And this thing was hardly going to be modest: in fact, it looked to be a full-on, balls-to-the-wall Hollywood bash. Again, I was sorely tempted to flee before the fact.

As a rule, any homogeneous affair, whether comprised of dentists or lawyers, masons, longshoremen or politicians, is bound to bore a rank outsider into bleary-eyed distraction, since all of the conversations are certain to be ninety percent work-related. But in my humble opinion few things in this world can be as maddeningly stultifying as several rooms full of yakking entertainment-industry types; because, in addition to the monothematic quality of their patter, there also hangs in the air about them like noxious cigar smoke an overwhelming sense of smug privilege, the belief that whatever they are brewing in their conversational cauldrons is bound to be priceless. As a non-industry schmuck, I’d never quite bought into this attitude---something which, incidentally, had always bothered Holly.

From the street the house looked like a typical modest yet meticulously-landscaped sixties-style one-story suburban rancher. Here though, high up in the rarified air of the Hollywood Hills with its ass hanging out over the bright, panoramic lights of the city, I estimated it must be worth at least one-point-three mil. Which also meant that Holly was paying upwards of six thousand a month rent to reside in such modesty.

Having the income to afford such a sum would have made her easily able to purchase her own house in just about any nice area of the San Fernando Valley. But with Holly, appearances mattered above all else, and though her office was actually located out there in Burbank, she could never tolerate living on the “wrong side of the hill.” I’d found that kind of petty snobbery amusing, especially in light of the fact that at the time she was making those ostentatious proclamations, she was also spending four nights a week on the “wrong side,” at my house in Studio City.

Arriving at the front doorstep, and wanting to make as inconspicuous an entrance as possible, I didn’t knock; but simply opened the door and stepped into the foyer. There I was assaulted by a simmering stew, dissonant and mostly incomprehensible, of a dozen floating conversations, overlaid with a loud accompaniment of the soulless, just-barely-hipper-than-elevator music favored by people with jazz pretense but no actual comprehension.