“It’s OK. I can, uh, get that.”
A guy in line behind her moved to the register, his wallet already out. He was in his early twenties, maybe, with a burnished-copper tan and stubble. His clothes were scruffy — a rumpled navy shirt, jeans that were clearly not designer — and when he turned back from the cashier toward her, Hallie saw an ugly scar snaking up from the neckline of his shirt, the red puckered skin cutting up the side of his neck.
“No, thanks,” she told him, edging away.
“It’s fine.” He shrugged, looking awkwardly at the floor. “I mean, I was already —”
Hallie turned back to the barista. “You know what? I’m detoxing. An iced green tea would be great.”
She peeled off the dollar bills and then took her place waiting by the counter. The scarred guy loitered nearby, so Hallie pretended to click through her cell phone. You couldn’t give them any encouragement, that’s what they’d learned in fifth-period Women’s Empowerment classes: firm declarative statements, and, at last resort, a quick blast of pepper spray. Hallie had left her travel-size canister in her other purse, but she wouldn’t let it get that far; the minute her tea was ready, she hurried out, despairing over her bad luck.
Couldn’t it have been some gorgeous actor looking to save her, instead of some drugged-out surfer dude? They would have struck up a conversation over the condiment station, and by the time their drinks were ready (espresso for him: strong, bold, masculine), he would have been begging her to star opposite him in his new indie film — something harrowing that would make the perfect entrée to the Hollywood elite. Long hours on set together, their overwhelming natural chemistry . . . Hallie would have an A-list boyfriend and an Oscar nomination all sewn up by the end of the year — without needing her material solicited by anyone!
But no, instead she had Mr. Crazypants back there with his creepy serial-killer stubble. Hallie ducked into the nearest store, and then peered out the front window, just to be safe.
“Can I help you?” A polished clerk who reminded Hallie of Portia — all severe haircut and pencil skirt — hovered nearby.
“Just browsing,” Hallie replied, but the woman stared at her with suspicion until Hallie drifted deeper into the store. It was an upscale boutique, full of gauzy dresses and perfect slouchy tanks hung casually from empty rails as if they were works of art. Hallie checked the price tag of a cute dress and winced. Three hundred dollars!
God, she missed having money.
It wasn’t that they’d been rich exactly . . . Well, no, Hallie had to admit: they had been. She’d had a clothing allowance, and money to go out with her friends, and had never once even considered an after-school job — not when she had so many acting commitments to fill her time. Even after their father had left, she’d never worried about money, not when he was lavishing them with guilty gifts, and slipping fifty-dollar bills into her purse every time they had coffee.
But now . . .
Now she couldn’t even afford the basic necessities, like ice-blended coffees, let alone a cute new dress.
“Oh, my God, that is so fierce.”
A voice from the back of the store made Hallie look up. A girl had emerged from the dressing room and was assessing herself in the mirrors; her blond friend sprawled on the couch, tapping at her phone.
“You think?” The girl turned slowly, examining her reflection. She had glossy dark hair that fell in a perfect cascade over the skintight black minidress. “Maybe it’s too classy. I mean, he’s into rock-chick girls — tattoos and leather and stuff.”
“So what?” Another girl looked up from the jewelry she was browsing; beachy and boho in a long patchwork skirt and cropped tank. “Are you going to go pierce something for him?”
“No way.” The dark-haired girl grinned. “We all know how that turned out. Brie.”
The blonde looked up from her phone. “Hey! That was one little tongue stud, and I took it right out!”
“Only after an infection and antibiotic shots!” The girls laughed together, piling onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and necklaces and glossy leather bags.
Hallie watched, struck with a sudden pang. All her friends were back in San Francisco, and although she’d tried to keep up with the latest news — texting, calling, and checking in via Skype — she could feel the distance between them grow: a gaping canyon that used to be filled with after-school hangouts, and nights sharing dim sum in Chinatown, but that now only had voice-mail messages and the occasional afterthought of a chat. Part of the reason Hallie had been so glued to that pool lounger these past weeks was that she didn’t have the first clue how to make friends here in L.A. Was she supposed to join a club? Take classes? Grace didn’t seem to mind her solitude, but to Hallie, the empty space was loneliness: a hollow ache in her chest.
One of the girls saw her staring at them, and raised an eyebrow. Hallie quickly turned and hurried out of the store. For all her talk of belonging, the sad truth was she didn’t.
Not yet.
The sting of rejection still fresh, Hallie regressed to poolside lounging for the rest of the week. She needed a vacation, she told herself, restlessly flipping through plays she knew by heart. She was in recovery, recharging her batteries before her next grand assault on Hollywood. But for all her reasoning, Hallie knew the truth: she didn’t really know what to do next. Plan A had crashed and burned, and she was suddenly completely adrift in her own life, with no schedule or school or social plans to fill her days. Instead of seeming like a marvelous vacation, it felt, to her shame, like failure.
This was why people went to college, she thought mournfully. Not for knowledge, or partying, but four more blissful years of structure and routine.
Hallie wandered into the main house, and found Amber idling in the vast marble wonderland of the kitchen: flipping through magazines with one of the dogs cradled in her arms. Now, there was a woman who didn’t mind a life of utter leisure.
“Hey, sweetie!” She lit up. “How are your mysterious plans working out?”
“They’re not.” Hallie slumped, too dejected even to muster horror at Amber’s matching pink velour sweats. “I can’t get anyone to even look at my headshots.”
“Awww, you poor thing!” Amber put down the dog and enveloped her in a lavender-scented hug. “I know exactly what you’re going through. Trying to get that first break is just a nightmare, but you can’t give up.”
“I won’t.” Hallie may be dejected, but she was also determined. Unlike Amber, she had no intention of finding herself a balding producer and giving up her craft for a life of yogalates and tanning. She would survive! She would endure!
But, she would also need some cash.
“The problem is, I’m broke,” she explained. “I need a job if I’m going to pay for acting classes, and going out, and stuff.”
“Job?” Amber frowned, as if she’d never heard of the word. “What kind of job?”
“I don’t know. Retail maybe? Except, I don’t have any experience,” Hallie admitted. “And office work is out. I can’t really type, and spending too long in front of a computer makes my head hurt.”
“Hmmm,” Amber mused. “If you were over twenty-one, I know a ton of hosting gigs you could get . . .” She brightened. “How about dogs?”
Hallie stared at her blankly.
“Marilyn and Monroe need walking twice a day,” Amber explained. “We pay a boy to come take them, but you could do it instead. They’re darling, no trouble at all, and you’d get tons of exercise!”
Hallie paused, reluctant. “I guess . . .”
“And it’s flexible, so you have all that time for your acting things!” Amber seemed convinced. She headed for the door, phone in hand. “I’ll go call, say we’ve found someone else. Yay!”
“Yay,” Hallie echoed faintly. Dog walking and universal rejection — was this what her shining future had come to? She opened the huge fridge and gazed listlessly at the rows of bottled water and no-fat yogurt. All her excitement from
earlier in the week had drained away, and now Hallie just felt tired and —
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
She let out an almighty scream. A strange man was standing five feet away from her. No, worse than that, she realized with a dawning horror. The crazy guy from the coffee shop!
Hallie screamed again, reeling back behind the kitchen island. “What are you doing? Get away from me!”
“Whoa, calm down!” The guy had his hands up. “You’ve made a mistake.”
“No, you did!” Hallie yelled, scrabbling in her purse. “I have Mace!”
Except she didn’t. Wrong purse.
She lunged for the butcher block and grabbed a seven-inch carving knife, waving it at him. He leaped back. “Get away from me! Security!” she screamed. “Security!”
“I’m telling you, I’m Brandon,” the guy insisted, flustered. “I live next door. I’m not a —”
“SECURITY!”
Amber came racing back into the room, just as Uncle Auggie and her mom burst through the patio doors. “What’s going on?”
Hallie jabbed the knife toward the intruder. “He’s stalking me!” Hallie cried. “He must have followed me back from town the other day. He’s trying to kill me! Or worse!”
There was a pause, then Auggie began to laugh.
“It’s not funny!” Hallie was shaking. This was how Nightline specials went: the beautiful young woman, the deranged stalker . . . “He broke in! He was trying to attack me!”
“He has a key,” Auggie explained, still chuckling. “He lives next door.”
Hallie caught her breath, trying to process the situation. “He’s not a crazy stalker?” she ventured in a small voice.
“Nope.”
“And you didn’t follow me back?” she asked Brandon.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
Hallie glared at him, the knife still clenched in her hand, just in case. Sure, they said he was safe, but wasn’t that what they all said about serial killers. “Oh, yes, he lived next door, perfectly normal until that day he snapped and cut her up into five dozen pieces.”
“Really,” Brandon insisted. “It’s OK.” He approached slowly, hands open, as if she were a wild animal. Closer, closer . . . He carefully took the knife from her shaking hand and laid it on the counter.
It seemed to Hallie that the entire room exhaled. Brandon gave her a nervous smile. “I guess I should have used the main bell.”
Hallie looked around. Adrenaline was still pumping through her, her whole body paralyzed with fear. “I thought I was going to die!” she cried, and burst into tears.
Hallie had to retire to the lounge to calm down; stretched on the velvet chaise with her mom and Brandon clustered around. She pressed a cold compress to her forehead, and let out another moan.
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Brandon looked anxious. Hallie carefully shifted away from him. Psycho killer or not, he still creeped her out, with his two-day stubble and wavy brown hair in dire need of a cut falling over that scar. Freakier than the poor personal grooming, and those baggy cargo pants, however, was the stoic kind of silent vibe he radiated, like he was watching every move she made.
“I’m fine.” Hallie’s voice quivered bravely. “Just a little faint.” She dreaded to think what would have happened if it had been a real killer hunting her down. Uncle Auggie would probably have made a movie of the week (Lock All the Doors: The Hallie Weston Story), and Hallie would have been doomed to be immortalized by a failed sitcom actress who couldn’t emote.
“There, there.” Hallie’s mom patted her absently, before turning back to Brandon. “Come, sit down. What did you say your name was?”
“Brandon Mitchell, ma’am. Like I said, we live next door, and Auggie lets me drop by to use his darkroom. I really am sorry,” he told Hallie again, looking shameful.
She managed a brave shrug. “I’ll be OK. . . . Eventually.”
“I was actually looking for you and your sister,” Brandon continued, his gaze fixed on Hallie. “To, um, invite you to this pool party, in Malibu. But, I guess, you’re not really in a mood to go out,” he added quickly.
A party? With him? “No, thanks,” Hallie replied, at the same time as her mom exclaimed, “What a great idea!”
“Mom!” Hallie glared. “I’m recovering!”
“Shh, you said it yourself, you’ll be fine. And I’m sure Grace would be happy to get out of the house.” Valerie beamed at Brandon. “They’d love to come. What time is it?”
“Uh, I can come by and pick you up around eight?” Brandon looked to Hallie. She sighed, and lifted her shoulders in the faintest of shrugs. “OK! Great! I’ll see you then. You and your sister, I mean,” he added, before bolting from the room.
The moment he was gone, Hallie turned on her mom. “Why did you do that? He’s . . . weird!”
“Don’t be silly.” Valerie patted her again. “He’s just a little shy, that’s all. And Amber said, his father is very successful. Apparently, he owns a law firm that has all the A-list clients.”
“So? I’m not going to this party with his dad.” Hallie sulked.
“It’ll be good for you to get out, start making friends,” her mom insisted. “Now, go tell your sister. I think she’s reading by the pool.”
Hallie rolled her eyes and pulled herself off the chaise, but instead of finding Grace, she hid away in the guesthouse: taking an extra-long bath, and hoping that by the time she emerged, her mom would be distracted by painting again and forget all about her orders for Hallie to socialize with Brandon and his weird surfer friends.
But she was out of luck. When Hallie finally headed back to the main house for dinner, Brandon and his visit were the only topics of conversation at the table.
“Such a polite young man,” her mom cooed, over a spread of roasted chicken.
Amber nodded in agreement. “I heard they paid three million for that house.”
“And he seemed plenty taken with you,” Auggie added, giving Hallie a wink. “You could have yourself a new beau there.”
“Ugh! No way. He was just being polite,” she said quickly, but Auggie was not to be dissuaded.
“Trust me, I can see these things,” he insisted.
“He does,” Amber agreed. “Like a little cupid, aren’t you, sweetie?”
Grace gave Hallie a smug grin. “Hallie and Brandon, sitting in a tree . . .”
“Grace!” She kicked her under the table.
“Oww!”
“He’d be good for you,” Auggie mused. “Solid, dependable. Bit quiet, I’ll give you that, but you can talk enough for the both of you!”
“Look, she’s blushing.” Amber giggled. “Maybe we’ve got a match on our hands.”
“No,” Hallie tried again. They were like some kind of wretched double act, chirping and gossiping away! She thought quickly for a diversion. “Anyway, Grace is the one you should talk to about boyfriends.”
As predicted, Amber and Auggie lit up. “Who?”
“Nobody,” Grace said, glaring at Hallie. “I don’t have anyone.”
“She’s just being shy.” Hallie smiled serenely. “But I’ll tell you, his name begins with the letter T.”
“T!” Amber exclaimed. “Hmmm, Tristan, or Tyler . . .”
“Toby,” Auggie offered. “Teddy.”
“Todd!”
Grace shot her a murderous look. Hallie just grinned. Served her right. Grace’s tryst with Theo was the worst-kept secret ever, but Hallie didn’t know what Grace saw in him. Sure, he was nice enough — if by “nice,” you meant boring, and lifeless, and bound with blood to their mortal enemy — but Hallie would never bring herself to settle for that.
Nice! No, Hallie wanted passion, adventure, spirit. A Heathcliff! A Romeo! (Except not quite so slow on the uptake when it came to life-or-death planning.) Sure, she’d dated a little back home, but it had never lasted. The guys she knew all just wanted to hang around in windowless basemen
ts, watching movies, talking about politics, and attempting to slip her clothes off without her noticing. (As if Hallie would be so distracted by the evils of late-stage capitalism that she’d somehow lose all track of her underwear.) Even the college boys were a bore: acting as if a messy dorm room and half a semester of literary theory made them kings of the known universe.
She didn’t want to fool around in a drunken haze, or hold hands at the movies like every other pedestrian teen couple. Let Grace simper at Theo all she liked; Hallie wanted more. She was looking for a Great Love: something epic, and sweeping, that would shake the very foundations of her soul. A love that would affect her, open the world to her; something mysterious and magnificent, the kind of grand affair that would be written about one day, by hushed scholars in a dusty library. A Burton to her Taylor. A Fitzgerald to her Zelda. A Brad to her Angelina.
She wanted (and Hallie sighed at this, with no small measure of longing) a man.
Grace agreed to come to the party — more to escape Auggie and Amber’s relentless questioning than because she wanted to go, she told Hallie with a scowl — and soon they were piled into Brandon’s shiny new Jeep and headed for the coast.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Hallie, looking over from the driver’s side.
Hallie softened, appreciating his concern. “Better, now. Thanks.”
She studied him thoughtfully. He radiated an intense kind of quietness, and he hadn’t bothered to shave or even change for the party: still wearing the same rumpled shirt and two-day stubble from that afternoon. She would have thought being mistaken for a crazy psychopath might have inspired some adventures in basic hygiene, at the very least.
“So, what’s your deal?” she asked curiously. If his family lived in the sprawling Greco-Roman abomination next door, he must be rich, so perhaps this scruffy beach-bum look was the Californian equivalent of the whole East Coast disheveled wealth thing — where they dressed in moth-eaten cashmere and scuffed Italian leather shoes to prove just how ancient and stuffy the family fortune was. That must be it, Hallie decided: kind of like, “I’m too busy surfing to need a real job. Or a shower.”
Jane Austen Goes to Hollywood Page 7