Everything Leads to You

“I hope so,” she says.

“But for now, I wanted to say this: I want to know who you are. I mean, apart from all of this we’ve been dealing with. Without the mystery and the Chateau Marmont. I thought that everyone would want that kind of huge, romantic story if it became available to them. But it wasn’t a story, it was your life. And when I got to your apartment the day we found Lenny, and I saw you and how you lived, that’s when I really understood that even without all the clues we’d pieced together and the new identity we’d made for you, you would have already been someone I’d want to know. It’s like the couch! The best things aren’t perfectly constructed. They aren’t illusions. They aren’t larger than life. They are life. Part of me knew that all along, but I got it wrong anyway. What I’m trying to say is that I just want to know you. You don’t have to be at your best. We can’t all be at our best all the time. But,” I say again, “I just want to know you.”

I can hear her breathing on the other end, reminding me that she is there, that she’s been listening. I hope that I’ve just rambled in a way that’s romantic and not a way that sounds insane. It would break my heart if she didn’t think I made sense, so I don’t give her time to react.

“I have to go now,” I tell her, and then I hang up.

I take a moment to breathe, and then I knock on the windshield but Charlotte doesn’t turn around.

I knock again, harder, and she raises a hand to tell me one minute and I see that her other hand is pressing her phone to her ear. And when she turns around a minute later and hangs up, she’s smiling.

“Was it him?” I ask her.

She nods.

“What did he say?”

“He said he’d been waiting all through high school for me to graduate.”

“Are you kidding?”

“No,” she says, and then she’s leaning against the car door in a hysterical fit of laughter comparable only to that at Clyde Jones’s estate sale.

“Wow,” I say. “You and Toby. Fantastic.”

“Don’t be sarcastic,” she says between breaths. “You’re the one who made me do it.”

Once she’s regained her composure she asks, “How did it go with you?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “But I opened up something. At least I tried to.”

“That’s good,” she says.

We sit next to each other, staring through the windshield.

“Charlotte,” I say. “We both just did huge things. We need to celebrate, don’t you think?”

“Champagne!” she says.

“Yes! But how?”

“We could just drive around to places until we find someone who’ll sell it to us,” she says, but it’s clear from her tone that that prospect is not all that enticing. And it sounds pretty miserable to me, too.

“Oh, well, fuck it,” I say. “Let’s just get apple cider.”

Charlotte double-parks outside of a store on Abbot Kinney while I run inside. I find the apple cider in a refrigerator, sadly positioned on the rack below the champagne, but I don’t let it get me down. Instead I stride up to the counter as though I’m carrying Veuve Clicquot instead of Martinelli’s, and the fatherly man behind the counter smiles approvingly at my choice.

He sets down a pen and a page of the Times and I glance at them expecting a crossword puzzle but instead finding the movie listings for the weekend.

He tells me what I owe him but I can’t look away from the listings. He’s circled several in red pen.

“Why are you circling movie times?” I ask him.

“I’m planning my weekend,” he answers, in an accent I can’t place.

“Are you going to see all of those?”

“Yes.”

I hand him my cash.

“Is it, like, some sort of special movie weekend for you?”

“No, it’s my routine. Where I’m from, we had to wait months, sometimes years for American films. Now, I see them on opening weekend.”

I give him a slow smile, studying his face. It’s lit up with the love of films. I turn slowly, taking in this store I’ve probably seen a dozen times but never actually noticed. When I started this project, I probably would have ruled it out. It’s not at all romantic. There’s nothing pretty about it. But it has good light. The produce is fresh and colorful, the aisles wide and well stocked. It’s big enough for the crew but small enough to feel intimate, and I can easily see opportunities to play up its humble charms.

“My name is Emi,” I say to him.

“Hakeem,” he says to me.

“Let me tell you about a film I’m working on,” I say, and ten minutes later I’m climbing back into Charlotte’s car with yet another reason to celebrate.

~

On Sunday morning my phone rings and it’s Ava.

“You know how you said I could call you when I needed a favor?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Does that still apply?”

“Is Jamal at work?” I joke, and I’m relieved when she laughs.

“No,” she says. “But he’s coming, too. So is this a yes? Can I pick you up at four?”

“Yes,” I say.