A-List #10, The: California Dreaming: An A-List Novel (A-List)

by Zoey Dean

  "Thank you," Carlie said. "I love it too. There's no reason that television can't be the same kind of viewing experience. In a movie, you live with the characters for ninety, maybe a hundred and twenty minutes. For TV, you can have them an hour a week, for twenty-two nights a year, for however many years that show should last. If anything, TV should, by nature, be more moving than film."

  Anna looked at Carlie curiously. She'd never met anyone here in L.A. quite like her. She wondered if her equal even existed in the business.

  They talked for an hour. Actually, Carlie mostly talked, and Anna mostly listened. As a rule, Anna grew impatient with people in love with the sounds of their own voices, and suspected that most big talkers fell into that category. Carlie, though, was different. It was as if while she talked she was listening, reacting to Anna's face by changing the subject or asking a few laserlike questions.

  And then, finally, they got around to the real reason for their meeting. Carlie polished off her burger, the sleeves of her blue work shirt rolled almost to the elbows. "So, Anna. How long have you wanted to go to Yale?"

  "As long as I can remember," Anna replied. "It's a family--"

  "Legacy," Carlie filled in, nodding her delicate blond bobbed head. "Your mother told me. What do you want to study?"

  "Literature," Anna replied, "and I have a feeling she told you that too."

  Carlie held up a palm as if taking an oath. "Guilty as charged. Your mom is concerned that you're thinking about not going."

  "I realize that," Anna said stiffly, removing her elbows from the orange banquette's table. She had known that the conversation would come down to this, so she had no idea why she was bristling now. It wasn't like anyone had forced her to come to this meeting. She could have said no. Of course, saying no to her mother was like saying no to the queen of England, except that her mother was much younger, and with much better taste in clothes.

  "I know you mean well," Anna began. "And I know you and my mother are friends. But I don't think it's right for me to go to Yale just because everyone expects me to. People change. Their goals change--"

  Carlie nodded, her honey-colored eyes taking Anna in. "True. So how have your goals changed?"

  There was no way on God's green earth that Anna was going to tell Carlie Martin that she'd written a screenplay. First of all, it would sound as if what she really wanted was for Carlie to read it, when in fact that was the last thing Anna wanted. And second of all, Yale's theater department was world famous. So there was no reason that a wannabe screenwriter would find going there anathema to her future hopes and dreams.

  "It seems to me," Anna began, idly touching the pearly buttons of her pink cashmere cardigan, "that if a person is going to go to Yale, she should be committed to it. And I just find ... I can't explain why, exactly, but ... I'm not."

  "It has something to do with your plane nearly crashing?" Carlie ventured, sliding her reading glasses down the tip of her long nose.

  Anna sighed. "My mother told you about that too?"

  Carlie shrugged. "She wants the best for you."

  Anna nearly laughed at that one. What Anna's mother wanted for Anna, and for Anna's sister, Susan, too, was what Jane wanted, what she considered the best. That her daughters might be utterly unlike her, and want different things, was simply not considered.

  Carlie took an onion ring and chewed it carefully before she continued. "Just be careful, Anna, that you don't reject something wonderful simply because you are trying to define yourself."

  "And the something wonderful is Yale," Anna filled in.

  "Exactly. Yale will change you, Anna, as surely as your time here in California has changed you, and as surely as that horrible experience you had a few days ago has changed you. Not one of my classmates said to me at graduation, 'Damn, Carlie. I should have gone to Swarthmore.' Or, 'Damn, Carlie. I should have gone to an ashram.' There are people there from all over the world and all walks of life, doing some pretty amazing stuff. You could discover talents you never knew you had."

  Anna sighed. Her skin felt prickly, her throat constricted. Because she knew that every single thing Carlie was telling her was true. "Or I could spend four years drinking beer and going to football games," Anna joked.

  "Well, that's part of the fun of college, too," Carlie allowed. "But I have a feeling that majoring in beer is not your style."

  Carlie took the stack of scripts sitting on the table and eased them into her black leather bag. She straightened to look again at Anna. "The thing is, there are a million paths you can take in life, but Yale's not a beginning, middle, and end. It's more like a preface. The things you'll learn, the people you'll meet, the experiences you'll have--they won't determine your life course, but they'll help shape it. In amazing and truly unpredictable ways. There's no place quite like it."

  She stood. Anna did too. Then, Carlie extended her hand, more formal than the hug she'd offered at the beginning of their talk. "It's been great to meet you. Please stay in touch."

  "I will," Anna agreed, because it was the right thing to say, and because she quite liked her mom's friend.

  "Contact me toward the end of first semester about coming out here to intern in my office next summer," Carlie suggested.

  "You think I'm still going to go to Yale."

  "In the end, yes, I do," Carlie admitted. "And I think you'll be glad you did, too. Come on, I'll walk you out."

  Carlie walked Anna back to the elevator, then escorted her past the ground-floor soundstages and back to the artists' entrance. As they walked, Anna saw how everyone on the floor, from the lowest gaffer to the chisel-jawed actors who had to be soap opera stars, to the interior security guards in their red CBS blazers, looked at Carlie with something approaching reverence.

  This time, when Carlie held her arms out for a hug, Anna went into them.

  A few moments later, Anna emerged in the CBS parking lot, the hot afternoon sunshine beating down on her. Los Angeles was experiencing one of its rare heat waves, but at least it wasn't the wet pressure cooker of a 95/95 New York City day in August, with 95 degree temps and 95 percent humidity.

  As she made her way back to her car, her cell sounded with a text.

  LOGAN HERE. ACTUALLY, NOT HERE. AT CANTER'S DELI IN FAIRFAX. TWO MINUTES AWAY. COME MEET ME. GO NORTH ON FAIRFAX, IT'S ON THE LEFT.

  Anna smiled down at her phone. She'd told Logan about this meeting, but she hadn't expected him to come to the neighborhood. She texted back that she'd be there in five minutes.

  Canter's, a Los Angeles landmark, was the only deli Anna had ever been to--and growing up in New York City, she'd been to her fair share--that was also a hot music venue. Adjacent to the main dining room was the Kibitz Room, a lounge with a full bar where some of the best local bands performed nightly. Anna had been there recently with Sam and Dee to see Dead Pink, an up-and-coming indie rock group that Dee's father managed.

  By day, however, it was just a typical deli, with long white counters and shiny green vinyl booths. Logan was inside, in jeans and a white tennis shirt, his short blond hair slightly spiky.

  "How'd it go?" He stood gallantly as she approached, motioning her into the booth across from him. "I ordered coffee. I think it's the most like on the Upper East Side you'll ever find."

  She smiled at their shared history. "It was ... interesting." She actually didn't feel much like talking about her meeting. She wanted to think about it. Process it.

  "This should be interesting too." He plopped a thick white envelope on the table between them. Anna could tell immediately what it was.

  "Tickets. To Bali," she guessed.

  "Live like you were dying." He grinned hugely, his pearly teeth startlingly white against his tanned skin. "Go to Sam's wedding, go to the airport, get on a plane. Actually, same flight as the one we took, minus the drama. Early Saturday morning from LAX, just a week later. Just like riding a horse." He reached across the table for her hand. "You get tossed, you climb right back in the saddle."
<
br />   "I don't know, Logan." Anna sipped her coffee--he was right, it tasted just like the coffee in New York. It was strange how far away she felt from her old life on the Upper East Side.

  He smiled again, his blue eyes bright. "Of course you don't. That's why I'm here. To help you see the light."

  The bright late-afternoon sunshine filtered through the diner's plate glass windows, slanting across the countertop in front of them. The plane tickets, nestled in their envelope, lay untouched. Part of Anna wanted to tear the envelope open and hold the tickets in her hands, to feel how very real the trip in less than one week's time could be. But part of her felt frozen, her arms glued to her sides.

  Before she could move a muscle, her cell sounded, and she checked the number. Unfamiliar, with a 310 area code.

  "Excuse me," she said, and took the call, grateful for the distraction. It was probably regarding a wedding crisis, which was what you got when you planned an elaborate ceremony in mere days.

  "Hello?" she answered.

  "Miss Percy? This is Dr. Adrienne Miller at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center."

  Cedars-Sinai? Anna suddenly felt nauseated. Why were they calling her? "We have your father here," the doctor continued. "I think you should come right away."

  Ex Marks the SpotTuesday evening, 6:07 p.m.

  "Dr. Miller, Dr. Adrienne Miller to the emergency room nursing station. Dr. Miller, Dr. Adrienne Miller. To the nursing station."The short, rather squat nurse named Alma spoke into the white paging telephone. "She'll be here in a moment," she told Anna, as she hung up and motioned toward several rows of hard white plastic chairs to the left of the nursing station. They were directly under a bank of harsh fluorescent lights. "Please sit."

  Anna didn't move. "But how is my father?"

  "This is our procedure. There's nothing I can tell you. Please wait for Dr. Miller." Alma scurried off toward three other nurses at the far end of the nurse's station.

  With no one available to give her any information--she didn't know if her father was in a coma or conscious, in terrible pain or no pain at all, or even what had happened--Anna found an empty seat in the waiting area. An hour before, she'd been in the CBS commissary with one of the most famous producers in the country. Now she was in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai, fearing the worst. The doctor who had called her at Canter's had offered nothing except to say that her father was stable. For the moment. That had been twenty minutes ago. Thank God the hospital was close to the Fairfax District, a short drive due west on Beverly Boulevard. It was good she hadn't had to turn left or right, as Anna still felt as though she were sleepwalking.

  Logan had offered to come with her. She'd been almost too numb to respond, but something inside her told her to say no. This was too personal. What decisions would she have to make? What might she see? How would she react? She told him she'd rather go alone. There'd been a momentary flash of hurt in his eyes, but he'd said he understood. He'd have his cell with him at all times, he promised. The moment she knew something definitive, she'd call him.

  The emergency room was crowded. To her right sat an Indian mother in a red sari, cradling a whimpering infant in her arms. To her left was a burly construction worker, grimacing with pain from a serious cut on his forearm that had been hastily wrapped in bandages. Behind her was a family whose elderly grandmother had an oxygen tank and a walker.

  "Anna Percy? Are you Anna Percy?"

  Anna hadn't even seen the woman in the green surgical scrubs slide into the empty seat next to her.

  Anna nodded. "I'm Anna."

  "I'm Dr. Miller. Adrienne Miller. I'm taking care of your father."

  Dr. Miller was medium height, with curly brown hair, brown eyes, and thick glasses.

  "How is he?" Even as she spoke, she felt like a character in one of the doctor TV shows she almost never watched. They all seemed the same, with brilliant physicians making crucial diagnoses or emergency room saves that revived a dying patient. In real life, it was different. She'd read how those electric-shock paddles they used with heart attack victims only worked a small percentage of the time. And they never, ever talked about strokes. What if her father had had one of those?

  "He'll live."

  Anna sighed deeply and felt her shoulders relax.

  "But that doesn't mean he's doing well," the doctor continued. "Because he isn't."

  Those same shoulders snapped back into high-tension mode.

  "How bad is it?" Anna asked. "What is it?"

  "He's not conscious, because we've sedated him. He's undergoing some scans right now, and I'll have the results for you as soon as we get them."

  "Scans for what?" Anna could barely get the words out. She knew she was whispering, but couldn't help it.

  "Something in his brain. Once we know what's going on, we can talk more. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other patients to see. If you stay here, I'll come back as soon as I can."

  She started away, but Anna called to her. "Doctor! Wait!"

  Dr. Miller turned around. "Yes, Miss Percy?"

  "I want to know everything. What happened? Who brought him here? How did you find my name? What do you think is going on with him?"

  The doctor pursed her lips and then sat again, ignoring a quick buzz from her beeper. "From what I understand, there was a response to a 911 call from his residence. He didn't make it, a housekeeper did. She saw him acting strangely, slurring his words, knocking into things, problems with balance. By the time he was brought in, he had little control of his limbs. Clearly some kind of brain problem, once we ruled out drugs or alcohol. Is he a chronic abuser?"

  This was no time for Anna to be coy, and she knew it. "He smokes marijuana. A fair amount."

  "That wouldn't do it."

  She felt a moment of relief. Not that it helped the situation anyway.

  "How about alcohol abuse?" Dr. Miller pressed.

  "He drinks. But not excessively."

  Dr. Miller shook her head. "I don't think that's it."

  "What do you ..."

  Anna's voice trailed off as she had a sudden memory, all the way back from when she'd first arrived in Los Angeles. She remembered how she'd found her father out in the gazebo behind the mansion, smoking some high-quality reefer. He'd complained about headaches, then. Serious ones, which had no apparent cause. Was it possible that ... ?

  "He had headaches. Bad ones."

  Dr. Miller snapped to attention. "When? What kind of headaches? When did he have his last one?" The questions came rapid-fire.

  "It was months ago. They seemed to get better." She felt like kicking herself. She should have insisted that he go to a doctor then. She should have taken him there herself. Maybe straight to this hospital. He should have been looked at immediately.

  "It's possible," Dr. Miller admitted. "But also possibly not. Please, wait here. It shouldn't be long. I'll check in with you as soon as I know something."

  Anna didn't want to wait. "Can I see him?"

  "Please wait," the doctor said again.

  Anna waited. And waited. She realized that doctor Miller's concept of "it shouldn't be long" and her own concept of the same phrase were quite different from each other, since an ugly black numeral wall clock directly across the hallway was there to keep her company. An hour ticked off. An hour and a half. The Indian woman's baby, the grandmother, and the construction worker were all treated and released. Just for something to do, she walked over to the nurses' station to check in with Alma, but the nurse said that Dr. Miller had not forgotten about her, that her father was still undergoing tests, and that the best thing Anna could do was to be patient.

  She returned to the orange plastic chair and eyed the new cast of characters that had taken the place of the others. If they weren't suffering themselves, they had the same nervous look of expectation, as if they were steeling themselves for the worst news possible. A middle-aged woman seated a few chairs over was wringing her hands and muttering to herself in Spanish. Nearby, a couple of teenagers with skateboar
ds huddled together in sober silence. Meanwhile, the nurses blithely went about their business--making phone calls, filing paperwork, chatting casually about their plans for the weekend.

  She had been in emergency rooms back in New York. Parties where friends had had too much to drink. Once, after the taxicab she was riding in with her mother north on Park Avenue had stopped for a light at Seventy-second Street, they'd been rear-ended, and her mother had insisted on both of them being taken to Lenox Hill Hospital for precautionary X-rays.

  Her mother--she needed to be called. Also her sister. But Anna couldn't bring herself to dial their numbers when she didn't know anything.

  Instead, she called Sam, and caught her in her Hummer, on the way home from a meeting with a DJ.

  "Sam?"

  "What's wrong, Anna? Spill. I can hear it in your voice."

  "My father's in the hospital."

  Sam's voice was reassuringly calm. "Which one?"

  "Cedars-Sinai," Anna reported.

  "I'm in my car and on my way. Who else knows?"

  Anna shifted her body around. The hard-backed plastic chair was incredibly uncomfortable. "Just you and me. And Logan. I was with him when I got the call."

  "Anna, you need to call your family. They'll want to know. Keep your cell on. I'm at Sunset and Crescent Heights. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

  She thanked Sam, clicked off, and started to make the painful calls. She reached her sister, Susan, at the Kripalu Yoga Institute in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. Susan had moved there after getting out of rehab, and so far the simple life of the center--she worked as a kitchen assistant--was keeping her clean and sober.

  Her sister took the news without hysteria, once she heard that their father was stable, and reported that their mother was still in Italy if Anna wanted to call her there. Anna said she would, even though it was after midnight in Milan. Susan made Anna swear to check in every two hours. If she needed to come to California, she'd get on a plane. All Anna had to do was give the word.