Emma hearts LA (8 page)

Bex nods.

‘Could Jordan show her the ropes?’ she asks Alex.

Alex nods. ‘You can see the set, take the tour. You’ll love it.’

‘Great,’ Emily says. ‘So we’ll get that set up ASAP.’

We all just sit there, smiling at each other for a second and then Alex says, ‘So I’ll just see Genevieve?’

‘Absolutely!’ Emily says. ‘I’m sure she’s got that ready for you now.’

As Alex stands up, his leg brushes against mine and sends tingles reverberating through my entire body.

‘I’ll call Jordan and set everything up,’ Emily tells him.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Mum says.

‘You too,’ he says, smiling. ‘And I’ll see you at the studio,’ he says to Bex. And then he leaves. His back view is just as good as the front view and he’s wearing the jeans he advertised. That advert was so popular that I bet they gave him a lifetime’s supply.

As soon as Emily closes the door behind him, she turns and grins at us. ‘That was a stroke of luck! Alex’s PA, Jordan, will look after you – he’s absolutely lovely. It will be really useful for you to see the studios and have a look behind the scenes of a TV show.’

‘It sounds fantastic,’ Bex says. ‘Thank you so much.’

‘There’s a lot of work ahead,’ Emily says. ‘But I’ve got a good feeling about you. It helps that you’re English – everyone’s looking for the next Keira Knightley or Carey Mulligan.’

For the next five minutes Emily tells Mum what she has planned for Bex – she wants to film Bex doing some test auditions and she also wants Bex to practise filming herself on the computer; apparently quite a lot of auditions are done on video these days. If I can’t bring her to Emily’s office, Emily will send a car, but Mum will need to accompany Bex to any auditions Emily arranges.

As we leave, she says, ‘Bex Robinson? Are you a Rebecca? How do you feel about Rebecca Robinson?’

‘That’s…fine,’ Bex says.

Three minutes later, we’re back out on Wilshire Boulevard, slightly dazed and blinking in the sunshine.

When we get back to Venice, we take Oscar to lunch to thank him for driving us to Emily’s office and back.

He suggests we go to the Sidewalk Café, which Oscar says is a Venice Beach institution. We sit outside under the awning, next to the Boardwalk. Just in front of the café, a small crowd has gathered to watch a guy who’s playing guitar directly opposite us.

A waiter comes to take our drink order – all three of us get Cokes – and then, as we’re watching the guitarist, a bunch of people go past on Segways.

‘Segways!’ I shriek and point. Not cool. But I’ve never seen one in real life before.

‘Oh yeah,’ Oscar says. ‘You can do Segway tours of Venice and Santa Monica. They go past a lot, looking like dorks.’

I laugh. Growing up, Oscar was the biggest dork I knew. By far.

‘It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have to wear helmets,’ he says, and I grin at him.

He knew he was a dork. He was totally fine with it too. It used to bug me a bit – why didn’t he want to be cool? I desperately wanted to be cool – didn’t everyone? But, no, Oscar was comfortable with his nerdiness. And he certainly seems to have embraced it now. Maybe this is the perfect place for that kind of thing.

‘We should go on the tour!’ Bex says.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Oscar says. ‘I’ve got my street cred to think about.’

‘I think if you’re referring to it as “street cred”, that ship’s sailed,’ I say.

The waiter brings out Cokes and takes our food order. I get a cheeseburger and Bex gets a turkey burger, but Oscar goes for one with all sorts of extra stuff – avocado and bacon and various cheeses.

‘You’ve done right to start basic, though,’ he tells me. ‘There’s plenty of time to work up to my level.’

I roll my eyes and sip my Coke.

The guitarist is now playing his guitar behind his back, so we watch him for a while.

‘Some people are so talented,’ I say.

‘You’re talented!’ Oscar says, sounding shocked.

‘Me?’ I say. ‘Bex is. But I’m not.’

‘You are!’ Oscar says. ‘Your drawings were fantastic. I’ve still got a couple of them.’

I laugh. ‘Have you? Thanks. But I’m only OK at drawing. He’s properly talented.’

The guitarist is still playing with his guitar behind his back.

‘That’s just showing off,’ Oscar jokes.

‘Your drawings are amazing,’ Bex says, nodding. ‘I’ve kept loads of them too. So have Mum and Dad.’

‘Seriously?’ I ask her. ‘I had no idea.’

‘You don’t draw any more?’ Oscar asks.

I shake my head. ‘Not really.’

‘You did that Empire State Building for Jessie,’ Bex says. ‘It was fantastic.’

‘That was just because we saw it looking like a pencil drawing when we were in New York, so… I haven’t done anything else for ages.’

‘Why not?’ Oscar asks.

‘I don’t know. I just got out of the habit, I suppose.’

‘That’s not what Dad said,’ Bex says, frowning.

I narrow my eyes at her. ‘What did Dad say?’

‘He said…’ she starts and then stops. ‘Actually, I think he said I shouldn’t mention it to you.’

‘Bit late for that now,’ I say, gulping some Coke to prepare myself.

‘Well, it’s not like it’s something really bad,’ she says. ‘He said you give up on things too easily. If you’re not good at something – or successful at it, maybe it was – straight away, then you give up.’

I stare at her. ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I say. And it’s a bit rich coming from him – I’m not the one who gave up on our family, am I?

‘Well, I wasn’t sure at first,’ Bex says, ‘but when I thought about it, I think he’s right. That course you were going to do at the art college? What happened there?’

‘The tutor told me he didn’t think my work was original enough,’ I say.

‘But you could’ve gone anyway and proved him wrong,’ Bex says. ‘You just decided not to go.’

I nod. ‘But why would I waste my time with someone who didn’t believe in me? I needed encouragement and I obviously wasn’t going to get it from him.’

‘Unless it was a test,’ Oscar said. ‘Unless he says that to everyone to test how dedicated they are.’

I stare at him. ‘So I failed.’

He shrugs. ‘I just think people will try to put you off doing what you want to do – I don’t know why they do that, but they definitely do – but if you really want something you have to ignore everyone else and do it anyway. And I know you could be an amazing artist, but you’re not planning to do anything with it?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I want to teach. I’ve always wanted to teach.’

‘No, you used to tell me you were going to be an artist – an illustrator – but you planned to train as a teacher to have something to fall back on. I’ve always remembered because that was the first time I’d heard that expression – “something to fall back on”, I mean.’

‘I don’t like that expression,’ Bex says. ‘It always sounds like having something to do if the thing you really want to do doesn’t work out. But I think you should stick at the thing you really want to do until it does work out. Because if you really want to do it, it will work out eventually.’

The waiter arrives with our burgers. The plates are oval and huge and we spend a couple of minutes exclaiming about the amount of food before Oscar and Bex dig in and I say, ‘I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think that just because you want to do something you’re automatically going to succeed. You might not even be any good at it. You’ve seen all those people on
The X Factor
saying it’s their life’s dream to sing and then they open their mouths and sound like cats being murdered.’

‘That’s true,’ Oscar says, ‘but I think Bex meant when you
are
actually talented at something.’

‘But how do you know you really are?’ I say, putting my burger down before I’ve managed to take a bite. ‘Those
X Factor
people think they’re talented and it’s only when they’ve been humiliated on TV that they learn they’re really not – actually sometimes even then they still don’t get it. They keep saying “This is my dream!” like just the fact that it’s their dream means that it should come true, no matter what.’

‘But you know you can draw,’ Bex says. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I used to think I could,’ I say.

And then I do take a bite of my burger to stop myself from saying anything else. It’s absolutely delicious. Sort of soft and sloppy and much tastier than any burger I’ve ever had from a fast-food place.

‘You used to be really confident about your art,’ Oscar says.

Hearing him say ‘your art’ completely unselfconsciously makes me shudder a bit. I’d forgotten he was like that. Utterly unembarrassed about the things he loves and with no false modesty at all. I can’t imagine being like that.

‘Was I really?’

He nods, his mouth full of burger. ‘You used to show me stuff and say “I’m really proud of this one” and that kind of thing. I liked your confidence. I always thought you’d do well because you wouldn’t let anyone put you off. So I’m surprised…’

I shrug. ‘I suppose I just got realistic.’

‘I don’t want to be realistic,’ Bex says. ‘I’d rather be a dreamer.’

‘Well, that’s evident,’ I tell her, smiling.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says, through a mouthful of burger bun. ‘When I’m rich and famous, I’ll set you up in your own artist’s studio and you can draw and paint all day long.’

I grin. She’s sweet, my sister, even if she is in a world of her own. But I’m also a little bit surprised at how the idea of my own studio thrills me. It’s so long since I’ve even thought about art that I’d forgotten how much I used to love it. Maybe I will try drawing again. Just to see if I am good at it. See if I enjoy it.

After we’ve finished eating, we go next door to Small World Books. It’s ages since I’ve had a good browse around a bookshop and while Bex is engrossed in the Theatre and Film section and Oscar is looking at who-knows-what, I wander around, picking up books that look interesting and flicking through a box of vintage postcards. Near the till, there’s a whole shelf of plain notebooks and I can’t resist having a good look. One of the things I used to love about drawing was finding the perfect sketchbook. It had to have the right combination of paper and bendy spine. I used to hate drawing in a book only to find the pen marks had come through to the other side of the paper and my second pet hate was aching hands caused by having to hold open a too-stiff spine.

It is odd how I’ve pretty much stopped drawing altogether. I don’t even really know why I did. I know the art teacher knocked my confidence, but that shouldn’t have made me give up. I’m sure if someone told Bex she couldn’t act, she’d just be determined to prove them wrong, so why did I let myself give up so easily? I have no idea.

I keep browsing and, around the next bookshelf, find Oscar. He’s looking at astronomy books.

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘You’re a Libra, I remember. Dreamy, cautious, gorgeous. Or was that gormless?’

‘First of all,’ he says, without looking round at me. ‘I’m a Leo – sexiest sign in the zodiac. Second of all, this is astronomy, not astrology.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m not a total dunce. What ya looking at these for?’ And then I suddenly remember and start to laugh. ‘No. Way.’

‘Yes way,’ he says, still without turning round, but I can see that the tops of his ears have gone red, so I know he’s blushing.

‘You still want to be an astronaut?’

‘I want to do something in that area, yes. Since you don’t know the difference between astronomy and astrology this bit of news may have passed you by, but the US doesn’t currently have a space programme.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘I knew that.’ At least I think I did. ‘So what does that mean?’

‘It means that the job I planned to do – that I’ve dreamed of doing since I was a kid – is now quite unlikely to be possible. Here, at least. But there’s plenty of other stuff I can do and I intend to do it.’

‘So how do you…?’ I wave my hand vaguely at the bookshelves.

Oscar knows what I mean. ‘Work really hard in maths and sciences and then, I don’t know, pray, cross my fingers…’

‘Wish on a star?’

He grins. ‘That sounds like a plan.’

‘Excellent.’

‘You don’t really see so many stars in LA, though – too much light pollution.’

‘That’s ironic. Stars on the ground, but none in the sky.’

He laughs. ‘I’m not going to bother making a wish on Alex Hall, if that’s what you mean. And I’m learning Russian – the Russian space programme is still healthy and being able to speak Russian would be a definite advantage.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘That’s really cool. Say something in Russian.’

‘
Nyet
,’ he says, and I laugh.

‘You don’t think I’m like someone on
The X Factor
?’ he says. ‘Kidding themselves?’

‘Well, I’m not going to lie to you. The idea of you being a spaceman makes me want to laugh. Quite a lot. But if that’s what you want to do, who am I to tell you you can’t?’