sun moon stars rain

It never gets old, the way a soul can bend and twist and contort after enough of a brush with the right person, even if convincing yourself it does works sometimes, depending on the day, the proximity and the state of mind. This time it doesn’t. “Shit”, she hears herself say, shifting in place in her chair. She wouldn’t dare ask for anything more even if there was a way to do it without making it weird. “Thank God for Ben.” Taking a deep breath and reaching for the glass she had emptied moments before. “Has he — tried to reach out to you after you left or something?” And do you have anyone to have your back if he does she almost asks, before she realises. “Does anyone here know? Does Tyson? Or Axel or…?”

She remembers that ride like it was yesterday. How they rode in relative silence, Emma biting her nails down to the quick, her heart starting and stopping for no reason at all, even when every mile they put between them and San Francisco meant moving closer to safety. How Mazie and Ben had taken her in at their place in Ojai, cleared out a room for her to stay in, no questions asked, however long. How she’d felt numb, a feelingless block of ice all night long until she brought her bags in and let Tito out into the yard so he could pee. How she burst into a fountain of tears then, on the back porch and it was Ben, Ben who held her and told her that everything would be fine, in that short monosyllabic way he knew how, feeling even then how much anger there was in his bones, even if all he ever did was radiate comfort and warmth and home to her. It had really only hit her then. 

“Yeah, thank god for Ben...” is all she can say to that, and nod. She’s not one to pour over and examine her feelings unless she’s in Karen’s office. But thank god for him, indeed. She would’ve still been in San Francisco if it weren’t for him, probably. “No, he hasn’t reached out since,” she said, and that sick pang of something like disappointment was there again. “Axel doesn’t know, Tyson does...I try not to tell people cause one, I don’t need their pity, and two, they end up looking at me with all this concern all the time, like I’m liable to any minute walk into the Silverlake reservoir Virginia Woolf style and drown myself or something. Which is not the case. I’m fine really.” Then, adding, “—most of the time.”

“Some fancy banker,” clearly he thought it was a waste of time even if being granted that loan would be a dream for the restaurant. Pursing his lips, he let out a soft chuckle, “Maybe…but you can’t yell at me! I was sucker punched.” he explained out as he let out a breathy chuckle at her compliment, actually tugging the corner of his lips into a smile. “Yeah? You think the banker will think so too?” he teased a bit further as he tried to wink at her only to wince at the pain. 

“Because I am Axel fucking Dante.” He laughed as if that was the only explanation for not having a hangover. “Gerry huh?” He said and bit his lip. Part of his pride was wounded but part of him was ok with it.” I kissed Sloane.” If it was confession time then he might as well let her know what was going in. “ She’s amazing but you and I both know that when I get close to people they leave town so I’m a bit nervous.” He shrugged as a light blush covered his face. “ She is super pretty and real smart so I’m at a loss why she was like a head fuck like me. Maybe its coz she is a shrink.” He chuckled. 

“Yeah,” Emma said with a nod, she’d been so hesitant to tell any friends, for whatever reason. But Axel was someone she could confide in. “It’s been a couple months now, so I think  it might actually last.” A laugh, humor infusing into any situation where there might be too much truth, as was the way when Emma was uncomfortable. “Well fingers crossed, Sloane’s going nowhere. She lives in Oasis too right?” Emma had never met her, but had heard of her. 

Tyler nodded, picking salad out of his hair and wincing as the hot soup burned through his clothes. His eyes widened as the girl got up to help him. That was an unexpected but nice gesture. Other customers who were less kind might have just scoffed or berated him now that their food was inedible. It made his lips turn in a soft smile as Tyler responded. “I… You didn’t have to. My head’s fine, I think.”

"Okay, that's good. Honestly, don't worry about the food," she reassured. "Fuck the food." As long as the guy was okay, that was more important in her books.

Almost Famous was one of those movies that transcended just the simple feeling of joy. And immersive experience without being actually, technically immersive. There was so much heart that no matter where, no matter when or what age Almost Famous electrified, down to the core and left Max in particular, with this feeling of being twelve again. Unable to truly articular one moment in particular it was all a jumbled mess of thrill jumping from one scene to the next. To  share it with friends, and Thalia who luckily was in town that weekend and on a big screen again—something he hadn’t done since he was a kid. Well that was something spectacular. 

“Never? Never ever? Okay it’s a broad spectrum out there—I challenge that though. Can be very therapeutic if you ask me, but oh my god—” Max started, dipping with a bend of the knees with enthusiasm at the mention of Francis, taking the last tiny bits of popcorn he sure knew Thalia wouldn’t eat before stuffing it into the garbage on the way out of Paradiso with Emma, “Every scene. You feel her presence no matter what. Even when she’s not there. That’s a statement. Be bold the mighty forces will come to your aid—” he repeated the line with his best Francis, “I think, I think one of my favorite things about that movie is it’s so fun. It’s so—” he sighs, thinking back on being back in the theater and the electric energy it shot through the crowd because it was one of those movies that could do that, “you know, but, but it’s so sad too. Bittersweet might be a better word but I’m always left feeling…hurt. Happy and hurt.” 

"I dunno, I‘ve never been like, a proper cinephile or whatever,” Emma shrugged. Now music and albums — a different realm. “You know what? You got a point, you do feel her presence. Like even when he’s at that hotel or on the bus you’re just like ‘oh my god, if his mom were to see this...’” Emma had seen Almost Famous at least half a dozen times, but it never, ever got old. At its core, it spoke to her deeply as a music fan and appreciator. “I don’t know about that. I don’t feel the hurt. Just the happy. Everyone went on to do what they wanted, right? Penny goes off to Morocco, Stillwater still on tour, and you just know William gets a job at Rolling Stone or Creem or some killer magazine like that right out of high school. Ahh man, those were different times.” She yawned and stretched, her denim jacket raising with her arms and fancying herself Penny Lane in the moment, dancing about that empty venue with the sunlight streaking in.

God — what an evening. It hadn’t even been a sing-along but just about everyone in that packed cinema piped up for the Tiny Dancer scene and sang along with the band, a movie-moment in real life mirrored just like the one on the screen, that she and Max and Gerry and Thalia all sang along to, throwing their hands up just like they were on that tour bus themselves. A night unlike any she’d had in a long time, and they exited the double doors of the screen in high spirits. 

People took turns going to the bathroom, and since she’d dashed mid-movie already (that second beer definitely did it), she was good for now. “Okay, but seriously...I’ve never ranked a top five in movies but this easily cracks my top five. Shit, top three. So good...and Frances? I forgot how good she was in this. I mean she’s amazing in general, but god...” So many thoughts. Too many thoughts to be had. And shared. 

No, Nathan definitely hadn’t realised the person he’d been speaking to was actually someone he knew, but as she turned to face him, a smile crept across his features. Emma. It took a moment to pluck the name from his memories, always meeting so many people. But they’d first met a couple of weeks ago, the girlfriend of another photographer friend. “Hey,” he answered her with a smile, realising now she probably didn’t mind all that much being caught on camera, she was more than likely used to it. “You too.” And it was good to see her, a lot of the time he met people never to see again, so this was a pleasant change. “In Silver Lake?” Just to confirm. “I live here, have done for six years now.”

"You can take the picture, if you want by the way, I don’t mind,” she said with a smile, then adding with a laugh, “—although the moment’s lost now probably. Gerry’s always doing that,” she explained. It was probably a photographer’s reflex, catching a slant of light, a moment, and that forever temptation to commit it to celluloid. “Oh, really? Wow. So do I,” she said, finding the coincidence amusing. “Two years for me. What part do you live in? I’m just up on Redcliff.” 

–

“Oh I can feel it, I hit it but I don’t feel like there is going to be any lingering affects.” Maybe she would call someone to make sure that she woke up again through the night if she had banged her head but then again, Nemo would probably be good enough to wake her up himself. “I really shouldn’t have been leaning over on a stool anyway, I know what I’m like, a clumsy disaster waiting to happen. Then to add books into the mix?” Looking up at her Maggie shook her head. “No it’s fine, don’t worry yourself honestly, can I help you with anything?” 

Emma laughed, it was clear the girl was trying to put her at ease. If she assured her that she was fine, then she was fine too, and the brunette visibly calmed. “Okay. Good. I try to avoid accidents at work, now I’m just out here causing them at others’,” she added, smiling. Awkward moment over, she remembered why she’d even come in here. “Um yeah, I was wondering if you had The Book of Citrus Fruits by J.C. Volkamer? It’s a Taschen, if that helps.” 

“Just the one,” he corrected her when she appeared to make sense of his presence in the neighborhood, rationalizing this fortuitous crossing of paths just to make it add up, making it seem that the encounter would’ve been impossible otherwise. And it couldn’t have been that rare, could it? They’d ran into clubs before, she and him and Tomo, and the nights would end with Tomo driving them down Sunset Boulevard in his convertible, Emma passed out in the backseat, and JJ trying not to stare at her boyfriend too much.

“Can’t fault a guy for thinking you’ve been avoiding him. You better have a damn good excuse for falling off the face of the earth.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he remarked on her absence, and smiled sheepishly. At his feet, Tito’s tail wagged excitedly, but flinched and jumped back at the slight motion he’d made. “Oh, come on, Tito. It’s like you don’t even know me!” 

Oh how vividly all those neon nights came flashing back, a mix of good and bad, well, always good when JJ was involved, the bad lying with another party entirely...but there it was. The boys were such good friends she couldn’t think of one without the other, and who could fault her. “Honestly? I have no excuses,” she said, throwing her hands up, one of them looped through a leash around her wrist. Though her brain scrambled desperately to come up with something anyway. “I, uh, live here now,” she added in case he didn’t know, which, unless Tomo had told him, he probably didn’t.

 She’d never even told Tomo where she had gone, but the trouble with having a career in the public eye was that it would take one quick instagram search, and there she was: Emma Donovan, currently at King Ink Tattoo, Silverlake, Los Angeles. Plain and clear for anyone to see. 

"Don’t take it personally, we just had a long walk and he’s wiped out,” Emma said, laughing gently at Tito’s reaction. The lazy bulldog’s tail was indeed wagging though, because he recognized JJ. “So...you here just visiting, or what’s the story?” 

The man nodded and gave a small smile. “ Ok Thanks. Can I just ask… who is that?” He pointed to the photograph and focused in on Axel. He glanced at his watch. “ I better go. I have to book into my hotel. If you do see a guy called Christian Bennett who comes in here, could you give him this.” He handed her a piece of paper with the telephone number and the room number from the hotel. “ Tell him its from his father and to give me a call,” He smiled and started to leave. “ Thank you for your help.” He said politely and left. 

Axel walked in ten minutes later with a bag of donuts and two coffees singing a Guns and Roses song at the top of his voice. “ Hey, so I got you a drink and I got a few donuts and I was thinking about getting some herbal refreshments from Sulley later if you are up for a smoking party at mine.” He babbled. “ Did I get any clients?”

“That’s Axel...” Emma answered, wondering if she missed a step, something in her mind clicking because the guy did look a little like Axel? Or was she seeing things? Before she knew it, a piece of paper was being put in her hand, one with a number and address to a hotel room. “Oh...okay,” she said with a nod, still confused, wondering what that was all about. Before she knew it, the guy had left. 

Axel returned not too long after, and she greeted him with a smile, but one that looked like there was something behind it. “Uhh, thanks,” she said, taking a donut from the offered bag even though she wasn’t very hungry. “No clients, but some man did drop by? He was looking for a Christian Bennet? And then he pointed at our photo,” she said, pointing to the one on the wall, “and at you. But I think he was confused or must’ve had the wrong person or something,” she shook her head. “He left a phone number, at any rate.”

She feels her eyes growing wide as Emma speaks, fixed on the plate in front of her, her half-empty glass, anywhere but the other woman’s face, giving it space to contort itself into whatever trying not to cry expression, or so the official explanation noone will ask of her is. If she’s being honest it’s a mixture of just that and the knowing that whatever she’ll see there is something she’s seen on other people before, something she can only recognise and describe as terrible news. The words still hit though, harder than they should probably, because if she’s being honest her situation isn’t the same as whatever is implied here, more of the reverse really. She winces.

“Not a first world problem, man. Not at all.” A deep breath there, for what reason hell only knows, a yeah mumbled through with it. “Are you thinking of —”, trailing off, then going silent. “Better the voice than — There’s ways to shut up a voice.” She reaches for her glass then, taking a last sip. “Do you regret leaving?”, she hazards the million dollar question, one of many.

She knows all about the ways to shut up voices. Had lived them, some 7 or 8 years ago when she was still spiralling after her dad’s death. But she wasn’t going to develop a dependency on anything if she could help it; having one on a human being was bad enough. “No,” she shakes her head. “I don’t regret leaving.” She would’ve gone bottom of the barrel mad if she had stayed — or died — or killed him; any combination of possibilities wasn’t out of the question. “I was a state when I left… Ben picked me up and we drove down here together. He told me later, that I wouldn’t stop looking back, in the car... like there was a car following behind us or something and he could be in it. Meanwhile he was in Philadelphia, across the country,” she said with a cold laugh that didn’t reach her eyes, to highlight just how ridiculous she had been then. Or delusional, or out of it, whatever the fitting word here was. “I wasn’t me then. It took me two years to just...get back to something I recognize in the mirror.” Call it cheesy or melodramatic, but that was the truth. “I guess I gotta...remind myself that more often.” 

Rafe: gotcha. I have that same kind of issue so I get it.

Rafe: ok so imagine you are in a film or tv show. what would be your theme?

Rafe: no worries take your time.

Emma: you want the whole story behind it? like i said, it's kind of long and dumb hahah

Emma: oh theme song's easy

Emma: overkill - motorhead

Tyler was walking up to his next table, a smile on his face as he greeted the customer, holding their tray of food in one hand. He hadn’t exactly gotten the hang of it, but maybe practice would be good?

“Here’s your-“ As the words began leaving his mouth, his foot slipped. He ended up falling, with hot food in his clothes and hair, looking like a deer in headlights.

“I, umm... I....”

Great, only been here two weeks and already might get fired for a stupid mistake. History, can you not repeat yourself for one minute? He thought to himself as he got up and looked apologetically at the other.

Emma’s arms were outstretched to receive the tray, but just like a disaster happening in slow motion, she watched the guy go down, soup and salad and all. Oh no. She slipped out of her booth to help him, feeling awkward just sitting there watching him in all that mess. “Hey, you okay? You didn’t hit your head, did you?”