Nina was out in the surf, having a hard time finding the kind of long, slow right-handers she was looking for.
She wasn't there to shred. And the waves weren't right for it that morning anyway. All she wanted was to ride her longboard gracefully, cross-stepping up to the nose until the waves knocked her off.
The beach was quiet. This was the glory of a tiny, exclusive cove, protected on three sides by fifty-foot cliffs. While technically the beach was public, the only people who knew how to get to it were those who had access to private stairs or those willing to hike the jagged coastline and risk high tide.
That morning, Nina was sharing the cove with two teenage girls in neon swimsuits who were sunbathing and reading Jackie Collins and Stephen King.
Since Nina was the only one in the water, she hung out on her board just past the peak, unhurried. As she floated there, the wind chilling her wet skin, the sun crisping her bare shoulders, with her legs dangling in the water, Nina was already getting a small slice of the peace she'd come out here for.
An hour ago, she had been dreading the party. She'd even fantasized about canceling it. But she couldn't do that to Jay, Hud, and Kit. They looked forward to this party every year, talked about it for months afterward.
The party had started out as a wild kegger years ago, a bunch of surfers and skateboarders from around town gathering at the Rivas' house the last Saturday in August. But in the time since, Nina's own fame had risen and she'd married Brandon, garnering even more attention.
With each passing year, the party seemed to attract more and more recognizable people. Actors, pop stars, models, writers, directors, even a few Olympians. Somehow, this once small get- together had become the party to be seen at. If only to be able to say you were there when. When, in 1979, Warren Rhodes and Lisa Crowne got naked in the pool. When, in '81, the supermodels Alma Amador and Georgina Corbyn made out with each other in front of their husbands. When, last year, Bridger Miller and Tuesday Hendricks met for the first time, sharing a joint in Nina's backyard. They got engaged two weeks later and then Tuesday left him at the altar back in May. Now This ran a headline that said, WHY TUESDAY COULDN'T CROSS THAT BRIDGE WITH BRIDGER.
There was no end to the stories people would tell about what happened at the Riva party, some of which Nina wasn't even sure were true.
Supposedly, Louie Davies discovered Alexandra Covington when she was swimming topless in Nina's pool. He cast her as a prostitute in Let 'Em Down Easy and now, two years later, she had an Oscar.
Apparently, at the party back in 1980, Doug Tucker, the new head of Sunset Studios, got plastered and told everyone that he had proof Celia St. James was gay.
Did Nina's neighbor Rob Lowe sing all of "Jack & Diane" with
her other neighbor Emilio Estevez last year in her kitchen?
People claimed so. Nina never knew for sure.
She didn't always catch everything that happened in her own home. Didn't see every person that showed up. She was mostly concerned with whether her brothers and sister had a good time. And they always did.
Last year, Jay and Hud had smoked weed with every member of the Breeze. Kit spent the entire night talking to Violet North up in Nina's bedroom, a week before Violet's debut album hit number one. Since then, Jay and Hud had tickets to the Breeze's shows whenever they wanted. And Kit did not shut up about how cool Violet was for weeks afterward.
So Nina knew she couldn't cancel a party like that. The Rivas might not be like most families, being just the four of them, but they had their traditions. And anyway, there was no good way to cancel a party that never had any invitations. People were coming, whether she wanted them there or not.
She'd even heard from her close friend Tarine, whom she'd met at a Sports Illustrated shoot, that Vaughn Donovan was planning on coming. And Nina had to admit Vaughn Donovan was perhaps the hottest guy she'd ever seen on-screen.
