Tall Cool One (2 page)
“Ha!” He pointed at her.
She sat next to him again. “What’s that mean?”
“You don’t
want
to get to know a one-night stand, Anna. That’s the whole point. Face it, you suck at this.”
Anna sighed. Maybe she did. Maybe her aptitude for casual sex was right down there with her aptitude for surfing. Then she noticed the redhead from Danny’s past parked on a green beach blanket a hundred feet away. She was chatting with two guys, both blond surfer types in black wet suits, and another pretty girl with short, jet-black hair and a maroon wet suit. Four longboards stuck into the sand cast shadows over them.
“What’s her name?” Anna asked. “The redhead.”
Danny shrugged and reached for another bottle of juice. “I forget.”
She winced. “Ouch.”
“Why ‘ouch’?”
“I’m sure she’d like to think of herself as more memorable than that.”
He shrugged again. “Trust me, Anna, some girls don’t care. They’re in it for the boo-tay just as much as the guy is.”
Anna thought about that for a moment.
“So, did you regret it afterward? Sleeping with her?”
“Nope.”
“It didn’t feel sleazy? Empty? Meaningless?”
Danny wriggled his eyebrows. “That’s the fun part.”
“She told you that?”
“I’m just being honest. If both people know exactly what the expectations are—”
“Meaning, none?”
“Exactly. Then no one gets hurt. Want another juice?”
Anna shook her head and studied the redhead, trying to picture her with Danny. Had they danced, had a few drinks, flirted? Did they end up having sex in the wet sand, with the surf spraying their naked bodies?
God, how cheesy romance novel was
that?
But maybe it had been different. Maybe they’d met at the Ojai getaway of Danny’s television agent, shared a bottle of Dom Pérignon, and then attacked each other in the agent’s overdone bedroom, with a mirror on the ceiling over the bed.
God, that was just as cheesy. But what if instead they’d talked intimately all night, driven back to Danny’s place in Santa Monica, and made love as the sun rose?
Made love. But it wasn’t love. That was the whole point. Danny was right. She even sucked at
imagining
a one-night stand.
“Does my hollow and sordid sex life shock you?” Danny teased.
A little,
Anna thought. Which was puzzling. She should have been used to it by now. Cynthia Baltres, her best friend back in New York, regaled Anna with her wild exploits and open-door policy with guys of all shapes, sizes, and sartorial leanings.
But she wasn’t about to tell Danny that.
“Your sex life couldn’t shock me, Danny.
Shocking
would be me actually getting up on a surfboard.”
“Or you having a one-night stand,” he shot back.
Maybe he was right. But it really annoyed her that he was so sure of himself.
B
ack on New Year’s Eve, the night Anna had first arrived at her father’s Beverly Hills mansion, she’d walked in on him with his girlfriend, Margaret Cunningham.
Anna had rarely seen her father since her parents’ divorce many years earlier. And she had certainly suffered through her mother’s serial boyfriends—mostly young artists of the Eurotrash variety. But it had still been a jawdropper to see her father tangled up with a half-dressed woman she had never seen before. Anna had been so startled that she’d accidentally broken a priceless Ming vase.
Now, as Anna—still gritty from the beach—opened the front door lock of the mansion, a sight shocking enough to shatter the replacement vase, plus every other antique heirloom in the place, greeted her.
It was her father. Jonathan Percy. And her mother. Jane Cabot Percy. Together on the living room couch.
Thankfully, they weren’t doing anything more than drinking martinis from crystal stemware and chuckling over some private joke. But not only were Anna’s parents divorced, they also—at least as far as Anna knew up until this moment—didn’t speak to each other. In fact, they hadn’t been in the same room in approximately five years, and the last time they were had been at a Manhattan divorce judge’s chambers, flanked by their batteries of high-priced lawyers.
After the divorce, her father had returned to Los Angeles, his birthplace. Anna and her older sister, Susan, had stayed in the Upper East Side Manhattan town house with their mother, end of story. Anna had last seen her mother seven weeks before, when Jane had gone to Florence to visit a twenty-eight-year-old Italian sculptor of whom she’d become a “patron.” What that patronage entailed, Anna had never wanted to ask.
But here was her mother, the one and only. In Beverly Hills. In her ex’s living room. Drinking martinis.
That part was familiar. So was her mother’s patented Jane Cabot Percy outfit: a straight black vintage Chanel skirt that ended just below the knee, a three-ply gray cashmere sweater, and a pearl choker that she had inherited from an eighteenth-century ancestor. Her glossy blond hair was parted down the middle and fell just below her perfect jawline.
“Come in, Anna dear.” Jane beckoned, as easily as if they’d had breakfast that morning. She offered Anna her cheek; Anna dutifully kissed it.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” Anna asked, trying to match her mother’s even tone. “You’re supposed to be in Italy.”
“It’s a surprise, sweetie,” Jonathan explained. “Susan’s being released from rehab today.”
“She
is?
”
This was news to Anna. Her older sister wasn’t supposed to get out of the world-famous Sierra Vista drug-and-alcohol rehabilitation facility in Arizona until next week. This was her second stint in rehab in as many months—Susan had come to Los Angeles in January after she’d checked herself out of the Hazelden rehab facility in Minnesota. It had only taken a few days before she’d reimmersed herself in her drugs and alcohol of choice, California style.
Finally, after Susan had done an inebriated near-naked dance in an outdoor fountain at a swank Hollywood industry party, Anna had persuaded her to try a different facility.
“Her doctor called yesterday,” Jonathan continued. “He described your sister as ‘a changed human being.’ So I phoned Jane in Italy. She decided to fly in and share a family moment.”
Family moment?
They weren’t a family, and they hadn’t had a moment in years.
“The doctor suggested that having us present a united front might be helpful,” Jane added. “According to your father, he almost insisted on it, which is really rather rude. But I only want what’s best for Susan.”
Anna was dubious. Susan and their mother did not get along, to say the least. Meanwhile, relations between Susan and her father ping-ponged between scratchy and disastrous.
“Are you sure this is the best thing?” Anna asked. “It might be kind of . . . intense.”
“Nonsense,” Jane decreed with divine assurance. “If my elder daughter is clean and sober, I call it a minor miracle I’d like to witness.” She sipped her martini and frowned at Anna. “What have you been doing with your hair?”
Anna touched her head. Still wet from the ocean, she felt sand beneath her fingers. “I was at the beach. Surfing.”
That got a trout-like rise out of her mother; a slight skyward movement of the eyes. “Surfing?”
“Yes, Mom,” she replied. In the olden days—aka almost two months ago in New York—Anna would have wilted under her mother’s thinly veiled disapproval. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. “Actually, I love surfing. Want to go with me sometime?”
“Interesting,” Jane murmured.
“Well, I’m going to take a shower. And get changed.” Anna headed for the stairs. “What time do we have to be at LAX?”
“Her flight gets in at seven,” Jonathan said.
“We’ll leave at six,” Jane decided, glancing at her Cartier watch. “Sharp. That’s in fifty-seven minutes. I know you tend to run late. You’ll be with us?”
“Of course.”
Anna gritted her teeth as she headed upstairs to her room.
In her palatial marble bathroom, she turned on the shower and peeled off her grungy clothes. No matter what Susan’s shrinks had or hadn’t said, Anna knew her sister better than they did: Sending her the Jonathan-and-Jane airport greeting committee was about as helpful to Susan’s cause as handing her a Grey Goose and tonic.
Exactly fifty-six minutes later, hair in a ponytail, dressed in Seven jeans, a white Juicy Couture tank top, and a white terry hoodie, Anna returned to the living room. She expected—even hoped—that her new low-key West Coast–style clothes would irk her mother. Jane raised her eyebrows; silent Mother Percy–speak for disapproval. Mission accomplished.
Anna noticed that the crystal martini pitcher was now nearly empty. She doubted the most encouraging way for her parents to reunite with newly sober Susan was with Tanqueray gin and vermouth on their breath.
“Would you like coffee before we go?” Anna asked pointedly.
“You worry too much, Anna,” her mother replied tersely. “You always have.”
“Your sister has to live in a world where people drink socially,” her father added, “even if she can’t.”
“We can do the drive-through Coffee Bean on the way if ya’ll want,” a voice drawled from just inside the front door.
Anna turned to see Django Simms, her father’s driver and all-around assistant, standing at the hallway entrance to the living room. His short dark hair, tips bleached white-blond, set off perfectly chiseled features; his sexy baritone voice betrayed his southern roots. Django lived on her father’s property in a guesthouse just behind the main house. Anna liked him. A lot. He was, in four words, a man of mystery.
She smiled at him. “Great idea.”
“I told you, Anna, it’s not necessary,” her mother insisted. “But thank you, Django. That’s a very gracious suggestion.”
He tipped an imaginary hat to her—a signature gesture—and glanced at Jonathan. “I’ve got the Beamer waiting, sir.” Then he opened the front door and ushered the family out. As Jonathan and Jane strode to Jonathan’s car, he put a gentle hand on Anna’s arm. “You turn into a surfer girl today, Miss Anna?” he asked playfully.
“I was terrible,” she admitted. “Do you surf?”
“I’ve been known to catch a wave or two.”
“Where’d you learn?”
He flashed an enigmatic smile. “Let’s not keep your big sister waiting.” He dropped his voice even lower. “Though I don’t know that she’ll be all that pleased with the greetin’ party. ”
It was a surprisingly perceptive remark, but Django always surprised her. Like when she’d heard him playing a magnificent concerto on the living room piano. Or when she’d discovered a photograph of him as a boy, wearing a tuxedo and standing by a Steinway grand piano in front of a full symphony orchestra. It was clear that he was the featured soloist at that concert. But Django wouldn’t talk about the photograph. He barely talked about himself, ever. Which only made her want to know even more. Why was a guy that musically talented hiding out from the world in a Beverly Hills guesthouse?
Someday, she vowed to find out.
As Anna headed out the front door, she got another Django surprise. A stunningly beautiful woman with auburn hair floating around her shoulders and a model-type build stepped out of Django’s guesthouse. She wore a very short black Yamamoto skirt and a velvet Louboutin blouse. Anna recognized the designers, having inherited from her mother an appreciation for exquisitely created clothes.
“Hey, Lisa,” Django greeted her warmly. “Meet Anna Percy.”
“Hi,” Lisa said, barely registering a glance at Anna. “So Django, listen, I’ll probably be gone by the time you get back.”
“Cool. I’ll call you.”
“Great.” She kissed him on the lips, then headed back to the guesthouse.
“Secret girlfriend?” Anna asked. She just couldn’t help herself.
He cocked his head at her. “Just what are you getting at, Miss Anna?”
“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “I just didn’t know you had a . . . whatever she is.”
“She isn’t, actually,” he said, being his usual enigmatic self. “Except when she happens to be in town and calls me, and I happen to be footloose and fancy free.”
“Oh.”
Anna said “oh” because it seemed rude to say nothing but even more rude to pepper Django with questions that he obviously didn’t want to answer. She’d never thought of Django’s personal life. But the Lisa scenario made her think of her earlier conversation with Danny.
Danny and the redhead. Django and this woman. No mention by either of them of the L word. Or even the R word:
relationship.
Just a good time had by all.
Django held the car door open for Anna, and she slid in next to Jane with Jonathan on the other end. Then he shut the door and went around to the driver’s side. As he pulled the car out of their massive circular driveway, Anna mused. Maybe everyone was running around having meaningless encounters except her. Maybe she’d be happier if she didn’t try to find the magic she’d felt with Ben Birnbaum. Her first. A guy she’d fallen for in the matter of a six-hour flight from New York to L.A. A guy she’d ended up sending back to the East Coast, though he was more than willing to blow his entire Princeton education just to stay with her. Maybe in the end she really didn’t understand anything at all about sex, or love, or how the two of them did or did not fit together.
The ride to the LAX was a Kafkaesque experience—more because of what her parents didn’t do than what they did. Jonathan didn’t ask about Jane’s latest sculptor in Italy. Jane didn’t ask about the state of Jonathan’s love life in Beverly Hills. Instead they chatted in the backseat like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in five years instead of a divorced couple who had parted badly. No, not badly.
Horrifically.
Her mother even seemed to show interest when her father rambled about some upscale resort in Mexico. Apparently he was representing a syndicate of investors on the verge of acquiring it. Jane actually asked probing questions about the purchase. It struck Anna as hypocrisy of the worst kind, as the downfall of their marriage had been her mother’s constant complaints about how work-obsessed he was.
Anna tried to tune them out by thinking about Susan. If only there were some way to prepare her sister for the welcoming committee. She had Susan’s cell number, of course. But she’d have to call just after the plane landed, before Susan spotted the family trio; she’d also have to find a way to do it out of her parents’—