“Look, I don’t want to argue with you about Denise’s gifts. Let’s talk about you and Leon, about our family. You need to come down off your high horse. He misses you. He really does. He loves you. He wants us all to be a family again. He sent me with a peace offering.” She reached in her handbag and drew out a long, flat velvet box, the sort that would hold a diamond bracelet.

“I already have a diamond bracelet in my safe-deposit box. One of his many remorseful gifts to Julia.”

“Just open it.”

It was a key, two keys actually, to the front door and the back door of a modest house on Clara Bow Drive in Culver City. “But I don’t want to leave Malibu. I love it there.”

“It’s not for you to live in, silly. I told Leon you can’t go on running your business out of that ramshackle place in Malibu. Use the house for an office! Clara Bow Drive is perfect for the Granville Agency. I checked out a couple of Leon’s real estate holdings before I found it. Two bedrooms, big living room. Nice big oleander hedge to shield you from the street. Rent is a dollar a year, which I already paid when I signed the lease, so now you really owe me.”

I fondled the keys. Smiling. I couldn’t help it. A secretary. An office. I was established.

“For Leon it really was a gift, but I’m insisting on a condition. I want you to make up with him. Think about it, Roxanne, Leon is not going to live forever, and—”

“Is he sick?” I asked, alarmed.

“He’s not sick. He’s old. Make up with him, Roxanne. Don’t lose your grandfather because you’re so pigheaded and stubborn. Be reasonable. All families are complicated. Be nice to Denise. You can do this. Otherwise Julia wasted all that money on that fine French finishing school, didn’t she?”

“I suppose if my father can play Lear, I can be civil to Denise Dell.”

“Better than civil. Nice.”

“Nice.”

“Good. Next weekend there’s an exclusive party at Summit Drive to celebrate Denise’s new picture, Banner Headline. Be there, and be nice to Denise. I mean it.” She kicked me gently under the table. “I have my own reasons for wanting you to come to the party. I want you to meet one of Gordon’s friends. Elliott Dunne.”

“Oh, Irene, you know I can’t abide any of those crew-cut types that Gordon hires. They’re all so . . . so starchy.”

“Elliott Dunne is single, smart, and ambitious, and I want you to marry him and live in a lovely ranch house with a pool in Encino.”

“And serve hubby his mashed potatoes wearing a little apron over my Dior dress and high heels? Dream on.”