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At the house in the upper reaches of Bel Air, the producer loses me and I move from room to room and become momentarily disoriented when I see Trent Burroughs and everything gets complicated while I try and sync myself with the party, and then I soberly realize that this is the house where Trent and Blair live. There's no recourse except to have another drink. That I'm not driving is the consolation. Trent is standing with a manager and two agents - all of them g*y, one engaged to a woman, the other two still in the closet. I know Trent's sleeping with the junior agent, blond with fake white teeth, so blandly good-looking he's not even a variation on a type. I realize I have nothing to say to Trent Burroughs as I tell him, "I've been in New York the last four months." New Age Christmas music fails to warm up the chilly vibe. I'm suddenly unsure about everything.

Trent looks at me, nodding, slightly bewildered by my presence. He knows he needs to say something. "So, that's great about The Listeners. It's really happening."Advertisement

"That's what they tell me."

After the nonconversation starts itself we enter into a hazy area about a supposed friend of ours, someone named Kelly.

"Kelly disappeared," Trent says, straining. "Have you heard anything?"

"Oh, yeah?" I ask, and then, "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Kelly Montrose. He disappeared. No one can find him."

Pause. "What happened?"

"He went out to Palm Springs," Trent says. "They think maybe he met someone online."

Trent seems to want a reaction. I stare back.

"That's strange," I murmur disinterestedly. "Or ... is he prone to things like that?"

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Trent looks at me as if something has been confirmed, and then reveals his disgust.

"Prone? No, Clay, he's not prone to things like that."

"Trent - "

Walking away from me, Trent says, "He's probably dead, Clay."

On the veranda overlooking the massive lit pool bordered by palms wrapped in white Christmas lights, I'm smoking a cigarette, contemplating another text from Julian. I look up from the phone when a shadow steps slowly out of the darkness and it's such a dramatic moment - her beauty and my subsequent reaction to it - that I have to laugh, and she just stares at me, smiling, maybe buzzed, maybe wasted. This is the girl who would usually make me afraid, but tonight she doesn't. The look is blond and wholesome, midwestern, distinctly American, not what I'm usually into. She's obviously an actress because girls who look like this aren't out here for any other reason, and she just gazes at me like this is all a dare. So I make it one.

"Do you want to be in a movie?" I ask her, swaying.

The girl keeps smiling. "Why? Do you have a movie you want to put me in?"

Then the smile freezes and quickly fades as she glances behind me.

I turn around and squint at the woman heading toward us, backlit by the room she's leaving.

When I turn back around the girl's walking away, her silhouette enhanced by the glow of the pool, and from somewhere in the darkness there's the sound of a fountain splashing, and then the girl is replaced.

"Who was that?" Blair asks.

"Merry Christmas."

"Why are you here?"

"I was invited."

"No. You weren't."

"My friends brought me."

"Friends? Congratulations."

"Merry Christmas" again is all I can offer.

"Who was that girl you were talking to?"

I turn around and glance back into the darkness. "I don't know."

Blair sighs. "I thought you were in New York."

"I'm back and forth."

She just stares at me.

"Yeah." And then: "You and Trent still happy?"

"Why are you here tonight? Who are you with?"

"I didn't know this was your place," I say, looking away. "I'm sorry."

"Why don't you know these things?"

"Because you haven't talked to me in two years."

Another text from Julian tells me to meet him at the Polo Lounge. Not wanting to go back to the condo, I have the producer drop me off at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Outside, on the patio, next to a heat lamp, Julian sits in a booth, his face glowing while he texts someone. He looks up, smiles. As soon as I slide into the booth a waiter appears and I order a Belvedere on the rocks. When I offer Julian a questioning look he taps a bottle of Fiji water I hadn't noticed before and says, "I'm not drinking." pqdm.com