The A-List (18 page)

The truth was slowly beginning to dawn on Anna. “So this was the last day you—all of you—could do it.”

Sam nibbled on a stalk of marinated asparagus. “Can I help it if we have busy social lives? Parker went to pick up Breckner in Van Nuys like an hour ago. She has to be here before we start to sign off on it.”

Anna felt slightly ill. “You feed the homeless every New Year’s Day for school credit. Because it’s the last chance you’ve got to do it.”

Sam shrugged. “If you want to get technical about it.”

“So why the hell did you invite me?”

Sam looked wounded. “Excuse me for including you!”

“You weren’t exactly honest with me.”

Sam put one hand on her hip and gave Anna a jaded look. “I told you we were feeding the homeless, and we are. I’m sorry if my motives aren’t
pure
enough for you.”

Anna just shook her head. It was like she and Sam weren’t even speaking the same language. “I’m going for a walk,” she announced to Sam, interrupting her own thoughts. “I’ve got a phone call to make.”

Without waiting for Sam’s response, Anna took off down the board-walk. When she was far enough away so that Ace’s rendition of “Hey Jude” was only a distant refrain, she pulled out her cell phone. She had to make contact with someone real. Someone she cared about, who cared about her.

For a moment, though, she was struck by the glory of a perfect Los Angeles afternoon. The sky was a crystal-clear aquamarine, the temperature midsixties. Anna could smell the sand and the surf, almost taste the ocean salt on her tongue. The only visible pollution was that of the human variety.

At that moment Anna wished—so much!—that her sister were there with her. She took out her phone and pressed in a speed-dial number.

“Hazelden,” answered a disembodied voice. “May I help you?”

“Good morning. May I speak to Susan Percy, please?”

“Please hold. I’ll see if she’s available.”

Anna waited. And waited. Then she heard a tentative voice.

“Hello?”

“Susan? It’s Anna! Happy New Year!”

“Anna.”

There was silence after that. Had they changed her sister’s meds? Was she mad at her? What?

“Sooz? You there?”

“Yeah. It’s just … well, congratulations on being the only member of our family who’s bothered to call me.”

So Susan wasn’t mad. She was hurt. God, how had their family gotten so screwed up? “They’ll call, Sooz,” Anna insisted, though she knew it wasn’t true.

“Bullshit. Mom is in Italy recuperating from the trauma of being our mother. And Dad never calls.”

Anna didn’t know what to say. “So, how are you?”

“Shitty.”

“It takes a while,” Anna reminded her.

“Please don’t start with the clichés.”

“But it’s true.”

“Goody. Something to look forward to.”

Anna decided to change the subject. “So, guess where I am?”

“Kansas?”

Anna laughed. “I’m in Los Angeles.”

“Good Lord, why?”

“I decided to spend some time here. With Dad.”

“And I repeat: Good Lord, why?”

“Lots of reasons. I don’t want to talk about me. I want to talk about—”

“Me. But there’s nothing to say, Anna. This place sucks. I stuff candy in my face and suck down cigarettes so I won’t crawl out of my skin. Meanwhile, my skin feels like it wants to crawl off of me.”

“Maybe when you get out, you can come out to L.A. and we can spend some time together,” Anna ventured.

“Maybe. But if I do, I’m not staying with Dad. I’ll stay at a hotel.”

“Okay. Whatever you want.”

“Maybe I’ll come soon.”

Anna didn’t like the way that sounded. “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously.

“I’m thinking of checking myself out.”

“Susan, you can’t do that.”

“Don’t tell me what the hell I can do!”

Anna winced. “I meant, you shouldn’t.”

“You don’t know what it’s like here.” Susan’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “This place could drive anyone to drink.”

“We’ll find you another place, then.”

“I don’t
want
another place. I want my life back.”

Anna grasped the phone so hard that her knuckles turned white. “You just think that because you haven’t had a drink or any drugs in a while and—”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“I just meant—”

“I know exactly what you meant.” Susan’s voice was softer now. “I don’t mean to take my shit out on you, Anna. Ignore me. I suck.”

“I just … I want what’s best for you.”

“Maybe what’s best for me is some time with my baby sister in La La Land. The sharks out there will eat you alive, little sister.”

“I’m not so little anymore,” Anna reminded her. “I can take care of myself. Susan, if you’d just stay until you finish the program and then—”

“You don’t want me to come?”

“Of course I want you to come. It’s just—”

“Yadda, yadda, yadda. I know you mean well, Anna. But you can’t live my life for me. If I screw this up, it’s going to be my screwup. That’s just the way it is.”

Anna exhaled deeply. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl. So I’ll talk to you soon, ’kay?”

“All right. I love you, Sooz.”

“Me too, baby sis. Bye.”

“Bye.” Anna disconnected the call and put her phone away.

Was Susan really going to check herself out and come to Los Angeles? It would be wonderful to have an ally out here, and when Susan was sober, she was always Anna’s ally. But the question would always be, how long would she stay sober? How soon would Anna have to pick up the pieces? Well, whatever else her father insisted on dredging up when she saw him later, they were going to talk about Susan. And he was damn well going to call his older daughter and wish her a happy New Year.

Twenty-three

12:41
P.M
., PST

“A
nna?”

Parker Pinelli was heading down the board-walk toward her. “Hey. I thought I saw you. How’s it going?”

Once again Anna noted Parker’s resemblance to James Dean, circa
East of Eden.
She’d first rented this movie on Cynthia’s insistence, having read the John Steinbeck novel on her own when she was in ninth grade. Something about the painful parent-child relationships in it—the grown child whose ceaseless efforts to win the parents’ love bear no fruit—made her think of her sister, Susan. Again.

“Parker Pinelli. From the wedding?”

“Right, I remember. Hi.”

“So, you hitched a ride with my brother, huh?”

“Sorry?”

“Monty? He told me he picked you up. He’s my brother.”

“Right, he said that. Sorry, I’m not firing on all cylinders yet.”

“No prob,” Parker said good-naturedly. “Pretty wild last night, huh? You missed a great night at Sam’s—we split from that Warners thing and went to her house. You and Ben should have hung out. So, what’d you guys do?”

Anna’s stomach gurgled. She was beginning to feel kind of queasy. She couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion, the phone call with her sister, or the mention of Ben’s name. Probably all of the above, she concluded.

“Oh, you know,” she said vaguely, wanting to change the subject. “Aren’t you supposed to be feeding the homeless for school credit?”

“Nah, I just came to hang with my friends. I finished my community service weeks ago. I volunteer at the Actors Home. There are all these old movie stars there, you know, like from the thirties and forties? They tell these amazing Hollywood stories. It’s great.”

Anna was touched. “It’s nice you do that.”

“Hey, you gotta find connections where you can.” He raised his face to the sun. “It’s nice out, huh? We used to live in Chicago. The weather there sucked. So, want to take a walk?”

Why not? Anna had no particular desire to join the others. They began to stroll in the opposite direction, past incense stands, henna artists, and blankets covered with bad paintings for sale. Silver jewelry stands gave way to a young man selling a hand-size airplane that followed his verbal commands. There was a crowd around a guy in shorts who kept up comic banter while balancing a girl in a chair on his chin. Farther down, a street performer blew fire at an impressed crowd, who dropped coins and bills in the top hat in front of him.

“It’s wild down here, huh?” Parker asked.

“I kind of like it,” Anna said. “I could see living down here.”

“Careful,” Parker teased, “they’ll take away your membership at the Beverly Hills Country Club for saying something like that.”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not all that crazy about Beverly Hills.”

“Come on,” Parker chided. “
Everyone
wants to live in Beverly Hills.”

They passed a stand that boasted “the largest selection of sunglasses on the planet,” and, beyond that, a woman with graying hair down to her knees who gave neck and back massages. Her sign promised twenty minutes of heaven for twenty dollars.

“Hey, Monkey Man!” Parker called, waving to an elderly man with a small monkey perched on his shoulder.

“How ya doin’, Parker?” the man called back.

“Come on, I’ll introduce you,” Parker said, and they hustled over. “We were both extras in a film together last year. This guy’s the best.”

“Parker, Lulu’s been askin’ aboutcha,” Monkey Man said, flashing a nearly toothless smile.

“Aw, Lulu, I missed you, too,” Parker said, giving the monkey a kiss. She screeched happily, hopping around on Monkey Man’s shoulder, and kissed Parker back. He introduced Anna to Monkey Man.

“Lulu’s got a crush on your boyfriend,” he told Anna.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Anna said, laughing as Lulu jumped into Parker’s arms and covered him with monkey kisses. “But if he were, I’d be proud to lose him to a girl like Lulu.”

Monkey Man pointed a long finger at Anna. “I like this girl.”

When Lulu finally allowed herself to be torn from Parker’s arms, he and Anna headed farther down the board-walk. Two boys walked by eating chili dogs, and the scent wafted over to Anna. Her stomach turned. Maybe she was getting sick.

“Parker, would you mind if we headed back?”

“No prob.” He peered at her. “Are you okay? You got kind of pale all of a sudden.”

“Probably just my New York pallor,” Anna joked, but she was suddenly freezing. They turned back and Anna rubbed her arms to warm up.

Parker slipped off his leather jacket. “Here, wear this.”

“No, that’s okay—”

But he’d already settled his jacket around Anna’s shoulders, a gesture that reminded her of Ben. Why did every damn thing remind her of Ben?

“You and Ben partied a little too hard last night, huh?” Parker guessed, almost as if he were reading her mind. She made a deliberate decision to banish Ben from her thoughts. Ben Birnbaum is nothing to me, she told herself. Less than nothing.

“So, you’re an actor, right?” Anna coaxed, just to fill her mind with something other than Him.

“Yeah, I’m up for a guest-starring role for this mid-season replacement. My agent says it’s down to me and one other guy.”

“When will you hear?”

“He said something about after the Jewish holiday.”

Anna tried to think what Jewish holiday he could possibly be talking about. Hanukkah ended before Christmas; that much she knew. Passover wasn’t until the spring. Nothing else came to mind.

Anna’s stomach gurgled again. Even with Parker’s leather jacket on, she was shivering. “You really don’t look so hot,” Parker told her.

“I’m okay,” Anna insisted, though she wasn’t certain it was true. But she wasn’t about to make a scene just because she was cold and her stomach was a little upset.

Parker slowed down and scratched the perfect cleft in his chin. “Listen, Anna, before we get back with the others, there’s something I wanted to say to you.”

“What?”

“I hope you don’t think this is out of line. I mean, I know you don’t know me and I don’t know you, but you seem like a really cool girl.”

“Whatever you want to say, just say it,” Anna told him.

“Yeah. Well, it’s about Birnbaum,” Parker said. “You just met the guy, right?”

“Right.”

“He comes on like he’s all that. But there are some things you don’t know about him that you probably sh—”

“Hey, you two, come help!” Sam called to them.

The line was even longer than it had been before. Parker held up a finger, as in “one minute.”

“Go on,” Anna urged him, her voice low. “What about Ben?”

“Yo, big bro, throw out some of this trash for us,” Monty asked, waving a giant plastic trash bag in Parker’s direction.

“Be right there.”

Anna reached for Parker’s arm. “Parker …”

“We can talk later,” Parker said.

Anna told herself to drop it. Hearing more about Ben, good or bad, was like aluminum foil pressing on a dental filling. But she couldn’t help herself. “You’ll tell me later?”

Parker mumbled something unintelligible, then scratched behind one ear and ambled over to the table to grab the garbage bag from his brother. As far as Anna was concerned, his refusal to make eye contract with her was the body language of a man who was having second thoughts.

Twenty-four

1:25
P.M
., PST

“H
ot coffee, hot coffee, coming through,” Monty bellowed. He offered his cardboard box full of to-go coffees to everyone behind the table. “Sam?”

“Thanks, Monty.”

“I live to serve,” he said cheerfully, offering the coffee box to Mrs. Breckner. “Very sweet of you,” she said. The teacher grabbed a cup and two sugars.

“Hey, it’s New Year’s Day; I figured everyone could use it. So what’d you do last night for New Year’s Eve, Mrs. Breckner?”

“Not much. A small voodoo ceremony with close friends,” she deadpanned, sipping her coffee.

Sam chuckled. She liked Mrs. Breckner, who, frankly, was the best English teacher she’d ever had. Sam could almost see a
To Sir, with Love
thing going on if Sidney Poitier had been white, Jewish, and dumpy, clad in a deeply awful peach pantsuit.

“Dee?” Monty held out the coffee box.

“No thanks. Coffee is very bad for you, Monty. It’s processed with known carcinogens. It can give you cancer and make you grow extra toes.”