A light touch on my shoulder wakes me up. It takes me a minute to realize that I’m sleeping on a plane and it’s Tina waking me up. I can’t believe I actually fell asleep.
“I just wanted to let you know that we will be landing in a few minutes and I didn’t want it to startle you awake.”
“Thanks.”
She smiles at me and heads back to the front of the plane. Tina takes her seat and flashes me another smile before my mom demands her attention.
I look out the window. I can see cars again, driving on packed roads, but they still look tiny. All of a sudden the ground disappears and we are flying over water. I gasp and hold my breath.
“It’s fine, we have to go over the water so that we can make our approach from the west,” Tina says.
I nod and let the air out of my lungs. The plane banks sharply and we head back in the direction we just came from. I hear a loud clunk from the plane and I look at Tina. Her smile tells me that everything is fine. I don’t believe that a sound like that could be OK. Is something wrong with the plane? My mind fills with thoughts of planes crashing to Earth and bursting into flames.
I close my eyes and start to pray.
The plane shakes and I feel like I’m being pushed forward in my seat. I open my eyes, just a little, and look outside. My heart is still racing. We are on the ground and it looks like we are slowing down.
I look out the window and see other small planes parked just off the runway, but I don’t see any larger planes. I wonder where we are. The plane almost comes to a stop and turns into an empty hanger. The engines power down and Tina gets out of her seat and goes to open the door.
I check to see that I have my phone and my purse and head toward the front of the plane. My mom gets up, and without even looking in my direction gets off the plane. As I reach the front, Tina steps aside and smiles at me.
“Thanks, have a good day,” she says.
“Thank you.”
I climb down the stairs and take a deep breath of fresh air. I never thought I would be so happy to just have my feet on the ground.
A black car, similar to the one that drove us to the airport, pulls into the hanger and stops. A man gets out and nods at my mom before grabbing my two duffel bags out of the plane and putting them in the trunk of the car.
“It’s so good to see you, Ricardo, the driver I had in Greenville was just… he was horrific.”
“It’s good to see you, too, Ms. K.”
Hearing my mom called Ms. sounds so strange. I never thought I would hear it.
My mom stands at the passenger side back door of the car waiting for Ricardo to finish loading the bags. What, is she too good to open a door now? He closes the trunk and hurries over to open her door. The look on his face says that he doesn’t want to disappoint her. Is this who she’s turned in to?
She gets in the car and I follow. By the time I buckle my seatbelt, she has her phone out and is holding it up to her ear.
“Hey… yeah, we just landed.”
I take out my phone. I need to text Logan back, I’m sure he wondered what happened. There’s a text waiting on my phone from him.
Is everything OK?
“Sure, I’m meeting Nicole at seven, so I might be kind of late.”
I wonder who she’s on the phone with. Is it the guy she left Dad for?
Ricardo climbs into the driver's seat and starts the car. We pull out of the airplane hangar and head down a side road. I turn my attention back to my phone.
Sorry, we got on a plane just outside of Greenville and we just landed.
“Alright… love you, too.”
She hangs up her phone and turns to me. I turn my head and look out the window. I have no desire to make eye contact with her. I guess she must have been talking to whoever she left Dad for. I have no desire to meet him.
We take a right onto a main road. We come to a stop and I look at the street signs. We are on Santa Monica Boulevard, which sounds strangely familiar. The light turns green and we go straight, passing under a bridge for a freeway.
My phone vibrates and I look down and see a text from Logan.
I didn’t know there was even an airport near Greenville.
I didn’t either, it was more like just a runway.
I look out the window as we stop at another light. I thought the traffic in Salem was bad, especially after moving from Greenville, but this is just insane. There are cars everywhere. I see a sign, on the opposite corner, that’s dark blue with yellow letters that says ‘Beverly Hills.’
Where are you now?
I blink and look at the sign again as Ricardo drives through the intersection.
I’m in Beverly Hills.
Under normal circumstances I would be excited, and a little star struck, to be in Beverly Hills. It’s weird to be in a place that you’ve seen on TV and hear about your whole life. I look out the window half expecting to see a movie star walking down the street. My phone vibrates.
Crazy. What’s it like?
It looks like anywhere, there’s just a lot more people.
As I’m texting, Ricardo turns left. There aren’t any more businesses lining the street. There are houses instead, some of which are the same size as the ones in Salem but the rest are massive. I’ve never seen anything like them in real life. I look down at my phone.
Really? I thought it would be different. I’m not sure how, but I thought movie stars didn’t live like the rest of us.
I may have spoken too soon. Ricardo turns the car into a driveway and waits for the automatic gate to swing open. He pulls through and into a circle driveway and stops in front of one of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen in my life.
It’s a two story concrete house, with a lot of windows facing the street. It looks very boxy and modern, but I think it looks cool.
Is this where she lives? Did she leave my dad because she met some rich, Hollywood guy in Greenville? That’s the only explanation.
Ricardo gets out of the car and opens the door for my mom. I open my own door and step out. She spins around and shoots me a dirty look. Whatever, I can let myself out of a car.
I go to the trunk to get my bags, but Ricardo looks at me. He has a pleading look on his face, as if he’s asking me not to get the bags and I step aside. Ricardo nods toward the door, where my mom is standing waiting for me.
When I reach the front door she lowers her sunglasses and glares at me.
“We pay him a lot of money, let him do his job.”
She turns and walks inside. I seriously doubt she’s paying him anything. It’s weird… it seems like she settled into this new life of hers really quickly. I glance over my shoulder as I walk in the door and see that Ricardo is right behind me.
My mom is to the left, standing next to a staircase, when I walk in the door. In front of me there is what looks like a living room, with large windows that look out to the backyard, and to the right is a formal looking dining room.
“Ricardo, put her in the back corner bedroom. The empty one.”
He nods, walks by her and up the stairs. She turns to me and just stares.
“Well… you better follow him if you want to know where your room is.”
I just look at her, wondering what happened to my mom… to the woman who raised me. I wonder if there’s any of her left inside of the Hollywood bitch that’s standing in front of me. I grit my teeth and follow Ricardo up the stairs. He waits for me when he reaches the top and then walks straight down a long hallway.
There are doors on both sides of the hall but all of them are closed. Modern art covers the walls. It mostly looks like something a kid could have done and I’m sure it was probably expensive.
Ricardo stops in front of a door on the left side of the hall, near the end, and sets down my bags. I look to my left and see a staircase. Wow, two staircases in one house? That seems a little excessive.
I follow Ricardo into the room and my jaw drops. If this is what my room looks like I can’t even imagine how nice the master must be. The room is almost twice the size of my room in Greenville with a king size bed against the wall, with windows on either side of it. I’ve never slept in a king size before. There’s a built-in closet along the open wall and a door which I assume leads to a bathroom.
Ricardo sets my bags down on the bed, pulls the curtains open and turns to me.
“Is there anything else, Miss Amy?”
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
He nods and leaves the room.
I walk over to the door and open it and walk into my very own bathroom, something I’ve never had before. A smile crosses my face for the first time since leaving Logan. There is a large shower, a beautiful vanity and sink and a toilet in the corner. Everything is beautiful and looks really expensive.
I sit down on the bed and pull out my phone. I guess I got caught up in the house because I forgot to text Logan back.
Hey, sorry, just got to the house and got settled into my new room.
I hit send and look around the room while I wait for a reply. The paintings on the wall match the rest of the house. I wonder how much all of this art cost. It seems a little nuts to put this kind of stuff in a room that is obviously not used most of the time.
My phone vibrates.
It’s all good, I figured it was something like that. How’s the house? Is it a mansion?
Now that he mentions it, I guess that this house would probably qualify as a mansion. I haven’t seen the whole thing yet but based on the outside, and what I have seen inside, I would say that this counts as a mansion.
It’s giant and really nice. My room is huge. I have a king size bed!
I bounce up and down on the bed to test it out. It’s really comfortable, too. I’m actually kind of looking forward to going to sleep tonight.
Good, I hope that it makes your stay there a little more bearable.
I still want to get out of here as soon as possible.
There is a knock on my bedroom door. I roll my eyes. I wonder what the heck my mom wants now. I debate just ignoring it but there is a second knock. I get up, walk to the door and open it.
Standing in the hall is a woman, dressed like a maid. She smiles at me but doesn’t say anything.
“Yes?” I say.
“Sorry to bother you, Miss Amy. What would you like to have for dinner?”
“What?”
“Dinner, what would you like me to make you?”
My phone vibrates in my hand, but I don’t look down at it.
“Uh… I have no idea.”
She looks down at her feet as if she did something wrong.
“I’m sorry, I’m… I’m just not used to any of this.”
She looks up at me with a confused look on her face.
“I come from a small town. I’ve never seen a house this big, let alone lived in one. I’m just a little overwhelmed right now. So make whatever you feel like, I’m sure that it will be good.”
She nods and smiles at me before walking away and heading down the staircase that’s just to the right of my door.
Crazy. A driver and a cook? This guy must be making some serious money. I wonder if he was one of the stars of the movie? Or maybe a producer?
I close my bedroom door, sit back down on the bed and read the text from Logan.
I know, but unless you can convince your mom to let you leave, you might as well make the best of it and enjoy living in a mansion.
He’s right. I do want to get out of here as soon as possible, but I guess I should be thankful that at least I get to spend my short time in L.A. in a nice house. If I think about it, it’s a lot better than being one of those kids who has to live in a crappy apartment after their parents get divorced. Still, I wouldn’t be in this position at all if it wasn’t for her.
Yeah, I still need to get out of here. I miss you terribly. I can’t do a month of this.
I set my phone down on the bed, get up and walk over to the window. The back yard is massive, much larger than anything I’ve ever seen. There’s a massive pool in the middle of it that looks like it could double as a pool for the Olympics. A hot tub, that’s as big as most pools I’ve seen, sits next to the pool. Perfectly manicured hedges run around the entire property line and large trees dot the yard.
I hear my phone vibrate and I sit back down on the bed to pick it up.
I miss you, too. Just try to remember this is temporary. We’ll be together soon.
I know, you’re right. We are supposed to be together, I just know it.
I have to go to a football meeting, will you be around later?
My heart sinks a little. I never want to stop talking to him, especially now that we are so far away from each other.
Yeah, I’ll be here. I don’t plan on going anywhere.
Talk to you later.
It pains me to not be able to text him. Hopefully his meeting won’t last very long. I guess this will give me a chance to text Jess. I miss her, too, just not as much as Logan. Not to mention I haven’t even told her yet that I left. Everything happened so fast that I didn’t get a chance.
Jess, sorry I didn’t text you earlier, but I had to leave. My mom showed up in Greenville and she made me leave.
Hopefully she’s not at work yet. It’s getting kind of late plus there’s the time difference. Thankfully she replies almost instantly, which brings a little bit of a smile to my face.
What??? That’s crazy! Where are you now?
I almost laugh as I read the text in her voice.
I’m in L.A., staying at her boyfriend’s house.
Is he nice?
I have no idea, I haven’t met him yet.
It is kind of weird that I really have no idea who he is and I know nothing about him, yet here I am sitting in his house. Well, I mean, I guess I know that he works in the movie industry and that he was in Greenville for that movie they filmed, but that doesn’t tell me much about him.
Crazy. Well, hopefully he isn’t an ass.
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I guess that it’s a good question though. My mom certainly has changed a lot in such a short amount of time so it’s quite possible that he could be an ass, too.
I really hope that’s not the case.
Yeah… I hope he’s alright.
Ugh. I’m kind of not looking forward to meeting him. Not that I really was before, but now… now I don’t know what to expect and I have a sick feeling that he might be hard to be around. My phone vibrates.
For sure. Listen, I want to catch up some more and I want to hear more about how this all happened, but I’ve really got to get to work. Can I text you later?
Yeah, for sure. Have a good shift.
I set my phone on the bedside table and walk over to the window. I wish I could have talked to Jess some more, I need to figure all of this out and I can’t keep dumping it all on Logan. I feel like he doesn’t deserve that.
I stare out the window and let my thoughts drift, trying to not think about my current predicament.