Julian gives me a quick glance tinged with worry, and then it's gone. "Because I started seeing someone else and it was hard for her when I broke it off."

"Who was the girl?"

"She's an actress. She works in this lounge on La Cienega."

"Did Trent know?"

"He doesn't care," Julian says. "Why are you asking that?"

"Because he cared when it was me," I say. "He still hasn't cooled off. I mean, I don't know why." I pause. "Trent has his own...proclivities."

"I think that was something else."

"What's...something else?"

"That Blair still likes you."

When Julian speaks again his voice becomes more urgent. "Look, they have a family. They have children. They've made it work. I should have never gone there but...I never thought I would hurt her." He stops. "I mean, you're the one who always hurt her the most." He pauses before adding, "You're the one who always did."

"Yeah," I say. "This time she didn't talk to me for almost two years."

"My situation was more...I don't know, typical. Something you'd expect," Julian says. "The girl I met was a lot younger and..." This seems to remind Julian of something. "How did the casting sessions go this morning?"

"How did you know there were casting sessions this morning?"

Julian mentions a friend of his who had auditioned.

"Why do you know twenty-one-year-old actors?" I ask.

"Because I live here," he says. "And he's not twenty-one."

We're standing next to Julian's Audi in the parking lot off of Fairfax. I'm going back to Culver City when he vaguely mentions a meeting, and I realize I haven't asked him anything about his life, but then I don't really care one way or another. I'm about to leave when suddenly I ask him, "What the f.u.c.k happened to Rip Millar?"

At the mention of the name Julian's face becomes too calm.

"I don't know," he says. "Why are you asking me?"

"Because he looks freakish," I say. "I actually got scared."

"What are you talking about?"

"He's a horror movie," I say. "I thought he was going to start drooling."

"I heard he inherited a lot of money. His grandparents." Julian pauses. "Real estate investments. He's opening a club in Hollywood..." An annoyance I never detected in Julian announces itself. And then Julian casually tells me a story he heard about this secret cult that encouraged members to starve themselves to death-some kind of torture kick, a how far can you take it? how far can you take it? kind of thing-and that Rip Millar was somehow indirectly connected to them. kind of thing-and that Rip Millar was somehow indirectly connected to them.

"Rip said something about how I'd met a friend of his," I murmur.

"Did he say a name?"

"I didn't ask," I say. "I didn't want to know who it was."

I notice Julian's hand trembling as he runs it lightly over his hair.

"Hey, don't tell Blair we met, okay?" I finally say.

Julian looks at me strangely. "I don't talk to Blair anymore."

I sigh. "Julian, she told me she heard that you and I were at the Polo Lounge the other night."

Julian's expression is so completely innocent that I believe him when he says, "I haven't talked to Blair since June." Julian is totally relaxed. His eyes don't waver. "I haven't had any contact with her for over six months, Clay." He reacts to the expression on my face. "I didn't tell her we were at the Polo Lounge the other night."

On a break and I'm listening to a message Laurie left on my cell phone ("If you're not speaking to me at least tell me why..."), then I delete it midway. The rooms of the casting complex surround a pool, and the rooms are filled with the boys and girls auditioning for the three remaining roles. Sudden interest from a rising young actor whose most recent movie "caused a stir in Toronto" has taken one of the available roles off the table, the part of Kevin s.p.a.cey's son. Only one boy out of the dozens seen yesterday has met the team's approval for the other male role. Jon, the director, keeps complaining about the girls. Since The Listeners The Listeners is set in the mid-eighties, he's having problems with their bodies. "I don't know what's happening," he says. "These girls are disappearing." is set in the mid-eighties, he's having problems with their bodies. "I don't know what's happening," he says. "These girls are disappearing."

"What do you mean?" the producer asks.

"Too thin. The fake t.i.ts don't help."

Jason, the casting director, says, "Well, they do do help. But I get it." help. But I get it."

"I have no idea what you're complaining about," the producer deadpans.

"It all seems so unwholesome," the director says. "And it's not period, Mark."

Talk turns to the actress who pa.s.sed out while walking to her car after her audition yesterday-stress, malnutrition-and then to the young actor under consideration for Jeff Bridges's son. "What about Clifton?" the director says. Jason tries to move the director's focus to other actors, but the director keeps insisting.

Clifton is the one I lobbied hard for to be in Concealed Concealed, the one I took back to Doheny when I found out he was dating an actress I'd been interested in and who showed no interest in me since there was nothing I could offer her. It was made clear what Clifton needed to do if he wanted me to lobby for him. The actor eyed me with a chilled-out glare in the lounge of a restaurant on La Cienega. "I'm not looking for a dude," the actor said. "And even if I was, you're not him." In the jovial language of men I suggested that if he didn't comply I would try to make sure he wouldn't get the part. There was so little hesitancy that the moment became even more unsettling than I had initially made it. The actor simply sighed, "Let's roll." I couldn't tell if the indifference was real or faked. He was planning a career. This was a necessary step. It was just another character he was playing in the bedroom on the fifteenth floor of the Doheny Plaza that night. The BlackBerry on the nightstand that kept flashing, the fake tan and the waxed a.s.shole, the dealer in the Valley who never showed up, the drunken complaints about the Jaguar that had to be sold-the details were so common that it could have been anyone. The same actor came in this morning and smiled briefly at me, did a shaky reading, then improved slightly on the second reading. Whenever I saw him at a party or a restaurant he would casually avoid me, even when I offered my condolences about his girlfriend, that young actress I had wanted, who overdosed on her meds. Since she had a small role in a hit TV show her death was recognized.

"He's twenty-four," Jason complains.

"But he's still really cute." The director mentions the whispers about Clifton's s.e.xual orientation, a supposed gig on a p.o.r.n site years ago, a rumor about a very famous actor and a tryst in Santa Barbara and Clifton's denial in a Rolling Stone Rolling Stone cover story about the very famous actor's new movie which Clifton had a small part in: "We're so into girls it's ridiculous." cover story about the very famous actor's new movie which Clifton had a small part in: "We're so into girls it's ridiculous."

"I've never gotten the gay vibe," the director says. "He butches it up, I guess."

And then we refocus on the girls.

"Who are we seeing next?"

"Rain Turner," someone says.

Curious, I look up from Laurie's messages that I keep deleting and reach for a headshot. Just as I lift it off the table the girl from the veranda at Trent and Blair's house in Bel Air walks in and I have to pretend I'm not trapped. The blue eyes are complementing a light blue V-neck and a navy-blue miniskirt, something a girl would have worn in 1985 when the movie takes place. Immediately introductions are made and the audition happens-bad, strident, one-note, every other line needs to be reread to her by the director-but something else starts happening. Her stare is a gaze, and my gaze back is the beginning of it, and I imagine the future: Why do you hate me? Why do you hate me? I imagine a girl's anguished voice. I imagine a girl's anguished voice. What did I ever do to you? What did I ever do to you? I imagine someone else screaming. I imagine someone else screaming.

During the audition I look at Rain Turner's IMDb page on my laptop. She reads for another role and I realize with a panic that she'll never get a callback. She's simply another girl who has gotten by on her looks-her currency in this world-and it will not be fun to watch her grow old. These simple facts I know so well still make everything seem freshly complicated to me. Suddenly I get a text-Quien es?-and it takes me a while to realize it's from the girl I was flirting with in the Admiral's Club at JFK the afternoon I flew out here. When I look up again I also realize I've never noticed the white Christmas tree standing by the pool or that the Christmas tree is framed within the window next to the wall with the poster for Sunset Boulevard Sunset Boulevard on it. on it.

I'm walking Rain to her car outside the offices on Washington Boulevard.

"So, is this the movie you wanted to put me in?" she asks.

"It could be," I say. "I didn't think you recognized me."

"Of course I recognized you."

"I'm flattered." I pause, and then go for it: "Why didn't you introduce yourself to the producer instead? He was at the party."

She smiles as if amazed, then raises an arm to hit me. I back off playfully.

"Are you usually this brazen before c.o.c.ktail hour?" she asks. "Jeez." She's charming but there's something rehea.r.s.ed about the charm, something brittle. The amazed smile seems innocent only because something else is always lurking along its borders.

"Or maybe you should have introduced yourself to the director?" I joke.

She laughs. "The director has a wife."

"His wife lives in Australia."

"I heard he doesn't like girls," she stage-whispers.

"So I'm that rare thing?" I say.

"What's that?" she asks, trying to hide a brief moment of confusion.

"The respected screenwriter?" I suggest, half ironic.

"You're also a producer on this movie."

"That's right, I am," I say. "Which part do you want more?"

"Martina," Rain says, immediately focused. "I think I'm better for that, right?"

By the time we get to her car I find out that she lives in an apartment on Orange Grove, off of Fountain, and that she has a roommate, which will make everything much easier. The transparency of the deal: she's good at handling it, and I admire that. Everything she says is an ocean of signals. Listening to her I realize that she's a lot of girls, but which one is talking to me? Which one will be driving back to the apartment on Orange Grove in the green BMW with the vanity plate that reads PLENTY PLENTY? Which one would be coming to the bedroom in the Doheny Plaza? We exchange numbers. She puts her sungla.s.ses on.

"So, what do you think my chances are?" she asks.

I say, "I think you're going to be a lot of fun."

"How can you tell that I'm going to be a lot of fun?" she asks. "Some people can't handle me."

"Why don't you let me see for myself," I say.

"How do I know you're not crazy?" she asks. "How do I know you're not the craziest dude I've ever met?"

"You'll have to test me out."

"You have my info," she says. "I'll think about it."

"Rain," I say. "That's not your real name."

"Does it matter?"

"Well, it makes me wonder what else isn't real."

"That's because you're a writer," she says. "That's because you make things up for a living."

"And?"

"And"-she shrugs-"I've noticed that writers tend to worry about things like that."

"About what?"

She gets into the car. "Things like that."

Dr. Woolf has an office in a nondescript building on Sawtelle. He's my age and deals primarily with actors and screenwriters, the three-hundred-dollar sessions partly covered by Writers Guild health insurance. I was referred last summer by an actor whose stalled career hastened a relapse, and this was in July after the breakdown over Meghan Reynolds entered its most intense stage, and during the first session Dr. Woolf stopped me when I started reading aloud the e-mails from Meghan that I saved on my iPhone, and we proceeded into the Reversal of Desire exercise-I want pain, I love pain, pain brings freedom-and one afternoon in August I left midsession in a rage and drove up to Santa Monica Boulevard where I parked in an empty lot and watched a new print of Contempt Contempt at the Nuart, slouched in the front row slowly crushing a box of candy, and when I came out of the theater I stared at a digital billboard overlooking the parking lot, its image: an unmade bed, the sheets rumpled, a naked body half lit in a darkened room, white Helvetica lettering curved against the color of flesh. at the Nuart, slouched in the front row slowly crushing a box of candy, and when I came out of the theater I stared at a digital billboard overlooking the parking lot, its image: an unmade bed, the sheets rumpled, a naked body half lit in a darkened room, white Helvetica lettering curved against the color of flesh.

The nude pics Rain sends me later that afternoon (they come so much sooner than I expected) are either artistic and boring (sepia-toned, shadowy, posed) or sleazy and arousing (on someone's balcony, legs spread, holding a cell phone in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other; standing next to a blue-sheeted mattress in an anonymous bedroom, fingers splayed against her lower abdomen), but every one of them is an invitation, every one of them plays on the idea that exposure can ensure fame. At the c.o.c.ktail party in a suite at the Chateau Marmont-where we needed to sign confidentiality agreements in order to attend-no one says anything nearly as interesting as what Rain's pictures promise. The pictures offer a tension, an otherness, that's lacking in the suite overlooking Sunset. It's the same dialogue ("What's happening with The Listeners?" The Listeners?" "You've been in New York the last four months?" "Why are you so thin?") spoken by the same actors (Pierce, Kim, Alana) and the rooms might as well be empty and my answers to the questions ("Yeah, everyone has been warned about the nudity." "I'm tired of New York." "Different trainer, yoga.") might as well have been made up of distant avian sounds. This is the last party before everyone goes out of town and I'm hearing about the usual spots in Hawaii, Aspen, Palm Springs, various private islands, and the party's being thrown by a British actor staying at the hotel who had played the villain in a comic-book movie I adapted. "Werewolves of London" keeps blaring, a video of a ceremony at the Kodak Theatre keeps replaying itself on TV screens. A horrible story has moved rapidly through town involving a young Hispanic actress whose body was somehow found in a ma.s.s grave across the border, and for some reason this is connected to a drug cartel in Tijuana. Mangled bodies were strewn through the pit. Tongues were cut out. And the story gets more outlandish as it keeps being retold: there's now a barrel of industrial acid containing liquefied human remains. A body is now dumped in front of an elementary school as a warning, a taunting message. I keep checking Rain's pics that were sent through earthlink.net from allamericangirlUSA (subject heading: "You've been in New York the last four months?" "Why are you so thin?") spoken by the same actors (Pierce, Kim, Alana) and the rooms might as well be empty and my answers to the questions ("Yeah, everyone has been warned about the nudity." "I'm tired of New York." "Different trainer, yoga.") might as well have been made up of distant avian sounds. This is the last party before everyone goes out of town and I'm hearing about the usual spots in Hawaii, Aspen, Palm Springs, various private islands, and the party's being thrown by a British actor staying at the hotel who had played the villain in a comic-book movie I adapted. "Werewolves of London" keeps blaring, a video of a ceremony at the Kodak Theatre keeps replaying itself on TV screens. A horrible story has moved rapidly through town involving a young Hispanic actress whose body was somehow found in a ma.s.s grave across the border, and for some reason this is connected to a drug cartel in Tijuana. Mangled bodies were strewn through the pit. Tongues were cut out. And the story gets more outlandish as it keeps being retold: there's now a barrel of industrial acid containing liquefied human remains. A body is now dumped in front of an elementary school as a warning, a taunting message. I keep checking Rain's pics that were sent through earthlink.net from allamericangirlUSA (subject heading: hey crazy, let's get cracking) hey crazy, let's get cracking) when I'm interrupted by a text from a blocked number. when I'm interrupted by a text from a blocked number.

I'm watching you.

I text back: Is this the same person? Is this the same person?

I'm staring at a wall, at one of Cindy Sherman's unt.i.tled film stills, when I feel the phone vibrate in my hand and the question is answered.

No, this is someone different.

A group of guys booked a table at a new lounge on La Cienega and I allow myself to be invited as I'm waiting for a cab and they're waiting for their cars in front of Bar Marmont and I'm staring up at the parapets of the Chateau and thinking about the year I lived there, after I left the El Royale and before I moved into the Doheny Plaza-the AA meetings on Robertson and Melrose, the twenty-dollar margaritas from room service, the teenager I f.u.c.ked on the couch in #44-when I see Rip Millar pull up in a convertible Porsche. I hide back in the shadows as Rip shambles toward the hotel clutching a girl in a baby-doll dress by the wrist, and one of the guys calls out something to him and Rip turns his head and makes a sound that pa.s.ses for laughter and then says in a singsong voice, "Enjoy yourselves." I started with champagne tonight so the lucidity hasn't worn off and the dead zone isn't bleeding forward yet and I'm in someone's Aston Martin and he's bragging about a wh.o.r.e he keeps in his Abbot Kinney condo just east of the Venice ca.n.a.ls and another one in a suite at the Huntley. I murmur the hotel's ad line ("Sea and be seen") as we're pa.s.sing the limousines and gangs of paparazzi outside of Koi and STK, and standing at the curb in front of Reveal I'm staring at the cypress trees looming against the night sky until the two other guys from the party at the Chateau pull up to the valet and I don't really know anyone so everything is comfortable-Wayne's a producer with a deal at Lionsgate that's going nowhere and Kit is an entertainment lawyer at a firm in Beverly Hills. Banks, who drove me, is a creator of reality shows. When I ask Banks why he chose this place, Reveal, he says, "Rip Millar recommended it to me. Rip got us in." group of guys booked a table at a new lounge on La Cienega and I allow myself to be invited as I'm waiting for a cab and they're waiting for their cars in front of Bar Marmont and I'm staring up at the parapets of the Chateau and thinking about the year I lived there, after I left the El Royale and before I moved into the Doheny Plaza-the AA meetings on Robertson and Melrose, the twenty-dollar margaritas from room service, the teenager I f.u.c.ked on the couch in #44-when I see Rip Millar pull up in a convertible Porsche. I hide back in the shadows as Rip shambles toward the hotel clutching a girl in a baby-doll dress by the wrist, and one of the guys calls out something to him and Rip turns his head and makes a sound that pa.s.ses for laughter and then says in a singsong voice, "Enjoy yourselves." I started with champagne tonight so the lucidity hasn't worn off and the dead zone isn't bleeding forward yet and I'm in someone's Aston Martin and he's bragging about a wh.o.r.e he keeps in his Abbot Kinney condo just east of the Venice ca.n.a.ls and another one in a suite at the Huntley. I murmur the hotel's ad line ("Sea and be seen") as we're pa.s.sing the limousines and gangs of paparazzi outside of Koi and STK, and standing at the curb in front of Reveal I'm staring at the cypress trees looming against the night sky until the two other guys from the party at the Chateau pull up to the valet and I don't really know anyone so everything is comfortable-Wayne's a producer with a deal at Lionsgate that's going nowhere and Kit is an entertainment lawyer at a firm in Beverly Hills. Banks, who drove me, is a creator of reality shows. When I ask Banks why he chose this place, Reveal, he says, "Rip Millar recommended it to me. Rip got us in."

Inside, the place is packed, vaguely Peruvian, voices bouncing off the high ceiling, the amplified sounds of a waterfall splashing somewhere compete with the Beck song booming throughout the lounge. As the owner leads us to our table, two paper-thin girls stop me at the entrance to the dining room and remind me about a night at the Mercer in New York last October. I didn't sleep with either one of them-we were just doing c.o.ke and watching The Hills- The Hills-but the guys become enticed. Someone mentions Meghan Reynolds and I tense up.

"It's interesting how much play you get out of this," Kit says, once we're seated at a table in the center of the room. "Isn't it exhausting?"

"That's a question that contains a lot of other questions," I say.

"Have you ever heard the joke about the Polish actress?" Banks asks. "She came to Hollywood and f.u.c.ked the writer." He pauses, glances at me. "I guess it's not so funny."

"Be in my screenplay and I'll make you a star," Kit says in a baby voice.

"Clay obviously doesn't underestimate the desperation factor in this town," Wayne says.

"In a place where there's so much bitterness," Banks says with a light touch, "anything is possible, right?"

"Possible? Hey, I just think it's kind of unbelievable." Kit shrugs. Hey, I just think it's kind of unbelievable." Kit shrugs.

"I think Clay is very pragmatic," Banks says. "What's unbelievable is clinging to a fading belief in love, Kit." He pauses. "But that's just me."

"I mean, you're a nice-looking guy for your age," Kit says to me, "but you don't really have the clout."

Banks considers this. "I guess people find this out sooner or later, right?"

"Yeah, but they're always replaced, Banks," Wayne says. "On a daily basis there's a whole new army of the r.e.t.a.r.ded eager to be defiled."

"You guys don't need to remind me that I'm not really a player...but I can be useful, I guess." I'm sighing, staying loose. "Just always make sure you have some kind of producer credit. Stay friendly with the director. Get to know casting agents. It all helps the cause." I pause for effect before adding, "I'm very patient."