by Zoey Dean
Monkey Man pointed a long finger at Anna. “I like this girl.”
When Lulu finally allowed herself to be torn from Parker’s arms, he and Anna headed farther down the board-walk. Two boys walked by eating chili dogs, and the scent wafted over to Anna. Her stomach turned. Maybe she was getting sick.
“Parker, would you mind if we headed back?”
“No prob.” He peered at her. “Are you okay? You got kind of pale all of a sudden.”
“Probably just my New York pallor,” Anna joked, but she was suddenly freezing. They turned back and Anna rubbed her arms to warm up.
Parker slipped off his leather jacket. “Here, wear this.”
“No, that’s okay—”
But he’d already settled his jacket around Anna’s shoulders, a gesture that reminded her of Ben. Why did every damn thing remind her of Ben?
“You and Ben partied a little too hard last night, huh?” Parker guessed, almost as if he were reading her mind. She made a deliberate decision to banish Ben from her thoughts. Ben Birnbaum is nothing to me, she told herself. Less than nothing.
“So, you’re an actor, right?” Anna coaxed, just to fill her mind with something other than Him.
“Yeah, I’m up for a guest-starring role for this mid-season replacement. My agent says it’s down to me and one other guy.”
“When will you hear?”
“He said something about after the Jewish holiday.”
Anna tried to think what Jewish holiday he could possibly be talking about. Hanukkah ended before Christmas; that much she knew. Passover wasn’t until the spring. Nothing else came to mind.
Anna’s stomach gurgled again. Even with Parker’s leather jacket on, she was shivering. “You really don’t look so hot,” Parker told her.
“I’m okay,” Anna insisted, though she wasn’t certain it was true. But she wasn’t about to make a scene just because she was cold and her stomach was a little upset.
Parker slowed down and scratched the perfect cleft in his chin. “Listen, Anna, before we get back with the others, there’s something I wanted to say to you.”
“What?”
“I hope you don’t think this is out of line. I mean, I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but you seem like a really cool girl.”
“Whatever you want to say, just say it,” Anna told him.
“Yeah. Well, it’s about Birnbaum,” Parker said. “You just met the guy, right?”
“Right.”
“He comes on like he’s all that. But there are some things you don’t know about him that you probably sh—”
“Hey, you two, come help!” Sam called to them.
The line was even longer than it had been before. Parker held up a finger, as in “one minute.”
“Go on,” Anna urged him, her voice low. “What about Ben?”
“Yo, big bro, throw out some of this trash for us,” Monty asked, waving a giant plastic trash bag in Parker’s direction.
“Be right there.”
Anna reached for Parker’s arm. “Parker …”
“We can talk later,” Parker said.
Anna told herself to drop it. Hearing more about Ben, good or bad, was like aluminum foil pressing on a dental filling. But she couldn’t help herself. “You’ll tell me later?”
Parker mumbled something unintelligible, then scratched behind one ear and ambled over to the table to grab the garbage bag from his brother. As far as Anna was concerned, his refusal to make eye contract with her was the body language of a man who was having second thoughts.
Twenty-four
1:25 P.M., PST
“Hot coffee, hot coffee, coming through,” Monty bellowed. He offered his cardboard box full of to-go coffees to everyone behind the table. “Sam?”
“Thanks, Monty.”
“I live to serve,” he said cheerfully, offering the coffee box to Mrs. Breckner. “Very sweet of you,” she said. The teacher grabbed a cup and two sugars.
“Hey, it’s New Year’s Day; I figured everyone could use it. So what’d you do last night for New Year’s Eve, Mrs. Breckner?”
“Not much. A small voodoo ceremony with close friends,” she deadpanned, sipping her coffee.
Sam chuckled. She liked Mrs. Breckner, who, frankly, was the best English teacher she’d ever had. Sam could almost see a To Sir, with Love thing going on if Sidney Poitier had been white, Jewish, and dumpy, clad in a deeply awful peach pantsuit.
“Dee?” Monty held out the coffee box.
“No thanks. Coffee is very bad for you, Monty. It’s processed with known carcinogens. It can give you cancer and make you grow extra toes.”
Sam gawked at Dee. “Where do you get these things?”
“Organic Living Today magazine. I’ll pick one up for you next time I’m at Whole Foods.” Dee placed a scoop of caviar onto a paper plate and passed it to the wild-eyed woman in rags who stood before her, then craned around to their teacher. “We’ve served three hundred meals, Mrs. Breckner,” Dee called. “How many more do we have to do?”
“There’s still plenty of food left and plenty of people,” Mrs. Breckner said. “Knock yourself out and hang in there for a while, Delia. Think of all the points you’ll get in heaven. You too, Sam.”
“God doesn’t keep a scorecard, Mrs. Breckner,” Dee said solemnly.
“Can we just finish, Dee, without you picking a fight with her?” Sam hissed to Dee. “I need her recommendation to get into Princeton.”
Dee stopped serving and turned to Sam. “What do you mean, Princeton? Since when are you going to Princeton?”
“I didn’t say I’m going; I said I’m applying.”
“You’ve got like a 4.3 average, Sam. You’ll get in.”
“Not necessarily.”
“And you did 800 on your verbal SATs.”
“And 650 on math,” Sam reminded her. “Other negatives: I’m rich. I’m white.”
Dee shifted her weight and blocked the sun with her hands so she could see Sam better. “So why do you want to go there?”
“Last I heard, it was a really good school.”
Dee knew that. But what if Sam wanted to go to Princeton because Ben went to Princeton? Or was she just being Little Miss Paranoid? Her eyes slid over to Anna and Parker, who’d just rejoined them. Anna was wearing Parker’s jacket. Dee nudged Sam. “Unbelievable.”
“What?”
“Anna. Look at her. She was with Ben last night and she had his jacket, too. That innocent act is such a crock.”
“She had Ben’s jacket because Cammie ripped her dress off,” Sam reminded Dee.
“It was an accident. Right, Cammie?”
“Would I do something that nasty?” Cammie asked, bringing another stack of paper plates over to Sam and Dee.
Dee let that one slide. “So, how late did you stay at the party last night?”
Cammie shrugged. “Who knows?”
“You should have come to Sam’s. We went skinny dipping.”
“Big whup.”
“Shut up. It was fun.”
Cammie almost smiled. “Who’d you end up with, Delia?”
“Oh, you know …,” Dee said evasively.
“Parker,” Sam filled in.
“We made out in the pool, that’s all.” Her eyes cut to Parker and Anna again. “That Anna is like a man-eater or something!”
“Literally,” Cammie said smugly. “She must be very talented, considering Ben’s reaction. And now she’s your new friend, Sam. I could weep.”
“I only invited her to pump her about her date with Ben on your behalf,” Sam protested.
Cammie pushed some strawberry-and-gold curls off her face. “Or maybe you’re hoping some of her East Coast WASPy perfection will rub off on you.”
Heat came to Sam’s cheeks. Sometimes Cammie scared the hell out of her; it was like she was inside Sam’s head. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I know,” Cammie agreed. “But it’s also true.”
“
Hey, guys, do we have any seltzer or anything like that?” Parker asked, coming over to the girls. “Anna’s stomach is kind of upset.”
“Gee, don’t say hi, Parker,” Dee said pointedly.
He looked at her blankly. “I said hi to you before, Dee. Get any sleep?”
“You know I didn’t,” Dee replied. “And I know you didn’t.”
“My bad,” Parker said, pointing at himself cheerfully. “Last night was fun, huh? So, we got seltzer for Anna?”
“Go buy her some if it means that much to you,” Dee suggested through clenched teeth.
He looked at her curiously. “You pissed about something, Dee?”
“No.”
“Yeah, you are.” He came around the table and tipped Dee’s face up to his. “Hey, you upset? Because I care about how you feel.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Wow.” Parker put his hands to his heart. “You misjudge me, Dee. We’ll talk later, okay?” He headed off to find seltzer.
“That boy is such a player,” Sam said.
“You realize he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about you, Delia, right?” Cammie asked.
“So? I’m not into him, either. But he had his tongue down my throat last night. I don’t appreciate being ignored.”
“Good for you, Dee,” Sam cheered. “Stick up for yourself!”
“Well, I’m not jealous, anyway. Parker and I fooled around, that’s all. There’s another guy I like.”
“Really?” Sam asked. “Who?”
Dee looked away. “Just someone.”
Fifty feet away, Anna felt her stomach churn dangerously. She took off Parker’s jacket, since she’d gone from freezing to a cold sweat in about thirty seconds. Something was definitely wrong with her. She walked behind the buffet table. “Is there a glass of water I could have?”
“All we’ve got is orange juice and it’s probably warm by now,” Sam said, noting that Anna really did look a little sick. “Parker went to get you seltzer. You want the juice?”
The thought of warm orange juice almost made Anna gag. “No. Thanks.”
Mrs. Breckner frowned at Anna. “You’re not one of my students.”
“She’s a friend of mine who just moved here from New York,” Sam explained, introducing Anna to the teacher.
“Will we be seeing you at Beverly Hills High?” Mrs. Breckner asked.
“No. I’ll be doing an internship at Randall Prescott.” I hope, she added mentally. Suddenly Anna’s legs felt rubbery. I hope. She really needed to sit down. But there was nowhere to sit other than some stone benches quite a ways down the boardwalk.
“So Anna, how was the rest of the evening with Ben?” Dee asked. “We missed you at Sam’s!”
Anna’s face betrayed nothing. “Fine.”
“Dee,” Sam chided. “That’s really none of our business.”
“But you said you invited her to—”
Sam shot Dee a warning look. It took Dee a beat to catch on. “Oh. You’re right,” Dee admitted. “Whatever you and Ben did last night is your business. That was a real invasion of your personal space, Anna. Sorry.”
“Not a problem,” Anna said graciously, feeling worse by the minute. Sweat beaded up on her forehead. Maybe Ben had given her the flu.
“So when are you and Ben going out again?” Sam asked brightly.
“I thought you just said—,” Dee began.
“I’m asking as a friend, not prying,” Sam explained. “There’s a difference.”
Ben again. When would it end? Anna wished she could just banish him from the planet.
“I don’t really know,” Anna replied.
“He’s such a great guy,” Dee said in her little girl voice, sighing.
Anna felt like yelling, No! He’s not! He’s an asshole and a player and I fell for his line of shit.
“Hickey alert,” Cammie said, pointing at Dee’s neck. “I didn’t notice it before. How funny. And just where did you leave your mark on Parker last night, Delia?”
Parker and Dee? Anna wondered. But at the wedding, hadn’t Parker been with that girl Skye? These people were like sexual pickup sticks: Throw them in the air and they land in a whole new configuration.
“Thank God, no more chicken,” Sam said, shoveling the last piece onto a paper plate. “Monty!” she yelled. “We need more garbage bags!”
“Seltzer,” Parker pronounced, trotting over with a cold plastic cup and handing it to Anna. “At your service.”
“Thanks.” Anna sipped it. It didn’t seem to help. Her stomach felt queasy again, worse than before. She concentrated on deep breathing and willed the feeling away.
Sam peered at Anna more closely. “Seriously. You look like shit.”
“I’m not feeling very well, actually,” Anna admitted. “I really think I need to leave. I wonder if Monty could—”
“Say cheese, everyone!” Monty ordered as he aimed a camera at the group. “Move in closer. This one’s for the yearbook!”
Before Anna could protest that she shouldn’t be in the photo because she, thank God, didn’t go to their school, and before she could say again how truly, deeply awful she felt, the group was pressing in on her: Sam on one side and Cammie on the other, one big, happy group of really keen friends.
“Please, I have to—,” Anna groaned, but everyone was talking and mugging for the camera. Monty begged for one more shot. Cammie “playfully” leaned in, blocking Anna from the shot.
“Cammie!”
Something about the distress in Anna’s voice made Cammie turn toward her. Anna opened her mouth again to explain that she felt like she was going to be sick. But before she could say it, she was it and puked all over Cammie.
Just as Monty snapped the photo.
Vomit dripped from Cammie’s red curls onto her lemon-yellow silk Marc Jacobs camisole. It oozed down her gold Calvin Klein leather jacket and landed on the toes of her fawn-colored Gucci suede boots. Cammie cursed hysterically.
Anna would have been terribly humiliated, except that she passed out and missed the whole thing.
Twenty-five
2:47 P.M., PST
Anna groaned. Her throat was on fire and her stomach muscles ached. She forced herself to open her eyes, but the bright sunlight streaming in through the picture window of her bedroom was so painful that she quickly shut them again.
So. At least she knew where she was: at her father’s house, in her own bed. She remembered getting dog sick in Venice. She remembered coming to in the back of the SUV. She remembered Sam sitting next to her, filing her nails and explaining that she had volunteered to stay with Anna, not to be nice, but so she could get out of cleaning up.
When Anna had opened her mouth to thank Sam, she’d puked all over again. And that was pretty much the last thing she remembered.
Anna opened her eyes and managed to keep them open. She struggled to a sitting position but felt so weak that she slumped back against the pillows.
“Here, let me help you,” came a baby wisp of a voice.
Dee? Dee was in the room with her? Dee, of all people?
Yes, Dee. She rushed over from the chaise longue to help ease Anna up. Then she gently plumped the pillows behind her head.
“Thanks,” Anna croaked.
“Take it easy,” Dee counseled as she gave her a bottle of Gatorade. “Drink this for the electrolytes. Baby sips, or you might hurl again.”
“Thank you.” Anna took a few sips and then cleared her throat. “Very much.”
“Well, that sounds a little better.” Dee sat on the edge of Anna’s bed. “How crappy do you feel?”
“Extremely. How did I get home?” Anna put a hand on her stomach. It was bare. “And undressed?”
“Oh, we helped you.”
“We?”
“Me and Sam. Cammie was covered with puke, so she had to go home. You even got her hair,” Dee added cheerfully. “Nice shot.”
Anna closed her eyes again. Oh God. That she remembered.
; “Not that Cammie would’ve helped you, anyway,” Dee added. “What with you stealing her boyfriend and everything.”
There was a soft knock on the door; Anna’s father stuck his head inside. “Oh, good. You’re awake!”
“Sort of,” Anna said.
“How do you feel?”
“Awful. But not as awful.”
“You had a mean case of food poisoning,” her father explained.
“From what? All I ate was a yogurt from your refrigerator.”
“We found the container in the SUV,” Dee explained. “The expiration date was in November.”
Jonathan winced. “My housekeeper two housekeepers ago lived on that stuff. I fired her around Halloween.”
“But it tasted fine,” Anna protested.
Dee nodded. “That’s lemon yogurt for you. It’s tart whether it’s good or bad.”
Anna’s father grinned at Dee. “Good thing Anna made such a great friend so quickly.”
“Well, she’s pretty special,” Dee said.
Anna’s head reeled. Maybe she was dreaming. Dee was sitting at her bedside, telling her father how special she was.
“Think you can handle tea, Anna?” her father asked. “And maybe some dry toast?”
Anna was touched. “That would be great, Dad. Thanks.”
“Margaret told me to ask you. I’ll go tell her. Be back soon.” Her father closed the door behind him as he departed.
Margaret. Tea and toast hadn’t even been her father’s idea. Swell.
Dee stood up and stretched, exposing her navel ring. “Wow. Your father’s hot. How old is he?”
“Could we discuss my father later? Can you please fill me in on what happened?”
“Oh, sure. You know, you ought to think about bringing in a feng shui consultant for this room.”
“Dee—”
“All right. It’s just bad energy to have your bed facing north like that.”
Dee’s mangled Eastern philosophy was making Anna queasy all over again. “Dee, could you please just stick to the story?”
“Oh, okay, sure. Well, you puked again in the back of the SUV. Do you remember that part? Sam’s jeans are history. I had some yoga pants in the back of my car, so she changed into those. But they’re an extra small, so they were really, really tight on her, which wasn’t very attractive, and I felt so bad for her, you know? I would have brought some in a large if I had known—”