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She looks over at me as she talks. Then she hangs up, and instead of coming back over, starts typing away.
    Suddenly I want to grab her and beg for mercy and explain that this is life or death for me. A momentous feeling runs through me. The kind you get sometimes when you realize the weight of something while it’s still happening. This lady and whoever was on the other end of that phone are about to make a decision they’ll probably forget about in a week, but I’ll be living with it forever.
    She walks back over. Her expression hasn’t changed. “Welcome to Hollywood,” she says. “Let’s get you a room.”

    The room is bigger than my house. It’s a little weird, though. There’s a chair shaped like a hand and a black-and-white photo of a nude girl shown all curled up on a floor. You’d need a pilot’s license to turn on the sink. I guess in LA they just like simple things to be complicated. I throw myself on the bed, trying to calm down, but I can’t, so I decide to go to the roof and look at the city.
    A bartender getting off his shift tells me the whole roof is normally like an outdoor club, but now it’s so late that everyone’s gone home. When I get out there, it’s quiet and abandoned.
    I walk over to the long narrow pool that makes it look like you could swim right off the edge of the building. Except for the lights under the water, the patio area has gone dark. Beyond it, Los Angeles is hard to take in. Hard for me to understand. City lights go to every horizon. Where do you even start in a place like this? All those people, and for them Calumet may as well not exist at all.
    â€œHello, Los Angeles.” I say this out loud, not sure why. I lean on the railing and watch a helicopter fly off around the corner of a skyscraper.
    â€œSorry, it’s not going to say hello back.”
    I turn around. I guess she was there the whole time, a girl sitting behind me in a strange egg-shaped chair. Just sitting there. I can’t help but think right off that she’s pretty. But the kind of pretty where pretty seems like a wrong, too-soft word. Her hair is dark, long, with these two thin braids in the front of it. I think she might be my age. She doesn’t look like I imagined girls in Los Angeles would, all platinum-blonde hair and diamonds in their ears or something, but she’s nothing like the girls from home either.
    â€œHey,” I say. “I’m Ford.”
    â€œHi,” she says, but doesn’t give me a name. It’s seeming like people are cagey about that around here. But I’m not letting her off the hook.
    â€œWhat’s your name?”
    She sits up and forward and gets this determined look on her face like she’s suddenly decided to get involved with talking to me. I’m not sure what I did to open her up. “Magnolia.”
    â€œHuh, that’s a nice one,” I say. “I have a cousin named Marigold, but she doesn’t look like a Marigold—she looks more like a thornbush, if you know what I mean. Rough. She’s locked up for trying to blackmail a guy.” I don’t even know why I’m telling her about anyone in my family. I should be starting out new.
    â€œMy mom named me after Steel Magnolias , the movie,” Magnolia says. “She loves Julia Roberts.”
    â€œWhy didn’t she name you Julia, then?”
    â€œMiddle name.”
    I laugh, and the sound of it in the air makes me realize I’m tired. “That’s a mouthful, Magnolia Julia.”
    â€œYour drawl just gave it another syllable.” I think I can see her barely smile in the dark. I’ve racked up some experience making girls smile, but this almost feels lucky. She twists the chair a little from side to side, like she’s trying to shake more conversation out of herself. “Where are you from?”
    â€œArkansas. I just got here. I’ve never been before. I’m