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By Root 883 0

if we're not homesick, but especially if we are, we're threatening to quit. We all have full personal lives apart from our work. Kevin's got a wife and kids waiting for him in Malibu; Jay is happily married to a lovely woman who is herself in the running to cohost a morning show on network TV; Mike is single and free. When he's not traveling extensively for his job, he travels extensively for his own pleasure and enlightenment. And of course I'm as good as married these days: great home, solid circle of friends, a relaxed, harmonious life in Hollywood, one that, as far as I'm concerned, could be made better in only one way: by my actually being there to enjoy it—as opposed to being here, in yet another foreign land, eating in another foreign restaurant, putting stuff in my mouth that is speculatively classified as food but which more than likely will, by this time tomorrow, have turned my complexion to bubble wrap.

“Sorry,” Tasha mumbles again, big brown eyes fixing me with an unwavering stare. “I'm going to miss you.” And she gives my arm a little squeeze.

“Er … excuse me, guys.”

It's Willy. Spotting a moment of tenderness that needs disrupting, he shuffles over to our table, looking … well, shifty, what else?

“About the tickets,” he says, “I think I may be able to help you.” His cocky tone would be perfect for selling fake Rolexes, I've decided. Or condos in Dubai. “I have contacts at the airlines. If you like, I will talk to them, see what I can do.”

Everyone cheers up instantly.

Mike's elated. “Hey, great. Thanks, dude.”

“Give me your tickets; I'll go to the airport first thing tomorrow, okay?”

Ah.

Our initial flush of enthusiasm gives way to the same grumbling concern that accompanies any dealings we have with this odd little man. There's a trust issue. Not to mention a simply-not-liking-him issue. Me, I don't want to be giving any stranger my ticket. Without it, I won't be able to get home—obviously. However, the others seem inclined to take a chance, and their childlike innocence wins me over. As one, we gather up our airline tickets into a single stack and pass them to him, even as my intuition is telling me that this is the equivalent of opening the nearest Dumpster and tossing them inside.

When I wake up next morning, with the fevered clatter and bang of the Djemaa el-Fna still ringing in my ears, I'm alarmed to find my stomach acting up.

Remember, I said there were three things you think of when you hear the word “Morocco”? Well, this is the second: food poisoning. I don't think I've met anyone who's been here and not at some point fallen ill.

Has to be the chicken I ate in the restaurant last night. Who's to say what happened to that poor little drumstick on its journey from farmyard to plate? How many unwashed fingers manhandled it en route; how many rusty radiators it accidentally fell behind; how many hours it lay in the hot sun on a window ledge crawling with flies before being breaded and marinated in delicious Arabian spices; how many dogs ran off with it and had to have it torn from their jowls before the chef could wipe the saliva off with a dishrag and finally sling it in a pan and slow-cook it to perfection?

But we're here to make TV. I can't let mere nausea drag me down. A whole team of people is depending on me. So I scramble out of bed, swallow a couple of charcoal tablets with my tea at breakfast to put the frighteners on the bacteria, and continue on with the day as normal.

While our fixer is at the airport sorting out the tickets—probably—one of the Thugs drives us to the medina again, this time for a tour of the souks, a sprawling labyrinthine tangle of ancient alleyways and dead ends threading like spider veins across a wide area to the east of the Djemaa el-Fna, and jam-crammed with tiny shops, some little more than alcoves, no wider than the shoulders of the traders running them, selling a wide range of goods: jewelry, fresh produce, spices, baskets, rotary phones, severed goat heads, pointy shoes, hats, musical instruments, and, of course, oil lamps—the ones that regularly