Almost Famous, a Talent Novel (20 page)

“DID YOU SEE ME, BECKS?” Ellie screamed, as Becks dragged her board out of the ocean and onto the white Malibu sand. It was almost dark, and the houses were like shadows on the shore.

“Yeah, that was a start,” Becks said casually.

“Um, earth to Becks?” Ellie said, smiling. “Is that all I get? I just stood up on my board!”

“Okay. Good job, you stood up,” Becks muttered, feeling a tiny nagging voice in her head saying,
Just say congratulations
. But then she heard someone clapping. She turned around and saw Austin, wearing tattered green cargo shorts and a tight black T-shirt, his brown hair flopping lazily in his blue-gray eyes. “Nice work, Professor Becks! You should teach a class!”

Becks stood taller, beaming with pride. She’d never been called that before. And yet there Austin was, proud of her for having taught someone to do something they both loved. It was the first time she’d felt good around him in a while. She was relieved to know that they could connect as friends, since things had been so awkward following the Pinkberry debacle.

Ellie put her hands on her hips and giggled flirta tiously. “How about some props for the excellent student?” She batted her eyelashes like she’d read a manual on
How to Steal a Guy
.

Austin turned to Ellie. He seemed impressed by her boldness. And then it hit Becks like a ten-foot wave: Austin had said he couldn’t like a girl who couldn’t surf, and now Ellie could.

Ellie smiled, enjoying the attention. “We should all go grab Pinkberry to celebrate!”

The word
Pinkberry
lingered in the air like the stench of sewage at El Segundo Beach.

“Nah, I should get going,” Austin said, looking down at the sand before he slunk back to his house.

“’Byee!” Ellie called after him. He didn’t turn around.

Becks’s cheeks flushed and she remembered all over again why she could never ever be friends with Ellie. Sabotage was game on.

Becks turned to Ellie and smiled. “That was seriously great!” she said in her happiest fake voice. “But if you really want to impress the folks at Surffest, we should learn one more move.”

Ellie smiled at Becks, as if deciding whether or not to take the plunge. “Okay,” she said finally, tugging at the black straps of her bikini. “Sweet.”

The girls paddled back into the chilly ocean. “Watch me,” Becks said. And then that nagging voice in her head got a lot louder, practically shouting,
This is really not cool
. Becks paddled away the doubt. She stood on her board and then crept her way forward until her toes were hanging off the end. The move was called Toes on the Nose, and she’d learned it a few years earlier at surf camp in Malibu. It was definitely not a novice move.

“That looks hard,” Ellie said cautiously when Becks paddled back to meet her.

“It’s really not,” Becks insisted. It wasn’t a total lie, since what Becks meant was,
It’s really not that hard for me.
But it had taken her nine years and a lot of practice.

“All righty, Becksy, I trust you,” Ellie said.

“Yeah,” Becks said. “Think how surprised Austin will be when you rip it up at Surffest.”

Ellie smiled, as if imagining herself zigzagging across the waves like a girl version of Kelly Slater. “Speaking of, it’s just a friends thing between you guys, right?”

Becks’s pulse raced. She
never
discussed her crushes with anyone outside the Inner Circle. Though it was nice of Ellie even to bring it up, like she was asking permission to go for Austin. But then Becks realized: Ellie had seen the Slumbergate video, which meant she knew Becks had a crush. She wasn’t trying to be buddy-buddy, and she wasn’t being considerate. She was rubbing it in.

“We’re just friends.” Becks gritted her teeth.

“Good, ’cause I think it’s only a matter of time before he’s mine,” Ellie said confidently. Before Becks could respond, Ellie paddled back out to catch a wave. Becks watched her from her board. Ellie managed to stand up again, but before she could even begin to move forward on the board, she wiped out, tumbling into the ocean awkwardly while her board bobbed to shore.

If she couldn’t even stay standing, there was no way this girl could get Toes on the Nose in time for the surf exhibit. She’d look like a terrible surfer and make a fool of herself in front of everyone. And it was Ellie’s turn to find out how that felt.

“Today’s going to be really easy,” Ruby said from the entrance of Bristol Farms on the corner of Doheny. It was a high-end grocery store in Beverly Hills that looked like a colonial mansion with a white arch entry-way surrounded by bright green plants. The parking lot was filled with Audis, Mercedes-Benzes, and Lexuses, was filled with Audis, Mercedes-Benzes, and Lexuses, and it catered to young starlets and the paparazzi. It was exactly where Mac did
not
want to be, because she wanted to be done with PDA (Public Displays of Assistantship).

“I just need you to push the shopping cart and grab the items I tell you to grab,” Ruby said, leaning on her crutches as they stepped into the store, passing a perfectly coiffed Scarlett Johansson clutching a canvas grocery bag on her way out.

Mac hoped that if she smiled and chatted with Ruby it would look like two friends going shopping together instead of an assistant on duty with her boss. Mac felt even more embarrassed, because she was still honoring the deal to not wear anything Ruby owned. Which meant that Mac was left to wear her Vanessa Bruno jumpsuit, way too glam for grocery shopping. Ruby was wearing the same James Perse tee that Mac had worn days earlier with the Paige jeans. Which meant the look was already over.

They passed the cheese aisle, and Mac inhaled the aroma of freshly grated parmesan. Ruby would not stop talking. “I really want your help with the finale ’cause I need it to go off without a hitch. I’m doing my ode to BAMS, to determine if we should release it as my first single from my new album,” Ruby said, seriously. “Does that make sense?”

Mac paused thoughtfully. Even if it was Ruby, there was something about giving people career advice that gave her a buzz. “Yeah. The song is about BAMS, so you know the audience will like the content at the very least. If they like the melody, then you know it’s worth it to debut it in front of a bigger, non-BAMS market and see how it flies.” Mac shrugged. It seemed like common-sense PR work. (As long as Mac ignored the fact that Ruby was using a benefit for the Third World to promote herself.)

“Oooh, you are so smart!” Ruby squealed. “That’s exactly what Brigham says.” She made a concerned face. “He wants me to lip-synch the one we recorded.”

Mac smiled. Jackpot!
This
was information she could use. Mac carefully filed that tidbit away in the “Operation Take Down Ruby” part of her brain and quickly slapped a smile on her face to uphold her façade. “Well, that makes sense,” Mac said, squeezing the shopping cart handle so she wouldn’t sound overexcited at the turn this conversation was taking. “If it’s a debut, you want to make sure it lands just right. You don’t want to take any chances with a live performance.”

Ruby looked relieved. She stared at Mac seriously, her violet eyes focused like high beams.

“I’m so glad we’re finally friends.” Ruby smiled.

Mac felt a jolt inside her body, but somehow managed to smile back, numb from shock. Did Ruby not know the meaning of the word
friend
? Did she not know that friends didn’t make friends push grocery carts?

“Oooh, Roquefort samples!” Ruby exclaimed, eyeing the dairy section, where they had laid out mini bites of the stinky French cheese. “I want some!”

Mac shivered—she was very anti-free food. Her mother had instilled in her the fear of germs and of being seen standing up and grazing.

Ruby darted off, leaving Mac all alone with the cart and her black quilted Chanel bag. Mac spotted Ruby’s iPhone poking out of the front pocket. Her heart skipped a beat as she eyed the shiny device. Another Damage Potential opp. And this time, Mac was going to take it.

Mac was about to grab the phone like a South Beach dieter devouring white bread when she realized—it looked . . . different. The iPhone was a tiny bit too wide. It was Swarovski studded.

And totally fake.

Mac yanked her hand away from the fake phone as though the instrument had been dipped in high-fructose corn syrup. Suddenly the dots connected like a Seurat painting:
Ruby had been trying to trick her all along!
All those opportunities that Mac had passed up to snoop hadn’t been coincidences. They’d been
traps.

Mac’s mind quickly scrolled through a mental slide show:

Mac smiled, pleased that she was worth so much mental energy and even more pleased that she hadn’t fallen for it. She tried to turn the cart toward the rows of condiments, but Ruby was blocking the route, pointing her right crutch at Mac. “Busted! Phone snoop!”

Mac calmly looked up. “Huh?” she said innocently. Ruby eyed Mac up and down, resting her eyes on Mac’s hands, which were very clearly curled around the cart handle. Then Ruby slowly slid her gaze to the dummy phone, which was very clearly
not
in Mac’s hands.

“Oops!” Ruby said, staring off at the row of gourmet nut butters. She actually blushed. “I thought—”

Mac shrugged. “I respect your privacy.”

There was a long pause.

“Well, good.” Ruby swept her feathered bangs out of her face. “That was a test to see if I could trust you. And you passed.” Ruby pantomimed clapping.
“
Now you can
really
help me with the finale. I need your impeccable taste to decide which napkin design to go with.”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Mac said, amazed that she’d gone from enemy to frenemy in one-point-five grocery store aisles. Ruby was finally going to give her some real responsibilities, which she’d promptly abuse. It was all working out better than she had planned.

“I’m also going to need to run my speech by you,” Ruby said bossily. “I need to strike the proper tone—you know, classy but young like me? And we need to pick a color scheme.” Ruby leaned on her right crutch, as if she were stopping to think. “Maybe after we take care of all this social chair business, you could come to my next sleepover?” She smiled. “But, like,
not
as the butler—as my guest?”

Mac smiled fake-shyly, hoping to seem truly touched by Ruby’s not-really-big gesture. Even if her smile was phony, Mac’s happiness was genuine: She was
in
. And she was going to make sure that by the time ExtravaBAMSa was over, Ruby was way, way
out.

Coco, Becks, and Mac were standing on Becks’s beach, holding a private conference in the middle of Surffest.

“Ruby completely thinks I’m her BFF,” Mac said proudly, retying the string on her pastel pink Chloé halter dress, which she’d borrowed from Coco because of Ruby’s no-dupes rule. “She told me everything she plans to do for ExtravaBAMSa—it’s like she’s giving me the handbook on how to sabotage her. Only nine more hours till we get our lives back,” Mac said excitedly.

“And the Bam-Bams have their new costumes,” Coco said, dabbing La Prairie sunscreen around her eyes. “I can’t wait until tonight.” She grinned wickedly.

Becks smiled at Coco, who was not usually so scheming or so adventurous. It was funny to see how Pax Rubana was bringing out new sides of her friends. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her baby blue sweatshirt—her muscles couldn’t get cold while she waited to surf.

“And Spazmo’s a green light,” Emily said proudly, showing off her newly dyed crimson hair, à la Spazmo. “I am officially all over this role. Me and Freakberry are like this.” She crossed her fingers.

Across the beach, Becks spotted Ruby and the Rubybots all wearing the same Gucci sunglasses—the ones Mac had worn up until they’d copied her. They looked like Guccibots. They were all staring curiously at the Inner Circle, as if waiting to see what they would do next. Even as social pariahs, the I.C. were still the ones to watch.

Becks barely recognized her backyard. The normally serene beach had been completely transformed for Surffest: Bleachers had been built just for the day; royal blue tents had been set up by sponsors Roxy and Gatorade; and there was a giant tower by the bleachers, so a camera crew could televise the event. Kelly Slater, the world champion surfer (and an old buddy of Clutch’s) was piling strawberries and grapes onto a black plastic plate in the VIP breakfast tent, which had been catered by Marmalade Cafe. He chucked a grape at Laird Hamilton, another world-famous surfer.

Surffest looked like a VIP party for X Games, which Becks had been to several times with her father. Besides Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, Trent Munro and Shaun White were there. Kate Hudson and Goldie Hawn had brought their beach chairs.

In front of the packed bleachers, Becks spied Austin and Mac’s brother, Jenner, tossing a football on the sand with some other guys from Bel-Air Prep. Even the alterna-kids had decided to show up—they were sitting in the back row, holding books and pretending to read.