Read Online Aftermath of Dreaming by DeLaune Michel - Free Book Online

got it all figured out. Even as a kid, I always knew that there was no way my experiences here on earth could ever be as difficult as hers. Of course, she didn’t live in L.A.
    I decide to stop at the wine and cheese shop on Larchmont Boulevard to pick up one of their special mozzarella/tomato/olive paste sandwiches and a cappuccino to fuel my work this afternoon and into tonight. I’ll turn some music up loud when I get home—I figure since Gloria’s never said one word about my screams, music isn’t going to bother her. Maybe I’ll put on that blues CD Reggie gave me on the disc rotator, with Lucinda Williams and Roxy Music, and let the hours slip away in a harmonic reverie of working on jewelry that will keep me distracted until I see Michael again.

6
    Downtown L.A. makes me miss New York. Or makes me try to pretend that I am there, depending on the way the light is hitting the buildings. Because on a really bright, flat-light day, there is no way around the fact that I am on the West Coast and not in Manhattan. Even though the buildings here were built by men from back there and from Europe who went through Ellis Island before coming to L.A. to create tall office towers and high apartment buildings with beautiful, scrupulously detailed work of marble, terra-cotta, and tile just like in New York. But once L.A.’s collective consciousness decided it should have its own style based on easy weather and roomy land, bungalows with courtyards sprang up and two-story stucco structures became more alluring than the Gotham-esque towers of downtown.
    But not to me. One of my favorite aspects of designing jewelry is being downtown—daily, usually—in the jewelry district, a universecomprised of a few bustling blocks that looks like Manhattan’s Midtown filled with an international community. I’ve been here all afternoon and still have one more contractor in another building to see before everything closes: Dipen, an engineer from India who learned how to cast jewelry when he came to California ten years ago. He just moved offices, and I hope to God that means his schedule isn’t backed up.
    As I make my way toward the tinted-glass double doors to leave 608 South Hill Street—a building filled with stall after stall and floor upon floor of importers, wholesalers, and retailers; diamonds and pearls; stringers, casters, and setters; gems and stones of all kinds; bronze, titanium, and platinum; wedding rings and colored gold all glittering—I almost don’t notice my cell phone ringing. I manage to find it in my bag, push the green button, and shout a “hello” over the cacophony of sidewalk noise I have walked into.
    â€œAre you still going to that show tonight?” Reggie says, jumping right in.
    A sort of friend, Sydney, gave me comps to the opening of her one-woman show because I helped her find musicians for it. I had asked Reggie weeks ago to go with me, but he refuses to see anything live other than blues because he swears the musicians are all dead and only appear to still be breathing.
    â€œYeah, I kinda have to. Why?”
    â€œI stayed up all last night reworking part of the script, and wanted to come by with some Manderette takeout and read it to you.”
    â€œI’d so much rather do that,” I say, crossing Hill Street at Sixth to get to Dipen’s building, which is over and down one block. The sunlight on Pershing Square looks like God adjusted his louvered blinds, reminding me that I need to hurry up if I’m going to catch Dipen still in. “I really don’t feel like seeing her show—I couldn’t even get anyone to go with me.” I don’t mention that Michael was the only other person I asked—he’s swamped at the station, so we’re hooking up tomorrow night. “But I promised Sydney I’d be there and, you know, bad friendship karma, so…Can I hear your stuff another