Friends with Benefits (5 page)

7

Kiley tried to formulate something really arch and funny, something that would show how easily she could accept his “got together” remark. Then Tom's truck rounded a curve and the most magnificent landscape spread out before them: Technicolor flowers lit by the setting sun, rocky cliffs on both sides, and a straight shot down to the azure Pacific Ocean in all its frothy majesty.

“Awesome,” Kiley breathed. “It's just . . . words aren't big enough.”

He glanced at her quickly, then back at the road. “I remember what you told me, about Scripps, and how much you love the ocean. Kinda makes whatever insanity you're going through with Platinum worthwhile, huh?”

“Oh yeah.” Kiley drank in the panorama as Tom turned north on the Pacific Coast Highway, which paralleled her beloved ocean. She even turned down the music so that there would be no distraction. For quite a while there was a constant ocean view to their left. Once they reached the Malibu section of the highway, the view disappeared. All she could see was the ugly backs of wall-to-wall oceanfront homes.

“So how are people supposed to get to the beach?” Kiley asked.

“They aren't; that's the whole point.” Tom nodded toward the homes. “It's called the Colony—chock-full of the rich and famous. They don't want to share the beach. Hence, no parking, no paths, no nothing.”

“Just because you own a place on the beach doesn't mean you own the entire beach,” Kiley protested. She knew she was right because she devoured everything ever written about the ocean. “There are public-access laws. You're allowed between the high-tide line and the low-tide line.”

“True,” Tom agreed. “But big stars aren't about to let the little people traipse across their property to get there.”

“Well, that—that just sucks.”

He laughed. “Fear not, O Defender of the Public Right to the Brine. There are some places where homeowners traded better beach access for the right to make their mansions bigger. There's a good path by David Geffen's estate—he's Steven Spielberg's business partner. I'll show you sometime. Ah, here we are. Marym's new place.”

Tom made a sharp left turn across the PCH and pulled into a broad driveway that featured a valet stand teeming with waiting attendants. The rear of the home facing the PCH was nondescript—two stories, a few windows, nothing special.

“Where are they going to park your truck?” Kiley wondered.

“Someplace far away. I bet they'll run a shuttle van there later.”

A valet gave Tom a claim ticket and drove away in his truck. Tom took Kiley's arm and led her down a narrow path on the north side of Marym's new home. As they rounded the front of it, Kiley saw that ordinary as it had been from the street, it was breathtaking from the beach; all pale wood and twenty-foot windows reflecting the slate path that led to the ocean below. At the tallest point of a center peak was a ten-foot stained-glass angel, wings spread, as if blessing the massive house upon which it flew.

They reached the front door, where a guy in a weathered leather bomber jacket and baggy jeans admired the sunset as he leaned against the doorframe. Kiley gulped. It was Leonardo DiCaprio. The Leonardo DiCaprio. Wait until she told Nina. She'd probably decide to work for Evelyn Bowers for nothing.

Tom put a protective arm around Kiley and whispered to her. “Hey.”

“Hey, what?”

“Hey, you don't need to feel freaked about being here,” he assured her.

She made a face. “I thought I was being all cool.”

He leaned close. “Don't let it get around, but I'm not cool, either. I've just learned how to fake it.” He squeezed her hand and gazed into her eyes with the same look he had in that Calvin poster on Sunset Boulevard; her knees nearly buckled. He was so close and so gorgeous and so . . . so out on a date with Kiley McCann from freaking La Crosse freaking Wisconsin, home of the world's largest six-pack. Kiley McCann, who hadn't even been
close
to being the cutest girl at her high school, whose one and only sexual experience with her one and only boyfriend had been such a singular disaster that she wasn't even sure whether they'd—

“You okay?” Tom asked, still holding her hand.

She took a deep breath. “I'm good.”

“Excellent.”

They headed inside. As they did, a couple of girls Kiley vaguely recognized from
The Apprentice
stumbled out, laughing together.

The interior was stunning: a huge open expanse of space, with soaring rough-hewn beamed ceilings and spectacular rose-colored lighting. The furnishings echoed the sea. Wooden tables holding bowls of seashells were carved into rippling waves. The chairs and couches were the color of the ocean. A mantel, perhaps twenty feet long, held more seashells, exquisite aqua glass vases that looked handblown, branches, leaves, and seed-pods. Pillows on the white couches were hand-embroidered with butterflies, seagulls, and fish. A chandelier shone with amber and aquamarine glass beads, looking nothing like anything Kiley had ever seen before.

“Wow, Marym has great taste,” Kiley mused.

“Nah, Harry Schnaper—he's a famous interior decorator from New York, I guess—did the whole thing for her.”

Kiley's gaze swung upward. On a level perhaps twenty feet up a man in a tuxedo played a white grand piano, and sang “If I Loved You” into a mike. Kiley knew the song; she'd been in the chorus of her high school's production of
Carousel.
Behind him was a bleached-wood open bar, where a trio of bartenders mixed drinks to order. Meanwhile, waiters in tuxedo shirts and black trousers snaked through the crowd, offering flutes of champagne with mango slices floating in them, or various hot appetizers. Beautiful people milled everywhere, clad in everything from the most casual of jeans and T-shirts to expensive beaded sundresses and leather jackets. Funny how Platinum had been so wrong. Kiley really
could
have worn her dad's bowling shirt. If you were rich enough, famous enough, and good-looking enough to be invited to this party, you were by extension cool enough to wear whatever you wanted.

“See that cabinet?” Tom pointed to an antique-looking piece of furniture near the front door. It held a single giant seashell and dozens of yellow roses. “It's called a trove cabinet. It's crafted from individually carved coral-shaped wood twigs. They're silver-leafed and then attached, one by one, to the wooden frame. The doors are antique mirror glass.”

“How do you know?” Kiley marveled.

“Marym told me it used to belong to Coco Chanel,” he explained. “Harry found it for her at a Sotheby's auction.”

Gee. Swell.

“Come on, I'll introduce you around.” Tom took her arm again. Snippets of profanity-laced conversation came at her as they wended their way through the crowded living room.

“Michelle is dating another druggie . . . he trashed their room at the Century City Plaza so bad that the hotel put them on their shit list.”

“Try the La Mer Essence . . . twenty-one hundred dollars for a vial but it was in the goody bag for the Grammys and I'm telling you the shit works.”

“If he asks Tyra to do his shitty FAB show instead of me I'm killing him.”

Tom halted at a group of four people chatting with crystal champagne flutes in hand. Kiley recognized their hostess immediately. If anything, Marym was more beautiful in person; photographs amazingly did not do justice to her violet eyes and luminous skin. Inches taller than Kiley, the model wore a red and blue silk caftan cut to her navel in front, slit up both thighs to her waist. It billowed around her willowy frame. No panty line and no bra straps—Marym obviously was wearing nothing underneath. Her jet black hair was messy in an artful way that made it look as if she'd just awakened after a night of debauchery. There was no visible makeup on her face, not even a trace of lipstick on her puffy lips.

Which,
Kiley thought,
is about the only thing we could possibly
have in common.

“Tom!” Marym cried, cutting in front of an older goateed producer type in a white T-shirt, black cashmere sweater, and Live 8 concert baseball cap. “You came!” She threw herself into Tom's arms and hugged him close. Really close. For a really long time.

“Happy birthday,” Tom told her, kissing her lightly on the lips. “The new place looks great.”

Marym made a face. “Oh, I don't know if it suits me.” Her English was perfect, with a slight, charming Israeli accent. Her friendly gaze went to Kiley. “I don't think we've met. Welcome. I'm Marym.”

“Marym, this is my friend Kiley McCann. Kiley, Marym Marshall.”

The model took Kiley's hand in her own slender fingers. “So nice of you to come, Kiley.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” Kiley replied.

Then she realized what a stupid statement that was, because of course Marym
hadn't
invited her. Tom had, but Marym either didn't notice the gaffe or was sufficiently gracious to ignore it. Instead, she backed out of Tom's embrace and peered at her jammed living room. “This is madness. I didn't know so many people would come!” She smiled at Kiley. “So, what do you do, Kiley? Are you a student?”

Kiley nodded. “In the fall, anyway. Right now I'm a nanny.”

Marym's eyes went wide. “You take care of children? Oh, that must be fun. I miss my little sisters back in Israel so much.” She put her hand on Tom's arm. “You know who is here, Tom? Samuel. I should find him for you.”

“De Cubber?” Tom asked. “I thought he went back to France.”

“He's in town to do Marc Jacobs at FAB tomorrow night. Who are you doing? Anyone besides Calvin?”

“Ralph,” Tom replied. “You?”

“Vera and this crazy new designer out of Palm Springs who makes clothes with stuff she finds at the Disneyland lost and found. That is so FAB, isn't it?”

Kiley actually knew what Marym meant, since FAB was as famous for launching edgy new designers as it was for presenting the work of established favorites.

Tom and Marym chatted on about fittings and photo shoots. Kiley felt invisible. She wished she had a drink—two drinks (and she'd barely ever had a drink in her life)—just for something to do.

“Anyway, I have fittings all day tomorrow.” Marym wrinkled her perfect nose with distaste. “Oh. Want some good gossip? Sam just signed to do a big print campaign in France. That could have been you.”

Tom shook his head. “No full frontal for me. My grandmother back in Iowa wouldn't be able to face her bingo friends ever again. She hasn't seen me naked since my butt fit into a diaper.”

Marym laughed. “No full frontal. Only naked from the back.”

“Naked?” Kiley echoed, since it seemed like the most salient word in their conversation.

“Sam de Cubber is a model,” Tom explained. “And a French martial arts champion.”

“You're missing a great career opportunity,” Marym chided. “Americans are such prudes about nudity.”

“There'll be other gigs,” Tom maintained.

Marym gave a little pout. “A shame. You're not nearly as hairy as Samuel. They have to wax his back!”

Okay, so Marym had seen Tom naked—another brick of evidence for the theory that Marym had been the one in bed with Tom at the Hotel Bel-Air.

“Oh, look!” Marym waved at someone across the room. “Natalie's finally here. Thank God. Someone who speaks Hebrew besides my father.”

Kiley turned to spot a young woman who she was pretty sure was Natalie Portman near the front door, looking casually perfect in worn jeans and a black ballet-style tank top.

“Excuse me; I want to say hello.” Marym kissed Tom's cheek. And then, an afterthought: “Nice to meet you, Kiley.” She moved off through the crowd as the piano player segued into “As Time Goes By.” It was surreal; Kiley felt as if her life had acquired a sound track.

“Wow, so she's seen you—” Kiley began, trying to sound casual, but Tom cut her off before she could utter the word “naked” again. It was becoming a recurrent motif, but not necessarily in the way that she had envisioned.

“You hungry? I think there's a buffet by the bar.”

Suddenly, Kiley was desperate for fresh ocean air. “You go ahead. I'll be . . . out front . . . on the beach.”

“Great idea,” Tom agreed.

As he edged through the crowd to the buffet, Kiley made a beeline for the front door, thoughts tumbling atop one another like a collapsing house of cards. Were Tom and Marym still an item? If so, why had he invited Kiley to this party? It couldn't possibly be to make Marym jealous. That was a ridiculous notion. Marym could have any man she wanted, and probably a good percentage of the women, too. Maybe they were friends with benefits. If so, what then? What guy would give up a friend like Marym, a friend with the kind of benefits that Kiley had heard—if not seen—her provide?

8

“Billy Martin, who knew you had a romantic soul?”

Billy had called Lydia's cell that afternoon to announce that his boss, Eduardo, had decreed they were actually ahead of schedule on set construction for the Yves Saint Laurent show at FAB, and that Billy could have the evening off. Did Lydia want to hang out?

Definitely.

In that case, he'd planned a surprise, which turned out to be an elegant picnic at a little-known park just south of the main drag in Pacific Palisades. The park was perched on a cliff overlooking Will Rogers Beach, and featured a view from Redondo Beach in the south all the way up to Malibu in the north. The Santa Monica Pier was only three miles away; Lydia remembered it from the premiere party for
The Ten
that she'd attended with Kiley and Esme.

Lydia had borrowed her clothes with care: a beige Marc Jacobs cropped cotton jacket with oversized antique buttons, a pale blue Chloé sequined T-shirt, and white Hot Kiss shorts with unfinished hems. She'd recently seen the exact same Marc Jacobs jacket on Jessica Alba at the country club. Kiley had pointed Jessica out to her; otherwise, honestly, Lydia would have had no clue that she was famous.

Though Billy claimed to be a killer cook, he admitted that he'd picked up a few things at Gelson's market because time was of the essence. As the sun dropped lower in the sky, he spread out an old-fashioned red plaid blanket and unpacked a feast from a wicker picnic basket: cold roast lemon chicken, curried prawns, giant strawberries dipped in white chocolate, and a bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet '82 packed in a container that Billy claimed would keep the wine cooled to optimum temperature. He'd even brought a small boom box, from which came a male voice crooning a very sexy song.

“Who's the singer?” Lydia asked. She sprawled on the blanket, a half-eaten succulent strawberry in hand.

“Marvin Gaye. ‘Sexual Healing.' ”

“I like it,” Lydia decided, tapping a toe to the funky beat. She bit into the strawberry again; juice ran down her chin and onto the Chloé T-shirt. Damn. Now she'd have to get it dry-cleaned before she returned it to her aunt's closet.

“You don't hear him much on the radio anymore. My dad turned me on to him. Back when Dad was in college, he was the only white guy in an R and B band.”

“R and B is . . .?”

“Rhythm and blues. Damn. You
have
led a sheltered life.” Billy took a sip of the white wine from the bottle.

“It just so happens that the Amarakaire asked me to handle the drums at a fertility dance last March, so I'd say I'm not so sheltered.” Lydia cocked her head toward the guitar case he'd lugged along with the picnic stuff. “Are you fixing to explain that?”

“My dad taught me.”

“I thought your dad was in the Foreign Service.”

“He is.” Billy reached for the guitar case. “He's an eclectic guy.”

So is his son,
Lydia thought as Billy took an acoustic guitar from the case and started to tune it. He looked so serious, and so incredibly hot, with his chestnut hair falling boyishly onto his forehead. His pecs bulged under a blue Lucky Brand long-sleeved T-shirt with a V-neck. He had a great casual ease, so comfortable in his own skin. Unlike Scott the lifeguard, Billy wasn't trying to impress anyone, which impressed Lydia all the more.

What would it be like finally to have sex with him? Would bells go off, would the earth move? She remembered when she was a girl back in Houston, walking into the private screening room where her parents watched movies, way before anyone else had a big-screen TV. Her parents had been together on the couch. Lydia had scrambled into her daddy's lap—anything that interested adults was interesting to her. She'd never forgotten how the woman in the movie had been wearing a butt-ugly one-piece bathing suit with a built-in bra that made her breasts look like bullets. Lydia had watched wide-eyed as the couple onscreen kissed passionately in the surf. Even at age eight, Lydia had been curious about such things. Was the couple actually going to
do it
? What if the actress didn't even like the actor, or he had bad breath, or a booger was sticking out of his nose? Wouldn't that ruin everything?

But what if she
did
like him? What if she loved him, the way her mother loved her father. Then it would be the most romantic, passionate thing in the world, right? Or would seaweed get in your hair and sand in your butt and you'd feel all grungy, gross, and disgusting?

Lydia hadn't known the answer then, and she still didn't know now.

Billy strummed a funky blues beat and Lydia drummed her fingers against the blanket, keeping time. He had great hands, she noted. What would it feel like to have those hands on her?

Billy began to sing in a low, throaty voice.

“I got nowhere
To call my home
Say got nowhere
To call my home.
That's why I'm blue
That's why I roam.”

“Who wrote that?” Lydia asked as he picked a bluesy riff on the guitar.

“Me. First thing I ever wrote. We were living in Australia then. I was—I don't know—fourteen, fifteen, maybe. My dad showed me four chords and I decided I was B. B. King. Very deep and misunderstood.”

“You were singing about not having a home way back then, huh?”

Billy kept picking—the notes flew fast and furious. “Maybe I just thought it sounded cool.”

“If I could sing—trust me, I can't—I would have sung about that same thing.” They shared a smile of recognition. “Poor us, huh?”

“Bullshit,” Billy challenged with a huge grin. “We got to live in cool places that most people never get to see. Besides . . .” He leaned toward her. “Everything you've experienced makes you the unique girl that you are.”

He put down the guitar and kissed her softly. It was so sweet and sizzling at the same time that it made her toes curl. Once she'd asked her mother how she'd know when the right boy came along, especially because in Amazonia opportunities to learn about such things were exceedingly limited. Her mother had been stoking the coals under their makeshift smokehouse, drying some monkey meat.

“When I was dating your father,” her mom had said, “I had a dream where I was wearing ruby red slippers like in
The Wizard
of Oz.
When I saw your father, it made my shoes light up.”

Lydia might not have had much experience with romance, but she thought that was the most romantic thing she'd ever heard. Looking at Billy now, she could imagine him making her
everything
light up. But then what? Would they be boyfriend and girlfriend? An official couple? If so, how would Lydia be sure that was what she wanted, instead of making up for lost time with adventures, friends with benefits, no strings, no promises, no anxieties, no expectations.

“You're lost in thought,” Billy commented. His eyes were on the setting sun, just now dropping into the night.

“About . . . stuff,” she said, deliberately vague. It wasn't her style, but she could see that saying exactly what was on her mind all the time could sometimes rub people the wrong way. She moved closer to Billy and they shared another sizzling kiss, and then another. This was it, finally. She felt it. The One. The Moment.

“Who's at your apartment right now?” she asked as he kissed her neck.

“My three-hundred-pound defensive lineman roommate,” Billy replied.

“He has his own room, right?”

“There's a hot poker game tonight in the living room.” Billy kissed her again.

Damn. Time for option two.

“Where's your parents' place again?”

“Not that far. Rancho Palos Verdes. Just past Redondo Beach.” He nuzzled the pulse between her collarbones. “Of course, they're
way
far away. In Colombo, Sri Lanka.”

Victory was hers.

“You, me, empty house?” Lydia prompted.

“Why, Miss Lydia. Whatever are you thinking?” he asked, doing what Lydia realized was his best Rhett Butler imitation.

“I'm thinking—”

She was interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. He dug it out of his jeans pocket and peered at the number on caller ID.

“Shit.” He pressed the Send button and raised the phone to his lips. “Hey, Eduardo . . . uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . I thought we were finished with . . . uh-huh. Well, if that's what you need . . . uh-huh.”

He hung up with a scowl. It didn't take a shaman to determine it was bad news.

“My extremely talented but psychotic boss has decided that he hates the backdrop we did for Saint Laurent. He has new sketches, he wants it fixed tonight.”

“But he gave you tonight off!” Lydia protested.

“In Eduardo's world, he's God,” Billy grumbled. “As in: the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Tonight he's on the take.” He shook his head as he began to pack up the picnic stuff. “I'm really sorry to do this, Lydia. I can't wait until summer's over and this internship is history.”

Silently, she helped him clean up. She felt . . . She wasn't sure what she felt. Disappointed, for sure. Shouldn't he have fought harder to be with her, considering what she was offering?

“I'll make it up to you,” he promised, as if reading her mind.

Lydia's smile was arch. She was definitely taking him up on that.

“Ambulance four-four-one, I have a two-nine-eight for you, that's a two-nine-eight, copy.” The dispatcher's voice crackled over the ambulance radio system at the same time that it flashed on a dashboard display.

Junior grabbed the radio microphone. “A two-nine-eight, we copy.” He grabbed a pen and scribbled down the address as the dispatcher gave it, then nodded at Possum, who was behind the wheel. “Go to it,
esa.
” He turned to Esme, adding, “Hold on.”

Possum, Junior's paramedic partner, might have gotten his nickname for his ability to do an entire eight-hour shift without a word, but whatever aggression he felt that was unexplored verbally, he took out on the road. When the red light and the siren went on and he was driving . . . look out.

Esme knew this because she'd been in the ambulance with him and Junior before; she fastened her seat belt as Possum gunned the ambulance forward. Technically, Junior wasn't allowed to have passengers in the ambulance without clearance from his boss, but this wasn't the first time she'd come along for the ride. Sometimes there were hours filled with nothing more than skinny old guys—Junior said the ambulance term for them was “skels”—who passed out in the street from drugs or alcohol. Once, Esme had seen her boyfriend resuscitate a skel only to have him puke all over the ambulance. Then Junior and Possum had to clean up all that crap before they could take the next call.

Other times it was rush, rush, rush, from one crisis to the next. Bloody car accidents, burned survivors after an apartment fire, the aftermath of a gang war drive-by with multiple casualties lying in the street. When Esme was around for such pickups, especially if they were children, she was overcome with sadness. You couldn't stay innocent for long in the Echo. If Our Lady of Guadalupe herself was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could be her blood forming the river to the nearest sewer or pooling on the asphalt before a crew of lethargic city workers hosed it off. If they were slow, or on another job, the dry city air made it evaporate, leaving nothing behind but a crimson stain. The police sometimes roped the spot off. It was, after all, a crime scene. They might as well rope off the entire neighborhood, Esme thought, for all the good it would do.

In the past, a night shared in the ambulance had always bonded Esme and Junior. This was where his competence and kindness to the injured and scared came into stark focus for Esme. The patients sensed his ability and looked up to him. Esme had often heard them beg for Junior to hold their hand, to stay with them. He'd do it, assuring them they'd be fine. There was just something about him that made people believe it would be all right.

After his shift ended, he and Esme would usually go back to Junior's house, have a couple of beers, and make love. But tonight, nothing felt right. Everything Junior said or did rubbed Esme wrong. The idiomatic
barrio
lingo, his habitual butchering of the English language, the low-rider magazine on the dashboard that he was reading. When had she ever seen Junior read a book? She couldn't remember.

“What's a two-nine-eight?” she asked.

“Woman in labor,” Junior translated.

“Age fourteen,” the dispatcher continued over the crackling radio. “Home alone, copy.”

“We copy, we're on it. Damn traffic.”

“You taking surface streets or the freeway?” Junior asked.

“What you think,
esa
?” Possum asked. He snapped on the flashing lights and siren and pulled into the center lane. Possum was short and Latino, built like a sumo wrestler, with tattoos covering his beefy caramel arms. Esme could see the names of three ex-girlfriends as well as his mother, and a drawing of the Virgin Mary with a glowing halo that crept under the short sleeve of his white shirt.

“Fourteen years old and in labor,” Esme mused. “A baby.”

“Babies have babies all the time,
niña,
” Junior said. “Ain't nothin' new there.”

True. Esme had known girls in the Echo to give birth as young as age twelve. Some of them were proud of it, treating the baby like a little doll they could dress up. Usually that didn't last more than a few days or weeks. When their friends stopped oohing and aahing and they realized they could never go out, never have any fun, and that their high-tailed fine little body wasn't quite as fine anymore, that was when
Mama
or
Tía
or
Abuela
would step in and the little girl got to pretend she was a little girl again. Esme had never known anyone who actually put their baby up for adoption. And abortion? Abortion was unthinkable.