“I have the number for you. I told the assistant you’d get back to her with a time and place.” Yvonne was on the intercom. “Would you like me to dial it?”

“No.”

Yvonne knew to ask no further questions.

Barry never dialed his office phone. On weekends, he used his cell phone to call Clarice or his weekend assistant. He watched his fingers as if he were a child mesmerized by the triumph of hitting the right numbers.

“Hello, this is Barry Santorini,” he heard himself speaking when Samantha answered the phone. “I have to go to a set in Leonia, New Jersey. I’ll send a car for you in an hour.”

Barry hung up. One thing he had mastered from Hollywood agents was how not to take no for an answer.

When Samantha arrived on the set she couldn’t find Barry anywhere. She walked past the armies of production assistants, cameramen, grips, and best boys. Her aunt had once dated the actor David Niven, and she had vague memories of visiting him as a child on a set in Los Angeles.

She approached a young woman with a clipboard. “I’m looking for Barry Santorini.”

“I think he’s in the trailer with Mr. Pacino,” she answered.

“Can you tell me what movie you’re making?”

“Here?” The young woman seemed nonplussed.

“Yes. I’m a friend of Mr. Santorini, but I’m afraid he hasn’t mentioned it to me.”

“This is a remake of The Maltese Falcon,” she replied, as if Samantha had just asked when was the War of 1812.

“The Humphrey Bogart movie?” Samantha asked.

“Yes. He’s making it fresh for a new generation. Craft service is over there if you want to make yourself comfortable and get something to eat.” The young woman strode away.

“Thanks.” Samantha smiled. She noticed that the set was full of efficient young women in tank tops and blue jeans. She wondered what would happen to these girls when they began turning forty. No one, except the cameramen, seemed a day over thirty.

“Hey, you made it.” Barry walked over to her and kissed her cheek.

If it was possible, Barry thought Samantha was even more beautiful today than the first day he saw her on the boat. Clarice’s friends would always try so hard with their ultrathin bodies and winter white cashmere sweaters. Their obsessive grooming rendered them sexless. But Samantha wore an old lavender V-neck sweater and skintight lavender velvet jeans. She had an edge to her style which, like her perfume, had an underlying note of musk.