Everything Leads to You

The 110 has never been so empty as it is now, before 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, but when we get to the Rose Bowl, people are already lined up to get in. I’m used to the bustling, friendly version of this flea market, the eleven o’clock version when everyone is there to make a day of it, meandering in and out of booths and breaking for burritos at the food trucks. At 5:00 a.m., though, no one is meandering. Everyone is eagle-eyed, targeting specific booths, inspecting the vintage furniture and clothing and decor and either placing them on giant metal carts or slapping SOLD signs on them and continuing to the next thing. These people are vintage-shop owners, ready to sell what they scavenge here for two or three times the price, or they’re decorators, furnishing the houses of private clients, or they’re from the art departments of movie studios. They, like me, are looking for what will make the set transcend an artificial invention, the addition that will make audiences believe that what they’re seeing is real.

Rebecca takes the color swatches I’ve put together for her and goes off in search of rugs for Juniper’s and George’s houses. I target the stands that sell art, still unsure of what I should be looking for. Yesterday afternoon I lay down in the middle of Toby’s living room and stared at the wall for an hour, thinking that maybe the answer would come if I wasn’t searching through magazines and online shops for it. But all I got was blankness so I called Ava, feeling more nervous than ever waiting for her to answer. I know that Charlotte is right and I shouldn’t even be hoping for anything more than friendship. But the things that I wish for are rarely within my control.

I asked her, “What do you think Juniper would hang on her walls?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, like, floral images? Because of the botany?”

“Tried that.”

“Let me think.”

I could hear her breathing in the space between raspy sentences. I tried to picture her in her room at the shelter but I didn’t know what it looked like, and honestly I couldn’t imagine Ava Garden Wilder living in a place like that.

“Family photographs,” she said. “The script doesn’t talk about her family, but she seems like the kind of person who would miss them.”

Something in that felt right to me, but unless I found models to pose as her family it would be pretty much impossible to pull off. And it isn’t the aesthetic I’m going for. I want a set that feels romantic, emotional. A place where someone would dream about a different kind of life.

Now, sifting through hundreds of pieces of art, I find something: a painting of a woman with a long neck and a soft smile.

Portraits.

It’s similar in feeling to what Ava was thinking, but has the potential to be more beautiful. Juniper will have drawings and paintings of strangers on her wall, old things found at flea markets and thrift stores. She surrounds herself with images of people so she’ll feel less alone.

Rebecca texts me a photo of three rugs with a question mark. I text back, Yes, No, Yes. And I visit four art stands and find six portraits that I love.

Driving back at eight with a few rugs and a chest of drawers in the bed of the truck and my portraits stacked on my lap, Rebecca says, “We watched all the audition reels last night.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods. “Your friend is good.”

“Yeah, she is.”

I wait.

“How good?” I ask.

Rebecca smiles.

“We’ll see,” she says.

~

Ava meets me at the Hollywood Goodwill. There are thrift stores I like better, smaller spaces with carefully curated stock, but we need dirt-cheap artwork and I am willing to comb through the stacks to discover it.

“Portraits,” I tell her when we get to the corner where the art is. “The apartment is mostly blues and greens, so if anything matches that color scheme let’s be sure to grab it. But a couple pieces could pop, especially if they’re good ones; if you find a couple red pieces don’t hold back.”

“A variety of sizes?” she asks.

I nod. “They’ll all be hung together on one wall. I’m looking for mismatched styles and sizes. I already have six but could use at least ten more.”

We get to work, sifting through everything from framed band posters to amateur oil paintings. Ava starts a pile and I add to it, and I find that I like working with her. The way that she isn’t asking me what I think of what she’s finding, how she’s just moving fast and efficiently, knowing that we’ll look through them all together when we’ve finished.

“Half of these portraits are of Jesus,” she says. “I’m assuming it’s okay to skip over them.”

“That would cast Juniper in a different light.”

“It is morning. Juniper stands before a wall full of approximately sixteen Jesuses in various sizes and styles.”

I laugh and Ava smiles down into the stacks, working again, and I have to force myself not to look at her.

Theo is supposed to make his final callbacks today, and with every hour that passes without hearing, I am struck with both hope and dread. Hope because I know that Ava has a good chance, even though she’s an unknown, even though he doesn’t know about Clyde. She was that good. And why would Rebecca bring it up if the news was going to be bad? But I know Theo had a lot of actresses to choose from this time around, and I really want this for Ava. We don’t need another setback now when things have been going so well.

I flip through a few landscapes, an abstract in muddy browns, an old circus poster. Then I find a pen-and-ink portrait of an old man and I add it to the pile.

“Emi,” says a voice I recognize, and I turn to find Laura Presley.

“Oh, hey,” I say.

And then I remember what I wrote in her yearbook and feel a little embarrassed, because when I wrote it, I never expected to see her again.