8:09 P.M., PST
Crappy Muzak serenaded Sam as she leaned her throbbing forehead against the bathroom mirror. Her evening was a disaster. Nothing was going right. How could Ben have rejected her in front of everyone when she’d asked him to dance with her? Damn that My Big Fat Greek Wedding piece of shit! In real life the fat girl never got the hot guy.
Thank God it had been Adam Flood to the rescue. Adam was a sweetheart. Sam had suffered through the obligatory arm-thrusting-in-the-air to “Shout,” and then she’d excused herself to find privacy in the now empty observatory. There she’d called Dr. Fred, to whom her father paid a massive yearly retainer. He could damn well help Sam in her hour of need.
Only Dr. Fred hadn’t. Instead he’d been incredibly irritated that Sam had called him at home on New Year’s Eve. When she told him how terrible everything was, he asked her if she’d been saying her affirmations: You are not fat. You are beautiful. You create your own universe.
Fuck Dr. Fred and his fucking mantras, too. Like his ass wasn’t the size of the San Fernando Valley.
He said he was sensing hostility.
No shit. Who did he think he was kidding with that “you create your own universe” bullshit? She wasn’t the one who’d decided her father should marry a pregnant bimbo. She wasn’t the one who’d told Ben to bring a gorgeous girl to the wedding. She wasn’t the one—
Dr. Fred had interrupted to say that he’d see her at her usual time on the second and that he had to depart for a charity gala. Like Sam cared. She was in the middle of a crisis, she told him, and—
That was when the line had gone dead. He’d hung up on her! Hadn’t he seen Good Will Hunting? He was supposed to be telling her how none of this was her fault in a really soothing Robin-Williams-when-he-wasn’t-playing-psycho-type voice.
She’d pushed redial immediately. Dr. Fred had tried to run some story on her about how his kid had disconnected their call. Right. He just didn’t want neurotic celebrity off-spring all over Beverly Hills deleting his number from their PalmPilots. Well, too bad. She’d fired his ass.
That moment had led Sam to the ladies’ room farthest from the reception so that she could be alone. Then she locked herself in a stall, took out the Valium she’d stashed in her evening bag, and popped it. Usually V took the edge off. Tonight it just intensified her misery. She couldn’t think of one good thing about her shitty life. That made her cry.
Too late, she remembered that she wasn’t wearing waterproof mascara. She rushed to the mirror to survey the damage. Tracks of black trailed down her cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her lipstick smeared down toward her chin. She looked like the fat has-been druggie Patty Duke played in Valley of the Dolls, Neely O’Hara.
Just when Sam thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. The bathroom door opened, and in walked Ben’s date. She was wearing Ben’s tux jacket and hardly anything else. Sam momentarily forgot about her own ravaged face.
“What happened to your dress?” Sam asked.
“What happened to your face?” Anna countered.
As if there were any way in this galaxy that Sam would confide in this girl. “I got something in my eye and my makeup ran.”
“Right. And I got caught in a wood chipper.”
Sam sagged into one of the bathroom’s velvet vanity chairs. What the hell difference did it make if she told the truth? “I cried my makeup off,” she confessed. “Now I’m totally fucked.”
“My dress got torn off in front of four hundred people,” Anna said, “most of them famous. Now I’m totally fucked, too. I was looking for an out-of-the way place to lick my wounds.”
“Ditto. What happened?”
Anna explained, and Sam tried not to gloat as Anna unbuttoned Ben’s jacket to reveal the jagged edges of her ruined gown. But when Anna pulled the ruined dress over her head and threw it in the trash, Sam seethed. That Anna’s silk-and-lace chemise was stunningly beautiful wasn’t the problem. It was how fabulous Anna looked in it that made Sam want to kill the bitch. “Did Cammie do it on purpose?” Sam asked.
Anna put Ben’s jacket back on. “What do you think?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Anna shook her head. “You say that as if it’s perfectly normal behavior.”
“Well, for her it is.”
“And she’s your friend?”
Sam shrugged. “Mine, not yours. Which means she’d kill for me. She’d even kill you for me, that’s how good a friend she is.”
“I hope you mean that metaphorically and not literally,” Anna said.
And she’s educated, too, Sam thought. Like it could get any worse.
“Actually …” Anna rummaged around and held up a small tube. “Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream. I use it for lip gloss. But it will take off anything.”
“Oh my God, you just saved my life. Thank you.” Sam plucked some tissues from a brocade box on the counter and squeezed some of the thick ointment onto her hand. “You know that Cammie and Ben had a thing last year?”
“I gathered as much.” Anna sat next to Sam. “But if Ben wanted to be with her, he’d be with her.”
Sam began to wipe off her ruined makeup. Ben was supposed to be with her. Not Cammie. Certainly not with this wench. If only she could direct life the way she could direct a film. It could be like that loser flick Stepmother, only with a decent script. Anna would get one of those really gnarly diseases where her skin got all scaly and gross. That would offer pathos and also be dramatically satisfying. Then she and Ben would come together at Anna’s bedside to care for her, realize that they had a magical bond, and then she and Ben would walk off together into the sunset … with Anna’s blessing.
Sam snuck a glance at Anna. Her skin was perfection. Plus no way would Sam let her know that she wanted Ben more than she wanted a waist as tiny as the latest supermodel on the cover of Cosmo. Let the chick believe all she had to worry about was Cammie.
“I’m about to give you some excellent advice,” Sam began, using another tissue to remove the last of her makeup. “Cammie Sheppard gets what Cammie Sheppard wants. Underestimate her at your own peril.” Sam stared at her naked face in the mirror. “God, I look like shit without makeup.”
“I don’t think so.”
“That was supposed to be sweet, right?” Sam swiveled to Anna. “Do you have any idea how obnoxious it is when a girl who really does look good without makeup tells a girl who looks like crap without makeup that she looks good without makeup?”
“So you think—what?—that I was patronizing you?” Anna guessed. “Or sucking up to you or something?”
“Both, probably. Pretty much everyone does.”
“Why?”
Sam sighed impatiently. “No one wants to risk pissing me off.”
“Because your father is Jackson Sharpe?”
“Aren’t you the rocket scientist.”
All the sarcasm from Sam and her friends was really starting to irritate Anna. “There are dozens of famous people here, Sam. Your father is just one more. So I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“All celebrities are not created equal. My father isn’t just A-list. My father is A-plus-plus-plus-practically-in-his-own-stratosphere list.”
“And that’s what you think is important?” Anna asked.
“That’s what everyone thinks is important.”
Anna rose and headed for a stall. “I’ll be sure to mention that to the starving children in Africa.” She disappeared inside.
Sam’s jaw hung open. Anna was amazing. What gall. Like she spent her time in sackcloth and ashes, washing the feet of the little people. Please. The pearls she was wearing alone could have fed a small country for a week.
Anna came out of the stall and washed her hands. Sam handed Anna’s cream back to her. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Anna dropped the small tube back into her purse. “I guess we should get back out there. Your father’s going to wonder where you are.”
“Doubtful, since I’m sure he didn’t even notice that I left in the first place.” Anna opened her mouth to speak, and Sam raised her palm to stop her. “Wait, don’t tell me, you and your father have a perfect relationship, he worships the ground you walk on, yadda, yadda, yadda, right?”
“Hardly. He didn’t even show up at the airport to meet my plane,” Anna admitted.
Sam was shocked. “Really?”
Anna nodded. “I can go a year without seeing him. Maybe more.”
“I know the feeling,” Sam said. “What is he, an agent? Producer?”
“He’s not in show business. I hardly know what he does anymore—something in finance. We aren’t exactly close.”
Huh. Anna didn’t look like a girl anyone would forget, ever. Knowing that Anna had been dissed—and by her own father—perked Sam up immensely.
“That sucks,” she said cheerfully. “My dad does that, too.”
“Well, no dad should do that,” Anna said. She walked to the door. “I should get back. Your friends probably think I’m in here crying my eyes out over my dress; I really hate to give Cammie that satisfaction. You coming?”
Sam turned back to the mirror. “Not with this face.”
Anna pondered this for a moment. “If you have some matches, you can burn one and rub the charcoal around your eyes—it’ll look like kohl. It’s one of my friend Cynthia’s tricks.”
“That really works?”
“I’ve seen her do it.”
Sam found some matches in her purse, lit one, blew it out, and smudged the charcoal around her eyes. “Does it look like a bruised-eyed, heroin-chic, supermodel kinda thing? Or like a pathetic, insane-fat-girl-with-burnt-carbon-all-over-her-face kinda thing?”
“It looks good. Really,” Anna assured her. Which pissed Sam off, because it was hard to hate someone who was nice. Sam knew so few nice people. She really did want to hate Anna. Only she didn’t. It would have been great to have a friend like her.
Before Sam could stop herself, these words popped out of her mouth: “Listen, I wonder if you want to—nah, you wouldn’t.”
“What?”
“It’s just that when you mentioned starving children … Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to Venice, down by the beach, to feed the homeless. It’s kind of a New Year’s Day ritual I do every year. I thought maybe you’d like to come and help out—I could use an extra hand. But listen, I’m sure you’re all jet-lagged, and after you party all night tonight—”
“Actually, I’d like to come. I’m always looking for a reason to feel better about myself,” Anna interrupted. Her brows knit together. “You do this every New Year’s Day, you said?”
Sam nodded. “Why?”
“It’s just … I misjudged you, that’s all,” Anna said quietly.
“Yeah, whatever. It happens.” Sam jumped up from the vanity. “You know what I’d really like to do?”
“What?”
“Blow off this wedding. There’s this insane New Year’s Eve bash on the Warner Brothers lot tonight. We oughta go.”
“ ‘We’?”
“The people at your table. My friends.” Sam pulled out her cell. “I’ll call and put us all on the list. It’ll be fun.”
“Sam, I hesitate to point this out, but you’d be walking out on your own father’s wedding.”
“Like I said, he won’t notice. Besides, Poppy is going to sing a medley of Broadway hits. It won’t be pretty.”
Anna hesitated. “Well …”
“Please-please-please-please-please?” Sam wheedled. “We can get wasted and watch the sun rise from the top of the WB water tower. It’ll be fun.”
Anna still didn’t answer. For a nanosecond Sam watched herself from the outside—a pathetic girl desperate for Anna to come partying with her. Stupid, stupid, stupid, Sam thought. She is not your friend. She is your enemy. She stands between you and Ben. You hate her guts. But you still need her to like you.
“I really wasn’t planning to stay out all that late tonight—” Anna began.
Sam snorted dismissively. “What are you, thirty?”
She punched a number into her cell phone. Out in the tent, at table forty-two, a cell phone rang. It belonged to wedding guest Kiki Coors, Jackson Sharpe’s personal assistant. She answered it. It was Sam, wanting a phone number. Kiki looked it up on her PalmPilot and gave it to her boss’s daughter.
“Where are you calling from, Sam?” Kiki asked when she noticed Sam’s empty seat at the head table. But Sam had already hung up.
“Got it,” Sam told Anna, punching another number into her phone. “So you’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“I just really can’t speak for Ben—”
“Look, I know you and I got off on the wrong foot,” Sam interrupted. “I was all freaked about the wedding, and I wasn’t very nice to you. Please come to this party with me so that I can make it up to you. I know Ben will want to.”
Anna said yes. Sam wasn’t surprised, figuring that a girl like Anna was far too kind to decline an invite once she turned on the pathos.
At the party she’d figure out some way to get Ben away from her. Anna might be really nice and all that, but all was fair in love and war. Sam figured this was both.