Chapter 26

ROONEY

Outside the Hollywood police station, the sun casts a burning orange glow in the hazy morning. As soon as I finished wrapping the “D,” I walked down the trail and surrendered. A few hours later, I’m free to go with a fine since no damage was done to the sign. Bohai will be proud. So will Mom.

I find Talia waiting for me on the sidewalk.

“You’re a bad girl, RSG,” Talia says with a smirk.

“Thank you for not staying behind with me. Had it been me, I never would’ve left your side but…” I say playfully, giving her a hug. “You all made it out? No one saw?”

“We all made it back to Jack’s Gōng Gong’s house safely,” Talia updates. “Everyone’s sleeping. Jack wanted to come, but I told him we needed our time.”

We walk ten minutes to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, a place where, because it’s so early in the morning and because of its occupants, there’s no risk that someone will recognize us. We need to process this in peace.

Apparently, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is an active cemetery, but it’s also a landmark and cultural events center where they host movie and literary events. In the grass are a couple of blankets and candy wrappers. There must’ve been an outdoor film screening last night. It’s also the final resting place of icons like Judy Garland, Cecil B. DeMille, and Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Having just opened for the day, it’s quiet. I enjoy my final moments of feeling at ease before the art world gets wind of this. Even if they don’t care who I am, I know there will be interest because of who Mom is.

Talia and I finally check our phones to see what’s waiting for us. I have dozens of missed calls and text messages, mostly from Mom and Jack. In one of Mom’s texts, she’s sent me a link to an article. Her words underneath read, This is BIG. Proud of you.

On my website, I scheduled a post to go live with my artist statement for online art publications and news outlets to use. I even included a photo of myself so they’d use that over a fuzzy photo a bystander may have taken once the police arrived. And it worked. Journalists have included their own context with my statement, along with photos of the red-wrapped Hollywood Sign.

I tap into an article from Art in the World magazine.

Red String Girl Asks Hollywood “HOW?”

It’s a Red-Out! Red String Girl blasts off in Los Angeles, California, with an art takeover of the Hollywood Sign. Known for her red string work and as NASA’s first artist in the newly reinstated Artist-in-Residency program, Red String Girl creates large-scale exhibits that touch on themes of fate, love, and the interconnectedness of the universe. Last night, out of the prying eyes of paparazzi and strangers’ camera phones, Red String Girl managed to cover select letters on LA’s most iconic and beloved sign, leaving the letters H-O-W left unwrapped. How what, we wonder?

According to Red String Girl’s artist statement, “In all the themes I cover and have a personal investment and interest in, I always wonder “How”? How did we get here? How can we take care of each other, our world, and the worlds that exist beyond our own? How do we make ourselves known? How do we make our dreams come true? How do we find our way to each other? How do we fall in love? So much of life is unexplainable, but maybe the answers are in the signs. And when it comes to signs, what bigger than Hollywood’s?”

What else does H-O-W spell? WHO. A question we’ve wondered ever since we reported on Entangled last February. Who is Red String Girl? Turns out, according to the police reports, she’s none other than Rooney Something Gao, daughter of artist Wren Gao. Yes, she was that baby, from Wren Gao’s infamous video art piece Baby Being Born.

Of course, after everything, it came down to Mom and the video.

I will never escape my past.

I click my phone off and set it facedown on the grass.

“What did I do?” I ask Talia, my heart pounding so hard, it hurts.

Talia hugs me. “That information is just a small piece of who you are. What you’ve done and what you continue to do will eventually overshadow your past. And, Roo, no matter what happens, we’ll have this story to tell for the rest of our lives.”

I take a breath. “I want to believe you.”

“The auction hasn’t happened yet. You can still win it,” she tells me calmly. “Your spark of inspiration became a full-on bonfire. Fate Tests really did the trick. Going big worked. Your name is blowing up on my alerts. You’re even trending on social media as #RSGHollywoodSign.”

“It feels amazing to create again.” I trace the fronds of a palm tree with my eyes as I reflect on last night. “Do you think I made the right choice exposing myself?” I ask her.

Talia didn’t even blink when I told her my plans last week. She was excited that I was getting my edge back. She, too, believes that making art means breaking the rules sometimes.

She thinks for a moment. “There’s no right or wrong here,” Talia says. “But I will say that, for your entire life, you’ve felt like you were always the daughter of Wren Gao and known for something you didn’t get to choose for yourself. You didn’t let that stop you from making art, but you did let it stop you from making art as yourself.”

“Red String Girl is me, though,” I say.

Talia kicks her feet out in front of her. “But you couldn’t tell anyone. You’ve lived so much of your life keeping yourself a secret. I think you wearing red clothing made out of string was your quiet way of wanting to be seen.”

I pull at a loose thread in my sweater until the entire row unravels.

Talia grabs my hand. “You can be you now. No more hiding.”

I feel an ache in my chest. “Red String Girl was my shield for so long. Ever since we came up with the name in art school.”

“I remember,” Talia says, smiling. “You had told me about your childhood and how people only cared about knowing how it felt having your birth filmed live in front of people. I could hardly believe it.”

I scoff. “Until that kid, the one who told everyone to call him Maverick because he made art with scrap metal from old planes, brought up my situation in class.”

Talia cringes. “You looked horrified.”

“It was then that I realized I couldn’t escape my past,” I say.

Talia nods. “You shouldn’t have to hide yourself doing what you love. Just look at where we are. Yes, in this cemetery, but also Hollywood. People want so badly to be seen. It’s a completely fair thing to want. Maybe it’s time to lay Red String Girl to rest,” Talia says, glancing between the headstones dotting the green grass.

“May she rest in red.” I hold my hand over my heart.

“Are you going to enter your blue era now?” Talia jokes.

“With the NASA installation coming up and having just revealed my identity, I do have a chance to reinvent myself,” I tease.

Talia smiles. “I’m here with you every step of the way. And Jack will be, too. I still can’t get over that I was right about your trip. One bed. I knew it!”

I groan. “Like I said, we didn’t even spend the night together. I stayed in my own room. All night, every night.”

Talia throws her hand over her chest. “Did you hear that? It was the sound of my heart breaking. I’m here for Jooney. At least tell me that the kissing was everything you remembered it would be?”

I pull at dry blades of grass in silence.

“Wait, was it worse? Because when I look at Jack, I don’t think bad kisser,” Talia says.

“I almost told him I loved him last night,” I blurt out. “After we almost kissed… again.”

Talia’s eyes pop. “You love him? I thought we were processing Red String Girl. Let me take a minute to process this now, too.” She presses her fingers to her temples. “You’ve never loved anyone. Except me of course. You’ll always love me.”

I laugh. “Always.”

“Do you think he’s your… stringmate?” she asks in a whisper, as though we might be overheard in a cemetery.

“I want to believe that he is.” In the daylight, after the rush of love and the adrenaline high, things look a little bit clearer. “It’s weird, though. We kissed in the Rocket Garden, but since then, anytime we’re about to kiss, we’ve been interrupted. Kenneth in the hotel room. The police last night. I can’t help but wonder what it means.”

Talia scrunches her eyebrows. “I don’t know. Bad timing? Pick better places to make out?”

“Maybe what we’re running into are knots,” I say. “Because we’re not supposed to kiss or be more than friends. Who knows where I’ll be when the residency is over. I can’t make promises to Jack if I don’t know where I’ll be, and it’s not like he can just come with me. His mission is very specific, and it’s based here.”

“Do you have to go into it thinking it’s forever? What if it was another chapter? Like Red String Girl was,” Talia says.

I can’t stand the thought of Jack only being a chapter in my life. I could barely accept it after one night with him, but if I leave, aren’t I doing what his parents did? I just claimed my name. If I’m lucky, my work will take me all over the world.

Talia wraps her arm around my shoulders. “If anything, your beliefs have led you this far in love and work,” she says. “Why lose sight of them now?”