We nodded. Not that it made any difference, he fully intended to have his say. ‘These girls in your movie go on the run. How about their pet dog goes with them, stows himself away in the trunk of the car, they discover him when it’s too late to bring him back, but they’re real happy. Then he tips them off when the rangers are coming. Y’know, he wakes ‘em by pulling the bed clothes off with his teeth.’ Suddenly Larry started speaking in falsetto. ‘“What’s up, Chip? Had a bad dream, boy? Go back to sleep, boy. Oh, you won’t? You think the rangers are coming. Wake up, Jessie, wake up!!!”’ He returned to his normal voice. ‘The pet doggie saves the day. Got a problem with that?’ he barked (appropriately enough) at Emily.

Mutely, she shook her head.

‘Terrific’ Suddenly he was all smiles. ‘I look forward to working with you. Your people will be hearing from my people.’

Then, an arm around each of our shoulders, he was walking us back out into the too-bright sunshine.

As Emily lurched to the car, she mumbled, ‘Did I dream that bit?’

‘The bit about the dog saving them from the rangers?’

‘No, the bit where he said my people would be hearing from his people.’

‘He said it all right.’

‘But nobody ever says that in real life.’

‘This isn’t real life.’

It was only when we were clambering into the car that we noticed that neither of us had had to pitch to him.

‘After all our practice,’ I laughed. ‘But it’s probably for the best.’

‘So how d’you think it all went?’ Emily asked, dazedly. ‘Any chance he might buy it and save my life?’

I considered it – there had been no talk of fast-tracking, green-lighting, three thousand screens or major stars. But Mort Russell had done all that and it had amounted to nothing, so who knew? And did Emily really want to rewrite her witty, sexy script as Chip, the Wonder Dog? But before I got to say any of that, Emily had fallen asleep on me. She slept for the entire hellish journey home, so she never knew that I took a wrong turning on the 405 and ended up halfway to Tijuana, passing turn-offs to all sorts of dodgy neighbourhoods before I managed to turn around.

Once back in Santa Monica, there was still no rousing her, so I had to call in on the Goatee Boys and get Ethan to help carry her from the car. Which was almost more trouble than it was worth, because he made me take her arms and insisted that he’d carry her legs, and I knew, just knew it was so he could look up her skirt. Then, when we’d flung her on the bed, he suggested hopefully, ‘We better undress her. Like, in case she can’t breathe and stuff.’

‘No! Thank you, Ethan! Goodbye!’

I wanted to get rid of him fast, because as we’d stumbled into the house I’d noticed there was a message on the machine. It had to be from Troy. And sure enough, when I hit ‘play’ a man’s voice said warmly, ‘Hey, baby…’ I exhaled with relief. But another second in, my reprieve curdled into bitter disappointment. This wasn’t Troy. It was Lou, Emily’s commitmentphobe. But what the hell was he doing ringing her? According to her prediction, she was never going to hear from him again. And here he was, calling her ‘dollface’ and suggesting that they catch a movie tomorrow night.

Abruptly all hope departed, like air from a burst beachball. For the past two days I’d been pumping myself with faith, warding off doubt – and suddenly I had no defence. Why hadn’t Troy called me? It was Monday afternoon, almost evening – I’d last seen him on Saturday morning and he’d said he’d call me. Well, I’d asked him to call me and he hadn’t said no. But I hadn’t heard a word. Why?

At that, my worst suspicions began to multiply like bacteria in a Petri dish. Had I a horrible body? Was I boring? Had I not been good in bed? After all, I’d been out of practice for so long that I could have been atrocious and not known. But he’d seemed to enjoy himself. Then again, Mort Russell had seemed to love Emily’s script and hadn’t. Was this city just one big hall of mirrors, where nothing was what it seemed?

Immobilized by despair, all I could see ahead of me was an empty, burnt-out future. Then I remembered the vile day I’d had: anyone would feel discouraged after it. I tried hard to generate a tiny amount of positivity. Troy was probably just busy. Emily had said he was fanatical about his work. And the night we’d spent together, he’d really seemed to like me. We’d had fun. He would ring me.

Just about convinced, I turned my attention to the telly, and spent several catatonic hours in front of it, too tired even to eat. At around eleven, I heard noises from Emily’s room. She must have finally woken up. When I went in, she was sitting up in bed like a princess.

‘You know what, Maggie?’ And her smile was anxious. ‘I had the strangest dream.’

28

The night’s sleep wrought an astonishing change in me and I came to full of benign thoughts. Troy was going to ring me today, I just knew.

For once, my mood matched the weather. Most mornings since I’d come to Los Angeles I’d woken up with foreboding, shocked on a daily basis at finding my life so altered. But today my expectations were as sunny as the elements.

Emily was in the kitchen cradling a huge, crackly cello-phaned bouquet. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Lou sent them. What’s he up to?’ She was genuinely perplexed. ‘This must be some new mutation of the commitmentphobe syndrome. They knew we were getting resistant to the One Fantastic Night thing, they knew we expected never to hear from them again, so they’ve had to raise their game. He wants us to go out again tonight. Well,’ she laughed, ‘he must think I’m a bigger fool than I look!’

‘You don’t think for a second that he could be sincere?’

A firm shake of the head. ‘I do not. Because if he did mean all that stuff about telling our grandchildren, that would be the worst. To have grandchildren, you first have to have children and you know my views on – Oh, Maggie, I’m sorry!’

‘It’s OK.’

‘I just wasn’t thinking –’

Just then the phone rang and I jumped to answer it, knowing, with the same certainty that one and one equals two, that it would be Troy.

It turned out to be David. Well, I’d never had great psychic powers, that gift had gone to Anna.