you'll never make even decent money doing it. You're either an idiot or a saint.”
“I vote for idiot,” Sari said with a sigh. “I mean, I told you you could move in with me and I just remembered-”
“What?”
“You're a total slob.”
“See?” Kathleen said. “That's why I need to be rich enough to hire a maid. I’m a slob.”
“No,” Sari said, “that's why you need to find another apartment
“I’m on it,” Kathleen said and took her cell phone out of her purse.
III
Kathleen's phone calls were so productive that she was able to land an appointment with the real estate guy early that very evening. At her request, Sari helped her pick out some “responsible” clothes-a pair of dark brown pants and a cream-colored silk shirt. Kathleen even put her hair up in a twist. “Wow,” Sari said. “You look almost like an adult.”
Sari insisted on driving her back to the twins’ house to pick up her car. Kathleen had intended to leave the car behind as a grand gesture to her newfound independence-the twins’ production company was leasing it for her. But Sari pointed out that Kathleen would have no way of getting around town without it.
“I could drop you off at work every day and use your car the rest of the time,” Kathleen said. “Play chauffeur.”
“No, you couldn't,” Sari said. “We're getting your car.”
They drove up to the house, and Kathleen jumped out of Sari's car and into her own without anyone even coming out of the house. And she was relieved, really-she loved her car. It was a turquoise-colored convertible Mini Cooper that had originally been leased for Kelly-Christa had the same car in red-but the twins had moved on to electric cars at the suggestion of Junie Peterson, who said that people liked their celebrities to be environmentally conscientious. So this one was now Kathleen's baby.
Kathleen was very good at changing her mind when it was expedient to do so, and by the time she had arrived at her destination, she had already decided that there was nothing morally compromising about her using the car, that she had earned it by working for her sisters as long as she had.
She parked the Mini Cooper in front of the address she'd been given, which turned out to belong to one of the high-rise buildings that line Wilshire Boulevard near Westwood Avenue. She entered off the street, through the building's big glass front doors.
Kathleen gave her contact's name-Sam Kaplan-to both the doorman and the security guard at the front desk. The elevator man, who wore a red suit and an air of frosty boredom, took her up to the penthouse floor, gestured toward the only door in the foyer, and closed the elevator doors behind her as soon as she stepped out.
Kathleen wondered if this meant that the penthouse apartment was available, and that Sam Kaplan might offer it to her. It would have to be at a hugely reduced rate, of course. She hadn't saved much while working for the twins-she liked to buy clothes and go out to clubs and bars. So there was no way she could afford a penthouse, except by special arrangement.
The door was slightly open. She knocked on it, didn't hear a response, and went on in, calling “Hello?” as she entered.
The living room was completely-and expensively and beautifully-furnished, and there were current newspapers on the coffee table. Which meant that someone was already living there, so she could forget about moving in.
A man's voice called out, “Come back here, to the kitchen,” in reply to her shouts.
Kathleen followed the sound of his voice out of the living room into a wide hallway hung with enormous framed paintings-all of them very modern and graphic-and then on into the kitchen. The owner of the voice stood at a six-burner Wolf range, his back to her.
“I assume you're Kathleen,” he said with a quick glance over his shoulder. “You're late. Sit down. Are you hungry? I’m making eggs.”
“I’m always hungry,” Kathleen said and sat down at the half-round dark green marble table that was attached to a higher and extremely long island made out of the same marble.
Sam Kaplan-she assumed-went back to his cooking. Kathleen craned her neck to see his face again. He was thin in a wiry way, with thick black hair that was graying at the sides and a hawkish face, pursed in concentration at the moment.
“You want toast?” he said after a little while.
“Why not?” she said. “I’m easy.”
He made no reply to that, just scraped the eggs onto a couple of plates, pulled some bread out of a toaster- oven, and tossed a slice on each plate, then brought the dishes over to the table. “I’ve got beer, if you want it and you're old enough. If not, there's orange juice.” He foraged through a drawer and transferred a couple of forks to the table.
Kathleen said, “Do you need to see some ID? Or will you take my word for it?”
He glanced at her briefly. “You're old enough.”
“Then I’ll take the beer.”
He nodded at that and extracted two beers from one of two Sub-Zero refrigerators. He also got two crystal highball glasses out of a glass-front cabinet.
“I’m fine with the bottle,” Kathleen said. In college, she had left a trail of beer bottles wherever she went. Her roommates once got so sick of her leaving her empties around their dorm room that they built a pyramid of them right in front of her bedroom door when she was asleep, so she had to dismantle it before she could go anywhere. Made her late for class that day.
No, wait-not late-she had just skipped class completely and gone back to bed.
Sam Kaplan said, “In my house, we use glasses.”
“Yes, sir,” Kathleen said, snapping him a salute.
He raised his eyebrows without saying anything, then flicked the beer caps off with a bottle opener, threw them both in the trash, and poured the drinks. The empty beer bottles went into a recycling bin under the sink. He put one filled glass in front of her and one in front of his own plate, then squinted at the whole presentation. “Have I forgotten anything?”
“Looks good to me,” Kathleen said. The plates were large and white without a single scratch, and the flatware was real silver and very heavy.
“Napkins,” he said, raising a finger, and turned around to slip two out of a drawer. They were linen and impeccably starched and ironed.
“It goes in your lap,” he said, handing one to her.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” She spread it across her legs.
“All right,” he said. “Now we eat.” He sat down at the table, and, for a moment, they ate in silence.
Kathleen looked up to find Sam Kaplan studying her face.
“What?” she said. “Do I have egg on my chin?”
He shook his head. His eyebrows were heavy and dark and his eyes were even darker. “So you need a place to stay?”
“Yeah.”
“How much can you afford?”
“Not much. I’m momentarily unemployed.”
“Why?”
“I had a falling-out with my… employers.”
“Whose fault?”
“Mine,” she said with a shrug. “I was what you might call indiscreet.”
“Meaning what?”
She gave him a big smile. “If I told you, then I’d be even more indiscreet, wouldn't I?”
