‘Maybe,’ said Elliot. ‘I don’t really want to share my sad story with strangers.’
‘Isn’t that what writing a book is, though?’ asked Maggie with a smile.
‘I guess,’ said Elliot, looking down at his clasped hands. He was such a lovely kid, thought Maggie, wishing life had been different for him, and then she thought about herself at that age.
At twenty-three she was just coming up through the ranks of Hollywood, and while she may not have had a heart transplant, she did have an emotional, geographical transplant.
‘El, here’s the thing,’ she said slowly, formulating the tack to take to not put him offside.
‘What happened to you is awful and the fact you have a dead person’s heart in you is weird and unsettling,’ she said.
Elliot looked up at her, surprised by her candour.
‘But I think things happen for a reason. And while you can’t change the past, you can change your future, because you have one now. Write your story and see what happens afterwards, get the thoughts out of your head so you can start to think clearly.’
Elliot was nodding profusely. ‘Yes, that’s it, my head is filled with thoughts, I need to get it all out. I will write, I don’t care what Dad thinks, I have things to say.’
His eyes were wide and his voice passionate and Maggie bit her lip to stop herself from crying out in joy at finally seeing some excitement in him.
‘And if you’re writing a book, you’ll need an assistant,’ said Maggie, her eyes shining.
He laughed. ‘What the hell for? Sharpening my pencils?’
‘To help you write, research, do writer jobs,’ she said emphatically. ‘And maybe they could become your friend also.’
‘Jesus, Maggie, I’m not that desperate. You can’t hire me a friend, that’s stupid.’
But Maggie wasn’t listening.
‘Baby, this is Hollywood, I can hire you anything you want. I’m going to set up a meeting with my writer contact and then I’m going to find you an assistant.’
Elliot shook his head. ‘Dad won’t let you do it. He’s going to throw a fit if I don’t go to college. It’s his whole thing. My son, who will be attending Berkeley.’
Maggie scoffed. ‘When has your dad ever been able to say no to me? Anyway, he understands the need for assistants better than anyone.’
‘Assisting in what?’ asked Elliot, putting up his hands in confusion.
‘Life, kiddo.’ She clapped her hands and stood up. ‘Life.’
West Virginia
September 1995
Krista Calkins walked home the long way, through the back streets and the small wooded area where no one ever went after dark.
Some trouble only came out at night, but Krista had enough trouble during the daylight hours.
As she walked along the path, something glinted on the ground and she bent over to pick it up.
A penny, head side up. Everyone knew head side up was a good omen. Good luck was on its way, she thought happily, and put the penny in her pocket.
Back at the foster home, her foster family had stopped praying, and were now drinking. Her foster mother’s show poodles were barking wildly from the large spare bedroom that was used as their area.
Sliding the screen door across as quietly as she could, Krista hid her purse down the front of her blue-wash jeans, stolen from JC Penney, and hurried to the tiny boxroom where she slept. Everything nice she owned was shoplifted; even the slippers she had given her God-fearing foster mother for Mother’s Day had been stolen.
It made Krista happy to think her foster mother was wearing something stolen, when all she did was spout the Ten Commandments at anyone unlucky enough to be passing her way.
Krista had a job babysitting for Preacher Garrett over at the Haven of Jesus Pentecostal Church. His wife paid her in crumpled five-dollar notes from the offering bowl and Preacher Garrett made up for it with ten-dollar notes for the hand jobs Krista gave him in the back of the church.
After she saw the double lines on Shay’s pregnancy test, Krista knew she was right to convince the preacher that a hand job wasn’t real sex and that she was happy to keep doing it as long as he kept handing over the greenbacks.
The poor man was so desperate for any touch he probably would have let one of the rattlesnakes he kept in a glass tank bite him on the penis just to relieve the tension, she thought.
Krista hid her purse under the floorboard she had prised loose last year. If her foster mother saw any money she would take it, telling Krista she had to pay Jesus for bringing her to such a loving Christian home.
So many times Krista bit back the retort that Jesus didn’t get the money anyway seeing as how her foster mother spent it on cigarettes and whiskey, but she knew it wasn’t worth her breath.
She was sixteen and in two years’ time, she could leave and go to California, where she wanted to be Cinderella at Disneyland.
She was pretty enough, even she knew that. With the money she was saving she would have enough for a bus trip and to rent a costume for her audition.
But she couldn’t leave Shay here in Butthole, West Virginia, as they called it, she would die a slow death, like every other woman in this place.
Krista lay on her small, lumpy bed and stared at the ceiling, calculating how much money she had in her hidden stash. Maybe she could pay for an abortion for Shay?
So far she had saved two hundred and eighty-three dollars, but even she knew that wasn’t enough.
Closing her eyes, she thought about Shay and her predicament and then knew what she had to do.
She would tell the serpent-handling preacher she would sleep with him for two hundred dollars, and get Shay her abortion. Then the two of them would get the hell out of Butthole and move to California where everyone was rich, the sun was always shining and they would both live happily ever after.
‘I don’t think I can last here much longer.’ Dylan was Skyping Addie from a corner of the UCLA library. ‘I’m down to my last packet of ramen noodles.’
Addie was lying on the bed in her dorm room at Columbia, a huge poster of movie star Will MacIntyre, looking moody in a dinner suit, behind her on the wall. The computer on her lap was reflecting blue light onto her face, making her look as though she was in a spaceship. ‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘I lost my job with the catering company, I’m being evicted and I’m still no further forward on my research.’
‘Where are you now?’ Addie leaned forward as though trying to see over Dylan’s shoulder.
‘The UCLA library. It’s peaceful here, and I can use their Wi-Fi,’ said Dylan, holding up her mother’s library pass, which was good for all universities across the country. ‘I might end up moving in here if I don’t get a break soon.’
‘You could sell Maggie Hall’s shoes on eBay,’ Addie suggested.
‘What? No way.’ In truth, Dylan had already thought about it, and decided it would be a last resort.
‘Well, you could ask your mom for some more money.’
Dylan shook her head. ‘I can’t ask my mother to fund what she sees as a betrayal. She hates that I’m here, she thinks I’m lowering my intelligence.’
‘Hey,