LOS ANGELES -- When the temperature tops 100 degrees here, and the Hollywood Hills are shrouded in a noxious haze, the acre of blacktop at the intersection of Melrose and Fairfax is about the last place you want to be.
But in a gauzy miniskirt, tank top, and three-inch heels, actress Eliza Dushku appears unbothered by the heat, even as her companion, a good-looking golden retriever named Max Factor, is tugging at his leash, desperate for a spot of shade.
Dushku's too busy dickering. She wants to buy one of the African masks arranged on the hood of an old Pontiac, and she wants it at the right price.
"It's from Cameroon?" she asks the vendor. "Will you take $30?"
Dushku, 25, has been bargain-hunting at this weekly flea market called the Melrose Trading Post since she moved to Los Angeles from Watertown eight years ago. Money she's made from two TV series, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Tru Calling," and before that from such films as "Soul Survivors," "Bring It On," and "Bye Bye Love" has been exchanged here for antiques and art.
The eclectic market, an ongoing fund-raiser for the adjacent Fairfax High School, is the first stop on an entertaining tour Dushku is giving us of her adopted hometown, from Muscle Beach to the "totally chill" Getty Villa art museum. Initially ambivalent about Hollywood, she has warmed to the place in the past few years, and it shows as she tools around town in a black Mercedes CLK500 convertible.
"It's definitely a flashy ride," says Dushku, who was driving a 1989 Jeep when she arrived in LA. "But you only live once, and it's fun to wind through the Hills at night with the top down."
As we stroll through the flea market -- past a Chairman Mao alarm clock, a distressed wicker divan, and racks of vintage clothing -- it's clear Dushku digs the laid-back vibe. She furnished her first apartment in LA largely with shabby-chic pieces purchased here, and still drops by to browse now that she owns a 3,000-square-foot house in Laurel Canyon, a Spanish-style bungalow once owned by Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane.
"These would look fresh in my living room," Dushku says, admiring two large abstract paintings by a scruffy young fellow wearing an oversized basketball jersey and aviator sunglasses.
Not one to spend money needlessly, the thrifty Dushku tells me she never shops on Rodeo Drive, preferring instead to buy her clothes at the Target -- she pronounces it "tar-ZHAY" -- on Santa Monica Boulevard, and at a couple of trendy boutiques on La Brea Avenue: American Rag and Bleu.
"I have a few label-y pieces, but I'm always looking for bargains," she says. "I can honestly say I've gotten all of my Manolos on sale."