“It’s really … lively tonight,” the fat girl tells the bartender.

“Where?” the bartender asks.

The girl looks down, embarrassed for a moment, and pays for her drink and I can barely hear her mumble, “Somewhere,” and she gets up and buttons the top button on her jeans and leaves the bar and sometime, later that night, I realize I’m going to be home for two more weeks.

The psychiatrist I see tells me that he has a new idea for a screenplay. Instead of listening, I sling a leg over the arm of the huge black leather chair in the posh office and light another cigarette, a clove. This guy goes on and on and after every couple of sentences he runs his fingers through his beard and looks at me. I have my sunglasses on and he isn’t too sure if I’m looking at him. I am. The psychiatrist talks some more and soon it really doesn’t matter what he says. He pauses and asks me if I would like to help him write it. I tell him that I’m not interested. The psychiatrist says something like, “You know, Clay, that you and I have been talking about how you should become more active and not so passive and I think it would be a good idea if you would help me write this. At least a treatment.”

I mumble something, blow some of the clove smoke toward him and look out the window.

I park my car in front of Trent’s new apartment, a few blocks from U.C.L.A. in Westwood, the apartment he lives in when he has classes. Rip answers the door since he’s now Trent’s dealer, since Trent hasn’t been able to find Julian.

“Guess who’s here?” Rip asks me.

“Who?”

“Guess.”

“Who?”

“Guess.”

“Tell me, Rip.”

“He’s young, he’s rich, he’s available, he’s Iranian.” Rip pushes me into the living room. “Here’s Atiff.”

Atiff, who I haven’t seen since graduation, is sitting on the couch wearing Gucci loafers and an expensive Italian suit. He’s a freshman at U.S.C. and drives a black 380 SL.

“Ah, Clay, how are you, my friend?” Atiff gets up from the couch and shakes my hand.

“Okay. How about you?”

“Oh, very good, very good. I just got back from Rome.”

Rip walks out of the living room and into Trent’s room and turns MTV on and the sound up.

“Where’s Trent?” I ask, wondering where the bar is.

“In the shower,” Atiff says. “You look great. How was New Hampshire?”

“It was okay,” I say, and smile at Trent’s roommate, Chris, who’s sitting at the table in the kitchen, on the phone. He smiles back and gets up and starts pacing nervously around the kitchen. Atiff is talking about clubs in Venice and how he lost a piece of Louis Vuitton luggage in Florence. He lights a thin Italian cigarette. “I got back two nights ago because I was told classes start soon. I am not sure when they do, but I hear that it is rather soon.” He pauses. “Did you go to Sandra’s party at Spago last night? No? It wasn’t very good.”

I’m nodding and looking over at Chris, who gets off the phone and yells, “Shit.”

“What is wrong?” asks Atiff.

“I had my guitar stolen and I had some Desoxyn hidden in it and I was supposed to give it to someone.”

“What do you do?” I ask Chris.

“Hang around U.C.L.A.”

“Enrolled in classes?”

“I think.”

“He also writes music,” says Trent, standing in the doorway, only wearing jeans, hair wet, toweling it dry. “Play them some of your stuff.”

“Sure,” Chris says, shrugging.

Chris goes to the stereo and puts a tape in it. From where I’m standing I can see the jacuzzi, steaming, blue, lit, and past that a weight set and two bicycles. I sit down on the couch and look through some of the magazines spread across the table; a couple of GQ’s, and a few Rolling Stones and an issue of Playboy and the issue of People with the picture of Blair and her father in it and a copy of Stereo Review and Surfer. Flip through a Playboy then start to space out and stare at the framed poster for the “Hotel California” album; at the hypnotizing blue lettering; at the shadow of the palms.

Trent mentions that someone named Larry didn’t get into film school. The music comes out over the speakers and I try to listen to it, but Trent’s still talking about Larry and Rip is cracking up hysterically in Trent’s room. “I mean his father’s got a f**king series that’s in the f**king top ten. He’s got his own steadicam and U.S.C. still doesn’t let him in? Things are f**ked up.”