Perhaps ten days later I put the phone down and staggered up from my chair and into the front office, where Thelma sat typing away. She looked up at me, her face lit with alarm. “Who died?”

“That was Elliott Dunne on the phone. They’re buying both of them! Fly Me to the Moon and You Make Me Feel So Young! And,” I crowed, “they’re paying five thousand each!”

“Five. Thousand. Each!” Thelma stood up, hooting, and we linked arms and did a little victory dance we’d devised whenever we got a sale, even for Dragnet, until Thelma stopped dancing, and frowned. “Five grand is nothing compared to what Max used to get.”

“But it’s more than Charlie ever dreamed of!” I insisted. “And they want to give Charlie a studio contract, a three-year contract! To come work at the studio! Oh, Thelma! We’ve never had a writer get a three-year contract! I’m going to call Max right now!”

“No. Don’t call from this phone,” Thelma cautioned.

“Right. Okay. I’ll call Charlie and tell him the good news. You cancel everything for the rest of the day. We’re locking up and driving out to Riverside with some French champagne!”

I returned to my office to get my keys, when the phone rang. “Granville Agency,” I said jauntily.

“You have done quite the coup, little sister,” said Irene, her voice tense, her words terse. “Gordon’s just told me they bought your two pictures, the so-called Charlie Frye comedies.”

“What do you mean?”

“I read them last night, Roxanne. I’ve met Charlie Frye, remember? So I know for a fact that Charlie wouldn’t know wit like that if it tickled him in the testicles.”

I laughed out loud. “Oh, Irene, how can you talk about testicles? Of course Charlie—”

“These were written by Max Leslie, a Communist, and it’s no good pretending they aren’t.”

“Max isn’t a Communist. He quit the party in thirty-nine when—”

“Spare me the history lesson! How can you be so reckless? Why are you doing this?”

“Well,” I offered with a bit of sass, “I thought I’d just see which of Leon’s two passions would win out. If he loves John Wayne and Richard Nixon more than he loves Denise Dell.”

“And now you have your answer. So what? What in the hell have you proved? Who have you hurt? What have you done, Roxanne?”

Silence lingered between us. I was stunned at her anger. Irene always kept her calm.

“If anyone ever finds out—oh, and they will, somehow—can you even imagine what will happen to Leon? The American Legion will attack him like he was Iwo Jima.”

“The scripts are perfect for Denise,” I said in my own meager defense.