“You’re not usually that unkind, Irene.” Prickly with heat, I stood, reached up under my skirt, and, never-minding the bomb shelter diggers and the team of Japanese gardeners snipping, clipping, and mowing nearby, I rolled my stockings down my legs, unhooked my garter belt, and let it drop on the ground. I shimmied out of my sticky, silky half slip and sank back into the chaise. “I went to see Max this morning. Someone has smeared the whole front of their house with red paint and poured the rest of the cans in the pool.”

Irene lit up a cigarette and took a satisfying drag. “I’m sorry to hear that. Really, I am, and I know you loved those old writers, and they loved you, but they did it to themselves. They act like martyrs, but they’re not. Melvin Grant set everything up for Max, just like he did for Vic Hale. Executive session in a hotel room, discreet, no reporters, no crowds, just a nice friendly conversation. It was all going to be easy, and then Max took the Fifth. Melvin won’t even defend anyone who takes the Fifth, so you can imagine how that made him look. Whatever you do, don’t mention Max to Leon, and, for god’s sake, don’t tell him you went there. He’s in a rage over the whole thing.”

“How would I tell Leon?”

“He’s coming by to pick me up. We’re going out to lunch.”

“Oh god . . .” I moaned. I could feel my birthmark flushing.

“What is it?”

“The last time I saw him we were the guests of honor at a Philharmonic luncheon where they unveiled the plaque to Julia.”

“And? Please tell me you didn’t make some awful comment about Denise.”

“I didn’t call her a whore, if that’s what you mean. I just said she wasn’t a great actress.”

“Oh, Roxanne, you know Leon thinks she’s Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Bette Davis, and Vivien Leigh all put together. Well, maybe not Bette Davis. But if you make this into a contest . . . well, Denise has already won, don’t you see? She’s not so bad, really.”

“It hurts me to hear you say that.”

“You are a reckless romantic. I am a married pragmatist.” She blew out a fresh plume of smoke and put her hand over her belly, where the baby kicked. “I’ll be so happy to have my body back once I get through this awful childbirth. Why can’t it be like the scene in Stagecoach?”

“You mean, why isn’t real life like the Hays Code? No swearing, no white slavery, no miscegenation, no venereal disease.”