"ACTING YOUR AGE is overrated!" Mischa shouted. Not that anyone else heard her. The music's bass pulsated like a collective heartbeat throughout the dance floor, where about two hundred people were gyrating and throwing themselves around and screaming for no good reason, other than it was fun. Overhead scanner lights swiveled about desperately, cutting through the darkness. Fluorescent-tube lights adorned the walls, sometimes emitting a strobe effect, which made them all look like they were moving in slow motion as they danced around at top speed and the DJ above the masses orchestrated the whole thing.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4ncspnvRwV
It was sticky-hot and they were wall-to-wall people and Mischa kept thinking, Madonna concert, Madonna concert, but it would have dated her if she'd said anything to the vast majority of the dancers, whose average age was probably twenty-one. The place was huge, the dance floor the principal focus, but there were still plenty of people crammed into the bar and seating areas, where they would have the privilege of dropping almost thirty euros for a bottle of water or a Diet Pepsi. Mix in Marlboros and you'd need a second mortgage.
Mischa would, anyway. There were the jetsetters, the sheikhs, their fellow actors, and assorted robber barons---and their adult children, vibrant and aimless in their ignorant youth. But who was she to talk about them? She was still an ignorant youth.
Someone grabbed Mischa's arm. It was Rihanna. "I'm going to the bar!" she yelled. She had to repeat it twice over the pulsating thump thump of the music----or maybe that was Mischa's own heart beating.
"If you need to sell an organ to buy a drink, make it a kidney," said Mischa. "You've got two of them."
"All right, then," she said, which roughly translated to: "I can't hear a word you're saying."
Mischa thought of following her, but she was having too much fun. She danced back and forth with Nicole Richie and they almost stuck to each other from the sweat. She looked up to the open-air ceiling, through the exposed pipes to the freckles of stars overhead.
Nice night, thought Mischa. This must be an ordinary person's life.
Three songs later, she'd burned off all the calories from Yoshi. Even Nicole Richie was in need of a break. But where the hell was Lindsay?
They danced back to their seats, a semicircle of red leather within which were nestled tiny cocktail tables topped by candles. Rihanna was seated next to a well-heeled man in an expensive suit with a full head of hair and a manicured beard, easy enough on the eyes but more attractive for his carriage, his evident ease with himself. He had his arm over the back of the leather,, and, thus, over Rihanna.
"Who're the hotties?" Nicole Richie said to Mischa in what passed in this place as a whisper, meaning she was practically screaming in the latter's ear.
Another man, wearing a dark suit and white shirt with an open collar, was chatting with Lindsay while he nursed a glass of clear liquid that could have been anything. He was younger and stockier than the guy with Rihanna. An athlete, maybe.
"Hey!" Lindsay grabbed Mischa's hand and pulled the other woman to her. "This is Renaud," she said. "Renaud, meet my famous friends, Mischa Barton, of The O.C., and Nicole Richie, the fashion goddess."
"Enchante," he said in a deep voice, giving each woman the European double-kiss greeting.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwiVnRYzXVN
"He's a race-car driver," Lindsay said. "He raced in the Grand Prix here."333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXgPZYBjQsg
"Really?" said Nicole Richie, her interest piqued.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWQg44jSHOT
Mischa's eyes stole around the two of them to another man in a cream silk shirt and black slacks talking to another woman. His eyes met Mischa's and he managed a seamless departure from his conversation. The next thing she knew, he was extending his hand to her. He was dark and swarthy, a few days' growth of beard on his face, thick dark hair messed in a haphazard style.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFOfNfFAPBj
It took just that long for Mischa's brain to connect the dots, to recognize the face from some of the movies she'd appeared in.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTTR83LTUOc
"Benito McLaughlin," Mischa and the man said simultaneously.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ94AfzqNXAS
"Enchante," then the kiss to each cheek. His cologne was something outdoorsy.333Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDhBaZPM1mS
Mischa felt something warm course through her, and it sure wasn't the bass line of the music. Yeah, she thought. Enchante.
"You're even prettier than you appear on TV," he said to Mischa. "If I may."
It was like a dream. The darkness punctuated by the fluorescent colors. The $1,000 bottle of Cristal on the table. The alcohol numbing one part of Mischa and awakening another. The attention of a "Mr. Right" leading man actor, complete with a barrel chest and a deep voice and piercing blue eyes focused, for the moment, on her.
"You may," said Mischa. Damn right you may.
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