My entrance at the studio commissary ought to have felt like a homecoming, considering the number of years I ate there almost every day during summer vacations, but a lot of time had passed since then. I knew or recognized few people except for Violet Andreas and Frances Hargrove, the costume designer. Nostalgia might have overwhelmed me if I hadn’t seen Vic Hale come in. He sat by himself. Ate by himself. No one would go near him. So perhaps he had saved his job, but he had lost his soul. I felt badly that I’d been so nasty to him. There is more than one kind of career death.

Chapter Twenty

Erotic became my new favorite word, supplanting panache. That little house at Malibu couldn’t contain all the erotic happiness Terrence and I filled it with, the music and laughter, playing with Bruno on the beach, long walks, long talks, even the arguments, high-spirited back-and-forths, card games, and after the shoot for Fly Me to the Moon ended—and Jonathan ceased coming over to complain—we were alone again, and content.

But I did invite Thelma in for dinner one September evening. She had guessed about Terrence as soon as we subscribed to the Challenger, and I did not deny it; in fact, I felt wonderfully liberated to be able to say, yes, I’m in love with Terrence Dexter. He seldom came to Clara Bow Drive, but when Thelma drove me home that day (the MG was at Reg’s), I insisted that she stay for dinner. Thelma’s second husband was a jazz aficionado, so she knew of Buddy Collette, Chico Hamilton, and Dexter Gordon, and had heard them play in Central Avenue bars years before. Terrence adored her, and the feeling was mutual. The evening was a total success, except for my cooking, or rather, my learning to cook. Trial and error, to put it kindly. Tonight’s error included the baked potatoes exploding all over the oven, causing smoke to come wafting out. I was humiliated.

“Don’t take it so hard.” Terrence nudged me after we had opened all the windows and fanned the smoke away.

“You need to use a fork and poke holes in potatoes before you put them in the oven,” said Thelma. “You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry.”

“Come on, Liza,” he chided me, “smile.” He glanced over at the desk, where he’d set the camera he sometimes took on assignment with him, and handed it to Thelma. “Here, take a couple of pictures of us, will you?” He came back and stood beside me while the shutter snapped several times, and the flash went off. I could not have guessed how precious those snapshots would one day become.

The next day at work, Thelma handed me a parcel in a plain brown wrapper.

“What is this? A sex manual?”