I turned to the table and popped the cork expertly while inwardly crowing, Promotion, promotion! I’ve worked here six months and I’m getting a promotion! But as I poured the third glass, I felt Mr. Rakoff behind me, pressing, pushing himself into my behind, in fact. Unmistakably he had an erection. His arms encircled my waist, his hands stroked my hips and moved up to fondle my breasts. He breathed heavily. His lips, at the back of my neck, nuzzling, damp. Accelerating revulsion and disgust ripped across my brain like a car chase in a silent movie. I could feel my birthmark flood with color, but I just stood still, frozen, uncertain, bottle in hand, thinking: If I turn around, he’ll kiss me. If I stand here, he’ll . . . So I turned around and poured champagne all over his boxer shorts. He wasn’t wearing any pants.

“Sonofabitch!” he cried, jumping backward. “Goddammit, Roxanne!”

“Oh, Mr. Rakoff! I’m sorry. Did I just—”

“Goddammit!” He fluttered his boxer shorts over his erection. “You’re not so very special, Roxanne.”

“Maybe not,” I retorted with more bravado than I felt, “but I’m not just off the bus from Arkansas either. Imagine if I told my grandfather about this.”

“You won’t.”

He was absolutely right. I would not tell Leon. Suddenly the humiliation of the situation crashed upon me. I dropped the bottle onto the carpet, moved to the door, and flung it open.

There was Bonnie at her desk, and sitting in a chair across from her was Richard Neville, all bronzy-tan and shock of cinnamon-colored dyed hair, with his mouth dropped open to have a view of me with champagne all over my skirt, Rakoff standing there in his underwear, and the bottle lolling on the floor.

Bonnie leapt from her desk, pulled me roughly into her office, closed the door with a thud, and told Neville without so much as a blink, “Mr. Rakoff will be just a moment. Roxanne, I have a bunch of scripts that need delivering.”

Richard Neville started to laugh, a deep, throaty, theatrical laugh, and Bonnie gave a smirk. They were not laughing at Irv Rakoff in his underwear. They were laughing at me, knowing exactly what happened in there. A comic scene. Just another Hollywood day. I wanted to protest, to yell or cry out, but, as if I was suddenly struck dumb, no sound came from my lips.