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?”
No I do not want that. She burrows back into the building and I keep walking. I’m almost home, near the corner of Franklin and Tamarind and walking here is uncomfortable, not like strolling in New York. I take out my phone and check Facebook and fuck it all because someone’s commented about Off-the-Grid Amy dropping out of her UCB class. My head pounds, the heat, the news. Fuck.
And then it’s that phenomenon, where you’re thinking about someone and they suddenly appear. Because right there, in the window of Birds Rotisserie Chicken Café & Bar, is a photo of Amy. It’s a surveillance shot, grainy black and white, but it’s her, down to the long blond hair and STANFORD SWIMMING T-shirt. Beneath the photo are the words: Window of Shame.
I go into Birds. I sidle up to the bar. When the hot bartender chick asks what I want I tell her to surprise me. I smile. This woman has to want me. That’s how I will get her to tell me about Amy.
She winks. “I hope you like pineapples.”
I fucking hate pineapples. “Love ’em,” I say. “Bring it.”
Her tits are hard, fake, harsh like her, strapped against her chest by her black tank top. Her name is Deana and she is what happens when the hot girl in the Guns N’ Roses video grows up. It’s real now and she tells me how Amy made it onto the Window of Shame.
“She started coming in a couple weeks ago,” she says. “She was a pain in the ass from day one, asking for blueberry vodka and sending back drinks claiming they were weak or not what she wanted. Totally shady. Like, bitch, I saw you water it down. Then she just walked out, didn’t pay her bill.”
“The worst,” I say. “Did you call the police?”
Deana stops shaking my drink and looks at an old guy with slick red hair. They laugh in an inside joke sort of way. “Did we call the police?” she repeats.
“How many minutes ago exactly did you move here?” the man asks.
“Earlier today,” I say. Deana gets excited and rings a bell and grabs a megaphone and I get a free shot of Patrón.
The man introduces himself to me. His name is Akim, and Deana says they didn’t call the cops because this is Hollywood. She shrugs. “They have better things to do than chase down girls who run out on checks.”
Deana says that Amy is allowed at La Poubelle because it’s different there. “Guys buy drinks for chicks like that, model types.” She doesn’t mask her disgust. “Personally, I don’t go anywhere where I can’t pay for my own booze. Self-respect.”
I stay at Birds for hours, drinking that pineapple shit, making things right with Deana, laughing at her jokes, letting her be the one to tell me that she doesn’t date customers. I leave a fat tip and bring my groceries home and change and rush over to La Poubelle, the place where Amy should be. It’s a long dark bar, like the hull of a Parisian pirate ship. I sit in the back corner. I stay until two, waiting for Amy to get there. I buy some Xanax off Dez. I’m sure that I’ll find Amy within twenty-four hours, forty-eight at the most. She doesn’t have class. She’ll be here. She will.