“Oh, I needed that,” I gasped.

Thorpe had not taken his gaze from my face. He lifted his index finger and touched the earring at my right ear. “Exquisite,” he said.

“A gift from an admirer.” When he raised his eyebrows, I laid my finger against my lips and whispered, “Not that kind of admirer.”

“I see. Acquired this afternoon, perhaps?”

“Bought and paid for.”

Thorpe settled back on his elbow, facing me. “All that in exchange for nothing more than a little good publicity?”

I went to drink again, but the glass was inexplicably empty. Thorpe dragged it from my fingers, refilled it, handed it back.

“No, there’s more,” I said.

“How much more?”

“Loyalty.”

“That’s a very big word.”

“Covers a vast territory.” I finished the champagne. Thorpe glanced at the empty coupe and made no comment, though he didn’t rush to fill the void, either. Maybe he saw the dizziness in my eyes.

“How vast, exactly?” he asked softly.

I flung out my arm. “Everything! Not only am I to create this fiction but I’m to believe in it too. That’s the thing about fairy tales. You hear this beautiful story told in beautiful words, you see these beautiful pictures, and you know it’s not true. You know it’s just a story somebody wrote to lull you to sleep. But you want to believe it so badly, you want to sleep so badly, perchance even to dream, yes, that’s it, to dream it’s you in the middle of that fairy tale . . .”

“My dear Mrs. Randolph.”

“Call me Lulu,” I sobbed, holding out the glass. He rose from his elbow and filled the bowl for me. By the time I had it back between my fingers, I’d regained control of my throat and my eyes. I apologized for the lapse.

“There’s no need.”

“Believe it or not, I was once a girl of ideals. Tremendous ones.”

“I believe it.”

“Now I’m delivering grubby envelopes for grubby people—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” I finished the champagne and rolled on my back in the sand. The coupe fell away from my fingers. How black the sky was, how profuse the stars. That was the first thing that gave me hope, after I left New York City in the company of Mr. Randolph. Staring out the window of a Nacogdoches boardinghouse, a little the worse for wear, a little battered about, a little blue in body and spirit, and there it was: the Milky Way. I’ll be damned.

Thorpe tried again. “When you said envelopes—”

“I said nothing.” I zipped my lips. “You heard nothing, all right? Just a girl in her cups, talking nonsense.”

“All right.”

“Tell me some nonsense, Thorpe. Tell me some beautiful nonsense. Tell me a fairy tale about a girl and a boy, and the boy loved the girl so much, he brought her champagne and kept her company and listened to her nonsense—”

“Lulu—”