"What difference does it make?" she said. "It's all a f.u.c.king c.r.a.p shoot anyway." She motioned the waitress for another Red Hook.

Kevin, who was reading the situation exactly like I was, asked Rodney and Kyle, "So where do you guys live?"

"Silver Lake-ish," Rodney said.

"North Ridge," Kyle said.

"I used to think that," Gina said, interrupting, already drunk - she'd clearly started drinking at the club. "That it made a difference. That the system f.u.c.king worked. That talent matters. That if you worked hard enough, struggled long enough, you'd eventually get your break. But now I know it's just f.u.c.king random chance. s.h.i.tty comics make it big all the time, and great comics get screwed."

Stupidly, before I could stop myself, I said to Gina, "But you really were good tonight. It's only a matter of time until someone sees that."

Everyone else at the table sort of grunted and half-nodded in agreement.

"What the h.e.l.l do you know about it?" Gina said. She was glaring at me now, a lot like how she'd stared at the audience from the stage. Her nostrils flared. Suddenly I realized that Gina's comedian voice, her stage persona, was even more authentic than I knew: she really was an angry lesbian. It's just that she was mostly angry about her career.

And now she was angry with me. It was one thing to have her stare out at the whole audience, especially when you knew it was part of her act. That was funny. It was something else to have that glare directed right at you. This wasn't funny at all. It was all I could do not to crawl under the table with the sticky floor and loose French fries.

It wasn't just me! I wanted to say. Everyone else grunted in agreement!

"Stop projecting," Regina said, calm and collected. "You're feeling p.i.s.sy that Eddy didn't show tonight, but why take it out on the rest of us?"

Now Gina turned her Medusa-like gaze on her girlfriend. "Don't you psychoa.n.a.lyze me! I don't need your f.u.c.king a.n.a.lysis!"

"I'm not psychoa.n.a.lyzing you," Regina said. "I'm managing you. Because that's what I always do - I come along behind, cleaning up your messes." She mumbled the rest under her breath: "Sort of like the guy who cleans up after the horse in a parade."

It was funny, but no one laughed. I think we were all too scared to inhale. Even Gold Bond Ultimate Comfort Body Powder wasn't keeping me from sweating now, profusely.

"Thanks for the f.u.c.king sympathy!" Gina said to Regina. "It's just so f.u.c.king easy for you to sit there with your little judgments, and your snide comments. You have no idea what it's like up there, how hard it is!"

"Yes, yes, we already covered all this," Regina said. "You're such a victim. You're so incredibly brilliant, and the world just refuses to recognize your genius. Delusions of grandeur much?" Now she motioned to the waitress. "I changed my mind. Can I get a Hennessey?"

Gina breathed in, like a dragon inhaling before unleashing a column of fire through its mouth. Kevin, Rodney, Kyle, and I were all looking everywhere except at the two of them. I noticed a small splotch of dried mustard on the wall, yellow and cracked.

What Gina and Regina were doing wasn't gentle teasing, like what Kevin and I did. It was all-out warfare. Somehow I felt responsible. I mean, yes, this was mostly about Gina and Regina, about some weird dynamic they had - some oil and water clash between emotion and logic, and the two of them driving each other crazy. But I'd started this conflict with those stupid questions of mine. Mostly, I just wanted to slither out of that restaurant on my stomach, the way the Grinch crawls around Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Unfortunately, we'd already ordered and couldn't leave until our food came.

So I interrupted Gina before she could talk. "I have no idea what I'm talking about!" I said quickly. "I mean, I haven't even been in this town two months. What do I know?" I laughed. "G.o.d, I'm sure you're right. It's probably all random chance."

I was faking it again, and anyone who was listening could totally hear the insincerity in my voice. But Regina at least saw how uncomfortable they were making us, and maybe even Gina got the hint. The fire temporarily dimmed in her eyes, and the waitress returned with Regina's drink.

I'd thrown myself on the sword, and the tension was momentarily released.

The six of us kept on talking, with Kevin and me trying to keep the topic on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with comedy or even entertainment in general. Gina and Regina sniped, and Gina sulked and stewed, but we managed to make it through the meal without it completely descending into a scene from some depressing HBO sitcom.

At one point, though, I pulled out my phone and sent Kevin a text from under the table: Promise me we'll NEVER EVER EVER be like Gina and Regina!!!!!

Finally, the waitress came and asked the table, "So did you guys leave room for dessert?"

Kevin and I both said, at exactly the same time, "No, we're ready for the check!"

After dinner, Kevin and I said our quick goodbyes, then we went for a walk. It was late - almost midnight - but there was still plenty of life on the Third Avenue Promenade, which is this outdoor shopping mall in downtown Santa Monica. The street's closed off to car traffic, and there are shops and fountains and restaurants and sidewalk cafes and buskers. It's mostly a lot of chains - the Gap, Forever 21, Johnny Rockets - but it's still pretty cool.

"Well, that was unbelievably awkward," Kevin said, meaning dinner with Gina and Regina.

"No kidding," I said.

It had been weird, but now that it was over, I was back to feeling pretty good. It was partly the development meeting at Mr. Brander's house earlier in the week (in which I had ruled). It was also the idea that I'd written something that people were actually responding to - proof that I had found my own voice, that I really did have something to say to the world, something the world wanted to hear.

Oh, and all those movies about Hollywood, about how people supposedly had to choose between success and their soul? They didn't seem to be true at all.

But it was more than that too. I looked around us at the lights and the bustle of people, even this late at night. There was a woman in a dress that could only be described as "s.e.xy apiarist" (including a netted hood-like feature). It wasn't a costume or anything - it looked like she was just out on the town. Another guy was wearing his Nehru jacket inside-out, and I had no idea if he was being ironic, or if maybe he'd spilled something on himself at dinner.

It was funny. Back in Seattle, I couldn't have cared less about fashion, about haircuts and clothing. I was barely even aware of it (as Otto had pointed out). But now I was: for the first time in my life, I was cognizant of shoes. Kevin and I were living in Los Angeles, the cultural center of the whole country, the place where trends began. Two years from now, the rest of the country would be imitating the city around me, their shoes and haircuts and clothing - from Daniel's stupid pulled-out pockets to maybe even "s.e.xy apiarist" (who the h.e.l.l knows?).

I could make a difference too. That's why it excited me, being in the center of all this. I wasn't going to make my mark on the fashion world (not by a long shot), but maybe I could change the culture when it came to my screenplays - when it came to my ideas.

I was twenty-four years old, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an adult. Like I mattered.

"Oh! See that?" I said, pointing to a crpe place on one of the street corners on the Third Street Promenade. "That used be to the record store where Molly Ringwald meets Andrew McCarthy in Pretty in Pink."

"Ah," Kevin said.

"You don't sound very impressed."

"Well, I mean, Pretty in Pink."

"Yeah, Blane was no Jake Ryan, was he?" Blane was Molly Ringwald's love interest in Pretty in Pink, and he was incredibly boring. Jack Ryan was Molly Ringwald's love interest in 16 Candles, and he was incredibly boring too, but also very, very hot. "Besides," I went on, "Duckie was so obviously gay, but the movie didn't have the guts to go there."

"I've always been more of a Breakfast Club kind of guy," Kevin said.

"Oh, me too!" I said. I stopped and did my best Ally-Sheedy-in-The-Breakfast-Club impression. "'When you grow up, your heart dies.'"

"'We're all pretty bizarre,'" Kevin said, quoting Emilio Estevez. "'Some of us are just better at hiding it.'"

Together, we laughed. But Kevin wasn't laughing as much as I was - it was more of a loose smile.

"What is it?" I said.

"It's all good," he said. "Hey, you wanna split a bag of kettle corn?"

Santa Monica is located near the beach, so we eventually made our way over to Palisades Park, which is this walkway at the top of a bluff looking out over the water. From there, you can see the Pacific Ocean, and also down to the Santa Monica Pier, which is one of those old-fashioned amus.e.m.e.nt parks with rides and carnival games and food stands that sells hot dogs and cotton candy.

The night was warm, but the breeze off the water was cool and soothing. It smelled like the ocean, and the eucalyptus trees in the park, and popcorn from the pier.

It was incredibly romantic, and Kevin and I had said before that we were going to have a romantic night out.

So why didn't it feel romantic? Was the romance really dead in our relationship? I'd thought that had been a joke.

"That's where they filmed a bunch of movies," I said, prattling on, pointing down to the pier. "Forrest Gump, The Sting, Ruthless People."

Kevin didn't say anything.

"Hannah Montana: The Movie," I said.

He looked at me and smiled. "Sorry," he said. "I'm being a dud."

"What's up?"

He stepped to the guard railing and looked out over the bluff. "I don't know."

"You're still thinking about dinner," I said, "aren't you?"

"Sort of."

"I wonder what that was all about. I mean, it was Gina, yeah. But it was Regina too - the two of them together. I can't imagine our being like that."

"We wouldn't," Kevin said. "We'd break up if we ever treated each other like that."

This was true. Like I said before, Kevin doesn't put up with s.h.i.t. But it was still weird, hearing him say this out loud.

"Well, there you go," I said.

"But that's not even what's bugging me," he said. "It's not about them, it's about this city. There's something wrong here. You can feel it."

"What do you feel?"

He thought for a second. "The desperation." He turned to look at me. "You know? It's all around us. You can feel it in everyone we meet. You can taste it in the air, like salt off the ocean."

Part of me wanted to go back to quoting John Hughes movies.

Kevin had surprised me. This wasn't what I'd been feeling at all. But I knew what he was saying. It was the dark side to this city, the opposite of everything I'd been thinking before. I thought about all the people I'd met so far - Gina, Regina, Otto, Kyle, Rodney, even Mr. Brander and the other producers. They all desperately wanted something: namely, success in an industry where success was insanely elusive. The entertainment industry really wasn't like other professions. It was so much more compet.i.tive. If you go to med school or law school, you usually end up a doctor or a lawyer. Maybe not everyone, but most people, at least if you finish.

But in the entertainment industry, most people don't make it. There's even a famous statistic among screenwriters: given all the screenplays that get registered every year with the Writers Guild of America, you actually have a better chance of winning the California State Lottery than you do of selling your screenplay to a movie studio. And even if Gina was being a big bulging Hefty bag of negativity at dinner tonight, she wasn't entirely wrong: luck probably did play some role in who ended up making it and who didn't. What was weird was that Kevin hadn't even talked to most of the people I had, and he'd picked up on all this anyway. I guess he was meeting the same kinds of people I was through his job with IMDb, having the same kinds of sad conversations.

"I think the desperation is just part of the city," I said. "Like palm trees and taco trucks. The stakes are high, because this is the big time. People are pursuing their dreams. Make it or break it. Isn't that a good thing? Isn't it like, I don't know...the Olympics?"

"It seems like it broke Gina and Regina," Kevin said.

"That's not the city," I said. "That's them."

"Is it?"

"Kevin, I'm serious. Los Angeles isn't going to break us. You don't need to worry about that."

He didn't say anything, just kept staring out at the water. The neon lights on the rides of the pier down below us flashed on his face - green and red and blue and yellow.

I felt guilty. This move to Los Angeles had been my idea. I was the one pursuing my dream. Kevin was basically here to support me. Now it sounded like he was regretting it.

"Kevin?"

He looked me. "What happens if you don't make it?"

"What?" I didn't like the turn this conversation was taking. I immediately thought of Cole Gordon, how he'd killed himself in our apartment because he hadn't been able to sell a screenplay (or so I'd decided). An image of the paramedics carrying him out of our apartment on a stretcher flashed through my mind.

"What if it doesn't happen for you?" Kevin said.

"But it will. It is. Things are going great."

"I know. And I'm sure everything's going to be great with A Cup of Joe. But what if, for some reason, it isn't? What if - I don't know - Mr. Brander dies tomorrow?"

I hadn't really thought about that. Given Mr. Brander's age, it wasn't impossible. But it still irritated me, Kevin bringing it up like this.

"So I'll make a deal with someone else," I said with a shrug. "I mean, it's a good script - all the other producers said so. It's my fourth screenplay, and it was good enough to get optioned. And Fiona's going to represent me."

"You heard back from her?"

"No, not yet." The truth is, I was still too scared to email her and ask what she thought of my screenplays. "But I'm sure she will. I mean, I just made her fifteen hundred dollars."

"You got the check from Mr. Brander?"

"Well, no, I haven't got that yet either." I'd gone from being irritated with Kevin to outright annoyed by him. "But I'm sure we will, any day now. And, I mean, if I don't, if it all falls through, and if I can't find anyone to take this script, I'll write another one. And another one after that. I mean, I'm talented, right?"

"Gina is talented."

This. .h.i.t me a little bit like a punch. Yes, luck played a part in making it in Hollywood, but only a small part, or at least that's what I told myself. So how did I explain Gina? She was talented - really, really talented. And yet here she was in her forties, still playing s.h.i.tty little comedy clubs. It hadn't happened for her. So maybe she was more right at dinner than I knew.

The voice in our apartment that night had said, Whatever you do, don't- It had felt like a warning, like something bad was about to happen, but what had been the second part of the warning? Don't ever give your up dream? Don't listen to the nay-sayers?

"Why are you doing this?" I said to Kevin. "Are you trying to get me to doubt myself?"

"Oh, G.o.d, no!" Kevin stepped closer, taking me in his arms. "I'm sorry. That was so stupid. I don't know why I said all that. Forgive me, okay?" He was like one of those mimes that adjust their face with a swipe of their hand: freaked out one second, happy the second.

He kissed me. I could taste the sweetness of kettle corn on his breath, and also the bitterness of the coffee he'd had at dinner.

"Forget I said all that," he said. "We came here to have a romantic night, so let's have one, okay?"

I stared at him for a second. Then I changed my face too, all in an instant, like another mime. I nodded and said, "Yeah. Definitely. One romantic night - order up!"

Kevin laughed.

We turned and walked on through the park, holding hands and once again talking about everything except the entertainment industry. From time to time, we stopped and looked out over the water, and eventually we ended up down at the Santa Monica Pier, where we shared a funnel cake and laughed and rode the Pacific Wheel.

It looked romantic, like in a movie, but it wasn't. I could tell Kevin was distracted. He could probably sense something in me too, the fact that I was still annoyed with him for the things he'd said, the seeds of doubt he'd sewn.

Like I said before, sincerity is a lot harder to fake than you think.