11
LOS ANGELES, 2013
Clara drove into Los Angeles for the first time as the sun was setting. The traffic moved around her, but it wasn’t rush hour, so her car kept a good pace. She watched as the buildings of downtown loomed before her. The hills that surrounded the city rose in the distance. She felt a pang for the sight of the desert and squelched it.
The rental agent had written down the address of her new apartment, a little studio in the Hollywood hills.
“Slightly pricy,” the real estate agent had said, eyeing Clara’s fake driver’s license with a raised eyebrow.
In spite of the look on the woman’s face, Clara knew she passed easily for eighteen. She had paid a year’s worth of rent in cash, so the agent hadn’t been too choosy. She had read about her mother in Vanity Fair and had h
