Immortal City (2 page)

M
addy woke up to the drone of her alarm clock. It was early, the dawn dim and gray outside her window. She had been dreaming she was lounging on the shores of some faraway tropical beach, the ocean glittering, diamond-like, as it reached to the horizon. Maddy wanted to stay in the dream, still feel the warm sand under her feet, nothing to do but simply enjoy the sun on her face, no one to be but
herself
. But the sound of the alarm was unrelenting, and her eyes began to open, unwillingly.

Lifting her head, she looked out the window. There it was, like a ghost in the misty half-light—the Angel City sign. It loomed huge and silent on the hill, perfectly framed by Maddy’s bedroom window. She sighed. The final remnants of the dream faded to nothing, replaced by the reality that she was still living in Los Angeles. Still stuck in the Immortal City.

She swung her legs out of bed and tried to shake the remainder of the sleep away. Kids at school complained about first period starting at 8 a.m., but for Maddy, the day started at five. Every day. She groped for a pair of jeans off the floor and pulled a striped long-sleeved tee from her closet and changed into them. Nothing fancy, and that’s the way Maddy liked it—simple and comfortable. She didn’t have the time—or the money, for that matter—for much else. She grabbed her favorite gray lightweight hoodie before leaving the room. Then she brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair before heading quickly down the stairs.

The light outside was fuller now, and she could tell by the way it illuminated the haze that her uncle, Kevin, would already be plating the first orders. This was their routine and had been since Maddy’s freshman year. He would wake before Maddy and open the restaurant, taking the first orders so she could get a few more precious minutes of sleep. Then he would put on his apron and take up his position in the back as cook. It was Maddy’s responsibility to bring the orders out and work the rest of the morning shift until she had to leave for school. Like most mornings, she would be the only waitress on duty. Maddy was used to it, though. And even though it could get annoying to spend most mornings working after late nights up doing schoolwork—especially in the winter, when it was totally dark through a lot of her shift—it still made her feel good to help Kevin, to be the one he really counted on. She knew he appreciated it.

Maddy grabbed her backpack off the living room couch, which was covered in laundry, and quickly scanned the room to see if she was forgetting anything. Knickknacks and pictures lined the walls, hanging over the worn furniture and haphazard laundry-folding job Kevin had apparently started the night before and then stopped halfway through. The home was modest and could’ve stood a remodel in 1987, but it was all she had ever known—and, to be honest, all she’d ever really needed. Satisfied she wasn’t leaving anything behind, Maddy dashed out the door and down a narrow path that led from the front door through the sloping yard to the back door of Kevin’s Diner.

When she was eleven, she had tried to get her uncle to change the restaurant’s name to something more original, but Kevin was a bit of a traditionalist, and Kevin’s Diner it remained. She went in through the back door, slipped into the tiny office, and changed into her waitress uniform, which she kept in the office so she could head straight to school at the end of the shift. The uniform couldn’t be more traditional either: a simple pin-striped dress and white apron. The waitresses were
theoretically
supposed to wear pumps with the outfit, but most of the time Maddy managed to sneak her black Chucks past her uncle, who always seemed to look the other way.

Maddy could already smell the sharp aroma of fresh brewed coffee, sizzling bacon, and freshly poured pancakes as she emerged from the back and walked down the narrow hallway toward the kitchen. Just as she expected, Kevin was already hard at work behind the counter, plating the first three orders of the day. Maddy shoved a notepad and pen into the pocket of her dress and pulled her hair into a ponytail.

“Morning, Mads,” Kevin said, slapping butter on some whole-grain toast. “These go out to four and seven.” He indicated the plates. He was an average-looking man, if a little more weathered than most, but the lines of worry that crisscrossed his face were offset by a smile that always crackled with resilience and optimism.

“Cool,” Maddy said, yawning and deftly stacking the plates up her outstretched arm—a seasoned pro at seventeen.

“And Mads?” Kevin added. “Get yourself some coffee. On the house.” He winked. Maddy laughed sleepily, then, balancing the plates on her arms, swung out of the kitchen and into the dining room.

The dining room was like the rest of the restaurant—old and unremarkable, with fluorescent lights flickering over a scuffed black-and-white linoleum floor. The diner was laid out like an L on its side. The long part was bordered by a counter and stools on one side and cracked beige vinyl booths on the other. The booths ran along the windows that looked out to the street. The short part of the L faced back toward the house and the hill, giving those booths, like Maddy’s room, a near-perfect view of the famous Angel City sign. Maddy dropped off the orders to tables four and seven, then turned to head back for the water pitcher and coffee carafe to refill drinks.

“Excuse me, miss?” an overweight woman in one of the booths asked as Maddy passed. “Can you fix the TV?”

Maddy looked up at the ancient Magnavox propped in the corner. On the screen was nothing but rolling static, which tended to happen a lot. The woman’s cheeks were flushed, and her face wore the expectant expression of a child. “Didn’t you hear? There was a
save
last night in Malibu.” She emphasized the word
save
as if it was the most exciting, most important thing in the world.

“Oh, really?” Maddy murmured noncommittally. She placed one knee on the woman’s table and reached up, banging on the side of the set. After a moment the signal came in, and the diner filled with the sound of ANN—the Angel News Network. If it were up to Maddy, she’d rather watch anything else, but the customers always insisted on hearing the latest news about the Angels, and so ANN it was.

“A terrible accident but a dramatic save in a two-car collision in Malibu last night—and the Guardian had one of the NAS’s trial Angelcams!”
announced the news anchor, her face obscured by smears of dust on the Magnavox.
“We’ll have first-person, thrilling footage of the save and an exclusive interview with Archangel Mark Godspeed coming up within the hour, right here on ANN.”

At the word
Angelcams
, the woman in the booth sat up straight and watched the screen with wide, excited eyes as it previewed the tantalizing footage of a misty hairpin curve on the Pacific Coast Highway.

“Oh my gawd! Can you
imagine
?” she said, her eyes fixed on the screen. “Can you imagine having one of them Guardian Angels always watchin’ over you, keeping you safe no matter what? And wakin’ in in their big, strong arms, with everybody having seen it?” Her eyes remained on the TV. “One day
I’ll
be saved.”

But Maddy was already walking away. The truth was, she just didn’t understand the big deal about Angels. Ever since they had revealed themselves to the world over one hundred years ago—the Awakening, as they called it—and turned their lifesaving abilities into a business, the Immortals seemed to be the only thing anyone cared about. Everyone, that was, except Maddy. It’s true she lived in Los Angeles—the Angel capital of the world—but she had never been able to go along with the crowd around her and get caught up in the mystique of their fame, fortune, and lavish lifestyles. She didn’t buy clothes from their clothing lines or sample their Angel-themed perfumes, and she certainly didn’t read about them in
Angels Weekly
. When you can’t afford any of that stuff, it’s just easier not to be sucked in, she had long since concluded.

The morning rush passed quickly, Maddy expertly wielding her pen and notepad to scratch down orders, dealing plate after plate of eggs, French toast, and sausage to the steady breakfast crowd. Near the end of her shift, when Maddy went back to the kitchen, she found another steaming plate of food waiting for her on the counter. There was no ticket with it. She frowned and looked at her pad.

“Kevin? Who ordered this?” she asked, flipping through her tickets. Kevin looked at her over the counter and smiled, the skin crinkling like paper around his eyes.

“You did.”

Maddy looked down at the plate again, her mouth flooding with water. Scrambled eggs with seared peppers and onions. It was her favorite dish at the diner.

They sat in one of the booths in the back, the customers having thinned enough that Kevin could hang up his apron for five minutes.

“Thanks again,” Maddy said as she scooped another forkful of egg into her mouth. “You didn’t have to cook for me.”

Kevin shrugged as he glanced out the window. He took a sip of coffee. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you’re a senior, and that you’ll be graduating in the spring. You’ve always been my little Mads, but you’re not little anymore. My niece has grown up into a smart and beautiful young woman.”

Maddy blushed and looked down, fiddling with her fork. She wondered why she could never stand to have anyone compliment her looks. She didn’t think she was unattractive, but as a realist, she knew she was average. She had shoulder-length brown hair, brownish-green eyes, and a normal, if slender, body. The only makeup she had were some things that her best friend, Gwen, had given her for her birthday, and she almost never used the stuff. Gwen also launched an exasperating campaign every six months or so to get her to dress “cuter,” which Maddy always evaded—she didn’t care about all that. She had to work the morning shift, get good grades, and maybe, just maybe, get into college on a scholarship. No time for clothes and makeup—or boys.

But if she was honest, part of it was that if she even began to think about what would happen if she put on makeup and dressed “cuter”—about the attention she would get, or maybe worse, the attention she
wouldn’t
get—her stomach flipped in anxiety. So she mostly just hid behind her gray hoodie and her iPod earbuds. It seemed easier that way.

“I want you to know I’m proud of you,” Kevin went on, “and your parents would be proud of you too.” Maddy paused, another bite of egg poised in front of her mouth. Kevin rarely mentioned her parents. They had both been killed in an accident when Maddy was a baby. Kevin was a kind man, and a good man, but if she was being honest with herself, she missed having parents. She missed their role in her life, and she missed
them
, even though she had no memories, no recollection to hold onto at all.

Kevin was still talking. “I know it hasn’t always been easy in our little family. I know working at the diner isn’t your favorite—”

“It’s fine, Kevin,” Maddy interrupted, feeling guilty.

“It’s no dream job, I know. But I want you to know that I really appreciate your help.” Maddy smiled at him over her cup. “And besides,” he went on, brightening, “I think our luck is due to change this year. I really do. Just you watch, Maddy, this place is finally going to take off!”

Maddy’s gaze drifted out the back window, out once again to the view of the famous sign on the hill. Giant white letters, fifty feet high, spelled out the iconic words ANGEL CITY. To everyone else the sign was a symbol of glamour, an icon of the Angels’ wealth and power. Maddy just couldn’t bring herself to care. Housing was actually pretty cheap up on this side of town, and all the sign really meant was that she had to endure those annoying Angel Tours tourist buses coughing blue exhaust on her walks to and from school. People all over the world would kill for a chance to live in the middle of the action—in the glorious Immortal City—but as far as Maddy Montgomery was concerned, she couldn’t wait to get out.

Suddenly Maddy realized her uncle was staring at her.

“I’m sorry?” Maddy asked.

“Our luck, Maddy,” Kevin said, “I feel like it’s finally going to change.”

“Right. Me too,” Maddy said, and tried her best to believe him.

The door jingled as more customers came in. It was starting to get busy again.

“I better get back to it,” Kevin said, “But have a great day at school, okay?” Maddy nodded, and Kevin rose and left. After he had gone, her eyes fell once again on the view out the window and the famous sign. Maybe her uncle was right. She was a senior now, and next year hopefully meant college. Maybe things
were
looking up for her.

Then, realizing she was about to be late for school, she ran to the back to change.

•   •   •

The walk to school took Maddy down Vine Street and through the heart of Angel City. She passed under the towering billboards of Angels selling jewelry, sunglasses, designer handbags, and luxury cars. Half-naked Immortal bodies were the alluring backdrop for labels like Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Christian Dior. Maddy only casually glanced up at them. She had never had fancy things, not that she was complaining. Most of her clothes were from Target or were secondhand, and she didn’t own any jewelry, or even a proper handbag for that matter. She was also one of the only seniors without a car, and if you didn’t drive in Angel City, you didn’t exist.

Listening to her iPod shuffle, Maddy barely noticed as she turned onto Angel Boulevard and strode down the famous Walk of Angels. She unconsciously stepped over the names bronzed in the sidewalk, the names of the most famous Guardian Angels placed in stars to be forever celebrated. She passed the souvenir shops selling little plastic Angel statues, fake wings, and T-shirts with slogans like SAVE ME! on them. She wove her way through the wide-eyed tourists looking around excitedly, hoping to catch even a glimpse of a flawless Immortal. Eyeing them, Maddy wondered if there was something wrong with her. Why couldn’t she bring herself to care about what the rest of the world seemed to be so obsessed with? What were they seeing that she seemed to be missing?