There was a period early on, when she knew for certain he liked her a lot, that was decidedly unpleasant. Suddenly, everything he did annoyed her, everything he did after liking her.

The Sleeping Giant reigned. Jesse held his head too still. He walked like a burglar. He touched his hair a lot, and he chewed too much gum. It was prissy to be so smart, he wasn’t that smart, why was he that smart? Who was he, anyway? Why had he been available? Who had put him up to this? The Russians? That was it. The Russians had trained Jesse to impersonate a great guy on a date in order to penetrate Hollywood through Suzanne Vale. Well, she could see through their game. Did they think she was a fool? Maybe they should try being apart for a while. Maybe they should see other people. Maybe there was someone better.

All this would go on and on in her head, and she would just clench her jaw until it subsided, trying to keep the withering contempt out of her eyes. She refused to let the Sleeping Giant win. This was a nice guy. He didn’t deserve the horror that hid inside her. She held on, and after a while those feelings began appearing less and less frequently, like reverse labor.

Suzanne asked her mother for some “relationship advice,” to which Doris replied, “For what age?”

“Thank you,” said Suzanne.

She wanted to walk up to couples in the street and find out what their relationships were, as if that would somehow help her determine how hers was going. One Thursday she spent the entire afternoon in the Bodhi Tree bookstore. She discovered two things: you should communicate openly with your partner, and red meat is bad for everything, including relationships.

She also found a book about the trend in world history of westward migration. Suzanne figured that meant that eventually—probably right after she was dead—all the intellectuals would finally get to L.A. She imagined them arriving just in time for her funeral, and talking about how they wished they could have gotten there just a little bit sooner, because they had this incredibly salient point they wanted to make to her so she could carry it into the afterlife. At this point, though, she thought, it appeared that the intellectuals were only in New York, and the people they wanted to fuck were out here in L.A.

“I think we have compatible kissing styles,” Jesse said one afternoon, brushing her hair off her forehead.

“You have a very soft mouth,” she said darkly. “Why is that, do you think?”

“Probably because I chew so much gum,” he said. The Sleeping Giant was strangely silent. “I like everything about you,” Jesse said, stroking her hair. “That probably bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“No,” she said, smiling sweetly, “because I don’t believe you.”