| Chapter 1 |
| �Another vodka collins, please�, she sighed and shifted uncomfortably on the thinly padded stool. She fussed with the silvery lilac silk of her Donna Karan cocktail dress, smoothing the folds in a useless attempt to make the wrinkles disappear. She hoped her friends would be there soon - it was cold in the bar and she was sleeveless and already shivering. She glanced at her watch: 9:38 p.m. �Well, that figures,� she murmured to herself and turned to survey the sparse crowd in the lounge for the face of someone she actually knew. She paid for her drink and sipped gingerly, taking special care not to drip on her outrageously expensive frock. She plucked her two-way pager from her handbag and checked the digital display. Alas, still no word from her friends. She sighed again. This is gonna be a long night, she thought, shaking her head slightly. Almost immediately, Lisa and Annie arrived and accosted their best friend at high volume. �Look at you!!! Aaahhhhh!!! Kat, you looked great!� Lisa squealed. Katrina blushed slightly and stood to embrace her friends. �I was hoping you�d get here soon. I�m freaking freezing in this flimsy thing!� �Oh, sweetie, you�ll warm up just as soon as we get around all the hot men! You wanna head straight over to the party now? Or you wanna finish your drink first?� Lisa asked. �Oh, I�m finishing it. I paid eight bucks for it, so I�m drinking it!� She sucked hard on the straw. �Damn, it�s pretty strong, too. � |
| �Drink! Drink! Drink!� Annie taunted. �Drink that �courage in a glass�!� Katrina stuck out her tongue and gave her a raspberry. Annie returned the gesture. She finished her drink quickly, already feeling the alcohol starting to warm her veins. �Whoa. Formerly empty stomach�now full of booze. I�m gonna have quite the pleasant buzz going here any minute, I think.� She took a second to adjust her dress and stabilize her footing before following her friends to the Grand Ballroom. The girls chattered nervously as they made their way to the party, wondering aloud with whom they might be rubbing elbows throughout the rest of the evening. The awful truth was that Katrina felt a little hypocritical about the whole thing, not to mention ultra-conspicuous. She was a nice middle class Republican from Arizona, a real estate secretary. Just your average working class girl with a one-bedroom apartment and a car payment. And here she was, about to walk into a decidedly liberal, celebrity environmentalist fundraiser. Just what the heck was she thinking? She had no business being here. But�she was in Los Angeles visiting Annie and Lisa, and Annie had gone to an awful lot of trouble to secure these invitations�all so Kat might have a chance to meet someone famous. Not just any someone, however. There had been whisperings that Backstreet Boys Kevin Richardson and Nick Carter would be in attendance. She knew she HAD to go. When would she get another chance like this? She�d never even seen them in concert! Well, not the Backstreet Boys, anyway; she did see AJ McLean�s alter ego Johnny NoName a couple of years ago. In fact, that was also Annie�s doing. She�d gotten tickets for the benefit concert and invited Kat to go with her. At the time, Kat didn�t have a clue who or what a Johnny NoName was. After that night, she was hooked. |
| Her friends still didn�t quite understand why this bright, attractive woman in her 30�s would be so giddy about a teenybopper boy band. She had tried to defend her tastes, explaining that they were a �vocal harmony group�, not a boy band. This revelation resulted in an opportunity for her friends tease her even more mercilessly. She gave up trying to persuade them, and Annie and Lisa gave up trying to make Katrina �wake up and smell the Ben Affleck�. �Ok, ladies, this is it!� Annie whispered as she produced the three hard-to-come-by invitations. �Now, let�s get in there and find us some rich movie stars!� The Grand Ballroom was grand, alright. It was also positively teeming with human bodies; so many that the sheer sight of it stole Kat�s breath for a moment. �Everyone have their pagers? Ya know, we could get separated pretty easily in here�� Lisa warned. Annie nodded. Kat groped in her purse, panicked briefly when her fingers didn�t find it immediately, then relaxed once it was in her hand. She, too, nodded demonstrating solidarity. The girls had become willing victims of the electronic age, using their two-way pagers almost as often as their cell phones to keep in touch. They�d made a conscious effort to stay connected after Annie and Lisa moved to L.A. two years before. The girls desperately wanted Kat to join them there�but she claimed she was happy in Scottsdale. She just didn�t want to lose touch with these girls, her best friends since childhood. They were freaks, but she loved them anyway. A handsome late-twenties man approached them almost immediately. Kat sized up the cutie right way, but quickly lost interest when he started talking about his heavy involvement with Greenpeace. It was that she didn�t want to protect the environment, she just didn�t always agree with the politics. Annie drove her nuts with this stuff sometimes. She often wondered how two people from opposite ends of the political spectrum could be so close. She smiled at the thought. |
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