Aria knew that the man who was pretending to be Santa most likely had the stain of alcohol on his breath. She knew that the shops were just looking to Christmas for one more way to tease the money out of people’s purses. She knew she had no home to go home to. And because of all this, Aria wished that Christmas didn’t exist. The interminable build-up to Christmas was like never-ending foreplay leading up to an experience that she could never have. The outward hatred she showed for Christmas was her way of hiding the painful fact that, like everyone, she wanted to love Christmas, but couldn’t because of the reality of her unlucky life.

It had been nearly five months since Aria had come to Los Angeles. Though she had found a sort of base camp in the car lot and with the people who lived there, it had been a breadth of hardship. In that time, Aria had learned the true value of a dollar. She had learned how to disappear into the tapestry of the city. She had learned so much the hard way, like where not to walk at night and where not to walk during the day. Her life had been a surfeit of near misses. Finding programs for people in her position that posed too much of a risk for her to try to join.

Taylor hadn’t had it much better. He had taken a handful of temp jobs and lived off of the dollars he made until he had none left, but it was never enough to rent a place. He had attended a few publicly advertised cattle calls for actors, but had never gotten a part. He had slept with more than a few men, but it never amounted to anything more than a booty call. Some days he went out on behalf of both of them with a cardboard sign to solicit charity. It made Aria feel guilty when he did it, but she was still 17. She couldn’t take the risk of getting caught.

Luke and Palin, forever nomadic, had been off to a dozen festivals. Occasionally he brought back a gutter punk or two that he had met there. They would park themselves at the car lot for a day or two before leaving on the boxcar of some train, headed to whatever places anarchists go. Though her almost patriotic devotion was to Luke, Palin had grown close to Aria. Scratches now scuffed up the side of the broken-down Land Cruiser from Palin trying to coerce her to come out and play.