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

by Zoey Dean

  But Sam was in love with a capital l. As in, always and forever. It was enough to make a girl upchuck the blackened mahimahi with pomegranate chutney she'd had for lunch at Kobe while being interviewed by L.A. Weekly. If Ben and Adam both proposed and threw in world peace, she'd still turn down the deal. Marriage. Cammie shuddered.

  The assistant was holding up a one-minute finger. Cammie spoke quickly into the phone.

  "Tell Sam I can't make it and I'll meet you guys later, sorry. I'll call you. Bye."

  She hung up quickly before Dee could protest further. In some remote part of her brain, she thought maybe she was letting Sam down. But then again, Sam was just as ambitious as she was, so surely Sam would understand. In the long run--say, a week from Friday, after the wedding--Sam would have forgotten all about it.

  Neighborhood coffee shops came and went, Sam mused, but Starbucks was ubiquitous, forever, and bred and multiplied like the obnoxious aliens from that South Park episode. Sam loathed Starbucks. It was the McDonald's of coffee shops. Fortunately, there were alternatives.

  The Brighton Coffee Shop, located near North Camden, was one of them. Sam had come here with her friends and their accompanying nannies for years when they didn't feel like dealing with the tourists at the Beverly Hills Hotel. The home-cooked food was a big draw: meat loaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, warm chocolate chip cookies--the kind of thing their parents' chefs never prepared because it was either gauche, fattening, or both. "Home-cooked" had a varying definition at the Sharpe estate, since the "cook" who made said food in their "home" was almost always from another country and culture. Her father had gone through a Vietnamese phase, a Russian phase, and a Mexican phase as various cooks passed through her life. Plus, whatever food was "hot" at the time on the Los Angeles restaurant scene inevitably made it to her father's dinner table. She remembered eating Kobe beef skewers at least twice a week when she was in eighth grade.

  Striding through the swinging glass doors, Sam saw that Cammie and Dee had already arrived and were at a red leather-backed booth. Cammie, looking even more made up than usual in a Free People number, leaned her head against the long mirror behind her as she chattered away to someone on her cell. She waggled fingers at Sam and kept talking as Sam slid into the booth next to Dee. Dee was wearing a brown-and-aqua polka-dotted Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress and a John Hardy twisted cuff bracelet. She already had her PowerBook open to SAM'S WEDDING FILE on the white Formica countertop, a cup of black coffee cooling next to it.

  The new Interpol song was playing in the background, and Sam drummed her French-manicured nails in time with the music. This would be a great song for the opening credits of her first USC film, she mused, as visions of whirring dolly shots danced in her head. Not that she was sure she was even going. She hadn't even told Eduardo yet how impressed she'd been by the orientation, as if saying it aloud would be somehow betraying the Paris plan.

  "Sam, gosh, we have so much to do," Dee exclaimed, interrupting her reverie. "We've got to finalize the guest list. The invites are printed, the messengers are standing by, but we have to tell the calligrapher the names we want." She blew her feathery bangs off her forehead, a nervous habit she'd had since she'd been four and they'd been in preschool together. "It's so great that you and Cammie both made it. We can get a ton of work done," Dee bubbled, kissing Sam's cheek.

  "Hey, guys? Gimme a sec?" Cammie got up to take a few steps away to continue her phone call, but she was still loud enough for Sam to overhear. "No! I would rather have Bob Hope DJ than Avril Lavigne--I'm serious." There was a brief pause, and then Sam heard Cammie add, "Of course I know he's dead, that's the point!"

  "What's up with her?" Sam asked. She couldn't help but be a bit miffed that Cammie, having been chosen as the one and only maid of honor Sam would ever have in her life, was treating the job as if it were the same priority level as a discretionary root canal.

  "Something about the DJs at her club tonight," Dee explained, shrugging her small shoulders. She hit a few buttons on her PowerBook and a high-resolution slide show of diamond stud earrings appeared. "So, do you like this with the marquise cut? We could do heart or square, but I liked these better."

  "Whatever you pick is fine." Sam said absentmindedly, craning around. Even though it was 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, the coffee shop was bustling--Sam often wondered what percentage of Los Angelenos held actual nine-to-five jobs--with couples and groups clustered around the diner-style booths. Waitresses in old-school aprons strode briskly across the black-and-white checkered floor. Where was Cammie? Finally Sam spotted her--she'd actually stepped outside the coffee shop to continue the call. Sam could see her through the glass, laughing as she held her phone to her ear.

  Dee rapped her knuckles on the countertop to get Sam's attention. "Sam, focus!"$$$[MS PAG NO 146]$$$

  Sam forced herself to turn around and planted a big smile on her face. "Yes. I'm focusing."

  "Thank you." Dee peered at her laptop. "I just wanted to give you the rundown on what's been happening. Invites have already been engraved by Impressions Printing in Sherman Oaks. Best in the city. They'll be messengered all over town as soon as we approve the guest list. We'll have a hundred and fifty people on the vessel. That's coast guard limit--I checked. People can board the Look Sharpe three different ways. Either they can come aboard at the dock in Malibu, be shuttled by cigarette boat, or come by helicopter. Let's go over the guest list."

  "Fine." Sam sneaked another look at Cammie. She really wished she had her maid of honor's input.

  "I'm thinking all the usual suspects for our friends. Krishna, Blue, Parker, and Monte, of course," Dee suggested. "What about Adam Flood?"

  "Of course," Sam replied. "What, you think I wouldn't invite him because he broke up with Cammie?"

  "She broke up with him," Dee corrected.

  "He's on the list," Sam decided. If Cammie didn't like it, too bad. It wasn't like she was showing any actually interest in planning what was only the most important day of Sam's life.

  "Hi, ready to order?" A black-clad waitress with wavy dark hair and matte red lips interrupted Dee and stood beside their booth, pen poised over her order pad.

  "Coffee and a raspberry Danish," Sam said distractedly, chewing the gloss off her lower lip.

  The waitress took Dee's order--a bowl of strawberries with the whipped cream on the side--and moved off.

  "You're upset," Dee concluded, eyeing Sam carefully.

  "I'm about to get married, I'm supposed to freak." Sam shrugged. "Just on general principle."

  "'Kay." Dee's round, blue eyes bore into Sam's. "Is that all?"

  Sam considered confiding in Dee about her USC orientation. "Would you ever get married and not live where you husband lived?" she asked carefully.

  "Gosh, no," Dee exclaimed. "I mean, what's the point of getting married then?" She inhaled sharply. "You mean you and Eduardo--?"

  "It was a theoretical whatever," Sam said dismissively.

  Dee tapped a fingernail against the white Formica tabletop. "You're still moving to Paris?"

  "Yeah, of course."

  Dee leaned closer. "You don't want to move to Paris?"

  "I do, of course I do," Sam insisted. "Forget it." She didn't know why she was so reluctant to confide in anyone about the film school or Paris thing. Somehow, talking about it would, she just knew, make her even more anxious.

  The coffee and Danish arrived. Sam lifted the large white mug and took a sip of coffee, followed by a bite of pastry, then turned to look outside at Cammie again. "She is totally blowing me off."

  Dee didn't say a word.

  "Well, she is," Sam insisted, as if Dee was arguing with her. Anger bubbled up inside her. "Soon as she gets her perky ass off the phone--"

  Dee held up a hand of caution. "She's done. She's coming back in."

  "Fine." Sam stared into her coffee until Cammie had slid back into the red leather booth, next to Dee and across from Sam.

  "She's mad at you," Dee declared, as C
ammie reached across the table for a sip of Sam's coffee.

  "Why? I'm trying to run a business," Cammie defended herself. "This coffee is really good," she added, taking a sip.

  "Careful, there's real sugar in that," Dee cautioned. "She's pissed because you're her maid of honor and you're blowing her off," she added, her enormous blue eyes fiercely protective.

  "I can speak for myself, Dee," Sam said crossly. She cut her eyes at Cammie. "What she just said."

  Cammie snorted dismissively. "You really need me to count napkins or choose cake frosting or whatever? That's what you think being maid of honor is about?"

  "How the fuck would I know?" Sam railed. "I never had one before!" She was vaguely aware that she was upset about much more than Cammie, but chose not to examine that thought very closely.

  "It's about friendship," Cammie enunciated, taking another sip of Sam's coffee.

  "You don't give a shit about my wedding," Sam grumbled, as an apron-clad waitress came around with coffee refills. "We're working on the guest list, but you're not here to help."

  "You're only saying that because you're in sugar shock," Cammie commented, eyeing the pastry.

  "Put the bitch back in her box, because I am not in the mood," Sam snapped. "Dee is killing herself to put this wedding together practically overnight--"

  "I've been busy. Bye, Bye Love is the hottest thing in town. I'm like a movie star when a movie first comes out. Who told you to have a wedding on Friday?" Cammie asked rhetorically, blinking her honey-colored eyes. Her lashes were thick and unimaginably long. "Most of the time, people plan ahead. Like, for at least two weeks."

  The cute couple in the booth next to them interrupted their spit-swapping PDA to glare at them. They were trying very hard to look like they were important, she in her L.A.M.B. jumper and Posh Spice bob, he in his weathered leather jacket and fauxhawk.

  "Let's not fight, you guys, okay?" Dee tried to make peace as Cammie smiled ingratiatingly at Sam. "Cammie, just give me a little help with this stuff. Okay?"

  "Okay. Let's do the list. Okay, Sam?" Cammie put her coffee cup down and looked over Dee's shoulder at the names she'd started to type. But then her Razr sounded again. "Shit," she pronounced. "I gotta take this. I'll be back in a minute. Hang in there."

  Sam was on her feet before Cammie was. She hadn't apologized. She hadn't acknowledged that thus far, she had been the world's suckiest maid of honor, and she hadn't promised to do better.

  "Dee, you're my maid of honor," Sam decided. She tossed a twenty on the table. "Enjoy your call, Cammie. And enjoy your meal. It's on me. Leave the rest for the waitress. And if it's not too much trouble, I'd still like you to be a bridesmaid." With that, she turned on her Christian Louboutin peep-toe heel and walked away.

  Bali HighTuesday afternoon, 3:37 p.m.

  "Anna?"Anna looked up to see a tall, striking young woman just a few years older than herself, with thick dark hair that swung around her shoulders, crystalline blue eyes, and a tall, willowy figure smiling at her. She wore a nipped-waist jet black Givenchy jacket and trousers, and black patent leather booties. She wouldn't, Anna thought, have been out of place at a publishing house near Rockefeller Center.

  "I'm Anna, yes." Anna was glad that she'd dressed similarly, in a simple gray cotton Ralph Lauren skirt that ended just above her knees, and a pale pink cashmere button-front cardigan. Her shoes were vintage Chanel cherry red suede peep-toe pumps her grandmother had given her after a shopping spree in Paris.

  "I'm Caresse, Carlie Martin's assistant. Carlie's really looking forward to meeting you. Please follow me." The assistant's easy manner melted away any nervousness Anna still felt.

  It was just past three-thirty in the afternoon; Anna's meeting with Carlie Martin had been scheduled for three fifteen. Fifteen minutes of waiting wasn't bad at all by Hollywood standards, especially for a woman as busy as Ms. Martin. Anna sat a simple waiting area: low-slung couches and a TV monitor tuned to whatever CBS show was on at the time--a talk show that Anna didn't recognize.

  Carlie's office was in the Television City complex of CBS, located in the Fairfax District near the Grove shopping area and farmer's market. Anna had been to the Grove many times--there were great restaurants and a multiplex movie theater--but she'd never set foot inside the looming studio complex that was the home of CBS.

  All that had changed this afternoon. She'd taken her Lexus through the white gate on Beverly Boulevard just east of Fairfax and checked in at the guard booth, where a man with a thick moustache and a friendly smile printed out a parking pass for her and a stick-on badge, and then directed her to the artists' entrance and visitors' parking. The CBS buildings loomed on her left as she made her way to the parking lot; they were low, white, and sprawling.

  The guard had told her to go to the artists' entrance, just past the game-show entrance, where an endless line of tourists in funny getups, each wearing a number, were waiting to get in to The Price Is Right with its latest host, Drew Carey. One woman carried a sign that read MARRY ME, DREW!

  "These are all the new shows," Caresse pointed out as they walked a long, poster-lined corridor; the posters featured actresses and actors from various CBS shows. Then they were on the studio floor, with Caresse explaining that the Young and the Restless soundstages were to the left, The Price Is Right was to the right, and that if Anna wanted to see either of these shows taping after her meeting, Caresse would be happy to play tour guide.

  "Thanks, that's very nice of you, but it won't be necessary," Anna said politely as they walked east through the cavernous hall and then stopped at a small elevator. Anna didn't want to spend any more time than she had to at CBS, and was feeling resentful that she'd even agreed to waste an hour of her time. She was quite capable of making up her own mind about Yale. She didn't need, nor did she want, to be coerced into a decision about the next four years of her life.

  The elevator doors opened and they got on. Caresse pressed the 1 button. "Carlie hasn't had lunch yet. It's kind of late, but she wondered if you'd meet her in the commissary?"

  "Of course."

  The elevator doors opened, and they stepped out onto a floor that looked very much like the one they'd just come from. There were lots of burly guys on this one, though, driving forklifts loaded with scenery, or moving costume racks from place to place. There was also the delicious aroma of frying onion rings and baking chicken. Anna realized she was actually hungry. She hoped that Carlie wasn't one of those dime-a-dozen Hollywood women for whom a pastrami sandwich held the same appeal as, say, an attack by a band of rabid Rottweilers.

  The commissary was simple--just a counter that offered an array of sandwiches and a few daily specials, and a long, narrow eating area with wooden tables and orange banquettes along the sides.

  Anna spotted Carlie immediately at one of the banquettes, with a pile of scripts spread out around her, reading glasses slipping down her elegant nose. In front of her was a clear plastic box with a cheeseburger and some of the onion rings that Anna had smelled cooking.

  "Can I get you something to eat?" Caresse asked.

  "I'll have what she's having."

  "Good choice. Carlie?" Caresse approached her boss. Carlie looked up. "Yes?"

  "Anna Percy."

  Carlie practically leaped to her feet. "Jane Cabot Percy's daughter? I should have known--you look so much like your mother. A hug. I demand a hug."

  Her hair was several shades of delicate blond woven together, impeccably cut in a layered bob that framed her high-cheekboned, fortysomething face. Her eyes were honey colored, fringed with long lashes, her nose a touch too long, and her smile so huge it seemed to take up half her face. It was the smile that had lit up dozens of movies. And here she sat, comfortable and free of cosmetics or, it seemed to Anna, any sort of pretense. She was dressed for comfort, not speed, in black jeans and a blue work shirt, as if to say that she was so impressive that she didn't have to impress anyone. Yet when Carlie motioned to her for a hug, Anna felt hesitant. />
  Carlie laughed. A deep, booming, comfortable-in-her-own-skin laugh. "Oh yes," she chortled. "Your mother hates hugs in public too. In fact, your mother hates hugs in general. I do love to embarrass her that way. Well, sit down, sit down."

  Anna sat, and Caresse moved away to the commissary counter.

  Carlie tented her fingers and leaned toward Anna, elbows on the table. "Tell me, Anna, do you know why I'm here at CBS?"

  Anna shook her head. "No clue."

  "I'm here because the commissary makes the best cheeseburgers in the city."

  She said this so emphatically, with such a straight face, that it took Anna a moment to realize she was joking. It was only after Carlie started to laugh, flashing that famous grin, that Anna laughed too.

  "You had me there for a moment," Anna admitted.

  Caresse showed up with Anna's burger and set it in front of her. Carlie sent her off to lunch. Then Anna bit into what was, as advertised, a truly superior cheeseburger. After eating in silence for a few moments, Carlie put down her burger and wiped her mouth with a thin paper napkin.

  "Really, truly, the reason I'm at CBS," Carlie began, "is that this network is smart enough to realize that television doesn't have to always come in second to movies. I came in here with the goal of making a nighttime drama that has as much weight as The Arrowhead. You saw that film?"

  Anna was still chewing, so she nodded. Carlie had done everything there was to do on the film, practically. Written it, directed it, produced it, and starred in it, as the mother of a boy who uncovered a single Indian arrow-head on a walk though Central Park, which took him into a pre-Columbian world of Manhattan Island before Europeans made it what it was. The film was everything a movie should be. Heartfelt. Magnificent to look at. Deeply moving. "I did. I loved it," Anna replied honestly.