“It’s not her films so much as her persona. Now, now, you see, she’s made herself a cynosure.” He hesitated. He hadn’t meant to use that word. He had kissed Frances Marion. “See, see, there’s the person, right, and then there’s the idea of the person, which is backed up by, but not entirely generated by, the pictures, and— She hates my pictures?”

“Please.” She drew her knees up and buried her face against them. “You hate her films and her image and you hate her. Which is fine, because she hates you, too. And you know why? Because you two are the same fucking person.”

She threw her head back so that it tapped the wall. She tapped it again, more purposefully. The sheet fell to reveal her breasts, so she re-covered them, tucking them in so that the bed linen might as well have been whalebone.

“Idiot,” she whispered.

The terrible thing was, he wanted her more than ever. He tried to be reasonable. “Frances, we hate each other, we agree on that. That doesn’t have to mean we can’t sleep together.”

The laugh started low, from the gut, and built until it was a bird in flight. She pounded the frame of the bed with her hand, and then slapped her own knee. Then she said, “You need to get me my clothing.”

He pulled his trousers into place. He found all her several layers and brought them meekly to the bed. He thought he might yell at her. “You know,” he finally said, “I do genuinely like you.”

“Charlie. Have you seen one of Mary’s pictures?”

“Of course I have.”

“You lost your ‘h,’” she whispered. “‘Have’ has an ‘h.’”

The observation had been expert, the stab of a stiletto.

“All right. What have you seen?”

He might yell, triumphantly, “All of them,” but that was a pose. “The one—I’ve seen Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and, and I’ve seen thousands of them. What’s that one? The Poor Little Rich Girl,” he said, naming the vegetables left on his plate. “I’ve seen the premiere of every damned—”

“You’re jealous.” She pulled on her crêpe de chine.

He set to getting his shirt on over his head. Backward. Then he shuffled it the right way. Not only were his boots unlaced, but they were across the room. He had thrown them there.

“You haven’t made a film as good as you are, Chaplin.”

He shrugged. His back was to her, but he could hear the rustling of linens as she spoke.

“You know what your curse is?”

“No, thank you.” A shoelace had snapped.

“You liked how I talked before. One day people will no longer just say that you’re funny.”

“Ah, they aren’t going to think I’m funny.”