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well-loved, much-used Domestic Goddess cookbook by Sybil Hunter and the one actual possession I’d brought with me from New York, in the beautiful kitchen.
    Every morning, I swam laps in the pool, trying desperately to work off the extra pounds my father so obviously disapproved of. Every afternoon, Brooke and I had cocktails, and my father made up some excuse not to join us.
    I’d enrolled in a week-long bartending class, putting the tuition on a new credit card. I figured, if all else failed, I could be the cool bartender making drinks in a hot club and raking in $500 a night. I could do that. Mixing drinks was fun, and so was bartending school. Everyafternoon, I offered to make my father some of the new drinks I’d learned to prepare. He always said no. Scotch and soda or wine were all he would drink.
    Still, I’d found a kind of equilibrium, if not a fragile peace, as I adjusted to L.A. and my father’s house.
    But this weekend … oh no. This weekend had been bad. I’d really screwed up, and I had the headache to prove it.
    I was going to stay home on Friday night. I really was. I hadn’t slept much the night before because I’d been anxious about why Larry Todd hadn’t called me back. I kept making up excuses for him. He was traveling. He was in back-to-back meetings. He was trying to find the perfect position for me before he called. And I kept wondering whether I should call again. I didn’t want to seem obnoxious or needy, but what if my message had been lost?
    Just as I was thinking of crawling into bed to watch bad TV, or maybe try to sleep, Brooke called. She was in a club and I could barely hear her, except for the part when she yelled, “You have to come! Great prospects! Roxbury!”
    Although I was dead tired and stressed, I had a hard time saying no to Brooke. To me, she represented the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. She’d once dated one of the band members in Guns N’ Roses, and she seemed to know everybody in town. Brooke was the beginning of my journey, the key to my father’s heart, and my insider secret to Hollywood’s potential.
    I had an even harder time saying no to the fantasy of a potential soul mate. She knew she could get me with the lure of “great prospects.” I sighed.
    “How do I get down there?” I yelled back, even though the house was quiet and I was the only one there. I didn’t know where my father was.
    “Take the Mercedes!” she yelled back at me through the phone, club music thumping in the background. “The keys are on the hook!”
    My father has always had a Mercedes, and he kept his current vintage convertible sitting, protected, in the garage. I never saw him driveit, although it was the only extra car they had. Drive that car down Hollywood Boulevard? Don’t mind if I do. But if I was going to the Roxbury, I was going to have to look hot or I wouldn’t get in. I dragged myself off the couch and into my room, and looked in the mirror. Hot rollers, lip gloss, red dress, my highest heels. Maybe that would do the trick.
    As I dressed and worked on my hair, I thought about the so-called great prospects that might be at the club. Would I connect with the perfect guy? Would he be hot, rich, successful, maybe even famous? I knew Brooke wouldn’t steer me toward someone ugly or destitute—you can’t even get into the Roxbury if you’re ugly or destitute. But would she be able to help me find the one ? I knew he was out there somewhere. And I was on my way to find him—in a vintage Mercedes convertible.
    Feeling flush with sex and power, I stepped into the club, which pulsed with blue light and a thumping bass. The chick DJ high up in the booth over the dance floor looked like she’d just finished her shoot for Penthouse , and the dance floor was crowded with cleavage and high heels, and guys dressed in fitted shirts that showed their chests and weight-lifter arms.
    I looked around, hoping to see Brooke, but the room was so crowded, I couldn’t see anyone