The bus hadn't yet arrived when I encountered an old friend. It was Mrs. St. Pierre, so I asked after her son, a longtime classmate of my oldest. Suddenly, she was called away--she left the iron on, I think--but to my delight, Gwyneth Paltrow took her place. Surely, she would want to know the plight of the sleepover meanies, and indeed, she was impressed by my tale and recommended a good museum found on the southernmost tip of Los Angeles.
"And here's the bus to take us there," she said. Food's not allowed on board, I figured, so I set it all down on the curb. I'd hoped that Mrs. St. Pierre might find it and bring it home to her family. If only I could text her--it was too bumpy a ride.
I had only been to Los Angeles once, so I was engrossed by the view. The architecture was familiar, but its structures were built with monochromatic Legos in shades of terracotta and seemed to inhale and exhale. In and out.
"I thought it was San Francisco that had all the hills," I wondered aloud as we journeyed up and down. Gwyneth pointed to the buildings up ahead, and I realized the bus had no roof. The California sky opened up above us in cloudless wonder.
The museum was a series of crystal pillars, one that hung a curtain made of sparkling, silver strands that waved in the wind. "That's the piece I read about," I exclaimed, and in place of my new friend sat my mother, equally awed by the view. The bus curved 'round a corner away from the complex of structures that now had the texture of silly putty and the colors of crayons. Their sharp edges, only moments before, were drooping, forming the same shape as their surface. Melting like ice cream.
