course by: “Oh yes, of course they
are pretty dreadful, but then they are terribly
rich.” “Have the people who have taken The Larches got money?” “Oh well, then we’d better call.” The third phase was different again: “Well, dear, but are they
amusing?” “Yes, well of course, they are not well off, and nobody knows where they came from, but they are very
very amusing.”
—An Autobiography, Agatha Christie (1894–1977)
CONTENTS
Part I
Jacaranda
The Ocean
True Love
The Sixties
The Apartment
The Innocent Virgin
Max
The Little Black Dress
The Sacramento Apts.
The Barge
Max, Max
Social Direction
Max, Max, Max
April
Bungalow Mornings
The Pier
Empty Barge Blues
The Working Girl (Xeroxing)
The Bamboo Café
Destiny Takes a Hand
$1,200
The Drinking Problem
The Problem With “The Book,” Part 1
The Forty-Seventh Monday
The Problem with “The Book,” Part 2
The Third of July (Unbidden Aside)
Not Going to New York
Meanwhile
The Plot Lumps Up
The Night Was Young
Shelby
The Foolproof Tableau Vivant Meets the Iceberg
Paradise Kisses and Smacks from Hell
Red & White
Shuffle Off to Mexi . . .
La Jolla (Shuffle Off to Mexico)
Whoo, Whoo, Whoo, Whoo, Shuffle Off to Buffa . . .
The Beautiful Friend
The Colonial Inn
Cocaine, Cocaine
Empty Windows
Part II
New York, New York (The Mysterious East Lures the Innocent Virgin)
The Beach Boy Girls
The Mysterious East Versus a Constitutional
The Skeleton Team Olympiad
The Mysterious East Meets an L.A. Orange
Tea for Three
Paying for Lunch
Complicated Woman, Complicated Dream
You’re Actually From That Place?
Devant Elaine’s
La Mer
Après Elaine’s
The Last Night
The Last Dawn
Wini’s Wild Oat
The Godmother
PART I
Jacaranda
Jacaranda’s name was pronounced “Jack-ah-ran-dah,” as in jack-o’-lan-tern, the same rhythm. It’s the name of a Central American flowering tree that grows in Los Angeles,
