Everything Leads to You

Then Jamal says, “But in a moment of weakness, who knows, right? Let’s go check it out.”


We barely talk on the ride to Leona Valley. I exit where I did before, but then take a wrong turn and have to backtrack a few blocks.

I turn on to her street, not expecting to see her car there, but there’s a silver sedan parked midway up the block, right across from her mother’s house.

“Is that it?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Jamal says. “Yeah, that’s it.”

I park behind her car and open my door. I can’t imagine her here. It was more of a wish than an actual guess, so I walk up to make sure it’s really hers.

She’s inside, stretched across the backseat, bobby pins falling out of her hair, hoodie bundled up as a pillow. I know I should look away, but I can’t bring myself to do it. There is something kind of moving about seeing someone sleep—I’ve always felt that. But this. It feels bigger than that. Like I could understand so much of Ava if only I could be suspended here for a little while. Like I could look into her heart.

A few seconds later Jamal and Charlotte appear next to me.

“Should we wake her up?” I whisper.

“Nah,” Jamal says.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “She looks so lonely.”

“She knows where to find us when she wants to,” he says. “I just needed to know she was okay.”

I look at Charlotte and she nods, so I force myself to turn away from Ava and back toward my car. The sun begins to rise as we get on the freeway, and by the time we’re dropping Jamal off it almost looks like daylight.

“Call me if you hear from her?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says. “You, too, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks,” he says. “Sorry if I was hard on you earlier.”

“We understand,” Charlotte says.

He nods, looks up at the shelter.

“Hey,” he says. “If it’s okay, let’s keep this little adventure to ourselves. It’s no big thing. She’d just be embarrassed if you knew what happened tonight. She’s really into you guys.”

“Us?” I say. “She’s Ava Garden Wilder.”

Jamal raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, that’s her name,” he says.

I want to tell him that it’s more than just a name. It’s where she comes from, who she is, but before I can he says, “Later, y’all,” and jogs up the steps.

We drive most of the way back home in silence.

“What did he mean, ‘That’s her name’?”

“You know what he meant,” Charlotte says.

“No, actually. I don’t.”

“He’s saying she’s Ava Garden Wilder. Raised in Leona Valley, did drama in high school, ran away from home, works at Home Depot. He’s saying that she’s just a girl.”

“This is Hollywood,” I say. “You get to be anyone you want to be. Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe, Archibald Leach became Cary Grant. Spike Lee’s first name is actually Shelton. Ava has been Ava Garden Wilder forever. She just has to embrace it.”

When we get home it’s almost six already, so we collapse onto the bed and sleep for an hour and then we make coffee like zombies and get to work.





Part 3


   THE APARTMENT





Chapter Seventeen



Juniper’s apartment is introduced like this:

INT. JUNIPER’s STUDIO APARTMENT—DAY.

A small bright space filled with PLANTS and BOOKS.

So I’ve used the plants and books as the starting point and chosen everything else based on them.

This morning Charlotte and I dug through piles of old art books at thrift stores up and down Sunset Boulevard. Stripped of their jackets, they are faded tan and pink and green cloth. I’m going to stack them in corners of the room, using them as makeshift side tables. We’re stripping the film history books and DVDs from Toby’s bookshelf, but I’ll keep his novels on the shelves as they are. Juniper would definitely read novels.

My dream is to create the impression of potted plants hanging from a beam in the ceiling, but Toby is not an indoor plants kind of guy, and I doubt his landlord would appreciate huge holes in the walls. I have no idea how this will work, but I’m browsing a West Hollywood nursery anyway, choosing the plants I want while Charlotte negotiates a loan from the owner. I’m relying on Morgan to create one of her perfect illusions.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Charlotte says, walking toward me from the office. “He’ll let us rent up to thirty plants for $15 a day, but we have to keep them really healthy, or else he’ll make us buy them. How does that sound?”

“Good.”

“Choose what you want and put them on this cart, and then I’ll do all the paperwork with him and get directions for when to water them all while you go across the street to get pots.”

“This is why I need you,” I say.