The show was in color, and Dave was dressed in a burgundy velvet suit. He looked into the camera, imagined Beep walking back into his life with her arms reaching out to embrace him, and smiled warmly. “Now, fans, a special kick. We have both stars of the hit movie My Client and I: Percy Marquand, and my very own sister, Evie Williams!” He clapped his hands. The studio was quiet, but the sound of an audience applauding would be dubbed onto the soundtrack before the show was broadcast.

“I love the smile, Dave,” said Tony. “Do it again.”

Dave did it three times, and Tony pronounced himself satisfied.

At that point Charlie came in with a gray-suited man in his forties. Dave saw immediately that Charlie was in obsequious mode. “Dave, I want you to meet our sponsor,” he said. “This is Albert Wharton, the top man at National Soap and one of the leading businessmen in America. He’s flown here all the way from Cleveland, Ohio, to meet you, isn’t that great of him?”

“It sure is,” said Dave. People flew halfway around the world to see him every time he did a concert, but he always acted pleased.

Wharton said: “I have two teenage children, a boy and a girl. They’re going to be envious that I met you.”

Dave was trying to concentrate on making a great show, and the last thing he needed was to talk to a laundry detergent magnate; but he realized he had to be polite to this man. “I should sign a couple of autographs for your kids,” he said.

“That would give them a thrill.”

Charlie snapped his fingers at Miss Pritchard, his secretary, who was following behind him. “Jenny, sweetie,” he said, even though she was a prim forty-year-old. “Get a couple of Dave’s photos from the office.”

Wharton looked like a typical conservative businessman with short hair and boring clothes. That prompted Dave to say: “What made you decide to sponsor my show, Mr. Wharton?”

“Our leading product is a detergent called Foam,” Wharton began.

“I’ve seen the ads,” Dave said with a smile. “‘Foam washes cleaner than white!’”

Wharton nodded. Probably everyone he met quoted his advertising to him. “Foam is well known and trusted, and has been for many years,” he said. “For that reason, it’s also a bit fuddy-duddy. Young housewives tend to say: ‘Foam, yes, my mother always used it.’ Which is nice, but it has its dangers.”

Dave was amused to hear him talk about the character of a box of detergent as if it were a person. But Wharton spoke with no hint of humor or irony, and Dave suppressed the impulse to take it lightly. He said: “So I’m here to let them know that Foam is young and groovy.”

“Exactly,” said Wharton. Then he smiled at last. “And, at the same time, to bring some popular music and wholesome humor into American homes.”

Dave grinned. “It’s a good thing I’m not in the Rolling Stones!”