted you again. I got it.”

  “Tomorrow,” she vowed. “Well, later today. He can’t duck me forever.” She reached over and caressed the sexy blue star behind his right ear. “Right now I just want to get naked and get in bed. I need to take advantage of you before you go away to college.”

  “Hey, that isn’t for three more months. And it’s only fifty miles from here.”

  “Smart decision.”

  His lip tugged upward. “Is that about my choice of school, or about what I’m about to say?”

  “Both,” she responded.

  “In that case, yes.”

  Bohemian, Of-the-People Thing

  “This is it?” Jack stared dumbfounded at a nonde-script gray low-level building on a nondescript side street off Sunset Boulevard near Vermont Street—a scruffy neighborhood of auto body repair shops, adult bookstores, Mexican bodegas, and medical-supply distributors just across from Los Angeles Children’s Hospital. “This is supposed to impress people?”

  Dee opened up a small, discreet console on an exterior wall and punched in a numerical code. “The music industry is different than Hollywood,” she replied in her breathy voice. “It’s cooler to have that funky, bohemian, of-the-people thing. Wait till we’re inside.”

  It was the next afternoon, Sunday—a warm and beautiful June day. Jack and Dee were standing in front of a single locked door paneled in deeply tinted glass. The only identification on the door was four numbers and four peeling white letters: RON’S. Jack was having a hard time believing this was a famous recording studio.

  Last night, Dee had stayed with him in his tiny Santa Monica guesthouse. It had been blissful, as it had been every single time they were together. He still couldn’t fathom how fast and how deeply he’d fallen for her. Back at Princeton, he and Ben had been pretty much hound dogs, at least before Ben had met Anna.

  The last thing Jack had expected to happen to him on coming to Los Angeles was to meet a girl he cared about. But there was just something about Dee. She was so genuinely sweet, her innocence brought out the same protective instincts he had for his brain-damaged younger sister. Not that Dee was brain damaged—far from it—but she had the same lack of guile as Margie.

  This lack of guile was in stark contrast to her skills in bed, where she was anything but innocent. She’d confessed to him that many of her previous boyfriends had turned out to be gay, which had kind of led to her trying extra hard. He wasn’t complaining.

  “Funky, bohemian kinda thing,” Jack repeated. “Yeah, I’m down with that.”

  He chuckled, because what rich Los Angelinos knew about real working-class life was exactly nothing. Not like him. Take his own parents, for example: his pop worked the freight yards and barely made enough scratch to supply the family with Kraft mac and cheese. Jack wasn’t bitter about his background. In fact, he wore it as a kind of badge of honor, especially in this town. Oh sure, he had serious plans to create his own reality show and become very rich, very young. He knew he had the brains, and with his internship at Fox in the reality TV department, he’d soon have the connections to go with it. But he would never turn into one of them. He called them the richies. Pretentious pricks.

  A loud buzzer sounded, and Dee pulled the door open. “We’re in,” she announced happily, leading him down a stark gray corridor. “Are you sure you’re ready to meet my parents?”

  “As long as your dad won’t put me in a band. I already warned you about my singing.”

  “He won’t,” Dee grinned.

  “Then we’re cool.”

  It was a unique way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Dee’s father—a major record producer—had invited Dee, who had invited Jack, to a showcase for a new band called Evolution. Jack was a bit uncertain about the outing. Meeting the Girlfriend’s Parents seemed like a big-ass step. On the other hand, so far, so good. He hadn’t yet found himself with that nauseous fight-or-flight feeling he usually got when a relationship got too serious.

  The corridor was long; the walls were bright red and covered in signed album covers that had obviously been recorded at the studio. Dee explained that her father, Graham Young, had produced several of the old albums, but was now also moving into music management. He would be managing Evolution, as well as producing their first CD.

  They came to the end of the hallway; harsh fluorescent lighting showed that they had three choices: the left fork went to the recording studios and sound booths, the right to a kitchen, conference room, and administrative office. Straight ahead, beyond a sliding glass door, was an outdoor lounge with two long maroon picnic tables.

  Dee tugged him toward the conference room and kitchen. “Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour before we hear the band. And meet my parents!” She stopped a moment and nibbled at her lower lip. “Maybe I should have had Beloved do your chart before you met them. In case this is an inauspicious moment.”

  “Come again?”

  “Beloved. My mom’s assistant. Amazing astrologer. She knew Angelina Jolie was pregnant before Angelina did.”

  Huh? Every so often, Jack wondered if Dee was still just the teeniest bit … off.

  The conference room was no great shakes—boxes of files covered the entire surface of the portable folding table, two drum kits were disassembled in the corner, and a couple of electric guitars sat on swiveling chairs. “Not much,” Dee acknowledged. “You hungry? There’ll be a buffet where the band plays. Organic. Mom’s caterer is Mother Earth on Melrose—mung beans, tofu …”

  Jack shuddered. “I’ll take a big, fat pass on that one. I told you, back in New Jersey, as organic as my family got was Chef Boyardee.”

  “I know. I hope I did okay.”

  She walked him into a crowded kitchenette and pointed at a line of boxes and cans on the mosaic-tiled counter: SpaghettiOs with meatballs, Hostess Sno-Balls, and Little Debbie Zebra Cakes. This blew Jack away. They were the foods—the exact foods—he’d told her he’d loved as a kid.

  “I wanted you to feel at home here.” She smiled her giant smile and her cornflower-blue eyes lit up.

  “You are too much, girl.”

  She opened a can of SpaghettiOs and poured the contents into a plastic bowl, then popped the bowl in the microwave. Meanwhile, he studied the signed photos of famous musicians that lined the kitchen walls
. It was fascinating. Bebe Winans with a burrito, Bette Midler eating a Hawaiian pizza, Jello Biafra with a bowl of Jell-O, Rollins with a slice of pizza, the guys in Green Day holding up a large suckling pig. He had zero idea what that was about, but it was damn funny.

  Just as the chrome microwave chimed, a voice from behind them chirped, “Hello, you crazy kids!”

  The voice was soft, babylike—a dead ringer for Dee’s. Jack turned to see a tiny woman whose sleek blond hair hung perfectly down her back like Donatella Versace’s, only this woman had eye-skimming bangs. She had big, round, blue eyes that were just a tad googly, and a nose that was so small it was hard to imagine that it hadn’t, at some point, seen the pointy end of a scalpel. She was wearing bubble-gum-pink Cargo gloss, gobs of Lancôme bronzer, and a fuchsia Tory B tunic spangled with crystals, white Juicy Couture linen pants, and bare feet with French-manicured toes. She was about Dee’s height and had the same build plus twenty-five years and twenty pounds.

  Instantly, Jack knew who it was.

  “Hi, Cici!” Dee cried. It surprised Jack that Dee called her mother by her first name. “Wow, you look so cute!”

  “Thanks, honey; I hope you don’t mind. I nicked the threads from your closet. The tunic hides everything in the middle, thank God. I can hardly breathe in your pants. But after a couple more days on the fat flush diet, I’ll be skinnier than you. People will think I’m your older sister, not your mother.” She stepped toward Jack. “Well, you must be the guy I’ve been hearing so much about.”

  “Cici, this is my friend Jack Walker.” Jack relaxed visibly at the word friend. Dee hadn’t used the b-word. Boyfriend. “He just finished his first year at Princeton. He’s friends with Ben Birnbaum.”

  “Oh my God, Ben’s father is just the best plastic surgeon in the world,” Cici gushed. “I know women whose lives the man has saved. Saved.”