Los Angeles by Peter Moore Smith

my temples, trying to cool my boiling brain. This was the truly painful part of the migraine, and the
     fact that I hadn’t passed out was actually a good sign. Things could only get better from here, I told myself.
    There was a clean washcloth hanging on a silver hook, beige with a pattern of white stars, and I used it to wipe some of the
     vomit off the front of my shirt. Then I rinsed it, flicked the light switch off, and sat down on the toilet, putting my head
     in my hands and pressing the cloth over my sensitive eyelids.
    I only wanted to think for a few seconds, to pull myself together.
    I wondered again why Angela had left this neighborhood. This house was pretty nice, presumably the same as the one next door.
     It was a much more pleasant community out here than West Hollywood, too, with the ocean just a few blocks away, and the willow
     trees, and the well-cared-for lawns. If she lived next door, in a place just like this, why leave? Could it have been money?
     I knew Angela made plenty at the Mask. And despite the crappiness of my neighborhood, my apartment building didn’t come at
     the cheapest rent on earth. It occurred to me that maybe Angela didn’t fit in out here. Santa Monica is a daylight world,
     a place for sun worshippers and surfers, extroverts and exhibitionists. Perhaps she felt more at home in the West Hollywood
     world of darkness and paranoia.
    I know I did.
    I thought of the night I had seen her at the Velvet Mask, when she came out of the back room and looked around, that blank
     expression on her face. I didn’t know if I should stand up and wave or just wait until she noticed me. I had decided to wait.
     For some reason, I thought it would be funny for her to discover me there, an ordinary asshole just checking out the girls.
     She had walked around one of the stages, moving in that languid, graceful way I had seen her move at home, until she finally
     noticed me. The blank expression filled in immediately, the same way it had the first time I had seen her. But this time it
     wasn’t sympathy or understanding; this time her smile was instant, unyielding — it was happiness, and it sent waves of emotion
     through my body, something far beyond the desire I had been feeling, a sensation I could hardly identify.
    I noted the bewildered looks on the faces of the Japanese salarymen and the drugstore clerks.
    “Angel,” Angela said, almost squealing, “you really came!” The waitress had brought my eight-dollar Pellegrino’s, and I was
     sitting there with one of the cold bottles between my legs and the other on the table beside me. “I didn’t think you would
     really show.” She plopped down beside me, draping a thin arm over my shoulders.
    “You made me promise,” I said, laughing. “You made me swear to —”
    “I know, but —”
    “— God, so here I am.”
    “— I thought, I thought you were just saying it.”
    “So tell me what’s what and who’s who,” I said. “Show me everything, because this is the only time.”
    Angela leaned against me. It was odd, but I felt the way I had felt as a kid with all those actresses, stylists, and production
     assistants. I felt like
someone.
    Her eyes, I noticed, were green tonight. “Okay,” she said, “that’s Virginia.” She pointed to the dancing girl with flashing
     hair. “That’s Ashley.” She pointed to the emaciated blonde performing for the Japanese businessmen. “The DJ tonight is Alvin,
     but I don’t really ever talk to him.” Over in the corner was a booth with two turntables under a smoky cone of incandescence.
     A white guy in wraparound shades and giant silver headphones stood inside it. “Usually it’s Eddie,” she said. “But he was
     fired for bothering the girls.” The music was harsh, pulsing, guttural, mindless screaming over a senseless beat.
    I had to ask. “What’s he playing?”
    Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t like it?”
    “I’m just curious.”
    “ImmanuelKantLern,” she