Just up ahead on top of a tall, ugly old building that looks like a Masonic Lodge is an ocean liner. Los Angeles is a very strange place, a city where illuminated ships can float through the night sky, where the entire meaning of life can be reduced to twenty-five words and it is called high concept. We passed the Variety Arts Center, a vaudeville preservation hall and repository of one of the great collections of black-and-white glamour photos of the forties. Or so Lupe told me.

The Blossom was on the south end of Olive.

“Look at that.” She pointed out the open passenger window into the dark at a large, nearly deserted parking lot we were passing. “Know what that is?”

I shook my head.

“The first movie studio in LA. Dude named Selig rented an old mansion that was there and did a movie called In the Sultan’s Power. About 1909. I never seen it. Director got shot to death a few years later right in front of the studio. And what does it look like now? Just another old parking lot.” A warm night breeze blew in, rustling some loose papers lying among files on the back seat. Lupe slumped back into silence and stared moodily out the window.

Parking the car behind the dance club, I hesitated, then started nervously to check my hair again in the rearview mirror. But I caught my hand as it was reaching to turn the mirror toward me. I wasn’t going to let her see that I felt foolish or confused.

I got out of the car and looked at the Blossom. “Can we just walk in? Do they let women in these places?”

Lupe shrugged. “Not really. They don’t want B girls and hookers hanging around trying to crash the scene. You’re going to have to give the guy at the door some money.”

They couldn’t possibly think I’m a hooker, I started to protest to her, but she was already moving and I had to hurry after her as she approached the door to the club. She smiled at the young Korean who was manning the door and squeezed his arm. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he smiled back at her and laughed with surprisingly yellow teeth for a guy so young. Lupe stepped past him into the club. I started to follow her, but he stopped me. I pulled ten dollars out of my purse uncertainly and held it toward him. He shook his head. I extracted two fives and added them to the ten. He took it, flashed me the yellow teeth, and let go of my arm.