doesnât like to dance,â Arno said, kind of sarcastically. Liv made a mental note: Her dream man did not like to dance. âHey, whereâd he go anyway?â
Jonathan and David shrugged. âWe should be used to Patch disappearing by now,â Jonathan said.
âIâll dance with you, Liv,â Arno said, stepping forward.
âOh my God!â Liv shrieked, pretending not to hearArnoâs offer. He was cute, too, of course, but she had to keep her eyes on the prize. âLook, you guys, you see that girl in the big movie star glasses over there? I think thatâs Sara-Beth Benny.â She looked at the group, waiting for them to recognize the starlet and be as excited as she was. âYou know, from that old TV show
Mikeâs Princessesâ
do you recognize her?â
âThatâs not her,â Arno said, arching an eyebrow dubiously in the direction of the girl hiding behind the sunglasses. She had a dramatic black bob, and she looked very tiny making her way through the crowd. âI know SBB. And so does David. And thatâs totally not⦠David?â
They all turned toward David, but David had scurried away in the other direction.
âThatâs weird,â Jonathan said. âI think that maybe
is
SBB. No one else could have made David bolt like that.â
âYou know her?â Liv gushed. âShe is like my style icon. Can we meet her?â
Jonathan shrugged. âI guess, if you really want, but donât tell David. Heâs still pretty messed up about how she moved into his parentsâ house and morphed from his girlfriend into his sister.â
âGross,â Liv said, wrinkling her nose. âI still want to meet her, though. Flan, donât you
totally
want to meet her?â
Flan looked like she wasnât sure for a minute, andthen a smile broke through on her face. âOkay,â she said, âI totally want to meet her, too.â
Jonathan smiled, and Liv was pretty sure there was some kind of connection between him and Flan. Liv resolved to give Flan whatever help she needed. That way, once it came out that Liv and Patch were like this hot super couple, Flan and Jonathan could be like their slightly-less-golden-couple friends. âAll right, ladies,â Jonathan said, bringing Liv back down from her Patch fantasy. âBut prepare yourselves. That one has got some real emotional problems.â
âYeah,â Arno said. âSheâs like the most needy person ever, and she apparently will recite whole episodes of that old TV show she was on for anybody who asks. All that stuff about her passing out at weird bars and going to, like, Thailand at the drop of a hat ⦠itâs all true.â
âReally?â Liv said, wishing she knew what Thailand looked like. âThatâs so cool.â
Ava made a face. âThis feels kind of exploitative. Iâm just going to stay here, okay?â she said, like she thought they were all being celebrity whores.
Jonathan looked sort of exasperated or confused or something and then he said, âOkay,â and turned back toward Flan and Liv. They all looked to where Sara-Beth Benny had been, but by then the whole room had shifted. The crowd had parted at the middle, and people were pushing at them to move back from the center.The music had changed, too; DJ Tahoe had been replaced by a quartet of classical musicians playing some very dramatic piece.
Liv turned toward the entryway, and that was when she saw a white horse cantering into the restaurant. The horse had a big pink bow around its neck and on its back was a tall, slender girl with thoroughbred cheekbones and a mane of ash-blond hair rising from her forehead. She was wearing a white eyelet Michael Kors dress that buttoned all the way from the ankle to the bust and had a prairie shirt collar, and she was smiling and waving like a princess.
âOh my God,â Flan said, clapping her hands,