Beautiful Stranger (16 page)

“Have you?”

Sam opened her mouth. She was not about to say the two terrible words—or at least they were terrible when put together—
student film
. The only kind of film she had directed. Admitting that her only feature was a documentary about some of Beverly Hills high school friends for which Anna had written a short but decent script would be the kiss of death. Instead, she nodded and took a long sip of her cappuccino.

Joe didn’t seem to mind that she had dodged his question. “Listen to me, Sam. Comedy is what I do, because I’m great at it. But it’s not what gets my blood pumping. Guess what my genre really is.”

Sam arched a brow. She’d IMDB’d the guy—he’d done juvenile comedy after juvenile comedy, mostly in the role of the guy who ends up falling into a Porta Potty. But she decided to flatter him. “Porn?”

“Ha! Wrong kind of hard-core action. I’m a blood-and-guts guy. High body count. Realist nihilism. The next Sam Peckinpah—hell, the next Scorsese—if someone will just give me a fucking break. Which is why I got a deal thing going around in my head. I let you do
Ass Man
in return for a deal with your father, action with a capital fucking
A
.”

Sam wasn’t surprised. But she was, again, disappointed. “You want to use me to get to my father? Wow.
That’s
fresh.”

The waitress brought Sam her Cobb salad, ranch dressing in a silver dish on the side, and Joe a burger that made Sam grateful for the bun, so she wouldn’t have to think of it as half-dead cow. Sam added fries to her order. And a black-and-white milk shake. If she was going to get through a meal with Joe Jeffrey, she was going to have to indulge in carb loading. Of course, if Joe didn’t come around reasonably quickly to her point of view, she’d end this luncheon before the fries and milk shake arrived.

“Maybe you want to reconsider. The carbs will go right to your ass. Give you a big ass, man. Get it? Ass man!” he hooted. She looked away as blood oozed from his burger even before he bit into it.

“I’m not getting you a deal with my father,” Sam said bluntly. “And you might want to change the title of your spec script from
Ass Man
to
Ass Hole
.”

Joe’s tiny hands flew to his heart. “Ouch!” he barked; then he laughed. “Okay, I deserved that. Listen, who says I can’t compromise? Make your case. Convince Joe.” He popped a fry into his mouth.

There was nothing more annoying than a guy who referred to himself in the third person. Suddenly Sam knew there would be no compromise with this cretin. Even if there was, she’d have to
work
with him.

She took her white linen napkin from her lap and put it next to her untouched salad. “Enjoy your meal. Eat my salad too, if you want. You’ve got my cell number. And when you change your mind about your script—I won’t even take it on without giving it to someone for a top-to-bottom rewrite—give me a call.”

As she rose, Joe seemed genuinely shocked. “You’re leaving?”

“I am.” She hoisted the strap of her black Prada bag over her shoulder and tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “Have a pleasant life.”

“Your father is on the way down, I hope you know that!” Joe called after her as she made her way across the deck to the entrance.

God. How could a person be so funny on the page and such a wanker in person?

“Come on, man. Call upstairs!”

Seven hours later, Sam stood with Anna and Logan outside the main doors of the residence of the Peruvian ambassador to the United Nations, an elegant brown-stone on East Sixty-eighth Street between Second and Third Avenues, easy walking distance from Anna’s place. They were already a half hour late to the party for President Alan García of Peru, but the guard manning the front door obviously didn’t care. He had dull eyes and skin like a relief map, and even though Sam had dropped her name not once but twice, he still insisted there was a little problem with their admission to the party.

As in, their names weren’t on the list. And no amount of appealing to the fame of America’s greatest action hero—one Jackson Sharpe—was having an impact. Neither were her and Anna’s stunning new outfits.

Sam had been so frustrated and depressed after her aborted lunch with the little Ass Man that she’d sought succor with retail therapy. She’d cabbed over to Horatio and Eighth Avenue to shop at Darling, a small boutique that was owned by Broadway costume designer Ann French Emonts, who’d also done costumes for two of her father’s movies. One of them,
Buzz Bomb
, about a simultaneous worldwide assault by genetically altered killer bees, had been the number-two grossing film of its year, second only to a Mel Gibson–directed gorefest. Sam adored her, and always tried to shop at Darling when she came to Manhattan.

Anna had told Sam she was planning to wear a simple black Chanel shift that had been handed down from her exceedingly fashionable maternal grandmother. Sam convinced her otherwise. Wouldn’t she like Logan—who they’d quickly included in their invitation to the party after his and Anna’s date had gone so well—to see her in something drop-dead gorgeous and new at the embassy party? Besides, Sam needed company. With the help of Ann French’s “darling girls,” as the assistants were known, Sam ended up buying a low-cut red chiffon Christy Long that floated over her hips. Because it was only fitted above the waist, she’d been able to squeeze into a size eight, which brightened her mood considerably. Anna had chosen a Lotta Stensson nude vintage slip gown covered in delicate hand-embroidered lace. In addition—Sam was incapable of leaving the store without buying just a few other things to be shipped back to Los Angeles—she had added a Fix burnt orange velvet camisole, a Hank Vintage Threads lace skirt, and a half dozen triple-ply cashmere tank tops to her fashion repertoire.

She and Anna stood outside the front door in their finery, with Logan in an elegant Ted Lapidus tuxedo that wouldn’t have looked any better on Daniel Craig, and the low-two-digit-IQ guard was not allowing them in because they weren’t on the list.

Sam tapped an impatient black patent-leather stilettoed heel against the tiled entrance. “Can you please check one more time?” she asked in her best fake-sweet voice. “We’re guests of Eduardo Muñoz. My fiancé.”

The guard shook his head, but then his eye caught something on the desk. He held up a sheet of paper sheepishly. Sam sighed. He had misplaced a supplemental sheet of late-registered guests. After he quickly found their names and crossed them off methodically with a black marking pen, they were quickly ushered into the brownstone, directly to an elevator to the penthouse.

The penthouse was obviously designed as a party and reception space, with large murals of native Peruvian scenes covering two walls, a stylized map of Peru on a third wall, and the fourth wall of entirely glass looking out over East Sixty-eighth Street. The room was jammed with dignitaries and UN representatives—Sam recognized the mayor and governor of New York, the secretary of state, and the conductor of the New York Philharmonic amongst the partygoers. In one corner of the room, a beautiful blonde with a swanlike neck played a white grand piano. Discreet Peruvian waiters snaked amongst the throng, offering hot and cold hors d’oeuvres and flutes filled with Cristal.

“Sam!”

Even before the elevator door closed behind them, she heard her name called and saw Eduardo waving over the head of a svelte, middle-aged woman with whom he’d been speaking. Anna and Logan joined her as she eased through the crowd to her gorgeous new fiancé. She was looking forward to him seeing her in the new red chiffon gown.

“Samantha.
Qué guapa!
”

How beautiful. Nice.

Eduardo happily greeted Anna, who quickly introduced Logan; then he introduced them all to his companion. “Samantha, Anna, Logan, I’d like you to meet Masha Bereskova, who is the wife of the Russian ambassador to the United Nations.”

“Lovely to meet you all,” Masha said in her lush accent. She had short, spiky, platinum blond hair, a figure that would make Angelina Jolie envious, and puffy red lips. She wore a dazzling white-and-amber Chloé gown. It made Sam think that the Russian ambassador to the UN had to be well compensated.

Sam said the usual thing you said when you were introduced to someone at a party—blah, blah, blah—but her mind was still on Eduardo’s introduction. Once again, there’d been no mention that she was his fiancée. Was this more diplomatic protocol, or was it something more? She couldn’t see how it could be the former. It wasn’t like Russians didn’t get engaged or married.

“So Anna, how do you and Logan know each other?” Eduardo asked. If he was sensitive to Sam’s disquiet, his smile didn’t reveal it. They weren’t far from the entrance to the room, and had to edge toward the picture window at the south end of the room to let arriving guests pass by.

“We grew up together, actually.” Anna sipped champagne from the crystal flute one of the waiters had brought.

Sam saw the smile that passed between Logan and Anna. They’d spent some time with Logan at Anna’s place before leaving for the party, and Sam liked him. A lot. He was one of the few old-money richies she had ever met who didn’t seem full of himself, as if somehow having wealth that went back many generations made him superior to anyone who’d acquired it more recently.

“The funny thing is, she hasn’t changed at all,” Logan observed as he leaned against one of the white beams that supported the high ceiling of the reception room. “I could have picked her out of this crowd even after all these years.”

Sweet.

A moment later, Eduardo was introducing them to someone else, a swarthy middle-aged man in a fabulous dashiki. He was Dirago Biagne, the distinguished representative to the United Nations from Senegal. Even as Anna chatted easily with the man in French, Sam had a hard time concentrating. Once again, Eduardo had neglected to introduce her as his fiancée. Instead, he’d merely stated her name.

She was obsessing, and she knew it. Reality-check time.

“Anna, come to the ladies’ room with me?” she murmured, once the Senegalese guy had moved off and Eduardo had taken Logan to meet one of Peru’s best soccer players.

“Sure.”

They made their way across the expansive room, threading past well-dressed party guests who chattered away in a plethora of languages. An international sign above one of the heavy oak doors pointed the way to the bathrooms, which they found at the end of a narrow, wood-paneled hallway behind a heavy gilded door labeled
MUJERES
. The ladies’ lounge was all black marble and gold, with black leather high-back stools in front of the vanity.

Sam took in her image in the vanity mirror. Sure, the dress was fabulous. But it was so apparent to anyone—especially herself—that she was less than fabulous in it. Compared to Anna’s, her hips looked like red-chiffon-swathed ham hocks. Not that she’d ever seen a ham hock, or even knew what one was, for that matter. But she could imagine.

“Are you okay?” Anna asked.

Sam deliberately turned away from the vanity, all the better to avoid her own image. “Am I acting weird?”

“You just don’t seem … happy. You’re at a glamorous international party in New York City with your new fiancé—”

Sam pointed at her. “Ha. Stop right there.”

“Sorry?”

“Fiancée,” she repeated. “Did you once hear Eduardo call me his fiancée?”

“No, but—”

“No ‘but’ is involved. Being engaged and not telling anyone is like winning an Oscar and keeping it a secret. What’s the point?” She opened her Hermès Birkin evening bag, took out her So Chaud cherry red MAC lipstick, and slicked it over her pouting lips.

Anna looked at her closely. “Have you even had the discussion?”

“What discussion?”

“Talked about whether or not you’re going public yet?”

“Why would we need to do that?” Sam asked.

“Because maybe they don’t do things the same way in Peru that they do them here,” Anna reasoned. She eased herself into a red brocade chair and stretched her legs. “I mean, you haven’t told your dad yet, have you?”

“No, but that’s different.”

“Maybe it isn’t. Maybe in Peru, you don’t make a public announcement of an engagement until your family knows.” Anna smiled. “Anything wrong with my logic?”

“No,” Sam admitted, a little embarrassed. She was right. It was so obvious. It made her feel dumb. “And no, he hasn’t told his parents yet, either.”

“That’s probably it, then. He doesn’t want to tell the world before you tell your families. Wouldn’t they feel terrible if they heard about it from someone else instead of the two of you?”

Sam sighed, a little ashamed of herself. “I knew there was a reason I wanted to talk to you. Thank you for your usual brilliant analysis and logic. Let’s go back to the party. No, wait.”

“What?” Anna had already started for the bathroom door again.

“Before we go back out there and pretend that I’m grown-up enough to get married, what’s up with you and Logan?”

Sam watched her friend’s face soften. “I like him.”

“This is like saying that Cammie likes boys,” Sam pointed out. The bathroom door opened, and Masha swung in. Wordlessly, she moved between them and into one of the stalls. Sam lowered her voice just a touch. “Less than revelatory. I just always thought you and Ben—”

Uncharacteristically, Anna interrupted her. “Can we not talk about Ben? Talking about Ben hurts. Thinking about Ben hurts.”

But Sam couldn’t resist.

“So Logan is, what? Rebound guy?”

“I don’t know what he is, except my friend.”

“Friend as in, Pass me the rose petals so I can spread them on the bed, or friend as in, Pass the popcorn?”

Anna thought about that a moment; her face as pensive as if she were recalling a tough vocabulary word for the SATs. “I guess I don’t know yet. But I’m not over Ben—it’s only been a few days. And I’m not about to get involved with Logan while I’m still licking my wounds.”

Sam fluffed her hair and snapped shut the little ruby clasp on her evening bag. “I hate it that you’re so much more grown-up than I am, you know.”

“Or maybe I just know how to hide a broken heart better than you do. Sam, Eduardo loves you. And you love him. You don’t have anything to worry about.” Anna smiled sadly. “Let’s go back so I can see you hug him.”