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fool around at my place? It’s only a block from here,” I respond immediately.
    Mr. Conroy nearly chokes on his nuts. “Excuse me?”
    “That’s the worst line I’ve heard,” I say, smiling to myself for managing to trick him like that, and taking a sip of my drink. “Of course, it only works at fraternity parties.”
    Tom laughs. Okay, he gets me. I’m starting to like him. “What’s the worst line you’ve ever heard?” I ask him.
    “Are you an actress?” He smiles, and I notice how gorgeous his eyes are.
    “Touché.” I smile back. We clink our glasses together.
    “So what do you do?” Tom asks, eating a few more nuts.
    I hate that question. It’s like the grown-up version of “What’s your major?”
    “I’m an assistant,” I say, not bothering to give out any more information. The last thing I want to do is talk about Drew all night. Oh, who am I kidding, the last thing I want to do is talk about myself all night—but Drew comes in a really close second.
    “Interesting,” he says, although I notice he’s so interested, he asks me nothing more about it. “Are you seeing anyone?”
    “No,” I blurt out a little too quickly. “No,” I say again, reconsidering. Am I seeing Dave? I mean, he hasn’t called. But, then again, if a girl asked him that question tonight, I would hope he would say yes.
    “You don’t sound too sure of yourself,” Tom says.
    “Find me a woman in this bar who is sure of herself, and I’ll get the next round.”
    He points to Dawn, and I end up buying the next round.
    When it comes to finding a man in a bar, remember: the odds are good but the goods are odd.

    The evening had started out on such a promising note. But several hours, and I’ll admit a few bottles of Malbec, later—goddamn it! the guy got annoying.
    As I said, it started out well. He let me know he was thirty-two, had been engaged once, she broke it off. He was from Manhattan, lived in a two-bedroom condo in Brentwood, and wanted to settle down in the next few years. He liked romantic comedies (yeah, I know, they all say that) and loved anything Terry Gilliam had ever done.
    It had sounded so promising—until the red flags started.
    “So, what do you want to do besides be an assistant?” Tom asked, leaning in as though he was going to kiss me.
    “What do you mean?” I asked back. He hadn’t asked me about my job all night.
    He popped a peanut into his mouth. “Come on, this is L.A. No one is what they want to be unless they’re a famous director or something. Are you really a writer?”
    “I’m really an assistant,” I say. I’m not annoyed yet—but I do see the red flag warning me not to go anywhere near the water.
    “Good. Because, and I’ve had a lot to drink here, so I can be honest with you, I can’t be with a writer. I can’t take the competition.”
    Oh, one of those. “You must have gone to an all boys’ school,” I say dryly.
    He doesn’t get the insult. “You know what I hate is when a woman wins an Academy Award, and her husband lies to the press and says he’s proud of her. It’s such bullshit.”
    I choke on my drink. “Excuse me?”
    “Don’t get me wrong—I love women’s lib. I don’t want my wife to be a kept woman. But let’s face it, we men want to be the stars in the relationship. So when a woman wins an Academy Award, there is no man out there who can really feel anything but total jealousy. That’s just how we were biologically built. We need to be the one going out and killing the bull. Know what I mean?”
    I am about to really let him have it when I hear “Last call.” It is one-thirty—which is last call here in California. Saved by the bell. I decide to follow my dad’s advice, which I put in my book later:
    Never start a fight with a drunk. Verbal or otherwise.

    The waiter asks us if we would each like one more drink, and Tom responds with an enthusiastic “Yes,” before I can say “No.”
    I am soooo making sure he picks up the