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cup down in front of Leone without a word, but says to Jack, “You didn’t like the
On the Road
?” It’s hardly been touched.
    “No it’s not that,” says Jack. “The fries really are epic.” But he was too busy watching his life go down the toilet to eat. “It’s just that—I guess I’m not all that hungry.”
    “I know what you mean.” Her eyes dart from him to Leone and back again. “You want me to wrap it up for you?”
    He should take it. If Paloma loses the show he’ll wish he had it. “Yeah, thank you. That’d be great.”
    Leone groans. “Oh for god’s sake Jack. Now you’re taking doggy bags?”
    But Jack is watching the waitress and doesn’t hear her. “Leone,” he says. “That girl. Does she remind you of anyone?”
    “Morticia Adams.”
    “No, seriously. Someone you know pretty well. Look at her, Leone. Look closely.” Leone looks. “Picture her with blonde hair. Shorter. Shorter blonde hair.” Leone, frowns, getting as close as she can to looking thoughtful. “And with a little wave,” Jack goes on. “Picture her with wavy, short, blonde hair. And no glasses.”
    “Her nose is bigger,” says Leone at last. Forgetting, perhaps, that Paloma’s nose was once bigger, too. “And her eyes are brown.”
    “OK, her nose is a little bit bigger and her eyes are brown. So she’s not her identical twin separated at birth. But it’s still pretty uncanny. She’s practically her double.”
    “She’s shorter,” says Leone.
    She’s also a hell of a lot more likeable
, thinks Jack.
    In an out-of-the-way weekend cottage that has yet to be opened for the summer, a group of teenagers is having a party. Technically, what they’re having is a beach party, since the beach could be seen only yards away through the living room window if anyone wanted to open the shutters. Their backpacks, coolers, buckets of fried chicken and potato salad and bags of chips cover the coffee table and a great deal of the floor. The cottage is decorated in a style called mid-century modernism, but what it looks like now is mid-century war zone. Things have been spilled on the carpets and chairs; furniture has been broken; lamps knocked over; pictures taken from the walls and replaced by graffiti. It looks as if someone once tried to build a fire on the footstool. There’s a lot of smoke in the room, which doesn’t come from the footstool but from the joints being passed around.
    The cottage belongs to a man named Barry Taub, who isn’t here (and who wouldn’t be very happy if he were). No one at the party knows Mr Taub; they picked his cottage because it was the easiest to break into. Amongst the uninvited guests, sitting in a corner of one of the sofas in shorts that wouldn’t cover a small pumpkin and a red halter top (a colour her mother has always told her does her no favours), is Paloma Rose, teen idol and icon. In one hand Paloma holds a chicken leg so greasy it might as well be made of oil; in the other she holds a can of beer.
    Paloma is feeling pretty happy. Paloma rarely does anything without a script. If it isn’t the script given to her by the director of
Angel in the House
, it’s the script given to her by the director of her life, Leone Minnick. But here she is, just like a regular teenager, hanging out with her friends. Laughing. Dancing. Fooling around. This is more like it. It makes her feel real; feel empowered. And it’s exciting. Paloma has gone to several Hollywood pool parties (with her mother), but the only beach party she’s ever attended was in an episode of
Angel in the House
(Season Three, Episode Two); the one where Faith Cross saves the stranded whale. She has also never eaten chicken from a cardboard bucket before. Never touched a joint. Never before been involved in breaking and entering. It’s certainly a lot more exciting than a make-up call or being yelled at for blowing your lines. Just the sight of the fried chicken and beer would make Leone pale beneath her