LONG STORY SHORT
Erin Somers on navigating adulthood—and a minor celebrity—over one misspent stint in L.A.
Reaching for the Star
Y CLOSEST
brush with fame
occurred in Los
Angeles in
summer 2009,
when I had a friend who knew a
famous actress. I was not in the
actress’s entourage; I was adjacent.
Adjacent to people adjacent to
fame is a very L.A. designation.
I was 24 and had moved from
New York that spring to become
a screenwriter. How I would do this
I did not know. Whenever the
question was put to me by my
parents, I would reply that I
was young and full of promise
and would figure it out. That
proved difficult. I lived in a
beige apartment on a desolate
stretch of Venice Boulevard
with a balcony covered in bird
shit. I drove an early-2000s
Chrysler Sebring convertible,
lusterless gray, loaned to me
by a friend’s parents for $50 a
month. I took a job at J.Crew. I
couldn’t afford to park in the nearby garage
on Wilshire, but a coworker taught me that it
closed at 11 p.m., at which point the arm went
up for the night. If you could wait that long,
you didn’t have to pay. So every day I lingered
after my shift, sometimes for hours. Mostly I
read in my car. That’s what life was like when
I met the actress.
An acquaintance from college invited me
to a house party in Mar Vista. I walked in and
saw the actress, more beautiful in real life, in
spiky heels and leather leggings. She was
small, especially her head. It impressed me
with its smallness; it seemed like one could
easily palm it. She was flanked by her
entourage, including another of my college
friends, whom I’ll call Kelsey. Around them,
in concentric rings, stood everyone else. I
entered the outermost ring and watched.
Kelsey and the actress were playing beer
pong—it was the actress’s first time.
Kelsey had grown up with the actress
and now lived rent-free in her mansion in the
Valley. She traveled with the actress, rode
in her car. She even looked a little like the
actress, same manner of dress, hair,
diminutive stature. In fact all three women
in the entourage looked like lesser versions
of the actress. Her, but diluted. Kelsey
introduced me to her, an unremarkable
exchange of pleasantries. Then the actress“Can I take a break?” I asked the manager.
He said I could have a 15-minute break in four
hours. I thought about how the actress could
sit whenever. I left and never went back.
The final party was at the Hollywood Hills
mansion of a girl I’d met a few times, who never
remembered my name. The actress and her
entourage arrived. Butt-cheek shorts, cropped
moto jackets, so much flatironed hair. Best
selves were summoned. The
evening had not been fun, but
now we would pretend it had
been. Someone set up flip cup
next to the pool: Line up, chug
your beer, flip your cup. The first
team to flip all their cups wins.
I found myself next to the
actress, on the same team. Here
was my chance. I turned and
said, “Have you played before?”
I knew the answer. She shook
her head. “I didn’t go to college.”
I lost the game for us. I could
not flip that cup while standing
next to a famous person. I could
not flip that cup probably
even alone. L.A. was the cup,
and I could not flip it.
I moved back east. The actress never
became a megastar. Time passes, and we’re
supposed to take some lesson from it. But I
can’t figure out what. I already knew when I
moved to L.A. that fame cannot sustain us. Not
someone else’s, not in any substantial way. It
cannot warm us. I knew that. Everyone does.
But still we hold our hands up to the flame.ERIN SOMERS is the author of the novel Stay
Up with Hugo Best (Scribner).When she was
around, the room
reoriented in
her direction. I
was unable to
distinguish myself.
I didn’t know how.There were many moreshowed up. More often, she wouldn’t
materialize. When she was
around, the room reoriented in her
direction, drinking games
springing up for her benefit. I was
unable to distinguish myself. I
didn’t know how.
Others did. My friend Anna
swung an invite to a club once
and ended up in the same car as
the actress, her entourage, and
Khloé Kardashian. But the car
was too full, and Anna was asked
to ride in the trunk. She moved
back to New York soon after.
In the end, Kelsey was ousted
by another girl through a series of
machinations and wedge drivings
so effective that Kelsey moved
out of the actress’s house and their friendship
evaporated. To me, the social acuity it took to
pull that off was an opaque piece of technology,
like an internet router; I could have stared at it
forever and still not grasped how it worked. I
felt superior to those who possessed it. They
were conniving, obsequious. But I also saw
how the actress’s sparkle stuck to them. They
didn’t seem lonely, whereas I was, hugely and
transparently. That was the reason I went to
those parties in the first place.
It was terrible to stay out late and then standThe
author,
2018.JUCO⁄THE^ LIC
ENSI
NGPROJECT.^
SOMERS:^ NIN
A^ SUBIN.m
@OPRAHMAGAZINE SEPTEMBER (^201989)