I was covered in confusion. It was a long, long time since I’d found someone other than Garv attractive and I couldn’t help but worry about my unconventional choice.

15

A mild crisis had arisen. David Crowe wasn’t able to make Emily’s pitch.

‘Something’s come up,’ Emily said bitterly. ‘Someone, he means. More important than me.’

But Mort Russell’s ‘people’ still wanted the meeting to go ahead as arranged.

‘So David said I’m to bring my assistant with me.’

‘What assistant?’

‘You!’

‘Me?’

‘You get nothing for nothing in this town,’ Emily mourned. ‘You’ll be paying for that caesar salad at the Club House for the rest of your days.’

‘But Emily, I’ll be no help. I know nothing about pitches.’

‘You don’t need to. You just have to flank me and laugh at the funny bits. Maybe carry a clipboard.’

‘But… But what’ll I wear? I didn’t bring any suits, I’ll have to buy something.’

‘Third Street Boulevard is only five minutes’ drive from here – go now!’

Obediently I obliged – like shopping was a hardship – and spent a couple of hours going round the normal shops where the assistants acted pleased to see me, unlike the snotty cows in Rodeo Drive. But, as we all know, the first law of shopping says that when you’re urgently looking for something specific, you’ve no hope of finding it. The few suits they had had the peculiar effect of making me look like a prison warder. Half-heartedly I picked up some stowaways: an embroidered denim skirt and a white vest top.

Then I stumbled upon Bloomingdales. I know it’s naff, but I love department stores – so much better than those funky little boutiques where you’ve to ring a bell to get in. The type where they only have eleven items of stock, which you can survey and dismiss in 2.7 seconds but have to spend fifteen minutes going ‘Mmmm, lovely,’ in order not to seem rude in front of the assistant, who is never less than ten inches from you, explaining how the silk was handspun in Nepal, cold-dyed in natural plant colours, etc. It’s excruciating and I often end up buying something just to extricate myself.

So what I love about department stores is that it’s operation free-flow. Apart from an occasional woman jumping out and trying to spray you with perfume, no one bothers you. And there must be a moral in that somewhere, because within seconds I’d pulled out my wallet and welcomed aboard another stowaway: a face gel that promised to make me look radiant. Then followed a brief moment of madness when I almost bought Garv some Clinique for Men stuff – my head turned by the free gift that was on offer – then luckily I remembered I hated him.

But the bottom line is that I wasn’t any better off in the suit department. My other purchases made me feel good only for about forty seconds, and by the time I got home I was needled by guilt – I shouldn’t be buying stuff while I had no job – and also by fear – Emily was a little volatile at the moment. Tentatively I broke the no-suit news to her, and she responded by snuffling like a warm-up act for full-blown hyperventilation, so I said very quickly, ‘Couldn’t I borrow something?’

‘Who fucking from? Charles Manson? The Easter bunny?’ Wildly, she appraised me, then visibly calmed. ‘Let’s see, you’re about the same size as Lara. Except maybe in the chest area.’

‘Did she really have a boob job?’

‘She was an actress.’ Emily sounded as if that explained everything. ‘Anyway, could you call her and borrow a suit?’

‘Well, I’m seeing her later, anyway. She’s taking me to get my hair cut, remember?’

‘Is she?’ Emily looked a little startled. ‘When was that decided?’

I thought back. It had been a morning. Sunny. But that was no help, they were all sunny. But hold on, Lara had been off work…

‘Saturday, remember?’

‘Oh, yeah, of course, sorry.’

At six o’clock, Lara swept me off in her silver pick-up truck to Dino’s salon. ‘OΚ sweetheart, let’s make you even more pretty than you already are!’

Whizzing up Santa Monica Boulevard, I said – daringly, I thought – to Lara, ‘So how did your date go last night?’

‘Good,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s totally too soon to call it, but she’s a funny girl and we had a good time. She said she’d call me. Like, she’d better!’

Lara parked the pick-up truck in a space that would have held three normal cars and ushered me into a white, Grecian-style salon. Lots of urns and ivy and columns.

‘Dino!’ she called.

Dino was huge, with enormous sideburns and tight, flamboyant clothes. Ropes of muscle rippled beneath his skin. Gay? Not necessarily.

‘The beautiful Miss Lara!’

Lara pushed me towards him and said, ‘This is Maggie. Hasn’t she got the BEST face?’

‘Yeeaaah,’ Dino drawled with interest, and ran a hand parallel to my cheek, conveying that he found huge potential in me. Hope stirred. I was going to be changed for the better. ‘Hey, I gotta tell you my news,’ he said to Lara with such anticipatory drama that I thought at the very least he’d won the state lottery. It transpired that he’d bought a tongue-scraper. ‘I do not know how I lived without it up until now. My breath is the FRESHEST.’ He breathed a big ‘Haaah!’ into Lara’s face to demonstrate.

‘Fresh,’ she agreed solemnly.

‘You gotta get one, it’ll change your life,’ he predicted.

Now that he mentioned it, I had seen ads for them. But I’d dismissed them as silly nonsense, in the same category as vaginal deodorants. Could I have been wrong?

‘Sit here, in my special chair. The light is better,’ Dino guided me. Then with frowning concentration he was mussing my hair, lifting the ends to chin level, changing my parting to the middle, pulling my fringe back from my face…

By my side, Lara watched the variations in the mirror.

‘She’s totally got a great jawline,’ Dino remarked, with professional-sounding dispassion. ‘The best!’

But I haven’t. I’ve got a very mediocre jawline, and I know it.

‘Look at those eyes,’ Dino ordered.