All Night Long

by Melody Mayer

  “Have fun,” Lydia told them.

  After a round of warm goodbyes, Staci and Amber took off with their boyfriends.

  “See? Not so bad,” Jorge told Esme.

  “Please. That was as much of a game as the one that just got played down there.” Kiley chucked her chin toward the field, where the gun had just gone off to end the game. Echo Park had killed—fifty-one to ten. There was only the most cursory of postgame handshaking on the field.

  “Jorge, Bel Air girls are not your strong suit. The fact is, they hate us,” Esme explained. “Well, me and Kiley, anyway. They think Lydia is cool.”

  Esme looked at her friend from the Echo. He seemed truly surprised.

  “Don't you get it?” Esme asked Jorge, irritated at his innocence. “They were playing us!” Something hard and hot turned in her stomach. Her fingers balled into fists. She wasn't a violent person, but she would have liked to hurt those girls, because she knew what Jorge didn't seem to comprehend.

  “You know that expression ‘kill 'em with kindness’?” she asked Jorge.

  He nodded.

  “Bang-bang. We're dead.”

  “Hurry up, y'all. I knew we should have come earlier.”

  Lydia was practically dragging Martina and Jimmy by their wrists through the booths and tents that comprised the Melrose Trading Post, lamenting the fact that these booths were closing almost as fast as she passed them.

  That's what I get for showing up at four o'clock, Lydia thought.

  The chichi flea market in the midst of the Fairfax district—a Los Angeles neighborhood that was equal parts hipster and Orthodox Jews—had bloomed from the attention of Hollywood stars and the bargain-savvy alike. Here, on the torrid asphalt of the parking lot at Fairfax High School, would-be Melrose Avenue merchants and flea marketers met to sell their wares.

  The assortment of stuff available was staggering, as was the crowd that came from all over the city. One-of-a-kind designer clothes and furniture hid in plain sight alongside random junk. On previous outings to the flea market, Lydia had scored a vintage hot pink silk Chanel bed jacket and a tweed Dior pencil skirt (the lining was ripped, but so what?). She'd also scored a Nanette Lepore leopard-print chiffon blouse (missing buttons, which was why it was selling for eight bucks, when Lydia knew for a fact that at Neiman Marcus a similar shirt with the buttons was currently going for north of three hundred dollars). She'd found it crumpled up between an empty propane tank and a rusting saxophone.

  If you had taste and a good eye, the place was a fashion gold mine.

  “Come on, come on,” Lydia insisted.

  “It's too hot to walk fast,” Jimmy whined.

  Martina yanked away from her. “No! We're leaving Faith behind.”

  That's right. Faith. Kat had taken Lydia's mom to Valerie's on Rodeo Drive for an eyebrow waxing, and Lydia had brought Martina and—wonder of wonders—a friend of Martina's to the flea market. Lydia had never known her cousin to have a friend before, so she considered this a wonderful sign. That friend, Faith, was now twenty yards back. She was lost in a world of her own, adjusting her glasses and hovering over a table attended by a cadaverous guy dressed in black with a beard nearly to his navel. That table, Lydia saw, was littered with nothing but junk: a neon beer sign, an assortment of lampshades, and what looked to be a carved wooden pterodactyl.

  On one hand, Lydia was thrilled for Martina. Her cousin had met Faith Phillips, whose father, Bingham Phillips, was executive producer of a very popular reality show, at the country club. On the other hand, the friend was Faith. With her two-hundred-dollar streaked chestnut brown hair and disdainful dark eyes, haughty Faith treated Lydia like an unwanted escort for the day. She was a year older than Martina, and thought she knew better about everything. On the ride here from her home in Pacific Palisades—X detoured there to pick her up—Faith had issued long dictates concerning everything related to taste: the best food (soy curd), acceptable clothing (FUBU was in, Juicy Couture was out), music (ABA—Anyone but Avril), and the funniest movie star (Adam Sandler, not Ben Stiller).

  “You just ditched my friend!” Martina cried, and stomped back to Faith. Lydia followed. Jimmy groaned, folded his arms, and refused to budge.

  “Wait right there!” Lydia called to him. Faith was examining a crystal pin in the shape of a dolphin. “Faith, honey, try to keep up, okay?”

  Faith ignored Lydia and held the pin up for Martina to examine. “Do you like it?”

  “Do you?” Martina asked, afraid to venture an opinion lest Faith disagree.

  “Dolphins are out,” Faith pronounced, tossing the jewelry back into a tray crowded with cheap trinkets. “Unicorns are in.”

  “This is so boring!” Jimmy yelled, marching over to them.

  “We can look for things you like,” Lydia offered.

  He folded his arms. “I don't like anything.”

  It wasn't really like Jimmy to be so negative. Now that Lydia thought about it, he'd hardly said anything all day, except for occasionally complaining. From the moment Faith had gotten in the car, he'd been silent. He hadn't talked about any of his favorite subjects—bugs, golf, or the Dodgers.

  “You want to see if we can find you a new Dodgers cap?” Lydia offered.

  Jimmy shook his head and stared at the ground.

  “The Dodgers are out. The Mets are in,” Faith pronounced.

  Lydia sighed. It had been a mistake to bring Jimmy on a shopping expedition. She craned her neck longingly and peered at the stands where hidden couture treasures awaited her. “How about if you let us three girls shop for clothes and stuff for just a half hour,” Lydia decreed, “and after that we'll do whatever you want.”

  “I don't care.” He turned away from her.

  “All the clothes they have here are crap,” Faith said.

  “Right,” echoed Martina.

  This untruth was nearly enough to make Lydia weep. And yet here was Martina buying right into it.

  “Y'all, follow me,” Lydia said, and made a beeline for a booth where she'd found treasures in the past. She pawed through a row of skirts until she came to a darling yellow eyelet number going for the delightful sum of seven bucks; Lydia noted that it was a Chloé with the tag ripped out.

  “This skirt at Saks would sell for hundreds,” Lydia explained, holding it up to Martina. “It's an amazing bargain!”

  “No offense, but you only think that because you have bad taste,” Faith said. “If it was worth so much money, it wouldn't be here. I'm thirsty, can we get something to drink? Not Fiji water. Fiji water is out. Smart Water is in.”

  “I'm thirsty, too,” Martina said.

  Sigh. Lydia made a mental vow never to bring the children here again. She found the nearest refreshment stand and bought them all soft drinks and french fries, which she figured would keep them happy for the next fifteen minutes.

  The girls chowed down, but Jimmy ignored what Lydia knew to be his favorite food. He wandered over to a display of small toys and began twirling a Rubik's Cube. Lydia dimly remembered having one in Texas before she'd been dragged off to Ama country. It was a box with six different colors on it. The object was to keep turning the colors until one side was solid blue, one red, one yellow, one orange, one white, and one green.

  Impulsively, Lydia called out to the shopkeeper, who was an elderly lady in a flowered dress. “How much for the Rubik's Cube?”

  The woman held up five laconic fingers.

  “Dollars?”

  “No, euros. Of course dollars,” the woman said. She had a strong Russian accent that immediately reminded Lydia of Anya. “You want?”

  Jimmy tossed the cube back onto the table. “No.” He walked away.

  Yep. There was definitely something wrong. Lydia chalked it up to the disruption of Anya leaving home. She caught up with Jimmy. “You're feeling kinda punky, huh?”

  “What do you care?” Jimmy sneered.

  Wow. He really was taking the moms' breakup hard. Lydia decided she'd talk to
Kat about it. She bought them all soft-serve ice cream—at least Jimmy ate that—and then called X to come pick them up.

  On the way home, Jimmy didn't say one word at all.

  Seven hours after leaving the flea market—midnight, to be exact—Lydia was winding her way through the dense, sweaty crowd at Surf's Up, a new club on the beach in Venice. X had dropped her on the way to some place he wanted to visit in Marina del Rey, with the promise that he'd pick her up later if she needed a ride. She'd asked Billy if he wanted to join her, but he had begged off. He was doing set decoration for a music video that was being shot on a yacht, and he couldn't get out of the gig even if he'd wanted to.

  That was fine. Lydia liked going out by herself. In fact, the night she'd met Billy, she had been out at a club alone. And this one, with its pounding surf-punk music, surfboard theme, and buff waiters in jam shorts and nothing else, was very appealing. It was apparently appealing to hundreds of others, as there'd been a line outside that stretched for fifty yards down the beach. That hadn't stopped Lydia, though. Wearing a sheer green slip dress over a lacy black bra had been a wise choice. The behemoth of a door guy had given her a quick once-over, then waved her inside. No cover charge, either.

  Lydia stood in the center of the throng and exulted. The bass thumped, half-naked bodies grinded—the club encouraged people to shed their tops (there was the moral equivalent of a coat check just for shirts, and if you went barechested you got a coupon for two-for-one drinks)—and Smart Lights reacted synchronously with the music, changing color, focus, and diffusion. This was perfect. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to yack. All she wanted to do was dance.

  She moved onto the dance floor and started to sway to the music.

  “Hey, Lydia! You found us!” Staci waved her arms. “Look, you guys. It's Lydia!”

  A moment later, the trio besieged her and was pulling her toward the bar, offering to buy her a drink—any drink.

  Lydia was conflicted. Yes, Staci had called her earlier to suggest she come to this club. And yes, she'd wanted to see it. But she felt guilty as hell being here without Kiley and Esme. She told herself that if she ran into the girls, she'd do her best to convince them how wrong they were about her friends. And if the girls continued to be assholes about it, she'd ditch them. Forever.

  The bar area was packed. “I'd love a drink,” Lydia said. “But I don't feel like waiting that long.”

  “We never wait,” Amber said, tossing her head so that her dangling cherry-shaped rhinestone (or were they diamonds, Lydia wondered) earrings sparkled. She wore low-slung brown and aqua plaid Imitation of Christ trousers and a sheer aqua tank top, looking, Lydia thought, about as perfect as a girl could look.

  If you liked that kind of thing.

  Staci—dressed in a canary yellow Zac Posen babydoll with skinny jeans that Lydia had coveted at Fred Segal, merely raised her right hand toward the bar, waving two fingers with a come-hither look, and a bare-chested and goateed bartender appeared, smiling as if he had all the time in the world.

  “Does everybody know what they want?” Staci asked.

  “Flirtinis,” Zona declared. “All around.”

  Staci nodded, and the bartender disappeared. “It's good publicity for their club when I show up,” she explained to Lydia. “They think maybe my father will use this for a location in a movie. Guess who's here tonight?”

  Lydia was usually pretty good at this game. When she'd lived in Amazonia, she devoured the magazines that were air-dropped in, or brought in by doctor and nurse volunteers. The interior of her mud hut had been decorated with celebrity photographs torn from these magazines. They didn't last long, of course. The humidity and the insects got to them quickly.

  The bartender pushed four drinks across the metal bar, and Staci took hers. “Justin. See the guy with the big glasses, coat, and Italian hat?”

  Lydia squinted. “You mean that guy?”

  “That guy,” Staci acknowledged. “Want to meet him?”

  Lydia couldn't help herself. “I'd love to!”

  This was fantastic. This was why she had come to L.A. It was as if she was being repaid with interest for all those months in the rain forest with an indigenous people whose idea of fun was to pierce their cheeks with sticks. Lydia had mixed feelings about her life in Amazonia. She'd learned a lot, and she'd lived in a way that few Americans ever could. But there were no clubs like Surf's Up on the Rio Negro.

  “So, Lydia. Are you having a good time?” Staci's question was direct.

  “Fab!” Lydia replied. She was not one to mute her enthusiasm.

  “Good, because we've been talking.” Staci traded a significant look with Amber and Zona, then turned back to Lydia. “We've decided we like you.”

  Only at this point did Amber and Zona smile. Phew.

  Lydia smiled. “Great.”

  “But,” Staci went on, “there is a little problem.”

  “It's about your friends,” Amber added.

  Big shocker. Well, Lydia was ready. But first, she wanted to hear all the ugly and despicable things these girls had to say. In all their glory.

  “My friends?” Lydia echoed. She did everything but bat her sooty lashes to emphasize her “innocence” at the query. “What about them?”

  “We have a split decision on that girl Kiley,” Staci explained. “Platinum's nanny. She might have possibilities, but she's got a lot of work to do.”

  Zona nodded emphatically. “Her clothes? Ohmigod, who dresses like that?”

  “Plus she's a little fat,” Amber went on. “Not, like, superhuge or anything. But really she could take off, like, ten pounds.”

  “Interesting,” Lydia said. She knew exactly how to keep her face neutral so that these snotty girls had no clue what was really going on in her head.

  “Okay, so anyway, Kiley is a maybe,” Staci summed up. “But that chick Esme?” She rolled her eyes.

  “I wore an outfit just like hers when we did West Side Story last year,” Amber added maliciously. “She looks so cheap.”

  “By ‘cheap’ did you mean … Latina?” Lydia asked, smiling so that they'd think this was a friendly question.

  “We are not racist,” Zona insisted. “Jennifer Lopez's niece happens to go to our school. Her dad is a music producer. She lives in that redbrick mansion on Crest Hill.”

  “Esme comes from the Echo,” Staci explained. “I mean, she was sitting with those gangbangers.”

  Lydia lifted one eyebrow. “She was sitting with her old friends. How do you know they're gangbangers?”

  “Echo Park High is full of 'em,” Staci said. “Everyone knows that. That is, for the kids that actually go to high school.”

  “Uh-huh,” Lydia agreed. “But, see, I don't think that means that everyone in Echo Park is a banger. Any more than everyone in Bel Air is a snob.”

  Staci gave Lydia a cool look. “If it talks like a duck and walks like a duck …”

  Her friends giggled.

  “I know a gangbanger when I see one,” Staci went on, flicking an imaginary speck of something off her shoulder. “Plus, I heard she does gang tattoos.”

  “Oh, y'all have that totally wrong,” Lydia said. “She's a tattoo artist. She does freehand designs and charges a mint. She inks the biggest stars in Hollywood. I mean, she's booked up for like a year in advance.”

  This, Lydia knew, was perhaps a slight exaggeration. But it was worth it for a good cause—to get these girls to see the error of their preconceptions.

  Amber narrowed her eyes. “Did you make that up or is it true?”

  “Of course it's true,” Lydia replied.

  Staci shrugged. “All I know is what I heard. If I wanted to be friends with a girl and she had hideous accessories, I would be kind enough to tell her to lose the accessories. If I want to be friends with a girl and her hideous accessories are her other friends … then I tell her to lose the friends,” she concluded.

  Lydia nodded thoughtfully. “I sure do appreciate how you
put that. Now I'm lookin' at it in a whole new light.”

  “We thought you would,” Zona sniffed.

  “You'll see,” Amber added. “Being friends with us means your senior year will rock.”

  “I'm going to the ladies' room,” Lydia said. “And while I'm gone, I'm going to give all this some serious thought. Y'all make some very good points.”

  Staci beamed and turned to her friends. “See? I told you she'd see it our way.”

  “Excuse me, y'all.”

  Lydia left the girls at the bar. She hoped they were still waiting a half hour later, when she was in the Audi with X and he was driving her home.

  She might be from a place where women put plates in their ears and called it fashion, but she had her standards.

  “You floated a mile high in the sky in a balloon with me. You can put your head underwater.”

  Tom's words made Kiley break out in a cold sweat, even though it was eighty-five degrees at ten o'clock on this sunny Sunday morning. They were at the adult pool at the country club, the colonel and his wife having taken Serenity and Sid to the PX at Edwards Air Force Base to buy them back-to-school clothes. The only reason that Kiley wasn't a part of the shopping excursion was that Serenity hadn't wanted Kiley to witness what she referred to as her “humiliation.”

  They were supposed to return to the Crossroads School in Santa Monica, one of the more liberal private schools in the city, but the colonel was making noises about sending Serenity and Sid to Father Ryan Elementary and Bruce to Father Ryan High School. Both these Catholic schools were renowned for their discipline. All three kids had already threatened to run away if this happened.

  When Tom heard that Kiley had the morning free, he proposed this outing to the club so that they could take a whack— together—at Kiley's so-called anxiety attacks underwater. Tom hoped that if he was with Kiley, she'd be able to put her head underwater wearing scuba gear. And since he was a certified scuba diver himself—he'd learned on a modeling shoot at the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh—he was able to check out some gear from the recreation manager at the club.