Amen, L.A.

by Cherie Bennett

  “Well, there’s a new Asperger’s syndrome research facility at the neuropsychiatric institute at UCLA,” Brett said. “My dad paid for it. Anonymously. He’d be pissed if he knew I told you. And they give a million a year to federation.”

  “Federation?” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Jewish Federation. It’s this big charity. They do that anonymously, too.” Brett took a sip of Coke. “Yeah. They give a lot away. That doesn’t mean we don’t live conspicuously, though. We do. My mom has a thing for Rolls-Royces. She drives a different one every day of the week.”

  I laughed, thinking he was joking. His face told me that he wasn’t.

  “But … why?” I asked.

  He shrugged and cut more steak. “Because she can.”

  “Well, I drive a Saturn,” I told him. “An old Saturn. The same one. Every day.”

  “You rebel!” He smiled. “Who knows, maybe you’ll start a trend. Though I don’t see my friends flocking to Craigslist to buy used Saturns.”

  I tried my spinach salad, topped with fresh crumbled bacon and chunks of creamy blue cheese.

  “Good, huh?” Brett asked.

  “We don’t get cheese like this in Mankato.”

  “It is good,” he acknowledged. “But there are places in this town that make this taste like the high school cafeteria. Maybe I can show you sometime?”

  He was asking me out on a real date.

  But … what about Skye? And Sean? Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you feel about my lowering my ethical standards due to Hot Guy-itis, I didn’t say any of that. Instead I said, “I’d like that.”

  “Hey, who wouldn’t want to be seen with a such a beautiful girl?” His eyes bored into mine. “You do look great, you know. The air out here must agree with you.”

  Oh, so he liked my makeover. Maybe more than he liked the real me.

  In my mind, I saw Skye the Beautiful, his supposedly significant other. If I was her, I wouldn’t want my boyfriend asking the new girl from Minnesota to have dinner with him at some snazzy restaurant TBD. And Sean …

  Maybe my concern showed on my face, because Brett beat me to the punch. “You’re thinking about Skye?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “Aren’t you guys …?”

  “We’ve got a—how can I put it?—unconventional relationship,” he confided.

  “Define ‘unconventional.’ ” It sounded ominous.

  “Well, we’re the only ones who know this, but we have an arrangement. We’re boyfriend and girlfriend, as long as one of us isn’t interested in someone else. When one of us gets interested, we put us on ice for a while, and maybe forever.”

  The most intelligent response I could come up with was “Oh.”

  “She’s fun,” he continued. “She thinks I’m fun, and we both know the other isn’t ‘the one.’ Call me crazy, but we’ve been doing it this way for two years.” He made a face. “It must sound nuts. But we’ve always got someone to be with, when we’re not with someone else. If we really and truly fall in love with other people? We’re happy for each other.”

  That’s what “unconventional” meant in L.A. Back in Mankato, we just called it “cheating.” However, I wasn’t in Mankato anymore.

  But what if Brett wanted to take me out the night that Sean arrived? It could happen.

  “So why don’t you give me your cell—” Brett never finished his request. He was interrupted by Gemma, who came barreling up to our end of the table on a dead run, a stapled sheaf of papers in her right hand.

  “Omigosh, omigosh!” She was shouting, and her eyes were shining. “Mr. Stevens just gave me a part in the show! Omigosh, omigosh!” She pointed at Brett. “With you!”

  Brett handled the news with aplomb. “That’s great. Why don’t you sit down and tell us about it?”

  Gemma did, the words spilling out so quickly she could have used a simultaneous translator. The English version of her babble was that there was a scene in which Shauna would be escorted out of her apartment by the police for questioning. Brett’s character was going with her for moral support. Two teenagers who lived on the same floor would see this happening and would shout something to her. Originally, two professional actresses had been hired, but Kent Stevens had made a switch, paid the actresses but sent them home, and given the roles to his daughter and Gemma, with the possibility that they’d even appear in later episodes.

  “What’s your line for today, Gemma?” Brett’s voice had a touch of gentle amusement.

  Gemma looked down at the pages in her hand, a photocopy of the scene. “Let me see.… ‘Good luck, Shauna!’ That’s it. ‘Good luck, Shauna!’ ”

  “I’m sure you’ll nail it,” Brett assured her. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and cut his eyes to me for a split second before looking back at my sister. “I wonder if you might want a couple of tips.”

  “Tips? I’d love some tips!” Gemma gushed.

  Brett turned to me again. “Would you excuse us for a moment? This is inside stuff, reserved only for working professionals.”

  How thoughtful. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gemma beaming.

  “Sure. I’ll get some ice cream.”

  “Make it a triple scoop,” my sister suggested, batting her eyelashes at Brett. “Eat slow.”

  I stepped across the room toward the dessert table as Brett scraped his chair closer to my sister. On the way, I saw my brother with Lisa, their heads together over her iPhone as they looked at something and laughed. That was sweet. It was good to see him happy. Just before I got to the desserts, I spotted my dad sitting with Kent Stevens. He waved to me excitedly, beckoning me to join them. I held up a “one moment” finger, scooped a single serving of rum raisin ice cream into a dish, and then walked over.

  “Sweetheart!” My father was upbeat. “It’s so great to see you!”

  “You’re in a good mood,” I told him, figuring that he was psyched that my sister was actually going to be on the show. “You heard what’s happening with Gemma?”

  “I did,” he confirmed. “It’s fantastic!”

  “But that’s not why he’s so pumped up,” Kent said. “Do you want to tell her, Charlie? Or should I?” Kent raised his eyebrows supportively, then looked at me. “I just gave your father some good news. Go on, Charlie. Tell her. It isn’t bragging if it’s true.”

  Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “Your father is now an optioned Hollywood writer. Kent took an option on Inside Doubt.”

  “Not me personally,” Kent said. “Kent Stevens Productions.” Then he grinned at me. “Your father’s new book is going to be a major motion picture if I have anything to say about it.” He swung back to my dad. “Congratulations again, Charlie. May it be the beginning of a long and prosperous relationship.”

  Impulsively, I hugged my father. “That is so great. That is so, so great. Does Mom know?”

  My dad nodded. I’d never seen him look so happy. “She does. If she checks her voice mail.”

  “Which nobody does in this town,” Kent observed. “So you two may have a chance to break the news when you get home. Of course, it’s probably already on itsawraptinseltown.com.” Then he wagged a finger at my father. “Now, don’t you go getting some big agent at Paradigm and hold me up for a ton of money. Not until your second movie, at least.”

  My father laughed, and my cell sounded with another text.

  Sean, I thought immediately. My stomach did a bad kind of flip-flop.

  It wasn’t Sean. It was a text that put the perfect coda on what had been a perfect day for the Shelton family so far, a text that confirmed to me and to any reasonable observer that we had done exactly the right thing by moving to Los Angeles.

  It was from Brett.

  Beautiful Natalie: Your sister gave me your digits. Now I’ve got yours and you’ve got mine. Let’s plan that date. Brett.

  Okay. It wasn’t a movie option. And it wasn’t even a bit part on a TV show. But I still levitated, and I defy anyone t
o tell me that I didn’t.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “And here we have Big Jam’s boudoir. This is where Big Jam kicks back.”

  The imposing black man with the shaved head—Big Jam himself—led an offscreen entourage into a marble-walled space roughly the size of a basketball court. He pushed one button near the door. The floor parted, and a round bed big enough to hold five people comfortably rose into where empty space had been moments before. As the bed rotated slowly, Big Jam pushed another button. The largest flat-screen TV I’d ever seen dropped from the ceiling, like the telescreens at church that displayed hymn lyrics, but with a different operative intent, at perfect viewing height.

  “Big Jam loves his boudoir,” Big Jam intoned. “Big Jam loves to get down in his boudoir.”

  In addition to loving his boudoir, Big Jam was evidently one of those people who loved to talk about themselves in the third person. I found it extremely annoying. But, hey, I was watching this TV show voluntarily, so I shouldn’t complain. In fact, I was watching it with Alex in the upstairs den, with a bowl of popcorn and a pitcher of iced tea between us.

  The camera came in close on Troy Winston, host of In and Out. The show took viewers inside the mansions of the biggest and hottest stars of music, screen, and fashion, and then went out with that star for a night on the town at their favorite restaurant and club.

  That day’s edition of In and Out featured the aforementioned Big Jam, renowned hip-hop artist, record label chief, clothing designer, and restaurateur. Big Jam, as Troy had breathlessly filled us in, had shot out of the slums of Gary, Indiana, to become one of the biggest stars of the new century. Overcoming a brutal childhood and a prison stint for armed robbery, he parlayed his hip-hop talents into an empire that was still growing. At the moment, he wore a gray tailored Armani suit with no shirt, an assortment of gold chains around his neck, and a belt with a large BJ diamond belt buckle. His feet were bare, his head shaved. He looked younger than his purported age of thirty-five.

  “Hot, or not?” Alex asked me as she nibbled on some popcorn.

  “He’s kind of old,” I pointed out.

  “I bet he’s intense. I’d do him. You?”

  I shrugged uncomfortably and reached for some popcorn.

  Alex cocked her head, studying me. “You don’t like to talk about sex?”

  Sheesh. Would she just move on, already?

  “It’s okay,” I managed to reply.

  Her eyes lit up. “Wait. You can’t possibly be … You really are a virgin!”

  My face reddened. “You don’t have to say it like it’s a disease.”

  She nudged me playfully. “This is like finding some fossil that’s never been seen before. A hot-blooded, cute American girl who has never—”

  I bonked her with a throw pillow.

  “It’s sweet, really,” she insisted through her laughter. “I don’t know anyone who’s a virgin. Well, actually I do, now. You. How … how quaint.”

  My face burned, as much from the fact that I’d just come close to lying outright to my best friend in Los Angeles as from Alex’s bemused reaction. I felt ashamed. Here was Alex, a girl with a real past, who had every reason to lie about it or minimize it to me, but never did. Here I was, the new girl, who could just as easily have told the truth that she’d had sex exactly once in her life, the night before she came to California, with a guy who had been her boyfriend for months, but was wondering in the aftermath if he was truly the right guy for her.

  There was no reason for me to hide the truth, except that the truth didn’t exactly square with the image I wanted to have of myself. Or the image I wanted Alex to have of me.

  Alex seemed on the verge of saying something else when the TV caught her eye again. Big Jam had moved to his wine cellar, the camera panning across five thousand bottles of fine wine from around the world, plus casks of aging single malt Scotch, which he planned to market under the Big Jam label.

  Alex slumped against the couch as the camera moved into a walk-in refrigerator full of expensive French champagne.

  “Taittinger.” She sighed. “Taittinger is the best. I used to love Taittinger.”

  I remembered that Kent Stevens had served the same champagne. It had to be excellent. This had to suck for her. Coming out of rehab, to see all that alcohol. I took the remote and changed the channel at random. We ended up on SpongeBob.

  She whirled at me. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m … I’m protecting you,” I told her hesitantly. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be looking at all those bottles after—after the problems that you had.”

  “Turn it back,” she said stonily.

  “Why?”

  “Just turn it back, dammit. Do I need a reason?”

  I froze. Did she want me to go back because she was enjoying the temptation of looking at booze? Or did she see this segment as some kind of test of character? Or was it something else that I didn’t understand or couldn’t understand?

  I pushed channel return. We came back to In and Out. Fortunately, they had cut to a commercial for an acne scrub.

  “Sorry,” Alex mumbled. “I didn’t mean to be that harsh.”

  “What just happened?”

  She ran her fingers through her thick hair. “The world goes on, you know? Whether I stay sober or not. People are going to drink, do drugs, party—even people I know. Actually, make that especially people I know. I can’t shut the world out. All I can do is take it one day at a time and learn to deal.”

  I understood, I thought. On the other hand, I’m not sure that if I was Alex, I’d want to be voluntarily spending time looking at an amazing wine cellar. Which is exactly what I told her.

  “I pick my spots.” She lifted a glass of iced tea and regarded it sadly. “Sometimes, like with my old friends, I’ll be cautious. Like, not going to the overlook in Pacific Palisades. I know what they like to do there. It’s what I used to like to do there. But a TV show? Like this one? I have to learn how to handle it. What am I going to do when I’m on the freeway and I see a billboard for beer? Close my eyes?”

  I nodded. “Got it.”

  “I knew there was a reason I liked you.” Her smile was genuinely grateful.

  In and Out came back on; Big Jam was in his art gallery. His collection came from all over the world, from everyplace he had traveled. It made me think that private art galleries must be as much a sign of being rich and famous in Los Angeles as pickup trucks were a sign of being an average Minnesotan. Big Jam walked through his gallery, pointing out his favorite sculptures. This one from Tokyo. This one from Havana. This one from Peru. Like that. Then his face lit up as he spotted someone or something out of camera range.

  “Baby girl!”

  The camera zeroed in on a petite young black woman about my age in the entryway to the gallery. She wore black trousers and a white tank top. Her arms were folded, and dreadlocks framed her beautiful face. And I realized—

  “Oh my God! I know her. That’s Mia!”

  “Mia who?”

  “This girl I know from church.” As In and Out showed a brief and none-too-warm conversation between Big Jam and Mia, who was apparently his daughter, I shared the condensed version of how I had met Mia, right down to how I was sad that we hadn’t exchanged phone numbers. “And she’s Big Jam’s daughter?”

  Alex laughed. “Well, now you can find her. If you can get past Big Jam’s bodyguards.”

  I just shook my head. “This is so weird. She was church shopping. And she said she didn’t feel like she ever fit in. I think you’d like her.”

  “Maybe,” Alex replied. “But if she’s church shopping?”

  “What?”

  “Let me repeat that I’m not. Not now, not ever.”

  An hour later, Alex had gone home, and I had finished a brief text conversation with my friend Shelby back in Minnesota. She reported that life was boring without me there, but as I knew, it was reasonably boring in Mankato even with me there. I asked her
to come visit; I told her that she was welcome anytime. Even after the snacks with Alex, I was still hungry, so I went down to the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. I found my mom at the kitchen table, dressed in her favorite maroon sweats, with piles of papers on all sides of her and a yellow legal pad in front of her. I knew what that meant. She always wrote the first drafts of her sermons on legal pads.

  Oops. Her legal pad was blank. Which meant either that she was just starting, or that she was having a hard time. Or both.

  “Hey, sweetie,” she greeted me.

  “Hey.” I opened the fridge. “Writer’s block?”

  “You want to take a crack at this?” She pushed the legal pad in my direction and put down her blue Bic pen. “Because I’m not making a whole lot of progress here.”

  “Have you talked to Dad?” I took an apple from the fridge. I’d seen my mom stuck before. Sometimes my father had some good suggestions.

  “I don’t want to bother him,” she confessed. “He’s in his office polishing his manuscript. Kent Stevens wants it perfect before he takes it to the studios, on the off chance that someone might actually want to read the whole thing. He’s so excited, your father. This is like a dream come true.”

  I chomped on my apple and surveyed all the piles on the table. One was obviously financial. Another was correspondence. Another looked like government reports of some kind. There was another that was just checks to the Church of Beverly Hills. Big checks. I saw one for fifty thousand dollars. Kent Stevens had written it.

  “Is this a dream come true for you?”

  My mom rubbed her eyes with the knuckles of each hand. “I look at my family. Everyone is so happy. Chad loves his swimming. Gemma loves her new friends and that she’s getting to be on TV. Your father? Look at him. He’s practically glowing. You seem to be doing fine. So yes. I’d say it’s a dream come true.”

  “What about you?” I asked. “Are you having fun?”

  She smiled mirthlessly. “Nothing gets past you.”

  “Not much,” I agreed, sliding into the chair across from her. “So?”

  She straightened a pile of papers that didn’t need straightening. “I’m ambivalent. On the one hand, I have a tremendous amount of influence on people who have a lot of influence on other people’s lives. I’m on vacation from radio now, but if I get a national show? That’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. How can that not be good?”