Alice in La La Land (11 page)

After twenty minutes of browsing, Alice came to a pet shop. It seemed out of place in a mall filled with designer clothes and department stores. Rows and rows of perspex containers housed tiny puppies. Some slept, some burrowed in shredded paper and some lay snoozing, their fur smooshed up against the side of their temporary home. Pet shops were politically incorrect, Alice believed. She knew it made much more sense to acquire some deserving pet from a shelter. Still, she felt irrevocably
drawn toward the tiny creatures. They seemed to be quivering with hope.

'Oh!' she cried, spying a black-and-white puppy with a flat snout. Its legs were like paperclips. The puppy's bark sounded thin, like tiny coughs emitted through a snorkel. Its jaw looked as though it would dislocate with each successive emission. Alice leaned forward and smiled.

'Hello there, sweetheart,' she cooed softly. The sign on the animal's container read Boston Terrier. Alice wondered whether she had ever seen a cuter puppy. It stopped barking and regarded Alice, even though its eyes were so young that it seemed to be having trouble focusing.

'Gorgeous, isn't she?' said a voice from behind.

Alice straightened and looked around. A young shop assistant gestured toward the Boston Terrier.

'So beautiful,' Alice agreed. 'I've never seen one before. You don't really see them in Sydney, I guess. I suppose they're all in Boston or something.'

The shop assistant looked puzzled. 'Huh?'

'Nothing,' said Alice. 'Could I hold her?' she blurted.

'Sure.' The assistant took a tiny key from around her neck to unlock the perspex panel. Alice looked around. There was no one else in the store. The mall itself was pretty deserted. Alice felt guilty of time-wasting considering she was in no position to buy. The assistant scooped up the puppy and handed over the wriggling bundle.

Alice held the dog gingerly, marvelling at its tiny features. Its claws were miniscule, feet pads squashy and eyes like pools of chocolate. The puppy seemed to nuzzle into Alice and she felt a rush of tenderness. Its ears stood
upright. Combined with the flat snout, the dog resembled a friendly bat.

'You're too cute for words,' she murmured. The shop assistant backed away and Alice felt like a prisoner's wife with a brief window of visitation at the county jail. A desire to hold and be held flooded through her and she wondered how long it had been since she'd last seen Conrad. The dog yapped and she was suddenly aware she was squeezing it too tightly. Alice loosened her grip and stroked the puppy's soft head with two fingers. The assistant re-appeared by her elbow and gave a time's up gesture.

'How much are Boston Terriers?' asked Alice.

'They are . . .' she paused, as if trying to remember the exact figure. 'One thousand five hundred dollars. She's had all her vaccinations and has also been micro-chipped. She's yours for the asking.'

'One thousand five hundred,' murmured Alice as if debating whether to pay in cash on the spot or to call Daddy and demand he buy it for her. She felt droplets on her palm and realised the puppy was emptying its bladder onto her shoes. The assistant shrugged as though to say, 'What can you do?' She took the puppy and placed it safely into its perspex cage. It started barking again.

'She's got a lovely personality,' Alice remarked, reaching inside her satchel for a tissue. Her hand touched the balled-up parking ticket and she felt a brief urge to use it to mop up the dog wee. The assistant handed her a medicated wipe and Alice bent down to clean up her Converse sneakers. The wipe smelled of hospitals.

'I'll need to check with my boyfriend,' Alice explained,
finally straightening up and handing over the urine-soaked items.

'Sure, no problem, have a nice day.' She took the soiled wipe and tissue with bad grace and turned away.

The puppy was now gnawing on its own foot in an impossibly charming manner and Alice waved goodbye to it through the plexiglass. She walked out of the shop and checked her watch. It was 5.30 pm and she was beginning to feel hungry.

Alice caught the escalators back to her parking level and walked through the automatic doors. She zigzagged through the parked cars to her Daewoo and consulted her map once inside the car.

'Oh easy,' she said, relieved, and reversed out of her spot. She guessed she'd be home in five minutes.

Dusk was slowly falling as she exited the carpark. Beverly Boulevard was clogged with traffic. Alice noticed the Cedars-Sinai Hospital close by. She imagined it groaning with sick superstars. She turned right on Fairfax then right again on Olympic. Homeless people on the median strip held cardboard signs. One seemed to be selling oranges but Alice couldn't be sure and didn't want to look. She checked the car was locked as she slowed to a stop at a red light. She looked up, locking eyes with a homeless man who must have been in his mid-thirties. He looked pale under his African-American skin and mouthed, 'I'm so tired, I'm so tired.'

His words sliced straight through Alice's defences. She shook her head as the light turned green and drove on but could see him still staring after her in her rearview mirror. Soon enough, the familiar haunts of the Miracle Mile
winked in welcome. She coasted left down her street then turned into the driveway. The morning seemed an age ago.

Alice climbed the back steps slowly. Her legs felt as though they belonged to someone much older, someone with some kind of degenerative disease. She unlocked the back door and a cat spat out from behind it. It sped off down the steps into the gathering darkness. It was if the cat had been waiting there all day, growing increasingly pent up with every hour that passed.

'Oops,' shrugged Alice, hoping for Neville's sake, not her own, that it would come back later. She stepped inside. The apartment smelled rank, like cat urine, and she held her breath as she made her way to the office. Once inside, she switched on the light and slumped in front of the computer. The screen blinked complacently as she logged onto her webmail.

Alice had three unopened emails. The first was from Rebekah.

Dear Alice,
I'm going to the Show West conference in Vegas with a client tomorrow. I tried your cell today but it was switched off and wouldn't let me leave a message. You gotta upgrade your service. Just wanted to give you some quick feedback in response to your latest castings. Alice, people are loving you and think you are so adorable. Susan at Oracle thought you were just gorgeous in your audition but wanted to let you know that your performance was a little too big for the style of the film. They see it as being more of a subtle character
piece, so maybe you needed to do less with the helicopter pilot role. I'm sure you were fabulous, but maybe try to do a little less physically in your auditions. Let them see your lovely face a bit more. They will let us know.

I'll call you when I'm back from Vegas, hon. Fingers crossed on your other auditions. I have three castings organised for Monday, an hilarious sitcom called
Stop Thief, You'll Wake the Baby
, a new superhero movie called
Wind Man
and
Looly Down Under
. Charlize will email the material required over the next two days.

Love Rebekah

PS: Are you telling people your real age? We are
saying you are mid-twenties.

Alice swallowed quickly and moved onto the next email, from her mother.

Dear heart,
How is everything going? We had an exciting visit from the Bishop this week and the whole parish turned out in their finery for the Sunday service. The sermon was much more impassioned than usual and about the Amalakites. Fascinating. Did you know that they were the forefathers of Nazis?

Dad finally got his biopsy results. Dr Kerns says he has prostate cancer and needs a big operation. Dad's friend, Jim Mooney at the bowling club, had the same trouble a while ago, went to a top surgeon in Sydney and is now back to playing bowls three times a week. Dad's other friend, Barry Ryan, didn't opt for this treatment and died last September.

It will cost a bit, as these big city doctors can be quite
pricey and Dad would need to stay in Sydney for a few weeks. We don't need you home just yet but there is something you can help us with.

Dear, I know that Conrad walked out on you, but in light of your father's treatment we will, unfortunately, need to recover the rest of our investment in the next few weeks. Dr Schneider, the Sydney surgeon, will set us back an extra $8000, plus we'll need another $2000 for accommodation. Dad begged me not to ask you, but I'm not sure how we'll manage otherwise. Can you give me a call when you read this so we can discuss it? Feel free to call reverse charge.

Love Mum

Alice rummaged in her wallet for her phone card and punched the number into the phone. Her mother answered almost instantly.

'Mum, it's me! It's Alice. Is he okay? Are you going to be all right? I'll just, shouldn't I just come straight back? I feel terrible, Mum, I'm so sorry . . .'

'Calm down, sweetheart. No, now listen. There's no reason to panic. It's just a bugger of a thing and we're going to get through it. I don't want you to be upset, you've got enough going on. Are things okay over there?'

'Yes, Mum, fine, I've come very close on something already, you know. I'm sure it's just a matter of time. You know, they loved me for this sitcom, but they, you know, decided to go another way, so . . .'

'I'm so sorry to be a bother, dear, it was really just that the operation we want him to have is $8000. I just wondered if you'd heard from Conrad and whether he was
in a position to re-pay us; it would be so handy. That's all. I don't want to put you under any more pressure.'

'Mum, I'll work on it, I promise, I don't know where he is now, but if I land a job in the meantime all our problems will be sorted. It's only a matter of time, Mum, I'm out on so many auditions, something's got to come up.'

'I know, dear, look at Celestia.'

'Exactly, but if you want me home, of course I will drop everything and . . .'

'No, dear, honestly, it's not necessary, truly it isn't and please don't mention this to your father, will you? He made me promise I wouldn't talk about money with you. It would upset him to know that I'd . . .'

'No, Mum, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I'm not there and that we borrowed the bloody money in the first place. It was wrong.'

'Well, you weren't to know he'd shoot through like that. After you'd turned down the other big American job and everything. It was all rather unfair, I thought.'

'Is Dad okay? Is he in okay spirits I mean, or has he gone all gloomy?'

'Put it this way. He's spending an inordinate amount of time with his fish.'

'Just the one fish, now, right? The one he calls Irving?'

'Yes, Irving Berlin. And the orchids are getting a lot of attention at the moment. You know your father hates fuss.'

'Mum, I'm going to get some sleep then I'm going to try to sort out this situation one way or the other. I promise. I'll let you know.'

'Yes, dear, and thank you. God bless.'

Alice put her head into her hands and slumped over on
the desk, sending a jumbo box of Neville's paperclips tumbling to the floor. She peered through her fingers at the mess and sighed. She felt nauseous.

Eventually Alice looked up at the computer screen and re-read her emails. She started slapping her forehead with an open palm. This was no time for her to be screwing up auditions with overbaked performances! She needed a job, and fast.

What was it that was making her fudge things out there? Why weren't they 'responding to her material' as Rebekah would say? Alice tried to visualise herself from their perspective.

Could it be that she'd been judging the scripts too severely and that a snooty attitude was coming through in her line-readings? Or did she have a particular performance style that just did not translate? What in God's name made her think she was any better than anyone else here, trudging from one audition to the next? It was time to shift gears, water down her personality and nail a part.

From now on, she decided, she would try harder to be everything they wanted, and every single audition had to count. With her father's health at stake she was prepared to do anything to get back the money she – or rather Conrad – owed them.

Alice stooped down to pick up the paperclips. It made her head hurt and she decided she would clean up the mess first thing the following morning. What she needed now was sleep.

'I know who I was when I got up this morning,
but I think I must have been changed
several times since then.'

Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

On Saturday morning, Alice awoke with a pile of scripts and audition pages strewn about the bed. She reached for her portable travel clock. It was 6 am. That was the trouble with going to sleep early, she thought. Invariably you'd wake up early as well. Fine if you had a bunch of fun things to do with, say, a devoted boyfriend; not so fine if you lived in a smelly cat house with no money and no friends and the pain of knowing your father was ill and it was up to you to help. Alice felt her day yawning ahead of her with nothing to fill it but more line-learning. When Alice thought about the serious nature of her father's illness and the money they owed him, her heart-rate escalated.

'Snap out of it,' she admonished herself. There was nothing she could do today to recover the funds, bar trying once again to get a phone number for Conrad since he hadn't yet replied to her email and making sure she had all her lines down for Monday. Alice decided that first she would prepare all her dialogue, send off an email to Flick, something along the lines of 'Dear Flick, Any idea
where the fucker might be?' Then she would go in search of breakfast.

At 8.30 am Alice scurried down the back steps. She felt slightly better, having accomplished something positive early in the day. Flick would have the email when she woke up and so would Bunny Gange, who could be a possible help tracking Conrad down. She navigated her way down the driveway and headed for Melrose Avenue. Rebekah had suggested she try Urth Caffé, between Robertson and La Cienaga in the design district.

Alice parked the Daewoo between a BMW X5 and an Audi Station Wagon. The café was heaving with beautiful people when she arrived just before 9 am. She noted the self-help bookshop conveniently located a few doors away.

Alice loitered on the pavement and was shocked to discover that James Woods was breakfasting just metres away. He looked buff and tanned and his face was very shiny. He was talking rapidly to a much younger woman who seemed transfixed by the glare of his sparkly head. Alice looked down at her feet. It was an affront to the system to be face to face with superstars first thing in the morning.

Alice noticed the enormous coffee cups on diners' tables and was looking forward to her first coffee of the day. The Urth Caffé coffee was apparently organic and rumoured to be the very best in LA.

She jostled inside to the counter to place her order. It was three deep and many of the patrons ordered with what Alice recognised as some kind of organic produce-inspired fervour. The interior of the place was impossibly stylish
and fashioned from blond wood. Feathery palms lent greenery to the corners of the room.

Alice asked for a café latte and scrambled eggs, then joined other diners on the terraced patio. She managed to nab the last available table. A young couple appeared moments after and tentatively asked Alice if she would mind them sharing with her. Alice acquiesced and the couple sat down on the other side. She was relieved when they began to talk quietly to each other so she could still feel as though she were alone. Evidently, people who chose organic had better manners than those who liked pesticides on their vegetables.

Alice's latte arrived in an enormous porcelain cup, a leaf design emblazoned on the foam. Her mouth gaped at the spectacle and she chided herself for being so easily impressed. She added a spoonful of organic sugar and regretted that she had to wreck the design in the process. She took a mouthful of the velvety drink and sighed with pleasure. Without doubt, it was the best coffee she had had in this city so far. Her scrambled eggs came with a side of avocado, tomato and balsamic vinegar and they combined with a pizzazz that made her tastebuds tingle. The accompanying organic toast was crusty and she slathered it with butter. She could hear Rebekah tsking but shooed away the imaginary intrusion. At fifty-eight kilos, she may have been overweight by LA standards, but in the rest of the world she was not. Anyway, she was determined to survive her morning without descending into a worry spiral and if that involved melted butter on toast, then so be it.

Alice checked her watch. It was a quarter to ten. She
felt in the inner pocket of her satchel for Nick's number and decided on impulse to call him. A week had passed since they'd met at the Getty.

She smoothed the scrap of paper flat on the table top. It was a 323 number which she assumed meant he was somewhere in West Hollywood. Alice checked her watch again. By some people's standards, it could be too early for a cold call. And what would she say if he answered? Alice decided to throw caution to the wind, pulled out her cell phone and dialled.

After five rings, an Irish voice answered and Alice thought it was Nick until she realised that not only was it someone else but it was a voicemail recording. The voice seemed to be saying something about horses and emergencies. Alice looked down to check her number and suddenly the voice instructed the caller to leave a message after the tone.

'Um, okay,' she began falteringly, 'this is a message for Nick but right now I'm not sure I have the correct number . . . um, just that I heard something about emergency horses and it threw me . . .' Alice took a breath. 'This is Alice Evans and my number is three two three, five two five, one double-oh seven, if . . . if this message gets to him could he give me a call? Okay, bye.'

Alice hung up and exhaled noisily. The couple opposite gave her an encouraging smile. She wondered how much they'd overheard and whether they thought she was barking mad talking to a stranger's machine about emergency horses. 'And I won't be calling that number again,' she said to herself, her lips pursed. She took a final sip of coffee and left the café.

Alice was leaving the self-help bookshop when her phone rang. 'Hello?'

'Ah, hello there,' said a gravelly Irish voice, 'is that Alice?'

'Yes, who's this?' Alice replied, her heart rate quickening. How many gravelly-voiced Irishmen did she know in LA?

'This is Nick.' He sounded a little breathless. 'Alice, d'ya own a suit or the likes? A hat, maybe?'

'Somewhere in my suitcase,' she answered, thinking of the black pinstripe two-piece suit which would probably be wrinkled beyond recognition. 'A hat though? Probably not; wouldn't really have had the space.'

'Well, can you put on the suit and give me your address? Sorry, this is comin' out all wrong. I'm goin' to the races with Joe and Stephanie. One of the horses Joe looks after has a big race at 2.15 at the Santa Anita Races. What I should have said is, would you like to come to the races with me? Thing is, the daft eejut only just bothered to tell me you'd called and we've got to be going soon . . .'

'Well, thanks, Nick, but I just bought a ticket to see a . . .'

'Forget it. Whatever you've bought a ticket for we can win that money back at the races, so you'll be reimbursed.'

Alice paused and looked at her watch. 'How much time have I got?' She was wearing tracksuit pants and Ugg boots and not even a skerrick of makeup.

'Half an hour. What's your address?'

Alice didn't want Nick to experience the cat's lair just yet, so she stood peering out the office window at the street.
She had recovered her pinstripe suit which was, as she suspected, at the very bottom of her suitcase and full of ingrained creases that she had attempted to shake out. She had teamed the suit with a high-necked sheer black blouse. The fabric was sprinkled throughout with black velvet dots and it tied with a pussycat bow at the throat. She wore a black Hanro vest underneath. In lieu of a hat, she'd pulled her hair off her face with a headband that had a polka-dot bow on top. She twisted it so that the bow sat at a rakish angle above her right ear, 1940s style. It seemed to go with the blouse quite well, and lent femininity to the suit which had wide-legged pants. Alice plopped all her personal items from her brown satchel into her other bag, a bright red handbag from Mulberry. She applied a hint of red lipstick and dabbed some of the colour onto her cheeks.

Just after 11 am, a stretch limo pulled up out the front of the apartment and she watched Nick jump out before the limo driver had a chance to open his door. Alice ran down the hallway and glanced sideways to check her door was shut. The floor of her room was now covered with scripts and the contents of her suitcase. If the cats got in there, they would have a field day. Shauna stuck her head out of her room as Alice trotted past in her heels. She looked as though she'd just woken up and was wearing an oversized T-shirt that read
Lick me all over
. She let out a low whistle.

'Can't stop, there's an Irishman coming,' Alice said breathlessly. 'I don't want him to meet the cats just yet.' She did a quick spin for Shauna's benefit. Her heels were a good eight inches and shiny patent leather.

'Omigod, you look so neat. Are you going to church?'

Alice snorted. 'I'm going to somewhere called Santa Anita to the horse races,' said Alice. 'See you later!'

'Have fun,' Shauna replied, sleepily.

Alice raced down the back steps as fast as she could manage on her heels. She trotted down the driveway and noticed one of the cats lurking in some low bushes by the boundary of the property. She shooed the cat toward the back of the building and made her way round the bend to the front of the apartment. Nick was knocking on the front door which she and Shauna never used.

'Hello?' she called, panting a little. 'Here I am.'

Nick stopped knocking and stared at her silently with his mouth open. 'Ah, there you are,' he said finally.

'I hope this will fit the dress code,' said Alice, plucking at her trouser leg.

Nick wore a black suit and a pale-blue shirt that complimented his dark hair and eyes.

'What, no trainers? I hardly recognise you.'

Nick had shaved his stubble and looked scrubbed and earnest in his formal wear. He grinned and then gestured back to the limo.

'I hope this will be adequate transport for you,' he said. 'Now, I know what you're thinking. The white stretch limo is very 1985; we should probably have arrived in a SUV limo, much more gangsta, but just humour us here. This was all that was available.'

He came over and steered Alice toward the limousine. 'You look really nice.'

'Thanks, Nick. You look good too,' she replied, flushing from the compliment.

'Let's go. We're a bit late and Joe's got to be there to see his horse.'

The suited driver opened the passenger door and they scrambled inside.

The limo had a cream leather interior trimmed with pale lacquered faux timber and a ceiling of deep red. There was something intestinal about the combination of colours. Nick's friend Joe and his girlfriend Stephanie sat opposite them, travelling backward. Joe was talking into his cell phone about a dry track and Alice reached forward to shake Stephanie's hand. She had light brown hair and a wide mouth. The braces on her teeth made her seem young and innocent. She wore a navy wrap dress that was imprinted with scores of tiny burgundy swallows with their wings outstretched in flight. Her hand was surprisingly rough.

'Nice to meet you, Alice,' she said in an English accent. Her hand moved up to her mouth as if she were self-conscious about her braces.

Joe hung up and leaned forward to shake Alice's hand. 'Sorry about that. Owners are getting nervous. I'm Joe. Great you could make it. I told Nick he should've asked you but . . .'

'Yeah, yeah,' Nick interrupted, 'all right, she's here now, isn't she?'

Alice smiled at Nick. 'I must admit, it was a bit confusing when I called the number you gave me and heard a message about horses. I thought maybe I was the victim of some bizarre Irish practical joke. But of course now it all makes sense.'

'I'm a vet,' Joe explained. 'I look after a horse called Lastly Topaz who's racing in the second at Santa Anita
today, so I came out from Dublin with the owners. It's big race day out at Santa Anita. This eejut should have said it was my number he'd given you.'

'Too embarrassed to admit I don't have my own mobile phone,' said Nick, not looking embarrassed at all.

The limo was heading down Sunset. 'Do you do this sort of thing a lot?' Alice asked. 'You know, have to travel around to different race days?'

'No. Mainly I'm just stuck outside of Dublin. This horse is looking like he could be a winner, though. We may be going to Melbourne with him in November.'

'For the Melbourne Cup?' asked Alice.

'Derby Day,' he said. 'You're an Aussie?'

'Yes,' said Alice.

'Why are you in LA, Alice?' asked Stephanie.

'I'm an actress,' Alice answered sheepishly. It really was the most boring answer a person could give. Who wasn't an actor in this town?

'Wow,' replied Stephanie, 'Have you been in anything I'd know?'

Alice was aware Nick was looking at her intently. 'Well, I've done a lot of theatre mainly, back home, but I've got a movie coming out here soon, called
Cornucopia
. . . What do you do Stephanie?' Alice asked, keen to steer the subject away from her CV.

'I'm a landscape architect,' Stephanie replied, covering her mouth with her hand again. 'Nothing so glamorous as you.'

'Believe me,' countered Alice, 'what I do is not glamorous. Unless you call driving around LA all week in a small Japanese car glamorous, of course.'

They were still on Sunset heading all the way downtown. Alice looked out the window with child-like excitement. 'I've never been this far out of West Hollywood before. It feels like the real city. Is this Korea Town? I read about it in my guidebook.'

'Yeah, I think so, and we'll be turning onto a freeway pretty soon. It's a bit of a drive to Santa Anita,' said Nick. 'I think.'

She turned and smiled at him. There was so much she wanted to ask him, but was happy for the moment to sit back in the limo and enjoy the ride.

'Joe, can we be really cheesy and open the champagne?' Nick asked.

'Yeah, go ahead.' Joe reached in the centre panel for the plastic champagne flutes and handed one each to Stephanie, Alice and Nick, then opened the coolbox and pulled out a bottle of Moët. 'I'll have a drink with you later; got work to do before the race,' he said smiling and popped the champagne. A gush of foam spurted and they all cheered. Joe poured three glasses and Stephanie made the toast: 'To Lastly Topaz winning the second.'