I Fall Apart

Nora

The trip to L.A. was approaching fast. I didn't have many friends at school, but I had told my friend Michelle all about it. She was one of the few people I talked openly about my family with.

"Do you get to hang out on the set?" she asked excitedly during math, when we were supposed to be working on a group exercise.

"Yep," I told her, but I'd been on set with him before, of course. It wasn't as exciting as you'd think. "I'll probably get put to work though."

"That's so cool though," she told me. "Getting to hang out with movie stars."

I wasn't one to brag about my circumstances. I guess it was known around school that I was Lin-Manuel Miranda's daughter but I didn't advertise it. He'd come to school a few times, and he was an alumnus of course. When he posted about me on Twitter, he always hid my face like with Sebastian and Francisco, to protect my privacy. I thought it was pretty cool that he did that. On my own Twitter account, I posted occasionally about my family and he'd made appearances in my photos. I had over 20,000 followers now, almost entirely due to the fact I was his kid, I'm sure.

The teacher walked by, so we switched our conversation to the Pythagorean Theorem so he thought we were on topic. As soon as he was gone, we switched back to talking about what I was going to do in L.A.

Finally, the morning of our flight came. Our plane was supposed to leave at 7 a.m., which meant we needed to be at the airport by six. It was an ungodly hour. However, I managed to peel myself out of bed because of the promise of getting to California. After showering, I packed up the last of my things - my toothbrush, deodorant and such. I was ready to go around 5:40 and actually had to wait on Dad.

We'd said goodbye to Sebastian and Cisco the night before, but Vanessa got up with us. She was looking blurry-eyed in her robe and she hugged Dad. It was so sweet how you could tell how much they'd miss each other. They'd be apart for three weeks, which was a rarity for them. I looked away as they rested their foreheads against each other and spoke in whispers. They grinned and kissed occasionally. Dad gave her one final kiss and pulled away, picking up his suitcase.

"You ready, kiddo?" he looked back at me. I nodded and rolled my own suitcase over. Vanessa and I hugged and then we were off. It was still really early, so there wasn't much conversation as Dad hailed a cab and we travelled to LaGuardia. We checked our luggage and I found out we were flying first class. Since it was for work, they booked Dad first class and I got to reap the benefits. We were boarded first, and before the other passengers even got on, I was sipping a latte and eating a delicious pastry. Dad had his laptop out, trying to shoot off a few emails before he had to close it for take-off.

I had my own laptop with me so I could do homework. My teachers had sent me off a week's worth of homework, and they'd email me the rest later. I definitely wasn't going to do homework this early in the morning.

I was vaguely aware of the flight attendants going through their spiel, but I was fading fast. I fell asleep against Dad's shoulder after take-off.

When we landed in L.A., we hit the ground running. The movie studio had sent a car to pick us up. We were taken to our hotel, where we had only about half an hour to freshen up and settle ourselves a little bit before we were whisked off to the studio. There wouldn't be any filming today. It was all meetings. I tagged along at first and Dad introduced me to everyone. A bunch of producers, writers, and other crew. I had no idea who they were, but Dad seemed to think they were pretty important.

After a while, I just excused myself to Dad's office. It was his for the next few weeks. It was a simple room, outfitted with a nice couch, TV, and a little mini-fridge. I curled up on the couch and read for a while before falling asleep. Dad woke me up a little later and I realized I was starving. We went out for lunch, just him and me.

"How you holding up?" he asked as we snacked on nachos, waiting for the main course.

"I may have taken a little nap," I admitted, grinning.

"Not surprising," he told me.

"Do you ever take naps?"

"Rarely," he said. "I have no chill whatsoever."

"That's the truth," I admitted. We talked about what the next few days would consist of. Lots of meetings. I would be left to my own devices quite a lot, but that was fine. I was 15 after all. I could entertain myself. I had my phone back, which was all a teenager needed.

The next few days were a bit of a blur. Dad was crazy busy, but he seemed happy. Most nights, he didn't get done until late in the evenings. Sometimes I just hung out at the hotel and watched the free HBO and Showtime. I worked on my tan down at the pool and occasionally did some homework.

Finally, Dad had a free night, so we decided to wander around a nearby pier. It was beautiful - we arrived as sunset was just beginning. We took off our shoes and walked along the beach, watching the sky change from blue, to purple, to red and orange. The sea breeze whipped my hair around and filled my nostrils. The air felt different on the west coast.

As we walked, it didn't feel like we had to talk. There was a comfortable silence as we walked along, occasionally making a comment or laughing. As the last of the light slipped under the horizon, we found a couple rocks to sit down on.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it?" Dad commented as he gazed up at the stars coming out. We never saw stars like this in New York City.

"Yeah," I agreed, looking up. "So many stars."

"There's Orion," he pointed with his finger.

"There's the Big Dipper," I said, and he nodded. We were silent for a couple minutes as we just stargazed.

"I'm glad you came with me," Dad said, looking over at me. He patted my back a couple times.

"Me too," I said, smiling at him.

"I've been worried about you," he admitted, glancing at me. He'd wrapped his arms loosely around his knees.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm always worried about you," he said. "You've been through a lot."

I didn't really think about the fact that I'd been through a lot. Stuff happened and life went on. But really, I had been through quite a lot. Growing up with my mother, without a father until the age of thirteen. My mother in prison; being thrown into a new life. Then Mom dying.

"I'm fine," I told him. It made my kind of uncomfortable when he got serious like this. My mother and I never had these kind of conversations.

"When you tried pot," he went on. "Were you just curious, or were you trying to escape?"

"Escape?" I questioned.

"I mean, do you have something on your mind?"

I shook my head and scratched at my neck. It felt nice that he was so concerned about me. Mom never seemed to care that much. She was always caught up in her own drama. She rarely bothered to ask me if something was wrong.

"I was just being stupid," I told him, looking down as a pigeon hopped by. "Don't tell me you haven't done pot."

Dad chuckled for a moment, gazing out at the sea. "Not when I was fifteen."

I rolled my eyes and stretched my legs out a little. "Do as I say, not as I do."

"Look, I'm not stupid," he told me. "I know you're gonna experiment with things. Alcohol, pot. But you've gotta be responsible about it."

"I am," I told him. "I smoked out on the porch. The boys weren't around. It didn't hurt anything."

He nodded. "Promise me you'll hold off on that until college."

I laughed a little. A lot of parents would straight up forbid their children from drinking alcohol or smoking pot, but I loved that Dad didn't think that was reasonable. If he told me not to do something, I'd want to do it more. He got that almost everyone drank before they were 21. He wanted to make sure I was responsible.

"I promise," I told him. Now that I'd gotten it out of my system, I would be good for a while.

Dad leaned over and kissed my hair. We were just silent for a while as we watched more and more stars appear, a blanket of black sky filled with little grains of hope.