“Does Charlie write comedy?” asked Irene, coming suddenly to life. “The last time I talked to him, he was touting his Coast of Heaven like it was On the Waterfront.”

I gave a blithe chuckle and burbled on about how he could do drama, but he loved comedy, pretending he had gone through twenty drafts to achieve the frothy perfection of You Make Me Feel So Young and Fly Me to the Moon.

Leon and Elsie joined us. Elsie was pale and puffy and clad in a flowered tent. Leon looked as if he had stepped off the Riviera, dressed in shorts and a sailor’s jaunty, striped shirt, with a yachtsman’s cap atop his wiry gray hair. He placed a hand on Denise’s shoulder, which she reached up and stroked as he sat down beside her. He too wore sunglasses, so I could not read his expression, but I could feel sweat pop on my brow that had nothing to do with heat.

“We’re talking about Charles Frye, Pooks,” Denise said, using their pet name that always made my skin crawl. Imagine calling a man like Leon Greene a name you might give to a Pekingese lapdog. “Elliott sent them on to me. I think they’d be great for me.”

“He sent them to me too. I’m not convinced,” said Leon in his executive voice, which I took as a bad sign. “I’m surprised you’d bring them to Empire, Roxanne. You don’t want to look like you’re relying on nepotism, do you?”

“Oh, nepotism.” Irene brushed that away. “There’s nothing wrong with nepotism. Hollywood is one big happy family. Well, maybe not happy.”

Elsie offered, “I think both these scripts are perfect for Denise. They highlight her best gifts.”

“They’re old-fashioned,” said Leon. “You Make Me Feel So Young is like Miracle on 34th Street without Santa.”

Since this was exactly my own estimation, I quickly put my drink to my lips and hid behind the glass.

“All those wise-cracking dames from the thirties, they’re passé now,” he added.

“Yes,” said Irene, sighing, “now women are content with dialogue so dry it might as well have come from Egyptian tombs. ‘O mighty Pharaoh, my lord, I beseech thee . . . ’ Why can’t the girls have any spirit?”

“Maisie in Fly Me to the Moon has spirit,” I said. “A character like Maisie, a lowly lab assistant, falls in love, but she has to do something smart, something unconventional to get her man.”

“She lies to him,” said Leon. “She deliberately misleads him, creating messages from the moon. I don’t think we should make pictures that celebrate subterfuge. It’s un-American. It sends an un-American message from the screen.” His brow creased in a frown.

“No one wants characters who are saints,” I said. “Look at Casablanca. Everyone in that movie is morally compromised.”

“That was wartime,” said Leon. “This isn’t.”

I could feel the birthmark flush.