The event that puts a story in motion is called the inciting incident. The shark devours a swimmer, Romeo and Juliet meet and fall in love. Once Nathan played that recording for me, I knew I’d been cast as the bumbling innocent who “incites” the plot, doomed to be irrelevant after act one. But I didn’t want to be a bit player; I wanted to be the lead. Plus I didn’t like how the original ended—with the scorned old woman getting revenge on her undeserving children. So I did something I’d learned in acting class: I improvised. And I daresay the new direction was a vast improvement on the original.
Louisa was a terrible protagonist—dishonest, abusive, and not remotely sympathetic. It was without a doubt the worst casting she had ever made. No one was going to root for her. And she certainly didn’t deserve a triumphant ending.
I, on the other hand, was a wonderfully sympathetic character—a bit of a vigilante, perhaps, but justified in my actions. Besides having a clear “motivation” （as we actors call it）， I got justice for two tortured souls and, in the end, helped to heal a fractured family. That’s a pretty good arc!
So how, you may ask, did I know about the bomb shelter? We call the details that make a character specific and relatable her “backstory.” I could never have made a surprise turn from victim to victor if my backstory hadn’t included a seven-year stint as a tour guide. While I aspired to be an actress, poking around LA’s most unique homes and landmarks had been my true full-time job all those years. And you don’t spend the better part of a decade touring LA’s landmarks and not know where the super weird ones are . . . especially the one that’s in your own backyard.
The Scooby-Doo-scary house up the street had intrigued me from the moment I moved into that otherwise unremarkable neighborhood. It took a little digging, but eventually I unearthed the history of that kooky old storybook . . . and found the seventy-year-old photos of what lay underneath. The plans were not public record, but we tour guides had friends in the permit office who were all too happy to help when we called. There was a reason I had avoided that bizarro property on my walks, and it wasn’t because of the gnarled old trees.
Once I knew what movie we were in, I knew where Louisa was hiding and what I could do to make sure she never came out. I recognized that “bird feeder” as an air vent in disguise the minute I laid eyes on it. As for how I knew a baseball was the perfect size to seal it off, on that front I kind of got lucky. I figured my angels wouldn’t have put a whole box of them in the middle of my living room floor for me to trip over if I wasn’t meant to take one. And wouldn’t you know, it fit like a key in a lock.
Brando barks like a banshee when I leave the house, and I didn’t want to wake Jordan, so I took him with me when I slipped out in the dead of night with that baseball in my gloved hand. I’ll always wonder why he ran back there the next morning. Had he sensed I was drunk with rage and had done something dangerous? Or was he just being a dog obsessed with a ball? As for Jordan, I don’t know why I’d vented to him. Maybe I’d needed him to agree that Louisa was a vile old troll to spur me to go through with it, because I knew if Jordan doesn’t like someone, they must be bad. I stopped short of telling him about the bomb shelter because, if there was a murder investigation, I didn’t want him to have to say I knew about it.
The police eventually determined that the baseball was “at least a decade old” and had “probably been in there for years.” They had ample eyewitness testimony to charge Marcela with two counts of attempted murder, so were content to rule Louisa’s death an accident—she had gone down there willingly, after all, and unlike Winnie and Charlie, had an unobstructed exit if she’d wanted to leave. While the coroner was able to determine she had only been dead a few hours, they had no way to calculate how long the door had been closed and her oxygen cut off, which was a lucky break for someone who, until that day, hadn’t gotten very many.
We often say that life imitates art, but sometimes, art also infiltrates life. People watch a movie about a dramatic comeback （Rocky） or unlikely hero （Erin Brockovich） and become inspired to pursue their dream or fight for a cause. No, I didn’t do the script as written, or even play the part that was offered to me. But in the end I think all will agree that the good guys won, and the true villain got what she deserved. As for whether I deserved to be punished for taking matters into my own hands? Well, that was for my angels to decide.
CHAPTER 68