by Melody Mayer
Kiley could hear her mother's voice soaring upward through the octaves, a sure sign that she was rounding the bend to a fullblown panic attack.
“It's okay Mom,” she soothed. “Really. It'll be fine. Remember when you said that you trusted me and that was why you were letting me stay in L.A. even though I'm still a minor?”
“Yes …”
Kiley could hear the doubt in her mother's voice. She pressed on.
“Remember how you told me you don't want me to be like you, scared of things?”
Silence. Then: “I did say that,” her mother admitted softly.
“I know you meant it,” Kiley insisted. “Well, I'm asking you to trust me, Mom. Just like you said you would. I'll do everything I can to make you comfortable with this. Mrs. Bowers is a publicist. Maybe … you can even meet her through a video hookup or something. Or … I know—maybe she'll pay for you to come out here to meet her!”
More silence. Kiley knew that this last suggestion was a shot in the dark and highly unlikely, but she crossed her fingers and sent up a silent prayer to whatever higher power might be involved in this sort of fateful decision anyway. Please, she prayed, knowing how stupid and even selfish it was to pray for this when she didn't pray for anything else, but doing it anyway. Please, please, please. I deserve this, I deserve this, I deserve this, I de—
“All right, Kiley.”
Kiley's heart jumped.
“Did you just say … all right?”
“Yes, honey, I did. But Kiley, please have Mrs. Bowers call me in the morning. I won't rest easy until I hear her voice.”
Kiley punched the air with glee. Tom rewarded this positive gesture with a huge smile.
“Absolutely, Mom,” Kiley promised. “Thank you so much—”
“Kiley?”
Something about her mom's voice made Kiley feel as if she was seven years old again.
“Yeah, Mom?”
“Sweetheart, if you pull another stunt like the one you pulled with Platinum—and I know you know what I'm talking about—”
Kiley did. She'd lied terribly to her mother. She felt terrible about it, too.
“I'll be completely honest this time, Mom. Whatever happens. But nothing is going to happen,” Kiley added hastily. “I swear it. This time things are going to work out.”
“Yes. Well, life has a way of fouling up the best-laid plans, Kiley.” Another heavy sigh as Toby Keith started singing again in the background. “I just hope I'm doing the right thing.”
“You are, Mom. You definitely are!”
Kiley thanked her mother profusely, told her how much she loved her, and hung up. Then she threw herself into Tom's arms.
The sandy-haired valet shot them a dirty look when Tom, casually clad in Diesel denim, a Le Tigre polo, and chocolate brown suede Pumas, finally handed over the car keys. But since he also handed over a ten-dollar tip, the guy was somewhat mollified.
They pushed through the front door of the Velvet Margarita and were greeted by Mexican-tinged sights, sounds, and smells. Mariachis draped in fringed serapes milled around the red velvet booths, where the young, hip, and beautiful noshed on enchiladas and chimichangas. On the black velvet walls hung gaudy sombreros and candlelit caricatures of iconic celebrities: Elvis, Selena, and Madonna were the ones Kiley could instantly identify. Meanwhile, a deejay in a pink Day-Glo booth suspended from the two-story-high ceiling spun Mexican hip-hop—David Rolas, Crooked Stilo, Control Machete. Tom picked out a number of the tunes for Kiley as they waited for the maitre d' to seat them.
“How do you know Mexican hip-hop?” Kiley asked over the music.
“My friend La Daga,” Tom explained, a protective hand on the small of Kiley's back, as a raucous, drunken group of guys made their way out of the restaurant. “The Dagger.”
“That's a name?” Kiley asked.
“Exactly,” Tom said. “His real name is Emmanuel, but he models under La Daga. We have the same agent. He's got that hot Latin thing going on; does lots of romance novel covers for Harlequin. Stuff like that. Great guy. Anyway, he does that for the bucks but really he's a rap artist. He's played all this stuff for me. In fact, he's the one who turned me on to this restaur—”
“Tom!”
Kiley squeezed her eyes shut, hoping that the voice she'd just heard calling to her date did not belong to the person she thought it belonged to.
“Tom, sweetheart!”
Damn. Her ears weren't lying.
Marym was making her way through the crowd toward them. The famous eighteen-year-old, raven-haired Israeli model wore a sandy wraparound sleeveless top over a floor-grazing BCBG cream skirt littered with embroidered golden leaves and looked, as usual, perfect. Kiley felt utterly provincial in her generic jeans and one of the few garments she'd acquired in L.A., a Forever 21 black-and-white-striped scoop-neck tee. She had met Marym when Tom had taken her to Marym's birthday party at her new place right on the beach in Malibu. Then Kiley had definitely gotten on the model's bad side when she'd joined a protest because Marym was not allowing the public access to the beach. Only it had turned out that since Marym had just purchased the house, she hadn't even known she was required to provide access via a path on her property. The protesters, including Kiley had been both premature and wrong.
Even that wouldn't have been so bad if Kiley hadn't known that Marym had been involved with Tom before Kiley had met him. Kiley suspected that they'd had a torrid affair, and that Marym had an interest in picking up wherever it was that she and Tom had left off.
“Imagine running into you!” Marym exclaimed in husky, Israeli-accented English. She kissed Tom softly on the lips, then her gaze went to Kiley. “Oh. Hello, Kiley,” she added coolly. “Nice to see you, too.”
Tom put a protective arm around Kiley's shoulders. “We're celebrating,” he explained. “Kiley thought she was going to have to go back to Wisconsin, but she just found out she's staying in L.A.”
Marym smiled. “Great news. I'm happy for you.”
Kiley tried to smile back, because Marym seemed to mean what she said. Kiley could never quite be sure if the problem between them actually existed, or if she was simply insecure and jealous around the gorgeous It Girl of the moment—the It Girl who knew Tom very, very well.
“Thanks,” she replied. “I'm looking forward to it.”
Marym tugged on Tom's hand. “There's no need for you two to wait. Come sit with us. We're in our booth in back with La Daga”—she put an ironic twist on the name—“and some other models, dishing about FAB. It was insane, wasn't it?”
Tom and Marym had both modeled in FAB and had shared a table at the charity dinner aboard the Queen Mary ocean liner that had ended the FAB week festivities. That dinner had been organized by Esme's bosses, Diane in particular. After that dinner, Kiley reminded herself, Tom had come to find her. They'd kissed for the very first time on the deck of the vessel.
Take that, Marym, she said mentally, trying to buoy her self-confidence. He could have stayed with you that night, but he came to me instead.
She leaned in closer to Tom, sure that he'd politely turn down Marym's invitation to join the table of models. He'd tell Marym that he wanted to be alone with Kiley. It would be so wonderful and romantic and—
“Sure, we'd love to join you,” Tom said easily. “Kiley?”
“Oh, yeah, sure!” she agreed, lying through her teeth.
Damn all over again. She couldn't very well say no, so she slapped a hap-hap-happy smile on her face as Tom and Marym led her to the back of the rowdy restaurant to join the beautiful people.
“So, bottom line, you need to learn how to drive,” Billy concluded as he and Lydia walked hand in hand along the wet sand, stepping up the beach from time to time to avoid the incoming tide.
Billy had taken her to Mia-Mia's, a little Italian-themed coffeehouse in Redondo Beach, where they'd shared weak espressos and dry pastries while listening to a woman sing and play guitar on a small, raised stage in the corner Lydia
decided that her voice resembled a squealing squirrel monkey in heat, and her original songs all seemed to involve women deeply depressed over lost love.
Lydia sized up the situation thusly: the girl had been hired for her eye-popping cleavage, amply displayed in a silver brocade sweater unbuttoned to her navel, which was pierced with a diamond stick-pin, and for her legs, which were barely covered by a Seven for All Mankind denim miniskirt, below which she wore ripped thigh-high fishnet stockings and Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquiëre stiletto heels with black and silver velvet polka dots.
When she shared her observations with Billy, he pretty much agreed. The only reason he'd picked the spot was because as kids, he and X used to come to an Italian ice cream parlor that had been at the same address. It was the nostalgia factor that had seduced him into checking out the coffeehouse. Lydia found it sweet that a guy who had grown up in so many different countries—Mozambique, Germany, Thailand, Liberia, and, of course, the U.S.A.—could be so nostalgic about a simple neighborhood ice cream parlor.
The more she thought about it, though, the better she understood. She hadn't been back to Houston since she was eight years old, but there were places in her memory that still loomed large. Houston was home, and it would always be home, no matter where she lived in the world. As soon as she had the chance, as soon as she had enough money for a plane ticket, she planned to return to what she still thought of as her city, to revisit the glory days of her rich and pampered youth.
Mia-Mia's was only a block from the Pacific. By mutual decision, they left the coffeehouse halfway into the singer's first set. It was a glorious June night, and they decided to walk over to the beach. It was a wise decision. Whatever Mia-Mia's had lacked in inspiration, the ocean and the night sky made up for. On the walk over, Lydia told Billy the whole story of the moms' “X Is No Longer Your Driver” edict.
He whistled. As everyone knew, Los Angeles without wheels was not doable.
“So, two things. I need to learn to drive, and I need a car. I need a car.”
Billy bent down and plucked up a seashell, then hurled it into the inky water. “I can't help you with the wheels, but I can teach you to drive.”
“I'm not so sure that's a great idea,” Lydia mused. “Maybe I should ask X for lessons. Havin' your boyfriend teach you to drive might be relationship suicide.”
He put an arm around her slender waist and bumped his hip playfully into hers. “O ye of little faith.”
“Oh, I have a whole lotta faith in all kinds of things,” Lydia corrected. “Just to be on the safe side, though, maybe we should have sex before we start the driving lessons.”
Billy threw his head back and laughed. “Come on, fess up. If I spent every waking hour trying to seduce you, you'd be telling me to back off.”
She stopped walking, turned to him, and grabbed a handful of his navy blue T-shirt. “Totally wrong, Billy Martin.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. He kissed her back, and it quickly turned steamy. She felt his hand edge under the waistband of the extremely used but new to her vintage Missoni pink and black knit skirt she'd unearthed late that afternoon at Her Closet on Melrose, a hole-in-the-wall thrift store in Brentwood that was on the way home from the country club. When she'd tried on the size-six skirt, it had hung loosely on her hip bones (a six was way too big for her). Its hem grazed her knees, there was a cigarette burn on the right thigh, and the pink lining hung haphazardly from the bottom of the skirt—all of which accounted for its twelve-dollar price tag. Well, the low-slung waist worked in her favor, Lydia figured. And the price was right.
She'd brought it home and performed the same machete fashion surgery that she'd done on clothes in the Amazon, except this time with some pinking shears. Now the skirt fluttered midthigh. Then she'd dived into the bottom of her purse to find the engraved matches from the FAB party aboard the Queen Mary. She lit one and made a few more burn holes in the skirt's fabric to match the one that was already there, so that the burns looked punk and deliberate. She paired the skirt with a thin, cheap, boy's white sleeveless undershirt (thrift store price was a buck) and wore nothing underneath but creamy skin. No mention had been made of the “borrowed” cosmetics and perfume, so Lydia had been able to do her usual five coats of Benefit BADgal Lash mascara, several sweeps of Nars blush in Orgasm, plus a thick layer of collagen-infused lip-plumping gloss.
Evidently the entire effect had worked; she'd been gratified to see Billy's IQ drop when he picked her up and took in the hotness that was her … which made it all the more maddening that the boy refused to take her virginity.
She rubbed up against him, fingering the fly of his Levi's; she felt his hand caressing the minuscule Wendy Glez lace thong under her skirt. Oh yes, this was going very, very well. She tugged him down toward the sand. He obliged, kissing her neck. But then he whispered in her ear: “Not gonna happen here, Lydia.”
Damn him.
She pushed against his chest. “If you really wanted me, you wouldn't have so much self-control.”
He put his palms in the sand and leaned back, staring out at the ocean. “Look, you want this to be some quickie thing, I can oblige you. But I want more.”
“Great idea! Quickie sex and then move on to something more?”
“It doesn't work that way. At least not for me.” He scooped up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. “It's all fantasy to you, Lydia. But in my experience, sex too soon ruins a relationship.”
She thought about that for a moment. “Is that because you're not very good in bed?”
He laughed. “Oh no, Miz Chandler. I'm not playing that game with you. Let's talk about driving.”
Lydia pouted her incredibly pouty lips. “You are a very difficult person.”
“So are you,” he said, but he smiled when he said it, and gave her a kiss. “When do you get a day off? We'll do your first lesson.”
She cocked her head at him. “You're sure?”
“My friend Sasha taught me on the Autobahn between Cologne and Bonn when I was fifteen,” Billy explained. “It's not legal to drive in Germany until you're eighteen, but that doesn't seem to stop anyone. Speeds on the Autobahn run somewhere between eighty and time warp. I promise that you'll have an easier time of it than I did.”
“Sold.” Lydia lay back on her folded hands and stared up at the stars. “Great night, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” Billy lay down next to her. “I used to look up at the stars when I was in whatever foreign country my parents had been transferred to and watch for meteors. I always wished to come back to America. You can't imagine how much time X and I spent on this beach, right here, when we were kids.”
She turned to him, studying his profile in the moonlight. Chestnut brown hair flopped boyishly on his forehead. “I did that, too. Wish to come home, I mean.”
He let his hand drift atop hers. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiled at him. One of the big things they had in common was that neither of them had grown up in America. In his case, it was due to his parents' careers in the State Department as Foreign Service officers. Both of them knew what it felt like to know that America was home and to long to be there, but at the same time to feel like a stranger in your own country when you were back. It was like permanent culture shock.
She snaked her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I have Sunday off.”
He kissed her back. “Excellent. I've got a thing at eleven, but after that.”
Lydia couldn't help herself. “What thing?”
“A friend asked me to help out with a house she's building in Alhambra. It's part of Habitat for Humanity.”
Lydia arched a brow.
“I have friends who are girls, Lydia,” Billy said of her look.
“Me too, Billy. I'm not the jealous type. I was just wondering.”
“Becca. She's another one of Eduardo's assistants.”
Eduardo was the slave driver for whom Billy was interning in interior design. This Becca—whoever
she was—must be an interior design student too.
“Have you had sex with Becca?”
Billy's eyebrows rose. “You really want to go there?”
“So you have?”
Billy sat up. “We met at Eduardo's Christmas party last year. She got wasted, I got wasted—”
“And you did it,” Lydia filled in.
“Yeah, it happened,” Billy admitted. “But we're just pals, Lydia.”
“Friends with benefits,” Lydia mused. She sat up too. “Are you friends?”
He ran a hand softly through Lydia's shagged silver-blond mane. “The only woman I want benefits with is you, Lydia. And for now, only in my dreams.”
Ooh. There went that shivery feeling he gave her whenever he talked about her—them—and sex.
“Just remember, Billy,” she whispered. “When we finally do jump each other, you're gonna have a whole lot of time to make up for.”
He kissed the spot where her collarbones nearly met. “Count on it,” he said.
The next thing she knew she was in his arms again. Then a bright light shone in their eyes, blinding them.
“What the—” Billy barked.
Lydia shielded her eyes from the light and looked up at a park ranger. He had a green uniform, a blond crew cut, and beefy arms, and he didn't look happy.
“This beach closes at ten p.m.,” he roared.
“Yeah, we get that. Could you move the flashlight out of our eyes, please? It's a killer,” Billy requested.
The park ranger stood his ground. “As soon as you two lovebirds move along and out of here.”
Billy cursed softly under his breath and helped Lydia to her feet. “You seem way too happy in your work, man.”
“Just move along,” the ranger insisted, shining his light up the beach, presumably the path that he wanted Lydia and Billy to follow.
Lydia shook her head. “You know, there are other outlets for your sexual inadequacies than bustin' up other people's romances.”
“What did you say?” the ranger fumed, and made a motion toward his handcuffs.