9
THE self-serving sociopathic greedy little bitch wouldn’t go a fucking day without her superfruits, so my first destination is the neighborhood grocery store, the Pantry. But this is not a grocery store. It’s a modern art museum, part neon, part busted fender metal, and part repurposed wood signs. The floor is spongy and the font on the price tags is curly and the lighting is nonfluorescent. The music is louder than it is in a normal grocery store and the songs are all over the place, a true mixtape—Donny Hathaway and Samantha Fox and the Everly Brothers and DMX—and I Shazam it all because I want a record of this.
This is a grocery store if Cameron Crowe made grocery stores and the lighting is good, dim and clubby. Every aisle has a funny name. There’s an aisle of books (BEFORE THEY WERE MOVIES), snacks (BAD THINGS ☺), spices (ROSEMARY & THYME), and processed cakes and cookies (SCRUMPTIOUS EMPTY CALORIES). The pet food aisle is jamming and that’s called UNCONDITIONAL LOVE and the baby food aisle is called SEMI-UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
Most of the girls here are like Amy, tall and scraggly with messy hair and baskets full of superfruits. This is where I’m going to find her. I know it. But I don’t find her in the organic produce section (because me) or the section of cheaper produce (because rent). Fatboy Slim’s “Talking ’Bout My Baby” comes on and when the hell do you hear that in a grocery store? I don’t think you could ever get annoyed in here and maybe I could like LA, or at least this one part of it.
The flower section (I’M SORRY/I LOVE YOU) is a desert and maybe nobody loves anybody in LA. There are orchids and roses and then I see violets, more electric and purple than the ones I got for Amy.
A little rotund Mexican woman in a pale blue smock smiles. “They are painted, sir.” She laughs. “God doesn’t make these.”
Of course He doesn’t; these flowers are the botanical equivalent of breast implants. I thank her and move on and everyone in here is so happy.
My phone buzzes. Six consecutive texts, all of them images, all of them from Delilah. I open them one by one, screen grabs of invitations to Hollywood parties, complete with home addresses, parking instructions, corporate-sponsor logos, and dates and times. One of these parties is at Henderson’s house. Henderson! I will kill the broken part of my brain that wishes I could tell Amy about this. I text Delilah: Thanks. I’ll let you know.
She texts back: Have fun with Calvin. ☺
I stop moving. This isn’t right. I didn’t tell her where I’m working. I type: Huh?
She writes back: We’re buds. I saw him on the way to work. He’s cool. Have gun!
She deliberately left the typo so she could text me again ten seconds later: Have gun. Ha. FUN. I love autocorrect.
Ugh. I don’t write back to Don’t Fuck Delilah. I walk to freezer burn, the aisle where they keep the single people servings and the yuppie flash frozen vegetables, and standing there in front of the premade meals is Adam Scott. It’s my first celebrity sighting and I fucking love him in Stepbrothers and Burning Love and Friends with Kids and my palms get damp and maybe I really am becoming an Angeleno because this actually feels important to me.
And I’m not alone. An aspiring actress is looking at him while typing into her phone and so is a dorky guy holding a pack of frozen asparagus. A couple of high school girls giggle and take a picture of him and that’s when it hits me. The good thing about social media and celebrity spottings is that the net is cast wide, all over the world, twenty-four hours a day. Facebook isn’t enough; I need to use all of it.
I pull out my phone and download Twitter and Instagram and it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. CandacePeachBenjiBeck don’t touch this because this is me surprising myself, doing something I never thought I’d do. I follow Adam Scott on Twitter, then search for his name. Sure enough, people have tweeted and apparently Joshua Jackson and his unfairly pretty girlfriend are also here.
Omigod literally just saw Pacey #dawsonscreek #pantry #ilovela
How hot is Adam Scott? He’s so hot the frozen foods are all melting at the grocery store right now. Not saying which one. #Greedy
Diane Kruger is too pretty. #notfair #celebritysighting #cantijustgetgroceries
LA, where you can’t get groceries without feeling like a #loser #pantry #adamscott #joshjackson #dianekruger #ihaventbookedanythingin4months
I look at the counter and there he is, Joshua Jackson. He’s laughing. He’s close. People here aren’t just shopping for overpriced fruit, they’re looking for celebrities, just like I’m looking for Amy. I approach a guy unloading peaches. “Bruh,” I say, because I’m going native. “No offense, dude, but are they serious with the prices?”
“I know,” he says. “Dude, don’t tell ’em, but I’m all about Ralph’s. The one on Western. You can buy like, fifty burritos for five bucks.”
“Yeah,” I say. I lay my trap. “My girlfriend, though, she’s supposed to go to Ralph’s. But then she comes here and blows all my money on berries and Wolfgang Puck. She swears she doesn’t but we work opposite schedules so I can never catch her.”
He laughs. His name is Stevie and he’s an actor slash drummer and he asks what Amy looks like. “Stone cold fox,” I say. “Long blond hair, blue eyes, she always wears random college shirts and denim cut-offs and big bright sneakers. You can’t miss her.” Zebras stand out in the grass and she is nothing like the LA cunts in their maxi dresses or their I-don’t-have-a-job-and-I-just-sweated-a-lot outfits.
He says Amy sounds familiar, especially the sneakers. “When did you think you saw her?” I ask.
The wheels are turning in Stevie’s chemical-addled brain. He holds up a hand. “Dude,” he says. “She was in here like three days ago with this other chick and they were drunk and eating blueberries and I was like, ‘You ladies gotta pay’ and they ran.”
Yes. “Who was the other girl?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I mainly saw yours,” he says. “She was fine.”
Stevie and I high-five and he wants to text me if Amy comes around. I tell him no, that’s cool, but he’s got his hands full here, I see that. But he insists. He’s bored as fuck and he can totally snap a pic of Amy on the down low.
I test him. “Seriously, bruh?”
He nods. “Word.”
“To the mother,” I confirm, surprised that there’s no irony at play. We exchange numbers and I fill my cart with Rice Krispies and milk and Wolfgang Puck salad and deli turkey.
When I am cashing out, the woman smiles, giant. “Ray and Dottie send their love.”
“Who?” I ask.
The Botox mom in back of me awws. “You are too cute,” she says. “You’re new. They’re the owners,” she says. “That’s a Pantry thing. Ray and Dottie send their love.”
I look at the cashier. She nods.
Ray and Dottie are fucking geniuses. What better way to win over a city of rejects and desperados than by creating a business where the last thing they do before they take your money and send you away is give you love.
My tour continues and I pass the dilapidated bookstore where I’ll be working. A sign in the window reads BACK IN FIVE OR TEN and I continue toward the UCB theater. It’s smaller than I expected, like a storefront. Posters cover the glass begging for my attention and a chubby girl holding a clipboard asks me if I want a ticket.
“Yeah,” I say, improvising. “Does the beginner class have a show soon?”
“Which class?” she asks. Someone inside pounds on the window and she waves her clipboard. “Did you want a ticket for the Master Blasters at five?”