She bought three cotton dresses, some blouses, something called a broom-skirt, which, the salesgirl told her, would keep its pleats if she wrapped it around a broomstick after she’d washed it. She bought two pairs of shoes and a pair of sneakers. Walter took a trench raincoat from a rack in another part of the store, plucked a brown felt hat from a display dummy. “Wear the coat and the hat,” he said. He took her to a bar. She looked at her reflection in the long mirror behind the line of bottles. He was grinning.

She was conscious of a kind of thrilling arrogance. Her new clothes made her complete. People looked at her. She didn’t smile.

“Annie! You’ve got a car, clothes…you’ve come up in the world!”

“Anything would have been up,” she said distantly. She stared at her reflection as though it were daring to presume on short acquaintanceship.

“Look. You’ve got to get permission from your father for us to get married because you’re underage.”

“I don’t know his address, just that he’s in New Mexico.”

“You’ve got to do it right away, today. Now drink this.”

He pushed a shot glass of whiskey and a large glass of beer toward her. “That’s a boilermaker.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Go on. Be tough!”

She swallowed the whiskey quickly and followed it with the beer. It had an instant and delicious effect. It added to her new sense of immunity. The hat was beautiful. “I’ll have another,” she said grandly.

He hugged himself and laughed. She wished to preserve her disdain—a laugh would destroy it. But he looked so funny, huddled on the bar stool, egging her on. Reluctantly, she smiled.

How could she get her father’s address unless she telephoned Samuel in New York? But the expense made that out of the question. To imagine Samuel’s hectoring voice was to be touched with the point of a knife. Then she remembered that James St. Vincent had said Bea was working in Hollywood. Bea would have the address. She knew her father was still paying Bea alimony. How he’d cursed her!

It was hard for Annie to ask St. Vincent for information. She felt the fragility of her connection with him. Asking for information was almost as bad as asking for money. But Walter pressed her relentlessly. Finally she called. St. Vincent was still away. It was the same woman she’d spoken to before. She asked her timidly if she knew where Bea Gianfala lived. The woman—mistress or mistress’s sister?—laughed harshly.

“We always know where Bea lives! She sets up such a ruckus! She works for MGM. You can get her through them. Ask for the story department. And when you talk to her, tell her I’ll call the cops if she ever tries to stick her face in my house again!”