Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
As our flight descends, I lean over Emmy at the window seat and watch the Los Angeles ground come up to meet us. It all looks so familiar—the endless sprawl of buildings, the Tic Tac houses in rows, the sapphire-blue swimming pools. It’s late afternoon and the smog hugs the hills.
Everything about our trip to L.A. has fallen smoothly into place.
Three nights ago, Petra and Oliver met for the first time over drinks.
She took us to a dive bar in Garland that they’d both been to before, and they quickly bonded over their love of college football.
And then, as if I weren’t sitting beside them, they decided I am a good secret keeper but a terrible liar.
“The worst.” They smiled in unison.
“Ha ha,” was all I had to add. At which point they both worried they’d careened into hurting my feelings, and I assured them they definitely had not.
Oliver narrowed his eyes. “Well, I guess we’d know if she were lying.”
We all laughed and Petra squeezed my knee.
I could have stayed in the warm glow of the evening for hours.
“I’m sorry, it’s just so exciting to meet Oliver,” she said.
Then, like an expert publicist, she won us over with a new plan for our time in L.A.
After realizing we would still be in Los Angeles for the Fourth of July, Petra decided it would be the perfect time to fly in herself and throw a Dirty Diana party.
“A celebration! We’ll bring L’Wren, Alicia, the whole staff. I’ll invite Vibezz!”
I turned to Oliver, “Two z ’s.” And to Petra, “Why are your eyes lit up like that?”
“It’s perfect. The Vibezz founder wants to collaborate on the Dirty Diana vibrator, but why not bring them on as proper investors? My money is small fry compared to what a true investment could do for you.”
“Are they interested?”
“Their interest is definitely piqued, but they want to meet you.” She spent the next twenty minutes convincing us both that a party would be the perfect venue to woo them.
Petra’s ambition and money had gotten us off the ground, but for Dirty Diana to succeed, we needed help.
As the reality of quitting my job sets in, so does the pressure of making Dirty Diana work—but it’s also thrilling.
On the way home from the bar, we had called Oliver’s parents and told them we had decided to vacation in Los Angeles.
Allen only made one crack—“California? I thought a couple of retirees like you would be headed for Florida”—before insisting Emmy should spend the Fourth of July weekend with them an hour away in Montecito.
They even offered to fly back to Dallas with her so Oliver and I could have a few extra days on our own.
Now, as the plane circles LAX, this kind of falling into place feels too easy. I wait for the first shoe to drop. No. It’s exciting. It’s all exciting. You know this place. The view out the window is familiar.
But so is the dread. It climbs up the back of my throat. The memories of growing up here, of existing on the cusp of something that the world around me insisted was desirable. But L.A. was confusingly ugly to me. Strip malls and expensive things you could look at but not touch.
It was just the two of us, my mother, Ava, and me, and no matter how often we moved apartments, we always lived on the edge of pretty things—at the uglier flat-bottom of famous hills stacked with beautiful homes; in the clothes other people donated, still soaked with their rosy perfume.
I pretended to long for the same pretty things my mother wanted most: money, movie roles, someone to love her.
But I had my own secret list: someone to watch over me and pick me up from school on time.
Someone to tuck me into bed and still be there in the morning.
Someone to ask me what the hell were you thinking?
when I fucked up. I wanted to be grounded by a parent who expected great things of me.
I glance at Emmy’s little body next to mine.
Her big eyes watching out the window. Maybe the way Lorraine Duncan digs her claws into parenting isn’t so bad after all.
Maybe it means someone to make you breakfast and drive you to school and to help you dispel the feeling that you will never be special enough to survive.
Unless, according to my mother, you are famous. Famous for what is less important.
As if reading my mind, Emmy asks, “Will we see Grandma?”
“Grandma is pretty busy these days.”
“Doing what?”
Doing whatever she feels like.
The plane banks, circling the airport. “I wasn’t going to tell you this, but the people I’m here to meet with gave us three tickets to Disneyland. Should we go?”
“Disneyland?” Emmy’s eyes are as wide as her grin. “Yes!”
“You’re using Disney already?” Oliver whispers. “Won’t we need it as some kind of bribe later on?”
“I didn’t plan on using it so soon.”
“I’d like to see her too. Your mom.”
“Mm-hmm. Oliver? Did you know we’re going to Disneyland?”
“Won’t work on me, sorry.” He takes my hand and kisses my fingers. “You have to admit, if she’s not your mom, she’s kind of…fun? Maybe a quick dinner?”
“Maybe,” I say to the sprawl outside the window.
I focus on our itinerary: a day at Disneyland; my meeting with Allison Kidd, Natalie’s producing partner; the Dirty Diana party and a week at Petra’s house in Malibu.
The plane hits a bump and I flinch, squeezing my eyes shut.
When they open, the universe serves me a pick-me-up: A woman, one row up and across from us, is scrolling the Dirty Diana site.
I fight the impulse to take a picture and send it to Alicia.
—
Just before baggage claim, we’re greeted by a chauffeur holding a lit-up sign that reads Diana Wood.
“That’s you!” Emmy squeals.
Ernest has a mane of long white hair and forty years on us but doesn’t allow us to carry a single bag.
He loads our luggage onto a cart and zips us through the hidden shortcuts of LAX, out the door, and across six lanes of insane traffic.
We follow like frogs from one lily pad to the next.
In the parking lot, Emmy hops her tiny body into Ernest’s black SUV and the back seat swallows her whole.
She tucks her legs beneath her, transfixed by the big screen that plays trivia and the many tiny bottles of water and wrapped mints. “Are these for free?” she whispers.
“I think we’ve just made her whole trip,” Oliver says, laughing as Emmy grabs a generous handful of candies.
On the way to the hotel, I can’t get my mom out of my head. Against my better judgment, I text her.
We may be coming to LA!
Most likely she won’t reply for weeks and then I’m sort of off the hook for not telling her at all? It’s the kind of bad math that never works out and still I do it.
Ernest hears Emmy say she’s hungry and takes us for burgers at In-N-Out. In the drive-through line, he calls, “Anyone like milkshakes?”
Emmy raises her hand.
“Gotta order the ‘Around the World.’ It’s on the secret menu. Has all the flavors.”
Oliver bites into his first Double-Double. “You’re right. It’s totally better here.”
“When did I say that?”
“Even the milkshakes taste better than Texas,” Emmy agrees.
“Ever been to L.A. before?” Ernest asks.
“It’s been awhile,” I say, happier to just be a tourist.
“You like city views?”
“Sure.”
“Check out the observatory. It’s in Griffith Park, near your hotel. Got views that will take your breath away. You like pie?”
Emmy raises her hand again. “I do!”
“Right by the observatory is a place called Trails. Great place for pies. What about fish? You like fish?”
Emmy scrunches up her nose and Ernest clarifies, “Not to eat. To look at.”
“Oh.” Her tiny shoulders relax. “Definitely.”
“Make sure your parents take you to the aquarium in Long Beach. It’s beautiful. You like waves, don’t you?”
“I know how to surf. Sort of.”
“Good for you. My favorite beach is right between Topanga and Santa Monica. Pier 26. You like Mexican food?”
“Yeah.”
“So many good ones. I like El Compadre on Sunset but lots of good spots downtown.”
Oliver leans close to me. “You like oxygen?”
“I like Ernest.” I smile.
—
The studio has put us up at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood.
Growing up, I drove past it hundreds of times and imagined what it was like inside.
From the outside, it’s a small, weathered castle tucked into the hillside.
A place for famous people to both be seen and to disappear.
We pull in and spot our first celebrity—a muscular blond in sunglasses, reasonably tattooed, waiting for his car at valet.
As we enter the storied hotel with its original Spanish tile and Gothic touches, Oliver asks, “Isn’t this where Belushi died?”
“Ernest would have known.”
“You like tragedies?”
—
We drop our bags in our room and immediately zigzag through the hotel’s maze of garden bungalows, dressed up in bougainvillea, on our way to the pool.
It all feels so California. The striped umbrellas.
The crispness in the air. Not an ounce of humidity.
The honking from Sunset Boulevard just yards away. The smell of jasmine to balance it out.
Seventy-two degrees is a chilly day to Californians, but Emmy dives into the water without a thought. She orders chicken fingers poolside and Oliver and I drink mojitos from our lounge chairs. The only other poolgoer reclines on her chair, across the oval-shaped pool from us, reading Vanity Fair.
Oliver tilts his face up to the sun. “L.A. really sucks you in, doesn’t it?”
“It’s nice, right?”
“Why did you ever leave?”
“Watch this!” Emmy cannonballs into the pool for the fortieth time. Oliver and I cheer softly, careful not to disturb the Vanity Fair woman.