Emma hearts LA (18 page)

After Sephora, we weave in and out of shops all the way up the street. It actually doesn’t take us that long to find dresses for the benefit. There’s an amazing selection here and the staff are all unfailingly polite and helpful. My dress is navy blue with silver sparkles. It’s got a V neck and a slightly flared skirt and I love it. Jessie’s is black with a lace overlay top. It’s so perfect for her that she could have designed it herself. She keeps peeking into the bag to look at it. We get shoes and underwear and then finally reach the end of the street and Oscar.

He’s singing a song that seems to be about the periodic table, but the way he’s singing it, it sounds like a dramatic love ballad. Once again, people are transfixed.

‘He’s really good, isn’t he?’ I say.

‘You two are killing me,’ Jessie whispers.

I look at her and she grins.

‘What?’

‘You’re so made for each other.’

I snort. ‘Hardly. When he was talking about stars back there, I barely understood a word.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s like that when Finn talks about architecture. I’ve no idea what he’s going on about, but I love listening to him.’

I stare at Oscar. Things have been fine between us today, which makes me think we could get past the kiss. We could go back to being just friends. And now that I know it’s possible, I don’t know if that’s what I want.

‘I cocked up so badly after he kissed me,’ I say to Jessie. ‘I don’t even know if he’d still be interested.’

Jessie puts her arm around me. ‘He serenaded you from a kayak, Emma. He’s interested.’

The UCLA campus is really beautiful: green and leafy with loads of the terracotta buildings we saw from the coach.

‘Do you know where you’re going?’ I ask Oscar, who’s slowed the car down to about five miles an hour.

‘Not exactly,’ he says, squinting out of the windscreen. ‘I can never quite remember. All the buildings look the same!’

I roll my eyes. ‘I knew I should’ve got Mum to write directions down for us.’

‘You worry too much,’ Oscar says. ‘I’ll find it in just a minute. How hard can it be?’

‘People are staring at us,’ Bex says, from the back seat, where she’s sitting next to Jessie.

She’s right. I don’t know whether it’s because we’re going so slowly that we’re almost stationary or they’ve just never seen a VW Beetle that looks like a giraffe before, but the students on either side of the road are definitely staring at us. Some of them are laughing. One guy actually takes a picture of us on his phone.

‘Did you see that?’ Oscar says. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with some people.’

I suggest I phone Mum and get her to talk us in.

‘I won’t be defeated!’ Oscar says.

‘Oh, please. Not that old “men don’t ask for directions” chestnut,’ I say.

‘You’re right,’ Oscar says. ‘I’m comfortable with my feminine side. Please phone her.’

I ring Mum and it turns out we’re actually just a couple of turns away from her building, which is low and pure white in contrast to all the terracotta.

Oscar parks outside and says, ‘Ta-da!’

‘Ta-da what?’ I say. ‘If it was up to you we’d still be conducting the world’s slowest safari out there.’

‘I did it on purpose,’ he says. ‘To make you feel useful.’

‘Can you two stop bickering?’ Bex says. ‘You’re like an old married couple.’

I look at Oscar and see his cheeks have gone pink so I know he’s thinking of us as a couple, same as I am.

Mum appears at the door, waving, and we all follow her up to her office. It’s actually really lovely, with large windows overlooking a quad outside. It’s much nicer than her office was in Manchester – that only had a tiny window high up on the wall and constantly flickering strip lights.

‘So this is where I spend eighty per cent of my time,’ Mum says.

Michael appears from another room.

‘What’s through there?’ Oscar asks. ‘Napping suite?’

‘It’s not quite that fancy,’ Michael says, grinning. ‘Just the kitchen. I don’t think it had been put in last time you were here, had it?’

Oscar goes with his dad to make coffees for everyone and Mum shows me, Jessie and Bex what she’s been working on. At first, she shows us a few diagrams and talks about ‘young stellar objects’ and ‘protostars’ and I feel the same way I’ve always felt, that I’m just not going to get this. But then she mentions molecular clouds.

‘Oscar was telling us about them,’ I say. ‘He said they’re like LA.’

Mum laughs. ‘In that they’re where stars are made? Nice analogy. I’ll show you an animation.’ She clicks around her computer apparently randomly and I stare in awe. It’s a while since I’ve been to see Mum at work and I’d forgotten how confident and comfortable she is there. I’ve been worrying at how she’s changed physically since we’ve been here – her new hair and manicures and white teeth – but I hadn’t really thought about how completely in her element she is at work. All that stuff’s just cosmetic. This is the part of Mum that really matters and it’s the part I’ve been ignoring all these years. I can be such an idiot.

Mum finds the animation and it starts to play as Michael and Oscar come back in with coffees and Cokes for us all.

The animation starts with a bright dot with what looks like a tornado on each side. Everything is spinning and there’s a disc of what looks like dust spinning around the dot too. As it spins and spins, the dot gets bigger.

‘So that’s a molecular cloud?’ I ask.

Mum nods. ‘And that’s what forms the star.’ She points to the dust disc. ‘It attracts the surrounding gas and dust that creates its mass, actually becomes the star.’

This is when Mum usually loses me, when she starts talking about gas and dust and mass, but I’m still staring at the animation and it’s strangely beautiful.

‘So the star is made of dust?’ I ask.

She nods. ‘And gas, yes.’

‘What does “we are all made of stardust” mean?’ I ask Oscar.

‘What?’ He goes a bit pink.

‘I saw it on a badge on your bag. I’ve heard it before, but I’ve never really thought about it. What does it mean?’

‘It means what it says,’ Oscar says, pulling his bag up on his lap and looking along the strap for the badge. ‘The carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies were created in the stars.’

‘But what does that mean?’ I say. I’ve got a strange feeling in my stomach. I swig some Coke.

‘It means we’re all made of stars,’ Oscar says.

‘All the matter in the universe is essentially made of heavy elements that were created in previous generations of stars,’ Michael says. ‘Billions of years ago. When a star dies, the material disperses through space and goes on to be part of subsequent stars and planets. And people.’

I look at the animation again. ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous,’ I say.

‘I told you it was fascinating,’ Oscar says, grinning.

‘Me too,’ Mum says, and squeezes my hand.

All the way home I think about the star animation. Stars are like people and people are actually made of stars. Stars are created by attracting everything around them and that’s how people are created too. Isn’t it? Everything spins around us and becomes part of us, whether it’s music, TV, films, skateboarding, even other people. We take it all on and it becomes part of how we define ourselves.

So for my parents and for Oscar it’s astronomy. For Bex it’s acting. For Alex I suspect it might be fame. I’m not exactly sure what it’s going to be for me right now or in the future, but I do know what made me the person I am today.

‘Are you all right?’ Oscar asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I think I might be broken.’

He laughs. ‘I know what you mean. It’s mind-blowing. But it’s endlessly fascinating. There are so many parallels with, you know, life.’

‘That’s what I was just thinking about,’ I say. ‘It’s the parallels that are making my head hurt.’

‘Why do you think humans have been fascinated by stars for so long?’ Oscar says.

‘I just thought it was because they twinkle,’ I say, and grin at him.

When we get home, I go out on the upstairs terrace and pull a chair over towards the fence. Not close enough so I’m looking down, but close enough that I can put my feet on one of the wooden rails and look over at the houses on the opposite bank and up into the trees. It’s warm and quiet and I’ve only been sitting there for a few minutes when a bird lands on the top of the fence. It looks like a sparrow. I haven’t seen a sparrow here before; it’s like a tiny bit of home. The bird turns around, hopping from foot to foot, sees me, cocks its head and flies away.

I can’t stop thinking about how we’re all made from everything around us. How our experiences and the people in our lives literally make us the people we are. And I like the person I am. Most of the time.

Since Dad left, I’ve tried really hard not to think about the good memories I have from before he left. Like how he used to take me outside in my pyjamas to show me the moon. How if I went in his office when he was working, he’d always stop what he was doing – no matter how important it was – and ask me about my day. How he used to watch
Friends
with me, even though he didn’t really like it. How he talked Mum into letting me go to New York with Jessie, because he said it would be an incredible experience.

And I think about how Mum said they’d fallen out of love. How they’d tried to stay together, but eventually realised they’d be happier apart. But mainly I just think about how much I miss him. Have been missing him since the day he left.

I take out my phone, scroll through to
DAD
and press
CALL
.

The road to Griffith Observatory is steep and winding and lined with trees, giving it a slightly magical air.

Mum and Michael got there early as hosts and Oscar went with them, so Bex and I have travelled up with Jessie and Natalie.

Stewards direct the car to the front of the observatory, where the red carpet stretches the length of the gardens and then up to the huge, ornate front door.

‘It’s such a beautiful building,’ Natalie says, and she’s right, it really is. Long and white, it has three black domes, one at each end and one in the middle. The main door and all the windows are floodlit, making the whole building look like it’s glowing.

We get out of the car and start to walk up the red carpet. Just seeing the cameras – or rather the photographers – makes my palms sweat. I realise I’m crushing some of my dress in my hands and smooth it out over my legs.

‘Are you OK?’ Jessie asks me.

I take a deep breath and nod.

Flashes go off as we go inside the building, but there’s no shouting and it’s not frightening like it was with Alex. It’s an entirely different atmosphere.

Inside, the circular foyer is full of people, laughing and talking, clinking glasses. I still manage to spot Mum and Michael immediately. They come straight over and Michael grabs us drinks as a waiter passes with a tray.

‘Where’s Oscar?’ I ask.

Michael looks around. ‘Outside, I think. He’s here somewhere. You’ll find him.’

Jessie and I follow signs back outside to the terrace. The sun’s almost completely gone so the sky is a gorgeous mix of purple, orange and pink. LA’s lights stretch pretty much as far as the eye can see. Neither of us speaks, we just lean on the white wall and look out across the view.

‘Not too high for you?’ Jessie asks, smiling.

In New York, I refused to go up the Empire State Building with her because I don’t like heights, but this is different. The wall is high and solid and there’s no way I could fall. It’s the falling I’m afraid of, not the height.

‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?’ I say, smiling.

She nods. ‘I had no idea.’

Me neither.

The terrace is busy. I see a couple of actors I recognise from
Gossip Girl
, Jessie points out someone who was on
The Hills
and someone she thinks might be Morgan Freeman – he’s really into astronomy, apparently. Oscar told me.

‘Are you going to go and find him?’ Jessie says, as if she’s read my mind.

‘I think I need another drink first,’ I say.

‘Oh, you do not. Stop being so pathetic. We’re in this incredibly romantic place, you look gorgeous and you’re mad about him. So just go and tell him. Or I will.’

As I walk back down the terrace, I see the Hollywood sign in the distance. I didn’t know you could see it from here. It’s so much smaller than I expected it to be. I turn to go back inside the building and see Oscar coming out through the enormous doors.

He’s wearing a tux with a red tie and cummerbund and he looks absolutely gorgeous. He sees me and grins and I feel butterflies burst to life in my stomach.

As I walk up to him, I’m trying to think of what to say, but my head is empty. I’m just staring at his smile.

‘You look amazing,’ he says.