I stayed at a large hotel not too happily balanced in design between the marble-and-potted-palm décor of the Continental Hotel in Paris and the chrome and glass of an observation car on a newer train.
I unpacked, telephoned friends most of whom were not home. The one whom at last I found in was the one I knew the least, a minor film writer who had married money with great success and had, most altruistically, given up the composition of films for which the remaining movie-goers were no doubt thankful. He devoted his time to assisting his wife in becoming the first hostess of Beverly Hills. She had, I recalled from one earlier meeting, the mind of a child of twelve, but an extremely active child and a good one.
Hastings, such was the writer’s name (her name was either Ethel or Valerie, two names which I always confuse due to a particularly revolutionary course I once took in mnemonics), invited me immediately to a party. I went.
It seemed like spring though it was autumn, and it seemed like an assortment of guests brought together in a ship’s dining room to celebrate New Year’s Eve though, in fact, the gathering was largely made up of close acquaintances. Since I knew almost no one, I had a splendid time.
My hostess, beyond a brilliant greeting, a gold figure all in green with gold dust in her hair, left me alone. Hastings was more solicitous, a nervous gray man with a speech impediment which took the form of a rather charming sign before any word which began with an aspirate.
“We, ah, have a better place coming up. Farther up the mountains with a marvelous view of the, ah, whole city. You will love it, Gene. Ah, haven’t signed a lease yet, but soon.” While we talked he steered me through the crowds of handsome and bizarre people (none of them was from California I discovered: most were Central Europeans or British; those who were not pretended to be one or the other; some sounded like both). I was introduced to magnificent girls exactly like their movie selves but since they all tended to look a great deal alike, the effect was somehow spoiled. But I was a tourist and not critical. I told a striking blonde that she would indeed be excellent in a musical extravaganza based upon The Sea Gull. She thought so too and my host and I moved on to the patio.
Beside a jade-green pool illuminated from beneath (and a little dirty, I noticed, with leaves floating upon the water: the décor was becoming tarnished, the sets had been used too long and needed striking. Hollywood was becoming old without distinction), a few of the quieter guests sat in white iron chairs while paper lanterns glowed prettily on the palms and everywhere, untidily, grew roses, jasmine and lilac: it was a fantastic garden, all out of season and out of place. The guests beside the pool were much the same; except for one: Clarissa.
“You know each other?” Hastings’ voice, faintly pleased, was drowned by our greetings and I was pulled into a chair by Clarissa who had elected to dress herself like an odalisque which made her look, consequently, more indigenous than any of the other guests; this was perhaps her genius: her marvelous adaptiveness.
“We’ll be quite happy here,” said Clarissa, waving our host away. “Go and abuse your other guests.”
Hastings trotted off; those who had been talking to Clarissa talked to themselves and beneath a flickering lantern the lights of Los Angeles, revealed in a wedge between two hills, added the proper note of lunacy, for at the angle from which I viewed those lights they seemed to form a monster Christmas tree, poised crazily in the darkness.