Waiters hoisting trays sailed through the salon, and the effervescence in crystal glasses caught the light cast by sparkling Venetian chandeliers. Women’s high heels clicked percussively on the black-and-white marble floors. Tall French doors led out to the portico that opened to a view of the terraced gardens and the artificial lake with its leaping Versailles fountain. Strings of colorful Chinese lanterns illuminated the April twilight in the reflecting pools.

Natalie Wood walked up to us, glowing. “Come with me, Jonathan, I want you to meet my director.”

“Nicholas Ray?” Jonathan and I exchanged a quick, intense glance. Rebel Without a Cause, not even yet released, was already rumored to be an Oscar contender. I quickly crossed my fingers for him as she led him away.

To my surprise, Hedda Hopper, the queen of gossip glory, came up to me. “Isn’t it wonderful,” she gushed, “Leon and Denise just eloping like a couple of youngsters.”

“It’s wonderful—so romantic.”

“How is the Granville Agency doing, Roxanne?”

“Beautifully. Just fine.”

“Any great deals to report?”

“I’m not at liberty to say right now.” I have discovered this is a wonderfully evasive phrase suggesting, teasing, titillating that great things hover in the offing, awaiting only some small formality to emerge. “But when I am, you’ll be the first to know.”

Hedda blew a smoke ring, making me think she’d seen right through the ruse. “It can’t be easy being an independent woman agent.”

“It’s not easy being an independent woman, Miss Hopper. As I’m sure you know.”

“No one knows that better than I. Men are always trying to shut me up.”

A snappy retort trembled at the edge of my lips, but I said nothing of the sort. Hedda Hopper can and has made reputations, and just as swiftly rendered them into ash.

“You must have learned a lot from Irv Rakoff when you worked for him.”

“I learned nothing at all from him, thank you.” Unless it was how to pour cold champagne over a man’s dick, and how to sniff condescension at a hundred yards. I smiled at her.

“It’s hard in this business for a woman to deal effectively with men, and to remain a lady.”

“Remaining a lady is not a priority for me.”

“Really?” Hedda’s bright little eyes lit, and I could all but hear her cranial wheels turn.

“To be a lady is to confine oneself to a certain set of expectations that belong to others. At the L’Oiseau d’Or in Paris, they taught us it’s more important to set one’s own expectations—in short, to be clever.”

“Clever girls often overreach themselves,” she said with an implied tsk-tsk.

“But clever women do not. It’s a matter of knowing what tools to use for each purpose. You wouldn’t use an oyster knife to stir your tea, would you?”