Blonde Ambition Read online

  “I’m glad, too.” Anna’s first reaction was relief. She’d felt certain that Margaret would simply send her packing because of what had happened at the party, but perhaps she was separating Anna from her sister and her sister’s problems. Now, that would be refreshing. Not to mention fair.

  It was ironic, really. An internship at a talent agency wasn’t something she’d ever wanted. Anna’s heart was in the literary world. But now Anna found herself excited about being a part of it, open to the new experiences it might bring. That was the reason, she kept reminding herself, she’d moved west in the first place.

  And now here she was, about to lose her internship right after it began, all because Susan had shown up at an industry party completely drunk and had made a scene. Anna and Sam had rescued Susan. If Anna had to do it all over again, she’d do exactly the same thing. It wouldn’t be the first time Anna had suffered for Susan’s mistakes.

  Margaret folded her hands and continued. “Also, I’m pleasantly surprised that your father has decided to stay in Arizona for a few days. He says it’s to make sure that Susan doesn’t check herself out, but I suspect it’s really so he can drive up and see the Grand Canyon.”

  Anna nodded. Her father had sent her a long e-mail from his laptop—she was totally up to speed on everything that Margaret was telling her.

  “Are you doing okay at home? By yourself?”

  “Sure. In New York, I was alone a lot. My mother is on a lot of committees and—” Anna stopped herself. There was no reason to bring up her mother right now—Anna was sure that Margaret had heard all about her mother. “I’m used to taking care of myself. I’m fine.”

  “Well, if you need anything, your father asked me to help. So call me.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” As Anna spoke, a sunbeam cut through the window and against the far wall, as if the ray of hope had actually come to life. She couldn’t believe it. Margaret was actually befriending her. Her heart rate slowed to something approaching normal.

  “So,” Margaret asked. “Shall we discuss the events of this past weekend? At the Steinbergs’ party?”

  Anna had already mentally rehearsed for this moment. “I would like to say that I am sorry I didn’t stick closer to Brock Franklin. He’s an Apex client; you asked me to attend the party with him on Apex’s behalf, and I should have handled that in a more professional manner. I apologize.”

  “And?” Margaret prompted.

  Anna sat silent. She had been well raised on the subject of airing family laundry in public: it just wasn’t done.

  Margaret seemed to suck in her cheeks a bit, making her sharp cheekbones stand out. “There is the matter of your sister and her snap decision to test the water purity of the Feinbergs’ backyard fountain. With her mouth and in her underwear.”

  Anna kept her voice steady. “My sister has a substance abuse problem. We’ve already addressed that. I wish I could have prevented her behavior. But I can’t. That’s a lesson that’s hard to accept.”

  “She made her problem abundantly clear to every guest at the party.”

  Anna opened her mouth to speak, but Margaret held up a restraining finger. “I don’t hold you responsible for that problem, Anna. I do hold you responsible for the way you handled it. Running to your sister’s aid and then departing with her was completely unacceptable. Not to mention out of line. Not to mention an embarrassment to this agency. And to me personally.”

  Anna could feel her face redden. It didn’t happen very often. But it was equally rare for her to sit through such a dressing-down by an authority figure.

  “I’m sorry for that.” Anna tried to make her apology sound as heartfelt as it was.

  “I should hope so. It was a black eye for the agency.” Anna cocked her head. She’d already apologized from the bottom of her heart. What else did Margaret want her to do? “With all due respect, Margaret, I think there’s some blame to be shared here. You knew about my sister’s problems. Why would you have wanted her to be at a party like that when she’d only half completed her rehab? If you’re going to fire me, just fire me. I can handle it.”

  Margaret tapped a pencil on the table. “Perhaps you’ve led a privileged life for so long that you don’t know what it means to be in a subordinate position. That is most unfortunate, Anna. I asked you here assuming you were willing to listen. What I’m telling you isn’t my position alone, but the position of the agency. I spoke about this with my associates, and this is a group decision.”

  Anna stood and walked to the door, fully prepared to depart with grace and dignity. “Fine. I understand that. You speak for Apex. Apex invited Susan to that party because she went to school with Apex’s client, Brock Franklin. You did that because you thought it might benefit you. You never gave a thought to how it might affect Susan. Asking her to be there was irresponsible. Far more irresponsible than I might have been with Brock.”

  Margaret sighed. “Are you finished?”

  “No,” Anna said. She knew this wasn’t going to be the last time she’d see Margaret. It was more important for Margaret to know what kind of person she was than for her to work as an intern at the agency. “I’m grateful that you gave me this chance at Apex. I really am. But Susan is my sister. If Susan had been your sister, I hope you would have done exactly what I did.”

  From behind Anna came the sound of one person clapping. Anna whirled, shocked to see Clark Sheppard, Cammie’s father, another of the Apex agency partners, staring at her with raised eyebrows.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Anna Percy. For about ten minutes I was an intern here.”

  “You still are,” Clark said bluntly.

  “Clark,” Margaret cut in, not raising her voice one iota. “We talked about this, remember? I’m going to be the one to decide whether she goes or stays.”

  “Anna, wait outside.” Clark pointed toward the hallway outside the conference room. “We’ll be with you momentarily.”

  Anna exited. She could see Clark and Margaret arguing through the glass wall but couldn’t hear a word.

  It must have been nerves that made her think about clothes. Margaret and Clark were both impeccably turned out. She wore a pantsuit—Anna guessed it was Ralph Lauren—and his suit was obviously custom-made. Sam had explained the bizarre show business clothing pecking order to her: Writers dressed like bums. Producers dressed like writers, except they wore baseball caps to cover their hair loss. Directors dressed like producers, except that they were frequently tanned from being outside while on location. Actors dressed like bums but looked better since they spent their free time in the gym if they were earning a living or running in the park if they weren’t. If they were going to be photographed, they wore designer clothes and jewels provided gratis because the designers wanted the free publicity. In fact, the only people who dressed like New York businesspeople were agents.

  Clark clearly didn’t share Margaret’s understated style. Though Anna couldn’t hear what he was saying, she could see him in there, waving his arms around. At one point a finger stabbed the air in Margaret’s direction. Then he swung the door open and beckoned Anna back inside.

  “You’re not working with Margaret anymore,” he barked.

  “I’m already well aware of that fact,” Anna replied. “You’re still an intern, though,” Clark added.

  Anna was confused. “I don’t know that I—”

  “You don’t have to know; you’re an intern, for chris-sake, so just listen. You are not to talk to Margaret Cunningham. That means if you pass her in the hall or see her in the bathroom, you are not even to look at her. She’s dead to you. Understand?”

  Anna thought about explaining that it would be a bit difficult for Margaret to be dead to her since there was a reasonable chance on any given morning that she’d encounter Margaret at her breakfast table, drinking her father’s coffee. Then she thought better of it. Then she thought about declining this offer—whatever it was. She couldn’t imagine why Mr.
Sheppard had intervened on her behalf.

  The old Anna Percy would have certainly declined. She could only imagine what her mother would think of crass Clark Sheppard: he might wear a three-thousand-dollar suit, but that didn’t change the lack of class of the man inside it.

  Screw it, Anna thought.

  “Yes sir,” she said brightly. She snuck a final look at Margaret. Her demeanor hadn’t changed, but her eyes were flecked with rage—not at Anna, but at Clark. Clearly she had been out-manipulated by Cammie’s father in some arcane game of intra-office politics.

  “See me in my office in ten minutes, Anna. It’s the biggest one, on the corner. This meeting is over.”

  When Anna approached the corner that held Clark’s office, his assistant, Gerard, told her it was okay to enter the inner sanctum. Gerard was in his twenties, an obvious athlete with extremely broad shoulders. He wore a white shirt and red tie.

  Anna opened the door. Clark was in a huge black chair behind his desk—a sleek metal-and-glass number—gabbing away into his telephone headpiece. On the tabletop were two multiple-extension telephones plus a flat-screen computer monitor and a keyboard. One entire wall of the office was lined with television sets, DVD players, and audio equipment as well as a stack of scripts that went from floor to ceiling. He motioned for Anna to come in and sit down. She did, taking a seat on the lowest couch in the history of low, buttery leather couches. Behind Clark and to her left were more of those floor-to-ceiling wall windows.

  “Well, I don’t give a good goddamn what Quentin thinks or how much Quentin believes that my client would want to work with him,” Clark bellowed into the tiny microphone. “Her quote is fifteen mil, it’s always fifteen mil, it’s always gonna be fifteen mil, but if you piss me off any more, it’s gonna be twenty mil. If Quentin can’t get your goddamn studio to write a check for fifteen mil, he can call Madonna. I hear she’s always available!”

  He slammed down the phone and then smiled up at Anna. “Studios,” he said lightly. “The guys in business affairs are all masochists. Otherwise they’d quit after their first conversation with me. So, tell me about you, Anna Percy.” His eyes went to his Rolex. “Fast.”

  Anna gave Clark the quick version of her life—her recent move from Manhattan to Beverly Hills, that she was attending high school here, and that her father and Margaret were seeing each other. She figured that if she didn’t tell him, he’d find out anyway, so better for him to hear it from her.

  “Where’d you go to school in Manhattan?”

  “Trinity.”

  “Where do you go here?”

  “Beverly Hills High School.”

  Clark smiled thinly. “You know my daughter?” He turned around a photograph of Cammie that was at least three years old.

  Details would be counterproductive. Anna merely said, “Yes.”

  “You friends?”

  “We know some of the same people, I think,” Anna said carefully.

  “Cammie wants your gig tomorrow, it’s hers. But she doesn’t want it. She never wanted it, and she’ll never want it. No interest in the business. So, Anna Percy, you watch a lot of TV?”

  “No.”

  “Good answer. Which means you’ve never heard of Hermosa Beach. Teen-oriented soap kinda thing. Beverly Hills 90210 on a beach meets Upstairs, Downstairs. Rich kids and the poor help, that kinda thing. You know those shows?”

  Anna shook her head. Clark just reached for a script on his desk and handed it to Anna. There was a noise in the doorway. Anna looked up.

  There stood Cammie Sheppard, looking as gorgeous as Cammie always looked but also, at the moment, more than shocked to find Anna in her father’s office. “Hi, Anna,” she said smoothly. “How nice to see you.”

  Which, Anna knew, actually translated to: Die, bitch. But Anna smiled politely anyway.

  Clark went to the door, took his daughter by the arm, and apparently spoke to her outside. Then Clark returned and closed the door behind him. “Where was I?”

  “Hermosa Beach,” Anna reminded.

  “Right.” Clark paced as he spoke. “Anyway, the show just started shooting. Our agency is as involved in the production as the network that will air it. It premieres in two weeks, and don’t listen to the good buzz on the street, because right now it’s in deep shit. Studio and network can’t agree on what to do. Assholes. All of ’em. So you’re gonna spend a lot of time on H. B. Got it?”

  Anna’s head was swimming. “I do have one question, Mr. Sheppard.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why me? There have got to be a thousand people in this city more qualified to work with you on this.”

  “Any kid who can stand toe to toe with Margaret Cunningham has cojones. I like cojones. You never raised your voice, but you held your own. Plus you get brownie points for the pedigree. Your looks don’t hurt, either.”

  Anna couldn’t quite decide if this was a compliment or an insult.

  “What about what Margaret said in there?” Anna wondered aloud. “She said that me being fired was a group decision.”

  “It was,” Clark said. “Then I changed my mind. So you remember what I said about Margaret. She’s dead to you. You fuck up, you’re out. Leave your address with my assistant, and I’ll send over the show bible. Clear your weekend. We’re going to be busy.” Anna could see his foot tapping the floor under his desk, a clear sign that he was ready for her to leave his office.

  She stood—the couch so low that getting to one’s feet was more easily said than done—shook Clark’s hand, and said she was looking forward to working with him. By the time she left the office, he was already barking commands to Gerard.

  Anna looked both ways when she got outside his door, thoroughly prepared for a confrontation with Cammie. Fortunately she wasn’t around.

  “Anna!” Margaret headed in her direction. “Anna, can you stop in my office before you go?”

  She’s dead to you. Clark’s words came back to her. Maybe she’d call Margaret from home to let her know that she really didn’t have any hard feelings. But right now Anna knew that Clark Sheppard might be watching her. So as she passed Margaret, she kept her eyes fixed on the carpet.

  Welcome to Hollywood.

  Minor Players

  Table 8 on Melrose Avenue was the hottest new restaurant in Los Angeles. Upstairs was a tattoo parlor, where local hipsters and daring girls from Lakewood came to get painted and pierced. Downstairs from the parlor was Table 8, the “it” place of the moment, where it was impossible for anyone—tattooed or tattoo-free—to get a reservation.

  But Samantha Sharpe wasn’t anyone. She was the daughter of the best-loved movie star in the world, Jackson Sharpe. Her name, associated with a place or a product and read in the supermarket tabloids by the unwashed masses, guaranteed popularity.

  At four in the afternoon she’d had her father’s assistant, Kiki, call Table 8 to say that Sam Sharpe wanted to book a table for two that evening, in the back. At two minutes after four Sam had her reservation.

  The owners of Table 8 were no dummies. They knew that by March, their restaurant would be toast with insiders who’d already moved on to the Next Big Thing. They’d need tourists and diners from Van Nuys and Encino to survive. Giving Sam Sharpe a table today ensured that there would be customers tomorrow.

  It seemed to Sam that trying to pick up Adam Flood on the rebound from Anna Percy was the right thing to do. After all, Anna and Adam had met at her own father’s wedding when Anna had shown up on Ben’s arm as his mystery date. So, actually, Sam was responsible for their having met in the first place. The least she could do was take Adam out for a nice dinner and try and seduce him.

  As for Anna being back with Ben, Sam knew it was true because Ben had called her to tell her so. That day at school she and her friends Cammie Sheppard and Dee Young had gone to their favorite place at Westside Pavilion for sushi (although Beverly Hills High hired cooks straight out of the California Culinary Academy, there was just something so ick about e
ating in your high-school cafeteria). When Ben had telephoned, Sam didn’t let on to Cammie and Dee who she was talking with. Since they’d simultaneously been on their own cells, they hadn’t asked.

  Ben couched the call as a thank-you, since Sam was the one who’d told him that Anna had escaped to the Montecito Inn in Santa Barbara. Ben had followed Anna there. Crashing waves, passionate kisses, fade to black.

  A hot guy Sam recognized from an underwear billboard walked by her table on his way to the men’s room. She immediately sucked in her stomach and tossed her hundred-dollar blowout—plus two thousand dollars’ worth of hair extensions—saucily off her shoulders. She was wearing a new Plein Sud electric blue silk shirt with Fini black pants and her favorite black patent leather, stiletto-heeled Jimmy Choo boots. Her makeup was, as always, perfect. But Sam knew that in spite of the thousands she spent on upkeep and maintenance, she was a long way from a ten on the Beverly Hills Hot-or-Not scale. She’d gotten her too-wide nose done, and there was an implant in her naturally receding chin. But there was nothing she could do about her fire-hydrant calves and fat ankles. Sam wasn’t even a nine. You couldn’t be a nine if your pants size was eight.

  The hot guy looked right through Sam. Shit. She decided he was gay and sipped her spring water with mint just for something to do.

  Adam was late. While she waited, she felt ambivalent about recent developments. A few days ago she’d thought she wanted Anna. Now that Adam was available, she thought she might want him. Her famous psychiatrist, Dr. Fred, had suggested that Sam was confusing the intimacy of true friendship with the intimacy of sexual love. Sam had no idea. Though she’d had many friends and more than her share of sex, she hadn’t had the intimacy part. Ever. With anyone. Maybe she was just acting on the possibility that Adam or Anna was capable of offering this.

  “Hey, Sam. Sorry I’m late.” Adam kissed her cheek before sliding into his seat.

  Sam smiled. There was something so appealing about Adam. He’d moved with his family to Beverly Hills from Michigan and was probably the most decent guy on the West Coast. That he was offbeat-Ben-Stiller-but-taller, cute, and charming kept him in the margins of the BHH A-list, extra points added because he didn’t care about being on it.