Free Girls on Film by Zoey Dean

swimming laps. Anna joined her.
    “Oh, hi, that was fast,” Dee commented. “Didn’t you like Noah?”
    “He’s fine,” Anna said, not about to go into the details with Dee.
    “I know, but he’s no Ben, right?” Dee put her feet on the bottom of the pool and put her hands over her stomach.
    Anna was not up for this. “You’re not pregnant, Dee.”
    Dee’s gaze wavered. “Well, I’m really, really late. And I’m never late. So if I
am
, it’s Ben’s. So did you talk to him?”
    “Since when?”
    “Since New Year’s.”
    “No.” What was the point of telling Dee the truth?
    “I saw you with him at school today. It’s really bad karma to lie, Anna.”
    Anna was regretting her decision to get in the water. This girl was maddening. “The point is, Ben and I are not together. We went out on one date. That’s all.”
    Dee frowned. “I don’t know whether to believe you.”
    “This is just a guess on my part, Dee, but maybe that’s because no one you hang around with ever tells the truth. In fact, maybe it’s contagious.”
    “Maybe,” Dee agreed. “So you don’t care that he and I hooked up?”
    “No, Dee. I don’t.”
    Whether that was completely true, Anna wasn’t sure. But she started a powerful crawl toward the other end of the pool, doing a perfect kick turn at the far wall. That felt good. What didn’t feel good was what she saw when her head broke the water again. It was Susan, laughing heartily at something that Cammie had just said.
    “Did you bare your soles to each other, Anna?”
    Cammie called out. “Did you play this-little-piggie-went-to-market?”
    Anna reddened. So, Cammie knew about Noah’s little fixation but hadn’t bothered to warn her. Clearly she’d told Susan, though, who was joining in the giggling at her misadventure.
    So much for wild and spontaneous.
    Anna came home two hours later to find her father with his girlfriend, Margaret, on the tufted-silk living-room couch, eating Chinese takeout off Wedgwood china plates that had once belonged to Anna’s great-grandmother.
    “Would you like a plate, Anna?” her father asked. “There’s plenty.”
    “Nice to see you again, Anna,” Margaret added. Once again Anna was struck by the more than passing resemblance that Margaret Cunningham bore to Jane Percy: the same wheat-blond hair, the same tall and slender carriage, the same aristocratic features. Margaret was even wearing a Jane Percy–type outfit: fitted gray trousers and a black three-ply cashmere turtleneck.
    “I had Django drive over to the Sam Woo in Van Nuys and bring it back,” Jonathan explained. “Their curry shrimp is out of this world.”
    “Thanks, but I had a tuna sandwich with Susan.” Anna sat in the antique wing chair opposite the couch.
    “Your sister is
here?
In Los Angeles? She can’t be here.” Anna’s intention to shock him had worked.
    “Well, I just put her in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, so I’d have to say it’s possible.”
    “What about Hazelden?”
    “She checked herself out.”
    “Christ. Of all the stupid, irresponsible—”
    “Jonathan, calm down,” Margaret chastised.
    He swiped a weary hand over his face. “Is she at least sober?”
    Anna nodded. “I think she’s really trying, Dad.”
    “If she was really trying, her ass would still be in rehab!” He threw his balled-up napkin on the table in disgust. “Ask her to come see me, Anna. She and I need to talk.”
    “Pick up the phone and ask her yourself.”
    “You know she’ll hang up on me,” her father said. “The only one who has any influence with her is you.”
    Anna folded her arms. “She’s very angry at you, you know.”
    “Well, I can’t very well do anything about that if she won’t see me, can I?”
    There was silence for a few moments as Anna thought this over and realized that her father made a good point. “Okay,” she conceded. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I don’t know if it’ll make any difference, though. Excuse