Zoey Dean - Back in Black

Copyright 2005 by Alloy Entertainment

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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 2005

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: 978-0-316-04158-4

If you have to ask, you'll 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

HEART OF GLASS

And keep your eye out for BEAUTIFUL STRANGER, coming September 2007.

HOW FAR WILL ONE GIRL GO TO BECOME

the it girl

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

the it girl

notorious

reckless

unforgettable

And keep your eye out for Lucky, coming November 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

HEART OF GLASS

If you like THE A-LIST, you may also enjoy:

Bass Ackwards and Belly Up by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain

Secrets of My Hollywood Life by Jen Calonita

Haters by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

and keep your eye out for Betwixt by Tara Bray Smith, coming October 2007

For Princess Roz and Princess Bella

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

Elizabeth Taylor

W elcome to the Academy Awards, Samantha Sharpe told her friend Anna Percy. She gestured with a flourish toward the endless red carpet that led to the front of the palatial Kodak Theatre. Or, as I like to call it, The Young and the Desperate.

They don't look desperate, Anna observed, taking in the paparazzi snapping photos of the early arrivals, the reporters shoving microphones into the practiced smiles of perfectly coiffed celebrities. From bleachers on both sides of the carpet, fans who'd camped out for days to get seats waited with anticipation for their favorites.

But they do look young, and most of them so aren't, Sam replied over the noise. Thus proving that it's all smoke and mirrors.

And plastic surgery, Anna added.

It seemed as if every other person Anna had met since she'd moved to Beverly Hills had had work done, including a lot of her classmates at Beverly Hills High School. None of them admitted it, of course. But showing up after vacation with a different nose (I had a deviated septum; that's the only reason I did it), sudden cleavage (I just developed late), or newly toned former thunder thighs (I'm doing South Beach, plus I found this amazing cream that melts cellulite) was so commonplace as to be banal.

Anna had not been a part of this world for very long. In some ways it was completely different from the tony life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan into which she'd been born and bred. And in other ways it was nearly the same. Plastic surgery abounded on both coasts, certainly: the pressure to look young and thin. But what impressed people on one coast made those on the other either yawn or roll their eyes. For example, in Anna's former world, a gallery opening by an artist no one had discovered yet, or a book reading by an author who had been, say, a former political prisoner, was considered the height of hip. In this new world, such things were barely comprehended. It was all about TV and movies, glitter and glitz. And the pice de rsistance of it all was the Academy Awards.

Sam shook her newly highlighted chestnut hair off her shoulders. Trust me, under the Botox and the couture, they're sweating bulletsat least, they would be if they hadn't had their armpits Botoxed, too.

Anna laughed. No one really does that, do they?

You'd be surprised, Sam confided.

Anna had dined with royalty, but tonight she'd rub elbows with royalty of an entirely different sort, thanks to her friendship with Sam Sharpe. That was how she had come to be strolling the most famous red carpet in the worldthe one laid down on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, the one that led directly into the Kodak Theatreon Oscar night.

Well, Oscar afternoon. Sam had explained it all to Anna as they'd prepared for the event. In order to meet the requirements of international televisionthe world's most important motion-picture awards ceremony was seen by a worldwide audience that reputedly reached a billionthe preshow broadcasts kicked off while the sun was still high in the late winter sky.

That the event was called Oscar night was hardly the most dishonest thing about it. The intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, where the Kodak Theatre was located, was normally a very seedy place, but it had undergone a makeover for the television audience's viewing pleasure. The tarot card reader shops, tattoo parlors, fast-food joints, and Hollywood tchotchke storefronts had been wrapped in enough fresh cotton fabric to make Christo proud. Potted plants and shrubbery had been imported to line the red carpet, along with dozens of oversized replicas (hollow, of coursepeople had to lift the damn things, after allbut correctly proportioned) of the coveted Oscar statue itself. Once the celebrities stepped out of their limousines, they were inside an artificial Oscar world.

Anna gave her friend an encouraging smile. Hey, we're the observers, not the observed, she pointed out. We can relax.

Yeah, right, with all these photographers around? Sam scoffed. And I swear, if my father doesn't win this year, I'm gonna kill someone. That'll make a great picture for tomorrow's Los Angeles Times.

Anna nodded. She had conventional (albeit long-divorced) rich parents by East Coast standardsher father was an investment banker and adviser; her mother came from the oldest of old-money families and mostly spent her time getting to know intimately the young wunderkind artists whose work she loved to acquire. Sam, on the other hand, came from a Hollywood family. Her father was Jackson Sharpe, one of the most beloved movie stars in the world. An action hero in the mold of Harrison Ford but quite a bit younger, Jackson was pure box-office gold. Put him in one of those films where a lot of shit got blown up and the script didn't call for much character development, and a movie studio basically guaranteed itself a franchise.

I should, you know, Sam argued. This is his third nomination. It's getting worse than Martin Scorsese. Of course, the assholes in this town are probably rooting for him to lose.