I wrinkled my nose. “That’s disgusting. How do people even get stuff like that?”
“Maids,” said Dakota, like I was stupid.
Scout walked over and plucked the brush from Dakota’s hand, examining the worn handle. “You’re saying Marilyn Monre once held this? Morbid.” She ran the brush through her sister’s long blond hair. “It’s all make-believe, isn’t it, darling?” she quoted in a breathy Marilyn voice.
“Ew.” Georgia pushed her away. “Dead woman DNA.”
Dakota grabbed the brush back, unzipped her sleek Prada purse, and shoved it inside. “It’s a gift from my dad, not a toy, you assholes.” She pulled out a small orange prescription bottle and made a show of twisting off the cap.
Emmy’s eyes lit up. She spun from the mirror and thrust out her hand. “Give me one.”
“What are those?” I asked.
“Something to help me relax.” Dakota shook out two pills and handed one to Emmy. “Which I need now, thanks to all of you.”
“Like sedatives?” I pressed. “Where’d you get them?”
“From home, Nancy Drew. Relax.”
Georgia slid off the sink. “Alden doesn’t have those, does he?”
“Jesus. You’re all a bunch of narcs. I found them in the pool house, okay?” Dakota swallowed her pill dry. “They’re obviously my mom’s.”
“Someone’sworried Alden’s a creep with a stash of roofies,” said Scout, tickling Georgia’s back. Georgia swatted her away.
Dakota’s face turned bright red. “He is not.”
I rolled out a strip of paper towels and dried my hands. “He’s literally waiting for Georgia right outside the bathroom. Is that not a little creepy?”
“He’s just a little awkward,” Dakota said. “It’s not his fault.”
“Oh my god, I just got the best idea.” Emmy held up her white pill. “We should put this in Mallory’s drink.”
Georgia crossed her arms. “Don’t be gross, Emmy.”
But a smile spread over Dakota’s pale face. “She deserves it.”
“Someone will have to carry her out of the bar,” Emmy cackled. “All the paparazzi will get pictures of her passed out like a drunk fool. Wehaveto do it.”
Dakota and Emmy were still giggling by the time we left the bathroom. Sure enough, Alden was waiting for us in the hall, hands stuck deep in his pockets. Scout and I tried not to laugh at his hangdog expression. Georgia and her lovesick puppy.
At the bar, we ordered a round of Pabst Blue Ribbons because they were on sale for two dollars a can, then leaned back and surveyed the scene. The club had just opened in Westwood, and the owners had spent a ton of money touting it as the next big thing in LA nightlife, a scam that had clearly worked on us. The place was crawling with fresh-faced kids who looked well under eighteen. “We’ve been lied to,” Scout declared, taking a long pull of beer.
“How were we supposed to know?” Being new to LA and an actor was humiliatingly like being back in high school, on the outskirts of the cool clique, trying to figure out how to show up at the same parties. That was not who Scout and I had ever been—it felt unnatural.
Speaking of high school. I watched Emmy and Dakota make their way to the roped-off VIP section, where they’d been cruelly rebuffed earlier. A beautiful brunette who was the spitting image of her famous mother danced on a sunken velvet couch, the clear princess of the VIP. That had to be Mallory Martin, uberslut.
“Should we intervene?” I asked Scout, as Emmy snuck under the velvet rope.
She gave me a dramatic eye roll. “In Fast Times at Archer High? Gag me.”
We’d just finished our first round and moved on to our second when strong arms suddenly lifted and spun me, and then I was staring at my boyfriend’s broad, beaming smile. “You made it! I thought you were studying?”
Brooks buried his face in my hair. “I missed you.”
“You just stopped studying at midnight?” Georgia asked, PBR close to her mouth. “Remind me never to go to law school.”
Brooks dropped me onto my toes and tucked his hair behind his ears. In an old flannel and his boxy reading glasses, he was dressed for the library, not the club. “Yeah, I seem to have this crazy work ethic lately.” He grinned at me. “The urge to graduate top of my class and make a good living to support a family.” He drew me into his side. “Don’t know where that came from.”
