Hollywood Hills (5 page)

Holly laughed, unzipping her hoodie and settling back into her seat. “We’ve only known each other for, hmm, most of our lives.” Seamus laughed, too—the exact same way that Holly did, Alexa noticed—a low rumbling that exploded into genuine merriment and ended in a happy sigh. Alexa found Holly’s laugh endearing, but she was inches away from forcing jolly Seamus into hitchhiking his way to LA. “We grew up together in New Jersey,” Holly added, glancing at Alexa and shooting her a wink. As if they were actually still
allies
, Alexa fumed, glaring back.

“Jersey girls?” Seamus echoed, meeting Alexa’s gaze in the rearview. “
There’s
a real shocker.” It took every ounce of self-control for Alexa not to kick the back of the driver’s seat.

Holly knew Seamus was poking fun at Alexa, and
not her, but she held back her laugh anyway; she could tell Alexa was peeved, and she didn’t want to provoke her friend further. It was obvious that Ms. Thing wasn’t dealing well with Seamus’s intellectual-boy vibe. “Yup, we’re a long way from home,” she replied instead, and as she spoke, she realized how true the words were. A melancholy tumbleweed crossed the road, and she thought of Tyler, wondering how he’d react when she told him about her impromptu road trip. “I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to LA,” Holly went on meditatively, still thinking of her boyfriend. “But—”

“We were invited to the biggest celebrity wedding of the year,” Alexa put in tartly, opening both eyes and leaning forward. “And we’re staying in Malibu, at Jonah Eklundstrom’s guesthouse.”
Ha.
Maybe
that
would shut Seamus up once and for all.

“Alexa, he doesn’t need to know…” Holly trailed off, embarrassed. The idea that she, ordinary track girl Holly Jacobson, was about to spend a week rubbing tanned elbows with people who made more money in a day than she’d have in, like, a lifetime, still awed and humbled her. Her levelheaded parents had barely believed her last night when she’d awoken them to breathlessly spill the beans, and her skeptical brother, Josh, had demanded that Holly return with autographs and photos as hard evidence. Holly hadn’t
even bothered telling her friends Meghan and Jess. They were stuck in Oakridge for the week, and Holly didn’t want to make them feel bad by bragging. Better for them to assume that she was hiking up muddy trails instead of sunning herself by the Pacific.

“Celebrity wedding?” Seamus glanced in the rearview again, lifting one eyebrow. “Sounds intense.” He didn’t pursue the subject; again, his tone seemed bemused and again Alexa prickled.

“It wouldn’t interest you in the least,” she replied coolly. They were cruising down the Vegas Strip—-past the lush, extravagant MGM Grand hotel, the faux Eiffel Tower, and countless casinos—which looked pale and bland in the daylight. Suddenly Alexa was psyched that they were driving to LA; it made her feel like a cowgirl, an explorer, journeying toward the next destination. She took out her Nikon D100, and managed to get a shot of the strip right as Seamus accelerated. She was grateful that he hadn’t made some snarky remark about her snapping a picture. Alexa took her photography very personally, and things would have turned even uglier between her and Seamus had he gone there.

As Seamus turned the convertible sharply onto Interstate 15, a gust of wind blew everyone’s hair back and ruffled the giant paper map Holly was holding in her lap; the Hertz people had given it to her when
Seamus had signed off on the Mustang. “Are you sure we take this to LA?” Holly asked Seamus worriedly, studying the squiggly red and blue lines. Holly had only recently gotten her driver’s license and was still figuring out how to successfully read a road map. She hated the sensation of being lost, especially when she was unfamiliar with the terrain. Oakridge, she could manage; this wild western land of cacti and wide sky was something new.

“Hol, I’m the direction guru, remember?” Alexa spoke up, reaching over the seat for the map. “I’ll figure out which route we need to follow.” After a minute of reviewing the map, Alexa glanced up and announced that Seamus was going in a fatally wrong direction and that they would arrive in Mexico by nightfall. Holly’s stomach dropped.

“I know I don’t look it,” Seamus said, ignoring Alexa’s prognosis and changing lanes. “But I’m a California boy—born and bred.” As he spoke, Holly took note of the slightly raspy tenor of his voice; the birthmark under his ear, half-hidden by a lock of blond hair; his scent of incense and soap. She wasn’t
attracted
to him exactly but she hadn’t sat this close to another guy, besides Tyler, in a while. “I spent a lot of high school driving all night from LA to Vegas,” Seamus added with a grin. “So not to boast or anything, but I
think
I can find my way.”

Ew!
Alexa was too disgusted by this display of arrogance to even respond. So she handed the map back to a relieved-looking Holly, stretched her legs across the seat, rested her head on her folded hands, and announced that she was going to take a long overdue beauty nap. Drifting off proved impossible, though, because Seamus’s music—“Band of Horses, they’re gonna be huge,” she heard him pompously tell Holly—was blaring, and he and Holly kept breaking into spontaneous laughter.

When they pulled up at a roadside McDonald’s for a bathroom break, Alexa continued fake-sleeping; despite growing up in suburbia, she’d only been inside a Mickey D’s once, a horrifying experience she didn’t care to repeat. It was only after Holly and Seamus returned sipping Cokes, and Seamus drove on, the road humming beneath the wheels, that Alexa was finally able to sink into a dream about playing a slot machine while wearing a spangly black dress, a nameless, faceless boy holding her around the waist and laughing into her hair.

The dream filled her with warmth, and then she felt true, full-bodied warmth on her face, and all along her skin. The warmth of streaming sunshine.

Alexa let her eyes flutter open. She was staring up at a sky of such pure cobalt blue that it looked painted. But no, she realized, it was real. As real as the rows of
tall palm trees with fat, shaggy trunks that she was riding by. Blinking, Alexa sat up, brushed her windswept hair out of her eyes, and felt a glow of pleasure as she took in her surroundings. To her left was the great sapphire swath of the ocean—waves sparkling, tiny surfers bobbing—and to her right were craggy cliffs dotted with green gardens and cream-colored houses, each one more magnificent than the next. The air blowing in through the open roof smelled of budding flowers and fresh oranges.

“Where are we?” Alexa asked, still sleepy. Seamus’s music had stopped, but she could hear that Phantom Planet song “California” playing in her head:
We’ve been on the run, driving in the sun…

Holly glanced over her shoulder, her bare feet up on the dashboard. “Look who’s awake,” she singsonged, and Alexa narrowed her eyes at her. Holly knew Alexa had only been pretending to doze for most of the trip, but she’d enjoyed the quiet too much to call her friend on it. She and Seamus had chatted easily about music and college, and then fallen into a comfortable silence, Holly composing an e-mail to Tyler in her head, and Seamus smiling at the open road, likely thinking up lines of poetry or something.

“We’re on the Pacific Coast Highway,” Holly explained to Alexa, quoting what Seamus had told her when they’d arrived oceanside. Holly had been
looking in vain for the Hollywood sign, but Seamus had explained that it was in a different part of the city, one Holly hoped she would see later;
that
, to her, would make the LA experience real. But the unimaginable beauty of the coastline had caught Holly by surprise, as did the freeing sensation of tearing down that highway, the sounds of hip-hop and the Beach Boys floating over from passing cars, the energy both relaxed and relentless. California would definitely take some getting used to.

“PCH, to us natives,” Seamus said, braking behind a silver Beamer and stretching his arms over his head. Alexa noticed he’d taken off his tweed wannabe-professor jacket somewhere during the drive, and now wore only his annoying band T-shirt. “And more specifically,” he added, turning the car off the highway, “we’re now in Malibu.”

“You gave him Jonah’s address, Hol?” Alexa asked, peering eagerly ahead; the car was inching its way up, up, up a steep, rocky path that was lined with lush green shrubbery. If she craned her neck, she could make out sprawling homes cropping out of the hills; Alexa imagined the various tennis courts, pampered puppies, and fur-lined slippers that were behind each gate.
This
was where she belonged. Alexa was still a little sore at Holly and Seamus, but she wasn’t going to let them spoil this rapturous moment.

“Just go all-out Hollywood and call me your chauffeur,” Seamus teased, and Holly felt a pang of guilt that he’d driven all this way to drop them off. He’d explained on the way that he was staying with his family in La Brea, which meant he’d have to loop back toward the city after leaving Malibu, but he’d promised Holly that he didn’t mind. As a compromise, he’d suggested that he and Holly swap cell numbers so she could treat him to an iced coffee that week.

The dusty Mustang, having finally reached the summit, came to a stop in front of a tall, trellised gate hung with red bougainvillea. Behind the gate was a house that took Alexa’s breath away. It was a pale, pale rose color, with a sloping Spanish-style red roof and a wraparound deck that faced out onto the water. It seemed like a place fit for a prince, Alexa thought, her skin tingling. A little beyond the gate, near a glittery blue infinity pool, was another house that looked like a miniature of the original. The guesthouse.
Their
guesthouse.

“Well, I guess this is it,” Seamus said casually, as if he pulled up in front of Malibu mansions every day. He popped the trunk, a sure sign that he was ready to say farewell and get back on the road. “Maybe I’ll see you girls again sometime—if you’ll ever want to leave here, that is.” Neither Alexa nor Holly was able to reply.

The gate opened, and out stepped an attractive, shapely young woman in her mid-twenties, with dark copper skin and black hair up in a tight bun. She was in all white, from her trim suit to the tiny cell in her hand to her razor-thin heels. As the woman made her way purposefully toward the convertible, Holly sat up straighter, clearing her throat. Had they come to the right place?

“Um, hi, we’re looking for—” she began, her voice squeaky, but the woman cut her off.

“Mr. Eklundstrom was expecting you to arrive today,” she announced in a soft, modulated tone. “I’m his assistant, Esperanza. Please follow me.”

Her heart drumming, Holly turned in her seat to regard Alexa, whose lips were parted and eyes shining. For the first time since getting in the car, the two girls held each other’s gazes for a long moment, and slowly, despite any bickering that had gone on before, their faces broke into simultaneous smiles. Holly knew they were thinking the exact same thing.

They were, in fact, lucky bitches.

“El Sueño,”
Esperanza said in crisp, flawless Spanish as the white-jacketed butler (who may or may not have been faking his British accent) set the girls’ bags down in the entrance hall of the guesthouse. Esperanza nodded at him, and he noiselessly departed.

“Perdón?”
Holly asked shyly. She’d been gawking out the window at their white-and-silver sundeck, but now she turned around, intending to put her limited Spanish to some use. But Esperanza shot her a look that indicated she shouldn’t even try.

“ ‘The Dream,’ ” Esperanza translated coolly, flipping open her cell phone to check something on the screen. “It’s what Mr. Eklundstrom named this—his estate”—she gestured out the huge windows—“when he bought it last year.”

“The Dream,” Alexa echoed, walking in a slow circle around the sun-drenched entrance hall, her suede platforms silent on the cool marble floors. High luxury was nothing new to Alexa—she’d stayed at the starriest of five-star hotels on research trips with her architect dad—but
this
was absolutely unreal.

There were sheet-glass walls that looked out onto the shimmering Pacific, red-spotted koi swimming inside a bubble tank, an Xbox 360, and squishy lemon-yellow sofas the size of beds. On every free surface there were vases overflowing with fresh-cut irises, framed snapshots of Jonah laughing oceanside with Scarlett Johansson and Kristen Bell, and porcelain bowls piled high with fat, shiny Greek olives, which, Alexa had once read on a gossip blog, were Jonah’s favorite snack.

One glance at Holly’s incredulous expression told Alexa that her friend was also wondering if an alarm clock was going to
brring
at any moment, bursting the bubble of her
sueño.
The two girls grinned at each other, both trying to contain themselves in front of Esperanza. In the space of saying good-bye to Seamus and walking from the car to the guesthouse, Alexa and Holly had managed to put their long, grumpy road trip behind them. It was hard to hold a grudge in a place that felt like an episode of
Cribs.

“You will find two bedroom suites, one in each
wing of the house,” Esperanza was explaining, pointing left and right like a flight attendant while Alexa wondered in which bedroom Scarlett had stayed. “There are a host of other amenities for you to enjoy,” Esperanza added formally. “And you can reach the main house at any time.” She tapped one French-manicured nail against a white intercom beside the door. “With any request.”

Seriously?
Holly leaned against a wall to fight off a sudden dizzy spell, but that only made her feel as if she might fall through the glass and straight to the azure ocean below. Back home, Holly was constantly expected to scrub the dishes while her brother dried, straighten up her room on weekends, and even prepare dinner if her parents were staying late at work. She’d certainly
never
been pampered like this. Holly tried to breathe evenly.
I so don’t belong here.

“So,” Alexa was saying to Esperanza, her blue eyes dancing. “You’re saying that if we want, like, foie gras, hot stone massages, and a live Click Five show at three in the morning, we should press that button?”

Holly glanced at her friend in awe. Clearly, Alexa was having no trouble adjusting at all.

Esperanza, who, Alexa suspected, had left her sense of humor back in Assistant to Celebrities Training School, gave a brisk nod. Then the white cell phone in her hand vibrated, and she lifted it to
her ear. “Yes, Oren, he’s already at The Standard,” she snapped into the phone. “It’s Jonah’s agent,” she told the girls, covering the mouthpiece. “I’ll let you settle in.” Then, with a quick, dismissive wave, she turned and headed out onto the gorgeous grounds of El Sueño.

Alexa watched Esperanza go, wondering if Jonah’s anal-retentive assistant
ever
loosened up. Then, realizing it was
her
time to let loose, she whirled around to face Holly, grinning. “Okay, where should we start exploring?” she squealed—and then her heart stopped.

Holly was sitting on the floor, her back against the wall, with her head in her hands.

“Hol!” Alexa cried, dashing over. “What’s wrong? Do you feel sick?” Alexa couldn’t stand to see anyone throw up, but she’d make an effort to be strong for Holly.

Holly looked up, her freckled cheeks splotchy and her gray-green eyes enormous. “It’s just—” she whispered. “I’m not—this house—and Esperanza—and when we meet Jonah tonight—” She shook her head, her light-brown ponytail swishing from side to side.

Alexa patted her friend’s back. Holly was an East Coast girl if there ever was one—practical, levelheaded, a fan of zip-up fleeces and duck boots—so it made sense that she’d be overwhelmed by LA’s sunny
excesses and excitements. “Look, I’m sure Jonah will barely say hi to us tonight,” Alexa said reassuringly, taking Holly’s hands and helping her to her feet.

Holly blew her bangs up, feeling slightly calmer. Alexa, for all her histrionics, could be surprisingly soothing when she wanted to be. Then Holly remembered the one
other
person who could always ground her back in reality: Tyler. Though she’d briefly talked to her parents from the road (they’d gotten cut off thanks to awful reception at their campsite), she hadn’t had a chance to speak to her sweet, reassuring boyfriend yet.

Holly was reaching down to retrieve her phone from her Vans tote when her stomach let out a noisy grumble. She and Alexa burst into giggles as Holly straightened up and clutched her belly. “
That’s
why I’m freaking out,” Holly laughed. “I’m starved.” Like any respectable athlete, Holly had a hearty appetite, and that Coke she’d bought on the road hadn’t been remotely enough fuel. “Maybe I should look for the kitchen, huh?” she added with a smirk.

“You scope that puppy out,” Alexa said decisively, squeezing Holly’s shoulder. She was hungry, too, but she wanted to soak in some of the house’s other treats first. “I’ll investigate the rest of our digs. Over and out, soldier.” She shot Holly a quick salute, before bending down to unstrap her Prada platforms.

Slipping off their respective footwear, the girls took off at a run in opposite directions, excitedly reporting their discoveries to each other like explorers landing on an island.

“I found one of the bedrooms—it’s light blue!” Alexa called, admiring the circular bed, plush rug, and walk-in closet that practically begged for newly bought designer goodies.

“Yeah, the other one’s green—I’m totally claiming it!” Holly hollered back around a mouthful of olives.

Giddy, Alexa sprinted from the bedroom to a small orange-painted game room, which contained a vintage Pac-Man arcade, a robot dog, and other unnecessary-but-fabulous toys. “Okay, Hol, no joke—I’m looking at a trampoline!” she shouted, resisting the urge to give it a test-bounce.

“I believe you, because I just discovered a room with an indoor golf course!” Holly responded. “But I can’t find the kitchen…”

“Whatever—I’m in the bathroom, and we have one of those waterfall showers and—ooh!—Bumble and bumble seaweed conditioner in the cabinet!”

Silence greeted Alexa, and she frowned, examining a delicate tub of Crème de La Mer moisturizer. True, Holly didn’t get as psyched about product as she did but that didn’t mean she had to
ignore
—

An earsplitting shriek erupted from the other end of the house, and Alexa dropped the La Mer in the sink, her knees buckling. “Hol, you okay?” she called.
Shit.
Holly had probably collapsed again. Now Alexa would have to whisk her to Cedars-Sinai, the fancy LA hospital where Britney had all her babies, and call Tyler and the Jacobsons, who would all
completely
lose it…Holding her breath, Alexa flew out of the bathroom and in the direction of Holly’s cry.

When she arrived at the kitchen—Sub-Zero fridge, granite counters, cool aqua-blue tiles—she found Holly very much upright. She was also grinning, and pointing one trembling finger to something on the nearest counter: a chilled silver champagne bucket, containing crushed ice, an unopened bottle of Moët & Chandon Nectar Champagne, and two glass champagne flutes. Propped up against the bucket was a piece of cream paper with a handwritten message:

Welcome to the ’Bu, Alexa and friend—a car’s coming by around seven to take you to The Standard—in the meantime here’s a little something to get you in the right mood

See you there—JE.

P.S. I’d suggest swimwear.

“Jonah,” Holly whispered, her heart kicking. “He lives.”

“What time is it?” Alexa whispered back, stunned by the surprise message. She had to admit that Jonah’s gesture was pretty…sweet.

In slow motion, Holly brought her blue Swatch Skyball to her face and replied, “Six…forty…five.”

The girls gasped, turned to leave the kitchen, then immediately turned back to each other, at a loss. “Where do we even start?” Holly cried, gesturing down to her ratty jeans. Though she wasn’t as dizzied by the house’s luxury anymore,
this
was a whole other brand of nervousness.

Alexa, a near genius when it came to the mathematics of primping-to-go-out, had already calculated that waterfall-shower-plus-full-makeup-plus-trying-on-different-bikinis would equal a big bad zero. They needed to proceed wisely. Which was why she set about uncorking the bottle of champagne and pouring two glasses for herself and Holly.

“To the most efficient fifteen minutes of our life,” Alexa declared as they clinked their flutes, and Holly nodded grimly.

In a whirlwind, the girls managed to down their flutes of champagne, tipsily race to get their bags from the entrance hall, and sequester themselves in their rooms to change—Holly into the lime-green halter bikini that had been her good luck charm in South
Beach, and Alexa into her new orange-and-gold bandeau. Cover-ups and shoes were slipped on: a white American Apparel polo dress and flip-flops for Holly, and silk short-shorts, a strapless, flowy black top with a small gold skull in its center, and gold Polly mules for Alexa. When Esperanza buzzed them to announce that the car was outside, Alexa, brushing out her hair, didn’t feel
quite
as model-glam as she’d hoped when making her debut at a Hollywood party. But then she reminded herself that she shouldn’t care.
Be realistic. Be realistic.

The “car” turned out to be a white stretch limo, complete with a capped chauffeur, a stocked bar, and a flat-screen TV. Pulses racing, the girls slid inside and, as the limo pulled away from El Sueño, Alexa opened the moonroof and convinced Holly to stand up with her. The girls poked their heads out into the early evening sea air, the wind wild, the scent of blossoms intoxicating. Alexa stretched her arms up as her hair blew out behind her like a blonde flag. This ride was certainly different from the one she and Holly had taken earlier that day.

“We are officially in Hollywood!” Alexa exclaimed, blowing a kiss to an SUV packed full of bronzed boys and their surfboards. They whistled and waved at her as they tore past, and Alexa hoped she might run into more of their kind later on in the trip.

Holly, meanwhile, was busy noticing the billboards. She didn’t think she’d ever seen quite so many all in one place, all brightly colored and enormous, trumpeting movies, TV shows, and hot new cars. Then Holly noticed a slightly smaller one that made her jaw drop. “Look!” she cried to Alexa, pointing as they passed:

WEDDING BELLES ARE RINGING
!
EXCLUSIVE LIVE FOOTAGE OF MARGAUX EKLUNDSTROM’S WEDDING
.
THIS FRIDAY
,
ONLY ON E
!—
ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
.

“Well, I’ve died,” Alexa shouted over the wind, shrugging her shoulders, “and gone to heaven.”

“I don’t know,” Holly said, putting her hands on the moonroof so she could duck back inside. How would she explain it to her parents if she ended up on TV
again
? That one time in South Beach, when cameras had caught her winning a bikini contest, her entire family had gone into a tailspin.

As Alexa remained standing and saying her hellos to Hollywood, Holly sank down into the deep seats and flicked on the TV. Despite the latest E! revelation, everything else—the champagne, the limo, the way she felt in her favorite bikini—was conspiring to relax her.

Then Holly noticed what was on the TV screen, and she gasped. “It’s destiny,” she announced to Alexa’s knees.

“What is?” Alexa asked, sitting back down and finger-combing her untamed golden tresses. She saw that Holly was watching the Civil War romance
A Captain’s Heart
—a film that starred none other than Jonah Eklundstrom himself. He was on the screen now, passionately arguing with a colonel, and looking sexier than ever in uniform.

“I bet he’s DVRed it so it’s always on in the limo,” Alexa scoffed, tucking her long legs beneath her and reaching for a packet of pretzels from the bar.

“You’re so cynical,” Holly laughed, changing the channel. Her heart jumped and the remote fell from her hands when
Pretty Woman
blinked onto the screen. “Okay,” Holly demanded. “Believe in destiny now?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Alexa replied, her voice teasing. As the limo turned onto the 110 to take them downtown, the city skyline rose in the distance.
Let’s see what tonight brings.

Alexa had experienced her share of her dazzling rooftops, but The Standard’s roof bar, where the concierge sent her and Holly upon their arrival, trumped them all.

Soaring glass and steel towers, turning peach and
gold in the setting sun, surrounded them on all sides. The bar was a bright, candy-apple red, and the orange plastic tables were all 1960s retro-funky. There were red waterbeds designed to look like space pods, and waitresses dressed in cheerleader costumes carried trays of summer-colored drinks and tiny hors d’oeuvres. A DJ in the corner was playing a mash-up of Bloc Party and Gnarls Barkley, and at the edge of the roof, almost floating in the pinkish sky, was a neon-blue pool. Ridiculously thin and trendy guys and girls were splashing in with shrieks, and hopping out to bum cigarettes and wrap themselves in fluffy white towels. Alexa thought she recognized Samaire Armstrong, and someone who’d been on
American Idol
, but couldn’t make out either Jonah or Margaux amid all the beauty.