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This is real.
“I might have to meet with her once or twice while we’re back in California,” Elise stated. “Hopefully, nothing too long.”
“You want me to schmooze with you?” Wayne asked. “I’m really good at it.”
“You’d do a little light flirting with my agent for the good of my career?” Elise said teasingly. “That’s so kind of you.”
“Anything for my girl,” Wayne said.
**
LAX WAS EVERYTHINGWayne had ever heard it was: frantic, with people from all walks of life, all cultures, spitting out countless different languages, whipping around him, iPhones clutched to their ears and anger permeating from their expressions.
“If I don’t meet with my therapist immediately, Janine, then I really have to reconsider you as my personal assistant,” an angry-looking blonde woman snarled into her phone near the exit.
Wayne made heavy eye contact with Elise, who shrugged her shoulders and mouthed,“Los Angeles.”
Outside, Los Angeles sunlight blasted across their cheeks. Already, Wayne felt the ridiculous nature of his winter coat. It was stuffy and constricting. Little beads of sweat bubbled down his neck and across his back. Elise waved an arm back and forth to flag down a little red car stationed toward the back of the pick-up line.
“There he is!” she cried. “My Bradley.”
They headed toward him, both dragging their suitcases behind them. As they passed through the crowd, they witnessed several reunions: people flinging their arms around one another and crying out, “So good to see you again! How was your trip?” or “Ah, I missed you so much,” or even, “There you are! I thought I’d never find you.”
When they neared the little red car, Bradley Fletcher darted out of the driver’s seat and smiled at them with all the arrogance of a twenty-one-year-old Californian college student. Wayne was struck immediately with how much he looked like Dean, just a much younger model.
Brad strode around the front of the car and hugged his mom tightly. Elise cried out, “Brad! Look at you!” When she fell back, she gripped her son’s shoulders and beamed at him. “Thank you for coming to pick us up.”
Brad laughed. “Right. Like I can turn down my mom’s request to pick her up from the airport.” He turned toward Wayne and stretched his hand out. Wayne shook it as Brad said, “You must be Wayne. I’m Brad. Welcome to the west coast. I think you might be a tiny bit overdressed.”
“I’m all ready for a snowstorm,” Wayne said.
“You’ll be waiting a long time,” Brad said.
Behind the red car, horns blared, demanding that their reunion cut itself short. Brad and Wayne settled the suitcases in the back trunk as Elise swept into the passenger seat. Wayne jumped into the back. As they eased away from the curb, Wayne heard someone grumble behind them, “Finally!”
“I guess I should have warned you, Wayne. That Midwestern hospitality you’re used to? It doesn’t exist here,” Elise said.
“I’ll be nothing but friendly in return,” Wayne said with a laugh.
“That will drive them even more nuts,” Brad said as he drove slowly through the heavy traffic that cut out from the airport. “They won’t know what to do with you.”
Elise, Allison, Bradley and Penny had all grown up in Calabasas, which was far north of Central Los Angeles, up in the hills. As they headed that way, their conversation curved naturally around different elements of the previous month and a half. Brad reported that he’d just passed his midterms with flying colors, that his girlfriend had just introduced him to her parents, and that he had found himself considering going to grad school.
“What about you, guys?” Brad asked. “What’s up on that little island of yours? Wayne, I’ve never heard my mom gush about anything so much as she has about that island. I don’t even know how she discovered it. Penny said something about some movie that was filmed there, but we’re basically clueless.”
Elise curved around in her seat and gave Wayne a nervous smile. He knew there was so much for her to say, so much for her to explain. Where could she even begin?
“The sun’s about to set,” she said instead. “Maybe we should pull off at Santa Monica Pier? Let Wayne have his first real sunset?”
“Come on. You’ve seen the sunsets at Mackinac,” Wayne said. “You know they’re something special.”
“Sure. But there’s nothing like watching the sun kiss North America goodbye,” Elise said.
As usual, Wayne found that Elise was right.
Brad had a blanket in the back, which he fluttered out across the sand just north of the Santa Monica Pier. The sight of it: the Ferris wheel, stirring slowly through the evening air; the tourists and locals alike, holding hands and walking across the sand; the salty air, the whipping winds, the crashing waves—it was all mesmerizing, especially there beneath the orange dew of the late-day sun.
Elise placed her head on Wayne’s shoulder. From where she sat, between him and Brad, she rubbed Brad’s back and said, “I’m so glad the two of you finally got to meet.”
