Hollywood Boulevard. Janyce Stefan-Cole

      Iused to think about quitting all the time. Then I quit, and now I still think about it. Maybe the dream slipped away, or got sullied into something no longer recognizable, or came at too high a price— as in be careful what you wish for. So I float between a sleeping dream and real life. At the moment I'm holed up at the hotel swimming pool, a terraced affair set below a pricey Japanese restaurant, with narrow gardens guests can visit via little golden keys that open short red gates to various paths. It's off- season, the unheated pool is glacial; leaves fall in, float a while, and sink. A Shinto gate sits importantly on the pool's south side, like offspring of the restaurant above. The landscaping is uneven: artificial waterfalls, a miniature pomegranate tree, the Shinto gate aligned with a chain- link fence facing nondescript Hollywood back streets below; calm and common all at once.

      The maid cleaning my room is the reason I am lying low, wrapped in layers against the early- spring chill. What does the staff think of me in my suite— with kitchen— so much of the time? The awkwardness of having to get out of the maid's way so my mess can be cleaned, though I like not having to do it myself and have mostly not had to. Her arrival threatens my days. Today the interruption came near noon; tomorrow it could be three p.m. or ten thirty a.m. Maid or no maid, I prefer my mornings. A day that ends badly may have begun with sunlit, wide- awake eyes. It doesn't take much to tip the scales; my mornings do not inform my nights, they never have.

      Too persistently the question arises just what the maid is interrupting. The answer is always a big nothing. I was an actor until I quit, walked away, some said with my best work in front of me, but that sort of talk comes cheap; quitting does not. Can the maid, Zaneda— I think that's what she said her name is— imagine my life as I can so easily imagine hers? What does she think I am doing at the pool, noticing the haphazard landscaping while the sweet Chicana makes my very tossed bed? Does she wonder that there are no signs of sex on the sheets? Her prettiness is homey, eyes behind wire glasses gentle. She treats me as if I am special.

      "El Señor is a director of movies, no?" she asked when I first arrived. She meant my husband, Andre Lucerne.

      " Señor is a director of movies, sí," I replied, cutting the conversation short. El Señor insisted I come, which explains in a nutshell my presence at the Hotel Muse. My having agreed, my being back in Hollywood while he shoots his film, could spell trouble, like a recovering junkie camped out in the poppy fields.

      He said he needed me by his side. That's not how Andre expresses himself. He expresses himself through his work, so I was surprised by his words and, I admit, a little suspicious, and I don't know why I agreed to come.

      I'm not sure how much English Zaneda understands. I try to speak to her in Spanish. I did learn that she has four children, aged sixteen to three. She works long, hard hours, traveling who knows how far to get to the hotel, by car or bus or metro, to support those many kids. Yet her smile is uncompromised by exploitation. I think she said the other day that she'd seen me in a movie once. Possibly I misunderstood. It hasn't been that long since I quit, but Hollywood develops amnesia faster than a corpse forgets to breathe. I don't have to escape my room and Zaneda's enduring reality against my— what?— ethereal existence, but if explanations begin to be required, of how I spend my days and why I stopped acting, then I have no choice but to flee. Imagined conversations can be worse than actual ones.

      I shifted my chaise three times just now. The sun was warm, out of the breeze. I looked up, hearing voices above me in the outdoor grill area that has been vacant each time I've come here before. I closed my eyes to wish the intruders away.

      I dozed a few minutes, and now the voices have gone. It was probably safe to go back to my rooms, but I began rearranging the deck chairs instead. I walked the perimeter and found four wasted beer bottles tossed in a corner next to a blooming bird- of- paradise. Three days ago I walked the Japanese garden paths for the first time. Past stunted sculpted trees and little waterfalls and pools with timid goldfish that skittered away at my approach. Directly below the restaurant is a small pavilion with steep steps leading to it and two red benches under a peaked roof, a spot for viewing sunsets. Precisely below, a matter of inches from the pavilion, I noticed a bubblegum- blue used condom. I examined the red bench where the event had probably taken place. Maybe the couple had been drunk or in a hurry, the condom tossed in the dark. The next day it was still there. The find was solid gold, treasure a secret observer lives for— I've become a kind of hotel spy in my endless spare time. The restaurant has a reputation, so I was surprised to see the prophylactic lying there, but it's off- season and we are in a recession; cleanups might not be what they have