Ah well, it’d be good exercise for me. As I filled a bucket with floor cleaner and water, Emily sighed, ‘Thanks. Conchita is coming on Monday. I like to have things nice for her.’

‘Who’s Conchita?’

‘My cleaning lady. Comes every fortnight. Goes mad if the place isn’t clean.’

There was no need to challenge this piece of seeming illogicality. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t clean up before their cleaning person comes. I started mopping my way across the wooden floor and was working up a good satisfying sweat when the front door opened and in came Troy.

‘Right across my nice clean floor,’ I scolded.

‘Whoops! Sorry.’ He laughed softly but there was an urgency about him. ‘Guess what?!’

‘What?’ Emily had appeared.

‘Cameron Myers!’

Cameron Myers was a box-office heart-throb. Young and pretty.

‘What about him?’

‘You know I met with Ricky the producer last night? Well, I’m in his house, and Cameron Myers pays him a visit! Turns out Ricky’s an old buddy of Cameron’s. But this is the best bit. I tell Cameron my name and he says, “Didn’t you direct Free-Falling?”’ A quick aside to me – ‘That was my first movie, Irish. Then he says that it rocked!’

Emily went hysterical and I did my best to match her, but Troy silenced us. ‘It gets better. Today’s his birthday and he’s taken the penthouse in the Freeman to hang with his homies tonight. And this is where it gets real good – he told me to drop by! And bring a date!’

Anticipation began to stack up inside me. I felt my shoulders tense and my whole body move forward…

‘So how about it, Emily? You might get to meet some people. Sorry, Irish,’ he lifted his arms helplessly, ‘I only get to bring one person.’

The sensation of defeat was acute, but in an unexpected reversal of fortune Emily was shaking her head. ‘I can’t come. Got me a date.’

‘A date?’ Troy stared at her, then revealed his perfect teeth in an amazed laugh. ‘Who is this guy, that you’re turning down Cameron Myers’ birthday party for?’

‘No one special, but I’m burnt out from all this movie stuff.’

Troy gave her an enquiring look and Emily turned her mouth down apologetically. ‘Maybe I’m just not tough enough for this town.’

A few seconds of silence, then Troy concluded, ‘Or maybe you just need a day off.’

‘Thanks,’ she said, with weary relief. ‘Why don’t you bring Maggie tonight?’

‘Would you come with me?’ He sounded surprised, even humble – which in turn surprised, then touched me.

‘Yes.’

‘You mean you’d come out with me alone?’

If you’ll do that thing on my leg again. Except, of course, I didn’t say it.

‘Emily hasn’t warned you about me?’ Now he was joking. And flirting. ‘I am baaaaaad news.’

‘I’ll risk it,’ I said, wishing I didn’t sound so prim.

‘Great.’

‘What’s Cameron Myers like?’ I asked.

‘Mmmm,’ Troy said thoughtfully. His eyes roamed across the ceiling while he contemplated. ‘Let’s see. What’s Cameron like?’ The searching silence endured a good time longer, then finally Troy decided. ‘Short! I’ll pick you up at eight.’

As soon as the door had closed behind him, all my hope and fear was distilled to one sentence. ‘I’ve got to get my hair blow-dried.’

But I didn’t know Dino’s address. Besides, I couldn’t afford him.

‘Go down to the corner to Reza,’ Emily said. ‘She’s as mad as a brick, but she’ll do in an emergency.’

I hurried to the end of the street, where a small hairdresser’s was sandwiched between the Starbucks and the surveillance-equipment shop. The salon was empty save for a magnificent, exotic-looking woman of indeterminate age. Brick-mad Reza? Very dyed black hair bouffed to her shoulderblades and many gold chains nestled in her wrinkled but full décolletage. She glared, as if mortally insulted, when I asked if she had a free appointment, then surprised me by saying, ‘Now!’

‘No?’ Had I misheard?

‘No! Now!’

‘Um… great.’

‘I am Reza,’ she declared.

‘Maggie.’

I explained that I wanted my hair to be smooth, full and shiny. Reza bunched her blackberry lips and said, in an interesting accent, ‘You have this bad hair. Fat…?’ With expanding hand gestures she sought the right word.

‘Thick?’ I offered.

‘Coarse!’ she concluded triumphantly. ‘Very bad. The worst kind. Is very hard work to get this bad hair shiny. But I am strong!’

Excellent.

The wash she gave me was so thorough I’m surprised that she didn’t draw blood with her nails. ‘Strong hands,’ she grinned grimly, then proceeded to give me whiplash as she vigorously towel-dried.

As she revved up the dryer – for some reason making me think of a logger about to cut down a tree with a chainsaw – she asked from which godforsaken place did I hail, to end up with such dreadful hair.

‘Ireland.’

‘Iowa?’

‘No, Ireland. A country in Europe.’

‘Europe,’ she said dismissively. She might as well have said, ‘Pah!’

‘And where are you from?’

‘Persia, but we are not bullsheet Persian. We are Bahai. We don’t mess with the bullsheet politics, we love everyone. NO!’ She turned to yell at a girl who had appeared at the door. ‘No appointment today! We are FULL UP!’

Crushed, the girl disappeared, and without missing a beat, Reza turned back to me. ‘We give all peoples their respect. Rich, poor, black, white. Hold your stupid head! You have this BAD hair!’

More than once in the next half-hour my ear lay flat against my shoulder, as she tugged and pulled the coarseness from my hair. Finally, my neck feeling as though it had been pummelled by a baseball bat, Reza switched off the dryer and turned me to the mirror. ‘You see.’ She couldn’t hide her pride. ‘Is good. I am strong!’

And my hair was nice. Except for my fringe. However she’d managed it, it was almost circular, as if it had been wrapped around a sausage roll. But I saw no point in mentioning it, she would have just laid the blame at the feet of my bad, fat hair.