The A-List (7 page)

“Anna Percy? Is that you?”

Anna turned and beamed as she recognized the chic older woman behind her. “Lizbette!” Anna exclaimed. “How wonderful to see you.” They air-kissed in the vicinity of each other’s cheeks.

“Such a surprise, Anna. I had no idea you knew Jackson.”

“She doesn’t,” Ben put in smoothly.

Anna touched Ben’s arm. “I’m sorry, let me introduce you. Crown Princess Demetrius, may I present Ben Birnbaum. Ben, the crown princess.”

“Please, call me Lizbette.” The princess took Ben’s hand. “Any friend of Anna’s is a friend of mine—especially such a handsome one.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Ben said.

“Excuse me now, but I’m to meet a friend and I’m dreadfully late. Lovely to meet you, Ben. Give your mother my best, Anna dear.”

Ben gave Anna a bemused look as they continued toward the building. “So. Your
friend
Crown Princess Demetrius?”

“Of Greece,” Anna filled in.

“And how is it that you know Crown Princess Demetrius of Greece?”

“She and my mother were roommates years ago at boarding school. In Switzerland.”

“Impressive. The only princesses I know have last names like Spelling. Or Sharpe.”

“As in Sam Sharpe?” Anna guessed.

“She has her princess moments. But she can be a sweetheart, too.”

Could she, now? Anna wondered if Sam Sharpe and Ben had ever been a couple. Well, she’d just have to wait and see how they reacted to each other.

They reached a security checkpoint, where Ben had to show his invitation and ID. The invitation was scanned under an electronic reader to ensure that it hadn’t been counterfeited. Then they were brusquely informed that
People
magazine had exclusive media rights and private photography was strictly prohibited.

Finally they were permitted to enter the observatory’s main rotunda; it was already crowded with the rich and famous, all of who seemed to know each other. Anna had been here years ago with her grandparents and loved it. The interior looked quite different, though, having been transformed for the wedding. The massive globe was still in the center of the room, but now it was swathed in red and gold velvet. Above it a huge brass bell swung gently at the end of an iron cable. Dangling from the bell was a gold angel, shooting an arrow through a red heart.

Anna gazed up at the famed ceiling murals, the planets depicted as mythological gods and goddesses. “They must be kidding,” she murmured.

“What?” Ben asked.

Anna discreetly pointed upward at naked Zeus, whose face had been replaced by a likeness of Jackson Sharpe’s. Nearby, Aphrodite now had the visage of Poppy Sinclair. “I don’t suppose they meant that to be ironic.”

Ben slipped an arm around Anna’s waist. “You have no idea how refreshing it is to be with a girl like you.”

There was only so long she could put off the inevitable. “I appreciate the compliment. But the truth is, Ben, I’m not …” She searched for the right words.

He chuckled, charmed. “Not what?”

“It’s just …” There was no easy way to say it. “It’s like this. I drank some champagne with my friend on the way to the airport, and then I had three drinks on the plane, and the truth is, I don’t usually drink much, so I was … well … trashed when you met me. And that … isn’t really me.”

“What?” Ben looked shocked.

Anna’s heart sank. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. It’s not like me to—”

Ben laughed and hugged her. “Anna.” The way he said her name was a caress. And then, in front of movie stars and Hollywood moguls and below a forty-foot rope cable that dangled a brass wedding bell, he kissed her.

Seven

5:51
P.M
., PST

“W
ho is
that
?” Sam yelped.

“I have no idea,” Dee replied.

They stood on the balcony overlooking the rotunda, watching Ben kiss a tallish, slender blonde who, at least from a distance, appeared to look nauseatingly perfect in an entirely natural sort of way.

“He brought a date,” Sam surmised, her heart sinking.

Dee sighed. “He wasn’t supposed to bring a date.”

Sam, clad in her Versace horror-show bridesmaid’s dress, mentally compared herself to Ben’s mystery wench and felt instantly inadequate. Not that she planned to let Dee in on that information.

“Poor Cammie,” Sam said. “She’ll freak.”

Dee nodded. “Poor Cammie.”

They watched the girl with Ben throw her head back and laugh. “She looks familiar, doesn’t she?” Sam asked.

“Whoever she is, she’s beautiful.”

Sam thought,
Trust Dee to state the obvious
. The girl with Ben had the kind of effortless beauty that no amount of plastic surgery could replicate. You had to be born with it. The bitch.

Dee pursed her lips. “Maybe Ben didn’t bring her. Maybe she’s a friend of Poppy’s and they just met.”

“Dee, he’s got his hand on her ass.”

“That’s the small of her back.”

“A technicality. Obviously she’s his date.”

“I think she’s kind of tall for him.”

“Great, let’s go tell him that,” Sam said, sagging at the prospect of having to compete with that girl, whoever the hell she was. “God, I hate this dress. I hate this wedding. I hate my life. My father probably wouldn’t even notice if I left. So what if Poppy is one bridesmaid short? She’s got nine more. She’s all he cares about, anyway.”

“You know Dr. Fred said that you and Poppy shouldn’t compete for your father’s affection,” Dee reminded her.

“My father and I would kind of have to see each other once in a while for that to work. Anyway, I’m such a pig.”

“You are not,” Dee said supportively.

“Look at Ben’s date! Grace Kelly—and we’re totally talking circa
Rear Window
, pre–Princess of Monaco here. She’s a size four at the most. And she’s like three inches taller than me.”

“Kiss-kiss,” a voice sang out, and Cammie Sheppard came gliding over. Her signature “I-just-got-out-of-bed” strawberry blond locks fell halfway down her back, looking stunning against her pale green Balenciaga leather corset dress. She did a three-sixty to show off the velvet ribbons that laced down to the top of her perfect, heart-shaped behind.

Sam took in Cammie’s fabulousness and felt depressed all over again. Cammie had bee-stung lips and deep-set honey-colored eyes. Naturally slender, her legs went on forever. True, she’d purchased the 34C breasts and had her ordinary brown hair chemically transformed into that riot of fiery curls, but so what? The total package screamed
goddess
. “Oh my God.” Cammie reeled as she took in Sam’s bridesmaid dress. “You look like an Oscar in drag.”

“Cammie,” Dee chided, “
someone
needs to clear her chakras.”

“Dee, why don’t you just tattoo ‘New Age loser’ on your forehead,” Cammie snapped, “and save us all the agony of having to hear your voice.”

Dee pouted. That remark was mean even by Cammie standards. Maybe she was PMSing or something. On the other hand, she knew that meanness was in Cammie’s genes. Her father was an
über
-agent at Creative Artists Agency, notorious for being a son of a bitch in a business where the title really meant something.

“I’m changing as soon as the ceremony’s over,” Sam told Cammie. Down below, she watched Ben take two flutes of champagne from a geisha-garbed drag-queen waiter (Poppy had gushed to Sam that He-Geisha was the caterer of the moment) and clink glasses with the mystery wench.

“Ahi roll?”

A he-geisha had appeared out of nowhere, offering a tray of sushi. “No thanks.” Sam waved him off and took Cammie’s hand. “Okay, don’t freak, but Ben’s here.”

Cammie’s doe eyes lit up. “Why would I freak? If he’s really naughty, I might even take him back.”

Dee and Sam exchanged a look, and then Dee pointed discreetly toward the main floor of the rotunda, where Ben and his mystery date were chatting up some of Ben’s friends from high school.

Cammie’s alabaster cheeks went blotchy. “Who the hell is that?”

Dee folded her arms. “From the point of view of the Zohar, that isn’t the healthiest response you can have.”

“One class at the Kabala Center doesn’t make you Madonna,” Cammie blazed.

“Six,” Dee said, wounded.

“Whatever. I saw Ben’s sister at Yoga Booty yesterday, and she
specifically
told me he was coming solo.”

“Sam?”

The girls turned to find the wedding planner, Fleur Abra, tapping impatiently on her Lucite clipboard and glaring at Sam.

“What?”

“What are you doing up here?” Fleur demanded, momentarily clicking off the walkie-talkie radio headset she wore. “You’re a bridesmaid. They’re taking photos in the East Hall right this minute. Get down there.”

“I don’t really photograph well.” Sam went back to Ben-watching. The mystery girl took Ben’s arm. This event was supposed to end up like
Circle of Friends
, meaning that while Sam wasn’t the thinnest or the cutest, she’d end up with the guy anyway. However, at the moment, it didn’t look like the mystery girl had been clued in to Sam’s plot line.

Well, Sam figured, that would just give the plot more dramatic arc. She’d just have to hang in there and be sweet and wonderful and plucky and—

“Sam!” Fleur interrupted Sam’s mental rally. “These are your father’s
wedding
photos. You should
want
to be in them.”

“I’ve already been in a set of my father’s wedding photos, Fleur. Seven years ago. I think that’s a lifetime quota.”

“Don’t you even care how your father feels?”

“He won’t notice,” Sam said, her eyes still on Ben and the beautiful girl.

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Fleur said, sucking in her bony cheeks. “What is the matter with you Hollywood brats? Do you think that the whole world has to revolve around you all the time? Are you deliberately trying to ruin this day for your father and Poppy? Is that what you want?”

Before Sam could respond, Cammie moved in. “What’s your name again? Fluoride?”

The wedding planner pressed her lips together in a thin, angry line. “Fleur.
You
can call me Ms. Abra.”

“What she
wants
, Fluoride,” Cammie continued, ticking things off her fingers, “is (
a
) for her father to still be married to her mother and her mother to come back from her fling with the Dalai Lama; (
b
) Heidi Klum’s legs; (
c
) world peace; and (
d
) a bridesmaid’s dress that doesn’t look make her look like Bigfoot playing dress-up. So unless you can make those things happen, I suggest you get the hell out of my friend’s face.”

Fleur’s recently reconstructed nostrils (Sam knew cocaine damage when she saw it) quivered indignantly as she marched off. Sam smiled gratefully at Cammie. No one could tell someone off the way Cammie could tell someone off.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“Don’t mention it.” Cammie extracted a compact from her Prada bag and checked her pale pink Stila lip gloss. “So, what I think,” she told her reflection, “is that we should go down there and make a grand entrance. I’m just dying to meet Ben’s little friend. Do I get backup?”

Sam and Dee agreed to flank Cammie in her hour of need. They each popped the Kate Spade mint that had been handed to them upon entry, tossed their hair, and, in Sam’s mind, looking not unlike the trio of hot and nasty girls in
Jawbreaker
(the movie sucked, but the clothes had been to die for), headed for the circular stairs that led down to the rotunda. Time to meet, greet, and compete.

Eight

6:01
P.M
., PST

J
ust as Ben felt the touch of Anna’s hand on his arm, a slant of afternoon sun on reddish golden tendrils across the rotunda caught his eye. There was only one girl in the world with hair like that. Cammie Sheppard. And she was heading right for him, with Sam and Dee in tow.

Ben couldn’t help but notice that Cammie still moved like walking sex. She was the hottest girl he’d ever known in his life—Cammie Sheppard could make the Iceman cometh. Even when he hadn’t liked her, he’d loved having sex with her, after which he hadn’t liked himself very much. But he was over her now. He wasn’t about to let his life be ruled by the head below his waist.

As Ben watched the approach of the unholy trinity, it occurred to him that he should have prepared Anna for this moment.

“Anna, see those three girls?” he said quickly, cocking his head toward the advancing army. “The brunette is Jackson Sharpe’s daughter. The other two are her best friends. They were a year behind me in high school, we all hung with the same people, and—”

Too late.

“Ben!” Dee squealed.

“Hey, Dee,” Ben said easily.

She stood on tiptoe to hug his neck. Sam threw her arms around him. Cammie was confident enough to be last. She made sure that there was pelvic contact when they kissed.

Which was not lost on Anna. There was something about these girls that put up Anna’s defenses. She slipped an arm through Ben’s. “So, introduce me to your friends,” she told him.

He did. The girls told Anna how thrilled they were to meet her. How much they loved her dress. How cute her shoes were. Anna said she’d forgotten how chilly it got at night in Los Angeles; cool enough for a jacket but obviously not for her winter coat. Cammie immediately volunteered to lead a shopping expedition to Fred Segal.

“You don’t wear fur, do you, Anna?” Dee queried. “Because it’s like I can still hear the animals screaming when I look at their little pelts.”

“You’re wearing leather shoes, Dee,” Cammie pointed out. “Those are made from their little
skins.”

“Eew,” Dee whined.

“So Ben,” Sam began, “I thought you were coming alone to the wedding.”

“I was. But I called the wedding planner from the plane and told her assistant there’d been a change of plans. She said it was fine.”

“I hope it’s not too inconvenient,” Anna added.

“It is
so
no problem,” Sam assured her.

“Firecracker shrimp?” a he-geisha offered. There were no takers.

“I love the waitstaff,” Anna commented. “It took me a minute to realize they were men.”