Jude, eighteen, only just. Frizzy brown hair, soft, suburban features. Arms crossed across her chest, forehead pressed to the smudged window of the 492, watching miles whip by, all strip malls, wilting palm trees and wild bougainvillea. As if the sight of so much natural beauty mixed with human mess might account for how she wound up riding the bus to Los Angeles, city of cars. Ford Woody Wagons, Datsuns, Camaros. Around her, adults sat solo in window seats, absorbing the same scene, though Jude sensed they saw it different. A dull resignation to their gaze, like they knew she rolled her skirt to make it shorter, pushed her boobies up on purpose with the cross of her arms. When a red Corvette pulled alongside, lingering for a moment before accelerating, she saw it as a sign, beckoning toward an ideal future, sex and speed. Though her favorite color was yellow.

Graffiti in shades of purple and pink popped from gray concrete in the lowering light. Through painted corridors, up and down ramps that swooped and whorled, the bus labored. It merged onto the 101, exited on Highland, turned right, lurched to a stop. Doors swung open with a push of frisson. Compression of air. And Jude stepped onto Hollywood Boulevard, a street paved with stars. Spray-paint artists and celebrity look-alikes. Boys with pompadours and jean jackets, sunglasses that turned their eyes to mirrors. Girls with feathered hair and teased bangs, the way they sauntered in shoulder pads, sipped Coke cans with Revlon-red lips. Somewhere among them might be Winnie. Jude walked the boulevard, men muttering as she passed. Honey, baby, smile, sweetie, smile. She smiled. She was still wearing her reform school uniform—beige skirt, canvas backpack and knock-off polo shirt, laurel leaves and Class of 1982 embroidered on the breast. Heinous, all of it.