“Themselves!” cried Terrence. “Don’t you understand? Except as sexpots or servants, we don’t exist. What do you think that does to little black children? Maybe they’re out there singing ‘Davy Crockett’ now, but in ten years they’re going to grow up, and they’re going to say, to ask, ‘Why don’t I see anyone who looks like me anywhere on that television? Why don’t I see anyone who looks like me being something other than a slave or shuffling yassir-man?’ There’s going to be some hell to pay. One day.”

“It’s a question of changing what people expect, breaking habits, breaking customs,” I said. “If people expect only white people to be on the screen, then when there are black people, it’s like they don’t belong. If a female Robin Hood swooped in, people would be dumbfounded. But Maid Marian is fine being bartered about.”

“Isn’t that what women have always been?” asked Jonathan, laughing lightly. “Bartered, baffled, and dim but kissable?”

“Maisie isn’t dim,” I insisted. “That’s why the picture has such charm. It upsets people’s expectations. Women are either passive pawns or they’re scared of everything.” I brought my hands to my face in mock horror. “Outrageous things happen to women all the time, and no one seems to care.”

Terrence shot me an odd look, but the conversation went on, and not until Jonathan had left did he ask me what I meant. “Did someone do something outrageous to you, Liza Jane? Something you haven’t told me?”

“No, I just meant . . .” And then I thought, why shouldn’t I tell him? Why should I keep this all bottled up for two years, a nasty secret? “It was before I met you.”

“Somebody hurt you?”

This was the first time I’d told the Irv Rakoff story to anyone except Thelma. I told him about hairy-handed Larry Sanford too, and all the rest of them, their easy assumptions that women, any woman, could be had because men had the power, and we knew it. I started to cry, and stopped myself, but Terrence kept his arms around me, held me, and told me to go ahead, cry, get it out. And when I was done, he said, “You gotta promise me, Liza Jane, if shit like that happens again, ever, you gotta tell me. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.”

Chapter Nineteen

The next day, I’d no sooner walked into my office when the phone rang. “Just one minute, sir,” said Thelma. She came to my office door and mouthed, “Leon.”