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“And what do you know, anyway?” he asked later, when they were having drinks at the outdoor tiki bar in the hotel “It’s only your second movie”

“I’m a fast learner,” she said “How about you?”

He ordered two shots of tequila, then two more There was a pool table in the back of the bar, and they used every excuse to accidentally touch each other The first kiss happened outside the bathroo for her “I was thinking about what you said, about how Hollywood corrupts”

She leaned back against the rough wood of the hut and laughed “You don’t have to take everything I say at face value Sos just to hear how they sound Any crime in that?”

“No,” he said, putting his hand on the wall above her shoulder “But itto knohen you’re serious” Her head was tilted back to look at hih he wasn’t so much taller than she was—maybe six inches But then his ar, and his mouth was so soft They were both startled and broke away, then went back to the bar and had another tequila shot, but the line had been crossed, and soon they were kissing at the bar and putting their hands on each other’s faces and backs until the bartender said, “Get a room”

She laughed “Oh, we have one”

Back in her roo to know each other’s bodies When they took off their shirts and pressed together, the sensation of skin on skin was a revelation They lay together for a while, like high school kids who have all the tio too far too fast; then they took off their pants and pantoar off and waking to the joy of finding the other in the bed, and then the kissing started again, and finally, in the earlylike that first push, and it so overwhelmed them that he stopped, just let his penis be inside her, while they absorbed the ether

She had a seven AM call, but at ten AM, during a break in shooting, he was in her trailer and they were doing it on the small bed in the back with the polyester sheets They did it threedinner with the crew, she sat with her leg over his, and he kept putting his hand under her shirt to touch her waist By then the whole cre, but set ro a h they usually ended when the alow They played house like any other young couple discovering the wonders of companionship, when the mundane was new and even a trip to the supermarket could be an adventure Their anonymous bliss lasted only a short while, however, because then the e

Their relationship was suddenly public They rented a bigger house with a gate in the Hollywood Hills, but they couldn’t keep the outside world fro in, and that started the trouble

Their first fight was over an article in a azine that featured her on the cover In the piece, she was quoted as saying, “I can’t takemovies too seriously In the end, it’s not that different fro dress-up” She caazine on the coffee table and Philip in a foul mood over her quote “Is that what you think about my work?” he said

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you”

“That’s right,” he said, “because everything is about you Did you ever consider the fact that it’sabout?”

“Don’t take yourself so seriously It’s not attractive” But she had, it seeo They continued on for a little longer, then he moved back to New York A miserableIt’s not us It’s Hollywood Why don’t you come to New York?”

She’d been twenty-four then, willing to take on any adventure But that was over twenty years ago, she thought now, staring at her reflection in the ht of the bare bulbs, there was no denying that she no longer looked like that girl Her face had ular and hollow, and no one would enue But she knew a lot er mattered

But did Philip know? Leaning in to the ht when she’d run into hied? Did he still find her attractive?