“Just imitate me,” he whispered.

“I will, in a minute.” She draped her arms about his shoulders. “I know this is frustrating, but, just for a minute …” She ran her finger along Chaplin’s arm, tracing a vein she’d found. “You see, I saw him in uniform and I thought he was cured. Why would I be fooled by something like that? Me.”

“I admire …” What exactly did he admire? He sensed he needed to say something sweet, though not cloying. “You genuinely care. You play mean, but you have a tender side.”

She kissed him. “Maybe that’s why I write the way I do.”

“I suppose. Pardon?”

“When I sit down to write, I always think of problems women and girls suffer through.” She absently rubbed at a bug bite on her side. “But that has nothing to do with seducing you, and we were so close to that.”

“Where were we?”

“Your mouth was just about to go … here.” And she indicated an excellent place to begin. He was as happy as he had ever been, and, in fact, happier than he would be for the rest of the day. Her eyes were closed, and she made small sounds of pleasure. Was it the rush of blood away from his brain that suggested this was a good time to know her better, or just the desire to pause? It was pauses that made anticipation. You built to a plateau, the moments of silence between drumbeats. They shared a look, and both laughed for what would be the last time. Absently, Charlie said, “So—what do you write?”

She appeared not to have heard the question.

“You write articles, but what else besides?”

She lifted herself onto an elbow, her back going from liquid to solid. With a rush of fear, he realized he had never seen her angry.

“You don’t know.”

“Which is why I’m asking.”

“You genuinely don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“Oh. My. God.” She ripped a sheet away from the bed, and draped it over herself. She said, “Idiot, idiot, idiot,” obviously not referring to Chaplin, who was bewildered. “All that time in the car,” she murmured. “The whole time …”

“What?”

“Charlie, I’m Frances Marion.”

The name meant something, but he couldn’t make his brain do the work to explain it. He felt like a child being scolded for ill behavior he could never hope to understand. He was trying to connect his vaguely ill feelings about the name Frances Marion with the woman in bed with him. Had she insisted she was an arsonist, he could have understood that more easily. Why was she insisting she was Frances Marion? And who was that, anyway?

She looked up. “I write all of Mary Pickford’s scenarios. All the ones you hate.”

He stumbled. She was joking. She was not joking. He had been kissing Frances Marion.

“It’s okay, Charlie,” she sighed. “She hates your pictures, too.”