Chapter 35 #2
“IKEA had a sale,” she shrugged, “and I liked the old one.”
“Why’d you bother replacing it then?”
“One of the legs snapped,” she said, darkly.
“Do I want to know how?”
I scrunched my nose, vividly remembering the first time I’d met Ben.
Becka laughed. “Lets just chalk it up to another casualty of the rollerblades."
I dumped my bags on the floor and walked over to the new sofa.
“Is this my bed, then?”
“As if I’d make my best friend sleep on the couch,” she scoffed.
Becka crossed the apartment and, to my surprise, pushed open the door to my old room.
More of a box room, really. Only ever big enough for a bed, a bedside table, and a small dresser.
I frowned as I moved to stand beside her.
I looked inside, expecting it to be empty.
I knew Becka had gotten rid of my bed to move in a desk and chair when Ben had been working from home, and presumably he’d taken his furniture when he’d moved out, but just like when I’d first walked into the apartment, it was startling to see it almost like I’d never left.
The bed was a new, wicker one, but the sheets were the same. The bedside table and dresser hadn’t moved.
I pivoted, opened my mouth and she pointed a finger at me, and said, “I swear to God, if you say “it’s the same” one more time…”
I held up my hands.
“It feels like like home,” is what I said instead.
“Hmm, better.”
“Coffee?” I offered.
“You know where the filters are.”
Most of the day was spent essentially sight seeing, reintroducing me to LA.
Unlike Becka’s apartment, the city had changed. The little Greek coffee shop I’d used to get us pastries and coffee from had long since gone.
“They didn’t last a year after lockdown,” Becka said, with a helpless shrug.
“Oh, that sweet old couple,” I lamented. “George always used to give me extra apple cake.”
“And that was good apple cake,” Becka agreed with a sad nod.
Christmas had come and gone, and much like the day, so too had the pop up shops changed their themes.
Becka pointed out the little stores that only days ago had proudly displayed Santas and elves, but now spilling out the front doors were neon disco balls, party hats with ‘2023’ emblazoned across them.
Novelty glasses, feather boas, massive, blow up champagne bottles, and every variety of tacky decoration you could possibly dream of to ring in the new year with.
“So fickle,” I remarked.
“Commit to one holiday, or none at all,” she agreed, linking arms with me.
“Fair weather purveyors of holiday spirit.” I stuck my nose up in the air as we walked past, giving in to the giggles once we were some distance away.
Becka had a nail appointment to go to. She gave me the option of tagging along, but I insisted that I’d actually rather just walk around for a bit. She gave me a weird look.
“Babes, it’s too cold to just walk around.”
I lifted my smart watch to look at the temperature display.
“It’s twelve degrees. A mild, midwinter day.”
“What’s that in real world temperature?” Becka asked, a teasing glint in her eye.
I took a moment to think. “Um, like, fifty-ish?”
“Kaiya, that’s practically arctic for LA!”
“You’re so soft,” I said, shaking my head.
I had missed her so much.
When Becka left to go to her appointment, I made good on my intention to just sort of wander about. I had some vague notion to go walk the stars along Hollywood and Vine, but I ended up in a very different part of the city.
I almost couldn’t help myself. I made the trip downtown to visit the Pisces building, all the time telling myself not to bother, but in the end, I stood outside and looked up at the place where I associated so much of my life changing irrevocably.
Once upon a time, I’d stood here and looked up at the building, thinking it would be the spring board into a career I thought I’d always wanted.
Now, I know it’s where I learned exactly what I didn’t want.
I felt conflicted as I couldn’t stop myself wondering if my life was better because of the building. Where I’d given up on a dream. Where I’d met him, and all the events that followed. Boardrooms. Korea. A castle in the clouds. A storm cloud dress. A goodbye I haven’t recovered from.
But in the end, it was just a building.
After Pisces, I found a memory on every corner, and I couldn’t not see them. Even places I’d never been to with him were somehow woven into the tapestry of that time. He was so fundamentally written into my story here. Steel and granite reminders mapping out a journey from the before to the after.
I hadn’t expected it, but in a way it was cathartic to be walking through it, because it felt like evidence that I had survived.
I didn’t go anywhere near the pier, and I absolutely didn’t go to West Hollywood. I wasn’t that brave.
Becka had managed to get us tickets to Mania for New Years Eve. We were finally going to try the now infamous Snowball drinks.
It was like we were getting a do over for the things we’d missed.
Stepping inside the club was an immediate and overwhelming blunt force blow to the senses.
Music pounded from wall mounted speakers as iridescent bubbles rained down from a ceiling littered with various sizes of disco balls, reflecting shards of multi-hued lights in every direction.
The club was living up to it’s name, as this sensory assault was very much the definition of ‘mania’.
I took some live footage to post on my socials; photos and videos of us dancing, getting our Snowballs – absolutely amazing, as it turned out, and worth the two year wait – and of the club.
I could probably pass it off as a music related investigation, but really I had just wanted to document the experience, because I felt once again like I was getting a do-over, or at least, reclaiming some of my past.
As I swayed under the pulsating lights to a thrumming beat that vibrated all the way up from the soles of my feet, I considered the idea of… what if?
What if I moved back to LA?
I could.
Frequency was an international publication, and just because they didn’t have an office in LA didn’t mean I couldn’t be here remotely.
Or I could move to another publication, or I could freelance for a while.
My Masters degree with HSJ was only a year long.
The difference between who I was now, and who I was two years ago was that I had options now.
I wasn’t beholden to temporary work contracts, or a specific person. I could do this myself.
I could.
The room seemed to swirl, the music pounded in time to the countdown now being projected on the wall, neon lights in the shape of number.
“FIVE!” We all howled out, counting in unison.
“FOUR!”
“THREE!” Becka grabbed me tightly
“TWO!”
“ONE!”
“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”
The club seemed to explode. Balloons and streamers burst out from the ceiling, raining down on us in soft, bouncy little hits, catching in our hair, silver confetti sticking to our sweaty skin and lip gloss, but we laughed, and clung to each other, and we jumped despite the pain in our feet.
Auld Lang Syne began to play. Not a dance remix, not a techno beat to be found. Just the original version that everyone inexplicably knows all of, and none of at the same time.
Becka and I sang along – howled, really – with our arms slung around each others waists, swaying together. I looked over at her and saw that like me, she had tears streaming down her face, falling into the creases of her joyful smile, and I knew she felt as I did. Alive.
We left just before the club closed at 2 am, early enough that taxis lined the pavement outside, and we were able to jump into one straight away.
The roads were as busy as any midday in LA could be.
Party goers streaming out of bars and clubs.
Colourful caricatures of people, bedecked in fancy hats and trailing balloons.
It was like the city was having a birthday party, and everyone was invited.
Looking out, you’d never be able to guess what LA had been through, what the people had endured, and the unrest that had bubbled up out of the cracks of papered over problems.
This was a city so vibrant with life, and culture, and difference, that really, it was no wonder that this was the place where my life had changed in every possible way. This was the city that people came to to do just that. In LA, it felt like everything could and would happen.
I turned to share my drunken epiphany with Becka, but she was asleep. Snoring softly, her face smushed to the window.