Mary, Mary

Chapter 67

AT 4:00 IN THE MORNING, a twenty-two-year-old actress named Alicia Pitt left Las Vegas and headed for L.A. The open casting call started at 9:00, and she didn't want to be blond chick number three hundred and five in line - the part would already be gone before she even got to read.

Her parents' Suburban, which the highly imaginative Pitts called Big Blue, was a gas- guzzler without a conscience. Other than that it was a free ride, so all in all, the price was close to being right. Once Alicia got some kind of real work, maybe she could afford to actually live in L.A. Meanwhile, it was this endless back-and-forth for auditions and callbacks.

Alicia ran her lines as she drove west on 1-10, trying not to glance too much at the dog- eared script on the seat next to her. The familiar ritual continued almost all the way to L.A.

“'Don't talk to me about pride. I've heard everything I need to from you. You can just- '” Wait, that wasn't it. She looked down at the script, and then up again at the road and passing traffic.

"'Don't talk to me about pride. I've heard it all before from you. There's nothing you can tell me now that I'll believe. You can just -, Oh, shit! What are you doing, Alicia? You numbskull Somehow, she had shuttled off the highway and then onto an exit ramp. It brought her down to a traffic light at an unfamiliar intersection.

She was in L.A., but this definitely wasn't Wilshire Boulevard.

It wasn't anywhere she'd ever been, from the look of it. Abandoned buildings mostly, and one burned-out car sitting on a far curb. A taxi, actually Then she saw the men, boys, whatever they were. Three of them, standing on the corner and staring her way All right, all right, she thought. Don't freak out, Alicia. Just get yourself turned around and back on the highway. You're right as rain; everything is cool.

She willed the red light in front of her to change as she craned her neck, looking for the ramp back onto the highway.

One of the young guys had wandered out into the intersection now, his head tilted for a better view through her windshield. He wore baggy cargo pants and a sky-blue sweat jacket; he couldn't have been more than sixteen, seventeen.

Then the two others came along slowly behind. By the time Alicia thought to run the red light, the boys were standing in front of the hood of her car, blocking the way Oh, great.

Now what?