“Who?”
“You just got to trust me. Now come on, girl. It’s time to go primp! Of course, after we eat this wonderful meal I got us.”
I laughed. “We’re not eating on paper plates, so that’s five star dining to me.”
“Not to mention, we’re not using plastic forks.”
Chapter 4
“You know, I can’t begin to tell you the hypocrisy of what’s happening right now,” I said.
Amanda and I were sitting in a hair salon in Beverly Hills, getting prodded and fussed over by an army of gay men and one heavily primped woman. The acrid smell of nail polish remover was enough to make me almost light-headed. But I stayed carefully on guard as Paulo came at me with a dozen different aerosols and one or two lethal-looking instruments I believed were modeled after something used in the Spanish Inquisition.
I momentarily vanished into a sticky fog as he let loose with one of the bottles, and emerged a second later, stiff and sad, feeling like an unfortunate Botox survivor.
“There go the Wetlands,” I muttered, wondering how many pounds of toxins we’d just released into the atmosphere.
Amanda twisted awkwardly to look at me, her head trapped beneath something that looked like it was attempting to harvest her brain. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing.” My chair tilted back of its own accord, and suddenly I was looking at the ceiling. “Was that supposed to happen?” I asked nervously.
“Silencio!” Paulo commanded, rushing forward with another comb. I closed my eyes with a grimace as he pulled and twisted and corralled whatever was left of my hair into a tight knot on top of my head. When he was finished, he shot me upright again and disappeared into the back to get more supplies.
I sighed. “So tell me a little more about this party. But first let me tell you, I’m having a great time already—just with the prep.”
Amanda snorted, waving her nails to dry their thick, gold-dusted polish. “I heard about it at that casting—you know—the one where my entire life changed for the better?”
“The dystopian Western?” I guessed. I’d been hearing about it quite a lot, actually.
“Yeah, well, Billy asked me to go. Said that the agency needed some representation at this playboy trillionaire’s house party.”
“Right. The trillionaire. Is that even a word?”
“Of course it is.”
“You made it up!”
“I so didn’t. I heard his name is Marcus Taylor, and he’s fucking gorgeous! I wish I could land him. But from what I hear, no woman can. He’s untamable.”
“Hmm. Untamable? Is that a challenge?” I asked. “I mean, I did tame our mean cat.”
She laughed. “I bet you could lasso in the wild buck.”
“I’m just kidding. I’m not in the mood to tame some wild billionaire.”
“Why not? Still hung up on the cute coffee guy you told me about?”
“Hung up? I just met the guy this morning.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, Marcus Taylor might not be as gorgeous as the guy you keep going on about. But I’m sure he’s a hunk. I at least want to say hello to him before the end of the party. I bet he’s a great host and will greet every single one of his guests.”
“I haven’t been going on about coffee guy.”
“Yes, you have.”
“C’mon! He was hot!”
“Then you should have bought him the damn coffee too.”
“I should have. Boy, I screw everything up. If I could go back in time.”
“I’m sure you could have another shot. Just strike up a conversation the next time you see him at the coffee shop.”
“He’s drop dead gorgeous, but he’s too rich for my taste. He wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“Well, forget him for now. Think about Marcus’s extravagant party. He’s hosting it in his fancy mansion!”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Marcus loves the women so he’ll totally be approachable. Just smile and flirt.”
“And why do I want to approach some stud who has his choice of a million women?”
“To talk about the agency, of course. I’m getting myself a big, giant, fat bonus. If anyone says they’re coming to the agency through us, well, we get a $1,000 bonus. Isn’t that awesome?”
“Sweet!”
“Apparently Marcus just got back to LA from like, Nepal or somewhere, and it’s the social event of the season.”
I snorted in laughter, earning me scandalized looks from every corner of the salon. “I’m sorry, it’s just—is that a real thing? Does our season have social events?”
Amanda faltered, but then continued with confidence. I could tell she had obviously read this somewhere reliable like the Internet in anticipation of my resistance and was ready for any question I could throw her way.
“Of course it does.” Her voice took on a slightly higher, hollower tone—vowels sagging weakly from all the weight she was putting on them. “There’s a ribbon cutting at Tiffany’s in the Grove, Barneys’ opening on Rodeo—and no, Bex, if you make a joke about a dinosaur exhibit it won’t be funny—Karl Lagerfeld is launching his new line so it’s looking for models, and then there’s that huge Los Angeles Diabetes Fundraiser Gala.”
“Thank you, Google.” I rolled my eyes. “And here I thought it was just Thanksgiving.”
Amanda frowned critically as Veronica Violet (and she’d hit you if you asked if that was her stage name) arranged her curls so they spilled down the back of her neck. “I don’t think they have that here.”
“Of course not,” I said bleakly. “Why would they?”
Amanda ignored me and beamed at her reflection in the mirror. “It’s perfect, Veronica, exactly like the picture.”
Veronica took a step back. Her eyes dilated hungrily and she poked at the curls as if she took her work very seriously. Either that or she was actually just as hungry as she looked. “It is perfect, isn’t it? Well, there are going to be at least ten other girls with the same style at the party tonight, so you can rest assured that it’s very fashionable.”
Amanda nodded seriously in response, and I looked at the two of them like they were nuts. I was about to say something along those lines, but at that moment, Paulo returned, and I was forced to duck for cover.
“Actually, Veronica,” Amanda frowned, “haven’t we seen you somewhere before?”
“She was Confused Cashier Number Four,’” I volunteered from beneath a tangle of steam and wires. I was surprised Amanda hadn’t immediately recognized her.
“Number Three, actually,” Veronica corrected me coolly. “But who’s counting?” She flashed Amanda a bitchy smile and disappeared with a cartoonish clicking of the heels.
“I can’t believe we live in a city where that wasn’t just said ironically…”
Amanda shushed me with a warning look, and I dragged my weary eyes back to the mirror to see what new nonsense Paulo was up to.
I had wanted to move to Portland—not Los Angeles. It was a given that anywhere we’d like to live in San Francisco was going to be way out of our price range, and I had decided that Portland was the next best thing. The music and arts scene was on the rise, and all the pictures I looked at online had at least one person with a wizard beard. I was intrigued. But Amanda reminded me that cinematic glory wasn’t going to come to us, we had to seek it out ourselves. And the best place to do that, unfortunately, was in the belly of the beast.
Perhaps she wouldn’t have been so quick to move if she’d known about Mrs. Wakowski and the three parking tickets we’d get within the first two weeks of living here. Then again, perhaps she would. It was hard to tell with Amanda. You never knew which things she’d choose to desperately care about, and which things she’d let thoughtlessly slide.
“Anyway,” she answered my question from hours before, “you would have gotten an invite too if you’d come with me to the casting.”
“I told you—some of us have to work for a living. Not e
veryone can rely on their parents for rent.” I threw a hair tie at her playfully and pretended that Paulo didn’t slap my wrist.
Three hours later, we were back on the streets. Not the streets I would have preferred, mind you. Not my dear Westwood where I was still a local folk hero. No—we were prowling around the high-price shops and oxygen bars (yes, they’re real) of Beverly Hills. The agency that employed us to be unemployed actors had set aside a bit of a budget to make a good impression with the social elites at the party tonight. Since two of the four girls going had to drop out due to food poisoning (a lucky break for us, according to Amanda) that ‘bit of a budget’ had grown into more money than either she or I had ever spent in one afternoon.
Even I had to admit that after we left the chemical stench of the salon and stepped back into the sunshine, I actually started to have a little fun.
“Let’s grab another coffee, courtesy of the agency,” Amanda drawled in a Southern aristocratic accent she’d adopted specifically to pose that very request a million times. We’d already had three espressos and had stopped “just for a bite” at two different sushi restaurants. Still, we’d barely dented the funds assigned to ingratiate us into the land of giants.
“I can’t.” I grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from the Starbucks she’d started drifting into. “There’s so much caffeine in my system, I seriously feel like I’m having heart palpitations.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s just your heart being excited, Bex. It’s jumping for you.”
I stopped in my tracks and stared at her in awe. “You are a scientist; you know that? The medical profession has got nothing on you.”
She laughed and pulled me suddenly into a store with the scariest looking mannequins I had ever seen. “Fine, if the sponsored charm is beginning to wear off, let’s just get our dresses and find some shoes. It’s already coming up on five, and we’re supposed to be there no later than seven-thirty.”
“Hang on.” I hadn’t made it past the door, locked in a staring match with an eyeless mannequin. “This one’s trying to tell me something.”
“Oh my gosh, could you just come on already?” She trapped my wrist in her wiry fingers and pulled me farther inside. “And try not to embarrass me.”
I picked up an equestrian riding crop labeled “business casual” as we rushed past. “I always try.”
Chapter 5
An hour and a half later, I had self-exiled to a changing room. Wondering, literally, what in the world had I gotten myself into.
I liked to wear nice things. I liked to wear them just as much as any girl who wasn’t either kidding herself or on some existential cleanse liked to wear nice things.
But this…? This had taken that sentiment to a whole other level.
I looked as though I had been painted, skin to skin painted, in shimmering metallic lace.
Amanda called it silver, but I had promptly dubbed the color gunmetal—hearing one of the salespersons mutter the word as I walked past. It was slightly darker than your average winter snowflake—with darker, stormy tints that gave it a bit of an edge. It clung to my body like a second skin but was in no way unflattering. In fact, it made my skin practically glow translucent white under its reflective swirling tints. It wound its way up around my neck like an elegant halter and then plunged down into the lowest neckline I’d ever seen. It was delicately beaded over a thin empire waist, but rather than flaring out in a loose skirt the way most dresses I owned tended to do, it hugged around my tiny hips and then fell straight down to the floor.
Enchanted, I snapped a picture and sent it to my mom before venturing out into the waiting room mirrors.
“Oh my gosh!” Amanda gushed all in one breath. “You look so different! You look beautiful!”
I paused a moment with a frown, considering her statement. “Thanks…? I’m not going to lie. I absolutely love it! I already sent a picture to my mom.”
Amanda’s eyes sparkled as she prepared to try on a gown of her own. “What did Sharon say?”
Right on cue, I glanced down at my phone as it beeped a reply. “She told me that grand larceny is a crime, and I’d better put it right back on the hanger,” I answered with a crooked grin.
Amanda laughed and disappeared into a changing room. A minute later, I heard her rustling around.
“Okay,” she opened the door with a flourish, “what do you think?”
My hands flew up to my mouth as I gave her a round of girly applause. “You look stunning. That green is the perfect color for your eyes.” I snapped another picture on my phone, knowing she’d want a “changing room reaction” immortalized for all eternity. When I was done, I gave her another once over, and my face softened into a thoughtful smile. “Seriously, Mandi, you look perfect. Gosh—sometimes it feels like yesterday that we were playing dress up in our moms’ closets and look at us now. I don’t even know what to say.”
She gave me a long look. For a moment, I thought she also imagined our childhood days. But then she gestured to herself impatiently.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, remembering my scripted lines. “And it makes your boobs look amazing!”
“Yeah, it does.” She grinned, adjusting her sweetheart neckline to show off her cleavage. “I think this is definitely what Billy had in mind when he said to make a good impression.”
I came to stand beside her in the mirror, gazing confidently at our reflections. “Two good impressions.”
“Yes, two good impressions,” she said, keeping her eyes trained on her breasts. “You’re right, Bex, I shouldn’t play favorites.”
I rolled my eyes and dragged her to the counter to pay.
***
It might have dampened our arrival just a little that we showed up in a Volvo we borrowed from a friend who owed us a favor. But we parked it just inside the gate so that we could walk the rest of the way across the grounds to the front entrance where the socialites and paparazzi were having the time of their lives each pretending they didn’t care about the other. On second thought, “walking the grounds” to get to the house might also have been a bit of a mistake.
“How much farther could it possibly be?” I demanded as we tramped over the carefully manicured grass toward the lights up ahead. “It didn’t look this far.”
“Yeeps!” Amanda shrieked and flew to my side as a peacock made its way out of the dark underbrush, examining us suspiciously with its beady little eyes. “Becca, get it!” She slipped off a lethal looking stiletto and held it up like a knife. “Back, you beast, back!”
“Mandi! Stop!” I said. “It’s not a pit bull.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s worse! It can peck me to death!”
“We’re not hurting the poor peacock,” I said. “Now put your shoe back on.”
The peacock rolled back its head with a languid caw, and I could have sworn there was pity in its eyes as it shuffled off slowly toward the valets at the main door. We followed it at a safe distance and ditched it quickly amongst the parked cars as we wound our way through to the bouncer at the gate.
“Hi,” Amanda said sweetly, turning on the charm. “I’m Amanda Gates, and this is my friend, Rebecca White.”
The man scanned down his list, surprisingly unaffected by her foolproof charms. It must be all the beautiful women here tonight, I thought as I smoothed my dress and waited.
It was only then that I really took in the house for the first time. I’d been far too concerned with the rogue peacock to notice it until now. House wasn’t really the right word. It was more like…compound. Headquarters. Lair. Something like that.
It looked like exactly what you’d imagine when you thought of the most ridiculous, opulent wealth in a place like the Hollywood Hills. Sculpted lawns, sparkling fountains, exotic lethal wildlife. You name it—this guy had it. And much more.
“Here you are.” The bouncer finally found us and scratched our names off the list. “You with William Colson’s Talent Agency?”
“That would be us.”
Amanda smiled as he lifted the velvet rope for her. “Thanks. You have a good evening.”
The man looked surprised, like he didn’t get many thank yous or well wishes in his line of work. Looking around the people climbing out of their foreign sports cars, I could easily believe that. The crowd here looked like they’d been purchased to go with the house. Not a calorie or polyester thread among them. PETA would have a field day…
A little nervous for the first time, I followed Amanda inside. It was everything I could do to keep my jaw from dropping open like an idiot.
And I thought it had looked big on the outside…
It was like stepping back in time to the place that fairy tales and fantastical balls were based on. Ten diamond chandeliers glowed like ethereal orbs from the ceiling, reflecting off the white marble floors in watery golden pools. A huge winding staircase led to an upper level that seemed to be off-limits, but I think that if I were given the entire night, I still wouldn’t have had time to explore every room just in the downstairs. A massive foyer led to a sitting room, led to a parlor (is there a difference?), led to another sitting room, led to a dining room, led to a dancing room, and so on and so forth. The walls were hung with what even an art apathetic like me could identify as priceless pieces, adding the only bits of color to an otherwise extravagant but sterile environment.
Caterers appeared from nowhere and faded back into the walls, balancing silver trays with bubbling champagne as Stravinsky leaked down from invisible speakers. Um—scratch that—it was a live orchestra out on the terrace.
I almost laughed as I imagined being in a place that required my mental narration to use the word “terrace.” We were certainly a long way from East Hollywood.
“Well…it’s smaller than I imagined.” Amanda turned to me and sniffed with disdain.
I shrugged an indifferent shoulder. “What? No coat rack? That’s rude.” We grinned but stuck close together, a little thrown off balance by our statuesque surroundings. “But seriously, I bet this guy loved to play with Legos when he was a kid.”
Bad Boys & Billionaires: An Anthology Page 23