11:47 A.M., PST
“Are you sure I can’t give you a ride?” Ben asked again as he retrieved the last of Anna’s Louis Vuitton signature bags from the luggage carousel. “I was just going to catch a cab.”
“My father said he’d meet me—I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.” Anna was feeling somewhat self-conscious. She’d downed two cups of black coffee before they’d landed. Now, back on terra firma and in the vicinity of sober, what had happened on the plane with Ben seemed even more like an out-of-body experience. Except that the thought of it gave her a very in-body instant replay.
He hoisted his Lambertson Truex leather duffel bag over his shoulder. “Well, I’m not heading out until I’m sure he actually—”
“Excuse me, Miss Percy?”
Anna turned to see a tall, loose-limbed young man with platinum hair and an inch of dark roots, dressed in a bad black suit and wrinkled white shirt. He had silver rings on almost every finger, including his left thumb.
“Yes, I’m Anna.”
“Hey. I’m Django Simms, your dad’s assistant,” he said in a honeyed southern drawl, holding out his large hand for a firm handshake. “Call me Django. Your father showed me your photo; that’s how I recognized you. Sorry I’m late. Traffic on the 405 was a bitch and a half.”
“No problem,” Anna assured him. She quickly introduced Ben.
“Your dad didn’t mention you were comin’ with your boyfriend,” Django declared as he flagged down a porter for Anna’s bags.
“Oh no, Ben’s not—I mean …,” Anna stammered. “We just met.”
“Oh. Lucky guy.” Django’s eyes flicked over Ben.
“Where’s my father?”
“He said to tell you he was unavoidably detained, and he’s real sorry.”
“I see.” Anna’s shoulders tightened. Her father had promised he’d be at the airport. Which meant he was already up to his old habits: breaking promises as quickly as he made them.
“I’ll have the porter bring your stuff out to the car; then I’ll pick you up,” Django said. “Work for you?”
“Fine,” Anna replied. “Thanks.”
“No prob.” Django tipped a nonexistent hat in Ben’s direction and then strode off with the porter toward the exit doors.
Ben scowled. “There’s something about that guy.”
Wow, was Ben jealous of Django or something?
Anna knew it was childish, but she hoped he was. “Well, Ben. This has been quite an unusual trip.”
“Unforgettable. So. I’ll pick you up at five o’clock?”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too.” He kissed her lightly on the lips, and then he and Anna took off in separate directions. Anna turned to watch him, walking poetry in a weathered leather bomber jacket.
Once she stepped outside, the intense sunshine was nearly blinding; she reached for her classic Dakota Smith sunglasses. It felt unnatural, in a way, being the last day of December. She started to perspire and realized that the temperature had to be close to eighty degrees. Up ahead Django hopped out of a BMW, waving to her. She strode over to him quickly, and he held the rear door open for her.
“Sorry to rush you, but they don’t like cars to stand here for more than fifteen seconds at a time.” He slid into the driver’s seat and inched the car out into the thick airport traffic. “Your dad really was sorry not to meet you.”
“I understand,” Anna said, even though she really didn’t. She hadn’t seen her father in more than a year. And though she knew how busy he was with his investment firm, it still hurt her feelings that he couldn’t take an hour off to meet her plane.
“So the plan is we’ll drop your bags off at the house, then you’re meetin’ him for lunch at Heaven,” Django continued. “In Beverly Hills. To celebrate your arrival.”
Anna had never heard of Heaven. In the larger sense—heaven, hell, all that—she wasn’t sure whether or not she believed that such a place existed. But if it did, she was certain that heaven did not exist in Beverly Hills. Well, at least they weren’t having lunch at Spago (which was post-hip) or Buffalo Club in Santa Monica (recently written about in The New York Times as the hippest of the hip, meaning that it was on the road to being post-hip), or some trendy, overpriced sushi restaurant (she never could get used to eating bait). Frankly, Anna would have preferred a nameless sidewalk café or, better yet, a melted cheese sandwich at home with her shoes kicked off, followed by a short nap and a long bubble bath before her date with Ben.
“So, how long will your visit be?” Django asked as he pulled onto the freeway. Evidently her father had neglected to inform his assistant that she was actually going to live there.
“I’m not sure yet,” Anna replied.
“I could arrange some sightseeing—”
“Oh, that’s not necessary, but thank you.”
“Well, if you change your mind …”
Anna nodded. It seemed odd to be riding alone in the backseat while a very cute guy who didn’t look to be much older than she was drove alone in the front seat. Over the years, the mean age of her mother’s drivers had edged somewhat north of fifty. Not that Jane Cabot Percy would ever have considered a driver with a spiked blond hairdo, no matter how old he was.
“Music?” Django asked.
“Sure, fine.” She expected he’d put on something headbanging. But instead, the cool sounds of a solo jazz pianist filled the interior of the BMW. Anna leaned back in the tan leather seat. As she took in the palm trees, the cloudless sky, and the brilliant sunshine, she let the music carry her away.
“Ma’am? Miss Percy? Anna?”
Anna’s bleary eyes flicked open. Django was twisted around in his seat, gently calling to her. The car had stopped. She felt totally disoriented. “What?” she croaked.
“Sorry to wake you. But we’re here.”
They were parked in the circular driveway of her father’s house, on the corner of Elevado Avenue and North Foothill Drive. Her bags were already in front of the double white front doors.
“I guess I fell asleep,” Anna said, yawning.
“Did you want to go in and freshen up before I take you to meet your dad? I was supposed to have you at Heaven ten minutes ago, though.”
“I’m okay,” Anna assured him, getting out and stretching.
“If you’re sure …”
“I’ll be fine. After a cup of coffee.”
“Well, let me tell Mina to put your things away. That okay?”
“Mina?”
“One of the housekeepers.”
“Oh, sure. Fine,” Anna agreed. “Thanks.”
The elegant house, built by Anna’s grandparents in the 1950s, looked exactly as she remembered it from her last visit. It was massive, white stucco with red shutters, shaded by giant palm and eucalyptus trees. Crimson, pink, purple, and lavender flowers lined the path to the front door. The property was enclosed by shrubbery so tall and thick that it served the same purpose as a privacy fence.
Two years ago, Anna recalled, her grandparents had decided to retire to their golf course home in Palm Springs. So Anna’s father had moved from his Wilshire Boulevard high-rise condo into the family homestead.
As Django disappeared into the house with her luggage, Anna brushed her hair and popped a Hint Mint. She was replacing her lip gloss when Django loped back toward the car. Anna got a really good look at him. He had intense eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and the insouciant gait of a guy who knew he was hot. He managed to make his cheap black chauffeur’s uniform look casual and hip.
Django slid back into the driver’s seat. “Ready to rock ’n’ roll?”
“Hold on a sec.” Anna got out of the car, opened the door on the passenger’s side, and got in next to Django. “Much better.”
He gave her a bemused look. “You fraternizin’ with the help?”
“I just felt ridiculous sitting back there all by myself. Unless you mind—”
“Ma’am, any guy who’d mind having a beautiful girl like you sit next to him is deaf, dumb, and blind times ten.” He pulled the BMW out of the driveway.
“You have to stop calling me ma’am,” Anna insisted. “It makes me want to look around for my mother.”
“Sorry. Where I come from, women like it.”
“Where is that?”
“Boonietown, Mississippi—you might have heard of it?”
It took Anna a beat before she burst out laughing. Then Django laughed, too. “Seriously. Where?”
“That was long ago and far away,” Django said. A blonde in a red Viper convertible behind them honked impatiently with her free hand—the one not grasping her cell phone—then zoomed around them. He shook his head. “Everyone in this town wants everything to happen yesterday.”
As he powered down Santa Monica Boulevard, he popped the CD out of the CD player and handed it to Anna. “A gift. My demo.”
Anna was astonished. “That was you on the piano?”
“Yeah.”
“It was wonderful. Did you come out here to try and get signed to a record contract?”
“You think I’m like everyone else here?” Django quipped. “Chasin’ some fool dream?”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t understand why someone who can play the piano like that would be my father’s assistant.”
Django didn’t offer to explain, so Anna dropped it. Ten minutes later he pulled the car up outside of Heaven, a restaurant supposedly so hip it bore no sign. You just had to know. A valet opened the passenger door for Anna. “Want me to wait?” Django called.
“No, that’s fine.”
“Well, have fun, then. Try to, anyway. Oh, hold up a sec.” Django pulled a small business card from his pocket and handed it to Anna. “In case you ever need me. For a ride. Or anything.”
His “anything” had an interesting spin to it. In the past she would have dismissed him as “the driver,” no matter how cute he was. That, Anna decided, was an attitude that definitely needed adjusting.
She gave him what she hoped was a dazzling smile. “Thanks. And thanks for the CD, too.” Then she slipped his card into her wallet and headed into the restaurant.