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really cheap designer clothes—there were just rooms and rooms stuffed with piles of crazy jeans and embroidered T-shirts and racks of dresses and shelves of boxes filled with platform sandals and high-heeled suede boots.
    And L.A. wasn’t only a city. There were canyons and mountains and wonderful parks. On weekends we went to Ferndell in Griffith Park and I played in the shallow water that trickled among rocks down the side of the green hill. The lush plants made a canopy and I felt like I was exploring secret islands. We rode the carousel on top of the hill. The paint was peeling and the colors faded on the horses and murals. The calliope had a haunting sound as I went around and around, up and down, trying to catch sight of myself in the mirrors. Next were the pony rides where my pony would always stop on the dusty track and I refused to hit him with the whip. My dad had to come and lift me off when I started to cry. At Travel Town on the other side of the park we explored the old trains parked on the deserted tracks and rode the miniature one that went around two times while the conductor in the striped hat and overalls rang the bell. The little train passed an even tinier group of buildings half hidden in the grass. I wondered, at the time, if elves lived there.
    L.A. had the beach! When I was younger we used to go to Malibu sometimes, to visit Irv Feingold, the producer my dad had worked with. Irv and his wife, Edie, lived in a big, glass and redwood house right on the sand. I thought at the time that the ocean was the best backyard anyone could ever have—so vast and alive and musical, always changing colors, always singing different songs. We ate little pieces of raw fish and candied ginger and my parents had cocktails and wine. We sat out on the deck watching the waves break and then shiver up the sand. I went down the wooden staircase to the beach and chased gulls and dug for sand crabs. Once I was stung by a jellyfish and the pain felt just like that thing looked—gelatinous and cold and veined with hurt. Once a crab caught hold of my toe and wouldn’t let go. I felt the little pincers and I couldn’t shake them off. My dad had to do it for me. It still hurt and he rinsed off my foot in the outdoor showers and took me back out to play in the water. He wore shorts and kept his shirt on. His skin looked very white—he wasn’t used to the sun. My mom spent the whole time lying on a chaise lounge on the deck working on her tan. She told me that without a tan her skin looked green—I wondered if I looked green to her so I started tanning, too. We used Johnson’s baby oil and then a few years later we switched to Bain de Soleil, which smelled like coconuts and was supposed to be better for you. When I came back up from the beach, there were thick, black tar stains on my feet. We needed to clean them off with rubbing alcohol in the producer’s glamorous bathroom with the sunken pink marble tub. The producer’s wife, Edie, wore hand-painted silk chiffon dresses with handkerchief hems. She was much younger than he was and my mom got really agitated around her, fussing with her hair and reapplying lipstick all the time. We drove home from the producer’s house late at night and sometimes I think my dad had too much to drink but I still slept peacefully in the car, lulled by the dark and the cooling heat on my shoulders and the sound of my parents’ voices gently arguing and the sound of the radio.
    I loved the radio. I would lie in the dark with my ear to the speaker listening to the popular songs. There was a song I liked called “Seasons in the Sun.” I knew it was cheesy, especially compared to the “serious” music my dad liked but I liked it anyway. It was about a boy who was dying, saying good-bye to the girl he loved. It made me cry. I closed my eyes and saw a boy and a girl running on the beach. The light was gold and dangerous. The boy was going