Tall Cool One (8 page)
“Dee. Stop and think. Marilyn Monroe had three different husbands. She had sex in a lot of places. She is not haunting
your
house.”
“Spirits return to where they have unfinished business. There used to be a vintage movie poster from
The Seven Year Itch
in our attic. I remember it from when I was little. But last week, when I went to look for it, it was gone.”
“Someone threw it out. That’s all.”
“Or maybe Marilyn came back for it,” Dee whispered. “I heard she didn’t like that movie very much. Anyway, I think I know what all of it means.”
This was beginning to hold a sick fascination for Sam. “I’m hanging on every word, Dee.”
“I think that
Ruby Hummingbird is the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe.
”
“I don’t think so, Dee. Though that is a provocative theory. Listen, have you ever considered psychotherapy? Because—”
Dee scrunched up her forehead. “You don’t believe me. Poppy believes me.”
Of course
Poppy believed her. That was just
perfect.
No wonder Dee wanted to live under the same roof as her new mentor. The two of them could spin off into New Age paradise hand in hand. But Sam decided to work on grounding her friend back into reality another time. For now, she shifted to the matter at hand—reclaiming her home, or at least her grandparents’ special room.
“Back to the home-alone thing, Dee. Are both your parents in New York?”
“Well, my dad had a recording session there. Mom decided to tag along and keep an eye on him. Last time he went, he had a fling with one of Usher’s backup singers.”
“He cheated on your mother again?”
“Yep. But he says it’s not really cheating unless he becomes emotionally involved.”
“But your mom didn’t used to care,” Sam recalled.
“I think she’s going through menopause or something and she gets unhinged about everything. Listen, can I unpack?”
Sam sighed. Maybe this was a time to take some pity on her friend. “Sure.”
“You know, Sam, you are so lucky. To have Poppy as your stepmom.”
“Dee, she’s only four years older than I am. Who has a stepmom who’s only four years older than they are? No, wait, forget I asked. That would be about half of our friends.”
“Love doesn’t go by the numbers, Sam,” Dee murmured solemnly.
“My father does not love her, Dee. He screws the young hottie in all of his movies. This one happened to get pregnant.”
“That is a really mean thing to say,” Dee choked out, her voice stricken. “If he didn’t love her, he would have just written a really big check and made her go away. That’s what everyone does in this town. He loves her, Sam. Deal with it.”
“Fine, Dee. I’m wrong. He does lo—”
Just then, Sam noticed an open box of disheveled clothes on the far side of the bed and recognized one of the red flannel shirts that her grandfather habitually wore. Someone—Dee or Poppy—must have taken her grandfather’s clothes from their drawers and dumped them in this ratty cardboard box. Presumably to make room for Dee’s copious wardrobe.
“Dee, please tell me you didn’t touch those clothes.” She pointed to her grandparents’ stuff.
“No. Poppy did. I think Svetlana is bringing them to the Goodwill when she leaves this afternoon.”
That did it. Without another word, Sam strode out of the room.
“Wait!” Dee called. “Wanna go to Au Bar later?”
Too late. Sam had already flown down the spiral staircase to the main level of the house. She was going to find Poppy and let her have it with both barrels. But all she could find was Svetlana, who told her that Poppy was getting a “special maternity massage” at Blooming Mama.
“Iverson fakes left, spins right, and goes with the fadeaway jumper!” Adam used his best announcer’s voice to narrate his own play.
Tonight on the white concrete driveway of the Flood house just off Coldwater Canyon, his opponent was merely his father. Ninety-nine percent of the time, his dad was no match for his younger, faster, and taller son. In fact, Adam would spot his dad ten points in a game to twenty-one just to make it interesting.
Tonight, though, was a one-percent night. Jeff timed his leap perfectly, blocked the shot, then grabbed the ball and drove for an easy layup that Adam barely made an effort to defend.
“Twenty-one to eighteen!” his dad chortled. “Score one for experience and cunning over youth and innocence.”
“Good game, Dad,” Adam said, retrieving the basketball. It had rolled under a big rhododendron.
Jeff used the bottom of his faded college T-shirt to wipe some sweat from his forehead. “Not really. You played like you were half asleep.” He tossed his son a quart bottle of iced Gatorade they’d brought out with them. Adam cracked it open and drank greedily. “I haven’t beaten you like that in two years. And that was when you were recovering from mono.”
“What, I’m not allowed to have a bad game?” Adam asked, trying to keep his tone light. He knew he’d played poorly. Distractedly. More than that, he knew what was distracting him. Or rather,
who
was distracting him.
“Maybe you were just going easy on me,” his dad suggested.
“Nice out, Dad. But you really won.” Adam expertly spun the ball on one finger. “Got stuff on my mind.”
His dad dropped down to the front step of the entryway to their house and motioned for his son to join him. Adam did, and for a few moments they sat in the Sunday night quiet together, no sound but the rumble of the occasional car on Coldwater Canyon heading from the city to the valley or vice versa. The Floods lived in a beautiful three-thousand-square-foot, two-story traditional home on a side street just off busy Coldwater Canyon. In any other neighborhood in America, it would be considered large. In Beverly Hills, it was considered a starter home.
“You want to talk about it?” Jeff finally asked.
Adam shrugged. He was one of the rare kids who sometimes really did confide in his father. Like the time in eighth grade when he’d lived through his unrequited crush on Betsy Cousins. And the time in ninth grade when he and all his friends had gotten wasted on Jack Daniels and grape juice at Nicholas Pacheco’s house; even though he’d been completely polluted, Adam had been the one to call his father to come and get them. The next day, it had been Jeff Flood who’d nursed him through a brutal hangover. After that experience, Adam had barely ever gotten even mildly drunk.
But how could he possibly tell his dad what had happened with Cammie on the beach? Way too personal.
“Nah.”
“Is it about Anna?” his father guessed.
Adam spun the ball again. “Right gender, wrong person.”
“Yeah? Is Anna out of the picture?”
“It’s all about Cammie now.”
“Ah, Cammie,” Jeff repeated. “You mentioned her last week.”
“I guess I did. The g-girl is . . .” He stammered, searching for the right father-friendly word.
“A vixen?” his father suggested.
Adam laughed. “Yeah. Times infinity. I mean, every guy at school dreams about her. And she’s into
me.
”
Jeff took a long swallow of Gatorade. “You two sleeping together?”
“Uh . . .” Adam could feel his face burn. They’d had the big safe-sex lecture before they’d moved from Michigan to Los Angeles. Jeff had talked about how things were different in California, how kids grew up faster, how Adam might well run into kids who had a lot more experience than he did. But in the past year and a half in Beverly Hills, his parents had never come right out and asked him if he was having sex.
“Can we not have this conversation?”
“No. It’s in my job description.” Jeff put his hand on Adam’s arm. “You’re using protection, aren’t you?”
Adam edged away from his father. “Time out, this is excruciating. If Cammie and I are doing anything—and I’m not saying we are—then I would be smart enough to, you know, take care of things.”
“Good to know.” His dad looked out into the darkness. “You know, I don’t think I ever told you this, but before your mother, I had this girlfriend back in Grand Rapids. Erika Ackermann. Man, I was crazy about that girl.”
“We’re veering into major TMI,” Adam warned.
“TMI?”
“Too much information,” Adam explained.
“Oh, it’s not what you’re thinking. We never had sex. Erika went away to Albion, and it was over. Anyway, there I was at orientation at Kalamazoo, and this girl from Wilton, Connecticut—I don’t even remember her name—decides that I’m
it.
”
Adam was fascinated in spite of himself. “What happened?”
“There’s this knock on my dorm room at three in the morning—my roommate hadn’t showed up yet—and there she was. You want to know what happened?”
“Damned if I do and damned if I don’t,” Adam joked.
“Nothing. I mean, I tried. But . . . zip. Same thing the next night. I thought there was something wrong with me.”
Holy shit,
Adam thought. Like father, like son. Maybe it’s genetic. But obviously his dad got over it eventually.
“Well, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with you, Dad,” Adam said rhetorically. As absurd as it was, he just wanted to double-check. “I mean, I’m here, and I look just like you.”
“Exactly.” Jeff ruffled his son’s hair. “I think the problem was that my body was trying to tell me something. Like, ‘Whoa, there. Maybe this isn’t the right one to share this with.’ So if you’re having a problem with Cammie—”
“I never said I had a problem,” Adam interjected.
“I said
if
.”
“Trust me, Dad. My mind and my body both want to share.”
His father stood, took the ball from Adam, and bounced it once. “I don’t doubt it, son. But maybe it’s not your mind or your body you should be listening to. Maybe you should be listening to your heart.”
Adam shook his head. “Too deep for me.”
“That I highly doubt.” Jeff bounced the ball again. “You love this girl?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, when you have the answer to that, all else will follow.”
A
nna checked out her reflection in the mirror over her antique dresser. She’d chosen a simple cotton-and-silk Graham and Spencer pale blue skirt with a white Cynthia Rowley sleeveless blouse. She wore no makeup and tied her hair back in a ponytail. Then, deciding she didn’t look like a girl ready for torrid climes, she unbuttoned two of the blouse buttons, slicked on some Chanel lip gloss and mascara, sprayed herself with the Jo Malone perfume she loved, and took down her hair. Ah. That was more like it.
Mexico. A place where a girl could safely be whoever she wanted to be, if only for a day. But the doorbell still hadn’t rung. Which meant that Lloyd Millar, her father’s associate, was already twenty-five minutes late.
When Anna called her dad on Sunday evening to tell him that she decided to go to the resort, his response had been greatly enthusiastic. Ten minutes later, Lloyd had telephoned to make plans to leave on Tuesday. When he considered how long it would take to get to LAX, go through security, fly to Mexico, and get a shuttle van to the resort, he decreed that they should drive down in his BMW E90 3 series roadster. By the time Lloyd showed up, Anna was already waiting for him in front of the house. He was a tall, slim guy, mid-twenties, she guessed, with short dark hair and a faux hipster goatee. He wore mirrored wraparound Ray-Bans, a 1950s black-and-white sports shirt with dice running down the center, and classic water buffalo sandals.
“Hi, I’m Anna.” She extended her hand politely as he approached her. She saw that he had hairy arms. And hairy toes. Anna had a thing about hairy toes. They made her gag. She mentally chided herself for being so superficial and slapped a pleasant grin on her face.
“Lloyd Millar. Hey, sorry I’m late. The 405 was bumper to bumper.”
“No problem.”
Lloyd lifted his sunglasses and did an exaggerated eyebrow wriggle that Anna assumed was meant to convey approval. “You’re even more beautiful than the photo in your dad’s office.” Then he licked his lips.
Ick. Why had she unbuttoned those two top buttons? She managed a thank you, then draped her summer Madeline Weinrib leather-trimmed tote over her arm.
Lloyd reached for her compact classic Hartmann suitcase. “A beautiful woman should never carry her own bag,” he announced.
“Hey, Miss Anna.”
Django. He’d come out of his guesthouse and was heading for the main house, looking as hot as only Django could look. Anna wished she were going to Mexico with him instead. She waved.
“So you decided to take your dad up on the Mexico thing, huh?”
Anna nodded, only mildly surprised that Django knew about her decision. She started to introduce the two men to each other and then stopped, realizing that they must already be acquainted.
“Hey, Lloyd,” Django drawled, confirming Anna’s realization.
“Django,” Lloyd responded stiffly. There was ice in his voice.
Django opened the BMW door for Anna, and she impetuously kissed his cheek. “Thanks. See you in a few days.”
“If school calls, do I tell ’em you’re in bed with consumption?”
“They won’t. Seniors at Beverly Hills High take off all the time and claim college tour. No one keeps track.”
“Will do. I’ll keep the home fires burnin’,” Django drawled, and tipped an imaginary cowboy hat.
With that, Lloyd peeled out of the driveway like an aggressive sixteen-year-old who’d just gotten his license. “I don’t trust him.”
Anna jumped to Django’s defense. “I do. We’re friends.”
“All that ‘gee shucks’ crap is a load of horseshit. You know that, don’t you?” Lloyd glanced at Anna, then back at the road. “I’d tell your father to watch him if I were you. I already did. I think he’s a spy for Warren Buffett.”
“Well, you’re not me,” Anna replied pleasantly, hoping this would end that particular line of conversation. Django had been nothing but terrific to her. All she knew about Lloyd was that he worked for her father. And that he already grated on her. And that he had hairy toes.
It would be a three-hour drive to the Mexican border and then another three and a half to Las Casitas. Anna wasn’t sure she’d last. Lloyd was smart—it was immediately obvious why Jonathan Percy had hired him—but it was the kind of intelligence that made Anna wish he’d develop an instant case of meningitis. He fancied himself an expert on everything and felt an undying need to share his encyclopedic abundance of knowledge with her. The stock market. Politics. The relative strength of the dollar and the euro. Hollywood. Los Angeles restaurants. Life, with a capital
L
. He never stopped talking.