“When they put that baby in Leon’s arms, he started to cry, Roxanne. I have never seen him cry.”

“Probably the last time he cried was in nineteen twenty-one when his first son died.”

“He’s absolutely besotted with this baby, like a man under an enchantment.”

“That’s what we used to say about him and Denise.”

“Yes, well, Denise has no interest whatever in the kid. I mean, like none. She posed for pictures and that was it, handed him off to the nanny they’ve hired, and made a call to her hairdresser.”

“Is the nanny one of Josefina’s sisters?”

“Hell no. An Irish Catholic nanny. Mrs. Shea.”

“Well, I’m glad Leon has the baby to take his mind off Empire’s woes.”

“Oh, those have all fallen on Gordon. Leon has other problems. The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals is debating a motion to evict him from the organization.”

I felt my spirits collapse all over again, and I writhed inwardly. “I had not heard. Leon must be . . . I made a big mistake with Charlie. I should not have trusted him.”

“You never should have done it at all. Any of it.”

Perhaps this was true, but in these weeks I’d come to realize that taking on Max’s work had proved to be the single most important decision of my adult life. Everything joyful, or shattering, the heights of happiness, the depths of despair, they were all allied to that one moment. Without Fly Me to the Moon I would not have had that lunch appointment at Pierino’s when I took the MG to Reg’s and Terrence drove me into town. I would not have gone to Casa Fiesta to insist that Jonathan audition for the role of Professor Bleeker, nor ended up at the Comet Club. I would never have seen Terrence again, felt his arms around me as we danced, or his embrace amid the brawl. Would not have fallen a little bit in love with him that very night. Certainly I would not have heard from Kathleen Hilyard, from Susan Strassman. And now? What had actually emerged from all those choices? What had happened to all those people I cared for? Thelma had told me Max was living in a squalid bedsit in England; Marian, homeless, was staying with Thelma indefinitely. The Granville Agency was utterly dead. My writers were disgraced, and worse, suspect, possible frauds fronting for Reds. Thelma was unemployed, probably unemployable. Like Basil Rathbone on the moors, creditors howled after me like the hound of the Baskervilles. My own grandfather had declared himself finished with me, and I had so totally lost the man I loved that I had no idea where he had gone.

As if reading my mind, Irene observed tartly, “Jonathan sure came out of this smelling like a goddamned rose, didn’t he? The only one. How did that happen?”