—It’s been a long time since someone called me Livvy, she said.

STRETCHING A HUNDRED YARDS into the sea, the Santa Monica piers were crowded with all manner of amusements. There were tin rifle ranges where brand-new recruits in freshly pressed uniforms tested their aim and rainbow-colored wheels of fortune ten feet in diameter surrounded by Mexican grandmothers who crossed themselves at every spin. Polishing off their flask of gin, and ditching their shoes in the sand, Eve and Olivia sallied forth into the carnival, beckoned by the calls of barkers and the rumble of roller coasters and the shouts of children out past their bedtimes.

It didn’t take long for them to find the fabled purveyor of donuts—standing proudly under a green-and-white canopy. While Eve paid for their order, Olivia watched the freshly fried donuts riding the small conveyor until they dropped into the sugar pan, one by one—and she was suddenly struck by how hungry she was. It was the hunger of a lifetime of half-finished dinners and prematurely tamped out cigarettes. So, when Eve pulled the first of the donuts from the bag, Olivia grabbed it and took a wolfish bite.

Her mother would have been mortified by her behavior, of course. But what a donut it was! A confection of contrasts, of contradictions. First, came the exterior—hot, crusty, coated with a sugar grit. But then this golden brown sensation was followed almost impossibly by the cool smoothness of the jelly. You could tell it wasn’t raspberry or strawberry. And that was the genius of it. It was simply sweet and red. A finer preserve would have ruined the whole sensation.

When Olivia took her second bite, she could feel a glob of the jelly running down her chin.

—That, said Eve, is the first real smile that I’ve seen on you all night!

As the two of them continued down the pier, the autumn wind seemed to be gaining force, pulling carnations from lapels and ribbons from pigtails. Grabbing Eve’s elbow, Olivia pointed as a fine yellow hat blew off the head of a Negress. Her boyfriend gave honorable chase; but when the hat lofted out to sea, he took his own hat from his head and spun it like a discus into the dark.

—The wind, said Eve. It’s incredible.

—The Santa Ana, Olivia explained. It comes every autumn.

—From where?

—From all the talk.

Eve laughed.

—You mean from all the gossip?

—And the auditions and directions and negotiations . . .

From the heart-crossed promises, thought Olivia, and the heartfelt excuses. All those voices rising from Burbank and Beverly Hills like a tide until they breeched some invisible barrier and flooded toward the sea, threatening to tear up the palm trees and personas and plot twists in their wake.

Now it was Eve who reached for Olivia’s elbow.