Chapter 14 Los Angeles
Los Angeles
The towels were the first thing.
Natalie had not known towels could be that thick.
They were stacked on the marble vanity in three clean white towers, each one folded with sharp edges and embossed with the Chateau Marmont hotel crest. She touched the top towel with two fingers, then with her whole hand. It did not flatten. It held its shape.
She picked it up.
It was heavy.
Not wet heavy. Not laundry heavy. Luxury heavy. The kind of heavy that said this towel was custom made and not just a random towel picked up from the Bed, Bath and Beyond discount table.
Natalie held it against her cheek and laughed.
Then she discovered the bathroom floor was warm.
She discovered this by stepping out of her shoes and onto the stone without thinking. The warmth surprised her so much that she looked down. Then she took three slow steps across the bathroom just to make sure.
Warm everywhere.
The entire floor.
There was a thermostat on the wall.
That only controlled the temperature of the bathroom floor!
She stood there barefoot, smiling like an idiot.
The bathroom was larger than her bedroom in Sai Ying Pun. There were two sinks, two mirrors, a bathtub deep enough to hide in, and a glass shower with more showerheads than she knew what to do with. One large showerhead above. One handheld. Several smaller ones set into the wall.
She turned one handle experimentally.
Water came down from overhead in a clean, heavy fall.
She turned it off quickly.
There were bath salts in tall glass jars beside the tub.
Six kinds. Lavender. Eucalyptus. Rose. Something mineral from the Dead Sea.
Something citrus. Something with no label at all, which made her trust it more.
There was a wooden tray for the bath, already arranged with a candle, matches, a small white cloth, and a sealed loofah.
The toiletries were in black bottles with labels so understated they were almost rude. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotion. French. Of course French. Natalie opened the lotion and smelled it. Clean, expensive, not too sweet.
She put some on her hands.
Then more.
Then she rubbed it into her arms because nobody was there to stop her and the bottle was huge.
The robe hung on the back of the door.
Natalie took it down.
It weighed more than seemed reasonable for clothing. She put it on over her blouse and skirt first, just to test it. Then she undressed properly and put it on again.
The robe swallowed her.
She tied the belt, untied it, tied it better, rolled the sleeves back, and looked at herself in the mirror.
She looked ridiculous.
She looked rich.
She laughed again.
The room outside was quiet.
Not empty quiet. Hotel quiet. Everything soft. The carpet, the walls, the closed door, the sealed windows. No traffic. No hallway noise. No elevator ding. No neighbor’s television. Just the hum of regularly serviced air-conditioning.
Natalie walked from the bathroom into the bedroom and made herself go slowly.
The bed was enormous. White sheets, white duvet, four pillows, then two more pillows that seemed to exist only to make the first four look insufficient. She pressed her palm into the mattress. It gave a little, then supported her. She sat on the edge. Then lay back.
For a moment, she did nothing.
She looked at the ceiling.
This was a hotel room.
People slept here for one night and left.
That seemed insane.
She got up because there was more to see.
The sitting area had a low sofa, two chairs, a table with a bowl of fruit, and a desk facing the windows.
On the desk were heavy cream envelopes, hotel stationery, a pen that was probably worth more than most of her wardrobe back home, and a tablet that controlled the lights, temperature, curtains, room service, television, spa appointments, car service, and apparently the Star Trek Enterprise.
Natalie pressed the curtain button.
The sheer curtains moved.
She pressed it again.
They stopped.
She pressed the blackout curtain button.
Those moved too.
She stood there pressing buttons until the room went bright, dim, dark, bright again.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Now I’m an expert.”
The minibar was built into a polished cabinet.
She opened it and found tiny bottles arranged by height, champagne half-bottles, Japanese whisky, soda, tonic, coconut water, cold brew, and juices in glass bottles.
The snack drawer had macadamia nuts, chocolate, crackers, almonds, dried fruit, and three kinds of cookies.
There was also a price list.
Natalie read it, stared at it, and closed the drawer.
Then opened it again.
Aaron had said to order anything she wanted.
She took the macadamia nuts.
Then put them back.
Then took them again and carried them to the window like she had committed a crime.
The view stopped her.
Los Angeles spread out below in late afternoon light. Wide streets. Low buildings. Palm trees. Hills in the distance. The city looked flat and endless compared to Hong Kong. Hong Kong stacked itself upward. Los Angeles stretched.
She had grown up in California, but not this California.
Sunnyvale had been practical. Strip malls. Caltrain. Ranch 99. Boba shops. Tract homes that cost millions where it looked like the last time that they cut the grass was in 1998.
This was a different California.
Hollywood, California.
The California that Aaron Lam would conquer with her by his side.
Natalie stood at the window in the robe, eating macadamia nuts from a tiny bag that cost twenty-five dollars, and looked out over the city.
She should have felt embarrassed by how happy she was.
She did not.
She loved the warm bathroom floor. She loved the towels. She loved the robe. She loved the quiet. She loved the buttons that moved the curtains. She loved the bed and the minibar and the fact that someone had put bath salts beside a tub she had not even used yet.
She loved that she was alone because being alone meant she could enjoy it without anyone criticizing her.
She went back to the bathroom, started the tub, and poured in the Dead Sea salts.
Then, after a moment, she added the rose ones too.
The water rose, steam gathering over the marble.
Natalie hung the robe carefully on the hook, stepped into the bath, and lowered herself slowly.
The heat closed around her.
She leaned back and smiled.
Until now, she never knew that this was her destiny.
I was born to live like this, she thought.
The next morning, Natalie learned that shopping with an unlimited credit card was not unpleasant.
A driver had picked her up from the hotel at 9 o’clock, drove her up the 405 then onto the 101, then gotten off at Universal Studios Boulevard.
He dropped her near the Universal CityWalk entrance and told her to text whenever she was ready to leave.
No parking stress. No Uber app. No wondering if she should leave before traffic got bad.
He would be waiting in the car in the garage, no matter how long it took.
That felt wonderful.
Universal CityWalk was a three-block entertainment, dining, and shopping promenade next to the Universal Studios Hollywood amusement park in the San Fernando Valley, north of the city.
CityWalk was bright, loud, ridiculous, and the very definition of being American.
Music played from speakers hidden somewhere above the promenade.
The air smelled like popcorn, hot sugar, sunscreen, grilled meat, and theme-park.
Families moved in clusters: parents with strollers, children clutching wands and plastic dinosaurs, teenagers posing under signs, a father carrying three drinks and unsure where he left his family.
Natalie wandered without a plan.
She went into the Universal Studios Store and bought a black hoodie with the old Universal globe logo printed small over the heart.
She bought a Minions keychain for no reason except that the little yellow idiot looked pleased with himself.
She touched Harry Potter scarves, Jurassic Park mugs, and a shark-shaped bottle opener she almost bought because it was ugly enough to get a laugh out of her.
Then she went into Sunglass Hut.
The saleswoman had recognized the Celine bag before she noticed anything else about Natalie, which was fine. The woman brought her three pairs without asking for a budget: Prada, Saint Laurent, Tom Ford.
“Tom Ford?” the woman asked.
Natalie almost said no automatically.
Then she stopped.
“Yes.”
The woman handed her oversized black frames, slightly squared, with dark gradient lenses.
Natalie put them on.
“These are very you,” the saleswoman said.
Natalie looked in the mirror.
The old Natalie would have laughed and said they were too much.
The new Natalie tilted her face slightly and saw that they were not too much.
They were exactly enough.
“I’ll take them,” she said.
She wore them out of the store even though she was indoors for the next several minutes and felt absurdly happy about that, which seemed as good a use of money as any.
For ninety minutes, the happiness held.
She walked. She shopped. She bought lipstick, a cream sweater for Los Angeles evenings, and a small film-clapper keychain because it made her smile.
Then she sat down for lunch.
Natalie sat alone at a small table inside The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen.
The restaurant was ridiculous.
That was not criticism.
That was a compliment.
It was ridiculous in the grand American way, with full commitment and no apology.
Dark wood. Bronze trim. Tall glass cases filled with chocolates.
A dessert counter with cakes and truffles and things dipped, drizzled, stacked and piped.
Servers moved past carrying milkshakes that looked like a dentist’s nightmare: whipped cream, brownies, cookies, candy, straws, spoons, entire childhoods balanced in glass mugs.
At the table next to her, a boy in a Jurassic World T-shirt was eating a milkshake with a cupcake stuck into the top of it.