He’d had a thing for her for approximately three years now even though he’d never spoken to her and was absolutely positive she had no idea he existed. But when you live in the same town your entire life, you notice people. And everyone always noticed the Rivas.
Sometimes Ricky would go into Riva’s Seafood and order fried clams with no bellies, a large Coke, and french fries. He’d take a seat out by the parking lot on one of the wooden benches. He’d hope to spot Kit Riva.
She was the most appealing person he’d ever seen in his life.
He liked that she never had to try to be beautiful. He liked that her body was so solid, so strong. He imagined she was the sort of girl that didn’t need a guy to kill a spider and he liked that because, to be honest, Ricky was afraid of spiders.
He’d seen her surf at Surfrider Beach every once in a while. He liked to go down to the pier and take a seat on a bench and watch the fishermen. But he could always recognize Kit when she was in the water. She had a bravado that he liked. She was aggressive with the waves, never deferred to other people. Ricky had always imagined marrying a woman like that. His mother was like that.
He just needed to find the guts to talk to her.
Nina had wandered away from Brandon and was talking to a group of young runway models by the front door. They wouldn’t stop asking her questions like who designed her skirt and what eyeliner she was wearing.
“Like, what are you doing for your skin? It’s fucking … radiant,” the tallest, lankiest one said. She was brunette with blue eyes and Nina had gathered, based on how often she kept bringing it up, that she’d walked in McLaren and Westwood’s Fall show last year.
“Oh, thank you,” Nina said, kindly.
“And what are you doing for crow’s-feet?” the sweeter-looking woman asked.
“What am I doing for crow’s-feet?” Nina asked.
“Like, to prevent it.”
“Oh, you know, just zinc when I’m surfing sometimes. And moisturizer,” Nina said.
“La Mer?” the taller one said.
“I don’t know what you’re asking me,” Nina said.
“La Mer,” said the sweeter-looking woman. “Crème de la Mer. The moisturizer?”
“I just use Noxzema,” Nina said.
The taller woman looked at the sweeter woman and they exchanged glances. Nina became overtaken with the sense, one she had often, that she wasn’t a very good model.
She pulled herself away from the group, as if someone had called for her. She continued to move through the party.
Brandon was holding court in the living room, talking to a crowd of photographers and artists that had gathered around the Lichtenstein hanging above the fireplace.
She watched Brandon from a distance, seeing his hands gesticulating wildly, everyone in rapt attention. She decided she needed a glass of wine and so she made her way toward the kitchen.
She waved as she walked past the surfers up from Venice who were sitting on her living room sofa drinking beers. She smiled at the three actors trying to pretend they weren’t doing coke off of her entry table. She said hello to the four women talking to each other about Dynasty outside her guest bathroom.
Before Nina could make it to the wine bar set up in the kitchen, a cocktail waitress came by with a tray of merlot and Nina smiled at her and took one.
“You have a lovely house, if you don’t mind me saying,” the waitress said. She was a redhead with green eyes. Nina liked her smile.
“Thank you,” Nina told her. “My husband picked it out.”
And then the waitress kept walking and Nina stood right in place, people moving all around her.
Actresses, models, musicians. Surfers, skaters, volleyball players. Agents and executives. Development assistants. Writers, directors, producers. Those two asshole comedians with that stupid movie everyone loved. Half the cast of Dallas. Three Lakers. It was barely nine o’clock and Nina already felt like everyone in the world was in her house.
She sipped the merlot in her hand slowly, with her eyes closed, breathing it in as much as tasting it. Can I go hide in my bedroom?
Suddenly, the DJ put on “1999” and it broke something open in Nina’s chest. Just the sound of Prince’s voice, the beat. This song, in this moment … Nina felt like she could leave the world behind—all the people, Brandon—and simply enjoy herself for a second.
She walked out onto her lawn to join the partygoers who had started to dance.
“All right! Nina! Gettin’ down to boogie,” a woman called to her from the mass of bodies moving. Nina looked up and saw Wendy, from the restaurant.
“You made it,” Nina said, smiling. She started bopping her butt from side to side, sliding her shoulders. She wasn’t much of a dancer but when you love the song, it doesn’t matter.
“It’s nice to see you like this,” Wendy said. Wendy was a much better dancer than Nina, a much more sexual dancer. Nina marveled at the freedom it took to hump blindly in midair like that.
“See me like what?” Nina called out, over the music.
“I don’t know, you seem lighter, maybe. Carefree?”
Nina wondered if everyone secretly thought she lived with a stick up her ass. And then she wondered if maybe she did.
“It’s Prince,” Nina said. “He does it for me.”
“Oh, he does it for everybody,” Wendy said.
Nina saw Hud by the firepit and she called to him, tried to wave him over, but he was talking to a woman. Nina looked closer. Who was her brother flirting with?
It was Ashley. Hud was talking to Ashley.
He’s screwing her.
It seemed so obvious. The way they were standing so close to each other, their lack of reticence about their bodies brushing together. It is discernible, when two people feel complete comfort with each other’s skin. It is plain for anyone to see if they are looking.
And that’s exactly what they had: an electric sort of peace between them.
Nina instantly understood that Jay would not take this well. Jay didn’t have the benevolent confidence necessary to absorb this blow with ease. And Nina felt a sense of doom, as she imagined how the night would play out. The conflict, the mess.
This night, Nina could feel in her gut, was not going to end well.
Jay was coming down the stairs when he saw her.
There she was. Lara. His Lara, if people could belong to other people.
She was standing by the door, next to Chad, wearing a plain white T-shirt tucked into a black miniskirt. She looked about eight billion feet tall, her legs the full length of her. All Jay could think about was running his hands from her ankles all the way to her ass, how smooth the journey would be, how long it would take him.
He pulled it together and walked up to Lara, affecting nonchalance. “You guys made it,” he said. “What are you having to drink?”
“Why don’t I head over to the bar?” Chad suggested. “You two can wait here.”
Lara asked for a white wine spritzer. Jay took Chad up on the offer to get him another Jack and Coke. And then Chad was gone.
Jay looked at Lara, with her gigantic eyes and her thin lips. He felt as if it was just the two of them there together even though there were now close to two hundred people in his sister’s house. But who cared about the rest? Who cared about the music and the people and the noise?
Jay pulled Lara toward him. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said.
“All right,” she said. “So kiss me then.”
He leaned over and put his lips to hers. She tasted like spearmint and he tasted like whiskey.
Jay grabbed her hand and felt a whoosh through his head. It was the booze. He knew that. But it was also the thrill of letting yourself get swept away. It felt so good to fall.
Vanessa was watching Hud through the window as he spoke to a blond woman out in the yard. “Who is Hud talking to?” she asked, as casually as possible. “I mean, not that it matters.”
“I don’t know,” Kit s
aid, distracted. This guy Ricky kept looking at her. There were a few guys that had been looking at her all night. Seth had smiled at her again, that guy Chad from the Sandcastle was looking at her. Dressed as she was, she could feel a difference in how the rooms she entered made space for her.
She was still trying to figure out how she felt about it. All she knew for sure was that she didn’t want to strike up a conversation with Seth or Chad. They seemed too … cool, like they’d expect something of her she wasn’t ready to deliver.
Vanessa continued to watch Hud out the window as he smiled at the woman he was talking to and snuck a kiss on her neck, right behind her ear. The woman closed her eyes and then touched Hud’s face tenderly.
Vanessa’s heart sank.
“Do you see this guy over here?” Kit said. “I think he’s friends with my brother. Ricky something?”
Vanessa looked in the direction Kit was indicating, trying to distract herself, pretending she wasn’t thrown. “Oh, wow, OK, that guy is checking you out,” Vanessa said.
“Don’t look right at him!” Kit said, hoping Vanessa would quiet down.
“He’s cute,” Vanessa said. But from the way that she said it, it was clear she thought it was a qualified sort of cute.
Vanessa stole another glance at Hud. Now he and this woman were playing with each other’s hands covertly, as if no one could see them.
Vanessa closed her eyes, unable to look anymore. What had she honestly thought was going to happen tonight? That Hud was going to fall in love with her? How ridiculous. How completely and utterly ridiculous. She thought she might cry.
“Should I talk to him?” Kit asked. “Like, if he comes to talk to me?”
“Hm?” Vanessa asked, turning back to Kit and trying to catch up. “Yeah, totally talk to him.” I will not cry over this, Vanessa thought as she kept her tears back. She had to meet someone else. She couldn’t sit around pining away for someone who barely noticed her after this many years. She was just learning what type of woman she was but she decided she wanted to be the sort of woman who didn’t do that. She turned her full attention to Kit. “You should go up to him and start the conversation yourself.”
Kit sipped her water from a Solo cup. She’d never had a drop of alcohol, never smoked pot once. Had no plans to. She pulled the cup away from her mouth and glanced in Ricky’s direction. She looked at the way he hovered by the window, pretending to look out of it but, in fact, looking nowhere at all. He looked comfortable being in the middle of a party completely alone.
There was something about him.
He was the one she was going to kiss.
10:00 P.M.
Seth Whittles was standing by the edge of the pool, a bottle of beer in his hand, talking to Hud and Ashley.
Seth’s jeans were cuffed, his high-top Chuck Taylors were new. His hair was shellacked to his head with a preposterous amount of mousse.
“When are you and Jay leaving for Hawaii?” Seth asked.
“Soon, man,” Hud replied. “Hoping Jay takes all three events.”
“You guys will probably get another cover,” Seth said.
“We’ll see,” Hud said. “Fingers crossed.”
“You will,” Ashley assured him. “I know you will.”
“For sure,” Seth said. But then it occurred to him it was odd for Ashley to be there at all. Hadn’t she and Jay broken up recently?
Ashley noticed Seth considering her. Hud noticed it, too.
“I’m going to go get another beer,” Hud said. “Anybody want anything?”
“I’ll come with you,” Ashley said, as if the idea had just come to her.
And the two of them walked away, pretending it was a coincidence they were headed in the same direction.
Seth, now abandoned, sipped his beer awkwardly and looked for someone else to talk to. He scanned faces for any familiarity, tried to make eye contact with any cute girl he could find.
He was—at every party, at every bar, on every beach—living with his heart wide open, looking for the One. His soulmate, his other half. The love of his life.
And yet, he could never find Her. He always found women who thought he was a nice guy but weren’t very interested or women who were interested only until something better came along. But he never could quite find what he was looking for: true love.
And, unfortunately, this party was no different.
He tried to catch the eye of a girl he recognized from General Hospital, which he secretly watched sometimes when he had an afternoon off. He’d been watching more this summer because Luke was back in Port Charles.
He’d thought the actress was gorgeous every time he saw her on the show. And now here she was, smoking a cigarette over by the barbecue.
When she glanced at him, he smiled.
She took a drag of her cigarette without acknowledging him and then looked back to her friends.
If only Seth would make his way out to the driveway. His perfect match was standing right outside.
She was on the first step of the front stoop talking to a group of women about whether Lionel Richie was an asshole. She was arguing that he was not.
Her name was Eliza Nakamura. She was wearing a belted jumpsuit and high heels. Her father was Japanese. Her mother was Swedish. She was a development executive at the Geffen Company. She hated it when people called her a D-Girl.
Every morning she woke up and donned a leotard, leggings, and leg warmers and then made her way to the gym for the 5:45 aerobics class. Afterward, she showered, ran mousse through her hair, blew it dry, teased her bangs, set it all with hairspray, and then put on her nude hose and one of her power suits. She always doubled up on the shoulder pads.
And then she got in her white convertible and hopped into bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101.
At work, she read spec scripts and recommended the good ones to her bosses. She gave writers notes. She took lunches with agents and directors at Spago and the Ivy. She scheduled drinks for herself every weeknight with other executives at places like Yamashiro. She kept a Rolodex of every business card she collected. She wanted to run a studio one day. She knew she would be good at it. She knew she could not let anything derail her.
When her boss slipped his hand up the skirt of her suit, she smiled at him and moved away. When a producer chased her around the watercooler, she laughed it off as best she could.
On weekends, she’d hang out with her girlfriends and find a bar on the Sunset Strip—the Roxy, the Rainbow, maybe join the party at the Motley House—and make out with whatever eyeliner-clad metal rocker suited her fancy until the early hours of the night.
Eliza was not looking for love, necessarily. She had other things on her mind. Both long term and short term. She was angling for the head of production opening at work. She was saving up money to buy her own condo in West Hollywood. She had not yet decided if she ever wanted to have children.
But she would welcome a certain type of man in particular: a good man, who was a nice guy, who didn’t play games and understood that her career was important to her, that she could never quit the business, that she was living her dream. A man that could give her an orgasm every night and not expect her to make breakfast in the morning. That Eliza Nakamura would have welcomed with open arms.
But as Eliza stood in the gravel driveway—now listening to her friend Heather and two other girls ponder whether or not to go talk to some actors inside—she was perfectly happy not finding love at all. She had two scripts back at her apartment that she was supposed to finish by Monday morning. She was looking forward to getting that done tomorrow.
And so, she did not go inside. Instead, she hung out in the front yard, talking to her friends.
And Seth hung out in the backyard, looking for love.
Hud grabbed Ashley’s hand. “C’mere,” he said, as he nodded toward the worn path and stairs down the side of the cliff.
“To the beach?” Ashley asked.
“Just for a second, just to talk,”
Hud told her. “With no one else around.”
He led her over to the steps gently and when they got down to the beach, the two of them sat on the sand. It was cold, almost wet, having released the heat of the sun.
Hud put his arm around Ashley and confessed. “I fucked up,” he said.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Hud shook his head, buried it in his hands. He should have told Jay long ago. He should have confessed it all to him the moment he realized he had feelings for Ashley, when she and Jay were still together, before he ever slept with her, before he fell in love with her, before before before.
What sort of man sleeps with his brother’s girlfriend?
“I lied to Jay,” Hud said. “I made it seem like I wanted to ask you out instead of … well, you know.”
Ashley braced herself. “And what did he say?”
Hud looked at her. “He said he’d rather I didn’t.”
Ashley frowned and turned her head toward the water. She watched it ebb and flow at its own pace, entirely unhurried.
She hadn’t wanted to push him on this. She hadn’t wanted him to feel like he had to choose. But he might have to. That was becoming clearer to her by the minute.
“I’m going to talk to him tonight,” Hud said. “Again. I really am. I’m going to be firm about it. Explain that I’m very serious about you. And he’s going to understand.”
Ashley watched the waves come in to the shoreline, watched the moonlight bounce off the water, creating ripples like stripes. She caught her breath.
“Hud,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”
11:00 P.M.
Bobby Housman came through the door looking like he’d raided Jordache. He had on black acid-washed jeans, a yellow patterned button-down shirt, and a jean jacket with the collar flipped up.
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