He sauntered off, beyond pleased with himself. Grant looked over the top of his book,
studying Lewis in amazement, like a pink unicorn had just clopped by.
"Holy shit." Grant stood, running over to Kady, Gary, and Amelie. "That was fucking
awesome. Awesomely entertaining."
Gary shook his head. "Thanks for reminding me. I have to call the studio and beg them to use
Hunter again." Amelie's heart leapt at his name. "Hi, Marty," Gary said into his iPhone.
"Tryouts went well. Some, um, confident performers here. But no one quite like Hunter."
"Keep your fingers crossed, Amelie," Kady said, sitting down next to her. She was the only
person on set who knew about Amelie's Hunter crush, since she'd practically set them up, and
had been super-attentive to Amelie--at least as attentive as Kady was capable of being--all day.
"We can only hope."
"So, what you're saying is, Hunter's people know we're in trouble?" Gary's voice quivered. If
Hunter's agents knew they needed him, they'd ask for more money, and they were already on a
shoestring budget. "Fine, but I guarantee he's worth it. I don't think there's a single kid at this
school who can..."
His voice trailed off as he looked past Amelie to something behind her. Amelie swiveled
around to see Jake standing there, his red backpack hanging limply from his shoulder, his lean
frame clad in an orange polo shirt and worn brown cords.
"Hey, um, you ready for some math?" Jake croaked nervously to Amelie, blushing as he
noticed her director--and now her costars--staring at him. He recognized Kady Parker, the
beyond hot girl from Die Twice, a horror movie about girl detectives who raised murderers
from the dead. The director tapped the shoulder of a plump blond woman and gestured at Jake.
The blond woman approvingly clucked her tongue.
"Marty, I'll call you back," Gary said.
The casting director circled Jake in a slow walk. "We might have to take in a couple jackets but
height's the same," she said cryptically.
Kady jumped up from her chair, her blue eyes twinkling. "Gary, Gary, Gary, look.... He's
perfect."
Jake blushed. He had no idea what they were talking about, but if Kady Parker thought he was
perfect... well, he wasn't going to argue.
"Are you here for the tryouts?" The director, apparently named Gary, asked.
"Um, I'm just here to meet Amelie. I'm her tutor," Jake said stupidly, running a hand through
his curls. He felt uncomfortably on display. "Perfect for what, exactly?"
"Oh, um, never mind," Gary said dejectedly. "Amelie, your tutor is here."
Amelie finally got it. They'd been sizing up Jake as their new Tommy Archer. She looked Jake
over impassively, like a casting director would. And Jake, well, he looked like a Tommy
Archer. Like the football player with a hidden talent for writing; like the kind of guy who
would be drawn to a quirky girl like Lizzie Barnett, Kady's character; like a guy who might be a
star on the football field but would still feel the slightest bit awkward meeting his date's parents.
Amelie grinned to herself at the memory of Jake all dressed up to meet her mom on Saturday,
when he'd taken her to Lewis's party.
"Wait," Amelie said, picking up the audition pages and thrusting them at Jake. "Jake, can you
do me a favor?"
"Sure," Jake said, a little too eagerly. He'd had a crush on Amelie from the moment they first
met, but after their ill-fated not-a-date to Lewis Buford's party, he'd been trying to forget he'd
ever liked her. When she'd tried to set up their next tutoring session, he'd resisted the temptation
to call her back all weekend. But then he'd realized: A guy who wasn't hopelessly in love with
his tutor would call her back. So now he was going to shoot for normal. Which was an
improvement over awkward, love-struck freak.
"Read the lines for Tommy," Amelie said, suddenly inspired. Jake was a friend. He was no
Hunter, but working with him could be... okay.
Jake cleared his throat and looked down at his page. "So, um, this is kind of weird. The
basketball trophy is missing. And they say you took it." He lifted his hazel eyes to meet
Amelie's blue ones. He looked at her like he couldn't believe she would steal, or do anything
wrong. Because she wouldn't. Amelie was perfect.
"A basketball trophy?" Amelie read Kady's Lizzie Barnett lines, getting excited. Jake was a
dead-on Tommy Archer. And he didn't even know it. "You jocks are all the same. Why would
I take some symbol of this school's adoration of the meatheaded, patriarchal violent majority? If
you hadn't noticed, I'm an artist. Brass-plated plastic isn't something I collect." Amelie was
enjoying the chance to sass. At least she got to show the crew she could pull off rebellious high
schooler.
Jake threw up his hands in frustration. But he didn't try to lean in, like Rod Stegerson. And he
didn't cup her face in his hands, like Geoff Schaffer. "Give me a chance here, Lizzie," he said,
his eyes boring into hers. "I know you didn't take it. I want to help you." He capped the line by
nodding urgently, his eyes wide.
Kady and Grant were on either side of Gary, each clutching one of his shoulders. "This is the
guy, Gar," Grant said. "Sign him up and let's get this thing done. I have to go shoot A Tale of
Two Cities the third week of October."
"Come on, Gary," Kady said, squeezing Gary's arm as she grinned up at Jake. "He's perfect."
"Perfect for what?" Jake repeated, a little distracted by Kady. She was petite and sort of exoticlooking, with freckles dusting her olive skin, black hair, and inky blue eyes. "Perfect for
what?" Gary repeated, sounding almost amused. "Exactly! Unassuming, yet attractive. A little
bumbling, but graceful. Not overpowering, but still athletic. You just move here from Ohio,
kid?"
A sound resembling a laugh escaped from Jake's throat. "No, I've lived on Bedford Drive my
entire life."
"Okay, that's great. Don't change a thing," Gary said. "Go tutor, and tomorrow, come back and
be our Tommy Archer."
Jake looked up toward the ceiling of the library, scanning the corners for hidden cameras. This
had to be a joke, right? A reality show thing? The older man who stared at him was convincing
as a director, his shirt wrinkled and untucked, a baseball cap askew on his head. Kady Parker
had her arms crossed expectantly over her chest, her smirk friendly, her eyes welcoming. Grant
Isaacson, the dude from Cocked whom all the girls couldn't shut up about, was shaking his
head in amazement, like he wanted to hug Jake, but couldn't because they were two dudes, and
dudes just shook their heads happily. And Amelie, her red curls fanned out behind her, stared
at him with her high-definition blue eyes and mouthed, "Just say yes," a look of affectionate
impatience on her face. It was a face he had a hard time saying no to.
"Um," he stuttered, cringing that he was starting a sentence with "um" for the fiftieth time that
minute. "Okay, I'm in."
Jake considered himself a smart guy--at least when it came to problems with definite solutions.
But he wasn't winning points right now. He'd just agreed to be Tommy Archer in Class Angel.
Had he just solved a problem, or created one?
Amelie jumped up, hugging him, and Kady joined in, her petite frame stronger than it looked.
Grant and the d
irector clapped him on the back.
"We got our guy!" Gary shouted, completely disobeying the library's indoor-voice rule. "We.
Got. Our. Guy! Yes!"
Jake caught sight of his own Holy crap! expression in one of the iMac monitors. This was
really happening. In his head, he heard the booming voice that narrated adventure movie trailers
say, "The math tutor has become... a leading man."
It was like something out of a teen movie. Which, Jake realized, he had better get used to.
THE GHOSTS OF GRUDGES PAST
Ash Gilmour stared at the solitary calzone on his black lacquer dinner plate. To any other guy,
one of the giant meat-and-cheese-filled pockets from Frankie & Johnnie's Pizza would be a
heavenly dinner, but it was his fourth this week. The kitchen was quiet, as usual, the only
sounds the tiny creaks and groans of his Beverly Hills house settling. Toting his half-empty
can of Rock Star across the kitchen, Ash opened the Sub-Zero fridge looking for a vegetable to
complement the mountain of dough. He was greeted with nothing but his own half-filled
takeout containers from the last few days.
He shuffled back to the mahogany kitchen table, setting a fork and knife down on one of the
six red Egyptian cotton place mats that the maid, Zelda, washed every week, even though Ash
was the only one who ate here, and he always sat in the same spot.
It hadn't always been like this.
When his mom and dad were still together, in grade school, and his older sister, Tessa, wasn't
away at college, the kitchen was always buzzing. His mom and dad would playfully argue over
who got the last glass of their favorite pinot noir, his mom making goofy sad puppy dog eyes
and his dad pretending to pull out his short faded gold hair before finally giving in. He could
almost see Tessa sitting across from him, her ash blond hair in the low pigtails she wore from
seventh grade through sophomore year, flipping through a copy of Mental Floss and spitting
out weird facts between bites of dinner.
He forced down another bite of the calzone, crumbs falling onto his faded Ben Sherman Union
Jack sweatshirt. He needed to get out of this ghost house. As he watched a blob of cheese ooze
onto the gleaming black plate, his iPhone sounded its familiar Jack White guitar solo. His dad's
stern face appeared on the digital screen.
"Hello?" Ash answered the phone. "What's up, Dad?" He winced at the enthusiasm apparent in
his voice. He sounded like a lovesick girl who'd been stood up for the prom.
"Ash, I'm in the middle of something, so let's make this quick," his dad's brisk baritone
crackled over the phone.
Ash rolled his eyes. It was just like his dad to call him but then act like Ash was the one
intruding. After the divorce, Gordon had become one of those harried jerks, thanks to a
newfound habit of staying out late, meeting models and starlets and partying with rockers not
that much older than Tessa. The mix CDs he'd so carefully made for Ash, with early cuts from
the bands and artists he was working with at the time, slowed to a trickle and then disappeared
altogether, and his clowning around gave way to a fog of constant grumpiness. But at least
back then he was still company--grunting over the headlines in the L.A. Times, occasionally
instructing Ash to read something about one of his musical prodigies in the Calendar section.
And Tessa was still around then, choosing to finish BHH instead of attending school in
Austin, where their mom lived. Then his dad met and married Moxie, an almost-supermodel
from Russia, and everything changed.
"Are you listening?" Gordon snapped. "We haven't seen each other in a while, huh?"
Like you care, Ash thought, as he said, "No, I guess not."
Last April, his dad had finally married Moxie, who'd just given birth to their twins, Caesar and
Julius, and moved to a fresh new house for his new family in Malibu. Gordon wanted Ash to
move with them and go to school there, but Ash wasn't having it. He had friends at BHH, and
at the time he had Myla. Not to mention her family dinners, where he was a daily guest, and
never felt like an outsider. "Great decision, son, choosing a girl over your family," Gordon had
said. "You can just live here, by yourself, but don't come crawling to me when she dumps
you." Ash had hated his dad for saying it, and from that moment on wanted to prove he didn't
need Gordon for anything. But then Myla went on a three-month trip over the summer and
Ash, with nothing to do, realized how lonely the house could be.
Her trip, at least, was temporary. But now he and Myla were truly over, and the cold reality of
eating takeout alone at a table for six had really started to sink in. He still couldn't sleep right.
Every night, the vision of Myla kissing Lewis fucking Buford refreshed itself in his head.
"Meet me at Spago, at eight, okay?" Gordon said.
Ash toyed with the corner of the stiff place mat. His dad hadn't said, "Meet us," just "Meet
me." Did he really want to have dinner, just the two of them? Ash wondered if his dad had
some kind of birthday surprise in mind, even though he didn't turn eighteen until next week.
"Yeah, sure," Ash said. "Any special reason?"
"We'll talk when you get there," Gordon said. "See you then." Gordon hung up without a
goodbye.
Ash jumped up and tossed his calzone in the trash. He was having a father-son dinner. As he
placed his empty plate in the dishwasher he felt oddly cheered. His dad would never come out
and say he wanted them to be close again. But if Gordon Gilmour was capable of even a minor
reconciliation, then maybe Ash had it in him to forgive and forget.
A few hours later, Ash pulled his 1969 black Camaro up to the front door of Spago, the
incessant beat of The Ooh La Las, his dad's latest musical find, thumping over the sound of
passing cars on Canon Drive. Clicking his iPod off, he checked his hair in the rearview mirror.
Using more gel than he ever had in his entire life, he'd managed to tame his hair off his face, so
it looked a little more dignified. The last time he'd been out with his dad, for a Grammys preparty at the Museum of Modern Art, Ash had worn his hair in its usual floppy style only to
have Gordon chide, right in front of Bruce Springsteen, "Ash, I may work with musicians, but
remember, you're the son of a businessman, not a rock star. Try a little professionalism."
Tonight, he'd made every effort not to let his old man down. He wore a dove gray fitted Hugo
Boss shirt, a gift from Myla that had never left the box, tucked into a pair of charcoal slim-fit
Armani trousers. He slung his jacket, a black narrow blazer with a slight sheen, over his arm as
the valet opened his door and Ash made his way out and into the restaurant.
Spago's interior looked like a geometry lesson gone horribly awry. An obsessive-compulsive
guest could spend hours trying to find all the trapezoids, diamonds, and parallelograms hidden
in the paintings, the furniture, even the ceiling. The décor was mostly unchanged since the
restaurant, historic by L.A. standards, had opened in 1982.
Ash walked directly to the hostess stand, even though he was early. It was seven forty-five, but
he wanted to be here before his father, just to show how important this night was to him.
The hostess, a tall, sharp-featured woman with short, spiky black hair, greeted Ash with a purr.
"May I
help you, sir?"
Ash, noticing many men were wearing jackets, slid his on as he answered. "I'm meeting my
father, Gordon Gilmour," he said. "I'm early, though."
The woman checked the giant reservation book spread open atop the hostess stand. "Mr.
Gilmour's party has already been seated, in the private dining area," she corrected him. Ash
nervously checked the time on his phone. He was definitely early. And what was this about
"Mr. Gilmour's party"? She waved one hand for Ash to follow her, and they cut through the
dining room, past a table of harried-looking agent types all tapping e-mails into their
BlackBerries.
The private room was painted the same bright yellow, but the lights were dimmer, and candles
flickered on each of the dozen tables. A long red felt banquette ran along one wall, and Ash
found Gordon sitting here, surrounded by his minions from his label, More Records. Gordon
was laughing at something his lead A&R guy, Lee Winters, was saying. His bellow seemed to
suck all of the air from the room. Gordon's eyes flickered in Ash's direction, but the way his
father's gaze swept right over him, Ash could have been a busboy.
He stood there dumbly. His dad had said, "Meet me." Not "Come to some boring business
dinner so I can ignore you in front of my staff."
Ash saw his dad's high forehead crinkle above his raised eyebrows. His eyes, a harder brown
than Ash's, scanned his son's neat hair, jacket, and pressed pants. "Everyone, I think you know
my son, Ash," he said, and immediately, the whole table was at attention, the half-dozen guys
in suits rising to clasp Ash's hand tightly and slap him on the back. The two women competed
with their male counterparts for firmer handshakes. Ash sat down, water and a glass of red
wine materializing before him. Next to him was an empty place setting, the wine drained, traces
of red lipstick smudging the rim of the glass. Maybe Moxie was here. He thought he smelled
her heavy rose perfume still swirling in the air.
"How's the car?" Gordon asked, leaning across the table. When he'd moved to Malibu, he'd left
several of his pet cars at the Beverly Hills house, and told Ash he could have one. Ash had
chosen the 1969 Camaro SS not only because its turbo engine took full advantage of rare