American Beauty

by Zoey Dean

  A young Asian bartender with a pierced lip and black-on-black clothes pushed Sam her drink. She thought of all the reasons that Clark might be at the Beverly Hills Hotel, 99 percent of which had to do with him cheating on his aging actress wife, but kept silent. Cammie needed support now, not a reality check. She tasted her Mudslide. Outstanding. Maybe the rum was what gave her the inspiration, if not the courage, for what she said next.

  “I’m going to help you.”

  “Right.” Cammie cleared her throat dubiously. “You’re going to airdrop down the chimney into his bungalow?”

  “No. There was another person on the boat the night your mom died. Remember?”

  “Your mother. Who told the police she had sex with my dad on the boat. I know the whole story—I told you, for God’s sake.” Cammie drained her glass. The bartender motioned like he was ready to make her another, but she shook her head.

  “Maybe we don’t know the whole story,” Sam reasoned.“Maybe my mom didn’t tell the cops everything.”

  “Sam. Think. You haven’t spoken to your mother since the twenty-first century. She lives who-the-fuck-knows-where. What makes you think she’s ready to spill her guts to Dominick Dunne? Or to you?”

  Good point.

  “I wonder if she realizes I’m about to graduate from high school?” Sam pondered. “Or going to film school at USC?”

  Cammie offered a shrug. “How could she possibly know? You didn’t tell her. Your father didn’t tell her. She doesn’t get the school newspaper, and somehow I doubt that she’s a regular reader of your father’s Web page of family news. Do you even know where she is?

  “No. But I’m going to find out. I’ll hire someone to find her. And then, I’m—we’re—going to talk to her.”

  “We are?”

  “Yes. Okay, so the bitch doesn’t give a shit about me,” Sam went on. “Fine. Got the memo. But she was with your mom the night she died. I say she owes you an explanation.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  Sam couldn’t believe it—Cammie’s tone was reasonable. No, not reasonable. Grateful and appreciative. It reminded her of when they were little girls, and Cammie had been afraid to swim underwater despite months of lessons at the Riviera Country Club. Sam recalled how Cammie had been playing with one of her mother’s necklaces in the Sharpes’ enormous backyard pool. Suddenly, the necklace had slipped from her grasp and settled like the Heart of the Ocean diamond on the bottom of the pool. Sam had offered then to do a surface dive and retrieve it. It seemed like Cammie had said the exact same words in response. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Sam replied now, as she had then.

  “I don’t deserve that kind of loyalty.”

  “Cam, come on. We’ve been best friends forever.”

  Cammie played with the stem of her glass. “I don’t exactly excel at it. Friendship, I mean.”

  Sam waved a dismissive hand. “Whatever. Neither do I.”

  “Can you handle two favors in one night?” Cammie bit her lower lip.

  “Just call me Sam of Arc. What do you need?”

  “Are you busy in the morning?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well.” Cammie motioned to the bartender for two more drinks. “Now you are.”

  Sun Rising in the West

  “Stay with him,” Cammie instructed. They were roaring down the 405 freeway south, tailing Clark Sheppard, who was on his way to work at the set of Hermosa Beach. “Gray 2003 BMW Z8 convertible, two red roll bars in the back, California vanity plates that say CS APEX. Got it?”

  Sam took a sip of the double espresso double latte with Splenda from the Beverly Hills Coffee Bean that Cammie had handed her when she’d picked her up at 7 a.m.

  “Got it.”

  When Cammie had asked her the night before to drive to the Beverly Hills Hotel that morning so that she could follow her father—the goal being a confrontation—Sam had readily agreed. Cammie had found herself feeling grateful to her friend for the second time that evening. This was unusual; perhaps even unprecedented—it helped make up for the many months during which Cammie had thought she was losing her best friend to that snotty East Coast bag of bones known as Anna Percy.

  Sam, indeed, had it covered. She stayed right behind Clark’s car in her Hummer from the freeway to Manhattan Beach, and then from Manhattan Beach onto the Strand of Hermosa Beach, with its peculiar mix of surf shops, restaurants, and boutiques. Hermosa Beach was beautiful; the blue waters of the Pacific beckoned invitingly. Cammie, though, was a woman on a mission.

  “The set for his show is ahead on the right.”

  “Cammie, I know.”

  They reached the small white hotel that was the main location as well as the production office for Hermosa Beach, the hour-long drama that had premiered this season to excellent ratings. Clark’s agency had packaged it—they were responsible for the whole show, from show runners to writers to talent. As a result, they collected an even heftier agency fee than the normal 10 percent. Clark treated Hermosa Beach like it was his own. He loved to hang out in the writers’ room, helping to fashion future episodes.

  “Let him pull in alone,” Cammie decided quickly.

  “And?”

  “I want him in a room. Cornered. No way out.”

  A few minutes later, after her father had parked his car, Cammie told Sam to pull into one of the parking spaces at the far end of the Hermosa Beach lot. The main entrance to the hotel was used only for filming; everyone else entered and exited via a side door protected by a flimsy green awning. They made their way to this side door. Just inside was a security desk, where a single balding guard with a pencil stuck behind his ear drummed his fingers on a Lucite clipboard.

  “Cammie Sheppard,” she announced with a dimpled smile. “My father forgot some papers.”

  She tapped her oversized cream Balenciaga bag, which contained nothing but a Too Faced face palette in Beach Bunny, a bubble-gum-pink Fendi wallet, and a ribbed Trojan condom. But the guard didn’t know that.

  “Go on back,” he told Cammie. “Your dad’s in the writers’ room.”

  “Thank you.” Cammie could feel her heart race, but she knew she could pull off nonchalance. “Hey, why don’t you wait for me by the beach? This’ll only take a minute.”

  “Sure thing,” Sam replied, then mouthed a silent good luck.

  Cammie knew the set well—she left the guard’s desk behind and strode down a hallway that opened into the hotel lobby. Dressed to film, the lobby was decked out in beachy, white-blond wood furniture and cheerful puffy yellow cushions. A white baby grand piano stood in a corner near a Moroccan fireplace that looked real but was the handiwork of the production designer. Cammie had been here when huge lights blasted the room, and actors, makeup magicians, and techies with boom mikes scuttled around between takes.

  Today, though, there was no filming. She felt like a ghost haunting the scene of its own demise.

  The writers’ room was on the other side of the building, in the wing that had been converted into production offices. Just as she was leaving the lobby, she tripped over a thick bundle of cables snaking across the hardwood floor. Her coral Dolce & Gabbana stiletto flew off her foot; she angrily scooped it up and slammed it back on before she strode into another corridor.

  “Cammie, is that you?” An over-chipper British voice rang out from one of the offices that lined both sides of the hall. It was her father’s new assistant, Alleister,he of the good diction and pretentious spelling. “Come in for some coffee—I’ve got your favorite vanilla mocha beans. They’re simply divine. I can brew a fresh pot—”

  “By all means do that, Alleister,” Cammie cooed, but shot by without stopping, her strawberry blond curls springing with each furious step. Two more doors and she’d be at her destination. The one she wanted was unmarked, with a chipped doorknob.

  She squared her shoulders, then burst inside.

  A small guy with a big nose, an oversized
gray sweatshirt, and a dirty L.A. Lakers baseball cap was addressing the room—Danny Bluestone, young wunderkind co-exec producer of HB. Single-minded as she was, Cammie still remembered Anna having had a brief flirtation with Danny during one of her off periods with Ben. No shocker there. Anna seemed to have had brief flirtations with everyone.

  All eyes in the room—the seven-person show writing staff, plus Clark—turned toward Cammie, although Danny didn’t stop talking. Writers’ rooms had a reputation for being the most profane locations in America, and Danny was underscoring that rep as he waved a green dry-erase marker for emphasis.

  “All right. Let’s look at the story outline. Fucking Alexandra is trying to ruin Chyme for revenge. I ask: Who the fuck cares? Where’s the fucking romance? This is a nighttime soap, so I’ll repeat: Where’s the fucking romance? Want to know what our watchers are asking? ‘What’s on the fucking OC?’”

  Danny stopped talking; the room fell silent. Cammie took everything in: the writers, in their late twenties and thirties, sleep-deprived and rumpled; a token female writer (they were always either drop-dead gorgeous or lesbians who had Hollywood Gay Mafia clout, or both). Whiteboards covered in episode beats lined the walls. The center table was a mess—littered with old takeout containers, candy wrappers, and half-consumed bottles of Dasani. Anna saw Danny give Clark a curious look.

  “Cammie?” her father inquired calmly, raising his dark eyebrows slightly in annoyance. He leaned back in a Herman Miller Aeron metal-and-mesh chair, with his black A. Testonis by Norvegese shoes up on the table. He was dressed more casually than usual, in gray slacks and a pink Budd’s sport shirt with French cuffs. “This must be important, since you’re interrupting a staff that makes roughly ten million dollars a season.”

  “Father.” She was deliberately formal. “I need to talk to you.”

  “After this meeting.”

  “Now.” You’ve taught me well, Dad. I’ve learned from the best. “Dad, you’ve given me no choice.” Cammie felt the venom pump through her. “You’ve ignored me, avoided me, and hidden from me. Not today. I want some answers.”

  She took a step toward him, and saw that all the writers were now staring at her. No one challenged Clark Sheppard like this. They were watching the equivalent of the sun rising in the west and setting in the east.

  Good. Maybe you guys can learn something from me.

  “You. My mother. Sam’s mother.”

  “Cammie, I told you. Later. Go shopping on the Strand. I’ll take you to lunch, and we can talk as long as you’d like.” He grinned hard and looked at his writers for affirmation, but everyone just stared at him, dumbstruck. “All these people are witnesses.”

  Cammie folded her arms. “We can definitely do lunch. But we’re also going to do this. I know you were screwing Sam’s mother. The police report says you were all on the boat the night that mom died. So it’s time you told the truth. A simple yes or no will suffice. Did you kill Mom?”

  Vermicelli Silk Sheets

  Anna opened her eyes the next morning to find Ben staring into hers. He blinked quickly and then pulled away, as if he’d been caught doing something.

  “Well,” she mustered. “Good morning.”

  Did that sound faintly British? She winced at her own words.

  “Morning,” he mumbled, stretching out one long arm. His bare, tan, muscular chest beckoned. He’d slept last night just in his green Everglade-colored Patagonia Capilene boxers. The ones that had never come off.

  She moved closer—wary, tense. “What time is it?” The sunlight was streaming through the window.

  “Ten. You’re late for school.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “No class for seniors this week. We just had a final paper for humanities and—”

  “Let me guess. You turned it in last week.”

  “Last month, actually.”

  Because I wasn’t sure when you’d be home, she mentally added, not daring to say it aloud in light of their present state. I didn’t want to have to do it if you were home.

  He stroked her head. “I could definitely get used to waking up next to you.”

  As what, cuddly roommates?

  Anna wondered if she was overreacting. It was maddening not to know—surely every couple had a glitch now and then. But to sleep in the same bed and not have sex … it wasn’t like they’d been married for twenty years. She felt certain that if this was their first time, or if he was with a new girl to whom he was wildly attracted, he would not have been able to restrain himself the night before.

  And yet he had. Apparently, easily.

  “Got plans for today?” He ran his knuckles softly along the side of her neck, then shifted his weight so that his lips could brush hers.

  Now? Now suddenly he wanted to make love? Hadn’t she read somewhere that men preferred sex in the morning, while women preferred—

  That line of thought was interrupted by a sizzling kiss. She couldn’t help but respond. So … this meant everything was okay, didn’t it? They were good.

  She pulled him close and was gratified to hear him sigh in her ear. “Anna.”

  “Anna!”

  Another male voice—much louder—called from downstairs. “You home?”

  Damn.

  She pushed away from Ben, her stomach knotted under the dusty rose vermicelli silk sheets. “It’s my father.”

  “Oops?” he asked with a half-smile.

  Anna felt her cheeks growing red. “I have never been in this situation before. I don’t … I’m not …”

  “I’ll play it however you want,” Ben offered.

  “I’ll go downstairs and talk to him,” she decided, as she went to her closet and wrapped herself in a Ralph Lauren emerald silk robe.

  “Tell him he doesn’t need his shotgun. I’ll leave peacefully.”

  “Besides, you didn’t even get a chance to ravish me yet,” Anna pointed out in what she hoped was a light tone. As in: hint, hint. Then she headed out of her room and down the long, carpeted staircase with the polished brass banister.

  “Dad?”

  “Anna? I’m in the kitchen, sweetie!”

  Anna padded into the kitchen. Her father was at the table, nibbling on one of the rosewater brioches from Arminee’s Bakery on Rodeo Drive, flipping through the paper. He looked handsome; tall, lanky and boyish, and much younger than the midfortysomething Anna knew him to be. He wore black Ronin cargo pants and a Mongolian cashmere sweater in a rich camel that Anna remembered from when she was an elementary school student in Manhattan. The sweater reminded her of one of the many dictates in the apocryphal This Is How We Do Things Big Book: Don’t buy cheap.

  “Great to see you,” he said, motioning to an empty chair. “Coffee’s brewing—push the button on the Krups, will you?”

  She was hoping for an opening to mention her overnight visitor who was still upstairs. “I’d love some coffee. So would—”

  “I’m surprised you’re not in school,” Jonathan interrupted. “Or did you decide just to blow off the week before graduation? Come to think of it, that’s what I did.”

  A discreet chime signaled that the coffee was ready; Mimi, their cook, didn’t come in until eleven, and Consuela had the morning off.

  “No class this week.” She got out two of her dad’s new Laura Smith original hand-painted ceramic mugs—he’d had them done in a Wall Street theme, with huge bulls about to devour cowering bears—and poured them each a cup. Jonathan took his coffee black.

  “So what are you going to do with the day?”

  “I’m not sure.” Anna was suddenly nervous about telling him that she had a guy in her bedroom. “I was thinking that maybe—”

  “We’d drive up on the Angeles Crest highway toward Mountain High,” came a cheerful male voice from the doorway.

  Anna whirled. Ben stood—fully dressed, thank God—with his arms on the doorjambs. Smiling.

  Jonathan seemed to bide his time with a long sip of coffee. “Ben.”

&nb
sp; “Nice to see you again.” Ben eyed the Krups. “Mind if I have some?”

  Her father nodded, so Anna poured Ben some coffee. Meanwhile, he sat down, apparently as comfortable as if he was in his own kitchen. Then her dad’s gaze shifted from Anna, in her robe, to fully dressed Ben, and back again.

  He raised one cool eyebrow. “Nice to see you again, Ben.”

  Okay, that was good. Anna knew that with her father, you could never tell how he’d react. One day he was the hippie, pot-smoking, “call-me-Jonathan” dad; the next he was the uptight money manager in a six-thousand-dollar hand-tailored suit.

  “So.” Jonathan began in a conversational tone, “did you spend the night here with my daughter?

  “I did,” Ben acknowledged, setting his coffee on the table and looking her father in the eye.

  Silence. Anna felt sick to her stomach. She was about to get busted for bringing her boyfriend home for sex, when no such activity had even occurred.

  “I … I didn’t know you’d be home,” Anna stammered. “That is, I should have asked if … I mean—”

  “When I was your age, my parents would never have let me have a girlfriend stay over,” Jonathan recalled. “Of course, that was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.”

  “This isn’t a casual thing,” Ben explained. Anna felt him put a hand atop her forearm. The touch made her feel positively unsettled. It was the gesture of a lover. But were they still lovers?

  “I know that. You two met when? New Year’s? You’re doing better than two-thirds of the relationships in Los Angeles.”

  As Jonathan rubbed his chin—obviously considering the facts on the ground: that his younger daughter had brought a guy home for a sleepover—Anna studied him. He was a handsome man. His vivid blue eyes sparkled in his roguish, tanned face. Even the spiky haircut suited him. She’d never considered it before, but she realized now that he’d probably had a lot of girlfriends when he was her age. Was there someone before her mother who he had been madly in love with? What had his hopes been, his dreams? Strange, to think about your parents as real people.