You Don’t Sleep in the View

This morning, Lola’s hair looked like she had stood for a week in a north Atlantic gale. Topped by a tangle of blond strands, she looked like a Nordic Medusa, as she squinted out her apartment’s front window. Of course, she couldn’t see the beach, it was too many blocks away. When she had first rented her small apartment a few yeas ago, after she moved from Boston, she had been too worried about whether she could get from Santa Monica to Hollywood, to even think to ask about the distance to the beach.

As she looked out the window now, toward the white stucco apartment with black trim, across the street, she remembered that when she had originally called to inquire about the flat, and asked the cranky, impatient landlord if the apartment had a view, he had sarcastically quipped, “Honey, you don’t sleep in ‘the view’.”

Since moving in, Lola had gained, regrettably, a pretty good appreciation for the distance between Santa Monica and Hollywood.