Dazzled Read Free Page B

really pissed off as she turned away. Great.
    A long couple of hours later, the plane started its descent. The sun was pouring through my window, and I was looking out onto an ocean of concrete with flotillas of aircraft from all around the world. LAX was beyond vast.
    I was feeling a bit spaced out. I never could sleep on planes, so I’d spent most of the night listening to Miles Davis ‘Kind of Blue’ and some other tracks from the Warner years. My iPod was nearly out of juice and I couldn’t remember if I’d packed my charger. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to use it out here. Did I need an adaptor? I hated being without my music. The thought was depressing.
    First I had to get through Security.
    “Passport.”
    I handed over my scruffy, dog-eared passport. It wasn’t my fault it looked like I’d been using it to dig the garden. Nazzer and Paul had dropped it in the Regent’s Canal, and it was just luck that a guy had been fishing nearby. I dried it on a radiator and it had gone a bit wrinkly.
    The security officer was massive and scary-looking. You know, the kind who probably played American football a couple of decades ago. I didn’t want to mess with him – I just had to remember to keep my mouth shut. No stupid jokes. No stupid jokes. No stupid jokes. He ran his eyes over me in a way that made me feel like a Colombian drug smuggler. I prayed he wasn’t going to get out the rubber gloves. Just the way he was eyeing me made me feel guilty of something.
    “Reason for visit.”
    “Uh, well, I might be here for a job, maybe.”
    “Occupation, sir?”
    Sir! “Er, I’m… an actor.”
    I felt like such a fraud saying that, and from the look on his face he could see right through me to the pathetic loser that I was. But finally, after another long gaze, he let me past. Thank God.
    At the exit, I followed the instructions Clare had printed out for me (of course she’d printed them out – she treated me like a child sometimes), and I caught the shuttle bus to downtown LA. It felt so surreal buying a ticket for Hollywood. I couldn’t get my head around it. Ninety minutes later the bus driver was yelling that this was my stop. Maybe he was yelling because I’d fallen asleep. Crap, I hoped I hadn’t been drooling. I wiped my mouth discreetly and hauled my case down onto the pavement.
    The bus dropped me off outside the El Rey Theater and I knew I was slapbang in the middle of the Miracle Mile, what the locals called this most exclusive – and expensive – part of Los Angeles. Yeah, I stood out, and not in a good way.
    It was everything I’d imagined and more. Skyscrapers were fringed by palm trees, and four lanes of traffic swirled past in a blur of noise and fumes. And the people! It was like London on helium, but with more sunshine: chaotic, alive, frenetic, fucking terrifying.
    Bloody hell. I was really here.
    And everyone was staring. Talk about conspicuous: I was dragging a wheeled suitcase down Wilshire Boulevard. I may as well have had a screaming neon sign over my head: Just off the bus! Mug me! Fuck. I’d have been less conspicuous doing a clog dance.
    By the time I’d walked half a mile in the scorching sun, the sweat was running off me and I was pretty certain I must smell like a goat. I’d been wearing the same clothes for 24 hours even before my recent hike. My armpits were wet, my back was soaked and even my crotch was damp – for the wrong reason. Oh joy.
    The receptionist at Weitz’s office seemed to agree. I could swear her finger twitched toward the security buzzer – before I managed to stammer out Rhonda Weitz’s name.
    She left me squirming with embarrassment and preparing for humiliation. I didn’t know if I was supposed to sit, stand, or wait by the lifts. Inspiration hit.
    “Uh, could you tell me where the bathroom is, please?” I choked out.
    She frowned, but without speaking pointed down the corridor with a long, creepy, manicured nail. I slunk off, feeling like a