Glazed

An hour earlier, at a little after eight in the morning, Daisy Valentine walked the half mile down from her house to The Village Café, a quaintly hip diner in Beachwood Canyon village, a cluster of five shops cradled just below the Hollywood sign. The casual trendiness of the regulars reflected the old Hollywood hood, mostly peopled with mid-scale movie industry peeps who liked their eggs without yolks, their bacon without fat and their coffee organic.

Daisy picked up a Hollywood Pulse from a stack of already-read newspapers loosely scattered on a front window ledge. She took it to her usual seat at the counter, where she ordered a cappuccino and a donut with rose petals in the glaze. Her nod to the waitress was nominal. She was a regular but not really. Cordial but not chatty. She opened the pulse to the ads. Scanning them, she found an ad for a local landscaper: “Bernardo’s brush clearance and Landscaping.” It was just what she was looking for.