Blonde Ambition

by Zoey Dean

  “Out where?” Anna asked.

  Ben smiled. “Trust me.”

  Get out there, Anna learned, was California’s unofficial slogan. And from Ben’s point of view, it meant not sitting around like a spectator, but participating in the incredible range of outdoor activities that made southern California such a paradise spot. Which was why, by the time the sun was low in the afternoon sky, Anna and Ben were happy, tired, and more than a little disheveled.

  They’d joined a pickup volleyball game. Walked along the ocean’s edge and watched a couple of surf casters pull huge ocean perch from the water, one after another after another. Rented bicycles and ridden south toward Redondo Beach. And then, for the pièce de résistance, Ben had booked them on a boat ride that took them from Redondo all the way out to Santa Barbara Island. There a certified naturalist had guided them in a sea kayak along the rocky shoreline, to the chiding but harmless consternation of hundreds of barking seals and sea lions that called the island their home.

  It was, Anna thought, as she and Ben pedaled back from Redondo Beach to Hermosa Beach, one of the best days she’d had since she’d come to California. And maybe one of the best days ever.

  But just as the Hermosa Beach pier was coming into view, Anna’s cell phone rang. She stopped her bicycle to answer it. “Hello?”

  “I need you to pick up some dailies.” It was Clark Sheppard, with no preliminaries and all the manners of an ill-tempered Homo erectus. “How soon can you get to the set?”

  “How far are we from the Strand in Hermosa Beach?” Anna asked Ben.

  “Five minutes,” Ben told her. Anna reported this to Clark.

  “Good.” Clark hung up.

  “What a lovely man,” Anna said, putting her cell back in her purse.

  “What’s up?” Ben asked.

  She quickly explained her mission. “Sorry,” she added as they started off again. “I guess a day off from school doesn’t mean a day off from interning.”

  But Ben was easy about the detour to the set and didn’t even seem to mind that he’d have to give her an immediate ride to Westwood to deliver the dailies to Clark. Anna only knew what dailies were because Danny had mentioned them: they were raw videotapes of scenes from the show so that interested parties could see what was happening on the set. One “daily” might show one scene from five different camera angles, repeated in five different “takes.”

  Ben’s guesstimate was accurate. Five minutes later they’d parked their bicycles and Anna was leading Ben through the hotel’s spectacular lobby. No filming was in progress, so the set was deserted save for some designers refreshing the flowers with new ones that looked exactly like the old ones.

  Anna found Danny in his small office, banging away on a keyboard. When he saw Anna, he gave her a “happy to see you” look and a little wave but then continued typing. Anna waited for a minute or two as Danny completed whatever he was working on, then came around his desk and enveloped her in a bear hug. “Hey, dancing partner! Great to see you!”

  “You too,” she said when he released her. “Danny Bluestone, Ben Birnbaum,” she added, introducing the guys to each other. Danny held out a friendly hand, which, Anna could see, Ben shook with an iron grip.

  “Danny’s a writer on the show,” Anna went on, choosing to ignore the scowl that had taken over her boyfriend’s face. Ben didn’t say a word, so she muttered something about picking up the dailies for Clark.

  “Yeah, I just got his message,” Danny said, reaching for a stack of tapes on his desk. He rearranged the rubber band around them, then gave them to Anna. “He could have just used a messenger service.”

  “I think he enjoys telling me what to do,” Anna said ruefully. “Anyway, thanks.”

  “Not a problem.” Danny sat on the edge of his desk. “Hey, come back later on—we’re gonna hit Dublin’s again. Nice to meet you, Ben.”

  Anna could feel Ben’s ire as they left Danny’s office, crossed the hotel lobby, and headed back outside. Truth be told, she felt awful. It had seemed like such a small deception when she’d let Ben think that she hadn’t picked up his calls the night before because she was working.

  “Um, you gonna explain that?” Ben finally asked when they reached their bicycles.

  “The cast and crew went out last night and invited me along.”

  “You told me you were working.”

  Anna didn’t reply.

  “What’s up with you and that guy?” Ben demanded. “Nothing,” Anna said quietly.

  “That’s a load of crap. If it was nothing, you wouldn’t have lied to me about it.”

  “I didn’t lie to you, exactly—”

  “What the hell would you call it?”

  “Would you calm down, please? You’re making something out of nothing.”

  “Maybe.” Ben started walking his bicycle down the path toward the shop where they’d rented them, and Anna pushed hers along, too.

  “Maybe I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d overreact, which is exactly what you’re doing.”

  “Don’t twist this around, Anna,” Ben insisted.

  “I just … I don’t think we have to get so … so intense.”

  “That ice maiden shit might intimidate the hell out of guys back east, Anna, but it doesn’t mean squat to me. Either we’re together or we’re not.”

  She touched his back with her free hand. “You know I want to be with you. But I have a life, too.”

  “Jeez, I can’t even trust you when I’m in the same city. How am I supposed to trust you if I go back to Princeton?”

  She knew he meant the question rhetorically. What she couldn’t quite figure out was how they’d gotten from being two people who wanted each other desperately to Ben feeling jealous—and her feeling guilty—if she so much as looked at another boy.

  BAP Days

  As Adam Flood pulled a vintage Public Image Limited T-shirt out of his top dresser drawer, a photograph he’d stuck on top of that dresser caught his eye. The photo was of him and Anna on the beach with his dog, Bowser. Adam had his arm around Anna, and the dog was gazing soulfully up at her.

  Adam remembered the day that photo had been taken. He and Anna and the dog had been at the beach near Gladstone’s, the famous seafood restaurant. Some Japanese tourists wandered by and asked Adam if he’d take their picture. Afterward they’d insisted on snapping one of him and Anna and the dog and had promised to mail it to him. Though Adam had scrawled his address on a scrap of paper, he’d never expected to see the photo. But it had arrived only a few days later, in an envelope from the Century City Plaza Hotel. Evidently the very honest tourists had developed their film before returning to the Land of the Rising Sun.

  Anna and he hadn’t been a couple then. They weren’t a couple now. What Adam had never expected was that if there were a relationship, it would last roughly the same amount of time as a typical tourist’s visit to Disneyland. Goddamn Ben. Adam should have known that Anna would run back to him. Girls always ran back to guys like Ben Birnbaum.

  Morose, he sat on his bed. Bowser trotted into his room, and Adam absentmindedly stroked his dog’s ears. Anna had told him she was ending their relationship to be alone for a while. What a crock. Then she’d had the nerve to pull that “I want us to be friends” line. He’d almost bought it, too.

  With a final scratch to Bowser’s fur, Adam sprang up and headed into his bathroom to brush his teeth. He wasn’t pining for Anna, exactly. Nor was he in love with her. But he knew he’d been in the process of falling in love with her, deeply, truly, really in love. There was just something about her, something unlike any other girl he’d ever known and certainly unlike any other girl he’d known since moving from Michigan to Beverly Hills. For example, he liked Sam Sharpe. But her obvious insecurities gave her so much emotional baggage, he found it exhausting to hang out with her sometimes.

  Then there was Cammie. It had shocked the hell out of him when she’d kissed him on the beach. And only a mannequin wouldn’t have
enjoyed that. But he knew her reputation—there was always an agenda with that one. Friends like Cammie made scorpions seem obsolete.

  With new resolve, Adam strode back into his room and took the photograph off his dresser. He tore it in two and dropped it in his wastebasket before heading downstairs.

  “Rotten, Johnny,” his mom said archly when she saw the T-shirt. She was at her desk in the family room, poring over some legal briefs. Both of Adam’s parents were entertainment lawyers; they practiced together at the same firm. As far as Adam could see, that they continued to like and respect each other was a true Beverly Hills rarity.

  Adam pulled on his ratty, ancient denim jacket. “So, I’m heading out.”

  His mom took off her reading glasses and frowned for a moment until she recalled his plans for the evening. “Beck. Hollywood Bowl. Right?”

  He nodded.

  “With?”

  “Me. Solo.”

  “What about Anna?”

  “There is no more Anna. He tried to shrug it off. “It’s okay. I’m over her.”

  His mother nodded but didn’t look convinced. “Have fun.”

  He held up the keys to her Saturn. “Thanks for this.” “You’re welcome—put some gas in it,” his mom said, putting her glasses back on.

  Adam went outside, started her car, and slipped Beck’s Sea Change CD into the player. It suited his mood more than the sexy undertones of MidniteVultures. Sea Change was all about bitter breakups and broken hearts—far more appropriate.

  A half hour later he was part of the long line of cars snaking into the Bowl’s parking lots, and then he felt as if he had to walk a mile through the greenery of Griffith Park before he reached the entrance to the outdoor concert space. He’d only been up to the Bowl once before, and that had been with his parents to see Sting. It had been his mom’s birthday—she was the world’s biggest Sting fan. He’d actually enjoyed the concert, except when his mom decided to sing along to “Roxanne” at the top of her lungs.

  Adam had the best seat he could afford, which unfortunately meant nosebleed territory. He hadn’t thought to bring binoculars, either. As the vast outdoor amphitheater filled, he took in the amazing architecture, the signature proscenium arch that he knew offered outstanding acoustics for an outdoor arena.

  He settled down, waiting for the warm-up band to start. To his left were some high-school kids in Harvard-Westlake sweatshirts, to his right a couple of men in their twenties. But Adam didn’t mind being at the concert alone; he knew he could easily have invited one of his buds from the basketball team. Or even Sam Sharpe. But it didn’t seem fair to saddle anyone with his brood over life, love, and lust. Over Anna.

  While Adam was waiting for the music to begin, Cammie paced the floor of her room, cell phone in hand. As she waited for Sam to answer, she could hear strains of Christina Aguilera coming from Mia’s room. God. The girl’s taste in music was as bad as her taste in clothes.

  Sam had promised that she’d call. In the olden BAP days—Before Anna Percy—a promise from Sam that she’d call meant that the phone would be ringing before noon. In the olden days Cammie would have already reminded Sam about Cammie’s upcoming sweet eighteenth birthday, at which point Sam would have jumped in and offered to do anything to help plan the blowout to end all blowouts.

  That was then, this was now. Night had fallen, and Sam still hadn’t called her. So Cammie had figured out a plausible rationale for being the one to place the call. God forbid she should sound needy.

  “Yuh?” Sam answered on the third ring. There was noise in the background, so Sam had to be out and about. Without Cammie. Something else that wouldn’t have happened BAP.

  “Hey, girl,” Cammie greeted her. “What’s up?” She stopped in front of her three-way mirror to check out her new Jolie silk bra and matching panties.

  “Not much.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Beauty Bar,” Sam yelled over the club’s noise.

  Cammie knew the Beauty Bar, of course. Just off Hollywood Boulevard, it was done up exactly like a 1950s beauty salon and was one of the hip places of the moment. “Who’s there?” Cammie tried to sound nonchalant.

  “Dee was, but she left for Stevie’s gig at the Hollywood Bowl. He’s opening for Beck, isn’t that cool?”

  “Listen, about last night,” Cammie went on smoothly. “I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay that Adam kissed me.”

  “You kissed him,” Sam corrected her. “I saw. And it was just a peck anyway; it’s not like it was leading to anything.”

  “Whatever.”

  Before she could figure out what to say next, Sam broke in. “You want to meet me at Johnny Rockets? I gotta get out of here. Three wanna-bes have already hit me up for roles in my new film.”

  Roles in her new film? Cammie thought. What a pretentious crock of shit. Just because Sam had announced in class that she and Anna were doing a new project didn’t mean that anyone cared. Sometimes Sam’s pitiful attempts to step out from her father’s shadow were just so pathetic.

  Instead of responding to Sam’s question, Cammie asked, “Where’s Adam?”

  “Hollywood Bowl,” Sam replied. “He’s insane for Beck. Didn’t you know?”

  Of course Cammie didn’t know. If she had, she would have told Adam that her father and Beck’s manager were best friends. But it wasn’t like Adam Flood confided in her.

  “He didn’t ask you to go with him?” Cammie queried.

  “We’re friends, that’s all,” Sam replied guilelessly. “I might be interested in him long term. But he’s kind of on the rebound from Anna now. So I don’t think he’s really up for a relationship. You know what I mean?”

  Cammie smiled. “That’s frighteningly mature of you.” “I guess. We’ll see what happens. Anyway, Adam knows, like, every lyric Beck ever wrote,” Sam went on. “He’s got a shitty seat, though. Nosebleed section. So, you want to meet for a burger?”

  The hamsters in Cammie’s mind started spinning their little metal wheels. Sam was backing off from Adam. Adam had gone to see Beck alone. He had a crap seat. She had the ability to make all his little I-love-Beck dreams come true. He’d be sooo grateful. This time he’d kiss her. And then she’d find out if what she thought she’d felt the night before was really something more than PMS cramps.

  Suddenly Sam forgetting about her upcoming birthday had fallen off her list of priorities.

  “I’ve got plans,” Cammie said coolly. “Call me tomorrow.”

  Cammie leaned forward on the gray Italian leather seat to speak to her father’s driver. “Pull up to ‘will call.’”

  It hadn’t taken Cammie more than a half hour to set her plan in motion. One cell phone call to her father’s assistant was all it took. (“My father needs two backstage passes to Beck. And pronto.”) Fifteen minutes later the passes were arranged, waiting at the box office. Meanwhile Cammie applied three coats of MAC mascara, brushed on some Nars blush in Orgasm, and finished with some baby pink Stila lip gloss. She decided to go with a casual look Adam was likely to appreciate— jeans she’d paid two hundred dollars for at the Beverly Center that were faded and patched to Woodstock-era vintage perfection, a wife-beater sleeveless man’s T-shirt through which her red Jolie silk bra was plainly visible, and a vintage jean jacket. Yes, the jacket was lined in mink, and yes, it was conceivable that Adam was one of those PETA lunatics, but fuck it. A girl could only go so far to make herself over for a guy.

  Outside the Hollywood Bowl box office the driver opened the door for Cammie; she hopped out. After issuing him instructions as to where he should wait, she went to will call for her backstage passes. With the laminated card dangling from her neck, she’d have the run of the place. Plus she’d arrived at the perfect time. Border Cross was just finishing their opening set, waving to the crowd before running from the stage. Dee’s squeeze was wearing black leather pants. How excruciating was that? It could mean one of two things. Either Stevie Nova-whatever-his-name-was was gu
nning for the Harry Shearer role in a remake of Spinal Tap or Dee had fallen once again for a closeted gay boy.

  While onstage a dozen roadies were doing a quick changeover for Beck, Cammie headed for the upper-tier section where she knew Adam was sitting. She herself had never been anywhere besides tenth row center at the Hollywood Bowl. It was almost like a foreign country up here, so far from the action. Why bother to come at all?

  Okay. She was up top. Now how to find him? Cammie decided to let him find her. She went down the first row of upper-tier seats and started to make her way across from left to right. If Adam was in his seat, he’d be sure to see her. He was such a polite guy that he’d call out to her. And if he was taking a bathroom break, she’d just repeat the process from right to left. She walked extra slowly and tossed around her red curls as much as possible. They were as bright and eye-catching as anything else Adam might notice.

  “Cammie!”

  Cammie hadn’t moved more than thirty feet from where she started when she heard Adam’s voice. That was even easier than expected.

  Feigning surprise, she scanned the seats up above her. There was Adam, in the worst possible seat— second-to-last row from the top at the extreme right side. After an appropriately long moment she made eye contact with him and waved. Then she took her time making her way up to his row, half wishing that she had an oxygen mask. What was the point of going to a concert and sitting in a seat so far from the stage that the feature act looked like a paramecium?

  “Hi there,” she said. She slid into the temporarily unoccupied seat next to his.

  “Cammie Sheppard. Will wonders never cease? The serfs and the underlings sit up here. The pissant peasants. The little people. Are you telling me that you were hanging with the unwashed masses?”

  She lifted his arm playfully and inspected it. Taut.

  Tan. Nice.

  “Au contraire. It appears that you do wash.” She let his arm go but rested her hand lightly on his forearm. “Not everyone I know is rich. I don’t judge people based on money.”

  “But what are you doing all the way up here?” Cammie thought quickly. “Dee said that Stevie’s cousin’s girlfriend was in the upper tier. She asked me to bring her a pass to the post-show party at the Century City Plaza Hotel.”