Girls on Film by Zoey Dean Read Free Book Online Page B

CALL ME. PLEASE
.
    —BEN
    Susan read the card over Anna’s shoulder. “Ben who?”
    “A guy I met on the flight from New York.” Anna crumpled up the note and threw it toward her trash basket. Why was Ben making it so difficult for her to do the right thing? If he really cared about her, he’d let her go … wouldn’t he?
    “A guy who sent you like a thousand roses—”
    “That I’m about to have removed by one of the maids.” With studied nonchalance, Anna went to her closet—crushing rose petals all the way—and hung up the jacket.
    “What does he mean, ‘let me make it up to you’?” Susan asked as she brushed rose petals from Anna’s bed so she could plop down on it.
    “It doesn’t matter. He’s a bastard.”
    Susan smiled knowingly. “A hot bastard?”
    “Very,” Anna admitted. “But there’s more to life than that.”
    “Honey, I’ve been locked up for three weeks with about a hundred Twelve Steppers in training. Right now, I can’t think of anything better than a hot bastard.”
    “Not this one. Trust me. Come on, let’s go.”
    “Let’s take my car,” Susan said. “I never get to drive in Manhattan.”
    Downstairs, Anna found the cook and gave her thirty dollars to take the roses to the closest battered-women’s shelter. Then they went out to Susan’s car. They were just pulling out of the driveway when Django turned in. The dark roots of his platinum-bleached hair were showing more and more each day.
    “Whoa, who the hell was that?” Susan asked, craning to get another glimpse.
    “Dad’s driver. He lives in the guest house.”
    “He’s renting it?”
    “I think it’s part of his salary.”
    “Buttoned-up Dad hired a guy who wears rings? On his thumbs?”
    “Dad’s pretty unbuttoned these days,” Anna replied. “Turn left, you’ll head toward Sunset Boulevard. So, how long are you planning to stay?”
    Susan followed her sister’s directions. “I’m playing it by ear. Anyway, let’s do something fun this weekend, okay?”
    “Can’t. I’m writing a short film and going to a spa in Palm Springs to film it.”
    “Since when do
you
write films?”
    “Since now, I guess.”
    “Anna, you don’t even go to the movies. Now, if it was a novel—”
    “This is for school,” Anna explained. “And I go to the movies.”
    “Yeah, if there are subtitles.”
    Anna smiled. She was used to Susan’s ribbing, and she’d missed it. She’d missed
her
. “You should come to the spa with me. It’ll be fun.”
    “How do you know?” Susan’s voice was skeptical.
    “I have a feeling Sam Sharpe doesn’t do boring.”
    “Girl Sam or boy Sam?”
    “Girl Sam. Jackson Sharpe’s daughter.”
    “Cool. I
love
Jackson Sharpe.”
    “So come. Sam says this spa is incredible. Wouldn’t you like a little first-class pampering?”
    “Yeah, actually I would. At Hazelden we had to scrub each other’s toilets. My roommate made Ilsa, She-Wolf of the Nazi SS, look like a pussycat. While I was cleaning, she stood over me with a flipping checklist.”
    Anna was incredulous. “You cleaned toilets?”
    “Toilet,”
Susan corrected. “After the first time, I paid someone else to do it. I mean, come on. I’ve got an eight-digit trust fund. How ludicrous is it to make me pretend to be humble?”
    “I don’t know. You live in the East Village and pretend to be poor,” Anna pointed out.
    “Poor little rich girl, slumming it. I’m a cliché,” Susan admitted.
    “I still don’t understand why you live down there.”
    “Hey, I’m the only girl on Avenue D who has a cleaning lady.” They came to another light, and a silver Porsche Carrera pulled up alongside them. Susan looked over at the driver—a guy in his fifties—and revved the Mustang’s engine. The guy grinned, and Susan winked at him. Anna remembered when her older sister had followed the rules of propriety even better than she had. But that felt like a long, long time ago.
    “I like the people who live downtown