Emma hearts LA (9 page)

‘Indeed,’ he says, smiling. ‘Particularly since you know absolutely nothing about it. And it’s astronaut, not spaceman.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘That one was just to wind you up. I think it’s cool, honestly.’

Bex appears with an armful of books, including a biography of Alex Hall.

‘Seriously?’ I say. ‘Isn’t he about twenty? What’s he done?’

‘He’s nineteen,’ she says. ‘I think it’s mainly photos.’

Fair enough. He’s certainly nice to look at. I follow her over to the desk so she can pay.

As we’re waiting, I grab one of the notebooks – it has a vintage photo of the Venice Beach sign on the cover – and add it to Bex’s pile of books. I might not draw in it, but it’s good to know I’ll have a perfect book if I ever do get the urge.

As we’re walking back along the Boardwalk, Oscar suddenly shouts something incomprehensible and darts off across some grass towards a skatepark. Bex and I just stand and watch him go, until he turns around, gestures at us to follow him and shouts, ‘Come on!’ We follow him.

The skatepark is pretty cool. It’s not like the one near my old school, which is basically two inverted slabs of concrete; this one is sculptured. All hills and valleys and curves. If people weren’t skating on it, it would probably look like a pretty cool piece of public art. (When people aren’t skating on the one at home, it looks like a massive example of vandalism.)

‘What are we looking at?’ I ask Oscar, but then I see. Tabby appears from out of a dip, hovers in mid-air long enough to spot us and then disappears from sight again.

‘Was that Tabby?’ Bex asks.

Oscar nods. ‘She’s fantastic. Sam skates here too, but he must be at work if Tab’s here.’

Tabby appears again, further away this time, skirting the edge of the furthest curve. She’s leaning at about forty-five degrees and moving pretty quickly along the concrete, but it looks completely effortless. The skateboard makes a swishing sound that’s almost hypnotic. She swoops out of sight then reappears, before leaping over the top of one of the crests and landing on her feet, with her skateboard in her hand, right in front of us.

‘Hi!’ she says. To Oscar.

‘Wow, that was amazing!’ Bex says, grinning.

‘Thanks.’ Tabby smiles back at her.

‘You make it look so easy,’ I tell her.

‘It is pretty easy,’ she says, shrugging. ‘Once you’ve practised for a few years.’

‘Wow,’ Bex says again. ‘I think I’d be too scared.’

‘Nah, you just have to wear a lot of padding when you first start. I bashed my ass so much, my mom used to make me pad my pants. But I hardly ever fall any more.’

‘Tab’s won competitions and been on TV. She’s a bit of a skating star,’ Oscar says.

Tabby dips her head and gives him a shove as if she’s embarrassed, but she looks pleased. Between that and Oscar calling her ‘Tab’, I wonder if there’s something going on between them. They definitely look good together – her with her black hair and red lips and him with his red hair. I feel a bit strange about it. I’m not jealous, obviously, but I have that feeling you sometimes get when you introduce two friends who didn’t previously know each other and you don’t want them to go off without you. Which is ridiculous, since I haven’t even seen Oscar for years and if anyone should be feeling like that, it’s Tabby.

I’m distracted from my thoughts when a boy who looks about Bex’s age trips backwards off his skateboard, which flies up in the air and hits the railings we’re leaning against, sending a vibration through my hands. When he comes to collect it, he looks almost tearful.

‘And you have to make sure you know what you’re doing before you try it on the park,’ Tabby says to us. The boy looks a bit shamefaced as he leaves.

‘You should definitely try it though,’ Tabby tells Bex. ‘Even if it’s just on the bike path or somewhere. When you really get good at it it feels like flying.’

Bex nods. I can see from her face that she’s planning to buy a skateboard as soon as possible. She is so keen to throw herself into LA life. She’s so unlike me.

We’ve only been home a few minutes when a courier brings a parcel for Bex from Emily.

There’s a note telling us that Wednesday would be good for going to the studio and giving us Jordan’s numbers, and there’s a DVD of
Stellar Highway
, Alex’s show.

A few minutes later, Mum gets back and she’s brought takeaway Vietnamese food, so we dish it all out on the coffee table and put the DVD in the player. We’re just about to watch it when Bex’s phone rings. It’s Dad and she starts telling him about the meeting with Emily. I pick at the fried tofu slices Mum loves.

‘She was wonderful today, wasn’t she?’ Mum says, picking a bit of everything for her plate.

‘Bex? Yeah. She’s so confident, it’s amazing.’

Mum nods, her mouth full, and then says, ‘That’s the main thing your dad and I wanted for you two. We just wanted you to have the confidence to do whatever you wanted in life.’

Bex frowns at us for talking while she’s on the phone and walks through to the kitchen.

I fold another tofu slice into my mouth and ask Mum, ‘Do you know why I stopped drawing?’

Her eyes go wide. ‘Oh! No. What made you think of that?’

‘Oscar and Bex were talking about it today. They think I gave up too easily. Bex said that Dad said so.’

‘Ah,’ Mum says. She puts her plate back on the table and looks at me. ‘I always thought your dad was a bit hard on you about it.’

‘Really?’ I don’t remember that.

She nods. ‘Your dad doesn’t really do anything by half measures, you know? And I know he thought you were extremely talented – we both did. I think he thought you should be taking it more seriously than you were.’

I frown. ‘I don’t really remember him pressuring me about it.’

‘No? I don’t remember specific examples, but I do remember you being upset once or twice because you’d been proud of something and he’d pointed out the faults.’

And I do remember that. But Dad was always like that. If I got ninety per cent on a test, he’d ask what happened to the other ten per cent. It was annoying, but I thought I was used to it. Is that what happened? Is that what made me stop?

‘He was disappointed when you didn’t go ahead with the art class, I know that,’ Mum says.

I slide one of the plastic dishes over to my end of the coffee table.

‘He’d hate to think you stopped because of him,’ Mum says.

I look at her. I don’t know that I did, but it’s certainly possible.

‘Have you spoken to him since we got here?’ she asks.

I shake my head.

‘You could go and have a word now?’

I can hear Bex saying goodbye, telling Dad she loves him.

‘No, that’s OK,’ I say. ‘The food’s getting cold.’

The titles of
Stellar Highway
show Alex riding a motorbike along a coast road that’s wreathed in fog.

‘Oh, dear,’ I say. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t watch this. I might not be able to look him in the face at the studios.’

‘Give it a chance, for goodness’ sake,’ Mum says, smiling at me.

Bex is ignoring me and staring transfixed at the screen, no doubt picturing herself appearing in this very show in the near future.

The titles end and the show starts with Alex lying in bed. His long eyelashes are fluttering and he starts tossing his head from side to side. And then there’s one of those flash close-up things right to his face so you feel like you’re going inside his head. There’s a close-up on his eyes, which are a really unusual colour. I didn’t notice in Emily’s office, but they almost look bronze. Then suddenly the scene changes to a bright square in what looks like Mexico – multi-coloured houses, railings around a small park with flowers woven through the bars. And Alex standing in front of an enormous tree, looking puzzled.

‘What’s the deal?’ I say. ‘Is this a dream?’

Bex shushes me aggressively and I look at Mum and grin.

The show does actually turn out to be pretty entertaining. Alex’s character – his name is Luke – is a journalism student and star of the college paper who, whenever he falls asleep, astrally travels elsewhere, generally to the scene of a crime, if the flashbacks are anything to go by.

In Mexico, he hangs out with a group of American teens there on spring break. One of them dies of an overdose and Luke knows that the drug was given to them by one of the other teens, who then claims the dead kid bought it from a Mexican bigwig. Luke has the story for his paper and also has to work out an explanation for how he got it. That bit’s not entirely convincing, but the rest of it’s pretty good. It’s easy to see how Alex became so popular so quickly. He’s charming, funny and sexy – and he takes his shirt off a lot.

I’m looking forward to the studio visit even more now.

I’m woken in the morning by my mobile vibrating off my bedside table and onto the floor. I grope for it, screwing my eyes up against the bright sunshine that’s pouring in through the gap in the curtains. It’s not right, sunshine first thing in the morning – it’s against the natural order of things.

I find my phone and make out that it’s Oscar calling, before I press the green button.

‘Did you forget?’ he says.

‘Whaa?’

‘Grand tour? Today? We were meant to go yesterday, but we set Bex on her path to fame and fortune instead?’

‘What time is it?’ I groan, swinging my legs off the side of the bed.

‘Ten,’ he says. ‘Tour starts at eleven and we’ve got to get to Santa Monica yet.’

‘Where are you?’ I head for the bathroom and wince when I see my reflection. My hair’s standing on end and yesterday’s mascara is smeared under each eye.

‘I’m outside,’ he says. ‘On your dock.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yep. Do you want to take a rain check, as they say round here?’

‘No, no,’ I say. ‘Thanks. I’ll let you in. Hang on a minute.’

I end the call and go through to Bex’s room. She’s sitting cross-legged on her pillow with her laptop balanced on a pile of books at the end of the bed. As soon as she sees me, she holds up one finger behind her back to tell me not to speak. She’s obviously recording.

I roll my eyes and head downstairs to let Oscar in, trying to smooth my hair down with my hands on the way. In the living room, I pull back one of the curtains and am again blinded by the bright sunshine. A picture of home pops into my head. The front door of our old house. Rain on the red tiles of the front path. It seems like a different world.

I slide open the door and Oscar comes through. He’s wearing long blue shorts and a red T-shirt with the Starbucks logo, only it says star wars and has a picture of a Stormtrooper instead of the mermaid.

‘Thank god,’ he says. ‘Your neighbours were starting to look at me funny.’

‘They probably thought you were an enormous garden gnome,’ I say.

He does finger guns at me and says, ‘I’m not sure I’m willing to be insulted by a woman who’s not wearing any trousers.’ But then he looks down at my legs and blushes.

‘I’ll go and get dressed then,’ I tell him. ‘And I’ll send Bex down. She’s filming herself on her laptop.’

‘Oh hey!’ Oscar says, as I’m halfway through the kitchen. ‘Pride of place!’

I’d put the photo from the big wheel on the mantelpiece. Since our stuff’s all in storage, it’s the only photo we have.

‘You do appreciate me,’ Oscar says, and pretends to cry.

I shake my head – he’s such a dork – and run up the stairs to get dressed.

The tour bus is small, only about twelve seats. I sit with Bex and Oscar sits behind us. An Australian girl who looks to be in her early twenties and a German couple get on and sit on the other side of the bus. We wait there for about twenty minutes while the driver chats on his phone, presumably waiting for more people to turn up. He’s got a strong Latin American accent and a really infectious giggle. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but apparently they’re hilarious. Eventually he stops chatting, gives up waiting and we set off.

He drives us past the canals, which feels quite weird. I keep wanting to tell the other people on the bus, ‘We live here!’ We see a big scary-ass clown ballerina statue that was apparently in the Sandra Bullock film
Speed
and then the driver drops us back at Venice Beach for twenty minutes.

‘Ah,’ Oscar says. ‘I didn’t realise it did this. We could’ve started here.’

Since we live here, we don’t bother walking down to the Boardwalk like the others, we get a coffee instead. We sit outside people-watching and I text Jessie a photo of someone skateboarding while hanging on to the back of a car. We’d wanted to see someone doing that in New York, but never did.

When the others come back to the bus, they’re horrified by the Boardwalk. The German couple declare it ‘disgusting’ and the Australian isn’t much more complimentary.

Oscar grins at me and whispers, ‘It’ll be the weed that horrified them.’

‘They should’ve stayed a bit longer,’ I say, ‘and breathed a bit deeper.’