A-List #8, The: Heart of Glass: An A-List Novel (A-List)

by Zoey Dean

  Heart of Glass (A-List Novel #8)

  Zoey Dean

  When people say, "She's got everything,"

  I've got one answer: I haven't had tomorrow.

  --Elizabeth Taylor

  Get the Flipping Cuffs, Okay?

  "Calculate This!'" Anna Percy read the title page of the script she was holding. "'A zany comedy about a socially inept loner who invents a gorgeous female robotic math wizard.'"

  "Write, 'Defines a new low in the art of screenwriting, suitable only for fireplace kindling,' and move on," her friend Sam Sharpe advised.

  Anna and Sam were sprawled on a pale blue couch. To their left, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offered a stunning view of white sand beach and softly rolling waves, while the living room itself had been decorated in sea foam and cerulean, as if to bring the ocean itself into the living spaces. Between them on the floor was a huge pile of movie scripts. It was their job to read them all.

  "That doesn't really seem fair," Anna mused, her back to the windows. "I mean, we're getting paid to write our evaluation. By your father."

  Their original plan for the summer had been to work as interns on Sam's father's film, BenHur, a remake of the classic. But when they'd realized that would mean

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  commuting an hour each way to Palmdale to arrive in time for the shooting (which started promptly every morning at 6 A.M.), they'd politely decided to be script readers for Jackson's production company, Action Jackson Productions.

  "Look, we just graduated from high school and we're young and ambitious, so whatever. Reading scripts is just something to do for the summer. And you never know: maybe I'll find the right one that will launch my professional directing career. Who needs film school?" Sam scoffed. She swung her feet up onto the couch and stretched out.

  Anna knew that Sam wanted to be a director. Not a popcorn, Snakes on a Plane-type director, either. A serious director. In fact, Sam had directed a number of student films that were really good. Not only that, her father was America's Most Beloved Action Hero, Jackson Sharpe, which meant she had both industry access and financial backing should she ever find her Perfect Script. Sam Sharpe was well connected.

  Before Anna moved from New York to Beverly Hills this past January to live with her father and finish school at Beverly Hills High School, the film industry was the furthest thing from her mind. She had zero interest in celebrities and red carpet premieres, but living in California and being Sam's friend meant that the industry--everyone in Los Angeles called the film and TV business "the industry"--was the expensive and designer water in which she swam.

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  But no matter. In the fall, she'd be going to Yale, with the intent of studying serious literature. For the next two months, until she headed to New Haven, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted to do. Unfortunately, she hadn't yet figured out exactly what that was.

  Sam reached for her iBook and read aloud as she typed in her evaluation of the script she'd just finished.

  " 'Burnt Toast by Norman Shnorman. Logline: A former bikini model moves to Wyoming, becomes a cook, and falls for the sheriff's quirky, intellectual son. Recommendation: Use script to line bottom of birdcage, then ban Norman Shnorman from film industry for life.'"

  "That's kind of harsh, Sam. You didn't even read the whole thing."

  "Read ten pages and skimmed the next ninety-seven, which, trust me, is more than Norman deserves." Sam stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. "You don't seem to understand how this town works, Anna. Every geek boy who goes to film school writes a screenplay the day after he graduates. And what do they write about? Themselves and their geek-boy fantasies."

  "Well, if other geek boys grow up to run studios and direct movies, then the scripts might be right up their alley," Anna pointed out, flipping over the title page to Calculate This! and skimming the first page. "It says here the brooding loner has 'dashing good looks.'"

  "That's called geek-boy wishful thinking." Sam pushed her laptop aside. "So sad, but probably true.

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  And all the more reason that I'm going to be a groundbreaking director. Fuck the geek-boy. Hollywood network." She seemed to shift gears as she rose and tugged Anna up from the plush sofa. "We've been at this for hours. Let's ask the cook to fire up some fettuccini Alfredo with shaved truffles--or chili burgers, depending on whether you're in the mood--then walk up the beach, watch the fireworks, and celebrate truth, justice, and the American way. But let's change into something ridiculously hot now so that we don't have to do it before we go meet Eduardo and Caine at House of Blues. Have you seen my flip-flops?"

  It still felt strange to Anna when someone said Caine Manning's name as if there were an Anna-and-Caine--as in, a couple. Probably because she'd spent her entire time in Los Angeles as an on-again, off-again part of Anna-and-Ben, as in, Anna and Ben Birnbaum. A couple. Ben Birnbaum. Her first love. Her only love. Her--

  No. She wasn't going to get caught in that trap. That was then, this was now.

  She caught sight of her reflection in the antique, gold-plated mirror that hung over a thick mahogany bookcase filled with movie scripts in the corner of the room and eyed herself quizzically. Straight blond hair, no makeup, broken-in faded Levi's and her favorite battered green Calvin Klein T-shirt. She liked what she saw, though she knew she was more New York City chic than Los Angeles lollipop.

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  "Where the hell did I put those flip-flops?" Sam dropped to her knees to look under the couch.

  "Probably wherever you last put them."

  Anna smiled. On paper, she and Sam Sharpe were the oddest of friends. Sam was spoiled, popular, and dramatic--her grandparents had been strictly working-class Lakewood until Jackson Sharpe found his affinity for the movie camera twenty years earlier, and the money came rolling in. Anna's family, on the other hand, had been privileged since the Gilded Age. Sam read scripts. Anna read books. Sam was temperamental. Anna had been raised to be even-tempered. They didn't have a great deal in common. Yet they'd found common ground. What Anna liked best about Sam--other than the fact that she was really smart--was that she had a huge heart and was fiercely loyal to her friends. Even those friends whom Anna would prefer to have relocate--preferably far, far away.

  Besides, she reminded herself, she'd come to Los Angeles to shake up her life. Having a great friend like Sam who was steeped in the culture--the peculiar and specific culture

  --that was twenty-first-century Hollywood was definitely a step outside of Anna's usual literate, well-bred box. And that, she had decided long ago, was a very good thing.

  She'd made other friends in Los Angeles, too. Guy friends. There was Ben Birnbaum, son of Hollywood's most prominent plastic surgeon to the stars, and a great guy, who unfortunately had a penchant for secrets. And

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  there was Caine Manning, currently of Anna-and-Caine, who was actually a little bit older and who worked for Anna's father at the latter's investment company. Anna and Ben had been off and on for six months. Anna and Caine had been on for just a few weeks. She was still getting used to it.

  While Sam continued hunting for her shoes, Anna walked out through the open sliding glass doors, onto the back deck, and gazed out at the pristine sands of Malibu beach.

  "Fourth of July back in New York was never like this," she called back to Sam. She felt a grin spread across her face.

  "How would you know? You never spent the Fourth of July in Manhattan!" Sam might have a point, Anna mused, as she tried to recall if she ever had been in New York City for this holiday.

  Sam stepped out onto the redwood deck with two Stoli vodka-
spiked all-natural lemonades, her favorite cocktail du jour. She handed one of the tall, frosted glasses to Anna and lifted her own high in the air. Anna saw that she was still barefoot.

  "Fuck my flip-flops, I'll find them later. Here's to America, here's to us and our comfortable lives that we've done nothing to earn, and here's to some insane fun later on tonight with our alarmingly good-looking boyfriends. And here's to Marty Martinsen never coming home."

  "I'll second . . . well . . . most of that." Anna clinked

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  glasses with her friend and then sipped her drink. "Honestly, I wouldn't mind hanging here for the rest of the summer."

  "Can you think of a better place to watch fireworks? You know we've got invitations to three different Fourth of July parties--including the cast party of Hermosa Beach and the CAA bash on the Queen Mary, by the by. But nothing could top this."

  For the past week, they'd been house-sitting at a magnificent Malibu beach estate spread owned by Marty Martinsen, president of Transnational Pictures. Sam's father had made many movies with Transnational, and Marty had become one of Jackson Sharpe's only trusted friends in a town where a trusted friend was pretty much an oxymoron. Whenever he was leaving town, he'd call Jackson and offer his house to him for his use and pleasure. They both knew the offer was moot, because Jackson could afford to pay cash for any beachfront estate that he wanted, whether it was in Malibu or Bali, or on the dark side of the moon.

  This time, though, when Marty called to say he'd be vacationing in Malta for two weeks, Sam had jumped at the opportunity to house-sit. Then she'd invited Anna to house-sit with her. Anna had quickly accepted. Going to Marty Martinsen's estate with Sam was pretty much a guaranteed good time with her favorite Beverly Hills female friend. The place was more like a private beachfront hotel than a house. It came with a cook, a caretaker, and a maid, all of whom remained on the job

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  even when Marty was out of town. The ultramodern structure had two-story-high glass windows that faced the ocean, and a modern, eclectic interior right out of In Style magazine.

  The past week with Sam had been utterly relaxing and totally fun. Every morning they would sleep late, lounge on the sun-drenched terrace eating blueberry pancakes and reading fashion mags, and then take a long beach walk. After that, they'd settle down for the summer job Sam had snagged for them. Their chief responsibility was to write coverage--synopses and their considered personal opinions--on the dozens of screenplays that were sent to Action Jackson Productions offices on the Transnational lot every single day.

  When Anna had protested that that she had no experience reading or evaluating screenplays, Sam had laughed. Hollywood, she explained, was all smoke and mirrors. No one had experience until they got started.

  "That sunset is a total waste, unless you've got naked guys serving you. If they're here, I can't see them from this angle," came a feminine voice behind them.

  Anna shut her eyes briefly, the better to prepare herself for the onslaught that was Cammie Sheppard. Cammie and Sam had been best friends forever, which meant that if Anna wanted to hang out with loyal Sam, she had to put up with the anything-but-loyal Cammie. When Anna thought about which friends of Sam she had to tolerate, Cammie was right at the top of the list. Living proof that there was no correlation between

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  outer and inner beauty, Cammie was the kind of girl whose arrival at parties caused anyone with a pulse to stop talking midsentence and stare.

  This was no hyperbole; Anna had watched the Cammie Effect in action more than once. With lush, shoulder-length strawberry blond curls and an even more lush, curvaceous body, she oozed so much sex appeal, she made Scarlett Johansson look like Ugly Betty.

  "Hey, Sam. How goes it, Gwynnie?" Cammie asked, plucking Sam's drink from her hand and taking a sip.

  Anna did a mental eye roll. The "Gwynnie" reference was Cammie's way of saying that Anna looked like Gwyneth Paltrow, pre-marriage and pre-babies (Cammie always clarified). Anna herself did not see the resemblance, except for hair color, height, and

  --maybe-- build.

  Cammie, who never left the house without looking perfect, was well dressed for the evening's activities-- watching the fireworks that would be launched from a barge a half mile out to sea (a private show paid for by the hundred or so homeowners on this stretch of beach) and then some serious clubbing at House of Blues on Sunset Boulevard. She wore a white-and-blue Chloe spaghetti-strap slip dress, mile-high baby blue Jimmy Choos, and a delicate ruby, sapphire, and diamond pendant. How very patriotic.

  Anna glanced down at her own T-shirt, faded jeans, and black Reef flip-flops and felt like a lost wren to Cammie's confident peacock.

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  "Who let you in?" Sam asked. She leaned against the railing and held her face up to catch the setting sun.

  "Gertrude, Sue, Madeline, Lisette--whatever the housekeeper's name is." Cammie lifted the curls from her neck. "I adore coming to Malibu. It reeks of sex. Except in that direction." She pointed in the direction of a blocky beachfront mansion to the south. "Do you know who your neighbor is? Or should I say, Marty's neighbor?"

  Sam shrugged.

  "Gibson Wills. My father's WLE--Worst Living Enemy."

  "Everyone in this town is your father's worst living enemy, Cammie," Sam pointed out. "Unless he's your father's NBF--New Best Friend."

  Back when she lived in New York, this interchange would have left Anna utterly baffled. Now, she understood the code. Cammie's dad was Clark Sheppard, a founder of Apex Talent and notoriously the worst son-of-a-bitch agent in Hollywood despite his many deals and successes. Anna knew this firsthand, since--God help her--she'd briefly worked for Clark as an intern. That experience had ended when Cammie had plotted a complicated, and successful, scheme to drive Anna out. Amazingly, Anna also knew who Gibson Wills was, since Gibson was almost as big an international action movie star as Jackson Sharpe. Or at least he had been a decade earlier.

  "Gibson sued my father over some deal. Who knows, who cares?" Cammie went on. "And he lost. He claims that was the beginning of the end of his career as a movie

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  star. That's probably the truth. Last I heard, he was doing TV commercials in Japan for anti-aging face cream." She'd taken Sam's drink and proceeded to drain half of it. "The man is a joke. He hasn't spoken to my father in years but sends him petrified rabbit pellets in a Godiva chocolate box every Christmas. Hey, want to go check out his manse? It's probably hideous. Gibson has zero taste. Seriously. My father says he has people dress him."

  All this "my father this" and "my father that" was curious to Anna, because she was pretty sure Cammie did not get along with Mr. Sheppard at all.

  "Who's coming with?" Cammie asked. She looked at her nails. "God. I need a manicure."

  Sam shook her head. "Not me. I have to go tell Marlene--that's her name, by the way

  --that we'll want dinner out here on the deck. "And I have to find something

  --anything!--for my feet. Maybe I'll go raid Mrs. Martinsen's closet. Just kidding. Don't be too long, okay?"

  "Let her know we want champagne. I'm dying of thirst." Cammie headed for the narrow, weather-beaten wooden staircase that led down to the beach. "What time do the fireworks start, anyway?"

  "We've got forty-five minutes, so we can eat while we watch."

  "Know what, Sam? Screw food. Get the bubbly--we can eat at the club. They actually have a decent kitchen. But I've got my dad's car and driver, so we can drink all we want. Let's go, Anna--want to come with and check out Gibson's monstrosity?"

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  Anna was shocked that Cammie was inviting her; usually the two of them barely held onto civility. Yet being Cammie's enemy was exhausting, not to mention an utter waste of time. If, for some unknown reason, this was Cammie's version of an olive branch, she was inclined to accept it.

  "Sure, why not?" Anna told her.

  They moved toward the staircase together. Five minutes later, while Sam was pro
wling barefoot around Marty's French-style kitchen in search of the Taittinger's, she and Cammie had kicked off their own footwear and started down the magnificent and largely deserted beach that was Malibu's greatest and most famous asset. Gibson's estate was a few hundred yards to the south of Marty's--the very next one over.

  Cammie stopped, put her hands on her hips, and took in their surroundings. Anna did the same.

  "This place is so beautiful." Anna knew she was stating the obvious.

  "It is, I agree."

  "My mind goes round and round about the whole class thing all the time. It did in New York, and it does here. How it might just be fundamentally wrong for the few to have so much when the many have so little. Not that it's such a revelation, I know."

  "Well, that's because it is . . . how did you put it? Fundamentally wrong," Cammie asserted, pushing some curls off her face.

  Anna was surprised at Cammie's reaction. She'd always

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  thought of the girl as having the conscience of a--she hated to say it, but it was a perfect simile--mascara wand. And then she realized. "Adam's starting to rub off on you, Cammie."

  Adam Flood was a good friend of Anna's; in fact, she'd briefly dated him, though even then her heart had belonged to Ben. Adam was far from being a Beverly Hills rich kid who took everything for granted. Instead, he was a Michigan native and one of the most decent human beings whom Anna had met north of the 10 and west of the 101--an excellent student, the starting point guard on the BHHS basketball team, and one of the few people Anna knew out here whose mother and father were still married to each other. When Adam and Cammie had hooked up toward the end of the winter, Anna had been sure it was the oddest pairing in human history and destined to end quickly. But it hadn't.

  "I'm working on making him more shallow," Cammie deadpanned. "All that Adam Flood goodness is hard to take."

  They kept walking until they were about two hundred yards from Gibson's mansion. From the beach, it appeared low-slung and boxy, with a wider area to the rear lined with rectangular windows, and an incongruent New England-style widow's walk along the roof.