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her family was killed in El Salvador, but I think she’ll fire her sooner or later.” Trentwalks over to the maid and she looks up nervously and smiles. Trent tries some of his Spanish but can’t communicate with her. She just looks at him blankly and tries to nod and smile. Trent turns around and says, “Yep, stoned again.”
    In the kitchen, Trent’s mother is smoking a cigarette and finishing a Tab before she goes off to some fashion show in Century City. Trent takes a pitcher of orange juice out of the refrigerator and pours himself a glass, asks if I want one. I tell him no. He looks at his mother and takes a swallow. No one says anything for something like two minutes, not until Trent’s mother says, “Goodbye.” Trent doesn’t say anything except, “Do you want to go to The Roxy tonight or what, Clay?”
    “I don’t think so,” I tell him, wondering what his mother wanted.
    “Yeah? You don’t.”
    “I think I’m going to Daniel’s party.”
    “Great,” he says.
    I’m about to ask him if he wants to go to a movie, but the phone rings from upstairs and Trent runs out of the kitchen to answer it. I walk back to the living room and stare out the window and watch as Trent’s mother gets into her car and drives off. The maid from El Salvador stands up and slowly walks to the bathroom and I can hear her laughing, then retching and then laughing again. Trent comes into the living room looking pissed off and sits in front of the TV; phone call probably wasn’t too good.
    “I think your maid is sick or something,” I mention.
    Trent looks over at the bathroom and says, “Is she freaking out again?”
    I sit on another couch. “I guess.”
    “Mom’s going to fire her soon enough.” He takes a swallow of the orange juice he’s still holding and stares at MTV.
    I stare out the window.
    “I don’t want to do anything,” he finally says.
    I decide that I don’t want to go to the movies either and I wonder who I should go with to Daniel’s party. Maybe Blair.
    “Wanna watch Alien? ” Trent asks, eyes closed, feet on the glass coffee table. “Now that would freak her out completely.”

I decide to bring Blair to Daniel’s party. I drive to her house in Beverly Hills and she’s wearing a pink hat and a blue miniskirt and yellow gloves and sunglasses and she tells me that at Fred Segal today someone told her that she should be in a band. And she mentions something about starting one, maybe something a little New Wave. I smile and say that sounds like a good idea, not sure if she’s being sarcastic, and I grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
    I hardly know anyone at the party and I finally find Daniel sitting, drunk and alone, by the pool, wearing black jeans and a white Specials T-shirt and sunglasses. I sit down next to him while Blair gets us drinks. I’mnot sure if Daniel’s staring into the water or if he’s just passed out, but he finally speaks up and says, “Hello, Clay.”
    “Hi, Daniel.”
    “Having a good time?” he asks real slowly, turning to face me.
    “I just got here.”
    “Oh.” He pauses for a minute. “Who’d you come with?”
    “Blair. She’s getting a drink.” I take off my sunglasses and look at his bandaged hand. “I think she thinks that we’re lovers.”
    Daniel leaves his sunglasses on and nods and doesn’t smile.
    I put my sunglasses back on.
    Daniel turns back to the pool.
    “Where are your parents?” I ask.
    “My parents?”
    “Yeah.”
    “In Japan, I think.”
    “What are they doing there?”
    “Shopping.”
    I nod.
    “They might be in Aspen,” he says. “Does it make any difference?”
    Blair comes over with a gin and tonic in one hand and a beer in the other and she hands me the beer and lights a cigarette and says, “Don’t talk to that guy in the blue and red Polo shirt. He’s a total narc,” and then, “Are my sunglasses crooked?”
    “No,” I tell her, and she smiles and then puts her hand on my leg and whispers into my