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but not exactly. Whatever. I’d take what I got, I decided.
    “Wear something tight.” She winked before sashaying to table five.
    The next evening I squeezed myself into the pair of jeans I’d had since high school and the black T-shirt I accidentally bought a couple of sizes too small and was too lazy to exchange. I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror with embarrassment. I looked so…dunno. Generally I look all right, nothing special. Having spent every school break working for my step uncle, the roofer, left me wiry, but not in a showy way. I also had perfectly average features. My hair was getting too long, though. I had worn it short since I was five. My father thought long hair was too “sissy” for boys, so I got the military cut, and it became a habit. Every six weeks or so I shaved my head. But I hadn’t done it since I moved to Venice, and it was growing out in unruly dark curls. I huffed at my reflection and headed out.
    Sandy pulled up in her mint green Beetle, soft top rolled down. She looked me over, grinning.
    “You look good enough to eat,” she said.
    I ignored that. Sandy looked fantastic. Her blonde hair, which she had always worn in a ponytail at work, was down, and she wore a slip of a dress that showed plenty of skin. Her nips poked through the thin fabric. I shifted in the seat and stared out the window instead—my jeans were tight enough as it was. We took the freeway through the city, Sandy chattering the whole way about her time on the HBO set and the people she had met. Eventually we got off the freeway and wound our way into the hills on narrow roads. From the look of things, we were somewhere you couldn’t even buy a doghouse for under a million.
    Our destination turned out to be high on a hill. A couple of very large guys in black at the entrance checked if we were on the list. Sandy was. I was “plus one.” I was moving up in the world.
    The house was grand in a too-much-money-not-enough-taste fashion. The architecture was fine by itself, but it was furnished in an expensively gaudy style. Fortunately the lights were low, and most of the furnishing was obscured by the gaggle of beautiful people. I felt painfully out of place, but Sandy looped her arm around mine and dragged me into the thick of it with the confidence of someone who knew what they wanted out of life.
    She introduced me to some people whose names and faces I forgot the moment they turned their backs. I’m sure it was mutual. I drank something reddish and deceptively sweet, and after only two, my face started to feel numb. I lost Sandy somewhere in the multitude. The last time I saw her, she’d been charming someone not quite so beautiful. He had to be someone important, then.
    I drifted from room to room. Music played. I snagged another drink—different color this time, less sweet, just as potent. I stood at the edge of small groups, pretending I was somehow part of their conversations. I moved on. At the edge of the swimming pool, someone offered me a joint. I accepted it and took deep, greedy drags. I started to relax, convinced that at least I was blending in. As the effects of the weed sneaked up on me, sights and sounds fused into a nebulous whole. The floor to ceiling fish tank beckoned me. All those colorful tropical fish were having their own little party in there. All they were missing were tiny cocktail glasses. I was mesmerized.
    “There you are!” Someone grabbed my elbow and spun me around. It was Sandy. She was with a guy so good-looking, he had to be an actor.
    “I want you to meet my friend, Mark. Mark Stevens, Nathan West.” Sandy introduced us. We shook. I muttered the usual “call me Nate.” Mark smiled and nodded.
    “Mark and I were together in that CSI episode. Remember it?” Sandy twittered on.
    Of course I remembered. Sandy was in it for five seconds total—playing a corpse—but I watched the whole episode in a show of support, and the repeat too.
    “Mark played that