American Beauty

by Zoey Dean

  “We can’t go on meeting like this,” he murmured.

  She rose, turned, and stood on tiptoe to drape her arms around his neck. “Yes, we can.” They kissed again. “Who let you in?”

  “A short, round woman who told me she was the housekeeper. She’s wearing an Evolution T-shirt with a photo of an ape morphing into a man on the front.”

  “The cover of Evolution’s first CD. My mom designed it. A huge box came by FedEx. My dad said to give you one. Isn’t it cool?”

  “Sure,” Jack agreed, tugging Dee toward the bed. “But why is the maid wearing one?”

  “Oh, my parents asked all the staff to wear them,” Dee said breezily. Jack plopped backward onto her satin pea-green quilted bedspread and ivory silk-sheathed pillows and Dee nuzzled on top of him. “He likes the publicity to trickle down to all segments of the city.”

  Jack laughed. “You’re such a snob. ‘All segments of the city’? Is that why I get one? Am I a segment?”

  “You’re an up-and-coming star producer of reality TV,” she reminded him.

  “Not unless I can keep my hands off you long enough to work on my pilot.” He smiled, caressing her lower back.

  “You are going to do amazing things,” she kissed him lightly. “I know it.”

  He arched a brow. “To you?”

  “Yes,” she giggled, “but that’s not what I meant. I meant in TV.”

  She lay on her back and he propped himself up on an elbow. “Do tell.”

  “Most of the kids I know don’t have to work at anything,” Dee continued, “because they’re already rich and have great connections. But you …”

  “Us poor and humble working folk,” Jack teased.

  “Nothing can stop talent and brains like yours, Jack.”

  He studied her face in wonder. “How did I get so lucky?”

  Dee frowned, unsure. “What?”

  “You.”

  She caressed the stubble on his chin. “It’s funny, you know. I’m not like … ambitious. Maybe that’s why I admire it so much in other people.”

  “There must be something you want, Dee.”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, consistent sanity. That’s one.”

  “What else?”

  What did she want? She so rarely asked herself that question.

  “Honestly?” she paused for a few seconds. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, when you figure it out, I’d love to hear it.” He meant what he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m into you for more than your hot little body, my dear,” Jack explained, his hands slipping dangerously close to the edge of her gold pleated Reiss miniskirt. “Nice outfit you have on.”

  Dee smiled. This was ground upon which she felt supremely comfortable. She’d worn the skirt, along with a burgundy Valentino tank scattered with golden seed pearls, specifically for this occasion. Under it was a white Cosabella mesh thong.

  “You like?”

  “A lot, Now … up, girl.” He lightly pushed her off of him.

  Dee rolled over and sat up, surprised. “But my parents are out for drinks with the band’s new publicist. I thought we were going to …” She eyed her bed meaningfully.

  “We are.” Jack rose and beckoned Dee toward the door. “I saw your list.”

  She stepped toward him. “And?”

  “And …” Jack backed slowly toward the door. “Very nice. Now let’s improve it. We’re going out.”

  Dee grabbed her purse and they headed downstairs and outside to Jack’s car, a green Ford Taurus from the late 1990s. With its New Jersey plates and last-millennium pedigree, it was a vehicle sure to attract disdain from most Los Angelenos. Dee, though, found it charming and unpretentious.

  As Jack pulled out of the driveway, he pressed a Coldplay CD into the sound system. Dee giggled. “Jack?”

  He’d motored the car to the edge of her triple-wide driveway and was about to move onto Elvarado. “Hmmm?”

  She leaned over and kissed him. Then kissed him again, this time with more intensity. Then their hands were all over each other. “Want to add ‘in the backseat of my boyfriend’s car at the bottom of the driveway’ to my list?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Anyone can put ‘backseat of the car’ on their list, Dee. I’m thinking bigger. Like, say, what would you think of the H in the Hollywood sign?”

  So this was what it was like. To be sane and healthy, in lust and love with a boy who felt the exact same way about her. It was as if she’d been behind a huge rain cloud, or stuck in some sort of fog for years and years; but now the fog had lifted, and at long last she could see the sun, feel it shining on her, arcing across her life in a delicious, shimmering rainbow. This was what happiness felt like.

  “Brainstorm with me,” Sam urged Cammie, as they lowered themselves into the sumac-and-rose-scented water that filled the new redwood hot tub on the deck off the upper bar in the rear of the estate’s main house.

  Sam’s gagworthy stepmother, Poppy, had recently exchanged the old Cal Spa hot tub for this new redwood one because their most recent decorator, Mallory Tsu Goldfarb, had insisted that, according to the principle of feng shui, this spot needed to become Poppy’s serene space, redone in her baby Ruby Hummingbird’s signature color—red. Then Mallory had charged high six figures to have the tub put in, the deck designed in redwood, and the adjoining walls repainted in an abstract concoction of vermillion, cranberry, and radish.

  Supposedly, the redecoration meant that Poppy could bring the baby out here so she could quiet and renew both of their spirits. Sam was certain this was a crock of high-priced shit, not that anyone—least of all her father, the actual owner of the estate—cared what Sam thought. But anyway, along with the hot tub, out had gone the “old” furniture (Sam remembered when it had arrived eighteen months before, courtesy of a different decorator) and in had come the new—mostly redwood chaises covered in red velvet cushions. The cushions weren’t weatherproof, but to Poppy Sinclair-Sharpe, things as insignificant as patio cushions were easy come, easy go.

  A long, polished bar ran along the near wall, stained deep crimson a day before by a team of woodworkers from San Diego. Seven tall bar chairs were lined up like obedient soldiers, each crowned with a velvet cushion anchored to the legs with four garnet brooches flown in from India. On the other side of the hot tub, a redwood planter exploded with wild poppies and wild-looking American Beauty roses.

  An enormous redwood patio table displayed the remains of a dinner feast for two, all in varying shades of red: rare Argentinean steaks, chilled gazpacho, and roasted bell peppers stuffed with toasted walnuts and drizzled in a raspberry vinaigrette. A matching wine-colored linen umbrella stood still in the night air. Every imaginable surface was sprinkled—no, heaped—with rose petals: the bar, the chaises, the latticed side tables. Even the water in the hot tub had to be scented with red-colored flower essences.

  Complaining to Jackson would have been an exercise in futility. Jackson had married young Poppy on New Year’s Eve, and even after six months, Sam found their marriage just as painful as she had on their wedding night. Well, not quite as painful, since that night Sam had been forced to wear a bridesmaid dress that she was certain Poppy had chosen to make her look like shit.

  She splashed one hand through the fragrant, bubbling water. That very morning, Poppy had made an inane comment about how they were “really becoming a family” and how she hoped she and Sam could soon share some mother-daughter bonding moments. It had taken all of Sam’s self-control not to spill her coffee on the bitch. For one thing, Poppy was only a few years older than her, and for Sam to be her daughter, Poppy would have had to begin puberty in kindergarten.

  For another thing, Sam had a real mother; “real” being in significant air quotes, since said real mother seemed to have forgotten that she existed. Anxiety welled when Sam thought about how she’d hired the private detective. At the time, it had seemed like the right thing to do. A day later, she wasn’
t so sure. When someone didn’t want you, they didn’t want you. Her mom. Eduardo. Sam was used to being able to use fame, money, and power to get most anything she wanted, yet she couldn’t find a way to get the two people she wanted—needed—most.

  At least she and Cammie had the deck and the den to themselves this lovely, hazy night in Bel-Air. Her father was on location in Rome for his remake of Ben-Hur. Poppy had taken little Ruby Hummingbird to a girls-only party at the Coldwater Canyon home of a friend on one of the ABC soaps. The pregnant soap actress was throwing this soiree to show the DVD of her sonogram, followed by a late night dinner of egg-themed foods—egg salad, caviar, etc. Sam had seen the little egg-hatching-a-baby-shaped invitation on the white marble table in the front foyer.

  Sam reached over the edge of the hot tub, where she and Cammie had brought out Bloody Marys made with Flagman vodka and fresh-squeezed tomato juice. She hoisted hers at Cammie. “Brainstorming inspiration. Want another?”

  Cammie shrugged. “Depends what we’re brainstorming. What we’re going to do to Stefanie at her party to pay her back for her indignities?”

  “We can figure that out tomorrow. I was thinking about Eduardo.”

  “Just keep in mind that you have to finesse this in exactly the right way. You can’t just go around doing shit to make him think that he has the power in this situation. You have to make him think he’s chasing you, not the other way around.”

  Sam’s eyes flicked over Cammie’s flawless body in her teeny-tiny bikini; a baby-blue Dior triangle top edged in silver-tipped lace, and low-cut matching boy shorts that showed more ass than they covered. It was so much hotter than her own aqua Moontide bandeau one-piece. Oh sure, it was easy for Cammie to make such sweeping statements. If she looked in a bikini like Cammie looked in a bikini, Eduardo probably would have pushed Parker out of the way on the beach that night and kissed her himself.

  Then the healthy part of her psyche bitch slapped the insecure part. Yeah, right. Eduardo loved her just the way she was. Well, he had, anyway. Losing weight and magically having her fat calves turn thin would not change anything.

  “But he does have the power,” Sam admitted. “We both know it. I’m the one who fucked up what we had—”

  “Oh please. It was prom night. Besides, kissing Parker is not fucking Parker. Someone needs to tell Eduardo that this is not some cheesy telenovella.”

  Sam gave her a disgusted look. “What would Adam do if he walked in on you kissing Parker?”

  “I don’t know. Laugh?”

  “No, he’d be pissed. Wouldn’t you feel horrible if you hurt him like that?”

  Cammie leaned her head back against the lip of the tub, careful to lift her curls over the edge so that they stayed dry. She closed her eyes. “I hurt Adam all the time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t even know why I do it.” Cammie peered at Sam through the gloom of the evening. “Sometimes I wonder … what I would be like if my mom hadn’t died? I mean, maybe I’d be exactly the same bitch I am, but … you know … maybe not.”

  Sam’s heart clutched. “At least you know your mom would be with you if she could, Cam. But my mom …”

  “We’re getting maudlin here, Sammikins,” Cammie sang out.

  “I know, Cammiekins,” Sam sang back. She was right. Enough with wallowing in this shit. Gawd, it was all just too depressing. If her mother didn’t want to be in her life, didn’t care enough to even pick up the phone, send a card, an e-mail, a fucking IM, then fuck her.

  “What have you heard from your dick?” Cammie asked.

  “I don’t have a dick. Not even Eduardo’s anymore.”

  “I believe ‘dick’ is slang for detective, silly girl.”

  “I’ve heard nada,” Sam admitted. “All I know is that your father was doing my mother. Ew. But everyone has sex with everyone in Beverly Hills—that’s no reason to get out of Dodge.”

  “Good point,” Cammie agreed, and poured herself another Bloody.

  “Maybe the whole thing with my mother makes me more insecure with Eduardo,” Sam mused. “You know. Abandonment issues.”

  “Jeez, you really need to cut back on those sessions with Dr. Fred.”

  Sam nudged her foot into Cammie’s leg. “I love Eduardo. Isn’t that worth fighting for?”

  “Sure, to prove that you can win. But don’t think that if you do win, it’s gonna be forever.”

  “It’s a little late for that, for both of us,” Sam teased. Cammie didn’t crack a smile. “Come on, Cam. I know you don’t believe that. If you did, why would you stay with Adam?”

  Cammie let her toes float to the surface of the water. “I ask myself that all the time.”

  “You love him.”

  “Sometimes,” she allowed. “And sometimes I wonder what the point is. We’re going to break up eventually. Everyone always does. My parents. Your parents. Look at our friends’ parents, The only ones who are still on their first marriages have so much Prozac in their systems, they should wear prescription bottles.”

  “Come on,” Sam told her friend. She didn’t let herself think it, much. But she had to admit to herself that—every so often, usually late at night when she was all by herself—she’d definitely considered the notion of her and Eduardo forever. “You’re only saying that because of what’s going on with your father.”

  “No. I’m saying it because it’s true.” Cammie hoisted herself out of the tub and padded over to the redwood stand of fluffy six-hundred-thread count fuchsia-and-bloodred Ralph Lauren damask towels, took one, and used it to dry herself off. “My parents loved each other.” She sat on the edge of a velvet-topped chaise and wrapped the towel around her neck. “My earliest memories are of them together. They were laughing, my father dancing my mother around the living room in that crappy little house in Mar Vista we used to live in. Look where that shit led. How about we talk about Jackson and your mom? That was a match made in heaven. Just a heaven in a parallel univer—”

  Sam’s cell rang. She’d left it on the lip of the hot tub.

  Eduardo?

  “Hello?”

  “Sam? It’s Melanie Mayes. Your investigator,” came a woman’s brisk voice. “Do you have a minute?”

  Sam watched the fingers of her left hand weave through the water.

  Not Eduardo.

  “Sure.”

  Cammie mouthed, Who is it? but Sam paid no attention, just kept her eyes on her fluttering fingers, their size distorted by the refraction.

  “I found your mother.”

  Four simple words.

  I found your mother.

  Sam’s gaze drifted past the deck, out to the mustard-colored and squishy lights of the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles below. Would her mother like the view?

  I found your mother.

  “Miss Sharpe? Are you there?”

  Sam inhaled sharply through her nose. “Yes, sorry. I heard you. You found her.” Across the hot tub, Sam saw Cammie’s eyes bulge from her head. “That was fast.”

  “It wasn’t all that difficult. She’s running the Living section of a local newspaper in western North Carolina under her married name.”

  Sam was suddenly dizzy. Everything felt not quite real.

  “Go on.”

  “I told her you were graduating from high school on Friday. She now has your cell number, as you instructed,” Melanie continued.

  Sam dug the nails of her left hand into her thigh. “Is she going to call me? Did she say?”

  “Actually, she gave me a message for you.”

  “What … message?” Sam could barely choke out the words.

  “She said she’ll see you on Friday.”

  Ugly Squared

  “Well, this is taking forever,” declared an elderly woman with thinning chin-length gray hair and an oversized aqua peasant blouse. She was sitting next to Parker in the medium-sized waiting room full of orange plastic chairs. There were a few Peruvian travel posters on the walls; the
far end of the room featured a door and a long glass window, behind which three or four consular officials were methodically processing visas. “What are you here for?”

  “Visa,” Parker lied. He lied easily; he was very good at it.

  “Me too,” the woman smiled. “This will be my fourth trip to Peru, relief work with my church. We always go to an Indian village named Indiana. Indiana, Peru. Did you know there’s also a Peru, Indiana? I wonder if anyone mixes them up.”

  Parker laughed, because obviously she expected him to laugh. Fulfilling other people’s expectations was something else at which he excelled. A tall, dark-rooted blonde in the chair kitty-corner from him flashed a dazzling Rembrandt-veneer smile. She crossed her faux-tanned legs, which led to her Pucci knock-off miniskirt. Parker knew the real thing and he knew a cheap imitation. He knew a lot of things, most of which no one gave him credit for. One thing he did not know, though, was why he felt quite so determined to do something really, really nice for Sam Sharpe.

  He knew he should have a million other things on his mind. First and foremost, what to do after graduation that did not involve the phrase, “Do you want that supersized?” He wasn’t old enough to bartend. With his chiseled good looks and easygoing flair, he knew he could be a waiter at someplace upscale, but the idea of serving the “haves” would make him feel all the more like a have-not. He hated that feeling more than he hated romancing a supposedly rich girl and dumping her if he found out she was as poor as he was.

  That morning, he’d awakened damn depressed. He was going to graduate from high school in three days. After that, his life was a big fat blank, beyond his burning desire to become a professional actor. His mom was pumped; she considered graduation a big occasion, probably because she’d dropped out of school in the tenth grade. She’d purchased an outfit from QVC and had already modeled it for him—too loud and too tight and too short and ugly squared. There was a matching droopy hat from the same shopping channel—did Parker notice how it picked up the citron in the print of the dress and was the same color as the ankle boots that showed off her legs, which were still her best feature, dammit?

  Jeez. Could he pretend that he didn’t know his own mother at his graduation? With her around, forget that Robin Williams was the graduation speaker—the Pinelli family would be all the entertainment the audience needed.