A-List #10, The: California Dreaming: An A-List Novel (A-List)

by Zoey Dean

  Anna shook her blond head as if she could shake off the morbid vision. A man sitting in front of them had his eyes closed, listening to music, and Anna suddenly wished she'd brought her own headphones so she could tune everything out. She tried to think of a song to sing to herself, any song, and a random melody flew into her mind. What was it? Some country thing ...

  "One of our housekeepers loves country music," she told Logan, remembering. "She walks around singing this song all the time--something about how you should live like you're dying." Anna felt a sudden relief as she thought of the lyrics. She leaned her head heavily against his shoulder and felt him kiss her temple, his slight stubble grazing her skin.

  The plane hit a patch of turbulent air and pitched forward. Anna gasped and somewhere behind her, people screamed. The heavy guy across the aisle grabbed a barf bag and used it. Anna had to look away. In the row ahead of him, two men were praying in Hebrew, rocking back and forth as they did.

  "I'm here," Logan told Anna, his voice firm. "I've got your hand."

  Then another face--not Logan's--filled her mind. Dark brown hair, laughing blue eyes, and a strong jaw. Her stomach started to ache. And then her heart. Would she never see Ben again?

  Logan slid an arm around her shoulder, and the fabric of his black T-shirt felt soft against her skin. "We're going to be okay, Anna."

  She looked up at him like a child hearing a bedtime story, wanting to believe him. "How do you know?"

  "I just do," he answered her without a flicker of doubt in his steely blue eyes. He was no longer sweating, or breathing like a marathon runner. Anna had no idea where his sudden resolution had come from, but it comforted her.

  "Okay, it's a deal then." She nodded slowly, as if she had the power to control such things. "We're going to be okay. And from this day forward, we'll live like we're dying."

  "We will," he echoed. His eyes were drawn outside the plane's small circular window and he pointed with his free hand. "Fighter jets." Anna followed his gaze. On both sides of the plane, fighter jets had scrambled from Edwards Air Force Base to escort their plane to the airport. She had a sudden vision of Logan as a little boy, playing with his toy planes, and she felt her lips curl into a small smile.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. I need your complete attention." The captain's formerly easy, conversational tone had turned steely and serious, and the whole cabin looked up in rapt attention. "So, here we are. We're ready, the airport is ready. We've been through this many times, but it can't hurt to repeat it. Our landing gear won't lower, so we'll make a belly landing on the runway. There's foam on it to soften the impact, and there's a steady fifteen-knot headwind, so that should help our cause. Fuel's been dumped to lessen the fire danger."

  "Lessen. All he said was lessen," the heavy guy across the aisle muttered, attempting to loosen his navy blue power tie, which clashed with his lavender dress shirt. He swiped a meaty arm across his sweaty forehead.

  "When we come to a stop, the safety slides will deploy. Get to the emergency chutes as fast as you can--and do not stop for your carry-on luggage!"

  Nervous laughter rippled through the cabin. "Better than screams," Logan noted haphazardly. He gave Anna's hand a final squeeze.

  "That's it, here we go," the pilot concluded. "See you there. Hang on. Stay alert. Move fast, and good luck."

  "Put your head down, Anna," Logan urged, and she did, hands behind her bare knees, just as the blond flight attendant had instructed. She rested her head on the cottony fabric of her white dress and closed her eyes, trying to imagine she was floating on a cloud.

  The plane made a sweeping left turn in the sky, and Anna felt her body twist, but she kept her head where it was and her eyes squeezed shut. She started to feel everything careen downward, and she knew instinctually that the plane had begun its descent. The descent felt like the descent of most any other flight, except that the cabin was deadly silent, with the occasional whimper, moan, or cry. With her eyes closed and other senses alert, Anna had never felt so in tune with her own body. She could hear her heart beating, and it seemed to sync itself with the platinum Chopard watch she wore on her left wrist, its ticking loud in her ear. The moment that the plane hung in the air felt like an eternity of peaceful stillness, and Anna couldn't help but wonder if this was what heaven was like.

  The plane's belly slammed down the runway with a screeching roar, and Anna had to press her head hard against her knees to remain in the brace position. She could hear metal being torn away as they skidded eastward at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, the screeching noise reminding her of a fork being raked across the surface of a metal bowl. There were a few stifled sobs and screams around her, but mostly everyone had managed to stay quiet, as if they were all waiting for the worst.

  Please, Anna found herself thinking. Please."Stay in seat! Stay in seat!" a flight attendant was admonishing, and Anna drew her head up slightly at the sound. Sparks filled the air outside the windows on both sides of the plane. Around her other heads began to lift, realizing they'd touched the ground. The plane continued at its manic pace, and out the window they skidded past the first bank of fire trucks. There was a flash of red light outside as the fire trucks roared into action, all sounds replaced by that of their sirens blaring as they gave chase.

  The slide continued. Just let it end, Anna pleaded silently, either way. There were so many sparks now, it felt like being trapped in the middle of a Fourth of July firework.

  And then, suddenly, they stopped. Anna looked to either side of her for confirmation, and all of the other passengers seemed equally shocked.

  "Go, go, go!" The flight attendants were all yelling at once, flashes of navy blue uniforms as they sprung up from their seats and waved the passengers to the emergency exits. "Down the chutes! Down the chutes and away from the plane! Down the chutes!"

  Anna and Logan jumped out of their seats immediately, and she could feel his steady hand on her back as they raced toward the emergency chute two rows in front of them. The emergency door of the plane gaped open, a black square of night outside, with the chute emerging from it like a tongue.

  Standing in front of them was a little girl with her two front teeth missing, chestnut hair in messy pigtails and tears in her eyes. She paused at the chute, even as the flight attendants called to her to get on the slide.

  Where were her parents? Anna had no idea. She put a hand on the little girl's shoulder and urged her forward.

  "Jump! Jump!" The flight attendants pointed to the chute.

  "Go, sweetie," Anna urged the child, and the little girl slid down before her. Anna was next, with Logan behind her.

  She jumped, and felt herself hurtle through darkness toward the ground. It reminded her of her favorite slide in one of the Central Park playgrounds she loved to go to growing up, except now she had no idea where she would land.

  "I'm right behind you--"

  Anna heard Logan's voice, but lost the end of his sentence as she reached the bottom of the slide. Two firemen in yellow flame-retardant suits grabbed her by the elbows and hoisted her to her slippered feet. It felt like an eternity ago that she'd tossed her pumps in the airport trash can, and for a second she wondered if they might still be there. But that was the only clear thought she had. Everything was happening so fast, Anna could only keep moving. Huge spotlights illuminated the plane and the fire engines' sirens wailed on. "Run! Run to the buses!" a fireman on a bullhorn was shouting to her.

  It was utter chaos, people running, some falling, many crying. Anna saw three or four yellow school buses parked in a row a good four hundred yards away. Logan was pulling her along, faster and faster. All around her, various passengers were doing the same, escorted by policemen holding orange flashlights.

  A slender man in jeans and a button-up shirt had plucked up the little girl--he looked like her father. She clung to him as he ran with her wrapped in his arms, her brunette pigtails bobbing as they sprinted forward.

  "We're going to ma
ke it," Logan exulted as he tugged at her arm, his blue eyes wide as if shocked by his own statement. And in that moment, Anna realized he was right. They were going to make it. From the size of the crowd of people gathering by the school buses, it seemed that every single passenger on the plane was there. She looked back toward the crippled plane, a hunk of gleaming metal resting lamely on the runway. The firemen were pouring white foam on its body as a precaution, and it looked like huge tufts of marshmallow gushing from the enormous canvas hoses. But, Anna realized, if the plane was going to explode, it would have already happened.

  "Holy--"

  "Shit." Logan finished the words for her. He laughed joyfully and hugged her hard, pulling her slender body into his strong frame. "Holy shit."

  There had to be at least two hundred firefighters on the scene. The chief was announcing that if they boarded the buses, they'd be taken back to the international arrivals terminal.

  Anna and Logan waited to board the buses, and she felt like they were on an elementary school field trip. Around her, she heard the sound of gathering applause, and turned to see the entire flight crew--twelve flight attendants, the pilot, and the copilot--walking wearily toward them together in their matching navy uniforms. The pilot looked like he was out of central casting. Chiseled chin, regal bearing, silver hair. His copilot was Indonesian, and had a huge smile on his face. The passengers greeted them with wild applause and cheers, and Anna joined in, yelling at the top of her lungs, even though her throat still felt scratchy and dry. The copilot took a bow; the captain merely doffed his cap.

  Fifteen minutes later, the white lights of the airport felt blindingly bright as they emerged in the baggage-claim terminal to an enormous crowd. There were hundreds of friends and relatives, as well as representatives from what seemed like every newspaper, magazine, radio, and television station from Los Angeles to Bangkok. Anna craned her neck, looking for her dad. When she'd finally gotten ahold of him on the bus earlier, she'd found that Sam had already called him: he'd told her he would be in the baggage claim, just past the TSA doors.

  Finally she spotted his brown hair and lean frame, his blue eyes searching the crowd wildly for Anna. He wore Calvin Klein jeans, a faded white golf shirt, and chocolate-brown Ugg slippers--Anna realized that he must have been too stunned by the news to put on actual shoes. Well, that made two of them.

  Jonathan's face broke out into a huge smile as he spotted his daughter, and he held his arms out to her. She had only been safe in his embrace for about ten seconds when she heard her name shouted from another part of the crush. "Anna! Logan!"

  They turned to see Sam and Eduardo approaching breathlessly, Sam looking radiant in an emerald chiffon party dress she hadn't been wearing earlier. Anna pulled away from her father just as Sam tackled her, wrapping her in a bear hug.

  Anna nestled her head into Sam's brunette waves and inhaled the scent of her Juicy Couture perfume. The hug went on and on, until Anna finally pleaded for mercy.

  Sam smiled, the expression on her face one of utter joy and amazement, as if she couldn't believe she was really looking at Anna. "I know this is going to sound selfish, because it should be all about you right now," Sam began, grinning from ear to ear, "but I'm so glad you're here, because later this week Eduardo and I are getting married, and I want you to be a part of it."

  Anna looked at her friend, stunned for the second time that night. But this time it was a happy kind of shock. "Congratulations!" She grabbed Sam again and hugged her tightly.

  It was too much. This night. Her father. Her friends. All the people around her, laughing and crying and hugging. Anna saw the man still carrying the little girl in the pigtails, who was crying to a woman who looked like her mother. For a moment, Anna almost dissolved in tears too. But she was too overwhelmed to cry. She didn't know what she felt, beyond being so, insanely glad to be alive and on the ground.

  She looked from Sam to Eduardo to her father, and finally rested her eyes on Logan, who'd been so quietly patient during her whole reunion. She'd almost forgotten the thing she most wanted to say. "Thank you."

  He cocked a blond eyebrow. "For what? Inviting you to Bali on a flight that nearly got you killed?"

  "For being so wonderful when I was losing it. You got me through it."

  "We got through it together."

  Anna felt entirely comforted. Surrounded by her friends, her father beaming appreciatively at her, and with Logan by her side, it felt like the complete opposite of an hour earlier. Wearing airplane slippers and a sundress, in the midst of a sea of people in the international-arrivals terminal of LAX, she felt truly free. So she did what she never would have done at any other time in her life: she grabbed Logan and kissed him.

  He kissed her back.

  It was a kiss of hope. A promise for the future. It was, more than anything else, a kiss of life.

  The Parent TrapSaturday evening, 8:45 p.m.

  As Sam pulled up to the valet stand at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the hallowed grounds where the Hollywood elite had partied, mated, dated, and overdosed for years, she decided that this had been one of the more insane days of her life.First Anna had nearly died. Then Anna had survived. Then she and Eduardo had called his parents to deliver the news that they were getting married in a week. His parents, Pedro and Consuela, had cut short a vacation in Cabo and caught a flight to Los Angeles that afternoon, renting one of the hotel's most exclusive bungalows for a week. Sam next called her estranged mother, Dina, who agreed to fly in from North Carolina immediately. A cozy dinner for six was planned--Sam, her fiancé, and both of their parents--at the Polo Lounge in the back of the hotel, at 9:30 p.m.

  As Sam had waited for Anna's plane to land, one part of her brain was so deeply steeped in Hollywood that she'd felt removed from the terror, as if she were watching one of her father's big-budget action movies, and whether or not the plane crashed, whether or not people survived, was nothing more than a plot point. But another part of her--a part she liked--had been terrified. She'd cried, she'd felt nauseated, she'd even prayed.

  But now that it was over, with a very Hollywood-esque happy ending, Sam was back to worrying about her own life and her upcoming nuptials. Eduardo's parents were light-years different from her own. Would they hate each other? Would worlds collide?

  Sam slid out of her Hummer and handed the keys to the red-uniformed Italian valet who wore, she noticed, those supposedly invisible braces on his teeth. Wannabe actor, she thought. Sporting the Invisalign was always a dead giveaway.

  A uniformed doorman opened the glass doors to the hotel for her, and she strode through the lobby of the Pink Palace--the nickname for the pink-hued hotel that had seen so much Hollywood glitter and decadence over the decades of its tenure on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Beverly Hills. It had certainly earned its nickname, with its pink-and-white carpeting, dusty rose-colored gold-framed chairs, and enormous arrangements of native California flowers (many of which were, of course, pink). The only thing that wasn't pink were its majestic yellow pillars. The lobby itself was something of a hangout, and tonight it was crowded. Martin Scorsese was at the fireplace having a drink with Matt Damon, and Jessica Alba sat in a low-slung chair in the corner, chatting with a couple of friends. Sam had known the indoor part of the Polo Lounge would be equally crowded, so she'd asked Eduardo to book a table on the quieter terrace, where the green-and-white striped tablecloths, huge white umbrellas, and wrought-iron seats promised a quintessential Los Angeles dining experience.

  Sam caught a reflection of herself in a spotless columned mirror flanked by massive vases of freesias and orange blossoms. She wore a zebra-patterned Givenchy cotton T-shirt under a cantaloupe raw silk jacket with lantern sleeves, Chanel black trousers, and cantaloupe-and-black polka-dot Gucci heels. Casual enough to be hip, grown-up enough to suit a "fiancée," and flattering enough to minimize what needed to be minimized.

  Sam tore her gaze from her own reflection. Where were her parents? They'd said they'd meet her in the lo
bby. She nibbled unconsciously on a recently manicured fingernail. Her stomach flip-flopped. If she was this nervous about dinner, how nervous would she be at the actual wedding? Her side of the aisle would likely be quite a bit more complicated and more crowded than Eduardo's. For starters, her father. Jackson, had a virtual harem of ex-wives, one of whom was Sam's biological mother, Dina, who had left America's Most Beloved Action Star when Sam was still in elementary school and moved to North Carolina. Though Sam had seen her at graduation, that meeting had been the first one since Sam had been in elementary school. To say that she was estranged from Dina was an understatement. Yet when she'd called her mom early that morning, Dina hadn't hesitated. There was a ten o'clock flight from Asheville to Charlotte, and a noon flight from Charlotte to LAX. With the time change, she could be at the Beverly Hills Hotel by four.

  Frankly, Sam was shocked that Dina was showing up at all, as she had really only called her out of obligation. It kind of begged the question, If it was so easy for her mother to hop on a plane when Sam asked her to, why the hell had she hopped out of Sam's life in the first place?

  Sam asked herself now: How did she feel about Dina dropping back into her life? She felt ... nothing. Didn't care one way or the other. She wasn't about to invest any emotional energy in the woman, since apparently it had slipped her mind for years that she actually had a daughter.

  Well, at least her father hadn't offered Dina a room at their Bel Air estate. That would have been too weird. Instead, he was graciously picking her up here at the hotel. But they were having a drink together at the Ivy, before meeting everyone at Pedro and Consuela's bungalow and then adjourning to the Polo Lounge for dinner. Sam checked her Omega Constellation watch. They still had ten minutes.

  At the lobby bar, CNN was on a strategically placed flat-screen TV. The crash-landing of Anna's jet in darkness at LAX was still the lead story--the reporter described it as a miracle and the captain as a hero. Sam paused for a moment to watch: dozens of television cameras had caught the landing from every conceivable angle, and it was being rehashed and analyzed like a key play at the Super Bowl. She'd seen this footage a hundred times since last night and couldn't imagine what Anna had gone through. She'd tried to call Anna at around noon, but her father had said she was asleep. Sam couldn't blame her. Though from a strictly budding director/storytelling point of view, she was dying to find out what it had been like.