Zoey Dean - Heart of Glass

Copyright 2007 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

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First eBook Edition: April 2007

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: 978-0-316-04161-4

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

When people say, Shes got everything, Ive got one answer: I havent had tomorrow.

Elizabeth Taylor

C alculate This! Anna Percy read the title page of the script she was holding. A zany comedy about a socially inept loner who invents a gorgeous female robotic math wizard. Write, Defines a new low in the art of screenwriting, suitable only for fireplace kindling, and move on, her friend Sam Sharpe advised.

Anna and Sam were sprawled on a pale blue couch. To their left, a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows offered a stunning view of white sand beach and softly rolling waves, while the living room itself had been decorated in sea foam and cerulean, as if to bring the ocean itself into the living spaces. Between them on the floor was a huge pile of movie scripts. It was their job to read them all.

That doesnt really seem fair, Anna mused, her back to the windows. I mean, were getting paid to write our evaluation. By your father. Their original plan for the summer had been to work as interns on Sams fathers film, Ben-Hur, a remake of the classic. But when theyd realized that would mean commuting an hour each way to Palmdale to arrive in time for the shooting (which started promptly every morning at 6 A.M.), theyd politely decided to be script readers for Jacksons production company, Action Jackson Productions.

Look, we just graduated from high school and were young and ambitious, so whatever. Reading scripts is just something to do for the summer. And you never know: maybe Ill find the right one that will launch my professional directing career. Who needs film school? Sam scoffed. She swung her feet up onto the couch and stretched out.

Anna knew that Sam wanted to be a director. Not a popcorn, Snakes on a Planetype director, either. A serious director. In fact, Sam had directed a number of student films that were really good. Not only that, her father was Americas Most Beloved Action Hero, Jackson Sharpe, which meant she had both industry access and financial backing should she ever find her Perfect Script. Sam Sharpe was well connected.

Before Anna moved from New York to Beverly Hills this past January to live with her father and finish school at Beverly Hills High School, the film industry was the furthest thing from her mind. She had zero interest in celebrities and red carpet premieres, but living in California and being Sams friend meant that the industryeveryone in Los Angeles called the film and TV business the industrywas the expensive and designer water in which she swam.

But no matter. In the fall, shed be going to Yale, with the intent of studying serious literature. For the next two months, until she headed to New Haven, she could do pretty much whatever she wanted to do. Unfortunately, she hadnt yet figured out exactly what that was.

Sam reached for her iBook and read aloud as she typed in her evaluation of the script shed just finished.

Burnt Toast by Norman Shnorman. Logline: A former bikini model moves to Wyoming, becomes a cook, and falls for the sheriff s quirky, intellectual son. Recommendation: Use script to line bottom of birdcage, then ban Norman Shnorman from film industry for life.

Thats kind of harsh, Sam. You didnt even read the whole thing.

Read ten pages and skimmed the next ninety-seven, which, trust me, is more than Norman deserves. Sam stretched and rubbed the back of her neck. You dont seem to understand how this town works, Anna. Every geek boy who goes to film school writes a screenplay the day after he graduates. And what do they write about? Themselves and their geek-boy fantasies.

Well, if other geek boys grow up to run studios and direct movies, then the scripts might be right up their alley, Anna pointed out, flipping over the title page to Calculate This! and skimming the first page. It says here the brooding loner has dashing good looks.

Thats called geek-boy wishful thinking. Sam pushed her laptop aside. So sad, but probably true. And all the more reason that Im going to be a ground-breaking director. Fuck the geek-boy Hollywood network. She seemed to shift gears as she rose and tugged Anna up from the plush sofa. Weve been at this for hours. Lets ask the cook to fire up some fettuccini Alfredo with shaved trufflesor chili burgers, depending on whether youre in the moodthen walk up the beach, watch the fireworks, and celebrate truth, justice, and the American way. But lets change into something ridiculously hot now so that we dont have to do it before we go meet Eduardo and Caine at House of Blues. Have you seen my flip-flops?

It still felt strange to Anna when someone said Caine Mannings name as if there were an Anna-and-Caineas in, a couple. Probably because shed spent her entire time in Los Angeles as an on-again, off-again part of Anna-and-Ben, as in, Anna and Ben Birnbaum. A couple. Ben Birnbaum. Her first love. Her only love. Her

No. She wasnt going to get caught in that trap. That was then, this was now.

She caught sight of her reflection in the antique, gold-plated mirror that hung over a thick mahogany bookcase filled with movie scripts in the corner of the room and eyed herself quizzically. Straight blond hair, no makeup, broken-in faded Levis and her favorite battered green Calvin Klein T-shirt. She liked what she saw, though she knew she was more New York City chic than Los Angeles lollipop.

Where the hell did I put those flip-flops? Sam dropped to her knees to look under the couch.

Probably wherever you last put them.

Anna smiled. On paper, she and Sam Sharpe were the oddest of friends. Sam was spoiled, popular, and dramaticher grandparents had been strictly working-class Lakewood until Jackson Sharpe found his affinity for the movie camera twenty years earlier, and the money came rolling in. Annas family, on the other hand, had been privileged since the Gilded Age. Sam read scripts. Anna read books. Sam was temperamental. Anna had been raised to be even-tempered. They didnt have a great deal in common. Yet theyd found common ground. What Anna liked best about Samother than the fact that she was really smartwas that she had a huge heart and was fiercely loyal to her friends. Even those friends whom Anna would prefer to have relocatepreferably far, far away.

Besides, she reminded herself, shed come to Los Angeles to shake up her life. Having a great friend like Sam who was steeped in the culturethe peculiar and specific culturethat was twenty-first-century Hollywood was definitely a step outside of Annas usual literate, well-bred box. And that, she had decided long ago, was a very good thing.

Shed made other friends in Los Angeles, too. Guy friends. There was Ben Birnbaum, son of Hollywoods most prominent plastic surgeon to the stars, and a great guy, who unfortunately had a penchant for secrets. And there was Caine Manning, currently of Anna-and-Caine, who was actually a little bit older and who worked for Annas father at the latters investment company. Anna and Ben had been off and on for six months. Anna and Caine had been on for just a few weeks. She was still getting used to it.