“I’m gonna make some herb tea. You want some?” She got up; I followed her into the kitchen. She put some water into an old coffeepot and picked a chipped cup with yellow ducks on it from the sink. “Sure you don’t want some? I got chamomile, raspberry and orange sunset.”

I shook my head and repeated, “You don’t know where I can find her boyfriend?”

“Look, I’ve only known her four months myself. But I knew her real good.” She gave me a smug glance that said I’m a much better friend than you are. “I was looking for a place to stay after I split from Derek. He was the bass player for Bad Pussy, right? Man, he turned out to be a freaky geek, always trying to hit me.”

“Nope, don’t know him. Sorry.”

She lit the burner of the stove with a match. While she was waiting for the water to boil, she took a massive quantity of vitamins, washing them down with Hawaiian Punch that had been left out on the counter. “I liked Cathy right away. She was real intense, know what I mean? She knew Shakespeare. All that shit. I met her at the laundromat.”

“Here in Hollywood?”

She nodded as she poured the sizzling-hot water into the cup and stuck a tea bag in it. “Cathy’s got it covered. She said she’s not going to end up just a bit player. She even got some new head shots for her portfolio.” The woman went into the living room, and I ambled after her.

“At the workshop Steve said we should all get new photos. Can I see Cathy’s?”

She put the cup down on the dinette table next to the dirty glasses. “I don’t know....”

“Come on, what’s the harm? I just want to see how they turned out.”

I followed the woman into the bedroom. There was a queen-sized bed and mattress thrown on the floor. Piles of clothing were strewn about. The closet looked like it had exploded. The window was covered with tinfoil to make the room dark. She bent over to pick up a cardboard box under the window. She had a rose tattoo on her butt.

“That’s JoJo,” she said about the lump in the bed. “He’s the bass player in Moral Standards.”

“I’ve heard of him,” I mumbled, trailing her back into the living room.

“This is Cathy’s work stuff. We didn’t get a desk yet. We’re still redecorating.” She placed the box on a couch with a broken leg that was propped up with a stack of bricks.

The first thing in the box was the same photo I had seen in the display window at Steven Morris’s workshop. “These look great, but when did she get them? She told me she was hurting for money and she was going to have to wait.”