Where would I get the money to pay him? Grandma
Olivia wouldn't have given it to me for that. She
couldn't care less whether or not my mother was
really alive unless it meant I was out of her hair, out
of Provincetown and away from her precious family. "I'm sorry you were disappointed," Spike
continued, "but in L.A. you've got to learn how to live
with disappointment."
"I don't want to be in L.A.!" I cried.
"Sure you do. You haven't seen the best of it
; yet," he replied. "Look at those houses up there. They
call that the Hollywood Hills. The views are terrific.
See how some of them are built on the edge of the
hill? I bet they get a thrill when the earth shakes,
huh?"
Despite myself, I peeked through my hands to
look at the houses.
"And you're so close to the ocean here. If you
want to go and relax or get some sun, hey, all you do
is drive a few miles. show you," he said and made
another turn, sped up and headed west. "Say you're at
work, see, and you've had a bad day, so before you go
home to the old lady, you take a little detour," he
rambled. "Back in the boondocks, you'd stop in some
grungy tavern and moan over your suds. But here . . .
hey, look over there. See that building. That was used
as the front shot in Gone with the Wind. That's Tara!" I glanced out the window.
"This is a movie studio," he continued. I sat up
and gazed at the long white buildings and the trucks.
Minutes later, Spike told me to look straight ahead,