There is magical air in the metal tube of your plane as you cross over the continental U.S. from Florida to California. From the window seat you depart from palm trees which morph into pines. Those pines will gradually disappear to reveal monotonous plains. And then, right as the flight is getting uncomfortably long, sandy brown mountain ranges fill the octagon of your window. The plane touches down on the sun-washed tarmac of LAX. You’re surrounded by highways, gas stations, fast food chains and the promise of the glamorous unknown.
I depart the airplane feeling jet-lagged: my shoulders and calves are cramped; my thoughts are foggy. But here with my feet on the ground in L.A., there is also an idea that I’ve arrived in the future. Women don’t have to get married here to fit in the way they do in Florida. Here, it would be more natural for me to become the MD of a production company and freeze my eggs. Work hard, party some. Leave my eggs on ice if I so desire. Los Angeles is calling, am I ready to answer?
But first – In-And-Out. Colloquially, before I dare dip down the city’s infamous rabbit hole, I must stop there for sustenance.
My family, who I am visiting, pick me up from LAX. They pull into arrivals in a beat-up 4Runner, the chairs stained with green juice smoothies. The outside of their hybrid SUV is dusted with sand from their latest hike. My family are hippies with expensive taste. First thing’s first: I throw my suitcase in the trunk, and they dutifully escort me to In-And-Out’s drive through.
My cousin (Sean, 12) coaches me on what to order: “Definitely get the double cheeseburger. You can get it protein-style so there’s no bun.” At twelve, he is aware that my modeling career requires some dietary concessions. Welcome to LA.
“I’m going to get my fries animal-style. That means fried onions, cheese, bacon and sauce on top,” Sean adds thoughtfully, “You can have some of mine.”
My aunt, uncle, Sean and my other cousin Teagan attack the paper-wrapped burgers in the car ride home to the Valley.
My burger, smashed slim, is well-cooked and filling even in its lettuce wrap.But I have one qualm about In-And-Out: the fries, even when thoroughly polished with condiments, aren’t salty or greasy enough. As an East Coast girl, I’m loyal to Shake Shack, but I don’t bite the hand that’s feeding me.
“It’s perfect,” I tell Sean through mouthfuls of food.
I’m lucky to have a free place to crash in the city. My aunt and uncle moved from Florida to Los Angeles with stars in their eyes thirty-some years ago. They never looked back.
Now, they have become a show-biz family. My uncle is a cinematographer. My aunt is a writer, and the funniest person I know. After they fell in love and moved out West, two became four: their family is now complete with two California children. My cousins’ names are Sean and Teagan. Sean and Teagan are type of kids who enjoy Korean barbeque on Saturday nights and often have celebrity encounters at the neighborhood drug store. But even though they’re two city kids, they remain kind and even gregarious. As much as I feel pulled to Los Angeles’ wilder temptations (tequila, or maybe some other fabulous experience I can only get here) I want to spend time with them.
It's past dusk when we get to their house. I nestle into the pullout couch inside a room that my uncle has converted into an editing bay. Teagan and I fall asleep together on the pullout watching Netflix. If L.A. is a garden, Teagan is one if its prized flowers. She full of love and shyness but has the edge of a city kid. Street smarts, cool baggy jeans. I want to protect her, because for all her love and kindness, she already looks like Bella Hadid at the tender age of fifteen. And Teagan didn’t need the nose job like Bella did.
I wake up early the next morning due to the time change. The air is balmy and muggy but sunshine breaks through the gloomy cloud cover. Through the fog and sounds of traffic, L.A.’s wild elements sing to me their siren song.
“Today’s going to be my out day,” I tell my aunt with trepidation when I greet her and Sean good morning. They are making almond milk lattes in their terracotta-tiled kitchen before he leaves for middle school.
“Awesome, do you want a latte? Will you be home for dinner?” she asks.
“Probably not, I’m visiting that film school then I have a dinner meeting with my agent friend,” I say.
“Dope, have fun!” she responds. I remember my aunt is amazing.
What waits for me when I depart the doorstep of my family nest in the Valley? I can count on a few things I lined up in advance that I can’t get in Florida: a tour of a film school I’d love to attend, an Australian-style brunch with a friend from college in Venice Beach and dinner on Sunset Boulevard with aforementioned talent agent.
Down the rabbit hole I go.
I put on a pair of low-cut skinny jeans, a white wife beater, my favorite Prada penny loafers and call an achingly expensive Uber.
First stop: film school.
The famous film school is tucked on top of the hills, just below the Hollywood sign. My Uber drops me off outside. I walk into the main building, a Spanish Mission-style monstrosity, feeling scared. Film school wasn’t initially for me: I always relegated myself a D1 state-school girl. State-school girls drink dollar beer and usually vote like their parents. So, what do film school girls do, besides make movies? And should I become one myself, a screenwriter like Kristen Wiig or Diablo Cody?
On the tour, I buddy up with another hopeful screenwriter, a tall and lanky guy my age. He’s wearing horn rim glasses and has a kind, tortured air. Writers can spot each other miles away, and I haven’t seen any in Florida in ages. The tour moves fast and is designed to make us want more. We end looking at the school’s million-dollar view of Los Angeles. The surrounding palm trees whisper that we can be gods here too, at the low price of $120,000 per year. The tour guide quietly tells us there are no guarantees we will have jobs when we graduate. I thought it was nice that they gave out free iced matchas in the cafeteria.
“Can you meet me at the top of the hill?” I message my next Uber driver. I leave the film school questioning if it’s the right fit for me, or if I should instead dedicate my future to writing prose.
Anways, brunch margaritas are next at the Australian restaurant, Great White, in Venice Beach. I meet my friend from college there. The hostess walks us to our table through a sea of beautiful people. Every object in the open-air room is sculptural and some shade of off-white.
She and I catch up over strong, syrupy mezcals (they’re a welcomed distraction from the anxiety over picking out the perfect path for my future.) Our server presents us with wooden platters of “smoked salmon mezzes” i.e. a contemporarily-marketed deconstructed lox bagels. Over the smoked fish, my friend and I chitchat with a pair of men (veritable silver foxes) at the table next to us. The men’s ayahuasca shaman, who they seemingly have on speed dial, sits down with us. The men compliment me on my looks and personality which they find outgoing, but never ask what I do for work. On the surface, these men are seemingly nice people with tasteful facelifts. I wonder if there are any shamans in Florida. I wonder if they care about my dreams and ambitions, or if they just think that I make them look cooler when sitting next to them at brunch.
I cannot say this place is brimming with culture other than its homogenous whiteness, or if it’s even worth a stop if you’re in L.A. What else does this city have to offer, besides overpriced brunch?
Well, take the tablet that says: “Eat Me.”
I’m already a bit drunk as my next Uber winds its way to West Hollywood to meet my other friend Ace, the agent, at his office.
The Uber drops me off in front of the agency building. It’s tall, stark white and foreboding. I enter the glassy front doors and check in at reception under Ace’s boss’s name. Ace’s boss is a well-known man who has been with the company for many years, a lawyer to everyone famous in Hollywood. But I’m here to see Ace and see where the night takes us. Ace is scrappy businessman, once an actor in the agency’s mailroom, who’s worked his way carefully up the ladder.
I sit on the sunken couches in the immaculate marble lobby and sneak a picture of the pricy art installation in the middle of the lobby. After a few minutes, Ace quickly descends from the second floor, down white stone stairs, in a tailored navy suit. He greets me with a hug. He feels familiar and trustworthy, exuding the likeability most talent agents possess. As Ace whisks me up the ivory tower of the agency, his coworker jogs by with a carrier of bone broths and waves at us while simultaneously having a conversation on the phone.
“Hey bro,” the two salute each other like soldiers passing one another in the trenches.
“He discovered Zendaya,” Ace says to me as we walk into the elevator.
I get the whole agency tour: the communal espresso machine the size of a small car and the outdoor lunch patio spacious enough to be its own office. I also receive lots of furtive looks from Ace’s coworkers who obviously wonder who I am, if I am a wannabe or someone worth knowing. I float past their judgmental gaze and take in the stunning feat of an office. It’s a microcosm of Los Angeles itself, leaving me feeling that here I could achieve all my writing dreams or become chum for the sharks.
Ace and I hit happy hour in a beautiful hotel lobby bar across the street. When we arrive, we’re alone with the bartender. Ace and I take seats on the open brass bar stools, but quickly the other velvet tufted seats and standing room of the bar is filled with more entertainment professionals. They drink hard and fast while the stress of the day slowly drips off them. Ace is no different, an operator quickly downloading me on the industry gossip that he’s privy to.
“When (A-list actor) came into the office today, the whole agency had to come out and wave hello to him from the lobby,” he notes.
“(Famous actress and sex symbol) came in last week for a business meeting about her Netflix series. She asked if we knew any eligible bachelors now that she’s single. It was cute,” he says. Her recent divorce from another actor-slash-megahunk recently gained high profile in the news.
Although momentarily interesting tidbits, this insider knowledge would have meant a lot more to me if I was impressionable. But I respect Ace. He is, at his core, a kind man and a hard worker, even if he’s had a little bit too much of California’s Kool-Aid. But I think sipping the Kool-Aid is debatably necessary in order to succeed in places like this.
We move on to dinner at Sunset Tower, a dimly lit hotel restaurant packed with waxy, lush indoor plants and even more beautiful people. We sit across from each other in the swanky restaurant. Our waitress, petite and vibrant, could be an actress herself. I order another dirty martini and have a look around the room. The other customers are each their own brand of beauty and success, but when I really look at them, I don’t see people enjoying their spots on top of the world. Their visible emptiness seems to sit next to them on plush seats.
I order a chopped Cobb salad. It’s alright at best, a big portion of lettuce with sparse toppings. The whole point of a Cobb salad is eating the bacon and cheese. It’s over twenty dollars. Ace begins to grill me about my career goals over his charbroiled cheeseburger and fries.
“So, what’s your dream job?” he asks.
I dig through the iceberg for a chunk of blue cheese, the only thing that’s saving this salad. What is my dream job?
“I’m not sure yet. Screenwriting? Novelist? Win an Oscar?” I say to him, to the room, to the town of Los Angeles.
“Well, I can get you a writer’s assistant position. Let me get in touch with X,” a famous female director’s name is mentioned, and although lovely, something that amazing feels like a pipe dream.
We continue to kick back martinis and white wine, so much so that most of the conversation is a blurry mystery to me now. In a kind move, rare for L.A., Ace drives me home to the Valley. I believe there might have been a sloppily placed kiss at the end of the night. I pass out on the pullout couch, careful not to wake up my family.
I jolt awake the next afternoon and order deli bagels with my aunt while Sean and Teagan are at school. She and I giggle together that I really did the L.A. thing: kissing a handsome, slick talent agent over strong martinis within 48 hours of arriving to the city. I also make a mental note that I’ll climb the ladder on my own accord, not on my back. We discuss the state of things in L.A.; how my uncle, her husband, is having trouble finding work these days. He is now being passed over for female cinematographers as the industry shifts towards more diverse film crews. After his decades of hard work in the city, I’m frightened his time might be up simply because of his race and gender, but I also feel it’s time for more women to have their reign. Two things can be true.
I am also beginning to feel the transactional nature of Los Angeles. It terrifies me; how it can seek you out and then spit you up.
“I brought up the idea of moving back down South, having your uncle teach film at an art school in Georgia,” she divulges. “He said he’s not ready to give up on his dream yet.”
The sentence hangs in the air, depressing or hopeful depending on how you look at it.
After a few hours, the rest of the family returns home after work and school. The five of us sit together on the couch, debating what to have for dinner.
“Mimi, you’re the guest, what would you like to have?” they ask. I think long and hard; I don’t want to request anything expensive considering that my uncle, the breadwinner, hasn’t worked in a while. I opt for something cheap, fast and normal for Los Angeles, not expecting to be wowed.
“Mexican?” I suggest.
“Let’s go to Cilantro’s!” says Sean. I have never heard of this place, but I trust his judgement. Twelve-year-old boys can eat.
The five of us load into the 4Runner. My uncle drives us through the Valley, pulling into a gas station where the restaurant, Cilantro’s, is attached to the convenience store.
“Is this normal?” I ask.
“Gas station tacos? Of course,” my aunt replies.
The set-up is like Chipotle or Subway, with the ingredients behind a glass divider. I have never smelled spicy shredded meat in its juice like this.
“What are you going to get?” Sean looks up at me with big, earnest eyes.
“I was thinking nachos,” I tell him.
“They do nachos with fries instead of chips here. You gotta get it,” my aunt says.
I look up at the options on the plastic signage and don’t see this.
“You mean where it says: ‘Fries with Meat’ on the menu?” I am dubious.
“Exactly,” Sean and my aunt say.
We all order. Sean and I get the ‘Fries with Meat,’ his has spicy shredded chicken and I opt for spicy shredded beef. The cashier loads a white Styrofoam to-go box with crispy, beer-battered French fries and piles spoonful after spoonful of tender braised Mexican beef on top, then copious cheese, guacamole and to finish a handful of a mixture of cilantro and diced white onion. We each walk out of the gas station with our own heavy plastic box of dinner.
We arrive home and set our meals down on their outdoor dining table, which is a repurposed vertical slice of a tree from my grandparent’s front yard in Florida.
In my family’s backyard, the stars are out, and the air is perfectly warm. My aunt has spent her springs cultivating a vegetable garden and raising chickens here while not parenting my cousins. I hear the chickens coo softly from their coop. Their three rescue dogs sit at our feet beneath the dining table.
We open our boxes of dinner and begin eating. The nacho-fries are soggy but still crispy, the spicy beef is indescribable, not like any Mexican meat I’ve tasted in Florida or anywhere else. I assemble a bite with French fry, a tendon of beef, melted cheese and guacamole and a small sprig of cilantro. It is the best thing I have eaten in Los Angeles.
As we eat our dinner, mouths full, we are silent. In the backyard of their house in the Valley, I am calm and happy. In this lush private square footage, there is no pressure to look, act or think a certain way, because with family like this I’m already on top.