I am a daughter of Empire, born on a movie set and raised by a studio mogul and his wife, so I knew from experience that despite the thousand-dollar payoff, that deputy would find a way and a place to sell his information. And he did. Within a few days the story splashed all over the gossip columns and movie rags. The prose was mostly tittering, naughty-naughty accompanied by a picture of me taken at some society event placed beside a recent picture of Terrence, the much-lauded reporter just back from Alabama. There we were, white and black, so that there shall be no mistaking just how naughty-naughty we had been. Additionally Al Gilbert for Secrets of the Stars dug up Terrence’s mug shot from the Comet Club fracas, as well as the picture of me, Diana, and Jonathan from that same night, thus resuscitating that whole scandal with the salacious imputation that I had followed Diana’s lead and her bad behavior. Hedda Hopper’s column was particularly outraged as she described the “foiled burglary” at the Malibu home of agent Roxanne Granville. Charles Frye, screenwriter of the recent hit Fly Me to the Moon, had arrived at her house to find an intruder, one Terrence Dexter, “a reporter for the Challenger recently returned from helping to organize radical Negroes in Alabama.” Hedda clearly took especial relish in finishing up with “Mr. Dexter had his own key to their love nest.”

Irene called immediately. She ranted at me for tempting fate and how stupid I was, but when I started to cry, she stopped.

“He’s gone,” I wept, “and everything we had reduced to vulgar smut. A love nest? I want to throw up.”

“Go throw up then, and get it over with, for god’s sake. I’m sorry it happened like this, but I’m not sorry he’s gone. You are better off.”

“How can you say that? I love him, and I don’t know how to live without him.”

“The world is not well lost for love, little sister. Just ask Cyrano and the original Roxanne. Just like you, Cyrano brought about his own tragedy. This affair of yours was always bound for tragedy, and if you didn’t know it from the beginning, well, grow up! That man was never any good for you. Give it a week and you’ll be glad he’s gone. For god’s sake, use some of that panache you’re always so proud of.”

I hung up, went into the bedroom, took the bottle of Panache off the dresser, and wondered if it would kill me if I drank the whole thing.

Late that evening Jonathan telephoned from Hawaii, a crackling long-distance call. For ten minutes he rattled on about his own flourishing career, speaking in a voice so light it blew away like a soap bubble on a spring breeze.

“Quite the commotion you’ve raised,” he said at last.