Angels on Sunset Boulevard (8 page)

That evening as Deck drove them up through the curvy streets, Taj wondered if it was a good idea to stop by the back room this time.
Maybe tonight I won't,
she told herself.
Maybe tonight I won't do it.

Benedict Canyon snaked up from Beverly Hills (where the street was simply called Cañon) all the way up to Bel-Air, where twenty- to thirty-thousand-square-foot villas—modern American palazzos—were the norm. It was a quiet, secluded, exclusive neighborhood; up here, Taj thought, even the air smelled fresher, as if even the ubiquitous Los Angeles smog wouldn't dare pollute the reaches of the lofty district.

Sutton's house was on a ridge high above the city. They drove up to a security gate, and Div quickly punched in the code. Hedges hid the house from the street, and as they drove up the winding private drive, it came into view: a large colonial mansion, intimidating in its size, with three-story marble columns, sparkling fountains, and lush landscaping. It looked like a resort or a hotel rather than a private residence.

They parked behind a long line of cars in the driveway, and walked inside to find the party in full swing. Groups of people were dancing wildly in the living room, the throbbing music piped through speakers that were invisibly installed in every corner of the house. There were kids everywhere—hanging off the balcony, assembled on the patio, smoking in the dining room, zoning out, and sitting down rolling cigarettes in the mazelike corridors that led to different wings of the house. Several tables by the side of the room were littered with open potato-chip and snack bags, half-empty handles of premium gin, vodka, rum, and whiskey, and plastic cups scattered every which way—dirty, clean, half-full, half-empty, full of cigarette butts.

Just your usual Bel-Air blowout. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Taj surveyed the guests—she didn't see anyone she knew from school, but the slew of bodies parted as soon as the crowd noticed the three of them enter.

“That's Queen CoolGaze,” someone whispered. A snarky website had given Taj that nickname after a photo of her and Johnny had run in the
Los Angeles Times
in an article about the burgeoning music revival. The hipster hottie who was reinventing rock and roll and his alterna-queen girlfriend.

Taj blushed. Those pictures were a joke. It was all fake. How could they not see it?

But even the high-maintenance high-school crowd had bought into it. The way they stepped back to let her pass was a sign of respect. She knew in an instant that these were private-school kids whose mommies and daddies toiled in the upper reaches of the entertainment industry and brought home money by the wheelbarrowful. The girls had hair the color of honey, smooth and buttery-perfect, golden caramel-delicious highlights painstakingly applied by a professional hand, and luminous skin that glowed from exotic spa treatments.

“We're going inferno,” Deck said, thumbing toward the back of the house. Although the password changed every week, they always called it that after the first time.

“Already?” Taj asked.

“Yeah. I want to get my spirit on,” Div said, her color high and her hands already shaking with excitement.

“Go ahead,” Taj said. “I'll catch up later.”

She wandered into the kitchen and picked up a beer from the Sub-Zero, forgoing the telltale red TAP punch that was available in a crystal bowl. She saw Sutton leaning by the counter; a tall, strikingly beautiful girl in a diaphanous silk dress, her shoulders tan and creamy, stood beside him. Taj remembered her from backstage at the Viper Room. He raised his glass and she walked over.

“Taj, do you know Maxine?”

“No,” Taj said.

“Maxine, this is Taj. The one you've heard so much about. Johnny Silver's muse.”

“I heard you're the one responsible for all of his songs,” Maxine said.

Taj raised her eyebrow and looked at Sutton. What had Sutton told her? But Sutton looked blank.

“Thanks,” Taj said icily, living up to her nickname. “Sutton, you haven't heard from him?”

“I told you, Taj, the minute I do, I'll let you know. I'm sure our Johnny's just, you know, hanging out somewhere.”

For some reason this caused Sutton's date to giggle uncontrollably.

“Great party,” Taj said, for conversation's sake.

“You going in?” he asked, nodding his head toward the back room.

“Later,” she said.

“That's my girl.” Sutton smiled.

“A lot of new people here,” Taj said, surveying the crowd. God, and some of those kids looked really young—fourteen, thirteen, even.

Sutton nodded. “Word's spreading. That's the way we like it.”

Taj took her leave and walked around the party.
I won't do it tonight. I won't. I won't.
But she found herself in front of the door anyway. And when the kid with the flashlight asked for the password, she gave it up willingly.

She walked inside the dark room, smelled the pheromones from the people around her, the woody, cloying smell of incense. She unzipped her jacket and stripped down to a thin black tank top. They were playing a track from Johnny's album. Someone handed her a plastic cup. Oh, well. What could it hurt. It was all-natural. Organic. It was good for you. It made you feel good. She drank it, savoring the familiar, sweet taste of TAP. No wonder Johnny had
found it so alluring. This feeling of lightness, of joy, of ecstasy …

Johnny's voice was amplified on the speakers. It was almost as if he were there in the room with her.

She took off the tank top and stood there in her black lace bra. Then she unhooked the straps from behind and walked with her eyes closed into the crowd.

It was time for the ritual.

“I TOLD YOU, I'M LEAVING.”

“Aw, c'mon.”

“No.”

“Don't be a wuss.”

“Dude, just shut up.”

“You shut up.”

Nick shook his head. He should have known. The minute they drove up Benedict and pulled into the driveway, he realized how incredibly stupid he had been. Some
TAP party in Benedict Canyon.
Yeah, right. How could he have forgotten? Maxine had been talking about it all week.

Eric, that traitor, had taken him to one of Sutton's parties.

Sutton Werner was famous for his TAP events. They were at different locations every time—once on his father's yacht in Marina del Rey, another time in an abandoned castle high up in the Silver Lake Hills. Every other Friday of the month, just like clockwork.

No one knew much about him; even though he was a perennial boldfacer in the “Tapped In” column, his personal TAP page contained the bare minimum of information, and he hardly ever updated the contents, nor did he allow friends to leave comments. It was like he'd come out of nowhere but was everywhere, so suddenly you couldn't escape him.

Nick remembered him vaguely from sixth grade. A wimpy little guy who wore glasses and carried an inhaler. Sutton's family had moved back east, but now they were back, and the asthmatic nerd had transformed himself into a popular partymonger. Sutton was a strange character—he wore ascots underneath his polo shirts, carried a silk handkerchief in his pocket, and had adopted the habit of looking as if he were peering at the world with the help of a monocle.

In any other school, in any other city, he would have been laughed at, mocked, shoved against the lockers, beaten within an inch of his life.

But in Los Angeles? At Bennet Prep? He was a
beloved character. A worshiped oddball. The secret to his popularity? An empty house, perennially absent parents, and keys to the most well-stocked liquor cabinet in the 90210 zip code. And the fact that his father helmed the biggest music label in the industry.

Nick had been to several of Sutton's parties, which were heavily promoted on TAP and linked to the site in some way—dozens and dozens of party pictures were posted on the site after each event. Photos of good-looking kids in various states of undress, but never so obscene as to be actually raunchy; Paris Hilton stepping out of a Ferrari in a miniskirt was more pornographic than anything TAP published. The appeal lay in the cooler-than-thou attitudes presented, the bizarre hairstyles, the outrageous fashion and the secretive air. Johnny Silver, with his thick white bangs that covered half his face, and his hyper-skinny frame in those tight black T-shirts and peg-leg jeans. The girls with their pin-curled hair and candy-red lips wearing fingerless gloves and peekaboo shirts. Even the fashion magazines had become hip to the phenomenon, and reported that TAP looks were being copied from Tokyo to Reykjavík. Johnny Silver and Queen CoolGaze clones multiplying across continents.

•  •  •

Nick didn't have anything against Sutton, except for the fact that the guy had somehow misplaced his hands down Nick's girlfriend's shirt the other week. Nothing personal.

He had to get out of there. He was sure Maxine was somewhere on the premises, and he had to leave before he saw her.

“Later,” he said, slapping Eric on the back.

“Dude, man, don't be like that,” Eric pleaded. “Chill out—the guy may be a pretentious jackass, but the jackass's bar is stocked with 141 proof.”

Nick just shook his head. “See ya.”

“How are you getting home?” Eric yelled. “You don't have a car!”

Nick was making his way through the crowd, trying to get to the front door, when he noticed someone familiar. The curly blond hair, the jean jacket, the multitude of rubber bands on her wrist. Did Sutton know eighth graders were crashing his events?

“Hey, Fish!” he called. But the music was so loud she didn't answer, didn't even hear him.

He fought his way through. Her bright curly head was walking farther and farther into the party, and he followed her. This was no place for a kid. And even
though Fish was precocious, she was still his baby stepsister. How did she even find out about this?

Fish was with those new friends of hers, and the group made its way to a back door. The door was opened a crack, and then he saw his sister and her friends walk inside.

He walked up just as the guy was closing the door.

“What's the word?” the kid with the flashlight asked, shining the beam right into Nick's face and making Nick blink in annoyance.

“Huh?”

“Sorry. Private party.” The kid started pulling the door shut. Nick put a hand on the door.

“C'mon, my kid sister's in there.”

“Sorry, brah. Boss man says no word, no entry.”

A slip of a girl passed through from the other side. “Thanks, Charlie.” She glanced at Nick, who was smiling in an amused fashion. It was the same girl from backstage at Johnny's concert. The one with the shiny black hair and the shy smile. The one whose face he couldn't stop thinking about, even as he'd been arguing with Maxine earlier that evening.

“We have to stop meeting this way,” Nick said.

She looked up. “Do I know you?”

“No,” he said. “We almost met—the night of
Johnny's concert? Me, the one without a backstage pass? Toe crusher?”

The girl's eyes cleared. She was drenched in sweat, her tank top plastered to her small frame. She was holding her leather jacket in her arms and she looked beyond sexy.

“Oh, yeah.” She smiled.

“Taj, do you mind?” the kid on guard said, as he closed the door firmly behind him.

“What's going on in there?” Nick asked.

“Oh, you don't want to know,” she said, pursing her lips. “You're not missing out on anything, believe me.”

Nick nodded. It was always some stupid thing. Like in sixth grade when people started being secretive about what went on behind closed closet doors; he finally found out it was just about kissing a girl, and he'd already done that. He'd been worried at first, but he relaxed. It was probably just some extreme version of a VIP room, and he'd been inside many VIP rooms. Nothing special ever went on in there.

He looked at her. She was really pretty She wasn't wearing the glasses this time, and her skin looked translucent. What they called a regulation hottie, except there was nothing standard about her.

“You're Johnny Silver's girlfriend,” he said suddenly. So that's why she looked so familiar. “The one with all those pictures on TAP. You're in the MiSTakes. You guys DJed at one of my friends' parties once.”

“I have a name,” she said coyly. “I'm Taj. Well, Tatiana, really. But no one calls me that.”

“Taj … you do the show, right? On the college station?” Nick said, walking in step with her as they made their way through the crowded party.

“Yeah.”

“I'm Nick. Nick Huntington.”

Taj grinned. “Hey, you were the guy who called tonight. Is your name really Nick Nick?” she teased.

He blushed, jammed his fists into his trouser pockets. God, he could be such a nerd sometimes.

“I'm just teasing,” she said slyly. “Walk me out?”

“Sure.”

THE BOY SEEMED NICE ENOUGH. THE PREPPIE. ONE OF
Sutton's friends, most likely. She would let him walk her out, and then she would disappear. The ritual was a joke. She shouldn't have joined in; she knew that now. It was too weird with Johnny gone, without him looking out for her. It was scary—she didn't know how Div and Deck could do that. It was all in good fun at first, but now it was getting way too serious. It wasn't what it was supposed to be anymore. There were too many kids in there who just watched and didn't participate. Too many boys who were there for the wrong reasons. It wasn't about that, she'd wanted to scream.

And the girl who'd gotten Tapped that night. She looked like she was about to faint when she saw the needle. The fear in her eyes! That had been painful to watch. And it wasn't supposed to be painful … it was supposed to be holy. A divine experience, shared with those who felt the same as you.