And yet her story was not entirely over. Packing would tour in a couple of big traveling exhibitions and get press for another year or two. A gallerist or curator might even take interest in Brenae’s undergraduate films, but eventually, with no new work, she would become an anecdote of LAAC and its pressures: An artist tragically killed herself in her first year. Then a legend: Didn’t some girl shoot herself in this building? And finally, a ghost: Did you hear that noise last night? I’m so creeped out.

On Monday morning, Janis’s dark blue Lexus arrived outside the Rocque and pulled to a stop beside a wall banner for our next exhibition, a cool, arid show about California light and California architects. For a moment, I recalled the old Still Lives banner, the sickening flash of Kim Lord’s smile in her self-portrait as murder victim Roseann Quinn. Then I stuffed it away. I walked slowly to the car and got in.

“Café Francesca,” Janis Rocque told her driver, and he peeled out into traffic, pinning me to the leather seat beside her.

“I love Café Francesca,” I said, surprised. The two-story café sat like a stranded French ship in the old theater district, serving up sandwiches, salads, Gypsy guitar music, and real Parisian waiters that scorned and flirted with you with equal charm. But it was a far drive from Janis’s Bel Air estate, and not the kind of place that attracted multimillionaires.

“Do you?” said Janis. “You seem shocked we’re going there.”

“I’m shocked that we’re finally talking,” I said truthfully. “It was a strange weekend.”

She grunted. “I’m sorry we didn’t make it to the desert. It wasn’t my choice,” she said, sounding genuinely contrite, and for a moment I thought she would explain why, but she blinked, and her voice changed back to the old brisk Janis. “You said you got a chance to see her work.”

“I did,” I said.

“And you were impressed by it.”

When Janis had written to me yesterday, asking about the trip and inviting me to lunch, I had given her a brief summary of my impressions.

“She had talent,” I said.

“Talent,” Janis muttered. “Talent is like salmon eggs, Maggie. You mean you think she had the potential to do great work, but you aren’t sure.”

I knew Janis’s combative tone was a test and not a judgment. “I mean she had real presence on-screen,” I clarified. “A magnetism. You can’t fake that. But it would all depend on what she did next.”

She propped her head on the window, but her attention was still on my face. “You spend much time in galleries?”

“I try to go down there once a week,” I said. “Dee and the crew do terrific work.”

“Not our galleries,” she said. “Commercial galleries. Blum & Poe. LACE. You ever want to be a gallerina?”