La La Land

“It’s kind of crazy because, like, my name is Emma, her name is Emma, and we even kind of look alike, so it’s just like, I don’t know, I feel like I’m just going to meet Emma Watson someday, you know?”

“Yes. Completely. It almost sounds like- okay I don’t know how to explain this, but it’s like when I’m at Whole Foods, and it’s like I just know what blend of juice I’m supposed to buy, you know? Like, it’s like the universe or something is just telling me that this is where I’m supposed to be, and this is what I need to do, like in this moment.”

“Exactly, yes, that’s so what I’m saying.”

Each paused to sip their lattes, glancing around, taking inventory of all those seated at the coffee shop. Their eyes scanned like a Doppler radar to the sea, letting no important person go unnoticed, no one unaccounted for, a mental filing through anyone worth their noting. Having overheard from my table behind theirs, I glanced up from my laptop, now curious and intrigued by the possibility of some sixth sense these two had apparently developed.  

“So I was thinking, and he should just quit his job and move to LA. Honestly, it saved my life,” Pseudo Watson advised, the topic having suddenly shifted from grocery store epiphanies to relationship quandaries. 

“Maybe you’re right. It’s like when people get religion and try to convince everyone else to do it too.”

“Yes. Los Angeles is my religion.”

“Wow. You should tweet that, seriously. People should hear that. Have you ever thought of writing a book?” said the other, clearly still floating in revelation from her divine juice-buying experience.

“You know, you are not the first person to tell me that. I’m working on this script right now, kind of an indie sort of thing, and really feel like I just have this voice inside of me that’s recently just really been exposed through all the other projects I’m in the middle of, but after that, yeah, I mean, a book seems like a real possibility,” she replied, said with a forced and cool sort of apathy, like she had the power of a secret hidden behind a façade of indifference. “Have you been working on anything lately?”

“Oh, I’ve been going on a bunch of auditions,” Holy Green Juice uneasily stated, a panic and reluctance still present beneath a forced confidence and assurance. “And, um, I don’t know, nothing was the right thing. I could kind of just feel the toxic energy in the room, and it was like not really the greatest… But it’s so fine because this is just like a great time of self-discovery and to just like reconnect with myself, you know?”

“That’s amazing. You’re so positive, it’s, like, inspirational,” Pseudo Watson said, a slight glimmer in her eye and smirk on her face, poorly disguising the satisfaction in possessing whatever level of victory she felt she’d earned within this unspoken rivalry.

“You know, it’s like you just take it day by day and do the best you can to make it through, and- wait, Oh my God, I love your shirt. Is it like vintage or something?” It was a black t-shirt, soft and worn in all the right places, with capitalized bold white writing on the front: They worship everything and value nothing.