And then it started.

INT. MAMI’S KITCHEN—DAY

A stylish West Hollywood café at lunchtime. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE munch organic greens and sip Chablis, attended by WAITRESSES in chic black outfits. At a table by the window EMILY SWEET toys with her silverware. She’s a knockout in a tight T-shirt and designer jeans.

An appetizer is half-eaten in front of her. She glances at her watch and sighs, then reaches for her purse.

EMILY

I’ll grab the check when you have a second.

WAITRESS

Let me guess. He didn’t show? EMILY

(a tight smile)

L.A. men.

WAITRESS

Don’t I know. Too much hair gel, not enough heart.

A handsome man with a jaw that would make Superman jealous pushes through the crowd. JAKE MODINE looks relieved to see Emily still there. The waitress gives Emily a surreptitious thumbs-up.

JAKE Em, honey, I’m so sorry— EMILY It’s fine.

(standing)

Try the ceviche.

JAKE Wait—

EMILY

I’m tired of waiting for you, Jake. JAKE

The reason I was late—

EMILY

All this time I’ve been believing your lies, hoping that someday you’d find the guts to take what you want. And what did that get me?

(she shoulders her purse)

Warm ceviche.

JAKE

I was late because I was talking with Tara. Yelling, actually.

(a hand on her shoulder)

It’s over, Em.

(a beat)

I’m leaving your sister. Emily stares. She can’t decide whether to storm away or jump into his arms.

A sexy pop song kicked in, synced to a quick-cut montage: a couple in bed, then a close-up of the man’s fingers tracing the woman’s back. Night traffic on a highway, headlights blurred and grainy. The flashing thighs of a girl in a nightclub. People around a bonfire, the lights of the Santa Monica Pier behind. A sun-blurred mural of Jim Morrison on the side of a building. Manicured nails holding the stem of a martini glass. Finally, three women—blonde, brunette, and redhead—laughing so hard that the redhead collapsed on the sidewalk. As the song wound up, the title Candy Girls glittered across the screen.

Daniel stared. It wasn’t the show, which revealed itself to be a sort of lurid cross between Felicity and Melrose Place, a melodrama about three sisters seeking their fortune in Hollywood, the kind of program that purported to be about learning and loving but was really about fighting and fucking. The writing was solid and the production slick, but that wasn’t what caught him. Nor was it the fantasy of eternal youth on the left coast or the stylish editing or catchy soundtrack.

It was Emily.

The middle sister, brunette with a cream complexion and bright eyes, the kind of girl who appeared in ads for skin cream, the kind you could imagine what she smelled like just from watching her smile.

The episode followed her tempestuous relationship with Jake, a producer who had been dating Emily’s older sister while pining for Emily. Tara, the blond one, was predictably unhappy about being dumped, and by the end of the episode she had managed not only to split Emily and Jake up, but also to steal a role from Emily by seducing the director. The part was a guest appearance on a show Jake produced, leaving Emily sure that he’d been toying with her all along.

In the last minutes, she walked away from Jake. When she reached the safety of her powder-blue VW bug, Emily closed the door and gripped the steering wheel. There were no wild histrionics, just a nicely underplayed swipe at her eyes with the back of her hand, and then she started the car and pulled away, her taillights blending with those of a hundred other aspiring starlets. The credits sprinted past as an announcer teased the upcoming program, something about plastic surgeons. Daniel turned off the TV.

What the hell was that? What did it mean?

Who was Emily Sweet?

She’s a make-believe character, idiot. What it means is that you’re petrified, and right now you’ll cling to anything that distracts you from the facts of your life.

Daniel stood, went to the bathroom. Hung the towel on the rack and stepped into his clothing. He needed to eat anyway. No harm making another stop.

5

He found the drugstore a bit down US-1. The fluorescent lighting was harsh after the deep dark of a Maine evening, but the middleaged woman behind the counter smiled as she sold him the magazine.

“Anywhere to grab a bite around here?”

“Kingfisher’s does a decent burger.”

“Perfect.” He got directions and hopped back in the car. Kingfisher’s turned out to be a diner in a converted house five miles away. Conversation didn’t quite stop when he walked in, but he could feel the eyes on him. He spotted an empty booth by the window, slid onto the Naugahyde, pulled a menu from behind the ketchup. Glenn Frey sang from cheap speakers, advising Daniel to take it easy, not to let the sound of his own wheels drive him crazy.

“What’ll you have?”

“Let me get a giant Coke and two double burgers, please.” “How do you want ’em?”

“Ummm . . .” Good question. “One rare, one well done.” “Shine a flashlight on one, scorch the other. Got it.” She jotted

on the tab. “Anything else?”

“Just a question. Where am I, exactly?”

She gave him a bemused expression. “Outside Cherryfield.” The atlas was taped and torn and out of date, but he didn’t imagine Maine had changed that much. It took him a couple of minutes to find Cherryfield; it was written in the tiniest font on the map. He wasn’t just in Maine, he was practically in Canada. No wonder the beach had been abandoned.

The waitress plunked down a plastic tumbler of soda. The syrupy sweetness tasted wonderful. Daniel pulled out his drugstore purchase, the current issue of TV Guide. There it was. Candy Girls, FX Networks, running at 6 _P.M. eastern. He turned to the next day—same thing. Syndicated, then. A quick scan showed him that it ran five days a week. He flipped back to today—November 4, apparently—and read the description. “Emily (Laney Thayer) and Jake (Robert Cameron) get closer, but Tara (Janine Wilson) has other plans.”

“Here you go, hon.” The waitress set down the dinner plates. The smell hit, rich and fatty, and his stomach didn’t so much growl as roar. He bit into a burger. Amazing. His first meal. Daniel attacked it, throwing it down like he was filling a hole.

“Why do you have two hamburgers?”

A girl of maybe eight stood at the end of the table. Her hair was swept into a ponytail and secured by a pink fuzzy thing, and she wore a T-shirt with a picture of a girl only a little older than her singing into a microphone.

He smiled at her. “What do you mean? I only have one.” “No, you have two.” She pointed to them. “One, t—” Before she could finish, he crammed the rest of the burger in