Zoey Dean - American Beauty

Copyright 2006 by Alloy Entertainment

All rights reserved.

Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group, USA

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at hachettebookgroupusa.com

First eBook Edition: September 2006

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-04162-1

If you have to ask, youll never be on

THE A-LIST

Be sure to read all the novels in the New York Times bestselling

A-LIST series

THE A-LIST

GIRLS ON FILM

BLONDE AMBITION

TALL COOL ONE

BACK IN BLACK

SOME LIKE IT HOT

AMERICAN BEAUTY

And keep your eye out for the eighth novel, coming July 2007.

Be sure to read all the novels in the #1 New York Times bestselling GOSSIP GIRL series

Gossip Girl

You Know You Love Me

All I Want Is Everything

Because Im Worth It

I Like It Like That

Youre The One That I Want

Nobody Does It Better

Nothing Can Keep Us Together

Only In Your Dreams

Would I Lie to You

And keep you eye out for the eleventh novel, coming May 2007.

A-List novels by Zoey Dean:

THE A-LIST

GIRLS ON FILM

BLONDE AMBITION

TALL COOL ONE

BACK IN BLACK

SOME LIKE IT HOT

AMERICAN BEAUTY

To Lynn Weingarten and Cindy Eagan, without whom Id have much less time to shop.

Hope and curiosity about the future seemed better than guarantees. The unknown was always so attractive to me and still is.

Hedy Lamarr

A nna Percy, you are a traitor to all that is good and holy. And to Manhattan

Anna Percy smiled. Cynthia Baltres might be living in the intellectual mecca known as New York City, and Anna might now be living in the anti-intellectual sun-dappled overindulgent splendor of Beverly Hills. But whether there were three thousand miles or three blocks between them, it didnt matter. Cyn was still her best friendone who could let fly with a friendly insult the way other uptown girls tossed off skimpy two-ply cashmere.

Jealousy is oozing through my phone, Cyn, Anna teased, wriggling the discreet earpiece from her Motorola E815s headset to a more comfortable position. Her pearl-gray Lexus powered down Wilshire Boulevard; the Santa Monica mountains stood sentry to the north. Anna had just informed Cyn that she was driving to a pregraduation party aboard her friend Samantha Sharpes yacht. Cyn had just informed Anna that she was stuck in the NYU library researching a final paper on pop culture references to the French Revolution and had also just admitted that a tiny part of her was actually enjoying working on it. Anyway, what are you doing talking to me? Youre in a library.

She turned left on Sawtelle, as Sams directions had indicated. The neighborhood instantly got seedierfancy buildings were replaced by low-priced Mexican restaurants, tire dealers, and the occasional strip club advertised by a dilapidated neon sign.

What are they going to do, throw me out? Cyn asked rhetorically. The new research wing will be named for Uncle Georgie, who just left them a mint. The Times obit said he died from a heart attack, but the whole family knows it was actually Well, lets just say he had a nasty habit of picking up boy-girls near the Holland Tunnel.

Diseased cross-dressing prostitutes seemed light years away from Annas current life. Yes, she loved New York. It was officially her home, but a lot could be said for La La Land, despite the squalor of Sawtelle Boulevard. She smiled as she passed a red Prius with a surfboard sticking out the rear window whose twenty-something blond driver was talking on her cell, applying lip gloss, and allegedly keeping an eye on the road all at the same time. There were some things in lifecommuter-friendly transvestite hookersthat could only be found in New York. There were otherstriple-tasking Prius-driving surf bunniesthat existed only in L.A.

When do you guys graduate? Anna asked, making a conscious effort to pay more attention to the road.

Two weeks.

Mine is next Friday. It feels surreal, doesnt it? This huge rite of passage

Oh please, Cyn scoffed. This is not some ancient John Hughes flick; its not such a big deal.

When they were in eighth grade, Cyn had rented all the John Hughes movies for Anna in an effort to broaden her friends cultural horizons beyond the nineteenth-century British fiction with which she was already enamored. Theyd watched The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, and their all-time favorite, Pretty in Pink. For a few days after that one, theyd both dressed like Molly Ringwald as the lead character, Andie Walsh in quirky layers of lace, mismatched fabrics, and multiple shades of pink.

Ill tell you what graduation really is, Cyn continued. Intermission before we can get on with our real lives. Finally.

Anna smiled ruefully. In typical Cyn fashion, her friend had nailed the truth of the matter. Though loath to admit it, Anna had actually switched time zones and moved in with her father several months ago to be more like Cyn: wild, fearless, and sexy. Admittedly, the plan hadnt gone smoothly. Sometimes Anna wondered if the wild gene was simply missing from her DNA.

Did you hear about the wait list at Middlebury? Anna asked. Cyns parents had both gone to the prestigious liberal arts college in Vermont, but Cyn hadnt gotten accepted there immediately. Instead, shed been put on the dreaded wait list.

Yes. And no.

Meaning?

Meaning they didnt take me, the fuckers. Cyn went uncharacteristically silent; Anna could picture the sour look on her best friends face. So Ill be going to Colby, which is like Middlebury in Maine. Its okay. Some of my favorite writers went there.

Thats a good school, Anna assured her.

And youre going to Yale. Only six hours away. Anyway, less about dumb-ass next year and more about the party, Cyn went on. Please tell me you took my advice about the outfit.

Anna fingered the skinny strap of her eggshell-colored Egyptian cotton Anna Molinari dress edged in silver scalloped lace that fell below the knees of her long legs. Shed originally planned to wear a pale ice-blue vintage Chanel silk shift straight from her grandmothers armoire, but Cyn had nixed that idea, saying you couldnt wear Chanel silk on a boat. As it is utterly impossible to dry-clean away the smell of dead fish.

Yes, I bought something, Anna replied, stopping for a red light at the corner of Venice Boulevard. Cotton. Happy?

Deliriously. Do you look fantastic in it? No. Of course you do. Next question. Can Ben remove it with his teeth?

Anna burst out laughing. I havent put that to the test. Anyway, he wont be there. He has to work. Ill see him tomorrow, though.

Ben Birnbaum was her very significant other. Theyd randomly met on her flight to Los Angeles the day she was moving, the day before New Years Eve. Since then, theyd been on again, off again, over and over. Ben was back in Los Angeles for summer break after his freshman year at Princeton, and now they were very much on again. And they had the whole summer ahead of them to prove it.