Chapter 4
"Okay, I want you to open your bag right now. I want to see them." I sighed and pulled my knapsack off my shoulder, opening it up to reveal the bright yellow pill bottles.
The last week was a fight to get to this very spot now. My mum was convinced I wasn't "able enough to handle myself," in LA but after a strong argument from Clarice that the only person capable of helping myself was me, she finally gave in. I had packed the night before and then spent the last five hours panicking over whether I was doing the right thing or not.
"Now boarding flight 1590 to Los Angeles, California." The intercom speaker chirped. I kissed my mum on the cheek. She had walked with me as far as she could go, which was the ID checker in the security line. I ran my stuff on the conveyor belt and stepped through the metal detector, amazed at how calm I was now with the fact that I couldn't turn back now. I was committed.
I took a high-dose Ambien and slept my way through the fourteen hour flight. Thank God, too, because I knew that jetlag would catch up eventually with me.
I exchanged my travelers' checks for American dollars at the booth in LAX after I got my bag. I couldn't get over how humungous this airport was. I thought London's airport was big. But it didn't hold a candle to this expanse. I watched families pass by me, little kids with Mickey Ears hanging from their head, grabbing onto their mother's shirts. I watched business men and women try to outdo each other with their electronics. I watched couples be reunited, unaware of the crowds around them. It was all amazing and thrilling and terrifying at the same time.
"What can I do for you today, sir?" The lady behind the visitor counter asked as I approached.
"You wouldn't happen to have a map of the area, would you?"
"Which area?"
"Um, LA?"
She tittered a little and reached behind her, pulling out five different brochures. "This is a map of San Bernardino County, Los Angeles County, Ventura County, and if you need it, Orange County." She handed the thick maps over to me. "And this is a schedule of our bus system." I focused on breathing and reading off the little sections of Los Angeles. Burbank, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Long Beach, West Carson, Glendale and the list went on and on. "Can I help you with anything else, sir?"
"I need a hotel."
I sat in the Starbuck's connected to the Marriot I got shuttled to. I thought about calling my mum, but then I would have to hear it and I was already stressed out as it is. With the maps open in front of me, I started researching the poem that was in the locket.
It Rides with the sea, On the Beach of Tears was not only vague and maddening, but made no sense. What beach was made of tears? I looked at the maps. Of course there were a dozen beaches in Los Angeles. Of Course. Why the locket couldn't have taken me somewhere easy like Delaware? You never hear anything about Delaware.
Point Dume. No. Although it sounded morbid and would make little children cried, I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. Zuma Beach. Wasn't that Gwen Stefani's kid's name? Dan Blocker sounded like a porn star. Malibu was the famous beach. Topanga was that girl's name from that show. Venice was the beach of freaks and t-shirt stands. I sighed, feeling overwhelmed and unaccomplished. I got up and fished some money out of my bag to get some coffee when all my pill bottles fell one by one onto the ground with a plastic-y clatter and then rolled in random directions.
"Shit." I muttered to myself, getting on my hands and knees to gather my meds. I looked around to make sure no one was looking, but the Starbuck's was empty except the barista.
"Let me help you with that."
"No, it's alright, I-," I looked up and a girl with long, sun-bleached hair and startling green eyes had lowered herself onto her knees and were gathering up my pill bottles. She was wearing one of those tight, business-y type skirts and her nametag read 'Zoey.'
"Here yah go, no problemo." She handed me my bottles and stood herself up. "Are you planning on site-seeing?" She asked, turning one of my maps in her direction.
"I-I. Well, sort of." I managed while simultaneously trying to stuff my meds back in my bag. "Have you ever heard a beach referenced 'the beach of tears?" I stood myself up.
Her eyes turned up to the ceiling. "I don't think so."
"Oh, well thank you anyway." I said disappointedly and sat back down.
She pursed her lips and walked off, and I watched her heels click down the tile floor. I went back to studying my maps and my computer, looking up beaches and their histories and why they were named that. Surprise, surprise, most were named after the dead guys that claimed the beach.
I sat there until my coffee got cold and it got dark outside. A sigh startled me out of my reverie and I looked to see Zoey sitting across the table from me, her heels in her hands.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
"No, I didn't."
"That's a shame." She looked out the window. "A beach made of tears…It sounds so sad."
"Why do you say that?" I asked, folding up my maps.
"The beaches here, they are where memories are made." She looked at me, her green eyes piercing. "You don't come to California looking for sadness, because that's not what it's for. You come looking for yourself. It's not called the 'Golden State' for nothing."
"Is that what you did?"
She smiled into the palm of her hand and looked out the window again. "Something like that."
I sighed and looked at the time on my phone. "I just don't even know what I'm looking for here, that's the problem."
Her eyes turned to me, wise and knowing. "But it isn't the destination, that means the most, is it? It's the journey that gets you there."
Author's Note
Hello Padawans of Cacti and Mystery!
I would just like to let you know that I'm posting this so that you get a email from the bot saying that I posted a chapter for a story that I abandoned two years ago. I hope you enjoy that obnoxious random update.
I'm also posting it to let my followers know that I have a new fanfiction pen name called TheMetaBard and I'm currently writing a new fic!
...and that I'm not dead.