They slept most of the way back, and took a cab to the dorm.
“I can’t thank you enough for taking me. It was the best Christmas of my life, and I love your family. They’re the nicest people I’ve ever met,” she said, as he left her at the door of her dorm room, and headed up the stairs to his own. It had been a good Christmas for him too, with old friends and new ones, and his crazy combined family, who seemed better to him when seen through her eyes. He couldn’t imagine his own family going to Aspen without him, and leaving him high and dry. He was glad she had come with him. Sharing the holiday with her had added something to their friendship. They had a memory to share now.
They had classes the next day and they both knew they’d have a lot of studying to do, as they started a new term and new classes. He had another play to audition for at Tisch. They were almost halfway through their freshman year, and it was off to a great start.
* * *
—
In January, Antonia went to the employment office to start looking for a summer job. It took them a few weeks, but they called her and asked her to come in. They had something that had just come on the list that they thought might interest her. A major film studio in L.A. wanted an NYU intern to be a gofer on the set of a movie that would be filming there in the summer, and to work in the main office when they didn’t need her on the set. The job was for ten weeks, and worked perfectly with her schedule. She had to find her own accommodations, and the job offered no pay, which many students couldn’t afford. But her father gave her a healthy allowance, which she could use while she was in L.A. She was to report for work on June 15. It was exactly what she wanted, her dream job. They had two other candidates for it listed in the employment office, but they thought the lack of pay would be a problem for both of them, particularly with no living accommodation offered.
They called her the next day, and told her that she had the job if she wanted it. She thanked them profusely, and felt as though she had won the lottery.
“Hollywood, here I come,” she said when she hung up. She wanted to celebrate, and called Jake immediately. He was going back to San Francisco for the summer, and looking for a job there. She called him, but his answering machine picked up, which she knew meant he was in class. She left him a jubilant message about the job.
She was going to try to locate her mother once she got to L.A. She had no idea if she could find her, but she had to try. All she wanted was to meet with her once, just to see what she was like. She hadn’t seen her in almost twelve years, they were strangers to each other now. But her mother was a missing piece of the puzzle that her life had become. There were questions she still wanted answers to. She wasn’t going to tell her father if she saw her. It was something she had to do for herself. For twelve years, she had wanted to know why her mother had left and never contacted her again. Her father had never explained it to her and the mere mention of her mother still sent him into a rage.
Chapter 7
Antonia spent a weekend with her father and Lara before she left for L.A. in June. She had to move all her things back from the dorm for the summer. The dorm rooms were made available to students in summer programs, and she would be assigned a new room in the fall. She piled everything from her dorm room into her bedroom, along with her father’s office equipment, and it looked like a warehouse by the time she got it all in. She could barely get to her bed, and she had to pack her suitcases for L.A., to add to the mess. But it gave her a chance to see them before she left. She wouldn’t see them again until the end of August. She would be turning nineteen while she was in L.A. It didn’t bother her to spend her birthday away from home. Since it was in August, she was usually at camp in Maine anyway, or had been for many years, from seven to fifteen.
Her father and Lara were going to Greece, and had decided not to rent the house in Water Mill again. They were excited about their trip, and Antonia was thrilled about her internship in L.A. Her father had added to her allowance so she could get a decent place to stay in a safe neighborhood. She was going to rent a car, since public transportation was poor in L.A.
She felt like she was camping out in their apartment for the weekend. With her bedroom turned into an office, and now a storeroom, there was really no place for her to stay. They could have used a three-bedroom apartment to give him an office, but he loved the apartment they had. Lara was sad that they wouldn’t see her all summer, but she knew it was going to be a great adventure for Antonia. Her father told her to take a good look at it, because if she stuck to her plan to write screenplays after college, she might be living there one day. The prospect of her moving three thousand miles away didn’t seem to bother him, which Antonia noticed too. He never seemed able to bridge the gap between them. There was an emotional void in him that she was increasingly aware of as she got older, and a lack of fatherly feelings toward her. She had always blamed some inadequacy in herself for it, but she was beginning to wonder if there was something missing in him. Or habit. Maybe he had avoided any strong emotional tie with her for so long, whatever the reason, he just couldn’t find the connection anymore.