Track [29] “Santa Monica”/Everclear
I’d been wrong about a lot of things in my life. But there were two things that I was wrong about that actually turned out all right. The first was thinking that my father would never forgive me for asking him to drive me all the way back to L.A. from the lake. He wasn’t even mad.
Okay, he wasn’t thrilled about asking Mad Dog for the time off, or when he had to listen to me tell Mad Dog that I was quitting service with no notice whatsoever.
The point is that Dad wasn’t angry. And he forgave me. And he rented a car that night and drove me back to L.A.
The second thing I was wrong about that actually turned out okay was discovering that my dad wasn’t just in a seemingly healthy relationship with the mystery person who was always texting him, J.H.; that person was, in fact, a real-life guy named Jay.
Jay the celebrity helicopter pilot was not only real, but he also had a really nice two-bedroom apartment in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica, just a couple blocks from the pier, that he let us stay at. It wasn’t precisely oceanside, but close enough. It was inside a three-story stucco building with two other garden apartments, and it had an amazing little patio balcony in the back that overlooked a sunny, palm tree–lined alley with a narrow view of the beach, just a half a block away.
A few days after we got back in town, Dad and I sat out there most of the afternoon, watching surfers and beach bums while sipping cherry Kool-Aid in our shorts and no shoes in the dry, hot heat; the Santa Ana winds came early. I forgot how much louder it was in the city, with everyone’s car radios thumping and the neighbors fighting late at night. All the smells. Very different than lake life. That’s the California I knew. Who needed Condor? Not me.
Anyway, Jay was still in South America, so I hadn’t actually met him face-to-face yet. He just loaned us his place to crash while I was sorting out my life. He wouldn’t be back for a while, so I basically had this place for about three weeks. After that, I was on my own.
“Oh, here’s one, cub,” Dad said from the other side of the patio table, squinting into the sun as he browsed want ads. “It’s part-time at a pet store. The pay’s not bad. Wait, it’s way out in Pasadena.”
“That’s close to Glendale.”
“So? What’s in Glendale?” His face scrunched up. “Forest Lawn cemetery…”
Fen’s grandparents.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. I couldn’t think about that. Not in front of Dad. Had to hold it together. I was the one who dragged us down here. Now I had to make it work.
Dad helped me put together my resume—probably the shortest resume in history. Dog walker and PA. The end. We had to pad it out with my education. Exie said she’d give a stellar reference for any future employer if I needed one. Surprisingly, Norma said she would too.
“I need full-time work anyway,” I told Dad as he continued to scroll through job listings. “Stop looking at part-time stuff. I’ll never afford an apartment on part-time pay.”
“Keep forgetting about rent,” he mumbled as a scooter whizzed down the alley beneath the patio. “Not used to paying for that. Maybe you could get a roommate? One of your old friends from your charter school?”
“They’re all living in dorms, Dad. They were achievers, remember? Some are going to college in other states.”
“Right. And it’s really too late for you to get accepted into any of the nearby schools you wanted to go to? Not UCLA, but Cal State? Even if Mad Dog helped put in a good word?”
“By about six months,” I said, thinking of how Fen got Eddie kicked out of school. It made me smile a little… until it didn’t. Anyway, I didn’t want to get into with Dad about how that kind of thing wasn’t just frowned on, it was a crime. Dad didn’t go to college. This was all foreign to him. “It’s okay. Lots of people start in community college. Even famous people.” That would make him feel better. “Plus, it’s tons cheaper, so financial aid might cover the tuition. Looks like most of them have open registration until the end of August.”
“Only decent community colleges I know are in the Valley,” he said, gritting his teeth. “So far away…”
“It’s half an hour.”
“On the 101. Maybe there’s one closer. What are you going to study?”
“Just going to take some general classes that I know for sure will transfer to any university. Then I’m going to figure it out as I go. Talk to a school advisor or professors—other students. See what floats my boat.”
He nodded. “Okay. But how are you going to take classes and work full-time?”
AHH! I held my head in my hands. “I don’t know, okay? But I’ve got a little money in my checking account from what I earned at Mad Dog’s, and what does anyone else do?”
I was starting to think I’d made the mistake of the century. There were too many moving pieces to this puzzle, and I still couldn’t get my head around the fact that everything in my life was gone.
The Sarafians.
The lake.
Mad Dog.
Velvet.
Exie and Norma… the only family I’d ever really known.
Frida.
Funny that losing such a tiny dog could hurt so badly. How did I let myself get attached to her? She wasn’t even mine. I had a hard time sleeping without her the first few nights. I still looked around and expected her to be wagging at my ankles… still listened for her bark. When we left the lake that night, I kept Captain Pickles with me out of grief. But then I got worried she would be upset without it, so I overnighted it. When I walked in with it and asked for a box, the woman at the FedEx store looked at me as if it was the strangest request she’d ever had.
As for Fen?
Well.
I couldn’t bear to think about him for too long. Especially not during the day. I only allowed myself to completely let my mind fill with Fen-size memories at night when I was listening to music, trying to sleep. That’s when I let myself be completely miserable.
In the day, I held myself together and pretended for my dad that I was strong and that everything was a-okay. Daytime was deadtime.
Day and night. A repeating cycle of self-pity and self-punishment. Super healthy. There was probably a better way, and I’d figure it out eventually.
I just hoped Fen was doing better than I was.
A heavy sigh escaped my father as he got up and shuffled to the other side of the balcony, leaning over the railing to watch people heading down to the beach for the afternoon. “Jane, I want you to know that I am behind you. If this is what you want, then we’ll make it happen. You realize you haven’t lost any words since you asked me to drive you back to L.A.?”
Huh. I guess I hadn’t.
Then again, I hadn’t been struggling with my word-pixie as much since I’d been seeing Fen. Maybe facing my ghosts cleared out some neural pathways. At the very least, it helped me conquer some stress and gain confidence.
“Your mother never went to school,” he said. “I don’t think she’d care much about the degree, but she was strong-willed, and she’d like you doing this. But there will always be a part of me that needs to watch out for you, and I think what may be worse is losing you altogether. So can we agree that if you do this, we’ll make time to see each other?”
“Dad,” I told him. “Seriously. It would be here in the metro area.”
“You’d be surprised. Relationships have died on these freeways.”
“Good thing I know a professional driver, huh?”
He gave me a soft smile. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
It was almost time for his daily Jay call, so I put a pause on the job hunt to give him some private space. Maybe I needed some too. To think.
I hiked down to the beach to stake out a place in the sand and watch the sunset over the ocean. It was warm and windy, and the Pacific was rougher and bigger than Condor Lake. No comparison. But I missed the lake’s serene surface and all its tall trees. I missed how quiet and wild it was there. There was room enough for me to breathe. Weird to think that all the Festival Freaks were gone now. I bet the town felt empty without them.
Someone shouted across the beach.
I jerked up my head to see what the commotion was and spotted a dark streak heading across the sand, accompanied by someone giving chase, waving a straw hat. I couldn’t tell if something was wrong, so I started to push up from the sand, pulse rocketing, not sure if I should flee or help. My mind processed what was happening right as the dark streak came into focus—
As it leapt at my face.
“Frida!”
“Oh my God!” Velvet shouted from down the beach. “You damn dog!”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was shocked to see Velvet, but I was too wrapped up in dog love. Frida was licking my face and wagging her tail so hard, she was falling on me. I scooped her into my arms and kissed her all over her face. “I missed you so much. Oh my goodness, you smell like lavender. You will be breaking out soon, won’t you? You are allergic to lavender! Who did that to you? Oh, sweetie!”
“What a tramp,” Velvet said, breathless as she trudged through the sand and collapsed next to me in white shorts and a shirt that spilled off one brown shoulder. She set the straw hat on her knee and pushed sunglasses up into her hair. “Catch your breath, dog. It’s just Jane, for the love of Pete. Am I going to have to take you to the vet again?”
“Again?” I said, alarmed, stroking Frida’s warm back as she wagged like a maniac and made desperate whining noises. She felt so good.
“Do dogs like your voice or something? Or maybe it’s because you’re so small, like her.”
I probably should’ve been insulted, but I was too happy. “What about the vet?”
“She stopped eating. There’s nothing wrong with her. She was probably just depressed that you left. Is she allergic to lavender? How come no one tells me these things? Hello, by the way. Leo said you were down here. Cool little place you’ve got. I love Santa Monica.”
I squinted up at her. “When did you get back into L.A.?”
“Yesterday. Daddy said he was done working, and the Festival Freaks had cleared out, so it was a good time to leave. Plus, I think he was suspicious about the partying.”
“Oh,” I said. “I never told—”
“It’s cool.”
“But I didn’t say anything. I swear.” Only I realized that wasn’t entirely true. “I may have said something about the Battle of the Bands to Exie.…” I hung my head.
“Ugh.”
“I’m sorry, but I was worried about you. That’s why I texted you, and then that whole incident at Betty’s…”
Her shoulders sagged. “That was a low point. But not the lowest. Let’s just say that I think I finally realized I don’t need to be around certain people right now. I’m at a weird point in my life. I’m kind of drifting, and I don’t know what to do.”
She had never said anything like that to me.
The gold bangles around her wrist chinked as she gestured. “You don’t understand what it’s like to live under my parents’ shadows. Between the two of them, it’s too much talent under one roof. Where does that leave me? Because I did not inherit any of these talent genes—how unfair is that? I’m not good at anything.”
“That’s not true. You’re fun to be around and everyone likes you. You plan really good parties.”
“I’m good at being social?”
“It’s more than that, I think. It’s a skill. You’ve got an eye for planning and you’re good at talking to people. Everyone likes you.” This wasn’t coming out right.
“Not everyone likes me. My personal assistant just took off with no warning.…”
“I’m sorry. I feel really bad about that.” I rubbed Frida’s belly as she flipped over in my lap, all four feet in the air, panting. “It’s hard to explain, but I’m going through something similar to you, actually. And things got complicated with Fen and Eddie.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I get that. Eddie’s kind of making a fool out of himself around the lake right now, just FYI.”
I sighed. “He needs help. I told Fen that before I left.”
“Yeah. Fen…” She wrinkled her nose.
“What about Fen?” Breathe. Do not panic. Just pet the dog. Stay calm.
“I stopped by the record store on our way out of town. He asked about you.”
“Oh?”
She shook her head. “He’s just really messed up without you. Hurting. That’s all.”
My heart fell. I was messed up without him. And it killed me to know he was hurting.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I shouldn’t have told you that. It’s not my business why you broke up. Though Eddie says it’s because you’re not over him.”
“Eddie probably needs to believe that,” I said.
“He’s very wounded. He pretends to be easygoing, but he’s definitely struggling.”
This surprised me. The entire conversation surprised me.
She turned toward me. “Hey. Come with me to Spain. I’m leaving in two weeks. Just me and my friends Angela and Hayden. Be my personal assistant again. You can take care of Frida and see Barcelona.”
“Spain?”
“I’m probably going to stay there for a couple of months, then maybe go to Greece. Who knows. But Angela can’t party because of her meds, and Hayden has been sober since her stomach surgery. So, you know. It won’t be like the lake. Just good vibes and healing. And you could just take care of all my clothes and the dog. Same as this summer.”
I stared at her, a little dumbfounded. “Why would you want me to come?”
“Because…” She moved her fingers through the sand. “Like you said, we’re going through the same crisis right now. And in a way, we’re sort of sisters, aren’t we?”
My pulse increased. She always threw variations of that word around lightly—manita—but she’d never quite said it like that. “Are we?”
She backed down from that, reconsidering, and said, “Well, spiritual ones, anyway. Come with me to Spain! Look how much Frida needs you. I can’t even handle this dog anymore. She’s miserable without you, and she resents me. She actually bit me last night, can you believe it?”
I pulled Frida up to my chest and held her warmth against me. She felt so good, and I’d missed her so much. This was unexpected. A huge opportunity for me to travel the world—if Velvet really meant it. A chance for me to escape my life here in a way I hadn’t accounted for. To have a little bit of freedom and maybe find myself in a different way that I couldn’t at school.
A choice, but not the right one for me.
Because I imagined myself in Spain, chasing Velvet and her friends around. Even without drugs, I worried it would just be the lake moved to another country.
“I’m sorry,” I told Velvet. “I really appreciate you asking me. It’s so nice of you to come down here like this—to bring Frida to see me, and to ask me this. But I can’t go with you. It’s really tempting, and I love Frida more than anything, but I need to do something else right now.”
She blinked at me as if surprised and then nodded. “I think I get it. You want to put everything that happed at the lake behind you, right? You want to get past your brain injury and forget all about it. That’s why you had to leave? Because Fen reminded you of falling in the dam.”
“Not really.” I didn’t want to forget my brain injury. Or the dam. I absolutely did not want to forget Fen. Not sure if I even could.
Holding Frida, I glanced at Velvet, and an idea struck me.
“I sort of have plans for the future. Can I tell you what I want to do?” I asked her. “Then maybe you can figure out a way to make it work. Because I’ve been trying to talk it out with my dad, and I’m kind of stuck. I need your help. Think of it like a party, but it’s my life. Use your magic planning skills.”
She leaned back in the sand. “Lay it on me, manita. Two heads are better than one.”
For the first time since I’d known her, it felt as though we were on the same level.
Maybe not sisters, but friends.
And I could really use one.