And, standing in front of me, Luis. Neat, pretty – and polite! He’d come to thank us for the party and to invite us over for dinner some time. He claimed to be an excellent cook – a result, apparently, of his Columbian heritage. ‘Call by whenever,’ he invited.

‘Sure.’ Emily brusquely closed the door.

‘Don’t you want to?’ I asked.

She rolled her eyes at me. ‘Oh, come on!’

Muttering something about being thirty-three and not fifteen, she grabbed the phone and spent several unbroken hours on it, hopping from call waiting to call waiting, discussing the pitch, having the same conversation again and again, speculating and, in effect, saying nothing.

I could have gone to the beach or reverse-shopping – I’d decided to return the embroidered denim skirt, because when I tried it on at home it made my knees look funny – but instead I listlessly watched a telly evangelist, weighed down by the return of my earlier, regret-filled mood. I thought about Garv. He’d had a lot of good points. But then again, plenty of bad points. They ping-ponged around so much in my head that in the end I grabbed one of Emily’s yellow pads and wrote them all down.

List of Good things about Garv

1. Understanding exchange rates and the plots of thrillers.

2. Having a lovely, tiny bottom. (It was really gorgeous, especially in combats.)

3. Thinking I am the most beautiful woman on the planet. (Though he probably doesn’t any more.)

4. Seeing the good in everyone. (Except for my family.)

5. Doing his own ironing.

6. Bringing me to jazz concerts and such like, to further my cultural education.

List of Bad things about Garv

1. Bringing me to jazz concerte and such like, to further my cultural education.

2. Loving football and being proud of me because he thinks I understand the offside rule. (I don’t.)

3. The electric blanket business, obviously.

4. And the way he was about my hair.

5. Not talking to me about Thinge. (I know all men refuse to talk about Thinge and shrug, ‘Ah sure, we’re grand’ when a nine-year marriage le falling apart, but it still distressed me.)

6. Sleeping with other women.

But my childish list of facts made no impact on my gloom. I still felt spooked – heavy with sorrow and a hope-flattening sense that I was a failure. That I was a mess and my life was a mess. And my future was a mess. And my past was definitely a mess.

Realizing that the day was shaping up to be a write-off, I took a towel out to the backyard for a spot of sunbathing, and within seconds I was mercifully asleep.

I awoke choking on a jet of water – the sprinklers had started – and came back inside to find Emily still on the phone. She was getting directions from someone. ‘Oh, I know it. The block where all the plastic surgeons are? Right.’ She hung up. ‘Coming out for dinner tonight?’

‘Who’ll be there?’ I tried to sound casual.

‘Lara, Nadia, Justin, Desiree, you and me.’

No Troy?

‘Troy’s got to work,’ she said kindly, sensing my unasked question. ‘He’s meeting some producer guy. And you know what he’s like about his work.’

I didn’t, but anyway. I was disappointed – and still no word from Mort Russell. Although, while I’d been asleep, Helen had phoned. I was touched by her concern. Until I discovered there wasn’t any. All she’d done was try to discuss sexy surfers with Emily. ‘And she wouldn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know any!’

As we drove through the dazzling evening to Beverly Hills, we came upon a little commotion outside a mini-mall. Two boys were being arrested. They had their hands on the roof of the black and white and one officer was frisking them, while another swung handcuffs, ready for use. I’d never before seen someone being arrested. It gave me a little living-on-the-edge thrill, of which I was immediately ashamed.

The restaurant was mostly outdoors, the tables beneath a pretty green and white striped awning, separated from the street by a white trellis. Nadia and Lara were already waiting at our street-side table. As Emily and I wove through the tables to get to them, I felt there was something slightly odd about the place, but I couldn’t put my finger on it until Justin arrived, Desiree trotting by his side.

‘Thanks a lot, guys.’ Thin-lipped and high-pitched, Justin chided Lara and Nadia. ‘You invite me to a dyke restaurant. I could get lynched.’

And then I realized what was so strange: the clientele were all women. Justin was literally the only man. Suddenly the open staring, the two winks and the one wide smile I’d received all made sense. And I was beset with anxiety; had I been wrong to wink back? Giddily, Nadia ‘fessed up that coming here had been her idea. ‘I love this place. Isn’t it the greatest?’

‘The greatest,’ Justin muttered, mortified. ‘Let’s eat.’ As he perused the menu, every now and again he flashed an ‘I’m just an expendable fat guy, you have nothing to fear from me’ look about the place, but he couldn’t relax.

We ordered, everyone except me asking for things that either weren’t on the menu or for the menu description to be customized. It seemed to be the LA way to be as awkward as possible in restaurants. Then, just as I was about to tuck into my dinner, my fork froze in my hand as I saw something that didn’t fit with the rest of the world. A woman, her entire head and face swaddled in bandages, was being led along the sidewalk by a young, great-haired babe. As they got closer, we could hear the girl murmuring tenderly, ‘OK, Mom, there’s a step coming up. Two more steps, then down again. OK, here’s the car.’

They stopped at a four-wheel drive parked only a few yards from our table. In silence, we watched the woman stand blind and passive, waiting for the car door to be opened.

‘What happened to her?’ I muttered queasily. ‘She looks like a burns victim.’

Instantly I was fixed with indulgent smiles all round. Even Desiree’s liquid eyes looked kindly and amused.

‘Plastic surgery,’ Lara said, sotto voce. ‘ Looks like she got her whole head lifted.’

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’

But why not? LA was a shrine to beauty and every paper I opened urged me to GET those saddlebags sucked conveniently away, HAVE every hair on my body burnt off with a laser, DEFINE those blurry cheekbones with no-fuss collagen injections. (And who CARES if after six months the collagen slips down to your chin and you look like the ELEPHANT man and you have to have LIPOSUCTION on your COLLAGEN?)