Emma hearts LA by Keris Stainton

sunshine first thing in the morning – it’s against the natural order of things.
    I find my phone and make out that it’s Oscar calling, before I press the green button.
    ‘Did you forget?’ he says.
    ‘Whaa?’
    ‘Grand tour? Today? We were meant to go yesterday, but we set Bex on her path to fame and fortune instead?’
    ‘What time is it?’ I groan, swinging my legs off the side of the bed.
    ‘Ten,’ he says. ‘Tour starts at eleven and we’ve got to get to Santa Monica yet.’
    ‘Where are you?’ I head for the bathroom and wince when I see my reflection. My hair’s standing on end and yesterday’s mascara is smeared under each eye.
    ‘I’m outside,’ he says. ‘On your dock.’
    ‘Seriously?’
    ‘Yep. Do you want to take a rain check, as they say round here?’
    ‘No, no,’ I say. ‘Thanks. I’ll let you in. Hang on a minute.’
    I end the call and go through to Bex’s room. She’s sitting cross-legged on her pillow with her laptop balanced on a pile of books at the end of the bed. As soon as she sees me, she holds up one finger behind her back to tell me not to speak. She’s obviously recording.
    I roll my eyes and head downstairs to let Oscar in, trying to smooth my hair down with my hands on the way. In the living room, I pull back one of the curtains and am again blinded by the bright sunshine. A picture of home pops into my head. The front door of our old house. Rain on the red tiles of the front path. It seems like a different world.
    I slide open the door and Oscar comes through. He’s wearing long blue shorts and a red T-shirt with the Starbucks logo, only it says star wars and has a picture of a Stormtrooper instead of the mermaid.
    ‘Thank god,’ he says. ‘Your neighbours were starting to look at me funny.’
    ‘They probably thought you were an enormous garden gnome,’ I say.
    He does finger guns at me and says, ‘I’m not sure I’m willing to be insulted by a woman who’s not wearing any trousers.’ But then he looks down at my legs and blushes.
    ‘I’ll go and get dressed then,’ I tell him. ‘And I’ll send Bex down. She’s filming herself on her laptop.’
    ‘Oh hey!’ Oscar says, as I’m halfway through the kitchen. ‘Pride of place!’
    I’d put the photo from the big wheel on the mantelpiece. Since our stuff’s all in storage, it’s the only photo we have.
    ‘You do appreciate me,’ Oscar says, and pretends to cry.
    I shake my head – he’s such a dork – and run up the stairs to get dressed.
     
    The tour bus is small, only about twelve seats. I sit with Bex and Oscar sits behind us. An Australian girl who looks to be in her early twenties and a German couple get on and sit on the other side of the bus. We wait there for about twenty minutes while the driver chats on his phone, presumably waiting for more people to turn up. He’s got a strong Latin American accent and a really infectious giggle. I don’t know who he’s talking to, but apparently they’re hilarious. Eventually he stops chatting, gives up waiting and we set off.
    He drives us past the canals, which feels quite weird. I keep wanting to tell the other people on the bus, ‘We live here!’ We see a big scary-ass clown ballerina statue that was apparently in the Sandra Bullock film Speed and then the driver drops us back at Venice Beach for twenty minutes.
    ‘Ah,’ Oscar says. ‘I didn’t realise it did this. We could’ve started here.’
    Since we live here, we don’t bother walking down to the Boardwalk like the others, we get a coffee instead. We sit outside people-watching and I text Jessie a photo of someone skateboarding while hanging on to the back of a car. We’d wanted to see someone doing that in New York, but never did.
    When the others come back to the bus, they’re horrified by the Boardwalk. The German couple declare it ‘disgusting’ and the Australian isn’t much more complimentary.
    Oscar grins at me and whispers, ‘It’ll be the weed that