“It's not as easy as that. There are a lot of crazy guys down here. The actors are all in love with themselves, although Peace wasn't, but he was more into martial arts and health than acting,” and he himself had said he was thinking of teaching karate instead of taking roles in horror films. He had begun to realize that acting wasn't for him. “Half the guys I meet are heavy into drugs, a lot of them want to go out with starlets and models. Everybody's got an agenda here. And the regular ones I meet, like lawyers and stockbrokers and accountants, are so frigging dull. The men my age are so boring and immature.” That about summed it up, in Meg's opinion.
“There's got to be someone, sweetheart. At your age the world is full of eligible young men.”
“And what about at yours, Mom? What are you going to do about meeting people?” Meg was worried about that for her. She didn't want her sitting in yet another empty house, getting depressed in a town where she didn't know anyone.
“I just got here yesterday. Give me a chance. I promised my shrink I'd get a job, and I will. But I'm not sure where to look.”
“Why don't you teach? You have a master's, could you teach econ at a business school, or at college level? Maybe you should look for a job at Stanford or UC Berkeley.”
It was a possibility certainly, and she had thought of it, but teaching jobs of the kind Meg was suggesting were highly competitive, and she no longer felt qualified. She'd have to go back to school herself, and the prospect didn't appeal much to Paris. She wanted to do something more amusing. And thanks to Peter's guilt and generosity, and the small inheritance she had managed well over the years, she didn't have to let salary be the main consideration. “Wim will kill me if I get a job at Berkeley. He'll think I'm stalking him. If I did that, it would have to be Stanford.” In spite of the fact that there were thirty thousand students on the UC Berkeley campus, she wanted to respect the newfound autonomy that Wim was so proud of.
“What about an office job? You'd meet a lot of guys there,” Meg said, trying to be helpful.
“I'm not looking for a man, Meg. I just want to meet people.” Her daughter had other aspirations for her. She wanted her to find a husband to take care of her emotionally, or at the very least, a serious romance. She hated knowing her mother was lonely, and there was no question, she had been ever since Peter left.
“Well, men are people,” Meg insisted, and her mother laughed.
“Not always. Some are. Some aren't.” Peter had proved that, but what he had also proved was that he was human, with the same foibles as anyone else. No one was perfect. She just hadn't expected him to do what he had. She thought they were married forever. It made it almost impossible for her to trust anyone again. “I don't know, something will come up. I was thinking about taking one of those crazy job-placement tests that tell you what your strengths are. I think they do them down at Stanford. They'll probably tell me I should be an army nurse, or a dental hygienist, or an artist. Sometimes those tests come up with some pretty crazy suggestions. Maybe they give you truth serum to do them.”
“I think you should do it,” Meg said firmly. “What do you have to lose?”
“Just time and money. I guess I ought to. When are you coming up to see me, by the way?” It was so wonderful that they had the option to see each other more easily now. It was ninety percent of why she had moved to San Francisco, but Meg told her with regret that she had to work for the next few weekends. She was hoping to come up as soon as they wrapped the current movie, but for the moment she was still up to her neck in it.
Paris was still thinking about the job situation, and her recent conversation with Meg, when she parked the car she was renting, and wandered into an antique shop on Sacramento. Her own car was on a truck on its way out from Greenwich, and was scheduled to arrive around the same time as the rest of her belongings. She bought a pretty little silver box, and then went next door to another shop, and found a pair of antique silver candlesticks she liked. She was having a great time just walking from store to store and browsing. And next to the last one, she discovered a very elegant, but small florist in an elegant little Victorian house. There were three spectacular arrangements of spring flowers in the window. She had never seen anything like them. The colors were dazzling, the combination of flowers unusual and magnificent, and the silver urns they were in were the most elegant she'd ever seen. And as she walked in, a very well-dressed young woman was taking orders on the phone. She looked up at Paris when she hung up, and Paris noticed that she was wearing a very large diamond ring. This was no ordinary florist shop by any means.
“May I help you?” the woman asked pleasantly.
