Far off, I spotted a guy making his way along the rocks. I watched him climb and edge down before hopping onto the sand. He kicked his sandals off. Closer now, I saw that he carried a pack and wore a faded brown T-shirt with khaki shorts. He swung off the pack, chose a driftwood log, and sat down with his back against it.
I liked his curly black hair. It was the kind of hair you’d want to put your hands in. He was close to my age, I guessed. There was something about him that felt familiar. Like someone I’d already met but didn’t yet know. Like a book you think you’ve read before but aren’t quite sure.
He unzipped the pack and took out a thin black journal. At least, I decided it was a journal when he also took out a pen and popped the cap off with his mouth. I wondered what he was writing in there. The city was kind of hipster, so maybe he was doing something hipster, like writing poetry.
The rock climbing, the journal, that hair—it gave me a story about him already, even if I had no idea what the actual sentences were. He was cute, too. Really cute. I should mention that. The sort of cute that ignites an awareness in you—of him, of your own self, of some potential energy between you.
It was my birthday, and the sun felt good, and a guy had whistled at me and I forgot the uncomfortable part of that and remembered the part where I’d made him want me. I started to imagine how my new sexiness would draw the boy over to me, and we’d talk. We’d decide to go somewhere, and I’d totally ditch Lila, and on my birthday, too. We’d be in his car and we’d drive, and Lila would be freaked out, would call and call, but I wouldn’t answer. We’d stop somewhere and kiss and our hands would be all over each other and who knew after that. Mostly, I’d get whatever I’d been badly needing, and fun, life-changing stuff would happen, and I’d be transformed into who I was meant to be—someone powerful and sure, instead of the person who always cut her own hair and nervous-peed before every oral report.
I got up and brushed the sand off my legs. I walked toward the ocean. I dipped my toe in, then bent down to scoop some water. I let it fall down my arms as if I needed cooling down. The guy was still writing in his journal. He hadn’t even looked up.
I walked back to my towel. I tried to catch his eye, but nope. I stretched out my long legs. Reapplied the lotion. Took a long drink of water from my bottle. Propped myself on one elbow on my side. It was 100 percent Lila. A Vanity Fair article from ten years ago showed her in that very pose on a bed of glass shards that she told me were actually a soft, gelatinous plastic.
I snuck another glance. The guy was watching the little kid trying to fill the hole with water. Then he bent his head down and went back to writing.
God! It was frustrating. Confusing, too. I wondered if my new allure worked only on old guys, and not the ones my own age who I actually wanted it to work on.
I gave up. I opened my new R. W. Wright, The Deepest Dark. I got to the part where the bitchy girl was unbuttoning her blouse seductively, so you knew she was going to get it. And I realized, you know, that that’s how it always went in his books. If a girl had sex with a lot of different guys—boom. Dumb blondes or women with big boobs were always goners. If she asked for it by taking nude swims at midnight or running alone through the woods, watch out. You only got to live, bloodied but triumphant, if you were nice and modest, pretty but not beautiful. Without desire. Clean.
I went for a swim. I felt irritated. When I got back, I let things happen to that book that I never would have before. Water dripped on the paper. Sand got between the pages. R. W. Wright was kind of getting on my nerves.
* * *
“I can’t believe you weren’t here when I woke up! On your birthday, too!” Lila was all ready to go out for the day—white capris, black tank, white sunglasses on her head. She snapped her handbag closed.
“You ditched me last night. Because Jake had his feelings hurt.”
“I told you, you really need to give him a chance. Look what came when you were gone.” Her shoes clicked toward the entryway, and when she returned, she was holding a glass vase of pink baby roses. “Ah, smell.”
“For me?” The room filled with pink rose–iness. Even Max had his nose up.
“Yes, for you.”
I opened the tiny card. Happy 16! Let’s go get that permit, sister!
Wow. “That was nice of him. Really nice,” I said. It was so nice that I felt kind of bad for hurting him.
“See? Did your father even call?”
Ugh! “Not yet. I’m sure he will.”
“I don’t know why you always defend him.” I stayed silent and took the blow, because I didn’t know why I did either. Lila hunted for the keys to her Land Rover. “Baker, huh? Did you see a bunch of wrinkled snakes?”
“Yeah, but also this cool old woman who couldn’t care less what anyone thought.”
“Oh, baby, she cares. Her nonchalance is a different kind of caring. It’s pretending-you-don’t-care caring. Think how much attention she was getting.”
“I think she just wanted to be herself.”
“Attention is currency.”
“Yuck,” I said. “I hate that idea.”
“Damn it. I swear they were right here.” She tossed her purse on the kitchen table, started hunting under the mail on the counter. “Can you believe you’re sixteen? Do you know what I was doing at sixteen? No, fifteen.”
“Getting your first job with MGM.”
“Getting my first job with MGM.”
You probably know the story of how she was discovered, but they got a few things wrong. She wasn’t at Langer’s Deli eating a pastrami sandwich. She doesn’t even eat stuff like that. She was at a plain old Peet’s near her school, Crenshaw High, in LA, where Edwina had moved them in order to get Lila into acting. This was before Peet’s was Peet’s and Starbucks was Starbucks—they were just a couple of coffee shops. She’d skipped class and was sitting there drinking an espresso when Richard Mulaney saw her. He was so blown away by her looks that he arranged to have her meet Abe Daniel, her longtime agent before Lee. Rex Clancy gave Lila her first role, as the wayward daughter in The Girl Is Gone.
“Working. And partying my butt off, if I’m being honest. Totally out of control.” She was back to looking in her purse again. Unzipping the pockets she’d just zipped, unsnapping the compartments she’d just snapped.
“I don’t intend to do any of that. Partying my butt off, I mean.”
“Edwina has turned you into a priss.”
“I like being a priss. I’m my own priss.” I wasn’t really a priss. Not in my imagination. If R. W. Wright could’ve read my mind, he’d have offed me, too.
“Oh my God, look!” She held up her keys. “They were right here all along. Let me tell you, Syd-Syd. You don’t know what the year will hold for you. Anything could happen.”
Well, she was right about that, wasn’t she? Anything could. And everything did.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Exhibit 22: Visa statements, L. Shore, Jan.–Aug.
Exhibit 23: American Express statements, L. Shore, Jan.–Aug.
Exhibit 24: Mastercard statements, L. Shore, Jan.–Aug.