Lilly had decided to come back by sea from the Festival de Cannes – dear reader, this may be a metaphor for the fact that she had been out at sea, since then – so it had taken an awfully long time to get home. Before she left, she had interviewed all sorts of nice people, including the Hungarian actor Stellan Skarsgard, who smelled like a daisy, and an Indian actress Aishwarya Rai. When Lilly said to Mrs. Rai that it must be awfully tiring to do so many interviews, she said, “Yes, it is. But that’s quite alright.” And then she left. What Lilly remembered most from the interview was that Mrs. Rai had such lovely skin. Lilly vowed to use cleanser every day until the next Cannes, in honor of Ash, as she was known. She also got to interview Ash’s husband whose name she couldn’t pronounce. Abhishek Bachchan wore a bright red jacket as bright as his star was in India. Ash and her husband behaved so impeccably that they put the journalists to shame. Two had engaged in a cat fight even almost in their presence. The guru came and went to a premiere in Cannes where everyone thought he was Wong Kar Wai in his shades. And then he accompanied her back across the pond.
When they got back, she found her daddy waiting for her wearing a striped jacket from an English horse race event and a cowboy hat. And so she showed him all around California and then he went home. It was time to get back down to business. She wrote to her Arab newspaper to see if they would like a follow up piece to find out what had happened to the long lost Arab film director last seen at Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.’s house. And then she phoned Mr. Goldwyn, Jr. who invited her to lunch. He asked her to bring her friend who was an important editor. They talked shop for a very long time and Lilly thought it an honor that she got to listen. They talked about a looming strike and who would buy Miramax and what had become of MGM. And then they talked about the Dover Sole and a script writing competition that Mr. Goldwyn, Jr. and his daddy had been organizing for an awfully long time. And then they talked about rights and libraries and their favorite showbiz execs, and it was all as if nothing had ever changed for a million years. MGM was always for sale and someone or other in Tinseltown was always about to strike. And then when her editor friend left, Mr. Goldwyn, Jr. gave Lilly some sound advice: “If you can’t access the stars here then just make it up,” he said. Sit at the beach and piece things together. Lilly told him a big secret. “That is what all foreign reporters do here,” she said. Then she drove back to the guru’s who had left a vacuum cleaner for her to clean with, as she had brought in sand from the beach. It lay all over the floor. And there was a towel to wipe down the outside table where her flowers stood. She wasn’t sure it was quite the welcome she had expected after being wined and dined in Hollywood by very important people but she figured it was all part of the training. As she didn’t know if there would still be newspapers a year from now, she figured she had better do as she was told. Being naughty could wait another day.
