Angels on Sunset Boulevard

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “So swing by about one a.m.; that’s when it really gets going. It’s 3500 Benedict Canyon. You’ll be on the list plus two; I assume Tweedledee and Tweedledum are coming with.”

  “Fuck you, Sutton.”

  “Anytime, Taj. Anytime.”

  Nick

  NICK CHUCKLED AS READ THE USUAL ONLINE detritus. He took another slurp from the Red Bull can. His third of the evening and already his heart was beating too fast, and he was starting to get an awful headache—kind of like the one he got when he tried Viagra with Maxine that one time and his head throbbed for hours. But in perverse fashion he relished the pain. Part of him felt like he deserved it.

  There wasn’t as much activity on TAP as he would have liked, since it was a Saturday and most of his real friends were actually out doing things rather than typing in front of their computers—Nick still thought of people whose names and phone numbers were listed in his Motorola SLVR as “real” and those who only existed online as not quite worthy of the title.

  Nick listened to the DJ filling in for Johnny Silver—TAP said it was his girlfriend—on the radio for a while, liking the sound of her voice, letting the music she’d picked out for the evening lull him into something approaching sleep, when the back door suddenly opened.

  “Hooo-rah!”

  Nick shook his head. “I knew I should never have given you our security code.”

  Eric gave Nick one of his trademark manic-guy grins. “But I’m part of the family!” he protested, jumping up on the counter and slapping his palms together.

  “Heard about you and Maxi. Sorry, bud,” Eric said, attempting to look sympathetic, even though he’d told Nick on many an occasion to “dump the fucking bitch.”

  “Yeah, you and the rest of L.A.,” Nick said, indicating the computer screen.

  “Good news travels fast,” Eric noted.

  “Where’ve you been all night?” Nick asked, getting up and throwing Eric a can of Red Bull.

  Eric popped the top and guzzled. “Vodka?”

  “In the freezer.”

  While Nick watched Eric mix the toxic concoction, Eric told him about his evening. “Had dinner with the ’rents at Chow’s, then went up to Malibu with a bunch of girls from Marymount—some friend having a beach party—but it was lame, so I got out of there, bummed around a bit looking for some party up in Temescal—couldn’t find it, so then decided to look you up, since I heard Maxi dumped your ass—thought you might need cheering up. Stopped by my man first,” he noted, holding up a baggie of pot, “and here I am.”

  “You were in Malibu and the Palisades?”

  Like most Angelenos, Eric had essentially spent the evening in his car.

  Eric shrugged. “No traffic. Got here in half an hour.”

  “The way you drive,” Nick said, shaking his head.

  Eric leaned over and checked out Nick’s computer screen. “Ooh, can I check my page? Got a hottie from Ventura who said she’d send pics in a thong. Sick.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Eric called up his page; jumbled graffiti scrawl in the background made it hard to read, but it was easy to make out the premiere picture of Eric flying through the air on his snowboard, right before he broke his knee last year. “No new comments. Oh well.” He got up from the computer and started walking around the kitchen in circles, attempting a succession of hip-hop dance moves.

  “So, whatcha gonna do, just hang here all night?” Eric finally demanded, having exhausted his repertoire of pop and locks.

  “Pretty much.”

  Eric made a face. “No way. Saturday night, kid. We need to bust outta here. Cruise Sunset. Pick up some shorties. Know what I’m sayin’?” Like many of the kids at school, Eric spoke in a semi-ironic but at the same time completely earnest affectation of hip-hop patois.

  The tirade continued. “What you gonna do, watch SNL? Surf TAP? Give me a break. C’mon, let’s go.”

  Eric took the wheel on his dad’s vintage Bugatti, Nick riding shotgun, and they zoomed down the hill toward the Strip.

  Sunset Boulevard stretched from the crowded Santa Monica beaches all the way to the East L.A. barrios. Not that Nick had ever even set foot in East L.A. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure exactly where it was. Somewhere past downtown?

  They looped around for the third time down the half-mile stretch of Sunset between Fairfax and La Cienega, Nick chuckling as Eric flashed a finger at the NO CRUISING signs that were posted every block. Traffic was a crawl, drivers leaning on their horns, checking one another out behind the wheel—open-top convertibles the only way to roll, as white-shirted valets wielding glow sticks directed motorists to their parking lots, the prices escalating as they neared the hotels, nightclubs, and restaurants that made Sunset such a popular destination.

  Eric drove one-handed, his left arm gesturing toward the teeming crowds of people standing in line outside the velvet ropes in front of Chateau Marmont, Sky Bar, and the Standard. He was talking a mile a minute about the advantages and disadvantages of each nightclub. “We could hit Marmont before it gets crowded, or do Key—I heard the Arcade Fire is playing a secret set at about one a.m. The Standard’s pretty over; they let everyone in.”

  Nick grunted, not particularly interested in any of it. It was always the same—the same people at the parties, the same people at the clubs; he’d even found himself having the same conversation with the same person the other weekend. Comparing workouts. Snore. There just had to be more to life than scoring a cabana at the Roosevelt and watching underage actresses push one another into the pool. Right?

  He fiddled with the side mirror, taking note of the girls walking the sliver of sidewalk from club to club. They were uniformly tan, thin, and pretty with generic all-American actress/model features, dressed in skimpy, barely-there tops and even smaller skirts, and they teetered on strip club-worthy stilettos. It was true what they said about L.A.: There were so many pretty people, even pulchritude became boring. His thoughts wandered back to the girl he’d seen at Johnny’s concert. The one with the ebony-black hair and the weird-ass getup. Now, there was a girl who didn’t look like anybody else.

  His head swam from the bright neon lights, the large Absolut billboard bearing down on him oppressively. The energy he’d felt back at the house was starting to ebb, and he suddenly wished he’d just stayed home. The fight with Maxine had drained him of any enthusiasm. How could she? he thought, not for the first time. He could live with a bruised ego, but public humiliation was another thing entirely. She’d made him look like a cuckold, a chicken; it was all over TAP. Everyone would know. Correction: Everyone knew. He didn’t want that to bother him, but it did.

  “Hey, man, do you think we could just … ,” Nick said, knowing it was already too late.

  “Here we be,” Eric said as he pulled into the Mondrian’s driveway, through the oversize walnut doors. Eric tossed the keys to the valet, and Nick reluctantly followed him into a blindingly all-white lobby that was reminiscent of the last scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey—a surreal, clinical space full of white leather and glass. Eric sauntered—swaggered—up to the velvet rope that separated the public areas from the private.

  A tall, bald man—one of the most famous doormen in Hollywood, who went by the one-word moniker Disco—waved them to the front of the line.

  “Eric, my man,” he said, grinning and pounding fists with Eric. “You guys need a table?”

  “Please.” Eric smiled, palming a hundred-dollar bill, which Disco pocketed smoothly.

  Disco unhooked the rope and whispered to a passing cocktail waitress to lead Eric and Nick to a choice table within the cordoned-off VIP section.

  A few minutes later the two boys were lounging comfortably on a king-size mattress, sipping twelve-dollar cocktails and enjoying the panoramic view of the city that stretched from the ocean all the way to downtown. A fresh breeze blew the transparent linens on the cabana, and the air was sweetened with the scent of jasmine and hibiscus. Nick began to relax. Okay, so maybe
he had been in a bad mood, but this wasn’t so terrible, now, was it?

  On a raised platform above the pool, the DJ spun a sexy, lively mix of eighties dance music interspersed with twenty-first-century hip-hop, but almost no one was dancing. It was a strictly S&M crowd—stand and model—the pretty people posing as if ready for a Sante D’Orazio campaign.

  Eric grinned hopefully at every pretty girl who walked by, to no avail, while Nick yawned into his shirtsleeve.

  “She said to meet here, man, I swear. Ella—or was her name Ellen? I can’t remember. Did she say Sky? Or was it Katana? Or Geisha House?” Eric began making a succession of phone calls to various friends to ascertain their location for the evening. The minute Eric arrived anywhere, he always felt like the action was somewhere else.

  “Hey, guys,” a voice cooed.

  Salvation. A group of girls from school—all wearing midriff-baring tops, belly chains, and tight True Religion jeans—clustered around their table. Nick noticed that a couple of them had angel-wings tattoos somewhere on their bodies—Clarissa’s was on the back of her neck, Allison’s right above her bellybutton. The tattoos must be some kind of fad … something the cool kids adopted that spread to everyone else.

  That was the way it had been, ever since junior high. For the girls, Tiffany bean necklaces, friendship string bracelets, Uggs, Crocs, those tiny tank tops with their names graffitied on the front. For the guys, Oakley rimless sunglasses, PlayStation Portables, old-school kicks. One day no one drank Red Bull; the next day everyone was mainlining it. What was in or out was adopted and discarded so quickly, it was hard to keep up. Nick always wondered who decided what was cool to wear, to drink, to buy. And why did everyone follow so slavishly?

  “Omigod, aren’t you so bored?” one of the girls—Ashley or Avery; Nick could never tell them apart—asked. “It’s so lame tonight.”

  “Totally,” Eric nodded.

  “It’s all, like, Valley trash. Disgusto.” Another one nodded, flicking her hair over her tanned shoulders and turning up her nose at several revelers who were walking by the rope, sneaking a peek to see if there were any real celebrities in the VIP section (and looking disappointed when they didn’t recognize anyone in Nick’s party). “Go away!” she screeched to a hapless bystander. “Leave us alone!”

  “Some people.” Clarissa sniffed. “The absolute nerve.”

  “We’re out. Going to this party up on Benedict—wanna come?” one of the girls asked.

  “Amory’s getting Tapped tonight.”

  “Shut up!” Clarissa frowned, punching her friend in the arm.

  “Owee? What’s the big deal? It’s going to be hot.”

  The one named Amory, another lookalike blonde, looked from Nick to Eric and blushed, but said nothing.

  “But isn’t it at—?” One of the girls whispered to Eric, looking apprehensively at Nick.

  Eric nodded soberly, but shrugged his shoulders—the international sign of whatever.

  Nick barely paid attention to the conversation. As the group herded out to the valet stand, he was just glad to be in motion again.

  Eric gripped him by the shoulder, trying to psych him up for the fun.

  “C’mon bud, TAP party up in the hills. Remember what happened last time—whoa!” his friend cheered.

  “No, what happened last time?” Nick asked, knitting his eyebrows together.

  “Dude, I had such a great time, even I don’t remember.” Eric laughed.

  Taj

  THE FIRST TIME TAJ ATTENDED A TAP PARTY, SHE hadn’t even known it was a TAP party. She and Johnny had received the invitation a little while after he’d posted a few of his songs online. They had gone out of boredom. Why not? he’d said one evening. Let’s go check it out. It was a party up in Silver Lake, at a sprawling house that she recognized from half a dozen horror films.

  They’d paid their twenty dollars and hung out. They only had kegs at the party back then; the promoters—whoever they were—hadn’t introduced TAP the drink just yet.

  It had sure looked just like any other party. Later she would remember the slight differences—the feeling of being watched, of being judged, the feeling that somewhere underneath the surface of the party a real event was going on, but that they were somehow missing out on it without quite knowing why.

  She and Johnny had wandered through the house and found a door that looked like it would lead them outside, where they could at least sit by the pool. Taj opened it and was surprised to find a kid with a flashlight standing guard instead. “What’s the word?” he asked.

  From behind him Taj had seen a dark room filled with kids and heard the sounds of soft, intimate laughter and the thump of a dark, rich house-music beat, all bass line.

  “Excuse me?” she’d asked.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Private party.” He closed the door firmly in their faces.

  Johnny and Taj looked at each other askance. When Johnny tried to open the door, it was locked. Huh. That was weird.

  “Drug room?” Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow. Johnny had been practically straight edge back then. Music is my life, he’d said. I don’t need anything but my guitar to get high.

  “No, I didn’t smell anything, did you?” she said. She hadn’t glimpsed anyone surreptitiously angling a dollar bill up a nostril either. Besides, no one ever locked the drug room.

  Just say no? Please. This was Los Angeles. Rehab was a mandatory pit stop between dropping out of high school and starring in a music video. Promises weren’t a pledge to change; it was where you checked in after they kicked you out of Hazelden. Taj knew half a dozen kids who had burned out on dozens of illegal substances. She herself stayed out of the scene. Sure, she’d tried stuff—her motto was “Try everything once”—but Taj preferred clarity to oblivion. Like Johnny she favored a natural high.

  They’d left the party soon after, not quite being able to shake the feeling that they had been cheated of an experience.

  The next week another invitation had arrived in their TAP in-boxes. At the bottom of the e-mail, a password had been supplied: Inferno. Maybe this meant they’d made the cut this time, Taj had thought.

  Johnny had laughed it off, saying who did these people think they were, the devillll? Taj’s curiosity was piqued against her better nature. She wanted to find out what it was all about.

  Inferno had taken them inside the back room at a party up on Laurel Canyon. The room was pitch-black, and bodies were pressed tightly against one another in the dark.

  “What’s going on?” Taj whispered. “Is this all there is?”

  A red light shone on one corner of the room, and a girl stood underneath it, holding what looked like a needle. The music started—the bumf, bumf, bumf of the techno beat—and the show began.

  “Shhh,” Johnny said, holding her hand tightly. “Let’s wait and see.”

  They had done just that. Later, at the next party, they would even participate. Soon it got to be something that was simply part of their lives, part of the fabric of their existence. And just like the website, it was hard to stop once you’d started.

  That evening as Deck drove them up through the curvy streets, Taj wondered if it was a good idea to stop by the back room this time. Maybe tonight I won’t, she told herself. Maybe tonight I won’t do it.

  Benedict Canyon snaked up from Beverly Hills (where the street was simply called Cañon) all the way up to Bel-Air, where twenty- to thirty-thousand-square-foot villas—modern American palazzos—were the norm. It was a quiet, secluded, exclusive neighborhood; up here, Taj thought, even the air smelled fresher, as if even the ubiquitous Los Angeles smog wouldn’t dare pollute the reaches of the lofty district.

  Sutton’s house was on a ridge high above the city. They drove up to a security gate, and Div quickly punched in the code. Hedges hid the house from the street, and as they drove up the winding private drive, it came into view: a large colonial mansion, intimidating in its size, with three-story marble columns, sparkling fountains, and
lush landscaping. It looked like a resort or a hotel rather than a private residence.

  They parked behind a long line of cars in the driveway, and walked inside to find the party in full swing. Groups of people were dancing wildly in the living room, the throbbing music piped through speakers that were invisibly installed in every corner of the house. There were kids everywhere—hanging off the balcony, assembled on the patio, smoking in the dining room, zoning out, and sitting down rolling cigarettes in the mazelike corridors that led to different wings of the house. Several tables by the side of the room were littered with open potato-chip and snack bags, half-empty handles of premium gin, vodka, rum, and whiskey, and plastic cups scattered every which way—dirty, clean, half-full, half-empty, full of cigarette butts.

  Just your usual Bel-Air blowout. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

  Taj surveyed the guests—she didn’t see anyone she knew from school, but the slew of bodies parted as soon as the crowd noticed the three of them enter.

  “That’s Queen CoolGaze,” someone whispered. A snarky website had given Taj that nickname after a photo of her and Johnny had run in the Los Angeles Times in an article about the burgeoning music revival. The hipster hottie who was reinventing rock and roll and his alterna-queen girlfriend.

  Taj blushed. Those pictures were a joke. It was all fake. How could they not see it?

  But even the high-maintenance high-school crowd had bought into it. The way they stepped back to let her pass was a sign of respect. She knew in an instant that these were private-school kids whose mommies and daddies toiled in the upper reaches of the entertainment industry and brought home money by the wheelbarrowful. The girls had hair the color of honey, smooth and buttery-perfect, golden caramel-delicious highlights painstakingly applied by a professional hand, and luminous skin that glowed from exotic spa treatments.

  “We’re going inferno,” Deck said, thumbing toward the back of the house. Although the password changed every week, they always called it that after the first time.

  “Already?” Taj asked.