“Thanks, Sam,” Anna added gratefully. “This has been a really fantastic graduation present. I won’t be able to figure out how to outdo you.”
“Knowing you? A check to Make-A-Wish in Sam’s name,” Cammie suggested sarcastically.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Anna replied serenely.
Sam blinked her eyes at the mirror one more time. The lashes looked long and thick and made her brown eyes appear—well, if not enormous, at least a little bit bigger. Huh.
Très
hot. They would look great for Stefanie’s party, for graduation and, most importantly, for Operation Eduardo. She was going to bat these eyelashes back into his life if it was the last thing she did.
A
nna had been lost in thought during most of the afternoon of pampering at Le Petite Retreat. Just when she’d thought everything was perfect with Ben, things were making her wonder about that assessment.
She understood why he hadn’t been able to go with her to Sam’s pregraduation party. He had work at Trieste, and he couldn’t very well make his own hours there, but when she’d called him about her car accident, he’d been so … short. True, she’d assured him that it was only a fender bender. Yet he hadn’t seemed very concerned.
Then there was the phone call this morning. They’d had plans for a couple of days for Sunday night; he’d talked about dinner someplace special. But this morning he’d sounded vague and removed. Yes, they’d definitely go out, maybe pick up a burger. How had “someplace special” morphed into a burger? Anna had no idea.
While she and Cammie were waiting for Sam to settle their bill at Le Petite—Sam insisted again that it was her treat—Anna took her Motorola out of her battered Louis Vuitton Speedy 15 purse. She considered calling Ben. Just as she was about to punch in his speed-dial number, it rang.
Fabulous. Great minds were thinking alike. But she didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID.
“Hello?”
“Anna, hey,” said a sexy male voice that unfortunately did not belong to Ben. “It’s Caine Manning.”
“Caine?” She was surprised he was calling. Then she winced, wishing she hadn’t said his name aloud, since Sam and Cammie were now both staring at her with great interest. She drifted to the other side of the white lobby and faced the blank wall to continue the conversation. “How are you?”
“Great. Just wanted to thank you for the party last night. And to tell you I called the body shop that has your car. They’re moving it to the top of the list.”
Anna was bemused. Caine was so utterly different from Ben in his level of efficiency. “That’s great. Really. Did they say when it would be ready?”
“A week … I’ve arranged for a loaner.”
“You may be the most practical guy I’ve ever met,” she teased.
“Oh yeah, that’s me. The tattoos are just to throw the world off. So listen, I was supposed to do this Excel project for your dad tonight, but I finished early. I know you like classic art; I was wondering if you liked classical music?”
“Love it.”
“I’ve got a line on two ducats to the philharmonic at Descanso Gardens tonight. They’re doing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. Would you like to go?”
Anna paused, but before she could mention anything about her plans with Ben, Caine spoke up again. “I know you might be busy with your boyfriend. That’s cool. If not, I was thinking we could make a night of it. Modest Mouse is jamming at my bud’s loft in Pasadena around midnight.”
God, that sounded like it would be fun, if she hadn’t already had plans with Ben—plans she would have been excited about if not for that very weird phone call with him.
“It’s a wonderful invitation. But I indeed already made plans with my boyfriend.”
“Okay, well, that’s cool. How serious is it between you two anyway?” he asked smoothly, as casually as if he were inquiring about the weather.
It was a good question. Certainly their relationship was intense. Ben had been her very first—and to date, only—lover. But she still couldn’t shake a niggling disquiet about that afternoon’s phone call.
“I don’t know how to quantify something like that. We aren’t seeing other people.”
“Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’m disappointed, but that’s fine. Have fun. So, would you mind if I called you anyway? As
friends,
” he added with gravitas.
Anna laughed. Wow, she was flattered.
“As friends,” she agreed.
“So I’m thinking you have, what, a week more of high school?”
Out of the corner of her eye Anna saw Sheva return with Sam’s bill and Sam sign the paper without even glancing at it. “Correct assumption,” she confirmed.
“Excellent. Boyfriends have been known to come and go. Keep that in mind.”
“I hope you can find someone else to use that ticket tonight—”
“Oh, I don’t think that’ll be too much of a problem,” Caine chided easily. “Hey, have a good time. What’s his name again?”
“Ben.”
“Ben. Right. Have fun with
Ben
. I’ll talk to you soon.”
Anna hung up. She couldn’t keep a smile from tugging at her lips.
“That’s quite a smirk you’re wearing,” Cammie observed, as Anna crossed the lobby back to the main desk. “Is Caine getting ‘Anna’ tattooed on his ass? Or is his ass already fully inked?”
Anna didn’t bother to respond. Why stoop to her subzero level?
“Okay, we’re out of here,” Sam announced, carelessly throwing the receipt into her purse. “What did Body-art Babe want?”
“He has tickets for the philharmonic. But I’ve got plans with Ben.”
“You don’t seem like his type,” Cammie mused. “He’d do Rose McGowan over Keira any day. Or maybe both at the same time. Which is
so
not your lack-of-style.”
That stung; Anna knew she was hardly the exotic sex goddess type. Was that what was bothering Ben? Was she not sexy enough? No, that was silly.
“He was just being friendly,” she insisted, as they pushed out the spa’s massive oak front door into the late afternoon Beverly Hills sunshine. The valet arrived in Cammie’s BMW immediately. When she was gone, Anna impetuously turned to Sam. “Do you think you can tell if something is wrong in your relationship, even if the other person doesn’t say anything?”
Sam slipped on her oversized white Chanel sunglasses. “You and Ben?”
“Nothing happened,” she hastily added. “It’s more like … a feeling.”
“Come right out and ask him,” Sam decreed. “It’s the only way.”
Anna gave Sam a big hug and thanked her for the great gift, then waited for the valet to bring over her dad’s gray 1995 Porsche 911, which she’d been driving with the Lexus in the shop. A puff of wind blew Anna’s hair across her face. When she flicked it back, the back of her hand brushed against her newly lengthened eyelashes.
She wondered if Ben would notice. She’d never been big on the idea of “feminine intuition.” Yet she couldn’t get over the feeling that something was going on with him, and whatever it was, it was bad.
“S
o, have you been to Chinatown?” Ben asked, as if they were two strangers chatting each other up in the checkout line at Gelson’s supermarket.
“Only in New York,” Anna replied. “I didn’t even know there was one here.”
He nodded—that was the end of the exchange—and motored his father’s new jet-black CL65 AMG Mercedes with the twin turbo-charged V-12 engine through the streets downtown Los Angeles. Anna had been pleased when he’d called to suggest they eat in Chinatown. It sounded like fun—a step up from In-N-Out Burger for sure. She’d dressed down for the occasion: her oldest and most faded jeans, a blue no-name long-sleeved thermal undershirt with tiny yellow daisies on it that she’d purchased with Cyn at Cheap Threads on the Lower East Side, and a pair of gold Chanel ballet flats she’d owned for so long that she actually couldn’t even remember when or where she’d acquired them.
They rolled past the Staples Center on their way to whatever Chinese restaurant they were headed to; Anna studied Ben’s profile as he drove. She loved every line of his face, the way his large, capable hands looked on the steering wheel, the pull of his muscular thighs against the legs of his Levis. The faded blue of his much-washed Fila tennis shirt contrasted nicely with his summer tan. All in all, she would have to say that her guy looked luscious.
Her guy. He
was
her guy, wasn’t he? So why had he been acting so peculiar? It wasn’t her imagination, she was sure of it. Even when he’d picked her up a half-hour before, he hadn’t managed more than a perfunctory kiss on her cheek. What was
that
about?
Five silent minutes later, Ben had pulled in front of Ocean Seafood on Lower North Broadway.
“Good thing there’s valet parking,” he remarked, as he came around the car and took the claim ticket from the short, stocky valet. “This car would get ripped off within like five minutes on the street.” He put his hand on the small of her back to guide her toward the front door of the restaurant. “You’re in for a treat. This is my favorite Chinese in the city.”
“Do you think Chinese people in China go out for American food?” Anna mused. She was certain Ben would laugh at that, goofy as it was. But he didn’t. In fact, he barely seemed to have heard her. Still, he held the massive red wooden front door open for her like a proper gentleman. As she passed him, she tried to catch his eye, to find that special spark they always had together. Nothing.
Anna shuddered.
What
was going on?
“Smells great in here, huh?” Ben remarked once they were inside. It was the kind of thing that a person might say to a business acquaintance.
Ocean Seafood was crowded—at least twenty people were milling around the entrance with glasses of wine in one hand, waiting for tables to open up—but Ben led Anna through the crowd and motioned to a diminutive middle-aged woman in a floorlength black silk floral Chinese dress.
“Ben!” she said, then flashed a smile that had to have been aided by either massive whitening agents, porcelain veneers, or both. “Welcome back. And welcome to your friend. Table for two?”
He nodded.
Welcome back?
Anna was perplexed. Okay, he’d been here before, he’d already told her that. The hostess knew him by name, which meant he had been here quite a bit. Yet he’d never taken her to this place, never even mentioned it before.
“Follow me, please.”
They walked through the large restaurant, past rows of hanging orange and white Chinese lanterns, until the hostess seated them at an orange banquette.
“You order for us, okay Jade?” Ben suggested.
He even knew her first name.
“Happy to do so, “Jade replied with another super-white grin. “Very good. I’ll send beer.”
There was ice water in tall tumblers already on the table. Anna took a sip as they sat in silence. Where was their easy banter?
“You’re pretty confident I’m going to like what she brings,” she finally teased him.
He grinned and reached across the table for her hand. “I’d bet on it.”
Whew. That was better.
Anna looked around. There was a row of huge saltwater aquariums by the far wall, each of them easily two hundred gallons or more. She could make out crabs, multicolored rockfish, and sea bass. One entire tank had been reserved for dark, spiny lobsters.
She turned back to Ben. Played with her fork. Tried to figure out what to say. Nothing came to her brilliant mind, nothing at all.
“Ben … is something wrong?” she blurted.
His eyebrows rose. “No, nothing. Why?”
“Well, you’re so quiet.”
“Thinking about work.”
“How did it go last night?”
“Okay. They stuck me on the door again. At least I didn’t have to make a thousand smoothies. Why don’t you tell me more about Sam’s party?”
“Well like I said before, the theme was Seven Deadly Sins and …” She rambled on, giving every detail she could think of. But for some reason that she couldn’t quite fathom, she didn’t mention that she’d been there with Caine. Maybe she was just feeling perverse, but she felt as if Ben was keeping something from her. Why should this dinner be a one-way confessional?
A young Chinese waiter dressed in white hustled over to their table with three huge platefuls of food: a platter of steamed shrimp, roasted sea bass, and a tray of sizzling Pacific oysters.
They dug in. The food was as good as it looked, and eating gave them both something to do. Jade stopped by their table every two minutes to make sure that Ben was satisfied, to make sure that Ben gave her regards to his parents, to make sure Ben introduced her properly to the lovely lady, and to make sure that the lovely lady was comfortable and happy.
They ate. They ate some more. They even held hands again. About the only thing they didn’t do, really, was the one thing Anna really wanted to do: talk.
An hour and a half later they were on the ticket buyer’s line at the Grove, the magnificent multiplex movie theater in the farmer’s market complex in Hancock Park, within striking distance of the CBS television studios. The theater was stunning, with a semicircular art deco high-gloss façade separating it from the market proper, plus a vertical sign reading THE GROVE that soared thirty feet into the air.
They’d decided to go see the new David Lynch film, though Anna had agreed with some trepidation. She wasn’t a big moviegoer by nature, and had been completely nauseated by
Blue Velvet
. Yet she’d loved
The Straight Story
, which was why she thought she’d give
Rocket to Russia
a try. Evidently about five hundred other Los Angelinos had made the same decision. The line to buy tickets snaked back nearly to the glass doors.
“What time does it start?” she asked Ben.
“Eight. And it’s a two-and-a-half-hour film, which means—”
“Anna?”
Anna turned around. The line was one of those parallel velvet rope queues, with four or five different routes to get to the ticket seller. Standing in the next queue was Caine Manning. He was alone, in gray Calvin Klein khakis and a black T-shirt, short-sleeved, so that his tattoos showed. There was a copy of
Spin
under his arm. She felt herself flush, as if she’d been caught doing something. She still hadn’t told Ben that she’d been with Caine at Sam’s party. Yet Anna had been raised well. Her mother had always emphasized the importance of appearing unfazed. So she smiled at Caine as if running into him at the Grove was the loveliest surprise in the world.