1:39 P.M., PST
Dee bounced up and down on Sam’s bed, looking much like she had when she was eight years old. Nothing made her happier than making people happy, except maybe truly dirty gossip or fooling around in public places. The fooling around in public places thing was weird because, unlike her dear friend Cammie, she didn’t think of herself as a show-offy kind of girl. Maybe it was because she was so nice (she decided that was probably it) that doing something scandalous appealed to her.
But that was just a game. Love, really, was everything to her. And what would make her happiest of all would be to be loved by Ben Birnbaum.
She stopped bouncing. It was just so odd that Sam had mentioned Ben. Maybe Sam really did want him. Nah. Most likely, Dee decided, Sam had been so in tune with Dee’s own vibrations that she’d picked up Dee’s feelings without knowing it. Dee believed in things like that.
As much as Dee wanted to confide in Sam about her love for Ben, she didn’t dare. That is, until Ben loved her back. If things worked out the way she planned, it could happen. But what if she told Sam, and—God forbid—Sam told Cammie? Dee shuddered. Being on Cammie’s shit list was a fate worse than death.
Dee’s opinion was that Cammie didn’t deserve Ben. Last year, when the two of them had hooked up, it had nearly broken Dee’s heart. Being around them was so trying that Dee would occasionally erupt in nasty hives. It was a good thing that her car-parking novelist-wannabe then-boyfriend had introduced her to high colonies. There was nothing better for ridding the body of stress toxins. And after she’d caught Car-Parking Novelist-Wannabe in his bedroom with the pool guy, she’d just marched over to Zen Nation and had all the stress toxins flushed away.
It did bother Dee that Car-Parking Novelist-Wannabe was the second guy she’d fallen for who’d turned out to be light in his driving mocs, though. She’d also had a fling with the lead guitarist of the local band Pus. He’d run off with an A&R guy from Gyro Records. Dee couldn’t help wondering if she was some kind of magnet for gay boys desperate to explore the heterosexual lifestyle.
Ever since Dee’s father, Graham Young, had ascended to the presidency of Gyro, Dee had met a lot of famous musicians. Forget that hackneyed What I Really Want to Do Is Direct T-shirt that everyone wore three years ago. What everyone really wanted to be was a rock star. Even Jackson Sharpe had once approached Graham Young about recording a CD, though it had never come to pass.
Ben Birnbaum was refreshingly different. His rock star dreams didn’t exist. Plus he radiated “guy” guy. No DC in his AC. Dee could easily picture herself with him on side-by-side massage tables at a spa in Ojai, while two small Korean women walked on their backs. After that, he’d ravish her on a faux bearskin rug, since she didn’t believe in killing animals.
She did believe, though, in inspirational visualization. It was why she’d asked their handyman to put a poster of the Big Ben clock tower on the ceiling over her bed. Next to it she’d written, If You Can Believe It, You Can Achieve It. It was the last thing she saw every night before she turned out the light and the first thing she saw when she woke up every morning. When her friends asked her about it, she said it was a reminder of her last visit to London.
One of the Sharpes’ many servants knocked on the open door to Sam’s room. “Señorita Samantha está aquí?”
“Shower,” Dee said. “Ella washo.”
“The people are downstairs for …” The maid gestured to her hair and face. Dee realized she meant the hair and makeup people for the wedding had arrived.
“Oh, que bueno. Cinco minutos, gracias.”
The moment the door closed, Dee sprang up from the bed, lifted her camisole, and gazed at her naked chest in Sam’s massive mirror. Not too big, not too small, no plastic surgery needed, thank you very much. Wouldn’t Ben be surprised when he saw that she’d gotten her nipples pierced? She’d had them done at the Sunset Room just the month before. It had been right after her Wednesday acupuncture appointment, and she’d gone to dance off the excess energy she had accumulated from lying still for so long. She’d had a little too much to drink that night, and before she knew it, she was incorporating flashing her breasts into her dance moves. Afterward, on the way to the bathroom, this really hot guy had stopped her and told her that he did piercings and that he was ready to do her nipples right then and there. His vibe had been so mellow that she’d agreed. He’d done an excellent job, too. Dangling from each nipple now was a tiny silver ring.
She lowered her top thoughtfully. She hoped no one would mention the incident to Ben. He might misunderstand what a liberating experience it had been for her. She’d tell him herself—say, after they’d had a meaningful hookup in one of the changing rooms at Fred Segal.