painting energy fields

back in los angeles

Mid City

I’m in the backyard of a house party standing next to a sculptor from Spain with a studio that sits at the base of Mt. Washington. He makes the most money out of any of us here, and he makes it selling miniature sculptures of cakes.

They sell everywhere. New York City, Miami, Berlin, he takes a sip of his Modelo and tells me he doesn’t understand why people want to buy his miniature cakes.

People always ask me if I like to eat desserts? Like what? He finishes the last of his cigarette and tosses it onto the grass. I don’t care about cakes.

I realise I’m crossing my arms, so I uncross them, and tell him that in America, many of the women I know only eat cakes on their birthdays, and at their weddings.

It’s a prize, I say.

Right, right, he says, fumbling for another Camel Crush. That makes sense.

His new wife shows up then, looking at me through her bangs, then frowning and walking past us, close enough that her bare shoulder brushes up against my back.

I look at the sculptor’s lit cigarette, and I think about taking a drag, but I know that if I start, I might not want to stop.

Malibu

I pick Carl up around 11 and drive us both to Malibu.

We park on the side of a quiet road and walk down a secret stairway between two homes, leaving our Birkenstocks at the base of a mansion and our bodies flat on the sand. I let the sand go everywhere, all the way through my long hair and into the crevices between my toes.

Carl looks at me - You know I brought a towel.

They lay out their towel and take out their sketch book where they’re drawing big femmes, big bodies in dark blue that curve, and turn, around the corners of the page.

We lie there, and spot three women walking towards us. They wear jersey sweatshirts and bare feet and clavicles that poke through their white tank tops. Their hair is in tight pony tails, their legs are in tight leggings, they walk in near-perfect unison.

I don’t feel like I’m a boy anymore, Carl says. They pause, our eyes on the three women. But I’m not a girl like them either.

I mean, I’m not really either, I say, pouring sand from one hand to the other, quickly realising it’s a dumb thing to say. I mean -

Closer than I am.

Yeah. Of course.

They keep drawing and I do a cartwheel that kicks more sand on top of the towel, that makes it all so messy again.

Topanga

It’s the afternoon of the pool party, and Laurel is doing my eye shadow in light golds and pinks, painting in smudges around the corners of my eyes. She switches colours so frequently, I tell her it’s like she’s painting an energy field. She says she learned watching a Fleetwood Mac tour documentary, then she moves the conversation on to foot sex.

I spot Carl out of the corner of my eye, sitting at the base of the bath tub, the floor of which is sprinkled with tiny pieces of cut wet hair.

Are those pubes? They ask. Nobody answers.

This is a networking party, Laurel reminds us, mentioning the label exec she invited and the country band sitting in the living room. The vibe is business, ok?

I ask Carl if they have a crush on anybody these days, and they say I do.

I ask them what they look like, and they say, like me.

West Hollywood

I watch a movie producer roll a cigarette outside a society club around 11am on a Thursday morning. He tells me how he still loves Sunset Tower, and he still loves Chateau, but the East Side is where it’s at. He loves my friend Jack, he’s a genius, he loves my friend Caroline, she’s fucking incredible, have you met Shane? Shane is a tv writer I went to college with. How did he know to ask me about Shane?

Shane, he tells me, is going places.

Beachwood Canyon

I wake up early on a Sunday morning to walk around the Hollywood Reservoir with a friend who says she has to be done by 10am. She’s a talent agent with a yoga class at 10:30.

Halfway up the hill, I stop at a modern house with a curved glass exterior and horrible parking. It’s the house my ex showed me when I was 21, the house where he worked a 37-hour shift, the house where he smoked too much pot, the house where he almost crashed his car on the drive back to Tarzana.

West Hollywood II

I look at the movie producer as he talks and I wonder what would happen if any of my friends disappointed him. Whether he’d still love them, whether he’d still be obsessed, whether he’d still think they were the best.

I wonder what it would take to be his favorite.

I walk to my car with my keys in my hand, and I tell him it was really great to meet, I had a really, a wonderful time with him.