The Year Of Living Famously. Laura Caldwell

so you just give them a patient, bleary-eyed smile.

      I was committed to L.A., for Dec’s sake, and yet it was difficult for me to get accustomed to the way the city looked. It was something to do with the constant mix of the ugly and the beautiful: the beige-painted concrete buildings next to the natural loveliness of the palm trees; the homeless man with soiled plastic bags for his pillow, passed out next to a boutique on Third Street Promenade, where girls emerged with their own plastic shopping bags, their eyes lined with kohl, their lips pearly pink.

      But surely, I told myself, this was purely American—the way the ugly and the beautiful converge. New York had its own mix, its own ugliness, ugly people. In Manhattan, for instance, there were the bond traders, brash packs of men talking too loudly and smoking cigars (“Cubans!” they told anyone who would listen). In L.A., the traders were replaced by thin-hipped boys in their twenties, smoking French cigarettes, claiming to be movie producers. Produce, production, producers—these words, I’ve decided, are the most vague in the entire English language.

      The newness of the city bothered me, too. There were no turn-of-the-century monuments, so few prewar buildings. The city lacked, for me, a certain antiquity of character. It seemed a city without a soul. Or maybe I was losing mine.

      Jack Nicholson took me to the bathroom one night.

      Dec had come home early from his Scottish-hen job and, sensing that I was restless, he took me to Shutters to have a drink. It was a New England–style hotel with gray shingles and little white balconies overlooking the ocean. Inside, the lobby bar had overstuffed leather couches and chairs surrounding a crackling fireplace.

      We sat near the fire and ordered a bottle of wine with a big cheese board. We cuddled and talked, and he made me remember why I was there with him, in that city.

      After an hour, I went looking for the ladies’ room and got turned around. I stopped to ask directions from a guy in a sport coat.

      “Let me walk you there,” he said in a mischievous and strangely familiar voice.

      I glanced at him as he led me down a marble hallway. He looked familiar, too. A second later, I realized who he was. I felt like gushing. He was one of Emmie’s favorite actors, and I debated telling him that. I actually considered the dreaded line he’d heard a million times—I really enjoy your work—but I’d been in L.A. just long enough to know better.

      So I did what any good Los Angeleno would do. I pretended not to recognize him.

      chapter 10

      I didn’t know what to expect of Declan’s first movie premiere, but I knew I liked the sound of…the red carpet.

      My gown was a black halter style with the circle pin at the base of a very deep V-neck, which came almost to my waist. Dec looked dashing in the Hugo Boss jacket we’d found for him on sale at Daffy’s. I was a little more dressed up than Dec, but isn’t that usually the case with women? Yet, when we arrived at the theater, I realized I was more dressed up than nearly everyone. Many of the women wore jeans and stilettos. The men were in everything from khakis to tracksuits.