Carleton made up a title for me, head of the Story Department, and I spent my days reading, vetting, making suggestions for scripts, shaping material, suggesting casting and directors, rather like the work that Julia did for Leon for years. I was relieved there were no more producers with burn-pocked couches in my line of work, and I confess, I liked being part of studio life, the camaraderie of staff meetings with people who, whatever their differences, all loved making movies. From my old life on Clara Bow Drive, I brought only Thelma and two of the paintings I had borrowed years before. (I bought these from the artist and returned all the others.) I had a swamp cooler in one window, and the sluggish wheel turned and blew damp air around on these hot August days. I had a big desk and a small conference area—couch, chairs, coffee table, and a bar, complete with ice trays in a little freezer and an electric percolator. And my own television set. Late afternoons Thelma and I often drank Campari and soda, or cold beers, and watched the half-hour series The Adventures of Robin Hood on the office television while we waited for the traffic to thin out. We couldn’t tell what scripts Max had written, because of course, all the writers’ names were fake, but we cheered the egalitarian principles each episode underscored. We sometimes left the building arm in arm singing the catchy theme song.

Outside of Paragon, life meandered on. The Wilburs moved away, and construction crews came in, razed their house, and started building something far more grand, from the look of it. My subscription to the Challenger lapsed. I did not renew. Even Irene gave up trying to set up blind dates. I turned them all down. I put my couture clothing in zipped plastic bags at the back of the closet. To be head of the Story Department at Paragon didn’t require anywhere near as much socializing as being an agent—no obligatory galas, very few parties, so mostly I just went to work and went home. In place of our old Friday-afternoon custom, lunch at the Ambassador, Friday nights Irene and I had dinner at her house. Josefina had charge of the children, and Gordon was seldom home, though when I saw him I was continually appalled at how haggard he looked. There wasn’t enough time in any one day to wield the kind of power Gordon Conrad now had, and there was never any time to shirk the ominous responsibilities that went with it.