Bachelor Number Five (The Bachelor Series, Volume 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

pinned the photo onto the board.  It was a little bit of indulgence, but why not?  If she ever got homesick or lonely, maybe this would remind her of why she’d come so very far away.

Chapter Five
     
    Hollywood Boulevard and the “Walk of Fame” were only ten minutes by foot from the apartment, according to Lauren.  It was still hard for Amanda to believe that she actually lived here, in Hollywood, California.  It felt instead as though she were living someone else’s life; someone more exciting and courageous than she was.  As she walked up her street, though, she was struck by how unglamorous it all seemed.  Not that there was anything wrong with it, per se.  It just wasn’t what she’d expected.  To be honest, she wasn’t sure what she’d expected, really.  Maybe just that she’d be more impressed.  These residential streets were nothing special.  The apartment buildings were mostly ordinary, at two to three stories high and of varying styles.  Some were boxy and plain, others with Spanish tile roofs.  The few single-family homes on the block weren’t so different from the house she’d shared with Piper, but with palm trees in the yards.  Palm trees.  She almost had to stop and stare.
    When Amanda turned right and then left onto Highland Avenue it began to feel as though she really was in a big city after all, with four lanes of traffic and the first rows of commercial buildings she’d come across since leaving the apartment.  There was a sandwich shop advertising Philly cheesesteaks.  That looked promising.  She’d be spending some time in this place, she was fairly sure.  Next door was a tattoo parlor, then a medical marijuana dispensary and finally a psychic.  She certainly wasn’t in Quincy anymore.
    Amanda came to Sunset Boulevard and waited for the light to change before crossing.  Her hometown had not one single stoplight.  This one was for an intersection with two busy lanes in each direction, just blocks from her home.  Everything about her new reality was going to take getting used to, yet at this point even the things most people would consider mundane provided Amanda with a thrill.  When the light turned green she moved across the street and past the blocky white buildings of a school.  Students mingled out front or practiced flipping their skateboards into the air.  Hollywood High School , read the sign.  Amanda tried to imagine what it must be like to go to a school like this, where the kids looked so mature and worldly.  Just the thought made her feel small and insecure.  She’d missed so much in her life, but that was all going to change.  It had already started.
    When she reached Hollywood Boulevard, Amanda saw a souvenir shop to her left, full of t-shirts, key chains and refrigerator magnets.  Across the street was a massive four-story shopping mall.  At her feet was the “Walk of Fame.”  Each pink star in the sidewalk was roughly three-feet square, with a brass name and a small brass symbol.  Some portrayed a radio microphone, others a television or an old-fashioned movie camera.  She turned left toward the setting sun and read the names as she went.  Most of them she’d never heard of.  Spade Cooley, Evelyn Rudie, Art Laboe, Elia Kazan .  That last one sounded familiar anyway.  She nearly bumped into a small group of tourists speaking a language she didn’t understand.  French, perhaps?  They gathered around one of the stars to take photos.  Amanda peeked through their legs to read the name.  Claudette Colbert .  A bit of home in a land far away, perhaps.
    As she kept walking, Amanda passed two men leaning against a wall in front of a small market.  They wore dirty, ragged clothing and had dirty, ragged beards.  Each one held a hand-lettered cardboard sign.  “Beer Fund,” read the first, with an arrow pointing to an upside-down baseball cap on the ground in front of him.  “Bad advice: Free,” read the other.  “Good advice: One