“A college student—nerdy type, said he went to Caltech, but he was heading to the U. because he had a date with a girl there and that was really close to Bel Air. He had to tell us that, because we had no idea—I don’t think either of us had ever been west of La Cienega, unless we were taking the bus straight to the beach, or, in my case, when I visited my father at the Navy base in Point Mugu. The nerd was a nice guy. Shy, probably picked us up on impulse and regretted it. Because we immediately started hassling him—turning the radio to our station, blasting it loud, teasing him—flirting. Asking him if he wanted to come to the party with us instead of some lame date with a college girl. Being real obnoxious. He got embarrassed, and that cracked us up. Also, we were hoping he might take us all the way to the party, because we still had no idea where it was. So we kept nagging him, but he said no, he liked his girlfriend. I remember Janie getting really rude about that, saying something to the effect of ‘She’s probably colder than ice. I can give you something she can’t.’ That was the wrong thing to say. He stopped the car at Stone Canyon and Sunset and ordered us out. I started to, but Janie held me back, started ragging on him to take us to the house, and that just made him angrier. Janie was like that, she could be extremely pushy, had a real talent for getting on people’s nerves. The nerd started shouting and shoved Janie and we got out and she flipped him off as he drove away.”

“Stone Canyon and Sunset. Close to the party.”

“We didn’t know that. We were ignorant. And drunk. Back on the boulevard, we’d also boosted a bottle of Southern Comfort, had guzzled our way through most of it. I hated the stuff, to me it tasted like peaches and cough syrup. But Janie loved it. It was her favorite high. She said it was what Janis Joplin had been into and she was into Janis Joplin because she had some idea that her mom had been like Janis Joplin, back in the hippie days. That she’d named Janie after Janis.”

“Another fantasy,” I said.

She nodded. “She needed them. Her mom abandoned her—ran away with a black guy when Janie was five or six, and Janie never saw her again. Maybe that’s another reason Janie always made racist comments.”

Milo said, “What’d the two of you do after you were dropped off?”