“Amazing! I thought everyone did the Hollywood tourist thing the minute they moved to Southern California.”

“Well, all my friends have grown up here, so the Hollywood thing isn’t a big deal for them. I just never thought about it, really. Although whenever I hear about some star living in LA, it always catches me off guard. I’m like, wow, Keanu Reeves lives, like, an hour away from me!” She grinned. “I actually haven’t even been up to LA, either.”

I rolled my eyes, but inwardly I was cheering. This was an actual conversation! “You’re kidding! The greatest city in the world and you’ve never been there?”

She laughed. “Same thing. None of my friends think it’s a big deal, so I’ve just never gone. I wouldn’t know where to go, anyway. I don’t usually like going places I’ve never been before, especially big cities with scary freeways and traffic.” She made motions of being frazzled and stressed out. “Too much pressure. Besides, LA drivers are horrible.” A second later her eyes grew wide and she stared at me. “I totally didn’t mean that.”

It took me a second to understand what she thought she’d implied, and I laughed. “Oh, no offense taken here, believe me. I agree with you. We’re the worst.” I grinned and winked, and relief was written all over her face.

She shook her head and covered her eyes with her hand. “I don’t know how many more times I can stick my foot in my mouth like that.”

I realized then how many times I’d seen that look of embarrassment and fear on her face in the past hour, and felt awful that she was so nervous around me. What had I done to make her so careful and cautious? She’d never seemed intimidated the other times we’d talked. I wracked my brain to see if I’d said or done anything to make her uncomfortable, but I couldn’t think of anything. “Don’t worry about it, honestly. You really haven’t stuck your foot in your mouth at all, I promise. Now, to answer your question, we’re just coming into LA. We’ll get on the 101, and then exit onto Hollywood Boulevard. That’s about fifteen miles from here, so in this traffic it’ll take … oh, who knows, I won’t even try to guess.”

“And where exactly are we going? What theatre?”

“Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.”

She grinned and her eyes grew wide. “The one with the handprints?”

“That would be it.”

She laughed. “Oh wow. I so get to brag about this for the next ten years.”

I smiled. “I’m glad you’re excited. It’s weird to see all this through someone else’s eyes; I’ve done it so many times it’s not a big deal anymore.”