by Zoey Dean
Cammie felt her throat close. Yes, she'd mentioned it to him, but she hadn't expected he would do anything about it. The idea that he'd actually followed through made her feel ... what? Threatened. Scared. Closed down.
"Why did you do that?" She struggled to keep her voice steady.
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He looked bewildered. "You asked me to."
She tossed her towel on the blanket, allowing anger, which covered her fear, to percolate. "No, I didn't. I mean, we talked about it, but I never told you to tell your parents and you know it."
"Wait. You're mad? "
Cammie stared past him down the beach. "I don't want to talk about it."
He touched her arm. "Come on, look at me."
Her eyes narrowed. "What?"
"You told me you wanted to find out the truth, right?"
She had. So why did she feel so ... invaded by what he had done? She couldn't answer him, because she didn't know.
"Maybe you're--I dunno--afraid of what they might find out," he guessed. He reached for her again, but she stiffened. "Cammie, I'm sorry. I didn't think this would upset you so much--"
"I'm not upset, okay?" she snapped. "I'm pissed that you did this shit behind my back, Adam." She simply couldn't stop herself from venting at him--if she didn't, she felt as if she might explode.
He shook his head. "You are not making any sense."
"Ask me if I care. On second thought, don't ask me anything. I'm out of here."
She padded through the sand toward the stairs that led up to her friend's house, leaving everything behind-- clothes, towels, food, Adam. He wanted to do something useful? He could clean up after them. The worst
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part, though, was the one thing Cammie couldn't leave behind: her fear about the truth regarding her mother's death.
Lately, in the darkest part of the night when she would awaken and be unable to get back to sleep, she wondered, why was it that she could never be satisfied with anything? Things that used to make her happy-- spending massive amounts of money on new clothes, for example, or being the hottest girl in any room, wherever she went--weren't making her happy anymore. It was almost like looking at someone else's life. It should have been wonderful, but it wasn't. Because her mother wasn't there to share it with her.
Sometimes it made Cammie so sad that silent tears trailed down her cheeks. She'd hug her pillow and wonder about a horrible, unthinkable thing: Had her mother killed herself? Had she wanted to be dead more than she wanted to be Cammie's mother?
Maybe that was why she wasn't satisfied with a wonderful guy like Adam. If her mother didn't love her enough to stick around, she must be utterly unworthy of love. Love made you weak, vulnerable, gave people power over you.
Love, Cammie knew, could destroy your heart.
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Mr. I'm-So-Talented-But-I'm-All-Fucked-Up"Next exit' Ojai." Cammie read the highway sign from the back of Sam's black Hummer. "Thank God. I hate long car trips."
"Two and a half hours isn't a long car trip," Sam pointed out. She turned to Anna, who sat next to her. "Wait until you see this place. More famous people have freaked out there than at the Ivy."
"You'd think rich people could have breakdowns closer to Los Angeles," Cammie groused. She held the window button down, then stretched out in the backseat, thrusting her orange Nars Boccacio-polished toes out on the driver's-side window.
"The air-conditioning won't work with the window open," Sam said.
Cammie ignored her.
"How is Dee doing, anyway?" Anna asked.
"So much better," Sam replied, peering at Cammie in her rearview mirror. "Which Cammie would know if
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she'd managed to get her ass out here more than twice since Dee got admitted."
"I'm impervious to guilt, jerks," Cammie sang out. "According to daddy dearest, some of the biggest deals in Hollywood get made at Dee's new home away from home. He's threatened to check himself in just to close a film thing he's doing with Mr. Fm-So-Talented-but-Pm-All-Fucked-Up, and we all know who that is."
Sam smirked at Cammie in the rearview mirror. " You definitely do, anyway. You made out with him at Nicole Richie's birthday party at House of Blues."
"I did not make out with him," Cammie corrected. "He may have semi-made out with me , but only because I was so pissed off at Ben." She pretended the comment had been unintentional and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oops. Sorry, Anna."
Anna didn't bother to respond. She'd vowed that Cammie would not get to her during this trip to visit Dee. Ben, she told herself, had been with Cammie when he'd been much less mature. It had nothing to do with what he and Anna shared now.
But her eyes slid to Cammie anyway: her endless, tanned, perfectly toned legs, which led to her low-slung purple-and-silver paisley miniskirt, which revealed a belly chain with Adam's initials dangling from it, topped off with a flirty white lace Gianfranco Ferre blouse that was unbuttoned enough to show the lacy top of her La Perla lavender-and-silver bra and miles of cleavage. Cammie was not known for her subtlety. Ever.
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Sexual attraction was biological, Anna reasoned. Either you were attracted to someone or you weren't, and no amount of liking someone, or knowing intellectually that they were right for you, could change that. Well, Ben was male; therefore, Ben had been attracted to Cammie. So why wouldn't he be attracted to her now? Or to some other girl who was everything that Anna was not?
"... these jeans, Anna?" Sam asked.
"Sorry, what?"
"I said, my so-called stepmumsy told me the Allen B. by Allen Schwartz jeans I'm wearing were being hawked on the Home Shopping Network."
Anna frowned. "So?"
"So what woman with a shred of self-decency even watches Home Shopping Network?"
Anna shrugged. "Don't know."
"It sucks," Sam groused. "I'll see my jeans on some fat-assed tourist shopping on Montana Avenue. Gawd."
"Isn't imitation supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery?" Anna asked.
Sam shot her a look. "I know you're kidding." She fingered the lacy shoulder seam of the scarlet Sandy Duftler camisole that crossed over her bust. "See this cami? I bought it two weeks ago. So I go to this party last week and Kirsten Dunst is wearing it. Now if she sees me in it, she'll think I'm copying her. She won't be flattered; she'll just think I'm pathetic. Which is why I can only wear it outside L.A."
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Anna laughed. Sam's fashion obsession was hilarious, really. And it certainly pulled Anna out of her mental overtime on Ben and whomever he was attracted to when she wasn't around.
Cammie took her Prada eau de parfum perfume from her new pink, mint green, and aqua plaid canvas Antigua tote and spritzed it on--the Hummer was now filled with the fragrance. "I brought a bottle of this for Dee. It's her fave."
Anna craned around and smiled at Cammie. Regardless of Cammie's occasional rant, Anna knew she really did love Dee. "That was nice of you."
Dee had been transferred to the Ojai Institute shortly after her breakdown in Las Vegas, and she'd been there ever since. According to Sam, though, she had a release date three weeks hence.
"Cam?" Sam called from the front seat. "I've been meaning to ask you about something."
"Ask away."
"About prom. I know that prom is on the diabetic side of the too-sweet lifeline, but it could be hilarious. I mean, think about it," Sam rushed on. "Kevin Johnson and his middle linebacker man-boobs? What'll he wear, a sumo diaper or a tux? And what will his boyfriend, the crossdresser, wear? The entertainment possibilities are endless! You really ought to--"
"Yeah, okay," Cammie said, flipping her Stila lip gloss back into her tote bag.
Even Anna had to turn around at that one. Just two days ago, Cammie had insisted that she'd never, ever go
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to prom. And now the mere mention of one of the odder couples in their senior class had made her agree to go?
"Wait," Sam bega
n, "did you just say y es?"
"What's the BFD?" Cammie asked. "Adam wants to go-"
Oh, so that was it. Adam wanted to go. And Cammie wanted to make Adam happy. Well, Anna had always said that Adam brought out the best in Cammie.
"Damn, you're easy," Sam exclaimed.
"Only when I want to be"
Sam smiled. "It's sweet that you're willing to do it for Adam. Let's face it, no one expects sweet from you."
"Yeah." Cammie sighed. "We had an argument this morning."
"About what?"
"Forget it." She stared out the window, a shut-down look on her face.
Anna didn't mind that Cammie was upset about a fight with Adam, but she was glad the fight hadn't been enough to break them up. It meant that, theoretically at least, Anna would not be treated to the spectacle of Cammie rubbing herself all over Ben like a cat in heat on the dance floor.
She cringed at her own train of thought. How ridiculous was she being?
"It could be fun," Sam went on. "You and Adam, Anna and Ben, Eduardo with me."
"Eduardo said yes?" Anna asked, surprised that Sam hadn't told her.
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"You need to read your e-mail, Anna," Sam replied. "I sent you one right after I talked to him. He's flying in on his father's plane."
Anna had a moment of true joy for her friend. "That's great. I'm so happy for you."
"Thanks," Sam replied. "I still have to work out the logistics of him and shooting the prom-weenies movie at the same time, but multitasking is my middle name."
Now that Eduardo was coming to prom, Anna wondered why Sam didn't just drop the movie idea altogether. Evidently, though, what had begun as an excuse to invite Eduardo to prom had turned into something Sam really wanted to do.
Ten minutes later, Sam pulled up to Ojai Psychiatric Institute's understated main gate, with its stone blockhouse guarding the entrance. They stopped there for visitors' badges; Sam explained that steel spike strips that could blow out her tires would have elevated from the driveway at the touch of a button if they hadn't. She'd visited Dee often and knew the whole drill.
"It looks like a resort," Anna noted as they drove past a series of classic gardens landscaped in the British style, lush lawns, a regulation basketball court, and two baseball diamonds. A hard right turn revealed a magnificent vista of the distant Pacific. There were picnic tables scattered about, two clay tennis courts, a volleyball court, a gazebo, and an actual concrete band shell appropriate for outdoor concerts. A cobblestone path paralleled the entry road, and every fifty yards or so Anna
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would see one or two people out for a stroll. Without fail, they waved politely to the Hummer. Anna found herself waving back.
"That wave will cost you a thousand bucks a day if you stay here," Sam declared. "Professional assessment, two grand a day. Treatment, a thou a day, for as long as you need your hand held and your brain fried. They don't accept insurance, either--and don't ask me how I know. If you're going to go crazy, it's a good idea to be rich."
The Hummer approached the main building--a low-slung structure of yellow sandstone with a circular drive that circumnavigated a lavish Italian-style fountain. Sam pulled up between a Porsche 917 and another Hummer in the visitors' parking lot. "My advice," she said, before she turned off the engine, "if you recognize a famous face, pretend you don't know them."
"That won't be difficult," Anna pointed out. "I'm bad at celebrity spotting."
It had been a difficult decision for her, whether or not to come to visit Dee. In the brief time Anna had known Dee, she'd found her ... well... odd. Early on, she'd announced to Anna that she was pregnant with Ben's baby. Now that had been weird. It had also turned out to be a bald-faced lie. Dee had a habit of trying and discarding philosophies like plates of tapas at Meson G on Melrose Avenue--a bite of Jainism one day, a taste of Marianne Williamson New Age woo-woo the next, followed by a plate of Jewish kabbalah mysticism. Who the
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real girl was inside that delicate body, Anna didn't know, but the fact that she'd been in Vegas when Dee had had her Vegas breakdown made Anna feel somehow involved.
They climbed down from the vehicle--it was a magnificent spring day, with high, puffy clouds and temperatures in the low seventies--and strode across the parking lot to the main entrance. As they did, Anna saw Dee tear out of the front door to greet them.
"Hey, you guys!" Dee chirped in her high and breathy little voice. "I'm so glad you came! I've missed you sooo much!"
"I was here last week," Sam reminded her with a broad smile.
"Well, sure," Dee acknowledged. "I mean, since then." She embraced each of them in turn, including Anna, as they stood together under the canopy of the entrance. It was redolent with the scent of fresh roses, courtesy of dozens of well-kept bushes to either side of the glass front doors.
"You look great," Anna told her, and it really was true. Dee's shaggy, straight yellow-blond hair had been styled since the last time Anna had seen her, shaped into a pixie cut that that offset her huge, doll-like blue eyes. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes clear, smile bright. She wore white cotton twill shorts and a pale blue cotton ABS tank. In fact, Dee looked totally healthy. No stranger would have been able to guess which of the four of them was the patient.
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Dee smiled serenely. "Thanks."
"So, how are you feeling?" Anna edged to the left to allow a middle-aged couple step out through the front door. Her jaw almost dropped as she recognized the Countess of Beaune and her husband, Count Guillemet. She'd met them on a ski trip she, her mother, and her sister had made to Les Deux Alpes several years earlier. She did the discreet thing, however, and pretended she didn't know them at all.
Dee had no such hesitation. "Hey, Count," she greeted the distinguished-looking gentleman in the black corduroy pants and white cotton dress shirt. "Pretty awful lunch today, huh?"
"Pretty degoulasse indeed," the count responded with a tender smile. "Not quite Bernard Morillon in Beaune. Perhaps our dinner will be better. We're off for a walk."
"See ya." Dee turned back to Anna as if bantering with the Count and Countess of Beaune at the inpatient psychiatric facility in California were the most normal thing in the world. "So, want to see the place?" she offered. "Sam's seen a lot of it, but not Cammie or Anna."
"What is there to see, Dee?" Cammie queried.
"If you don't want to come, you can wait for us here or in the lobby." Dee's tone was even. "I don't really care one way or the other."
Cammie's face actually reddened, and Sam whooped with laughter. "She so got you!"
"Bitch moment," Cammie admitted. "Sorry."
Dee led them all into the lobby that had been
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decorated by the world-famous designer John Saladino in cool blues, with ultramodern furniture.
"I'm feeling so good," Dee chirped as they passed a white grand piano, on which perched an eggshell-blue vase of gardenias. "It took them a while to figure out my whole bipolar thing."
"I hate it when that happens," Cammie quipped.
Dee's eyes grew even wider. "It's not a joke to me, Cammie. It's my life."
She said this with such honesty and lack of flakiness that Anna could hardly believe it was the same girl. Evidently Cammie couldn't either, because she had no comeback and actually appeared chastised.
"Anyway, it turns out my brain chemicals aren't steady," Dee continued as they strolled along. "Lithium didn't work for me, so then they wanted to use valproate, but my mom freaked because she said I'd grow a beard or something. They finally settled on something else so new I don't even remember what it's called, and that's why I'm doing so great. I can't wait to go home."
Cammie hugged her. "This is like a whole new you."
"This is the real me," Dee explained. She opened a door to their right and led them into a giant dayroom that had every nearly video game known to man, three Xbox 360s, two billiards tables, and a high-definition big-screen tel
evision.
Then it was on to Dee's room in one of the three outbuildings. Each was connected to the main building by a canopied redbrick path. Dee's room was large, with a
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single bed covered in a blue-and-white Mark James silk quilt. A Swedish Modern wooden desk held Dee's silver HP laptop. There were several big potted plants, a mini-refrigerator, a large poster of Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie , and a colossal picture window that faced a huge lush garden, and, beyond that, the Pacific.
"It's really nice, Dee," Anna commented.
"It's hot in here." Cammie lifted her hair and fanned her neck. "It's just a room ."
Sam gave Cammie a sly look. "You're being pissy because our little Dee is not quaking in your shadow."
Anna waited for Cammie's comeback, but there wasn't one. How refreshing. Sam had spoken the truth, and they all knew it.
"It wouldn't be such a shock to you if you had come to visit me more often."
"I came."
"Twice," Dee pointed out.
"You know hospitals get me all weird." Cammie pushed her spiraling curls off her face. "What is it, Beat Up on Cammie Day? First Adam and now you?"
Anna was surprised to see actual tears in the corners of Cammie's eyes. Tears . Something must be upsetting her deeply that had nothing to do with their trip to visit Dee. It had to be the fight with Adam.
"It's okay to feel , Cammie." Dee's voice was soothing; she put her arm around her friend. "Let it out. Just breathe. Why don't we go to the juice bar? Everything's free."
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A few minutes later, they were sitting on comfortable upholstered chairs around a round wooden table in the clinic's juice bar, which had been decorated like a 1950s beatnik coffeehouse, filled with mismatched furniture, posters of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, and stacks of board games to play and books to read. Except for the four of them, and the prim barista who'd mixed their Jamba Juice-style raspberry-and-mango concoctions, the place was deserted.
"Dee, there's something I wanted to talk to you about." Sam stirred her juice with a pin-striped straw that bent in the middle. "It's ... prom. It's Friday night."