Hollywood, California. I thought it would seem familiar because I'd seen it on T.V. and in the movies so much, that half desert, half oasis, long beaches, clear blue California sky. The ocean, that blue/green wrinkled mess undulating softly in the background of all those movies, the white surf crashing against the white sand. I thought it would feel familiar, but it really didn't. The hot air, the palm trees, the smells of flowers and gardenias and hot pavement, this was so different from Toronto. Toronto is cold and crisp, usually. The smell of lake Ontario is different from the smell of the Pacific. It felt weird to be here.
I slept in my hotel room and awoke there, woke up bleary eyed and sleepy, craving coffee, craving eggs and bacon. The sun was fading my red hair, darkening my freckles. I yawned, stretched, and sat up.
A lot of us were here now, for our various reasons. I was doing a journalism internship at one of the rag mags. I'd join the ranks of ambulance chasers. Marco was here because Dylan had a hockey game in L.A. and he wanted to get some closure. Paige was here to suck up to the designers at a fashion show. Manny was here to try to be in a movie. Good luck. Jay might be here, too, chasing Manny. We could all stay in this hotel and call it little Toronto, little Canada.
I had a cup of coffee on the balcony, feeling the heat just suck the energy out of me. I was too old to try to function in a new climate. My blood was thick and I needed the Canadian cold. I could barely move in this heat. I could see it shimmering in the distance, warping the people who roller bladed and skate boarded and walked on the boardwalk below.
I felt a little better being back in the hotel room and the air conditioning, my thick blood starting to move. I jumped in the shower, soaked my faded hair and lathered it up with tea extract hotel shampoo, shaved the long line of my legs, thought of a second cup of coffee once I was all pressed and dressed. I yawned, leaned against the smooth stone wall in the shower, dreaded going to the office of the magazine and being the noobe again.
I walked since it wasn't far from my hotel. I had notebooks and pens shoved into my purse, I had my laptop. I tottered on my stupid high heels and felt the nylons sealing me in. I felt every ounce of the warm air laying on my skin, slathered with sun block. The distant and dim rays of the sun in Toronto were nothing compared to this.
The office was basically what I expected. Old rugs and prints of paintings behind glass and cheap frames. A maze of desks and cubicles, offices behind glass, the sound of typing and the sound of phone calls. I walked in and in, further and further into the maze until all the cheese in the world wouldn't be able to get me out.
"Hello?" I peeked my head into an office, hoping to find the editor. I was surprised at his youth but not at his gender. The editor was a sandy haired, slender male in his mid twenties to mid forties. This was California, after all. I didn't know what kind of plastic surgery he may have had. He was on the phone and held up a finger to me as he went on talking, and I stood in the doorway, kind of perched there like an awkward red bird.
He hung up the phone without saying goodbye, but I did hear a promise of lunch sometime this week, and then he looked up at me.
"Ellie, right? Ellie Nash?" he said, gesturing to a chair whether I was Ellie or not. But I nodded and sunk into the chair, a hard backed, smooth wooden chair.
"I'm Tim," he said, and I read the placard on his desk, 'Tim Holloway,' and it sounded like an actor's name. An actor from the 40's.
He talked a little about what I would be doing, who I would be with, where I would be going. I listened, taking some of it in, missing the rest. I was feeling strange in all the air conditioning, in all the sun. I wasn't used to this place.
He brought me to the desk of a woman named Meg, and I squinted but couldn't tell her age, either. Thirties? I nodded to myself. The faint lines around her eyes and mouth seemed to indicate thirties. But I could be wrong. It could be sun damage. It could be anything at all.
I returned to my hotel after a not very productive first day. There were a few ideas for stories floating around my head, but just a very few. I felt sucked dry by the sun. I slumped in the hotel chair by the little round wooden table. The chair was striped and overly stuffed. I tapped my nails on the surface of the table and then the phone rang, startling me. It was the hotel phone. I glanced at my strangely silent cell phone and picked up the heavy receiver of the hotel phone.
"Hello?"
"Ellie, hon, your cell isn't working. You probably have the plan that doesn't allow out of the country calls. Call your carrier and fix it," Paige. So that was what was wrong with my cell phone. I shrugged. What did she expect of me? I got the damn thing and the plan in grade 10, and back then I didn't have much money or the need to make international calls.
"Hi, what's up?" I said, not acknowledging her advice, although I'd probably follow it.
"Not much. Listen, I'm coming over. We're going to the beach. Get your bathing suit. See you soon, sweetie," Click. Paige was in full Queen Bee mode. It was fine. It was nice sometimes to have other people plan your life. I looked out the window at the ocean and the tiny surfers at its edge. I was too tired to do all the planning. I found my bathing suit and put it on under a skirt, slipped into sandals and lamented the unpainted state of my toenails. I didn't bring polish or anything. Damn. I'd have to buy some.
It didn't take long to hear the little knock at my door, and out of the peep hole I saw a distorted Paige, a half smile on her face. I opened the door.
"Ready?" she said. She had on oversized sunglasses and a bikini top with a wrap around skirt, chunky sandals with what looked like glitter spilled on them, her blond hair piled on top of her head in a complicated bun. She kind of looked like a demonic movie star, a movie star with fish eyes and scales.
"Yeah," I said, tucking my hotel key card into my pocket and shutting the door behind us. We maneuvered through the halls and stepped into the elevator. A woman got in with us and I stared at her nose. It looked too small and sort of plastic. What was wrong with these people? And her boobs looked a little out of proportion for her body. Paige widened her eyes behind her fly sunglasses. The lady got off a floor before us.
"She should have stuck with the old nose, it couldn't have been worse," Paige said, and I nodded. We got out at the lobby and I knew it would be the last blast of air conditioning for awhile. I breathed it in and then headed for the automatic glass doors that sucked us outside into the sun and the heat.
The beach wasn't far and it wasn't crowded. That kind of surprised me. I mean, it was a beach and it was hot and there was hardly anybody there. But they had it year round. I guess it lost its luster.
"Hey, look," Paige said, pointing to a marquee along our way.
"What?" I said, because honestly I had the sun in my eyes and sand in my hair and the bathing suit felt scratchy.
"It's Funkasaures Rex, Craig's band. They're playing here…tonight,"
I looked up at it, and it did say Funkasaures Rex. My throat was suddenly dry and I couldn't swallow.
"No, Paige, it's probably some other band with the same name…"
"Yeah, right. C'mon, let's go see," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the club. It was dark and had the look of all clubs when the sun was still out, kind of like a magician's hat with the rabbit chewing on the brim.
There was a tattooed long haired guy with an adding machine sitting at one of the empty tables and he looked up when me and Paige came in.
"Hi, I'm Paige Micalchuck," she said, sticking out her hand. I just watched, and he shook her hand with one of his that had tattoos on the knuckles.
"My friend Craig Manning is playing here tonight with Funkasaures Rex," she started out, even though we didn't know for sure that it was him. We weren't sure at all.
"Is he here?" she said, and the guy had gone back to his adding machine, bored with us already.
"Yeah, he's here. He's in the back," he said, and pointed to a green door that led to God knew where. Paige smiled at me smugly and headed for the door. I wasn't sure that I wanted to follow. I wasn't sure at all.