Imperial Bedrooms - By Bret Easton Ellis Page 0,31

his monitor and taps some keys and Rain's headshot appears on the screen. Jon moves forward, confused. Mark glances at the screen and then, hopelessly, at me.

"Why her?" Jon asks. "She's older than Martina."

"She just seems like who I had in mind when I was writing the script," I say. "I mean, Martina could be a few years older than the others."

"She's very pretty," Jon murmurs. "But I don't really remember who she was."

"I think she's too old," Jason says.

"Why are you so sure about her, Clay?" Mark asks.

"I just can't stop thinking about her in that role and, well, I'd really like to have her read again."

"Has she become a friend of yours?" Mark asks.

I try to ignore the way he asks this. "No, I mean no ... she's, I mean, I know her."

"Who is this girl?" Jon asks. "Who reps her?"

"Burroughs Media," the casting director says reading from the screen. "ICM is listed but I don't think they're repping her anymore. Her last credits are from a year ago." He keeps scanning and then stops. "Actually, she got in as a favor."

"From who?" I'm the one who asks this.

The casting director scrolls down Rain's page. There's a sudden hesitancy in the room before Jason says anything.

"Kelly Montrose," he says. "Kelly made the call."

Everything goes silent. Things become reversed in the long moment before anyone says anything. Through the open window the palm tree waves in the dry wind and the kids are murmuring below by the pool and no one in the room knows what to say and the hangover I had forgotten about returns the moment Kelly Montrose's name is mentioned and I want to sing softly to myself to help submerge the pain - the chest that aches, the blood pulsing in my head - and I have no choice except to pretend I'm only a phantom, neutral and uncaring.

"Well, that's not good," Jon says. "I think that's a bad omen."

"Yeah?" I ask, finding my voice. "You do?"

"I'm superstitious." Jon shrugs. "I believe in bad luck."

"When did this happen?" I ask Jason. "When did Kelly make the call for her?"

"A couple days before he disappeared," Jason says.

Rain calls me after I text her Kelly Montrose?

"Where did you go last night?" I ask. "Why did you leave? Were you with Julian?"

"If this is going to work the way you want it to," she says, "I have to take care of some things first."

"What things?" I'm walking out of the complex, holding the phone tightly against my ear.

"You can't ask me that."

"I talked to them about you." I realize I'm unable to move while I'm on the phone with her. "They're going to see you again."

"Thanks," she says. "But listen, I have to go."

"There's a party tonight," I say. "Here in Culver City."

"I don't think I can make that, Clay."

"Rain - "

"Just give me a day or two and then we can be together, okay?"

"Why didn't you tell me you knew Kelly Montrose?"

"I'll explain everything when I see you," she says. "I have to go."

"Why didn't you tell me Kelly Montrose got you the audition?" I'm whispering this.

"You never asked," she says, and then hangs up.

There's nothing to do but wait for the party and since I have nowhere else to go I stick around Culver City, skipping the afternoon auditions, the fear returning as I walk to a liquor store to buy aspirin, the alcoholic dreaminess of everything, the ghosts swarming everywhere whispering You need to be careful who you let into your life, and I'm pacing the courtyard while I return a couple of calls - leaving messages for the agent, the manager, the movie about the monkeys, Dr. Woolf - and smoking cigarettes by the swimming pool and watching the decorating crew string up lights along the length of a curving beige wall that borders one end of the pool and then I'm introduced to the actor who got the main role of Grant, Kevin Spacey's son, in The Listeners and the boy is unusually handsome even with the beard he has because of the pirate movie he's shooting and screens have been set up and headshots of various young actors are flashing on them and then from somewhere complaints are made and the screens are repositioned and I meet another girl who won another modeling competition and the afternoon becomes grayer, the sky shrouded with clouds, and someone asks me, "What's the matter, dude?"

The party surrounds the pool and paper lanterns are strung along