Allie calls me up because she's rich. "I got a residual check," she says.

"What's that?"

"It's what you get every time a commercial runs on TV."

"But you haven't done a commercial in two years."

"A Bud Light commercial ran in Mexico three times."

"You were in a Bud Light commercial? So was I. For volleyball."

Allie says, "I had a speaking part."

Now Allie has money to buy gas, so we drive down Ranchero Boulevard in her red BMW which is not registered with the DMV because registration is expensive.

I pretend Allie is the red-BMW-rich model she used to be, and that makes me feel more beautiful.

"Allie," I say, "maybe you should model again so that I could experience that glamorous life style with you."

Allie says, "After I got sober, I took a new head shot, and my agent wanted bare shoulders, and I wouldn't do it, and then the only auditions he could get me were for lesbian parts." Allie pauses, and then says, "You don't look like a lesbian. You have long nails."

"What?"

"Fingers in vaginas. Fingernails would cut."

We drive to The Ivy, where it's a hundred bucks a person. I wear a dress. Allie wears jeans and a tee shirt. Everyone at the Ivy is wearing jeans and a T-shirt. I realize that this is the uniform of people-in-the-know in L.A. I want to throw out all the clothes I bought that I thought would make me look like I'm from L.A.

"Allie," I say, "Do I look like a geek?"

"You look beautiful," she tells me.

"I feel bad spending money that you had to prance around in a bikini to earn."

"What should we do? Throw it out?"

We order two extra meals to freeze for when Allie is poor again.

Then we go to the hair cut place. We sit next to each other, and I get almost all my hair cut off. Allie tells the hairdresser to do whatever he wants to her. He cuts her hair straight across on the bottom, and when he finishes he tells her he gave her the hair cut of her life and she looks like a model, and he'll give her free haircuts if she'll pass out his cards to other people.

My haircut is $75.