Before we left Natalie’s, Hannah kept trying on new shirts and asking Natalie if she looked fat, and Natalie was getting mad and saying, “Of course you don’t.” Hannah put on a lot of makeup, so she had these crimson lips, darker than bloodred against her pale freckled skin. She looked like someone who was beautiful but trying to show how she hurt.
We walked to Neung’s from Natalie’s, and it was really far. It’s getting cold now even when it’s still sunny, but Hannah didn’t wear enough clothes, so the whole way there she was shivering. Natalie was putting her arms around her to keep her warm, and Hannah was talking about Neung and how his skin is so smooth that when she touches it, she feels like the world will never end. And how he used to be a gangster. Natalie said she didn’t want Hannah going over there alone, which is why we went along. I was glad, too, because I didn’t want her going alone, either. I didn’t know what might happen to her.
Neung lives in this tiny house with his whole family, his mother and his father and his uncle and his grandfather and his brother and his sister and his sister’s son. Before we got there, all the way down the block, we could smell the hot peppers cooking. His mom and sister were cooking them on the grill outside. They must have been the hottest peppers in the world. As we got closer and closer, our eyes started to burn so badly from the smoke that by the time we made it to Neung’s, our faces were covered in tears, and Hannah’s mascara had streamed down her cheeks.
We played outside with Neung’s little nephew, wiping away pepper tears the whole time. Neung was nice around us, and he picked up his little nephew and spun him like an airplane. He laughed at our chile tears and called us güeras, which means “white girls” in Spanish. He did this even though he’s Vietnamese and Natalie’s Mexican, so it didn’t make that much sense.
Then Neung drove us to the 7-Eleven to get Slurpees and cigarettes. Once we were away from his family, Neung started touching Hannah a lot, and calling her baby girl and putting his hand in the back pocket of her jeans when they were walking, which made Natalie roll her eyes at me. When we got back to Neung’s, we sat on the sidewalk and drank the Slurpees, and they all smoked the cigarettes. (I didn’t smoke any, because I don’t actually like them that much. I thought I’d get used to the taste, but I haven’t.) We all laughed about our chattering blue lips. Then it was getting to be nighttime, and Neung said he wanted to be alone with Hannah. So they went inside, and Natalie and I sat on the steps, waiting.
I kept looking up at the moon. It was so bright. Not yet a whole circle, but trying to be. Like it wished so much to be round and full and perfect. I thought about the nights when May would leave to go away with Paul, and I started to worry for Hannah. Natalie was quiet, building a little house out of twigs and smoking a lot of cigarettes. Everything I said seemed to come out of my mouth and fall to the ground in slow motion. When I ran out of things to say, I said, “You love her, huh?” And Natalie kind of nodded, and then she started crying. Really, really crying. I put my arms around her.
She said, “You know when you think you know someone? More than anyone in the world? You know you know them, because you’ve seen them, like, for real. And then you reach out, and suddenly they are just … gone. You thought you belonged together. You thought they were yours, but they’re not. You want to protect them, but you can’t.”
I told her I did know. And in that moment, Hannah came running out. She was giggling too loudly, in a weird way, like she was trying to cover up some big cry. And then she saw Natalie’s face. She said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She just kept saying it. And stroking her hair. “It was terrible. I hated it. All I could think of was you. All I could think of was you. I only love you.”
I tried to look away, and the only other thing to see was the moon.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear River Phoenix,
I read that when you were little, before you were famous, your family moved around a lot. You lived in communes, and then you guys joined a cult for a while called the Children of God. Your family did missionary work for them in Texas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and finally Venezuela. The cult called your father the Archbishop of Venezuela and the Caribbean, but they didn’t give your family any money to live on, so you and your next-oldest sister, Rain, used to sing in the streets for change. People would gather around to hear the two of you.
Your family quit the cult when your parents heard about what the leader was asking the women to do, “flirty fishing,” they called it, which was to have sex with men to recruit them. When you left Venezuela, your family got back to Florida by being stowaways on a ship carrying Tonka toys. The crew discovered your family, but they were nice to you and gave you some damaged toys for presents.
After the cult, your parents changed your family’s last name from Bottom to Phoenix—to symbolize the mythical bird that rises from the ashes. Then your family moved to Hollywood when you were nine so that you and Rain would have a chance to become stars. You loved to sing together, and you decided you wanted to be an actor, too.
At first, it was hard. Your family had no money, and you got kicked out of your apartments every few months, and you and your sister kept singing on street corners. But your mom got a job working for a casting agency, and then a famous talent agent signed you and Rain and your other two sisters and brother, too. Soon she started getting you small jobs, and then the jobs got bigger and bigger.
When you became an actor, you had the ability to dissolve your own personality and inhabit any character. You were brilliant at it. We can lose ourselves, I guess. And you used that. You found the magic in it.
You and your siblings always supported each other. You loved your family so much and talked about your childhood as being happy. But I wonder if there was something that happened to you when you were little that you couldn’t talk to them about. People have said that a lot of bad things went on in that cult, like the cult leader said it was okay to do sexual stuff with kids. When I read that, it made me so angry. I wondered if there was someone who hurt you. You said once in an interview that you lost your virginity when you were four. But then you took it back and said that it was just a joke. So I don’t know. But maybe there was a time that you needed someone to protect you and they couldn’t.
I am writing to you now because there is something that I can’t talk about, too. Something that I wonder if you would understand. I keep trying to get rid of it, to push it out of my head, but it keeps coming back in. I am worried, because I am falling in love with Sky, but I feel like one day, he’ll find out everything and leave me.