Amen, L.A. Read online

  “What do you mean, bad idea? Are the doctors with her now?”

  “Nope. It’s just a bad idea.”

  “Oh, come on, Gray,” Brooke interrupted. “Tell the truth. We don’t want this twit around, Alex doesn’t want this twit around, and if this twit had any sense, she would get her twitty fat ass out of here before something bad happens.”

  “Are you threatening me?” I couldn’t believe it.

  She gave me a smug smile. “What do you think?”

  Okay. That was it. I was in no mood for the bullcrap of Brooke of Beverly Hills.

  I moved within spitting distance of her and locked eyes with her. “Screw you.”

  I ignored their looks of shock, dodged around them, and moved at double time toward the door. I was going into Alex’s room, and it didn’t matter what Brooke or Gray or anyone else had to say about it.

  As I neared the door, the teen assemblage stared. The word was obviously out about how I had called my father, and they all hated me for it. Fine. I could deal. I did deal, until I reached a nurse blocking the open door. She was imposingly big, with cropped gray hair and a no-nonsense manner.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To see my friend Alex.” I tried to make my voice friendly.

  She shook her head. “No you aren’t. Three visitors at a time, and there are already four. Wait your turn like everyone else.”

  I peered into the room past her but I couldn’t see Alex; the curtain was drawn around her bed. I could hear quiet talking and laughter from the other side.

  I looked at the framed photograph in my hand and Twitch, the stuffed rabbit. For a moment, I thought about asking Nurse Ratched to give them to Alex, but then thought better of it. Shepard had asked me to give these things to her, not to transmit them via some anonymous nurse.

  I turned around and trudged past the knot of Alex’s party friends, back toward the elevators.

  “Buh-bye,” Brooke jeered, waggling her fingers at me as I passed her.

  I whirled. “What is your problem?”

  She gave me an evil smile. “Where ya headed?”

  “I’m going to see Brett. I have a few things I want to tell him,” I muttered.

  “That he needs to go to driving school?”

  “That he needs not to drink if he’s going to drive, for starters.”

  “Aren’t we sanctimonious? I think we should start calling you the Virginator. It’s perfect for you.”

  I wished it was the perfect name for me. But I wasn’t nearly as good or pure as she thought I was. Suddenly, she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked, challenging her.

  “You’re so sure Brett was drunk,” she surmised.

  “Logical conclusion, don’t you think?” I snapped. I was getting tired of this conversation.

  “Sure is.” She laughed again. “If it were true. But when you talk to him—if you talk to him—he’ll tell you that Alex barfed on his lap while he was making a left turn. That’s when the van hit him. Kinda ruined his shirt and jeans, but hey, that’s the way it goes. Oh! They want me in there now.” She waved back toward Alex’s room, where someone was now exiting. “Gotta go. Bye, Virginator. Love ya. Mean it.”

  She took off, leaving me alone in the hallway.

  Could that even be true? There was only one way to find out.

  I went down to the fourth floor to find Brett. Again, I didn’t get what I wanted. The door to his room was closed. A nurse told me that he was in with the doctors and his parents, and though I waited for a half hour, no one went in and no one came out.

  Finally, I gave up and left, the framed photograph and Twitch still in my arms.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The praying thing.

  To tell you the truth, it’s often been a problem for me. It’s not one I talk about much, being the daughter of a minister and all. My parents have always said, “You can talk to us about anything,” and I know they mean it. That doesn’t mean, though, that there aren’t consequences to sharing things. It’s the main reason, as you know, that I’m not talking with them about Sean. Same thing, in a different way, about prayer. How would they feel if I said that sometimes prayer seems like a big fat hypocritical waste of time?

  When I’m feeling that way, I go through the motions. I’m in the pew on Sunday with the rest of my family, eyes closed at the appropriate times, singing at an appropriate volume, and even creating blessings and beseechings if asked to do so, like at a church youth group meeting. All the while, here’s what I’m thinking: Why should God listen to me, a seventeen-year-old girl with a privileged American life, while there are probably seven billion people out there living not-so-privileged lives? Shouldn’t he be paying them a lot more attention than me?

  Besides, what if God really did answer my prayer? Would that mean that he is waiting for me to pray to him and won’t help unless I do pray to him? Does doing bad things mean that he will listen to me less, or listen to me more? Ditto doing good things? If there’s a tornado and one guy’s house is flattened, while his neighbor’s house is untouched, does that mean God likes the guy whose house is fine more than the other guy? Finally, can you really petition the Lord with prayer?

  Now, that said, there are plenty of times when I have faith. True faith, in God as the divine and Jesus as my personal savior. But I’d be lying if I said that there weren’t times when I should be praying and instead these questions slam into each other in my mind like subatomic particles in a supercollider.

  How do I deal with those times? It’s not easy. Sometimes I work on song lyrics. All I can say is it’s no wonder that most songs are about falling in love and having your heart broken, and not about huge questions about the Almighty. There’s a reason why much of Christian rock—some of which is really good—doesn’t ask many questions about faith. It just assumes you know the answer.

  How was I when I left Cedars-Sinai? I wanted to pray. Strike that. I needed to pray. That was why when I left with the ugly stares from Alex’s friends still fresh on my soul, I drove the fifteen minutes to the Church of Beverly Hills.

  There were a thousand people there for services, but everyone was in the sanctuary when I arrived. The halls were eerily empty; I had no intention of slipping into the sanctuary to join the throng. I had another destination in mind.

  For an edifice that was over the top in many ways, the Church of Beverly Hills had a chapel that was a bit of a throwback to a simpler time. Located in a separate building behind the main structure, it had seating for no more than seventy-five people, in a semicircle of rough-hewn Lebanon cedar (shipped from that nation, by the by) wooden pews, the planks of the seats covered by soft red cushions. The walls were also cedar, set with narrow strips of wood in a crosshatch pattern that narrowed as they got closer to the ceiling, almost as if the designer was implying that the congregation’s prayers would come together as they rose toward heaven. I’m not sure that you would call the stage of this chapel a proper chancel, since it was raised only a few inches above the main floor. But that was how I thought of it, and I loved that it held just a couple of wooden lecterns and a light-blond upright piano with a matching bench.

  All the times I’d come to the church, I’d never seen anyone in the chapel. That was why I went straight to it after I parked the Saturn. I sat not in a pew, but on the edge of the chancel. I leaned forward, put my elbows on my thighs, my head in my hands, and squeezed my eyes so tightly shut that my photoreceptors activated and I saw geometric patterns not unlike those on the chapel walls.

  I prayed. To Jesus. To whatever God might be, however he might be listening.

  I prayed that Alex would find the strength and support she needed to keep herself safe and on a path toward the Almighty. Even if she hated churches.

  I prayed that the story Brooke had recounted about Brett was true, because that could mean that he had taken it upon himself to be the designated driver for the night.

  I prayed that Chad would
come to understand that just because your body was that of an adult, it didn’t mean that you should do adult things.

  I prayed that Gemma wouldn’t get too flipped out because her new best friend was oh-so-clearly ready to seduce her little brother.

  I prayed that my mom wouldn’t get too burned out, and that my dad could adjust to my mother’s new schedule.

  I prayed that this whole Los Angeles thing would work out for all of us.

  Then I added a few words on my own behalf. I reminded myself of what I had prayed about for my brother, and added that knowing the right thing to do—such as not having sex with Sean—and actually doing the right thing were not the same. I prayed for guidance. Wisdom. And some kind of clarity about my life.

  I prayed again that my prayers weren’t selfish. Please. Let them not be selfish.

  Then I opened my eyes and saw I was not alone.

  Someone I knew was sitting at the end of the pew nearest to me, her legs up on the wood. She’d moved three cushions behind her head and had the slightest smile on her open face. She wore a short black skirt and a long-sleeved gray silk blouse with embroidery around the sweetheart neckline. On her feet were a pair of black strappy sandals.

  It was Mia, the girl I’d met on the songwriters’ night. The same girl I’d watched with Alex on In and Out. The girl whose father was Big Jam.

  I’d thought I would never see her again.

  “Hi, Nat.” Her smile was as friendly as when I’d first met her.

  “You remembered my name.” I stretched my arms overhead and shook out my hands. My head had been resting in them for so long that the right one had fallen slightly asleep. “I remember you, too. You’re Mia. Welcome back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I know who you are,” I said boldly, getting to my feet.

  Her shoulders hunched forward. “You saw In and Out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Amazing what you can learn from watching TV.” Mia stood, too. “Listen, are you busy now?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then why don’t we go for coffee or something? I don’t know about you, but I kind of think chapels are sacred.”

  I grinned. “Are we going to have a profane conversation?”

  “Only if you’re extremely, extremely lucky. Do you know Café Med?”

  I didn’t.

  She hitched a thumb toward her shoulder. “It’s at the corner of Hip and Groovy, better known as Sunset Plaza on Sunset Boulevard. Follow me there.”

  • • •

  Café Med turned out to be an Italian-themed bistro in West Hollywood with a sidewalk café attached, and was exactly as Mia had implied. Hip. And groovy. As we approached the terrace from the parking lot behind the building, nearly every seat was filled by willowy size-nothing girls whose cheekbones weighed more than they did (the models), nearly-as-skinny and nearly-as-gorgeous girls a few inches shorter (the actresses), and their male equivalents (the model-actors). There was one empty table at the east end of the patio, and a very tall, very thin Italian hostess with hair that needed no extensions led us to it. Next to her, Mia—who couldn’t have been bigger than five foot two—was positively dwarfed.

  A buff Italian waiter with short dark hair and green eyes appeared immediately. He offered us menus, but Mia ordered bruschetta, a calzone, and two Diet Cokes, telling me to trust her. Maybe this was a Los Angeles tradition. I remembered Alex doing the same thing at the Ivy. From the approving look the waiter gave her, I knew she’d ordered well. He poured us two glasses of ice water and hustled off to the kitchen.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t come back to the church to see me,” I told Mia when he’d departed, “seeing as how I had no idea I would be here until about fifteen minutes beforehand.”

  “You were a woman with a plan. I’m guessing you needed to pray. Why?”

  Why indeed. Realizing the irony—that I was the stranger everyone told their life story to, and here I was with a girl I barely knew and wanted to talk to—I found myself spilling everything that had happened with Alex and Brett. It was a relief to tell somebody. Fortunately, Mia was a patient listener.

  “Wow.” Mia looked thoughtful. “That basically really sucks.”

  That made me laugh. “Well put. Now you. What were you doing there?”

  Mia leaned back in her chair. “Well, I’ve decided to join.”

  “That’s great!”

  She ran a forefinger over the condensation on her water glass. “Here’s why. When I met you in the sanctuary that night? I felt—I don’t know, it’s hard to describe—safe.”

  Safe. I liked that. “I’m glad. You’re going to like my mom.”

  Mia nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. She’s the minister with the talk show. I’ve done my homework.”

  I was proud of myself. Even after In and Out, I hadn’t Googled Mia. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted to, though.

  “Did you do your homework on me?” Mia asked.

  “Just In and Out.” It felt great to be truthful.

  Mia laughed warmly. “That? That’s TV, not homework.”

  The hot waiter brought our food, redolent of garlic and fresh basil. Since we were sharing, he made a big show of cutting the calzone in two with a gleaming knife and placing the halves on our respective plates. “Beautiful girls deserve a beautiful presentation,” he intoned with a thick accent.

  Okay. To be called a beautiful girl on the terrace of Café Med, terrace of the truly beautiful girls? That was fun, too.

  “What didn’t I learn from In and Out?” I forked a piece of the calzone into my mouth. Scrumptious.

  Mia looked wistful. “A lot. They didn’t want to make the show a total downer.”

  “This is Hollywood. Everyone has a story.” I thought of Alex in the hospital.

  “Not like mine,” Mia declared.

  For a moment, she hesitated. Like telling me what she was about to tell me was a big decision.

  Oh no, I thought. Not another girl who just got out of rehab.

  That wasn’t it, though. Not by a long shot. In many ways, rehab was a picnic compared to Mia’s story.

  “Three months ago I was living with my mother over the hill in Sherman Oaks. Taking care of her while I was in high school, actually. She taught English before she got sick. Now she’s dead, and I’m living with the father I didn’t even know I had, in a mansion so big that my room is about the size of my old apartment.” Mia smiled sadly. “You can reattach your jaw to your face now.”

  She had related her story matter-of-factly, but it was still shocking.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice was a whisper.

  “Breast cancer, since you’re going to ask. It only took a year from start to finish.”

  How horrible. How absolutely, gut-wrenchingly horrible. To lose your mother when you were still a kid. I couldn’t imagine. It reminded me of Alex. Look at what I’d been praying about. This was just the kind of thing I thought God ought to be paying attention to, not the tawdry details of my stable little life.

  That was exactly what I told Mia. All she did was shrug and say she didn’t quite have that figured out, either.

  “But you still want to join a church,” I prompted her.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Something didn’t make sense to me. “You guys had a church in the Valley, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Why change?”

  She stabbed a piece of calzone and swirled it in the tomato sauce on her plate. “It would have just been too hard to stay. All those people with pity and sadness on their faces. The funeral was there. I went back a few times after she died. It was more than I could bear. Really.”

  I frowned. It reminded me a little of what Sandra had told me about her former life in New York. “I would have thought the community would be comforting. That’s what my mom always says.”

  “Your mom wasn’t sixteen when her mother died of breast cancer,” Mia said bluntly. She took a long swallo
w of Diet Coke.

  “It’s funny,” I mused. “Strange funny, not funny funny. I’m not really big into the celeb thing, but I think I would have heard about Big Jam’s wife dying. It would have been on the news.”

  Mia gave a short laugh. “It would have. But since they weren’t married, and I didn’t know he was my father until the last two months my mom was alive, that would have been a little tough.”

  Wow.

  I drank some water. Ate some of the bruschetta. And waited what I hoped was an appropriate length of time before speaking again. “Who did your mother say your dad was all those years? She must have told you something.”

  “She did,” Mia acknowledged. “She said she had a one-night stand when she was in college, back before she came to Jesus. She said that the guy stayed a sinner, so she wasn’t interested in a relationship with him.”

  “Is that the truth?” I asked.

  She looked thoughtful. “James is … I guess I don’t know what he is yet.”

  “James?”

  “Big Jam’s real name, which you won’t hear in the media either,” Mia explained. “No way can I call him Big Jam, and I’m definitely not ready to call him Dad. So it’s James kinda by default.”

  We ate in silence for a few minutes as I digested what Mia had told me. She was living with a father that a few months earlier she hadn’t even known she had. Not just a father. Big Jam.

  How weird was that?

  The conversation shifted. Mia started asking me questions. Did I have a boyfriend back in Mankato? Had I made any friends out here? How did I feel about the move to Los Angeles?

  I, the girl who everyone talks to, talked for a half hour straight. I talked about everything except having sex with Sean the night before we’d come. Just as it had felt great to tell Mia about Alex and Brett, it felt good to share my experience and my feelings about my new life. Still, I knew it would also feel good to share the truth about Sean with someone. Why not this girl, after everything she had just shared with me?

  Tell her, I told myself.

  I knew I should. I knew I could. She would understand.

  I didn’t. I wasn’t ready. I’m not proud of this, but I didn’t know then if I would ever be ready.