“This. Having your mother come.” He had a folded sheet of foolscap in his hand, and he ran his finger down it. “Yes, compliments of Goldwyn, Fox, Zukor, Jack and Harry Warner, and, well, a great many others—it’s quite a list. They send their regards.”

Oh, God.

Standing on the cement top step outside his bungalow was Mildred. She shaded her eyes. Chaplin willed her to walk away. Nothing to see here, he thought.

Mildred had never looked younger. Her face had taken on the look of Fluff from Oz, as if she were about to spread the stalks of corn and find a solid-gold beetle that would take her to the moon. She stepped down the three stairs to the courtyard, and his mother, who had told him since he was four years old that she could read vibrations in the air, sliced through the crowd with her violet eyes to pay close attention to the beautiful young lady approaching them.

“Are you,” Mildred asked, “are you Charlie’s mother?”

Hannah touched her fingertips to her cotton dress, stroking the spray of sweet pea. She looked at Mildred, from fur cap to her cocoa kid-leather suede shoes. “Hello,” she said in a throaty voice. “You’re going to have a baby.”

Mildred looked to Charlie, who was aware he should say something. She extended her hand. “I’m—”

“Mignonette?”

“No, I’m—”

“Of course not. I suspect Charlie knows your name.”

“Everybody, break,” Chaplin said. “Everyone, we’ll reconvene in an hour. Goodbye. Thank you for your concern for our privacy,” Chaplin said. Please, he thought as his mother silently beamed at the gathered people, please don’t let her have brought presents. He did not speak again while the players returned to their break spots, and cigarettes appeared. His eyes fell on one young, dark-haired angel, and he imagined ravishing her, then filming her face in close-up, her flush, her embarrassment.

He was standing with his mother and Mildred, who hadn’t dared say another word. His stomach hurt. He realized he was supposed to introduce them.

“Mum, this is my wife, Mrs. Mildred Harris Chaplin,” he said. His voice sounded as if he were reading to the blind. “She’s from Wyoming, and she’s an actress. A very good actress with a bright future.”

“You’re a sweet one,” Hannah said. She took Mildred’s hands in hers.

“Thank you.”

“My boy Sydney has a wife, too.”

“We’re great friends,” Mildred said.

“And you have very soft hands. Do you know the names of the flowers here?”

“Some. Have you seen bougainvillea before?” She indicated a great waterfall of it, red and showy, by the archway over the entrance gate.

“Bougain—what? That’s impressive. Is that real?”

“Yes,” Mildred said. “I know it looks too good to be real. They planted it outside my school,” she said in innocence.

“Oh, your school?”

“Yes. When did you get here, Mrs. Chaplin?”