Chapter 61: Lucky Day

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After Jim’s interview at the motel, Nolan and Katherine drove straight to Century City.

They came out of the AMC theater and wandered the mall the same way they had last time. The difference was that last time Katherine had bought Nolan sneakers. This time, Nolan bought something for her.

He still could not afford the truly expensive brands, but he could manage a smaller luxury. In the end, he bought her a beige Coach Sonoma handbag from the new line, two hundred twenty-nine dollars before tax.

College was coming. Katherine could not keep carrying a worn GAP backpack everywhere.

"I should be buying things for you," Katherine said. She was happy, but guilt sat under it.

She had always been proud. Competitive. First in everything if she could help it. Then her family had fallen apart, volleyball had turned on her, and now she was spending Nolan’s money. It bothered her more than the bag pleased her.

Nolan comforted her as best he could.

"Every pro football player ends up carrying injuries," she said quietly. "I want you to retire early. Every time I see you hit someone or get hit, my heart stops."

She meant it.

"Then let’s make it a race," Nolan said. "First one of us to earn enough money to retire wins."

Katherine nodded hard, taking the joke far more seriously than he expected.

They reached the Hollywood Bowl a little before six.

The venue name hardly needed explaining to anyone in Los Angeles. Bowl games, the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, even the Super Bowl in its own odd way, all lived somewhere in America’s strange habit of turning stadiums into mythology. By 1994, Super Bowl XXVIII had already been written in Roman numerals, as if every game were an emperor.

Nolan and Katherine walked shoulder to shoulder through the crowd.

"Katherine!"

They both turned.

A tall girl was jogging toward them with a bright, nervous smile.

"Liv?" Katherine blinked. "You’re here for the concert too?"

"Yeah. Want to come with us? I have VIP box tickets."

"Really?" Katherine lit up, then looked at Nolan.

"Let’s watch with Liv," she said.

Katherine and Liv played the same position and got along well. Katherine mentioned her sometimes. Liv was in Nolan’s year too, though he rarely crossed paths with her.

Nolan shrugged. The seat did not matter to him. Aerosmith was not why he had come. Katherine was.

Facing Liv again, though, he could not stop himself from asking, "Does anyone in your family use the last name Tyler?"

He was almost certain the girl in front of him was the future Liv Tyler. He just did not understand why she was still Liv Rundgren.

Liv shook her head.

"Why do you keep getting my last name wrong?"

"Maybe I mixed you up with someone," Nolan said. "I know of an actress who ends up in Hollywood one day."

Fate could be absurd. Sarah Michelle Gellar was already famous around school, yet someday the quieter girl standing here might outshine her.

Then Nolan noticed the girl behind Liv.

She wore torn jeans with cuffed legs and a short T-shirt that showed a narrow waist. She was small, lean, and carried herself with more bite than her size suggested. From a distance she looked taller, but close up she was not much bigger than Sarah.

Her face had the kind of sharp, open look the camera liked: large eyes, a narrow frame, and an expression that made her seem approachable even when she was studying someone.

"Hi, big star." She held out a hand, smiling with a little restraint.

"Hi," Nolan said, shaking it. "What should I call you?"

"You haven’t met Jennifer Hewitt?" Liv said.

So this was the girl people had been talking about.

Compared with Sarah, who always seemed ready to step into a spotlight, Jennifer Love Hewitt kept a lower profile and spent less time on campus.

"Now I have," Nolan said.

"Yesterday’s game was amazing," Jennifer said. "I never watch football, and even I got caught up in it. The whole thing felt alive. I hope I get a chance to cheer for you from the sideline sometime."

"Why wait?" Nolan asked. "How about the playoff final?"

"That date..." Jennifer actually thought it over and asked for the details. "I should be free. Sometimes work comes up at the last minute, but I’ll do my best."

Nolan nodded. On the way inside, he kept chatting with her and asked about her daily schedule.

Then he felt Katherine’s gaze from beside him.

It had weight.

He cleared his throat.

"With so many delayed exams, are you confident?"

"If I said yes, even I wouldn’t believe me." Jennifer smiled awkwardly. "I have to finish everything before next semester starts. I only have the summer, and some of my textbooks are still brand-new."

"Sounds like you need a tutor."

"I do. I was just asking Liv if she knew anyone." Jennifer’s interest sharpened. "Do you?"

That was exactly the opening Nolan wanted.

He pointed at Katherine.

"I survive school because of her. She has experience, and she gets A-pluses in everything."

"Right," Liv said quickly. "I completely forgot Katherine. Her AP classes are insane."

One needed steady money. The other needed evening help. Under Nolan’s gentle matchmaking, they reached an arrangement quickly: Katherine would tutor Jennifer every evening during the summer, three hours a night at fifty dollars an hour.

One hundred fifty dollars a day, and she could still look for work during daylight.

For once, luck seemed to have noticed Katherine. She had stable income now, which also meant Nolan could spend less on carrying everyone alone.

The concert started on time.

Nolan struggled with the old rock songs. The three girls enjoyed themselves. He fought drowsiness and eventually slipped out for the restroom near the end of the show.

On the way back, he saw a man in loud clothes and wild hair leaving a private box with a small crowd around him.

The man was the lead singer who had just been screaming onstage.

Up close, Steven Tyler was hard to ignore: big teeth, long face, sharp chin, smoky eye makeup, and a flood of loose curls that looked smoother than Katherine’s hair.

Nolan felt a brief, involuntary discomfort when they passed each other.

Tyler.

The name struck him a beat too late.

Tyler?

Something clicked.

He had been wondering why Liv Tyler was still Liv Rundgren. The answer seemed suddenly obvious.

Nolan quickened his pace back to the box.

Liv was standing inside, shaken. Katherine and Jennifer were trying to comfort her.

The whole thing was tangled in old Hollywood mess.

Bebe Buell and musician Todd Rundgren had once been close enough to a marriage in every practical sense. Then Buell had met Steven Tyler at a concert. One night became a pregnancy. The child was Liv.

Todd Rundgren had every reason to walk away, but he did not. He signed the birth certificate and carried the role of father for years. The family had spent a long time living with a truth everyone close to them half-knew and half-avoided, while the public version remained controlled.

Now Liv was old enough that the truth could no longer stay tucked away.

"No wonder Mom took me to see Aerosmith when I was eleven," Liv whispered. "No wonder she talked to Steven Tyler. No wonder she moved us to Los Angeles."

A question that had bothered her for years had finally opened. With it came every small detail she had never been able to place.

She had asked her mother about her father before. Her mother had never answered plainly. Somehow, the people around her had chosen this night to let her understand.

After the first shock passed, Liv looked at Nolan.

"How did you know?"

That was the real problem.

Steven Tyler, Bebe Buell, Todd Rundgren, none of them had anything to do with Nolan Callahan.

So why had he known?

"It was a coincidence," Nolan said, and even he knew how weak that sounded.

"No way," Jennifer said. "You also said her father wanted her in Hollywood. How do you explain that?"

Nolan asked for the details, then pieced the rest together.

The family reveal was only the beginning. Liv’s mother would eventually face the media and shape the story herself. Steven Tyler intended to invite Liv into the band’s new music video. The point was obvious: if Liv was going to enter show business, the announcement would become a launch ramp.

Several scenes for the video, Crazy, would be shot at BHHS by a Propaganda Films crew. The school had been a filming location since the black-and-white era, and by the 1990s it had appeared in enough films and music videos to be a practical choice. It was close to Hollywood, photogenic, and easy for crews to reach.

A separate Propaganda shoot was also using that campus access, and the director Nolan cared about was David Fincher.

Two years after Alien 3, Fincher’s film career looked like a wreck. The movie had disappointed at the box office, critics had been unkind, and the production had damaged his relationship with studio filmmaking. For now, he had gone back to what he knew: music videos.

Nolan listened, then slowly smiled.

Today was not only Liv Tyler’s lucky day.

It was his too.

He had been struggling to reach the right people for Mia’s thriller script. Even Lisa had no clean way to put it in front of the crew he wanted. It looked as if they might have to sell it cheaply for thirty thousand dollars.

Now a door had opened.

Lisa would not support the plan. Katherine and Mia could not help with it.

That meant Nolan would have to speak to David Fincher himself.

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