Last night, when Holly hadn't come back outside, Alexa had abandoned her post by the pool to go to bed; beauty sleep was a priority for the wedding. She'd been propped up on pillows, investigating LA salons on her laptop, when Holly had stuck her head into the room. She'd looked weary and wan, and her face was stained with tears, but she'd assured Alexa that she was coping, and that they'd talk in the morning. "Is it over with Tyler?" Alexa had whispered from her bed. "Over," Holly had confirmed, her face crumpling slightly as she'd pulled the door shut. First thing in the morning, Alexa had crept out of the house to run errands at the Malibu Country Mart -- such as dropping off her film, buying Vogue, and making an appointment at a chichi hair salon so she hadn't seen Holly yet. But she'd been worrying about her friend the whole time.
Her Grecian sandals clicking against the flagstones, Alexa trotted past the main house, where Esperanza was standing on the sundeck, firmly telling reporters that Jonah wasn't home and that they should call his publicist for a quote. Alexa wondered what the scene was like at Margaux's house in the Hills -- the site of
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the actual wedding. As Alexa let herself into the guesthouse, she felt a thrill shoot through her; in a matter of hours, she'd be in the midst of an honest-to-goodness Hollywood event. She couldn't think of a better way to kick off her summer -- not to mention the rest of her life.
Humming contentedly, Alexa carried the iced coffee drinks to Holly's bedroom, expecting to find her friend watching the press outside her window. Instead, Holly was kneeling on the floor of her walk-in closet, wrapped in one of the guesthouse's fluffy white robes, her wet hair shielding her face -- and looking absolutely miserable.
"Oh, Hoi" Alexa murmured, leaning against the closet door and feeling a swell of sympathy. "I know it hurts." Even though Alexa had recently had her heart badly broken in Paris, she couldn't begin to guess at the raw pain Holly was dealing with. Alexa and Xavier had had a passionate fling, not the kind of together-forever relationship Holly and Tyler had shared.
"Huh?" Holly glanced up, blinking, and then shook her head when she saw the concern on Alexa's face. Despite her lingering pain over what had happened with Tyler, Holly felt a giggle rise in her throat. "Oh, God. It's not what you think."
Alexa raised one brow. Holly's gray-green eyes were round, but they weren't teary. "You're not crying
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over Tyler?" Alexa asked, passing Holly one of the iced drinks.
"Not now," Holly sighed, getting to her feet and taking a sip of the frothy-sweet concoction. "I think I successfully cried myself out last night." The dull ache in Holly's heart deepened as she thought back to the hardest conversation of her life. She'd once read an article in CosmoGIRL! that had equated breaking up with tearing off a Band-Aid. On the phone with Tyler last night, Holly had decided that the amputation of a limb would be a far better comparison. It didn't have to be a whole leg -- maybe, like, a pinkie finger. Which, of course, still hurt like hell.
She and Tyler had opened up about everything -- their frustrations, their differences, their desires. "I think we want opposite things out of life," Tyler had said at one point while Holly had wept into the phone. Tyler had sniffed hard -- which was his way of crying -- and added that he never wanted to be the person to keep Holly from achieving her dreams. "You've been so good to me," Holly had sobbed in response, knowing it was true. They'd finally ended the conversation by saying they'd talk again at graduation. Afterward, an emotionally drained Holly had somehow found it in her to call her parents to discuss UCLA, a talk which hadn't been much easier. Then she'd tossed and turned the night away, sobbing into
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her pillow and repeating I'm not with Tyler anymore to herself. The words still sounded as if they were in a foreign language, but Holly wondered if, in time, they'd begin to make sense. To feel normal.
Alexa let out a breath of relief. She knew she and Holly would get into more detail on the Tyler subject later; she was just glad her friend wasn't completely falling apart over the boy. "All right," she said, taking a few steps back into the room. "Then why were you collapsed on the closet floor like Paris Hilton after a rough night?"
"I was figuring out which shoes to wear --" Holly pointed down to her beige sandals, beaded gold flats, Adidas, and jellies, stacked beside the new box of Bebe stilettos. "-- to my interview with the dean of admissions at UCLA." Speaking the words, Holly felt a mix of eagerness and terror storm through her. She still couldn't fathom what she was about to do in less than an hour.
"An interview?" Alexa cried, incredulous. She sat on the edge of Holly's bed, too surprised to bring her iced drink to her lips. "How did that happen so fast?"
"With difficulty," Holly groaned, rolling her eyes. Last night, shed gone through a battle of wills with her impossible parents. Holly Rebecca, her mom had chided, it's not like you to be so impulsive. Holly had wanted to reply that that was exactly the point, but
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then her father, sounding choked up, had jumped in to say that he'd hate to have his little girl thousands of miles away for four years. Holly was sure that the only reason she'd eventually triumphed was that her parents were too wiped out from their camping trip to give an absolute no.
"I got my mom and dad to agree that I should go in for a meeting," Holly elaborated, turning away from Alexa to pluck her A-line khaki skirt off a hanger. "But my mom flat-out refused to call the school and throw her weight around." Holly frowned as she noticed her prom dress dangling from a hanger in her closet -- its shimmery skirt was wrinkled from being folded up in her duffel. Fortunately Holly had spotted an iron in the bathroom's linen closet earlier.
"Gosh, that sucks," Alexa said, glancing down at her Vogue to hide her expression from her friend. Last night, during their poolside heart-to-heart, Alexa had supported Holly's UCLA switch; now, in the light of day, she was secretly hoping that Holly would still end up back on the East Coast. Alexa felt as if the girls had only just cemented their friendship; it seemed a shame to let that bond go to waste.
"Yeah, but then I talked to Kenya this morning, while you were out," Holly was saying, carrying the khaki skirt to the bed and laying it out beside Alexa. "And it turns out that she worked part-time at the
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admissions office last semester, so she was able to set something up for me. Amazing, no?" Holly's pulse spiked at the thought of her UCLA future, which now seemed truly within reach.
As long as she didn't screw up the interview.
"Holly, you do realize it's not every day that colleges let people change their minds at the last minute?" Alexa asked, opening her Vogue to a Catherine Malandrino ad. "I mean, you're not guaranteed a spot in the freshman class, are you?" She shot a long, level look up at Holly.
"Thank you, O Voice of Doom," Holly replied, lightly jabbing Alexa's shoulder. "I thought you were rooting for me to live in Cali full-time." As Holly set her iced drink down on her bedside table and reached for her comb, she heard the cacophony of raised voices and ringing cell phones outside her window. The paparazzi may not have been pawing through the trash last night, but they'd sure made up for it this morning. Holly wondered, then, if this was what life in California would be like until she reminded herself that she wouldn't be spending her college years on an estate in Malibu. Which was actually kind of disappointing.
"I changed my mind," Alexa said simply, then
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sipped at her drink. "I want you close at hand in case I have any romantic crises at Columbia. Don't you know by now that I'm a selfish bitch?" she added, her eyes glinting as she grinned up at her friend.
"Listen," Holly said, combing out her damp hair. "Can you please do something non -selfish today and figure out what we should get Margaux as a wedding present? And we need to leave a gift for Jonah, too," she added as she scooped her gold hoop earrings out of her makeup bag. Holly knew her parents would never let her live it down if she forgot to give a token of thanks to her host.
"I
guess," Alexa sighed, How was she supposed to shop for a guy whom she'd just rejected? Her favorite things to buy for boys flannel boxers, crisp button-downs, designer aftershave -- would feel way too loaded for Jonah, and besides, what was there that the actor couldn't already get for himself? "How about we divide and conquer?" Alexa offered. "I'll take care of Margaux, you get the goods for Jonah?"
"I don't think I'll have time," Holly protested as she pushed one of the hoops through her ear, and Alexa rolled her eyes. "I still need to ask Esperanza if there's a fax machine in the main house that I can use I'm supposed to bring my latest report card to the interview. And then Kenya's coming to pick me
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up, and then I need to iron my dress before the wedding --" Holly paused as she felt her earring bang against the ring on her finger.
Her Claddagh ring.
Oh, yeah.
Her throat tightening, Holly reached down and tugged lightly on the ring. It slipped off her finger with little resistance. She held it in the warmth of her palm for a moment, sending it a silent good-bye, before she slipped it deep into her makeup bag. As she zipped up the bag, she found herself blinking back tears.
Now she really was ready for her interview. Ready to start anew.
"Hoi?" Alexa said softly, feeling a pang of regret as she noticed how upset her friend was. Alexa reminded herself that, whenever she'd been distraught over a boy, Holly had dropped everything to comfort her. Alexa knew she could be ridiculously selfish, but maybe there was a way to alter that somehow. "Good luck with the interview and don't worry about the presents," Alexa added firmly as she reached up to squeeze Holly's arm. "I'll take care of everything. I promise."
Setting down her boxy shopping bags, Alexa sank into a free chair in the elegant Peach Grove salon. It
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was more than ninety outside, and hazy not exactly prime weather for an outdoor celebration. Even in her strapless floral-print sundress, Alexa's collarbone was damp with sweat, and her thick hair was sticking to her back. Not for much longer, Alexa thought as she reached for an issue of Variety. She felt a beat of hesitation; did she really want to be doing this? Alexa wandered if Holly, at UCLA, was feeling similarly looking forward to the change, but scared of it, too.
Alexa was rarely scared. But if this haircut got messed up, she'd have to deal with looking less than drop-dead beautiful in front of most of Hollywood -- and, if E! turned their cameras on her, the world. Maybe this is stupid, Alexa thought, biting her lip. She remembered that crucial rule of facials -- always leave three weeks between an avocado skin peel and an event. Who in their right minds scheduled a haircut on the day of the biggest wedding to hit LA in ages? To calm her nerves, Alexa opened Variety and flipped past an article on weekend box office predictions. Then she noticed a small blurb on Oren Samuels, who she remembered was Jonah's agent, accompanied by a photograph. Alexa was reading his client list -- apparently, he represented Margaux and Paul as well -- when she heard a voice above her.
"Alissa Sant Lauren?"
Alexa glanced up from Variety to see a tall, stunning
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guy with mocha-colored skin and close-cropped, dyed-blond hair, wearing the salon's distinctive peach-colored apron over a black shirt and slacks. Besides Jonah, he was probably the hottest guy Alexa had seen yet in Hollywood, which made her forgive his name slipup.
Only she'd bet anything that he wasn't into girls.
"C'est moi, " she announced, standing up. "Alexa."
"Aramis," he replied, flashing a wide smile. "Come this way, sweetheart."
Scooping up her bags, Alexa followed Aramis through the salon, passing framed snapshots of Chloe Sevigny, Camilla Belle, and Margaux Eklundstrom herself. In between flowy peach drapes, pouty-lipped models slouched in black swivel chairs. Waifish stylists with Chinese-symbol tattoos on their midsections blow-dried and snipped and sprayed over a thumping soundtrack of Franz Ferdinand. Alexa settled down in one such swivel chair, and Aramis ceremoniously draped a gauzy peach cape over her. There was no going back now.
"Well?" Aramis asked, pouring a dab of scented oil into his palm and then lightly massaging Alexa's scalp. "What would you like to do with these gorgeous golden locks?"
Alexa gulped, watching her reflection in the tall
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mirror. Beneath the mirror lay an array of scissors, clips, and combs all weapons that would tear into her most prized possession. Feeling like she was breaking up with a beloved boy, Alexa let her eyes drift shut and remembered some of the best times she'd shared with her hair: all the high, sleek pony-tails, the better to show off big dangly earrings; all the tossings over shoulders, the better to finish off a point she was making; all the sneaking into boys' mouths and hands during wild kissing sessions.
Then Alexa opened her eyes. It was time to let go of the past.
"I thought maybe ... a change," she ventured, indicating with her hand the length she'd been envisioning. "Though not too big a change," she added hurriedly, meeting Aramis's sparkling eyes in the mirror. "And ..."
"Yes, honey belle?" Aramis asked, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"I'm going to Margaux Eklundstrom's wedding this afternoon," Alexa blurted, her face growing warm. "So ..." she trailed off, wondering if Aramis would even believe her.
"Say no more," Aramis said, running his fingers through her hair. "I understand the need for extreme fabulosity. You know," Aramis went on. "I used to do
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Margaux's hair way back in the day, when she and her brother were two little runty kids growing up in La Brea. They still pop in here now and then."
"Really?" Alexa asked, intrigued by this slice of Eklundstrom family history. "What else do you know about them?"
"Oh, everything," Aramis sighed. "Including the fact that Paul DeMille's family is loaded, so he probably is marrying Margaux for love. And," he added, holding up a strand of Alexa's hair. "Aren't you the lucky one? I know for a fact that Baby Bear Jonah has a thing for blondes."
"So I've heard," Alexa sighed, rolling her eyes, and Artemis laughed.
"Alexa," he said decisively. "We are going to have fun today."
Alexa grinned in agreement, settling deeper into her chair. This was going to be the most entertaining haircut of her life.
Over in Westwood, Holly settled into the stiff chair outside the UCLA dean of admissions' office, her sweaty palms clutching the transcript her high school guidance counselor had faxed to El Sueño that morning. Holly had had just enough time to pick up the fax from Esperanza's office in the main house, before
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fighting her way through the reporters swarming outside and making it into Kenya's car.
"Gee," Kenya had deadpanned as she'd peeled away from the estate. "You'd think there was a wedding or something happening today."
Kenya had been such a soothing, funny presence on the drive to Westwood that Holly had wished her friend could accompany her to the interview, but Kenya had to attend a philosophy study session. Still, she'd assured Holly that she'd drive her back to Malibu, since Kenya had planned to spend her afternoon on Zuma Beach anyway. The notion that an afternoon in college could be whiled away on the beach had only reaffirmed Holly's decision. So had driving across campus observing the crowds on Bruin Walk, admiring the rolling green of the athletics fields. Holly had once again been enchanted by the spirit of the school.
Now came the tricky part.
Holly was a disaster at interviews. She got fidgety, blushed, suddenly had to pee, and forgot all the reasons as to why she was interviewing in the first place. In her opinion, phrases like "Tell me about yourself" had been invented by the devil; how was a girl supposed to sum up her entire existence in a few half-stammered sentences? Holly had managed to avoid having interviews with most of the colleges
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she'd applied to, but her parents had cajoled her into interviewing at Rutgers. In a suit, of course. Holly could still recall the choky feeling of the high-n
ecked tweed jacket, the itchiness of the skirt, and her completely immature stuttering when the patient alum asked her why she'd chosen Rutgers. Because my parents made me, Holly had almost said -- cursed, as always, by the honesty bug. Of course, she'd held back and mumbled something about a good academic curriculum, which was probably why she'd received that acceptance letter in April.
Taking a deep breath, Holly crossed her legs, studying the beaded gold flats she'd slipped on before leaving the guesthouse. She hoped they wouldn't come off as too flighty for such a serious interview. The rest of the outfit she'd cobbled together -- the khaki skirt and a button-down blue shirt with short, puffed sleeves -- wasn't quite the suit her mom would have recommended, either. When she'd first stepped off the elevator into the admissions office's elegant foyer, Holly had wished she'd bought something more formal back on Rodeo Drive. Especially when the department secretary had raised an eyebrow at Holly, and murmured, "Oh, yes, Jacobson. You're the one with the unique situation."
Holly hoped that "unique situation" wasn't code for "you've got no chance in hell, baby."
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To distract herself, she picked up a copy of UCLA's alumni magazine and was skimming an article about how many movies had been filmed on the campus, when she heard footsteps behind the closed office door. Nervousness raced through her, and Holly instinctively reached down to twist her Claddagh ring -- but there was nothing on her finger. Right. With a pang, Holly realized she had no one to rely on in that moment but herself.
And it was time to face the present.
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