Everything Leads to You

by Nina LaCour

  If Ava Garden Wilder were the star of her own film, the scene during which she watches her dead mother in a minor movie role would look something like this:

  Ava sits in a small, dim room alone. She sits close to the screen, and when her mother appears, she turns up the volume to better hear her voice. When the scene is over, she rewinds the tape and then her mother reappears. She touches the screen and it’s a poor substitute for the woman she wishes she knew. She hits rewind, then play. Rewind, then play. Everything is cast blue by the TV screen; her face is tear soaked.

  But this is not a movie, this is life, and I hear Ava say, “Actually it’s fine with me if you both want to watch with us.”

  “What movie is it?” Dad asks.

  “It’s called The Restlessness.”

  “Oh yeah,” he says. “Scott Bennings. I haven’t seen it since it came out in—what?—’92? ’93?”

  “Do you know everything?” Jamal asks.

  “Don’t encourage him,” I say.

  Charlotte asks, “Are you sure, Ava?”

  I explain to my parents that Caroline Maddox, Ava’s biological mother, has a small part in the movie.

  “A waitress,” Ava says. “In an important scene. I don’t want to watch it alone. It’s fine if it’s emotional for me, right? It doesn’t need to be a private thing.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mom says. “Feel completely at home. You just let it out if it hurts. Gary and I are honored—honored—that you will include us in this moment.”

  Dad is nodding in concerned agreement, but I see something else flash behind his eyes.

  “Let me guess what you’re thinking, Dad. You’re thinking: I’m about to see Clyde Jones’s daughter in a movie, and not a single one of my colleagues or a single film critic knows that she’s Clyde’s daughter, or even that Clyde Jones had any children.”

  Dad furrows his brow.

  “Of course not,” he says. “I’m thinking about Ava and how important this must be to her.”

  “You can be thinking about both,” Ava says, smiling. “It’s okay.”

  I have an urge to send Charlotte a secret text from across the room about how wonderful Ava is, but I don’t. My willpower has suddenly become stronger than I knew it ever could be.

  “Okay,” Dad admits. “It’s both.”

  We all carry our plates down my wide family-photo-lined hallway and into the den, which is basically a shrine to my parents’ eclectic interests. Where else can you find a framed flyer for a 1963 protest against the savage police beating of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer hanging directly next to a framed poster of Beverly Hills, 90210, signed by the entire cast of the 1993 season?

  One of the few areas where my parents’ professional passions overlap, though, is music, most significantly the rise of West Coast gangsta rap. They can talk for hours about it, analyzing the evolution of music videos, from the low-budget Snoop Dogg/Dr. Dre collaboration of Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang, which celebrates Long Beach and Compton over a backdrop of humble house parties, to the opulent candlelight, champagne-filled set of 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted, released only three years later.

  I turn on the VCR, Ava hands me the video, and soon the screen (which hangs on the wall flanked by giant original photographs of N.W.A and Tupac on the left and my parents many framed diplomas on the right), is playing the opening credits of The Restlessness.

  Blue light and snow over Chicago. A jazzy song.

  The story is pretty simple to follow. It’s all kind of a nod to the noir genre, with a mysterious loner protagonist trying to solve a murder mystery before the police do. The plot is fairly predictable but the tension in the den is high anyway, because we don’t know when Caroline Maddox will appear. All we know is that she’s a waitress in the pivotal scene, so we assume that she won’t be on-screen until the movie is at the very least half over.

  Even though the wait is inevitable, no one eats much past five minutes in, and Ava doesn’t eat at all. No one moves or says anything, and as is the case with many of my ideas, I start to worry that coming over here was a bad one.

  Ava and Jamal are sitting on a love seat, my parents and Charlotte on the couch. I’m alone in a chair where I can see them all through my peripheral vision, and everyone is stiff and nervous. So many things could go wrong. Maybe Caroline Maddox doesn’t even speak. Maybe we only see her from the neck down, a hand and arm refilling a coffee cup in the foreground while our moody detective broods at the counter. Or, even worse, what if we do see her and she’s a terrible actress? What if Ava is embarrassed and we all rush in to say Caroline wasn’t that bad but she can tell that we’re lying?

  An hour and five minutes in, I begin to feel ill. I have to remind myself to breathe. I have no idea what’s going on in this movie, only that, at some point, the scene will change to the inside of a restaurant and I will implode.

  And then, here it is:

  The camera pans to the outside of a steakhouse, and suddenly we are in it. The detective sits in a booth alone, awaiting a blond woman who may or may not be his daughter.

  “Can I get you a drink?” a woman’s voice asks, and the camera reveals Caroline Maddox.

  We all gasp, because there is no doubt that it’s her, even for my parents, who haven’t seen the photo. She has the same red hair as Ava, the same perfect nose.

  And I get this feeling. Like when you’re a little kid and you make a fort out of chairs and blankets pulled off all the beds of the house, and when you’re inside the light is different, and you’re lying on pillows on the floor and you need a flashlight to read even though it’s the middle of the day. It feels like the people in this room are the only people in the world. Like all the life outside must be holding still and quiet, giving us these moments.

  The camera stays on Caroline’s face as she waits for an answer. I was expecting her to be the jaded waitress who cocks her hip and chews gum and seems distracted or annoyed by her customers, but she isn’t. When she asks if she can get the detective a drink, she means it.

  “Scotch,” he says, and we all gasp again, because the camera is now back on him and it would be too painful, too cruel, if that was all we saw of Caroline. Something is happening. He pats his pocket and pulls out a matchbook and narrows his eyes. Something has been solved, but I don’t know what. He gestures, and—thank God—here Caroline is again.

  “Are you ready to order?” she asks.

  “Change in plan,” he says. “I’m going to have to take a rain check on that drink.”

  “Oh.” Her pleasant, professional courtesy is replaced with confusion, but it’s more than that. It’s concern. She smooths a strand of hair behind her ear. The camera stays on her for longer than it probably should, considering that this is an important moment that is in no way about her.

  “Listen. If you see a blonde come in here, tell her something for me, will you?”

  Caroline nods.

  “Tell her that she duped me but I’m on to her. Tell her no daughter of mine would run around with Mack’s boys.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell her,” Caroline says. “Sure you don’t have time for that scotch?”

  “Tell you what. If I live through the night, I’ll be back to celebrate.”

  Suddenly, I want the detective to live.

  “What’s this guy’s name again?” I ask.

  Jamal says, “Max.”

  “I really want Max to live,” I say, and everyone murmurs in agreement.

  Unfortunately for all of us, Max dies five minutes later, and the blonde never does go into the steakhouse, and the movie ends.

  “Can we watch her scene again?” Ava asks, and I rewind the tape and find the part and press play. My dad stands up first and walks over to the screen, and soon Ava follows and then Mom and Charlotte and Jamal all at once, until we’re all standing just a couple feet away, staring into Caro
line’s face at eye level.

  “She’s beautiful,” Dad says.

  “Such a kind face,” Mom says.

  And I nod yes but as they all watch Caroline, I look at Ava, her hair fallen out of its ponytail, her hand raised to her mouth, her green eyes fixed to the screen, unblinking, taking in the sight of her mother.

  Chapter Thirteen

  At 4:40 a.m. on Sunday morning I pull up to the Echo Park house and text Rebecca that I’m here. When I look up from my phone I see Morgan’s truck in their driveway, which I guess is something I should have considered as a possibility. There’s no reason that seeing her should be any more awkward than it’s been the last few weeks—it could actually be less so now that we know where we stand—but I’m disappointed at the sight of the truck anyway. I wanted to feel like the art department expert on this excursion and every time I’m with Morgan it’s clear that she’s the more experienced one.

  Then Rebecca appears, shutting her door behind her, carrying two travel mugs and Morgan’s keys.

  “Good morning,” she says through my rolled-down window. “I borrowed Morgan’s truck.”

  The 110 has never been so empty as it is now, before 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, but when we get to the Rose Bowl, people are already lined up to get in. I’m used to the bustling, friendly version of this flea market, the eleven o’clock version when everyone is there to make a day of it, meandering in and out of booths and breaking for burritos at the food trucks. At 5:00 a.m., though, no one is meandering. Everyone is eagle-eyed, targeting specific booths, inspecting the vintage furniture and clothing and decor and either placing them on giant metal carts or slapping SOLD signs on them and continuing to the next thing. These people are vintage-shop owners, ready to sell what they scavenge here for two or three times the price, or they’re decorators, furnishing the houses of private clients, or they’re from the art departments of movie studios. They, like me, are looking for what will make the set transcend an artificial invention, the addition that will make audiences believe that what they’re seeing is real.

  Rebecca takes the color swatches I’ve put together for her and goes off in search of rugs for Juniper’s and George’s houses. I target the stands that sell art, still unsure of what I should be looking for. Yesterday afternoon I lay down in the middle of Toby’s living room and stared at the wall for an hour, thinking that maybe the answer would come if I wasn’t searching through magazines and online shops for it. But all I got was blankness so I called Ava, feeling more nervous than ever waiting for her to answer. I know that Charlotte is right and I shouldn’t even be hoping for anything more than friendship. But the things that I wish for are rarely within my control.

  I asked her, “What do you think Juniper would hang on her walls?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe, like, floral images? Because of the botany?”

  “Tried that.”

  “Let me think.”

  I could hear her breathing in the space between raspy sentences. I tried to picture her in her room at the shelter but I didn’t know what it looked like, and honestly I couldn’t imagine Ava Garden Wilder living in a place like that.

  “Family photographs,” she said. “The script doesn’t talk about her family, but she seems like the kind of person who would miss them.”

  Something in that felt right to me, but unless I found models to pose as her family it would be pretty much impossible to pull off. And it isn’t the aesthetic I’m going for. I want a set that feels romantic, emotional. A place where someone would dream about a different kind of life.

  Now, sifting through hundreds of pieces of art, I find something: a painting of a woman with a long neck and a soft smile.

  Portraits.

  It’s similar in feeling to what Ava was thinking, but has the potential to be more beautiful. Juniper will have drawings and paintings of strangers on her wall, old things found at flea markets and thrift stores. She surrounds herself with images of people so she’ll feel less alone.

  Rebecca texts me a photo of three rugs with a question mark. I text back, Yes, No, Yes. And I visit four art stands and find six portraits that I love.

  Driving back at eight with a few rugs and a chest of drawers in the bed of the truck and my portraits stacked on my lap, Rebecca says, “We watched all the audition reels last night.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  She nods. “Your friend is good.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  I wait.

  “How good?” I ask.

  Rebecca smiles.

  “We’ll see,” she says.

  ~

  Ava meets me at the Hollywood Goodwill. There are thrift stores I like better, smaller spaces with carefully curated stock, but we need dirt-cheap artwork and I am willing to comb through the stacks to discover it.

  “Portraits,” I tell her when we get to the corner where the art is. “The apartment is mostly blues and greens, so if anything matches that color scheme let’s be sure to grab it. But a couple pieces could pop, especially if they’re good ones; if you find a couple red pieces don’t hold back.”

  “A variety of sizes?” she asks.

  I nod. “They’ll all be hung together on one wall. I’m looking for mismatched styles and sizes. I already have six but could use at least ten more.”

  We get to work, sifting through everything from framed band posters to amateur oil paintings. Ava starts a pile and I add to it, and I find that I like working with her. The way that she isn’t asking me what I think of what she’s finding, how she’s just moving fast and efficiently, knowing that we’ll look through them all together when we’ve finished.

  “Half of these portraits are of Jesus,” she says. “I’m assuming it’s okay to skip over them.”

  “That would cast Juniper in a different light.”

  “It is morning. Juniper stands before a wall full of approximately sixteen Jesuses in various sizes and styles.”

  I laugh and Ava smiles down into the stacks, working again, and I have to force myself not to look at her.

  Theo is supposed to make his final callbacks today, and with every hour that passes without hearing, I am struck with both hope and dread. Hope because I know that Ava has a good chance, even though she’s an unknown, even though he doesn’t know about Clyde. She was that good. And why would Rebecca bring it up if the news was going to be bad? But I know Theo had a lot of actresses to choose from this time around, and I really want this for Ava. We don’t need another setback now when things have been going so well.

  I flip through a few landscapes, an abstract in muddy browns, an old circus poster. Then I find a pen-and-ink portrait of an old man and I add it to the pile.

  “Emi,” says a voice I recognize, and I turn to find Laura Presley.

  “Oh, hey,” I say.

  And then I remember what I wrote in her yearbook and feel a little embarrassed, because when I wrote it, I never expected to see her again.

  She’s looking at Ava so I introduce them.

  “That’s quite the stack you guys have,” Laura says, her eyes darting from Ava to me. She’s holding a suede jacket with fringe and a pair of pink sunglasses.

  “It’s for a film I’m working on,” I say.

  “Cool,” she says. I can tell she wants to see, but I don’t have time to show her everything and explain it all, so I just say yeah and smile and wait for her to walk away.

  “Great finds,” Ava tells her. “I love the fringe.”

  Laura looks down at the jacket as though she’d forgotten about it.

  “Thanks,” she says to Ava. Then, to me, “I didn’t see you at graduation.”

  “Yeah, Charlotte and I left right after the ceremony.”

  “You aren’t very sentimental, are you?”

  “Only about some things.” I wait for her to respond but she doesn’t, so I say, “Wel
l, it was nice to see you.”

  She laughs like she gets the point.

  “Okay, Emi,” she says. She looks at Ava one more time, and then she says good-bye and walks away.

  I turn back to the artwork and shake my head at Ava.

  “Was she looking at me strangely?” Ava asks.

  “She probably thinks we’re dating,” I say. “Laura and I went out for a while junior year.”

  “Oh,” she says, and she blushes a deeper red than usual.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “I just didn’t know you liked girls. Well, I thought you might, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “You weren’t?” I ask, but I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. People talk about coming out as though it’s this big one-time event. But really, most people have to come out over and over to basically every new person they meet. I’m only eighteen and already it exhausts me.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I just figured you knew.”

  She shakes her head no.

  “I’ll put it this way,” she says. “When you grow up in the desert and the only people you’re allowed to hang out with are the people who go to your mom’s church, and the girl you think is in love with you turns out to not be in love with you at all, there’s a tendency to feel a little bit alone in the world.”

  “But I mentioned Morgan.”

  “Morgan isn’t always a girl’s name,” she says.

  She locks eyes with me, her blush fading. There’s a confidence in the way she’s looking at me that makes it difficult to know what to do or say next. Especially when all the things I want to do and say are not the things I should.

  “Yeah, well, this Morgan is a girl,” I finally say, remembering the strands of this conversation, pretending that what we’re actually talking about is Morgan and not what Morgan represents about me. “We had this on-and-off relationship for the past year, and she didn’t want to let me go, but at the same time she wanted to date other people and it was just really confusing.”

  “Oh.” Ava nods in understanding and then shakes her head in sympathy, her gaze broken, her blush returning, all traces of confidence escaping.