‘Maggie?’ And the eyes were on me. More khaki than hazel.

‘Something.’

‘You want to narrow it down for me some?’ A little upward curve of his mouth.

‘Aaah. Something frosty. With alcohol.’

‘Something frosty with alcohol. You got it.’ He smiled. Oh, and there we are. Gleaming white choppers, all present and correct.

I watched him crossing the room. He wasn’t very tall, but there was a careless grace to his movements, as if he wasn’t terribly interested in himself.

‘Y’OK?’ Emily asked.

‘Er, yes.’

She rummaged in her handbag, smiling a private smile.

Then he was back. ‘Frozen margarita, Maggie. The best in town. So what brings you to LA?’

‘Just… ‘I hated this question, just hated it. Then I knew what to say! ‘Just taking some down time.’

No one looked at me funny. No one burst out laughing. Looked like I’d managed to use the new slang successfully.

Then it was debriefing time. According to Troy, Mort Russell was ‘Insane, but not in a bad way… Not always in a bad way,’ he amended.

‘And he’s really EXCITED about my script,’ Emily twinkled.

‘I love your work,’ Troy crooned at her. ‘I troooly love your work. I want to have sex with your work I love it so much.’

‘I love your work,’ Emily said. ‘I’m getting all hot just thinking about it… That’s the way they go on,’ she explained to me. ‘Mort Russell probably hasn’t even read my script.’

‘They just drop a love bomb on you,’ Troy said. ‘Two days later they won’t even take your calls.’ Not that that was going to happen to Emily, he insisted.

‘So what do you know about Hothouse?’ Emily asked.

‘They’ve good people and a lot of energy. You know they made The American Way?’

‘Was that them?’ Emily looked alarmed. ‘That wasn’t so great.’

‘Yeah, but only because they kept firing the directors.’

‘You know Glass Flowers?’ Emily went off on a tangent. ‘I heard they had sixteen writers on it.’

‘True. And it shows. Whatja think of Sand in Your Eyes?’

‘Not as bad as Obeying Orders. Like, I managed not to walk out!’

While I sipped my frozen margarita, Emily and Troy batted high-speed banter about movies they’d seen recently. Mostly they dissed them, but now and again they poured praise.

‘Great cinematography.’

‘Really tight script.’

After a while, I got the rules. If I’d heard of the movie, they didn’t tend to like it, but if it sounded obscure, preferably foreign, then it got praised.

‘So pitch me your movie, Emily,’ Troy said.

‘OK. I’m thinking Thelma and Louise meets Steel Magnolias meets The Thomas Crown Affair meets Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,’ she said in a rush. ‘Only joking. I haven’t had time to work on it yet.’

‘We have until Wednesday,’ Troy said. ‘But you know? You’ll be great. You,’ he pointed at her, ‘are Good in a Room.’

‘Good in a Room?’ I asked.

‘It’s what they say,’ Troy said, ‘about someone who’s got the art of the pitch. Emily tells a great story, she’s Good in a Room. Another frosty drink with alcohol?’

‘It’s my turn.’

Three drinks later, Troy looked at his watch. ‘I gotta take off. Early start.’

‘Breakfast roller-blading date?’ Emily asked.

‘Seven a.m. spinning class,’ he replied, and they both laughed.

‘They all do that as well,’ Troy said to me. ‘It’s kind of a macho thing, having your personal trainer come by before sun-up.’

Out we went to the valet station and handed over our tickets. I must have been a little bit tipsy, because I couldn’t stop going on about how great the whole notion of valet parking was. I told everyone – Emily, Troy, the valet man, the couple waiting next to us – and they all seemed slightly amused. I saw nothing amusing about being a crap parker and scraping cars against pillars in multi-storey car parks. Although I didn’t do that in every car, just in…

‘Here’s mine.’ Troy’s eyes were trained on a valet guiding a jeep towards us. He swung an arm around Emily. ‘Baby girl, we’ll talk.’

Then an arm around me and a touch on my cheek from the steep-trap mouth. ‘And you, Maggie, enjoy your down time.’

He slipped the driver a dollar, swung himself up into his jeep and was gone.

It was midnight. As we drove down Sunset we passed one of the gyms with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. There were still people on the treadmill running to nowhere.

10

The next day was a Saturday and the tight wires of my work ethic unwound and gave me a little relief. Today I really could go to the beach and sunbathe legitimately without feeling like a skiver just about to be caught.

David Crowe’s call had utterly transformed Emily. Her hopeless lethargy had completely disappeared and activity was the name of the game. After breakfast, we climbed up into her car and drove the two blocks to the aircraft-hangar-sized supermarket. From my years in Chicago, I knew how fabulous American supermarkets were, but even so, I was sure they didn’t carry the magnificent array of fat-free products they had here. Everywhere, packaging screaming ‘0 per cent fat’ jumped up and accosted me. I’d found it impossible not to be affected by the pervasive body-beautiful ethic, and virtuously bypassed the occasional cluster of full-fat doughnuts or ice-cream, and instead bought blueberries and salad and sushi. And wine, of course. Emily insisted. ‘I must take good care of myself at this important time,’ she said, flinging a few bottles into our trolley.

As we wheeled our purchases back to the car, I was startled by someone yelling, ‘Hey you!’ I turned to see a dirty, bearded man, dressed in rags. ‘Hey, you girls, are you listening?’ he called angrily. ‘A body lies under a fire escape. Male, Caucasian, mid-thirties.’

‘What’s up with him?’ I asked nervously.

‘He’s always here.’ Emily wasn’t even interested. ‘Roaring and shouting about mad stuff. He’s bonkers, God love him, but quite harmless.’