Angels on Sunset Boulevard

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Stars—they have no money,” Nick’s dad was fond of saying. His other favorite saying was “Stars—they’re employees,” with a derision honed from more than a decade’s worth of producing summer blockbusters, hiring and firing actors and actresses at will.

  Nick’s father was the picture of the L.A. mogul: tanned, fit, dressed casually in a white Polo shirt and scruffy jeans. His stepmother, Evelyn, was the polished California career woman at rest in her pastel Richard Tyler ensemble.

  There was nothing to celebrate. Fish was technically still missing, although David and Evelyn didn’t seem too concerned; they had somehow convinced themselves this was just another prank Fish was playing—another cry for attention—or perhaps they were in deep throes of denial. Nick couldn’t decide. He took a sip of the overpriced lemonade and looked from one parent to the other warily.

  “I fired Rosa this morning,” Evelyn suddenly announced, after the waiter had taken their round of orders.

  “Why?” Nick asked.

  “She was stealing from me.”

  “Rosa?” Nick was aghast. The Guatemalan housekeeper had been with them for years. She was not only a trusted member of the family, but the children’s main caretaker.

  “I couldn’t believe it either. But there was stuff missing …” Evelyn shrugged. “Nothing too expensive, thank God. But pieces of jewelry. Money from my wallet. I would never have noticed except I needed cash to tip my hairdresser the other day, and I knew I had sixty dollars in my wallet, but it was gone. Anyway, who else would take it?”

  Nick crinkled his brow. Something didn’t add up. For the past few days, Citibank had left several messages for a “Pish Langley”—they were still trying to get a hold of Fish for some reason.

  “That reminds me,” his father said. “Has anyone seen my Patek Philippe? I had it out the other day and I can’t seem to find it. It’s very odd.”

  “No, haven’t seen it,” Nick said.

  “Rosa. I’m telling you. You can never trust the help. Not even if they’ve been with you for twenty years. It’s such a shame.” Evelyn sighed. “The Patek that Nicole sent you for Christmas?”

  “Yes.” David grumbled. “Actors,” he said in his usual dismissive tone. “Still. It’s a twenty-thousand-dollar watch.”

  Nick suddenly realized he hadn’t seen his own watch in a long time. Not to mention, small bills had been disappearing from his wallet every once in a while. He’d chalked it up to bad math on his part, but the other day he could have sworn he had a hundred-dollar bill in there, and it was just gone the next morning.

  But he couldn’t believe Rosa was responsible for any of it.

  Suddenly he remembered how Fish always seemed to need money. She’d asked for a fifty before the party and she’d been complaining for weeks before then about how she never got enough allowance. What would she need the money for? he wondered. She had everything she could ever want— neither David nor Evelyn was stingy in that direction. If anything, they erred in spoiling the kids too much. If she’d needed more money she should have asked for a bigger allowance.

  But maybe she couldn’t ask for a bigger allowance, because she needed money fast, and soon. And maybe she’d needed more money than a raise in her allowance could provide. But for what?

  “Can you imagine,” Evelyn was saying. “A thief! In our house!” She shuddered.

  Taj

  THE NEXT DAY, AT THE STATION, TAJ GOT A PHONE call from Nick.

  “Wanna hear Johnny’s song again?” she asked.

  “No, I’m not calling for a request.”

  “Oh,” Taj said. She wasn’t sure what he wanted, then.

  “Listen, there’s been all this weird stuff going on. I don’t know why I’m telling you, but I feel like I have to tell somebody, and you seem to know a lot about this TAP stuff.”

  “I told you, I don’t know anything about TAP. It was just some site where I met Johnny, that’s all.”

  “Will you listen?”

  “Of course,” Taj said. “What’s up?”

  “There’s been, like, a bunch of stuff missing from the house.” He told her about Evelyn’s suspicions of Rosa, but how he couldn’t believe it. “Little things, and some things only members of the family know about. I mean, could it be possible she’s been sneaking back in the house and taking things?”

  “Who? Fish?”

  “Yeah. Is that weird? I mean, if she was home, why wouldn’t she let us know?”

  “What’s been missing?”

  “Oh, stuff, like my money clip and my dad’s Patek Philippe.”

  Taj’s ears pricked. Patek Philippe? She remembered Div talking about some insanely expensive watch Deck had received in the mail through TAP.

  “Do you know any reason why a thirteen-year-old kid would need all this money?”

  “Do you know about the gifting?” Taj asked before she could stop herself.

  “The what?”

  “Nothing,” Taj said.

  “C’mon, Taj. Spill it. Please. It’s my sister I’m talking about here.”

  “All right,” Taj said reluctantly. “There’s this gifting thing—the wish lists—on TAP.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Taj told him. The rules, the hierarchy. How Div and Deck received tons of gifts every week, how Johnny had been raking it in by the busload.

  “But why would Fish … ,” Nick said. Then the color drained from his face. His sister, the misfit, suddenly finding herself with a bunch of friends. He remembered one of Fish’s new friends asking her if her “order” had come in; Fish had meekly asked her what her size was. Fish was buying friendship through TAP.

  “Because she wanted to fit in, because she wanted to belong—that’s why,” Nick said, answering his own question. “And she was so insecure she would pay to be accepted.”

  “God,” Taj said. She suddenly felt ill. She’d never thought of it that way, but of course that was what happened: The kids on the bottom, kids like Fish who didn’t have enough friends to provide them with stuff, and who always had to kick up to their TAP “sponsors”—they would get behind, and getting behind meant humiliation on TAP. Then exorcism. Blackball.

  “Taj, I need to ask you again. What goes on in that back room?” Nick said.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You still think it has something to do with that? Because honestly, Nick, it doesn’t.”

  “I just have to see for myself.”

  “Okay There’s another TAP party on Friday. I’ll take you with me so you can see for yourself.” What could it hurt? Taj thought. Maybe it could even be a little bit fun.

  Nick

  FRIDAY NIGHT, JUST AS TAJ HAD PROMISED, WAS another TAP event. This one was in another empty mansion, this time in the Truesdale Estates. Taj told Nick she would meet him there, and he waited by the kitchen to see her.

  There. Once again he was taken aback by how beautiful she was. She’d put her hair back in a low chignon, and her green eyes glittered in the dark light.

  “Hey. Sorry I’m late. This place has, like, two kitchens, apparently,” she said.

  “No worries.”

  “So, are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “Yeah. I want to know.”

  “Okay, follow me. And remember, when they ask, it’s Ambrose Bierce.”

  “The Devil’s Dictionary?”

  “Very good. I’m surprised you haven’t been Tapped.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They made their way to the designated backroom area. The kid with the flashlight, this time one with a shaved head and a goatee, shone a light in their faces.

  “What’s the word?”

  “Ambrose Bierce,” they chorused.

  They walked inside the dark room. “This is it? Nothing’s happening,” Nick whispered.

  “Wait,” Taj said. “Just wait, and be patient.”

  Someone handed t
hem cups to drink. “TAP?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah. Drink it. It makes it better.”

  “Okay,” he said dubiously. It was only the second time he’d taken it. The sweet liquor hit him in the back of his throat and he began to feel woozy. A basket was being passed around. He watched as Taj reached in and grabbed something. Condoms.

  The music—Johnny Silver’s—was hypnotic and haunted. A light shone on a girl dancing in the middle of the room, with a needle.

  A boy stepped forward.

  Nick gasped as he watched the girl take the needle and start cutting him on his forearm.

  “What the hell?”

  “Shhhh,” Taj said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “He’s just getting Tapped,” she explained. “A tattoo. To show your allegiance to the divine Spirit.”

  “Spirit?”

  “Can’t you feel it?”

  “No …”

  Then he realized the room was stacked with pillows, and in the dark he could see bodies falling into them, and people disrobing. Was this for real? He looked to his side and noticed Taj was unzipping her top. She tossed it to the ground. Next she took off her blouse, then her bra.

  She was dancing, sinuously, gracefully, and others were dancing with her. They were chanting. TAP kicked in, and he felt delirious from a feeling of infinite joy and ecstasy. He looked around, and thought he recognized a dark-haired girl slithering across the floor. Oh, yeah. It was Maxine. How funny was that. He gave her a smile, and she met his eye. There was a flash of surprise when she recognized him; then she turned away.

  He pulled off his sweater and his shirt. Taj danced over to him. She was a goddess.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  “What’s in this drink?” Nick slurred, feeling dizzy.

  Taj lifted her chin up and Nick swayed on his feet, so they fell back into the pillows, together, skin to skin, mouth to mouth, feeling the heat of the room and the other bodies and letting the beat of the music pull them toward each other.

  Nick laid his body on top of hers, put his hands on her chest, felt her damp skin sliding on his, and Taj twined her legs around his to pull him even closer. He put a hand on the zipper of her jeans and she guided it downward. They embraced.

  Then there were other people around him, touching him, pulling them apart, and soon it wasn’t just Taj he was kissing, but other girls. There were other hands, a million hands, all over his body, and he was falling back, back into the pillows, into the pile. Disappear Disappear. Disappear.

  He didn’t know what he was doing, he didn’t know why he was doing it, only that it felt good, it felt really good, and he hadn’t felt this good in such a long time.

  Taj

  WHEN IT WAS OVER, TAJ EXPLAINED THE RITUAL over burgers at Mel’s Diner, in a matter-of-fact fashion, as if they were discussing the weather.

  “It’s called the Initiation of the Spirit,” Taj explained, taking a huge bite and stuffing a few french fries into her mouth. A night in the back room always made her hungry.

  “Uh-huh,” Nick said.

  God, he was so shy and so cute about it. He was obviously embarrassed about what they had done in there, but there was nothing to be embarrassed about. That was the whole beauty of the ritual. It was about being free, about being liberated, about being yourself. It was a ritual that celebrated your body and the love it could bring, without emotional consequences. And they were always careful. It was the one place where you could be yourself.

  That’s why it was so addictive. It was so against everything they’d been taught—that hooking up was bad, that bodies were something to be ashamed of, that it was wrong to feel the way they felt. They were young and carefree, and the ritual celebrated this.

  To be one with the Spirit was to commune with angels. This was The Angels’ Practice.

  Taj remembered the first time she realized she’d even fooled around with Deck during one of the rituals. But both of them had been cool about it, had joked about it, even. She loved Deck; she loved Johnny. In the back room, she loved everybody. Johnny had hooked up with Div in the back room, too. It didn’t matter. It was all about sharing love in there.

  At least, it was at first. That night, it was like the first time, innocent and sweet. Lately the back room had taken on a darker meaning, and she hadn’t felt so comfortable. There were too many boys just standing around watching. It was creepy. But that night, with Nick, she’d felt safe.

  “It’s based on a pagan fertility ritual, a dance to celebrate the crops,” Taj said. “I think someone in TAP read too much Marion Zimmer Bradley and decided they wanted to try it on their own.”

  Nick nodded. “Who’s that?”

  “Some author, wrote a bunch of goddess-themed novels. Good trashy stuff.”

  “And you buy it? The whole Spirit thing?”

  Taj took a handful of fries and chewed on them before answering. She thought about his question. “I guess I didn’t at first, but then I took TAP, and it enhances it. Makes it … I don’t know … dreamy somehow. It’s like a really good dream, the back room. It’s not real.”

  Nick still couldn’t look at her.

  “C’mon, I told you it wasn’t anything bad. Your sister … she’s a little young for it, but no one is forced to do anything. It’s free will; you only go so far as you’re comfortable with. And maybe she was just there to watch the Tapping.”

  “The cutting?”

  “Yeah. The tattoos. The angel wings.”

  “What’s up with that?”

  “Oh, it just means you’re part of it for real. You’re supposed to pledge your allegiance to TAP for a million years. It’s kind of silly, really. But there’s no harm.”

  Nick’s face blanched. He’d seen that tattoo on Fish’s arm. Was that what it meant?

  “C’mon, Nick, now that you’ve seen what it is, you have to agree there’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, TAP didn’t exactly invent free love, did they? I mean, it’s been around before. This is just the latest version. They used to call us hippies. Now they call us hipsters,” she joked.

  She wondered if she had been right in taking him to the back room. But it was too late now.

  Nick

  ON MONDAY THE FOLLOWING WEEK NICK STILL couldn’t get over what had gone down in the back room. Taj was acting like it was nothing, like it was something she did all the time, with anybody. But to him it felt different. Eric wasn’t at school that day, and his buddy wasn’t picking up his phone, either. He wanted to ask Eric if he’d experienced the same thing in the back room. Oh, well.

  Nick saw Maxine at the cafeteria—and an image from the ritual, unbidden, came to his mind. How long had she been participating? Was that where she first hooked up with Sutton? he wondered.

  He went through the motions of school—AP classes, lunch, more AP classes, college-counselor session, then soccer practice, and he was done.

  The school parking lot was almost empty when Nick came out of the locker room. He zapped his keys at his car and got inside. As he drove off, he noticed a black Escalade with tinted windows pull out from across the street. It looked similar to the one he had seen earlier that morning, tailing him down the canyon on the way to school.

  Nick thought nothing of it. Tons of people in L.A. drove black Escalades. You couldn’t go down Beverly without seeing at least two. He drove up to Mulholland. It had gotten dark early, and the street was winding and curvy.

  There was a sharp curve on the road, and Nick slowed down, only to notice a black Escalade bearing down on his right.

  “What the fuck,” Nick muttered, trying to shake the car off his tail.

  But the lumbering SUV powered up, and Nick turned the wheel one hundred eighty degrees to get out of the way, spinning the convertible into the ditch. The car rolled over, bouncing Nick against the ceiling and shattering his right cheek into the glass, and he passed out into blackness.

  When Nick woke up, a paramedic was shining a light into his eyes. />
  Taj

  A FEW DAYS AFTER SHE HAD TAKEN NICK TO THE TAP party, Taj geared up in a Santa Monica school yard for the qualifying rounds for the Vancouver tournament, one of the most respected annual skateboarding contests. Even the pros attended. Only those who made it to the final rounds at the regional level made it to Canada, glory, and skater history.

  Div and Deck were already there.

  “Check it out—we got sponsors!” Div said, holding aloft a new board decked out with dozens of stickers for Lost Angeles, an up-and-coming skateboard company based in Venice Beach.

  “Big pimpin’.” Deck grinned, pointing to his Lost Angeles logo T-shirt.

  “Nice.” Taj smiled.

  “If we get flicked in a magazine, we get five hundred cash. Plus, each sticker in the photo is fifty bucks. Twelve stickers is six hundred bucks, even if it’s in the same photo,” Div explained proudly.

  “And if we make it through, they’ll pay to send us to Vancouver, maybe even Tampa,” Deck added, meaning the biggest tournament there was—Tampa was the mother lode. Mount Everest. Even if you didn’t place at Tampa, just the fact that you were there was enough to send your hits skyrocketing.

  “So what else did they send?” Taj asked. She’d heard about the sponsor packages—large cardboard boxes that came with tons of loot.

  “A coupla boards, some shoes, T-shirts. But Deck’s already sold half of his for drinks and smokes.” Div smirked.

  “Typical.”

  Taj squinted against the sun, waiting for her turn while her friends lined up by the half-pipe. They were wearing their matching Lost Angeles T-shirts, and the logo was all over their shorts, their shoes, even their socks. Not to mention screaming out of their boards. For their sake, Taj hoped they got shot for something. They looked like walking billboards.