iPhone and started checking her e-mail.
"Teaches tennis."
"Perfect. Sign up for lessons." She popped the phone back in her bag, aimed her empty coffee
cup at a garbage can, and tossed it in. "Two points."
A gold Lexus hybrid convertible pulled up and idled outside of Starbucks. Really, was there
any car they didn't make hybrid anymore?
"But I already know how to play tennis, and anyway, how am I just supposed to--"
Quinn stood up and pivoted around to face me. "Taylor," she asked, a strong note of
impatience in her voice, "since we started this, when have I steered you wrong?" The setting
sun threw a blood red rash into the sky above the Pacific, framing the edges of her coat and
hair with rosy light.
"You haven't," I admitted. And it was true. Quinn had been amazing, and I couldn't imagine
how I was ever going to repay her.
"Right. So do what you want. But just remember what Kylie would do." She picked up her
colorful shopping bags. "The exact same thing." She walked away into the lot, leaving me
alone on the bench. In the distance, the Pacific stretched out toward the horizon, and I sat
quietly, watching the explosion of light above the water. I'd quickly learned that here in L.A.,
no one above the age of twenty actually went to the beach. But now I wondered why. Why live
so close to the ocean and not take a dip?
Slowly I slid my iPhone out of my purse. I Googled and dialed. When you thought about it, it
really was so simple.
"Hi," I said when a woman picked up. "Is this the Beverly Hills Tennis Center? I just wanted
to make an appointment."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next morning, I rubbed a little Neutrogena sunblock into my face and some Dr. Hauschka
SPF 20 lip balm onto my lips, grabbed my old Prince racquet out of my trunk, and made my
way into the Tennis Center. At eight o'clock on a Sunday morning, half of the ten green courts
were deserted, and on at least one of them the players were obviously still recuperating from
the previous night's indulgence.
The morning fog had yet to lift, and a cool breeze blew against my bare legs. My bare, very
white legs. I'd slathered on the Bain de Soleil Deep Dark Self-tanner last night, but apparently it
had done little to take down the glare. And then there was my outfit. I'd imagined walking onto
the court in a cute little tennis dress, à la Maria Sharapova, but sadly there was no athletic gear
in Quinn's bag of hand-me-downs, and I hadn't had time to go shopping. So it was a pair of old
Nike running shorts and a Black Dog Martha's Vineyard shirt that I'd found balled up in my
underwear drawer for me. (If Quinn could see me, she'd gag. But a) she didn't play tennis and
b) she told me she never got out of bed before ten on a weekend.)
In other words, there was very little hope of me seducing Mr. Kylie Arthur, aka Mr. Tennis
Hottie, aka Luke Hansen, today. But the lesson itself was a step in the right direction. Today I'd
aim to be funny and charming, and the next time I came in, I'd add the cute and the sexy. As
best as I possibly could, of course.
He wasn't hard to spot. He had tousled light brown hair that was sort of bleached gold at the
ends--from the sun, of course, not from hairdresser-to-the-stars Ken Paves or whomever--and
his skin was bronze against his tennis whites. He was tall, and his legs were long and
muscular.
I took a deep breath, reminded myself to forget years of tennis lessons (and to stop staring),
and stepped onto the court. He turned around.
"Taylor?" He walked over to me, his strong hand extended. "Hi, I'm Luke."
In the rush of trying to find something to wear and my wrong turn on Santa Monica, I'd never
stopped to think about the most nerve-wracking part of this plan: Luke himself.
Now that he was right in front of me, I could see that his smile was a little crooked, and his
ears stuck out slightly. Actually, he wasn't classically good-looking at all, and for a moment I
was surprised Kylie would even go for him in the first place. But there was something
decidedly striking about him, and suddenly my whole body felt as taut as the strings on my
racquet.
and then catching it.
"Pretty much." My palms were starting to sweat, even though it really wasn't that warm out.
Maybe sucking at tennis wouldn't be so hard after all. "I've taken lessons before, though."
"I can tell. That racquet of yours is pretty serious," he pointed out.
I'd figured he'd notice my 1200 power-level Prince Ozone--a gift from my parents for my last
year on the team in high school--and so I had my lie ready. "It's my roommate's," I chirped. "Is
it a really good one or something?"
Luke smiled. He didn't have perfectly straight teeth, and actually mine were whiter than his,
thanks to Crest Whitestrips--an attempt to negate the effects of a lifetime of Diet Coke
consumed over the last few months. Still, I felt dazzled, as if I were watching a Colgate
commercial. "It's pretty nice," he said. "Why don't we hit a few? I'll get a look at some of your
strokes, and we'll take it from there."
He hopped the net and dashed to the other side. "We'll start with forehands," he called, drawing
back his racquet. "You ready?"
I nodded again, and he sent a ball flying over the net. Before I could stop myself, I hit the ball
in the center of my racquet and sent it whizzing past him into the advantage court, where it just
kissed the baseline.
Luke gazed back from the ball to me, taken aback. "You sure you're just a beginner?"
"Wow!" I said. "Must be beginner's luck."
"Uh-huh," he said in a teasing voice. "Let's try a few more."
For a second I thought he might be onto me--maybe women tried to fake cluelessness in front
of him all the time. But he just grabbed another ball from his pocket and sent it flying over the
net.
A few courts over from us, four fortysomething women wearing pristine white dresses played
a doubles match. The melodic thwap-thwap of tennis balls hitting the rackets' sweet spots lulled
me into a familiar rhythm.
As we hit more ground strokes and then volleys, I made sure to throw in as many mistakes as I
could remember: clumsy foot-work, bad follow-through, open-faced racquet. Luke stopped and
gently corrected me each time until, during a backhand volley, he ran around the net to check
my grip.
"Oh yeah, here we go," he said, placing his hand on my wrist. "The eastern is here," he said,
gently moving my wrist over. His hands were warm and firm. "There. Feel that?"
I held my breath and hoped he would keep adjusting my grip. The sun was starting to reach its
highest point in the sky, and my body felt warm all over.
"And then when you hit, it's like this," he said, snapping my wrist back and forth. "Feel that?"
You have no idea, I thought. I was suddenly reminded of weekday afternoons in high school,
waiting for the boys' team to finish practicing so the girls could take the courts. We'd sit on the
benches, quietly doing our homework until we got bored and instead decided to distract the
boys and make them double-fault. It always worked. Now if only I could remember my
distraction techniques.
"So i
t's like a stop sign when you hit," he said, holding my arm out in front of me. "Like you're
just stopping the ball." His hand curled around my bicep.
"Why aren't you an actor?" I blurted out.
He blushed. "Excuse me?"
"I said--oh, I'm sorry. I just meant... you're just so... I don't know... it seems like everybody
here is, but you really seem like you'd have good stage presence." So much for funny and
charming, I thought. Good one, Henning.
Luke took a step away from me, looked down at the green surface of the court, and ran his
hands through his hair. It was then that I realized that I had embarrassed him.
"Thanks, but believe me, Pirates of Penzance in junior high was enough for me. And for my
parents." He grinned wryly. "Luckily I had something else to fall back on."
"Well, you're very good at what you do," I said. I wanted to pay him a compliment he'd enjoy-and also it was true. It was easy to see how patient he'd be with true beginners.
"Thanks," he said. He spun his racquet on the tip of its head. "What do you do?"
This lie too I had prepared in advance. Today I was Magnolia, and Magnolia was me. "I own a
dog-sitting business. And I do a little personal grooming on the side."
Luke raised his eyebrows and smiled. "That's interesting. I thought you were going to say
something in entertainment."
I gave him my best blank stare. "What do you mean? Was it my acting comment? I'm sorry
about that."
"Really, it's okay. I guess living here, after a while, you start to jump to conclusions," he
explained. "It's funny. I moved out here thinking L.A. would be just what you see on TV. Fake
boobs, fake blondes, dudes with hair implants wearing silk shirts. I mean, coming from
Virginia, that's what you expect. But most of the people I've met here are great. Maybe it's
because they're all from somewhere else," he said. He pushed his Oakleys on top of his head
and looked at me with his intense blue eyes. "Even the ones I know in entertainment, some of
them are pretty solid, you know?"
"Um, have you spent time with any agents lately?" I challenged. "Because they would probably
steal your dog, turn it into steaks, and then invite you over for a barbecue." I stabbed my
racquet onto the court for emphasis.
Luke laughed, and my heart thumped hard against my chest. "Okay, they're not all sane. But
my girlfriend is, and she works at a studio."
I flipped my bangs out of my eyes. Less than two minutes into the conversation, and he'd
already brought up Kylie. Not a good sign.
"She's not interested in that Hollywood stuff," he went on, pinching the strings of his racquet.
"I mean, she just wants to make really great movies. I never thought I'd meet someone so... I
don't know, cool, I guess. Just really cool."
From the dreamy smile on his face, I learned everything I needed to know. Kylie had Luke
good and whipped, and even in the cute little tennis dress that I was going to immediately go
buy, I was going to have a hard time catching his eye. I wondered what sort of evil spell she'd
cast over him that would make him so blind to her deviousness. And where she kept her evilspell book.
"Well, that's sweet," I said limply. "I'm sure she feels lucky too."
I swatted a stray ball across the net in defeat. The injustice of it all was really too much. There
was no way that Kylie had any idea how lucky she was. Luke was sweet, modest, and freakily
normal. I could imagine him barbecuing in the backyard with my dad, and then challenging my
mom to a game of badminton.
Which meant that he and Kylie couldn't have been more wrong for each other. Except for the
fact that sweet, modest guys always seemed to fall for the mean girls. It was practically one of
the Ten Commandments of Dating.
"So what about you?" he asked, watching the ball I'd hit roll away into a corner of the hard
courts. A tanned, fit-looking dad helped his son hit it back to us. "You have a boyfriend?"
Luke had put his sunglasses on, so I couldn't look him in the eye. "No, not right now. It's hard
to meet normal guys out here." I thought of Mark Lyder with a small shiver.
"Yeah," he said noncommittally. "I'm sure." Then he looked at me and smiled, a crooked but
encouraging one. "Let's try that new and improved grip, okay? You're going to see a big
difference, I promise."
He jogged away to the far side of the net, giving me another glimpse of his toned calves. As I
stood waiting for him to serve, I felt a nagging sense of defeat. I had not been charming or
funny, and I certainly hadn't been sexy. I tugged on my raggedy old shorts and held my racquet
like the beginner he thought I was. At least he bought my lies, I told myself. I may be a bad
seductress, but I'm not a horrible actress.
"And what about the movie stars?" I called out to Luke. "They're not solid! I heard Catherine
Zeta-Jones uses a face mask made out of kitten placentas and that Owen Wilson refuses to put
on clothes before six p.m.!"
Luke sent a yellow ball flying toward me. "You're funny, Taylor," he said.
I smiled a little tiny smile. He thought I was funny. Next time I just had to add the charm and
sex appeal. One down, two to go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Oh, hey you! How was Vegas?"
I watched Kylie make her entrance into the office, which was by now choreographed to
perfection: BlackBerry glued to her ear, rapturous smile on her face, enormous Kooba bag
flung to the ground as she slid into her chair and swiveled toward the window. All while
pretending I wasn't sitting four feet away.
"Oh my God, you are so gross, " Kylie said loudly to the window. "No!" she shrieked. " No!
Shut up! Shut up! "
My right knee began to jerk uncontrollably under my desk. I wrapped my fingers around a
pencil, considered breaking it, and then instead wrote, under Bad Things: Kylie on BlackBerry
sounds like cross between Valley girl and squealing piglet.
"Oh my God, Troy," she gasped after a long peal of laughter. "You are too funny."
Ever since the baby shower, Kylie had unleashed a new and surprisingly effective tactic: act as
if you've already won. Iris had so far refrained from making any kind of announcement, but as
far as Kylie was concerned, she was already promoted. From nine-thirty on Monday morning,
when Kylie walked into the office declaring, "Of course we can discuss final cut!" into her
phone, to now, Tuesday afternoon, as she shrieked with sycophantic giggles, Kylie played the
part of Metronome's newest junior creative exec. She spoke to Troy's agent about rewrites and
plot points and deal memos. She went to meetings with junior production executives across the
lot. She spent her lunches having meetings in the green leather booths at the Grill.
And not once did she acknowledge me, verbally or otherwise. Though the other assistants
continued to drop by her desk to trade gossip, it was as if I were so trivial, so unimportant, that
I had frankly ceased to exist.
I pretended to type an e-mail while I listened to Kylie finish her call. "We are totally doing
karaoke this weekend," she announced giddily. "And you are so singing Bon Jovi, it's not even
funny."
I gritted my teeth and drew a little picture of Kylie's face and then put a big X through it. If
Luke could see his girlfriend now! I had another lesson with him tomorrow,
and there was a
part of me that wondered why I'd made it. Luke was clearly in love with this skinny phony in
her Celine dress, and so, as deluded as the poor guy was, my hopes of seducing him were faint
at best. But I'd enjoyed my lesson on Sunday, and there were worse ways to spend an hour
than getting some exercise on the court. At least I could work on my serve.
"I'll talk to you later," Kylie cooed into her BlackBerry. "You are sooo bad."
I got up and went to the kitchen, where I found Julissa on a step stool, one hand thrust into the
upper cabinets. While the rest of Metronome was glossy and chic, the kitchen, like all the
rooms our hotshot clients never saw, was desperately in need of an upgrade. The checkered
floor reminded me of my high school cafeteria, and the hinges on all the cabinets creaked.
There wasn't even an ice machine.
"Do you know who keeps hiding the candy?" she asked, groping around blindly in the
disorganized cabinet.
"I think it's Lisa Amorosi. She's trying to stay on Tom's diet. You know, with those sludgecolored smoothies he's always drinking in staff meetings? Now she's having them too."
"Gross," Julissa said. Then she hollered, "Yes!" and produced a basket of Hershey's Christmas
Kisses and minibags of M&M's.
"I can't take it anymore in there," I sighed. "I'm going to do something desperate."
"You mean Ms. Michael Eisner?" Julissa rolled her eyes toward Kylie's desk. "Well, you won't
have to listen to it long. They're making the announcement on Friday," she said casually and
proceeded to rip open a brown packet of M&M's with her teeth.
"What?" I dropped the Diet Coke I'd been reaching for in surprise. It rolled across the floor and
nestled in the dark space under the cabinets.
"That's what I heard." Julissa popped a handful of candy into her mouth. "Troy and his people
sign their contracts tomorrow at some big lunch meeting, and then Iris is going to make it
official."
"Shit." I picked up the can and popped the top, even though I knew it would probably spray
me. And it did: Diet Coke drops rained onto my cute little Marni cardigan. "Shit again," I
hissed. But really, who cared? It was black. And it was the least of my problems.
"So when you get promoted to first assistant, they'll need to fill your spot, so"--Julissa fidgeted