the fans failed to cool the stars whose skeletal bodies tottered by in their flamingo heels, the dazzling women with their fake casual men by their sides. Julian’s dazzling woman, dressed in petals and daisies, was neither skeletal nor indifferent, and he was neither fake nor casual. Z once took her to a bar downtown, Mia said; did he want to go? Julian said no. Too many Moscow mules for him to drive, and she said that was fine; and why would they leave here anyway when they had a lobby like a fantasy, and he said, yeah, that’s the reason.
“Well,” she said, bobbing sideways and affecting a serious tone, which was difficult considering her intoxicated reclining posture. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my favorite movie is?”
“Sure. What’s your favorite movie?”
“When We Were Kings. I don’t know if you know it. It’s about Muhammad Ali’s fight with George Foreman in Zaire.”
“Um, yes, I know it,” Julian said, his amusement rising, his tenderness rising, his lust rising, everything rising along with his heartbreak.
“Ask me what my favorite book is,” she said. “Besides yours, of course.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“The Fight,” she replied. “It’s Norman Mailer’s account of the Zaire match between Ali and Foreman.”
“I’m aware. It’s one of my favorites, too.”
“You don’t say.”
“When did you read it?”
She waved her hand around to some nebulous past. “So what’s a boxer’s favorite part of a joke?”
“I don’t know, what?”
“The punchline!”
And Julian laughed.
“Oh, and I have a life hack for you,” she said, languidly turning her head to him. “Did you know that alcohol is a fire starter?” She let her words linger.
“I knew that, yes,” Julian said, his head already turned to her. He let his words linger.
“Okay, now you tell me a life hack,” she said.
Not quick enough on his feet to come up with something more suggestive, Julian told her to put the little soaps she took from hotel rooms into her dresser drawers at home to keep everything smelling fresh and clean.
“What little soaps?”
“The ones they give you in hotel rooms,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about that,” Mia said. “I’ve never stayed in a hotel room.”
“You’ve never stayed in a hotel room?”
“Never,” she said nonchalantly. “We lived on the ocean. My dad and I worked the boardwalk. Where would we go, to another ocean, to other Luna Parks? After my dad died, my mom and I lived carefully and never went anywhere. She had money, but she was saving it for my Ivy League education—joke on her.”
“But not even later, by yourself? With . . .” Julian circled the air alluding to the guy she’d written to him about.
“The guy who wouldn’t watch my favorite movie with me?” she said. “Nah.”
Julian stared at her, unable to say all he wanted to say. Or anything, really.
Mirabelle waited, saying nothing herself, slurping the last of her icy drink, gazing around the dim lobby. The velvet place was dark, alit with firelight and chandeliers blue, and glimmering with L.A. goldlust.
“Mia, would you like me to ask if the Marmont has any rooms avai—”
“Yes,” she said before he was finished. “I’ve dreamed about seeing one of these rooms ever since Dominick Dunne lived here when he covered the OJ trial in 1994. It sounded so romantic.”
“The OJ trial?”
She giggled. “No, living in this hotel, writing copy on the balcony.”
They meandered to the front desk. The hotel had only one kind of room left—a two-bedroom suite on the top floor overlooking Los Angeles.
“That sounds nice,” Mia whispered. “And two bedrooms is perfect. One for you, one for me.”
The clerk trained his slow-blink stare on Julian.
“Thank you,” she said to Julian as he was paying. “I hope it wasn’t too expensive. It’ll be worth it if your dreams go away.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Tough break, then.”
“Do you have any luggage we can help you with, Mr. Cruz?”
“We have no luggage,” Mia said, holding on to Julian’s arm, swaying from the booze, her breast pressing into his tricep. “Not even a toothbrush.”
“Very well, miss. Have a good evening.”
The suite was spectacular. The stucco balcony, part of it covered by a striped awning, was forty feet long and lined with red-flowering planters. They could see the last of the dying sun streaking violet and pink over a million palm trees. The view took their words away, and for a few minutes they stood in silence. For some reason, even that felt painfully familiar to Julian—standing with her on a balcony, looking out onto the beauty beyond.