“I don’t want to hear about body and soul! Stop! For god’s sake, stop! Who else knows? I mean, other than all the servants at Summit Drive.”

“Clarence would never tell anyone else. He’s dead set against us. They all are. You saw their faces.”

“And they should be! This is terrible. Scandalous. Who else knows? Jonathan, does he know?”

“Yes.”

“One night Jonathan will drink too much and tell one of his Casa Fiesta sluts. ‘Oh, guess what? Roxanne Granville is having an affair with a Negro!’ You will be ruined in this town forever.”

“Jonathan wouldn’t—”

“Shut up. Who else knows? Who!”

“Thelma.”

“Well, Thelma will keep her mouth shut, because she’s a Red like the rest of them, and she has a lot to lose.”

“She’s not a Red. She never was.”

“Shut up. Oh, Roxanne, you have gone too far! Don’t do this. Don’t. I beg of you. Have you thought what Leon would do if he knew? What Gordon would do? What it would mean to Empire? Oh, I understand it now, your whining when I called Clarence an old family retainer! You’re turning into one of those radical women with your hair in a long braid and sensible shoes and signs calling for Ban the Bomb and racial equality.” She caught her breath. “There never was any affair with Carleton Grimes, was there?”

“What else could I say, Irene?” I was blubbering now. “I couldn’t tell you about Terrence. Could I say I’m in love with Terrence Dexter, and he has—”

“You’ll be finished. Disgraced. We’ll all be disgraced. Every client you have will leave you and you’ll never work again. This is the worst kind of scandal you could possibly risk.” She stopped the Cadillac at a red light and put her forehead against the steering wheel. I could hear her crying. I had never seen her cry, not even when Julia died. “You’ll ruin all our lives.”

“If I ruin it, it’s my life,” I said in a weak voice, undone by her tears.

“Have you thought what it could mean to Clarence when Leon finds out! How fast Leon will fire him? Thirty years at Summit Drive, and he will be gone!”

“He’d never fire Clarence.”

“Really?” The light changed, and the car behind us honked. Irene wiped her eyes with her gloved hand, and moved forward. “Well, he certainly let Max and Simon and Nelson and Jerrold, and a lot of others, go without a second thought, didn’t he? Fired them! Never mind their contracts. Oh, god, that’s right! You’re using that fool Charlie as a front for Max. Oh, sweet Jesus in the dandelions, Roxanne!”

“What?” I had never seen her so distraught.