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into her briefcase, grabbed her suit coat off the back of her chair, and resolutely strode out into the hallway, past Linda’s desk.
    “I’m going home. And I will be unavailable for the rest of the afternoon if, by some miracle, a certain person should happen to show up.” The haughty way she said this left Linda no doubt as to who the “certain person” might be. “For anyone else, I can of course be reached on my cell phone or at home.”
    Linda panicked. She leaned over her desk and shouted frantically to Taylor, who was already halfway down the hall by that point. “But what am I supposed to say if Jason Andrews shows up?”
    Ten responses inappropriate for the workplace came to Taylor’s mind.
    Not bothering to stop, she called back a simple message for Linda to relay.
    “Tell him I hope his movie bombs.”

    SATURDAY AND SUNDAY thankfully passed by without further needless (and highly inconsiderate) delays. Taylor used the weekend hours to get back on track in terms of her pretrial schedule. Derek had informed her that the judge had continued one of their motions—the one most critical to their case—until Monday morning. Although neither mentioned it, both of them were quietly relieved that she would be able to cover the motion after all. Derek, a little on the shy side, had always been slightly uncomfortable with the subject matter.
    Come Sunday afternoon, having billed almost fifteen hours over the weekend, Taylor decided to reward herself with some shopping at Fred Segal. As she left the mall a mere hour after getting there, she tried to figure out why she felt good about dropping almost $500 on one pair of jeans and a small black velvet clutch. Then it hit her: she had just had her first “L.A.” experience.
    As Taylor cut across the parking lot, she reached into her purse for her cell phone. She knew Valerie would be proud of this moment.
    “Guess where I am right now,” she said as soon as Val answered on the other end of the line. She didn’t bother with an introduction, as Val had carefully selected a different ring tone for each of her friends. For Taylor, she had chosen the Darth Vader theme music.
    Val quickly threw out a few guesses. “Lying on the beach. Hiking in the mountains. Matt Damon’s bedroom.”
    Taylor juggled her phone as she took her Chanel sunglasses out of her purse and slid them on. It had been warm and sunny every day since she’d come to Los Angeles. She’d have to concede the fact that the city certainly had the advantage of weather over Chicago, which could be a miserable fifty degrees and rainy even in June.
    “If I was in Matt Damon’s bedroom, I’d hardly be taking a telephone break,” Taylor joked.
    “I thought you said you liked him for his intellect.”
    “I caught a few minutes of The Bourne Ultimatum on cable the other night. My feelings for Matt now extend far beyond his Harvard education. Like how he looks in a fitted T-shirt.”
    “Good. Because I used to think your attraction was pretty shallow.”
    They both laughed. Their conversation quickly turned to Val and Kate’s visit, which was only a few weeks away. As Taylor listened to Val rattle on about hanging poolside at Chateau Marmont and dinners at Les Deux, she kept silent about the whole Jason Andrews debacle. She had decided, for now at least, not to mention it to anyone back home. At this point, she figured, it was a nonstarter of a story. What could she say, really? I was supposed to work with Jason Andrews, but he never showed up? Wow, that was exciting. Plus, she didn’t particularly feel the need to share with everyone the fact that she’d been blown off by the man.
    He may have been Jason Andrews, but she still had her pride.

    ON MONDAY MORNING, Taylor rushed around her apartment getting ready for work. She had the television on in her living room, hoping to catch the traffic report. Although from what she had observed in the past couple of weeks, this was a meaningless exercise.