Alice in La La Land (4 page)

There was another email. This one was from her mother.

Dear heart,
I am new to this emailing business but realise it's a great
way to stay in contact. Are you all right? We miss you.
Dad and I have been having a lovely time this morning,
walking through the big nature reserve behind the soccer
oval. The council did some work on the bush track and
it's now quite a pleasant walk with no machete required.
We saw sea eagles and lorikeets today. We'll be glad when summer's over as Dad really feels the heat, although he's much better than he was. He can walk for half an hour now without getting tired which Dr Kerns says is great progress. Do you want my recipe for Anzac biscuits? You mentioned something about it but I'm not sure you have anywhere to bake them. Send me your address as I have some newspaper clippings to give you. Dr Kerns wants to see us about Dad's new pathology results first thing next week. Fingers crossed everything is okay . . .

Celestia Bannow is doing so well in America, isn't she?

I'll write again soon.

Love Mum

PS: Remember, if things don't work out over there, our neighbours who run the cake shop said you could have your old job back.

Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was
a very difficult game indeed.

Lewis Carroll,
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice headed down Fairfax Avenue in search of breakfast. At half-past ten she parked opposite a small café on Third Street that she knew served a tasty turkey chilli. She had discovered it on her second day in LA as it was situated around the corner from her manager's office. She hoped they were serving chilli at half-past ten. Although it was more of a lunch item than a breakfast one, at this point it was the comfort food she required. If she had it with a freshly squeezed papaya or something, maybe it could become more appropriate to the time of day.

Alice wondered fleetingly how the exoskeletons recovered from knockbacks. It sure as hell wasn't with food. Those armour-plated actresses probably flinched once, let out one dainty squeak then immediately started learning lines for the next audition.

Alice got out of the Daewoo and checked it was properly locked. A billboard caught her eye as she crossed Third Street. It heralded the premiere of a 'stellar' new series coming this April. Alice took one look at the title and went cold all the way to her ankles.

Starmap 3000
's poster depicted a rusty spaceship
suspended in a starry sky. The spaceship looked as though it had been fashioned from large sheets of tin, Band-Aids and bits of string. The many portholes on the side of the craft were fogged up. The spaceship had bird-like wings tucked close to its sides, like a metallic chicken about to be popped into a colossal oven. The title was in bold white typeface above the spaceship and the overall effect was imaginative and compelling. It was obvious
Starmap 3000
had been picked up for series and it had the look of a winner.

The whoop of a siren brought Alice back to reality. Two navy-blue-suited cops had stepped out of their vehicle and were glaring at her from across the street, their badges glinting in the sun. She was rooted to the spot in between two lanes of traffic on Third Street.

Alice told herself they couldn't possibly be concerned with her, what with all the looting and murdering going on in LA. She'd been reading all about it last night in her crime novel. A gap in the traffic opened up and she darted across the road to the safety of the sidewalk.

'Ma'am, are you aware you were jay-walking?' one of the policeman asked her, as she reached the other side.

'Jay-walking?'

The taller of the two was practically bursting out of his uniform. His belly was reined in by buttons and a shiny belt. The shorter cop looked to be an angry balding man in his mid-forties. They both had guns in their holsters. The shorter one addressed her again. 'Ma'am?'

'Um, no. I was looking up at that . . . billboard,' she gestured upwards, 'and I just momentarily . . . Why, is jaywalking a major deal? I'm sorry, I arrived just over a week ago and I . . .'

'Where are you from, ma'am?' asked the large one brusquely as he stepped forward. He was clearly pissed off.

'I'm Australian,' Alice squeaked.

'Aust-ra-li-an, huh?' He looked her over. Alice felt as though she were some pathetic marsupial exhibit in a zoo. She tried to imagine Saturday morning in a downtown lock-up with assorted crack-dealers and prostitutes. She longed to turn back the clock five minutes. If only she had walked the extra half a mile or so to the nearest signposted pedestrian crossing, this would not be happening.

'Okay, lady,' the large one sighed, sounding like a punctured soccer ball. 'I'm gonna caution you here. You are not to jay-walk, okay? Ever. I don't know what you guys do Down Under. Maybe you got people just walking along anywhere they want and a whole bunch of kangaroos jumping in front of cars, but here jay-walking is an offence. Do you understand, ma'am?'

'Yes, I do,' Alice said contritely. She looked down at her sneakers. One of her shoelaces was undone. The radio in the police car squawked and the short policeman walked back to attend to it.

'I do understand,' she said, 'I'm so sorry, it was just seeing that blasted
Starmap 3000
billboard . . .'

'Ma'am?'

'No, quite right,' said Alice nodding vigorously. 'Sorry.'

The officer seemed satisfied that she had understood him, turned his back and started walking back to the police car. Alice let out a sigh of relief and felt her shoulders drop. The policeman stopped.

Oh, God, what now? Alice froze.

'Wasn't it filmed Down Under?' he asked, turning back.

'I beg your pardon?'

He turned his neck to look up at the billboard. '
Starmap 3000
,' he said, pointing up with a meaty finger. 'I read something about it in
Variety
. I'm a bit of a sci-fi nut.' It sounded like a confession.

'Oh,' exhaled Alice, relieved that she wasn't going to be strip-searched or fingerprinted. 'Yes it was! It
was
filmed in Sydney. That's where I live.'

He grunted and looked back at the billboard. 'Yeah, looks good,' he said. 'Think I'll tune in and check it out.' He looked left then right then back to her a final time. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils and nodded as if to conclude their business.

As he turned and walked back to the police car, his mighty buttocks rose and fell with every step. 'No jaywalking,' he shouted, without turning back. His partner started the car's engine and the siren let out another whoop. Alice jumped. The large police officer eased himself into the vehicle and had only just closed the passenger door before the car did a massive illegal u-turn and sped off. Alice watched it go, her mouth agape. Once the car was out of sight, she had the surreal feeling that she'd imagined the whole episode but her nerves told another story.

Alice scurried into the café. If they'd been serving tequila, she would have ordered a double. So far her Saturday was shaping up to be one of the worst in recent memory. A rejection, a billboard-sized reminder of a dumb career choice and a near arrest – and it wasn't even midday yet.

Mercifully, the turkey chilli was on the menu and
arrived, minutes after Alice had placed her order, steaming hot with a side of guacamole.

Alice negotiated the 405 freeway all the way to the Getty Centre. For a place of unimaginable wealth and excess, she couldn't comprehend why the roads were so badly maintained. It seemed that once the tar was poured, no one had ever stopped to mend a pothole despite the zillion cars that had driven over them since. Perhaps no one had ever gotten out of their car to take a look. In LA, no one walked anywhere, ever. Before Alice had got herself the Daewoo (the lowliest of all the car rentals), she'd suggested to her manager that she take a walk to find a coffee.

'You'll what, hon? You'll walk? But where will you go? We don't walk here, hon. You want coffee, you drive over to your nearest Starbucks and get it.'

After a half-hour drive, Alice arrived at the Getty. She'd consulted her guidebook in desperation after spending three hours in her bedroom with a pile of scripts. Each script she read proved more depressing than the last, and the characters on offer ranged from happy-go-lucky single moms to the girlfriends of minor superheroes. She needed a break.

She parked the car and made careful note of its location to avoid a fruitless search at the end of the day for its whereabouts. A funicular tram took visitors from the carpark and deposited them at the top of the hill where the gallery was perched.

The vantage point was spectacular. Six pavilions housing art collections from around the world sat atop
one of the foothills of the Santa Monica mountains. The marble and white metal was a welcome blast of purity after the recent obsessions about work or the lack thereof.

From within the museum grounds, Alice gazed out at the panoramic views and breathed deeply. She could see all the way to the ocean in the west and to downtown in the east, the setting of so many of her beloved crime novels. A haze clung to the sky like scribble above the city sprawl. She was sure there was a real city out there that had nothing to do with the ephemeral nonsense of filmmaking. Out there were people living real lives as opposed to people like her, putting everything on hold in the hope that they would someday play someone with a life in a movie.

She tore herself away from the view and continued on to a fountain-filled courtyard surrounded by all six pavilions of the museum. She already felt nourished and hadn't yet looked at a single exhibit. She sat down and let herself be soothed by the gurgling water. A toddler nearby took wobbly steps across the courtyard while her parents looked on. She fell down and they applauded. The little girl tugged at her very new-looking brown leather shoes. 'Zipper!' she cried.

An old man was tucking into a large rye-bread sandwich. Ribbons of smoked salmon poked out on either side. Alice felt hungry and realised she hadn't eaten since the chilli she'd consumed to recover from her near-arrest.

She looked around her. There wasn't a pneumatic bust or chiselled nose in sight. Perhaps this was where normal Californians hung out? Or perhaps these people were more normal because they were tourists. Alice shuddered
as she thought about having to return to her West Hollywood digs. She wondered if feeling displaced was a mental condition, and if so, what the cure might be.

Alice shivered. She zipped up her hooded sweatshirt and was glad of the fleecy lining. It was already 5 pm and although the museum was open until nine, she decided she would only visit one exhibition that day. The Getty Museum was free. She could ration herself all the available works of art and make this place good to visit for another six consecutive Saturdays.

Alice climbed the marble steps to the photography section. The images on display were contemporary glimpses of poverty and the photographer's skill was such that he made poverty look beautiful. In one photo, a boy stared out at her with large brown eyes. He reminded her of Conrad and she was overtaken with a sudden longing. Just as quickly, her emotional weakness filled her with disgust.

Alice looked into the boy's eyes and sighed. She was exactly ten thousand dollars in debt and she'd come to the most competitive place on earth to make financial amends. It could take years. She only had three months on her visa waiver until she had to leave. Going out of the country for one day to buy herself another three months' grace wasn't going to cut it either. Since 9/11, the Department of Immigration had become much stricter and the days when an actor could hoof it down to Mexico for a brief jaunt, then return to the United States for another round of auditions were over. When Alice's three months were up, she'd be forced to return to Sydney. She'd probably end up working in the cake shop in Wollongong again.

Alice became aware that her hands were freezing and she thrust them into the pockets of her sweatshirt. She noticed for the first time that there was a large hole in the right pocket.

'Excuse me,' said a voice behind her, 'are these yours?'

Alice turned around to see a man with rumpled hair holding a set of car keys hanging on an Avis key-ring.

'Oh my goodness,' she gasped , 'that would have been a disaster; getting all the way back to the carpark and not being able to . . .' Alice stopped and looked at him. 'Thank you,' she said. She reached for the keys. 'How strange. Just at that moment I noticed a hole in my pocket.'

'Well,' he replied, smiling, 'I was right behind you and saw them hit the floor.'

'Thank you. My name's Alice.' She thrust her other hand forward. The word 'lithium' was written on it in biro. She hoped he wouldn't think it was a reminder to fill a prescription. She had written it on her hand while reading the scripts Rebekah had couriered over that morning.
Lithium
was the title of a slacker romance that she promised herself she would read before the day was out. 'Alice Evans,' she added. 'Is that an accent other than American I detect?'

'Yep. Irish, I'm afraid. My name's Nick.' He shook her hand briefly but didn't seem to notice the biro. He tilted his head and looked at her, rubbing his stubbly chin. 'Well, nice to have met you, Alice.'

She smiled and put her keys back into her right pocket. He watched her and shook his head. 'See, I would have suggested putting them somewhere other than your
pocket if it has a hole in it.' Nick raised his eyebrows, 'Your thoughts?'

Alice retrieved her keys before they fell through the hole a second time and shoved them into the bottom of her satchel. 'Possibly a good idea,' she conceded, feeling her cheeks redden. 'Thanks again,' she said, turning to leave.

'Alice . . .'

'Yes?' She turned back too quickly and stumbled over.

'Ah,' he said, helping her to get her balance. 'That's what I wanted to tell you . . . your shoelace is undone. But you seemed to have discovered that yourself.' His grip was warm on her elbow as he steadied her.

'Yes.' Alice blushed and made eye contact with his chin. He probably hadn't shaved in days. 'I'll see to that immediately,' she assured him. 'Well, 'bye.' She squatted on the floor to retie her Converse sneaker while Nick watched.

'Are those limited edition Air Max Nikes?' she asked, indicating his feet. His head was a long way up.

'Cost a bloody fortune,' he replied, 'but I had a pair just like them the first time round and so naturally just had to have them again twenty years later at triple the price.' Nick's voice was projected to an unacceptable level for an art gallery.

'Well, they were definitely worth it,' she said standing upright and pushing her hair out of her eyes. 'I like the fluoro-green laces, very 1985.' She grinned at him. 'Um, you don't have to yell, Nick. I can hear you fine.'

'What?' he said, rubbing his chin. The stubble was dark brown and flecked with grey and bits of auburn. 'Was I?
Sorry,' he mumbled, 'not used to gallery etiquette. Is that better?'

'What?' said Alice.

Nick laughed, and the two regarded each other in silence. Alice looked down at his shoes.

'D'ya like these photos then? Think they're a bit depressing meself. I mean, all well and good that he captured the misery of these poor bastards, but did he have to make them look so good? I'm not half as poor but I don't look as glamorous as that feller there, for instance.' He pointed at a photo of a South American man foraging in a garbage bin.