Everything Leads to You

“Talks about the florist. Tells George that story. I love that part.”


They stare at me.

“I don’t have it all memorized or anything,” I say. “But I made a lot of notes on that scene. It’s the first time we’re in the break room, and there are a bunch of things that I want to get in the shot. Like wine crates for them to sit on, hooks for the aprons to hang from, a board that shows the shift schedule for the week . . . That sort of thing.”

“We originally wrote it to play out as a flashback,” Rebecca says. “So you would see the flower stand and everything happening as Juniper tells the story. It’s one of the things we had to cut considering the budget. But as long as we have great performances, we think the actors will be able to carry the scene.”

They want to hear about more of my ideas, but I steer them back to Juniper as soon as I can.

“We have an A-list cast,” I say. “Does that mean you need a star for her part?”

“We’ve talked a lot about that,” Rebecca says. “At first we thought yes, but we changed our minds.”

“It was out of desperation, really,” Theo adds. “No star who wanted to do it was right for the part. But we have enough name recognition with Benjamin and Lindsey.”

“So you’d consider an unknown?”

“As long as she was the right unknown,” Theo says. “Then yes.”

~

Even after I’ve left, I don’t want to stop planning. I’ve never felt so awake.

As soon as I get back to the apartment I set myself up on Toby’s patio with my sunglasses and my laptop and scour the Internet for art to go on Juniper’s walls. I want lush, lived-in sets for this film. Nothing too spare or too modern.

A couple hours later I find what I’m looking for on the site of a vintage store in Minneapolis. Eight botanical prints from a book published in 1901. The prints are yellowed in a way that makes them look valuable and rare, and the plant drawings are so pretty—all delicate blossoms and leaves and root structures. They are so clearly right for Juniper that I only hesitate for a moment when I see the price. Yes, they are a third of the budget we have allocated for Juniper’s entire apartment, but I am sure that I’ll be able to beg and borrow for almost everything else, so I get out my credit card.

~

Ava appears in the doorway of the Marmont bar, scanning the room for us, clearly relieved when she sees me wave.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she says as she steps down into the bright, sunken seating area where we’ve claimed a table. “I had no idea what door to go through! And I kept thinking I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be and that someone was going to know and throw me out. What is this place?”

She drops her purse on the red worn carpet and pulls out a velvet upholstered, high-back chair. Her hair is up today, bobby-pinned and messy, and she’s dressed in the same shorts and belt as last time, today with a white shirt loosely buttoned and rolled up at the sleeves.

“It’s a hotel,” I say.

“A ridiculously overpriced hotel,” Charlotte adds. “For celebrities and people desperate to see celebrities.” She catches sight of something in the courtyard. “And for women who make me terrified of growing old.”

We follow her gaze to where two elderly ladies are rising from their table, wobbly on their matchstick legs and high heels, their breasts huge and fake, the skin on their overly made-up faces pulled tight by many surgeries. Their lips are so swollen they must hurt. I look away.

“The Marmont is more than that,” I say. “It has a lot of history. Clyde Jones used to hang out here, so I thought it would be the perfect place to meet up with his granddaughter.”

“He did?”

“All the stars at that time did. And sure, lots of people come here just to be seen, but people do serious work here, too. Like Annie Leibovitz? She’s taken some of her most famous portraits here. People have written novels here. Sofia Coppola filmed an entire movie here. And there have been a lot of tragedies, too.”

Charlotte says, “Emi loves tragedy.”

“That’s because all the best stories are tragic.”

“Tragedies like what?” Ava asks.

“So many of them. Have you heard of John Belushi?”

She shakes her head no.

“He was a comedian, part of the original cast of Saturday Night Live. He died here in 1982. He was only thirty-three, and that night he was partying with all these other celebrities—Robin Williams and Robert De Niro and lots of other people—and then he OD’d. They found him in his room. Bungalow Three.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, so sad,” I say. “Are you hungry?”

She nods and I hand her a menu. Almost immediately, her brow furrows, and I know that it must be because everything costs way more than it should. You can’t even get a cup of soup for a decent price. So when the waiter comes I jump in and order a bunch of things.

“Does this sound okay?” I ask them. “I thought I’d order stuff to share.”

Ava nods but she looks worried.