“I look enough like me so people could make the connection.”

Rune said, “You used me. You weren't honest with me.”

“I know I don't deserve to ask —”

“You didn't want to help me make my film at all. You just used me.”

“Please, Rune, all my plans... They're just starting to work out. For the first time in my life I'm happy. No one knows what I did — the films. I can't tell you how wonderful it is, not to be looked at like a thing. It's so wonderful not to be ashamed...”

Rune said, “But this is my one big chance. I've lived with this film for months. It's gotten me fired and nearly gotten me killed a couple times. It's all I've got, Shelly. I can't let it go.”

Tears formed in the actress's eyes. “Remember in your houseboat, we were looking through the mythology book. The story about Orpheus and Eurydice? Shelly Lowe is dead, Rune. Don't bring her back. Please, don't.” Shelly's eyes were round and liquid with tears. Her hand closed on Rune's arm. “Look at me, Rune! Please. Like Orpheus. Look at me and send me back to the Underworld.”

The Hudson was choppy; a storm was coming. Rune was afraid she'd lose electricity.

That's all I need tonight. My television premiere and all of New York has a blackout.

A flash of lightning over Jersey froze the image of Sam Healy, opening two cans of beer at once.

The rain began, whipped against the side of the houseboat by fast, surprised sweeps of wind.

“I hope the moorings hold,” Rune said.

Healy looked out the window, then back at the dinner resting on Rune's blue Formica coffee table. The cold anchovy pizza seemed to bother him more than an unplanned voyage into New York Harbor.

“They pay you much for your film?”

“Naw. This is public television — you do it for love,” Rune said, turning on the TV. “And because, if I'm lucky, a lecherous producer with a ton of money he's dying to give away is gonna be watching.”

“You use your real name?”

“You don't believe Rune's my name?”

“No.” He sipped the Miller. “Is it?”

“The credit line is Irene Dodd Simons.”

“Classy. So that's your real name.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Rune smiled mysteriously and sat back in the old couch she'd bought from a Goodwill shop. It was still uneven from the time she'd cut through a lot of the stuffing looking for hidden money but if you settled yourself enough it got to the point where it was pretty comfortable.

Healy tried the couch, then sat on the floor, picking anchovies off half the pizza and dropping them onto the other half.

“You disarm bombs,” Rune pointed out. “You're scared of a few little fish?”

The screen coalesced into the dense, fuzzy color of old TV sets and with just a hint of reverberation, the sound boomed into the room from the huge speakers.